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"Lasting Impressions"Written By: Dragonmistress_7 Disclaimer: I don't own the Gundam Wing Boys.
Lasting Impressions Lasting Impression 10 The incident occurred shortly after breakfast. The noise brought Heero out of a quiet contemplation of the instrument panel. He chose to see the whole thing as the harbinger of his hopes for a quiet, normal day. Duo lost his balance, for some reason. The details were unclear, but that he had been falling, nobody doubted. Trowa, seeing this, had reached out to steady him just as Duo grabbed for the end of the table. The result was that Duo caught Trowa's hand. Anyone else would have let go, thanked Trowa and gone about their business. Duo, being a special case, screamed as though someone were killing him. One hand tightened convulsively around Trowa's and the other curled protectively around his own face as Duo sank to the floor. Quatre jumped in, he and Trowa trying to get Duo to let go. When they finally succeeded, Duo went pale and began apologizing profusely. He seemed completely unable to look at Trowa. By the time Heero arrived, Duo was curled up in a ball on the floor, taking short, jerky breaths and trying desperately to calm himself. Quatre and Trowa were alarmed and curious, but unharmed. Heero asked them to return to their cabin while he talked to Duo. They complied wordlessly. "Duo, are you okay? What happened?" Heero asked calmly, consciously slowing his own breathing. "It was like I was there," Duo breathed. "It was- Trowa. It was like I was living a moment of his life all over again. They just kept hitting me and I couldn't stop them. I didn't even care. I had no reason to try." He looked up at Heero. "I was broken, useless, hopeless." Duo took a deep, calming breath. "Then Quatre touched me too, and it… well, it just changed." He didn't care to elaborate. When his color had come back some, Duo apologized again to Quatre and Trowa, explaining that touching Trowa had triggered a flashback. That it was to Trowa's life, he didn't feel the need to share. After that, Duo felt the need to spend his morning alone. He holed himself up in his cabin, reading an old book with hand-written pages. Heero spent some time alone too. He hid in the cockpit from the others and from his own thoughts. After a while, he decided to check on Duo. However, no sooner had he gone into the cabin and sat down than he was pitched sideways onto the floor. "What the hell?" Heero heard Hilde exclaim from the next cabin. What the hell indeed. Nothing should be causing the ship to shake as it just had. Heero was up in a second and on his way to the cockpit, Duo not two steps behind. The others were also emerging but Heero told them to stay where they were, which they abruptly had no choice about. They had to use their doorways to brace themselves as the shuttle shuddered and rocked again. The motion was repeated once more before he made it to the cockpit. The sensors were going ballistic. Every bell and whistle the ship possessed screamed in outrage at being fired upon. "What is it?" Duo asked breathlessly, his hands already moving across the control panel. "There's a ship, just in range. I don't know what it is, but it's firing on us. We don't have anything that can make that kind of distance." The shuttle shuddered again. "We need options and right now, they're limited. I don't know that we can outrun them. I do know there's no way we'll out gun them." "Pull up a star map of the local area," Duo suggested. "I'll see what I can come up with." Heero did as Duo asked, replacing him at the controls once the map was up. "Duo, I rarely consciously think about what I want from you, but right now, I wish you were a miracle-worker. " He took manual control of the shuttle in an attempt to minimize damage until they figured out what to do. With the confidence of a veteran navigator, Duo mapped out an escape route. "Hey, Heero? The scanners just picked up a habitable planet, mid-range. Do you know anything about it? Can we get help there?" Heero thought hard, unable to remember anything about the planet Duo indicated. He hit the comm. "Hilde. Cockpit. Now. I need your brain." Nobody had to tell her twice. Within seconds, she was there. "What's going on, guys?" Heero didn't waste time with lengthy explanations. "We're under fire. Duo found a planet on the scanners. What can you tell me about it?" Hilde checked the coordinates. "It's occupied by primitives. There's nothing there of any value to anyone but them and outside technology is against their religious beliefs. We've pretty much left them to it. If we land there, they may cause trouble for us." "Because we don't have anything to worry about right now," Duo remarked. The shuttle gave its most violent shake yet, making his point. "We'll take our chances with the natives. There's always the off chance that they won't try to kill us all." "We should be so lucky," Hilde agreed. "I'm going to get out of your way now. If you need me, I'll be in my cabin, braced for impact." "Fill in Quatre and Trowa, will you?" Heero asked, clearly distracted. "Duo, have you got us a way out of here yet?" "Fifteen seconds," Duo replied shortly. "You want it on auto