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"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options"
Chapter 107 Mars Colony Base Dome 2nd March AC 198 Time: 00: 35 [approx Sanc time 22:25] Barker // Ah, shit. Climbing ladders in these suits is not easy and I wonder how many agents have had to do it under duress? It was not covered in my training and it should have been. You can't see anything accept the rung in front of you and you certainly can not look above or below. This needs to be included as a part of Preventers basic training-at least for anyone slated to be a part of a mission in space. I'll have to remember to place that recommendation when this is all over. // He refused to consider that he might never get the opportunity to make a report let alone suggest that an additional training module be devised. // It would probably be easier if I was climbing up the bloody thing instead of going down. How much further, I wonder? We must be near the bottom by now. I seem to have been doing this forever.// He knew that he should have more concern over the details of the mission he was on than the near darkness he moved through, but the details of what was rather a sketchy plan could wait. There was a man below him and one above whose lives hung in the balance as much as his own and at the moment this climb down into darkness was more of a threat than working out what to do when they got into the base dome. If Carter, who was above him should slip because of the restrictions to movement caused by the suits they were forced to wear, then both he and Polnar would descend the shaft in a very untidy fashion and in the end act as cushions for Carter's less than glorious landing. Should it be he who slipped then it would only be he and Polnar who would pay the price, leaving Carter to continue on and complete the mission alone, provided he suffered no debilitating injuries in the fall. There was no margin for error on this mission and all that he seemed to be able to do since beginning this descent was envision the errors that all too easily could occur. // I never thought that working in the dark would bother me, but even with the headlamps on the suit I could not glimpse the bottom of the shaft and that does bother me. I know that each step down to a lower rung is taking me closer to the bottom but this climb seems to be taking forever and I have only so much time. Zechs is expecting us and I want to learn what the hell has been going on in the dome. // It might not have been so bad, he reflected, if they could have talked to each other during this descent, but with the uncertainty about the equipment used by Blue Squad they needed to conserve radio silence as much as possible. Needless discussion on something like the weather of Mars would not only use up precious oxygen they might yet need but needlessly chance their conversation being overheard by hostile parties. Both possibilities were needless risks to offer some small comfort to a grown man who suddenly discovered within his psyche a fear of the dark. It was ridiculous. A hand gripped his ankle and he fought down the shriek that threatened to vent in reaction. Fingers squeezed his suited ankle gently and then left him to touch his waist and he understood that Polnar must be at the bottom of the shaft. A sigh of relief passed his lips and he fought to calm the startled racing of his heart as he took the last few rungs down to the inspection walkway and inched his way sideways until he had cleared the ladder for Carter to complete his descent. He nodded to Polnar who was reaching to grip Carter's ankle as he had his own and then turned his attention to the pipe that surrounded them. He had not known what to expect of the recycling pipes that ran under the Base Dome but he certainly had not been expecting something so large. The treated effluent pipe stood inches over his own height and it was wide enough for three men to stand abreast with their arms extended out level with their shoulders. Looking around and then ahead into a deeper darkness he thought that the pipe might narrow a little at the extreme edge of his head lamps, but he was unsure. It might only have been an optical effect of the darkness warping the light of his headlamps and the meagre glow offered by the amber service lights placed at set distances along the tunnel. Taking a few exploratory steps along the walkway set above the level of the effluent he noted that it appeared that the wall mounted lights stopped about fifty feet from the ladder. Try as he could he could make out no hint of an amber glow that would mean another light ahead. With a small sigh of resignation he turned his attention to the floor of the tunnel. He refused to think of something as large as this as merely a pipe gracing it with the loftier title of a tunnel since he was not going to be forced to crawl on hands and knees through a wretched pipe full of recycled matter he really did not want to consider flowing around him. There was a channel that looked to be as wide if not wider than his height that was filled with an unwholesome looking sludge coloured a sickly brown. He wondered how deep the channel ran and hoped it was not going to be necessary for him to find out. “The wall lighting stops just up ahead and from there on the only lights we will have to move by will be our headlamps until we reach about twenty feet from the next outlet station. The lights will let us know we are close to the ladder and decontamination station leading up into the Base Dome.” Polnar had moved to stand close, his helmet now pressed close to Barkers to initiate a conversation. The Preventer agent glanced at him, noting Carter was descending the last of the rungs behind the Leo pilot and was already looking around him. He was still uncertain about trusting Polnar but