pilot?" "No, I'll fly it myself. Just get the program going." "Online. I'm also rerouting all nonessential power to the engines, just for a little extra boost." "Thanks. Now go bunk down. I don't want you up here if things get rough," Heero ordered. "But-" Duo protested. "We're not doing this, Duo. You are my responsibility and I'd be a damn poor bodyguard if I allowed you to stay up here. You've helped all you can. Now, hit the bunk." Duo's mouth formed a tight line, but he left the cockpit. Heero breathed deeply, letting himself feel his worry for the first time as he maneuvered the shuttle along Duo's projected path. From there, it was a race. Heero felt tension through every inch of his body. His mind raced over a hundred concerns, everything from direction and speed, hull damage from the blast, possible damage from the landing, the safety of his passengers and the possibility of problems with the natives of the small planet they would be landing on. The time passed in a blink and Heero saw a drab, brown planet getting closer. He found a stretch of desert to land on and brought the ship in low, still going way too fast. There was no way to avoid a rough landing, but if Heero was the pilot he thought he was, damage to ship and passengers would be minimal. His teeth ground together and he couldn't help but wince at initial contact. The shuttle skimmed the ground for a few seconds, then came up again. When the shuttle touched down again, the controls attempted to wrench themselves from his grasp. Grimly, Heero wrestled with the controls, knowing that if he allowed the nose of the shuttle to get too low too fast, it would bury in the sand and the shuttle would flip end over end for over a mile. At last the shuttle safely came to a stop. Heero discovered that his hands were adrenaline-locked to the controls. Taking deep breaths, he forced himself to let go, one finger at a time. Then he began checking his gauges. For all the good it did him. Everything was clogged or covered with dust and sand. He had no outside visual at all. The pessimist in him didn't like that at all. "Heero?" Only one person would ask a question that timidly at a time like this. Heero forced his face into a pleasant, neutral expression before turning. "Yes, Duo?" "I was in the bunk until we stopped, I promise. Then I checked on everybody. They're all okay. Can I help with anything?" "There's nothing to help with up here. We need to get off the shuttle in case they somehow managed to follow us down. Check the hold for supply packs. We'll need one for everybody, but don't pass them out until we've had a chance to look around outside." Duo smiled at him, looking through his lashes. "Yes, Captain." Ye gods, why did that sound like the opening line of a role-playing fantasy? And more importantly, why the hell was even thinking about something like that at a time like this? Heero shook himself, noting with relief that Duo had already left the cockpit. The last thing he needed was Duo catching a whiff of that thought. Everyone was already waiting by the door when Heero got there. Hilde and Quatre were both talking at once, each trying to be heard over the other. "What's going on here?" he demanded, his voice cutting through both of theirs. Hilde turned to him. "Now that we're safe on the ground, I want to know who they were after. Who's putting us in danger? If I'm going to be shot at, I would at least like to know that there is a reason." Heero thought that was reasonable, but at the same time… "Three things. One: if any of you know, beyond doubt, that there is no reason anyone in the whole universe would send a ship after you, please raise your hand now." Heero waited patiently. Floor-staring seemed to be popular among his madcap crew, but not a single hand went up. "I was afraid of that. Two: I think they were pirates, which means they weren't after any of us specifically. Three: we may be on the ground, but we're not safe yet. They may follow us down. We have to leave the shuttle, even if it means facing the natives. I'm hoping that since we landed in the desert, we won't have to worry about that though." "Only one way to know for sure," Duo said, throwing the door open and stepping out onto the sand. The others followed closely. At first, all they could see was dull, brown dust, but as the wind cleared it away, Heero closed his eyes and cursed his luck. Not two hundred feet away, people seemed to be popping out of nowhere, coming to look at the shuttle. The natives were short and reptilian and their skin hung loose, as though they had all lost weight suddenly. Their faces reminded Heero of a lizard's, though closer inspection revealed that their nostrils closed to keep out the sand like a camel's. The two groups stared at each other, not even trying to communicate, knowing that it was no use. At last, an old-looking one, they thought a male, came forward. His hands were tipped with elongated claws and he waved one of these at them and then pointed to the far side of the dune. Then he began walking toward where he had pointed. Heero looked at the others. They were all looking at him. Well, what choice did he have? With a small sigh, he followed.
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