at this time he did not see that he had a choice and of the three of them he was the only one who had been this way before. It seemed that once again he was going to have to place his trust in this man. “How far to the first station?” Polnar stared into the darkness ahead of them and offered a shrug. “I haven't gone any further that about a hundred meters that way.” he indicated the opposite direction to that which they both had been looking, the direction that led toward the treatment plant. “I was never assigned to go under the dome for maintenance but I have heard from the maintenance techs who service the channel that the pipes narrow the further in under the base dome that you go. Both the inlet and the outlet pipes remain large enough to be relatively comfortable for the techs to work in, which I presume means that we will not need to wade in that stuff.” he inclined his head to indicate the channel beside them. “I would think that the first station would not be much further than two or three hundred metres, give or take.” Barker sighed and could only nod an acknowledgement,
eyeing the sludge that filled the channel in the centre of the tunnel
with distaste. He certainly did not feel inclined to enter it if he
had another option. Barker nodded his understanding and motioned to the tunnel ahead of them. “You lead. You seem to know most of the dangers involved in being down here.” Polnar nodded and shuffled carefully past Barker who was quick to press his back hard to the wall to make room for the man to pass him and take point. Carter shuffled over, his helmet turned toward the channel and his head lamps glare making it impossible to see his face, but Barker could well imagine the look he might see there. It would mirror his own distaste and distrust of the sludge. They had not even started yet and he already wanted out of the tunnel. To his slap on the man's shoulder and the pointed finger urging him on Carter shuffled carefully past and followed after Polnar and Barker fell into his position at the rear. With a sigh that did nothing to release the growing tension expanding within him he glanced at his chronometer and hoped that he had sufficient time to complete his objective. 00:38 He was to meet with Marquise in the shuttle bay at 01:35. //We have a long way yet to go before we even get access into the Dome. I just hope we don't meet any opposition from Sleepers or Blue Squad, though I'd dearly like to take out the bastards who started this whole bloody farce. A massacre. Cold blooded murder to lock those people out in the night … // he sighed. This was not doing them any good. The darkness was a heavy sensation pressing down on him that he had to learn to deal with. The bobbing lights of his companions broke the obsidian gloom but beyond Polnar's lights ahead of him he could see only darkness. The surface under his feet was slimy and slippery enough that he feared every step would send him sprawling into an undignified heap on the ledge or worse, into the sludge channel. From time to time they would pass a sealed metal box, a monitoring station that no doubt would record any changes in the flow of effluent when the pumps were in operation. He only hoped that these stations would not register their passage through the pipes mistaking them for effluent blocking the pipe and that obstruction be noted by any Sleepers or Security Agents who might have access to a computer. //They could have wiped out half of the domes population in one move initiating this lockout. I wonder how many are dead in the dome itself? If they were intent on killing everyone outside of the domes then they intend to make it a clean sweep. Base and Alpha would have been combed for survivors to be slaughtered to complete their cover operation. No doubt just their agents would be alive to welcome the Wellington for their rescue in the official version. Bastards. Murdering butchering bastards. None of these people who have come to Mars deserve this kind of shit ending their dreams. A new start. A new life. Mars was a new beginning for so many of the workers who dared to come here. A chance taken by people desperate for something more than they had in a society that was marked by wars. To leave the politics and bloodshed of the Earth behind them and make a fresh start on a world unsullied by butchery and murder and it follows them here to murder them and start the blood count anew on Martian soil. Poor payment for the sacrifices made and the dreams these people shared. Someone has to pay for this atrocity. Not just the bastards here doing the dirty work but the commanders who issued the orders have to be identified and brought to justice. // He stumbled into a pile of refuse and slid enough to bring his heart into his throat in sudden fear that he was going to overbalance and flounder in the channel but Carter reached back to steady him and he drew a breath of relief. His companion nodded and moved off and he waited for Carter to clear the refuse before he moved again more slowly and careful of his footing this time. He eased his way through the slippery sludge and to where his companions now waited for him on the far side and they continued on. He needed to concentrate more on what he was doing and not on bemoaning the unfairness of what was happening within the dome. He kept his lights firmly on Carter's back not willing to lose the man in the darkness that seemed almost to be a solid weight pressing on him, unwilling to be alone down in these depths. He supposed that it was a primal thing, this fear of the dark depths weighing on him. Some ancient instinct that reared now to bother him when he needed to concentrate on life and death decisions. Certainly he had never considered himself to be afraid of the dark before and he had needed to work in darkness on more than one occasion.! // Who set this all into motion? Who is it that I owe a bullet in the brain? Ah, God. Just listen to me. I'm a Preventer, for Christ's sake. It is my duty here to keep the peace and to protect that peace. I am here to make certain that there is no fighting, no return to the wars that have torn the Earth Sphere for so many years. At last we have the very real chance for an active and lasting peace to develop. The truth is that I have had enough of fighting and fooling myself about why I choose to fight. I am tired but I can fight and I am only too willing to fight to maintain that hope of peace. I don't want the killing to start again, whether on a small or grand scale and here I am expecting to walk into a blood bath. Shit. We are supposed to be at peace, building a world without a need to fight and just look at what has happened to this world that has never known war. We come here and it starts all over again. Tainted. Polluted by … Crap. Where did that come from? Not good, Barker. Not good at all. You are beginning to sound like some of those terrorists you have taken down in the last two years. Still, someone has to pay for what is happening here. Not just the underlings either. The little people who do the dirty work are only a very small part of the problem as a whole and I want those people who initiated this entire affair.// The problem with that goal he knew was that to publicly and properly deal with this matter as it needed to be dealt with, was that what appeared to be the worst kept secret of the ESUN was going to have to face the repercussions. Zechs Merquise. Milliardo Peacecraft. The Boogie Man of the Earth Sphere. The man who had frightened both the Colony and the Earth governments into uniting and settling their difference would be revealed to be alive. For the general public to know that the man was alive would undoubtedly cause shockwaves to explode throughout the Earth Sphere in titanic ripples of shock and dissent and possibly cause enough unrest to incite a return to the wars. The great villain of the War would be known to exist and there would be a very real danger of mass panic from those people who constituted the ill-informed and very nervous mass public. // Which is the entire reason this raid is taking place. I can understand it, I suppose, but this … This atrocity should be known for what it really is, not palmed off as a raid by Pirates. I suppose their strategists are efficient if nothing else. They would get Merquise and incite the people to demand action be taken against the Raiders all in one decisive action. Efficient if distasteful.// He paused at Carter's signal and edged around the man enough to see that there was a large obstruction in the form of overflow from the channel and sighed. There was no way he would have liked to have Polnar's place as trail breaker just now. He shook his head slightly as the man kept one hand flat to the wall of the tunnel as he cautiously worked his way deeper into the sludge, carefully making a path for the others to follow. No, he decided, this really was not the best place to lead the survivors from the nights lockout to enter the dome. They needed to get the main airlock doors to the dome or the shuttle bay doors open. // Just where are we supposed to go from here? Fine, we manage to get into the dome and say that we take down the agents and then what? We have made no ground. We are still on Mars. We still have Merquise here and there are still those same bastards in power who want things to go their way. Lady Une, I hope you have made plans for what happens at the end of this affair because for the life of me I can't see where we can gain any advantage if we can't discover who it was who planned this raid and then trace it back to the source. Even if we do manage to do that what do we do to ensure that it does not repeat? The factors that incited this situation all still remain in place. Zechs would still be on Mars and Mars will soon be an open colony, open to all comers who want to start again. There is no feasible solution that I can see that would stop word of his presence here from getting back to the hub of the ESUN and then what? Arrest. Trial and execution? Or imprisonment? Shit. What a lovely mess that would be. So what do we do? What can we do? It is not just him either, but those babies. He's got kids and they will pay for their father's transgressions in the past. His reputation will follow them around until their dying day. Poor little buggers won't stand a chance and he knows it. I wonder if he would have surrendered himself to the agents if Noin had not sparked things off? What a mess.// He shook the less than inspiring thoughts away, turning to concentrate on the matters more at hand. Polnar was through the overflow and Carter was crossing it. His turn was coming up and he needed to move. If he was careful he could follow Carter leaving enough space between them that if one of them slipped they would not interfere with the other. Surely they had to be nearing the service station. It seemed that they had been walking down here for hours though he knew time was an illusion and that it had not been so long. One foot carefully in front of the other, no rushing things and begging for a very distasteful bath. He had to concentrate more on the here and now, not on what would happen in the future - well, further in the future than he really needed to consider just now. That was food for thought for the future they would face after they had removed the threat these agents represented and dealt with the confrontation the oncoming Wellington would provide for them to face down. It would be at the very least weeks surely before the ESUN could get another ship of any size out to Mars to cause more trouble. Hopefully he would be fortunate enough not to feature in the matter at that distant future date but that, he knew, was a copout. Rank cowardice on his part and a cowardice that he was ashamed of. He was surely a better person than that. He had found Merquise to be something other than he had expected, and for all that he did not understand the man or what motivated him, he had found that he liked him. //Later. Think about it later. Just get this out of your system before you go up into the dome because carrying these kind of thoughts into action will result only in one thing. Disaster. I have to focus or these men will pay for my incompetence with their lives. If I want to get myself or these men killed then this is a good way to do it, so wake up and smell the roses, Barker. Even if just now they do smell like recycled shit. I am so glad these suits keep out smell as well as atmosphere. // He cleared the refuse overflow and they fell back into their formation, one following the other, careful placement of feet and always be conscious of balance. He kept his light on Carter's back, his right hand against the wall as Polnar had done. The solidity of the wall felt through the heavy glove gave him a welcome sense of security against the oppressive darkness. He took to counting each step that was taken, vaguely with the idea of estimating the distance they had traveled and how far there was yet to cover but more as a means to banish the dangerous speculation of what must happen in the future. It helped to centre him. It was something of a surprise when the man in front of him stopped and he shuffled a few steps closer before it really registered that something was happening. Curious to see if they had come to another overflow of refuse he inched closer to the wall until he could peer over Carters shoulder. Ahead of them Polnar was standing at the base of a set of rungs that led up into the darkness of a shaft. He realized that the light around him had a faint amber quality and just above his hand there was a low wattage amber light. They had arrived at the service station and on the wall near Polnar, illuminated by a wall light was the confirmation. Exit. Polnar was motioning them to come closer and then indicating a hose and tap set up at the far end of the slightly wider walkway that Barker suppose could be called a way station if he stretched his imagination somewhat. Pressing their heads together to permit communication he noted that Polnar was grinning. //Does the man have to perpetually smile?// “Before we go up we have to hose each other down or the computer controlling the sensors will not release the sealed grate that leads to the airlock. When we get to within around about twenty three meters of the access cover we will receive an automatic spraying down of decontamination solution by the computers that monitor the grate. It's quick and efficient and I don't have an authorization code that will allow us to forgo the spray down. It would be quicker to have the shower and be done with it.” It would also be safer for the health of all inhabitants of the dome as well, Barker mused as he signaled the go ahead. He was willing to suffer a hose off and chemical shower and it no doubt would make it a little sweeter on the nose when they could remove the enviro suits. He wanted their butts in that dome with all speed and if it took twenty seconds or so for the shower that was certainly faster than his best time for breaking an electronic lock. What awaited them up there he was almost afraid to consider but it was a job that he would trust to no other to oversee. He owed it to the people who had already died and to those waiting in the caves to finish this mess. Polnar motioned for he and Carter to spread themselves a little and brace themselves and when he saw the force of the spray that hit Carter he knew why. The force of the water quickly and efficiently removed the clinging remnants of their wade through the overflow effluent and then it was his turn. When he stood dripping and relatively clean and certain that he would be bruised from the force of the water Carter took the hose from Polnar and returned the favor, flushing the refuse from the walk way when he was done. With the wash down out of the way and the hose replaced they locked helmets together once more. “I am presuming that this procedure point is the same as at the recycling plant. If it is then you will come to a sequence of coloured lights. The red light will be on at first and that marks that we will have arrived at the spray station. All we have to do is position ourselves in the decontamination field and hold on to the rungs. It's quick and the computer will talk you through each stage. Allow four rungs between us for safety. The computer sensors will register how many of us there are to be treated and the shower will not activate until the last person reaches and passes that first red light. When we are in position we will be notified of the decontamination commencing by the lights flashing and on the standard frequency there will be a radio notification and the usual safety warnings. We will be instructed to move on when the sequence is complete. The whole thing takes about thirty seconds from memory.” “Go.” Barker waved Polnar toward the ladder and then Carter to follow, himself taking the rear position. //The sooner we get in the dome the better.// A glance at the chronometer on his wrist panel produced a sigh that contained more than just a hint of frustration. 00:48. They were running out of time and they still had to breach the dome, reach HD Three and find the access shaft down into the sub base, not to mention descend said shaft. He had a bad feeling that he had seriously underestimated the time requirements for accessing the dome, but it could not be helped. They were going to be late. t.b.c.
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