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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 128 Mars Colony Base Dome 2nd March AC 198 Time: 01: 24 [approx Sanc time 23:14] Broadham //What do I do about this? I have people relying on me and … What am I to believe? Everything has taken a turn toward the insane and I don't know what to believe. // He rubbed at his eyes, trying not to look at the clock as it only made him feel every ache. He wanted to curl up and sleep but there was so much to do. // Is he right? Do I dare to believe that all that he has told me is correct? Do I dare NOT believe it? Is it really the ESUN who are in control of this situation?// He most certainly did not want to believe that. Years ago he had made a decision and he had left the central area, the hub of the Earth Sphere because he wanted the chance to begin again. A rare opportunity had presented itself to a tired soldier. A fresh start for a man steeped in blood. He was a surgeon, a healer but he had done his share of killing to stay alive even as he had tried his best to heal others, the victims of the war, soldier and civilian alike. His decision to leave the hub and turn his back on the life he had lived was supposed to be a new beginning for him, a new life away from all of the blood, the death and the destruction he had witnessed for so many years. Yes, he had wanted a change and the chance to help birth something wonderfully fresh. Something untainted by the destruction, cruelty and chaos that was war and that opportunity was now threatened. Bloodlust had come to Mars. Bloodlust. To be certain there had been blood spilled on Mars before this day. Some of the early explorers to the planet from Earth had died here, trapped by faulty equipment, accidents and failed planning and had been totally ill equipped to cope with the unique environment that Mars presented on a long term basis. Casualties and fatalities had been expected in the early days - had to be expected in any exploration of space and there had been enough of those events in reaching the planet let alone in the founding of the colony itself. Constructing the Base Dome to take the place of the inadequate and rudimentary modules linked together by unstable tubes that had served as the advanced base of the colony had cost more lives than he cared to consider. They had lost six men alone in erecting the basic dome frame in the early construction phase of the Alpha Dome and at that time they had had more advanced equipment at their disposal. Deaths happened on Mars, as they happened all over the Earth Sphere and some deaths were easier to accept than others. //I wanted to leave war behind me. Murder too. Honest death during the building of a colony I could accept, but this … this is cold blooded murder.// It had come in the closing days of the building phase. They were so close now to opening this planet to trade and colonization as a viable economic concern. The colony they had laboured to construct was self sustaining and they were capable of entering the trading forums of the ESUN and standing toe to toe with their competitors. The resources were here just waiting to be used. All that they had needed to complete the picture and stand alone was additional people. A viable gene pool would have been the last component to make the Alpha base a working colony equal to any colony orbiting Earth and that expansion would happen within a year. //Within this year. // He reflected. // After Colony 198. // The year a permanent population, a breeding population, came to Mars and completed the complex equation that resulted in a viable fully operating colony. Humankind had needed the colony. The population of Earth and the individual colonies was on the rise and they needed new habitats. //We have children on the colony already though it is true that we were not meant to consider a native generation for another three or four years following the arrival of the general population. Yet even having a few births was considered in the design specs for the founding of the colony. The human race being what it is it was inevitable that we would beat the breeding estimates projected by the planners. It often happens that way. The drugs taken to suspend fertility are flawed. They simply are not one hundred percent reliable for the entire population and mother nature has a way of thumbing her nose at the attempts of man to play God. As a race we have had to learn that lesson through time if we have learned no other lesson. Mother nature will ensure the survival of the human species and will adapt to do so if required. It is called evolution. It is called developing immunities and resistances. All in all we are a pretty poor imitation of God. The truth is that we just have humungous egos. // Mankind liked to consider itself as being of so much importance in the cosmic order of things and the truth was that the human species was insignificant. //We are an experiment of evolution and there will come a day when evolution passes us by and we become a branch on the tree that depicts the extinction of species. What the hell makes us think ourselves so important? I suppose that we are rather unique. No other race that the Earth has produced seems intent on exterminating itself.// He ran a hand through his hair and watched in silence as his people filed from the room. Much as he wished he could change the events of the day he could not. There were dead people who needed to be attended and he was in charge of the Medical Centre at this time. He had given his instructions to his people for the search of the medical centre and for the cleanup to begin. Ahead of them all there were hours of work to be accomplished and not restricted to the sub base. He had to sort out the mess down here and then send his people into the enviro dome to search for the dead and wounded. There was so much to do with this clean up. Who could he trust? Did he dare to believe all that Haydon Giles had told him? Did he dare NOT believe? Either possibility, belief or disbelief, could produce fatal results for the people who looked to him. Could he believe that the ESUN agents on Mars were not the saviors they should be? Were these men killing his people? Frighteningly enough, yes, he could believe it. He was a soldier. Or he had been in his younger days and he had been a good one. He had had a conscience and he had learned to question his orders and the actions of others and what was more he was something of a student of History. He was enough of a History buff to know that such incidents had happened in the past. //Sleepers. Security Agents running amok throughout the base. It is like something out of a very bad science fiction novel. I wish that I could say with any degree of honesty that I thought it was impossible but the truth is that I have known it to happen. Not exactly the same set of circumstances, of course, but the same basic make up of a situation where the individual has been considered expendable for the good of others. Supposedly for the good of many but often for the good of a select few. Ah, God. I suppose, since similar instances have happened, that I could say that I believe him … I could say it but that might mean that I am jumping to the wrong conclusion. I can't just take his word for it. That is only one side of the story and to make a decent decision for the well being of my people I can not in good conscience take the word of one man. There is more to this situation that I need to consider not the least of which is how would killing off an entire colony benefit the ESUN? Who within the government of Earth or the Colonies would benefit from a slaughter taking place on Mars?// He rubbed at his forehead, wishing that he could take something for the pain but he dared not cloud his judgment. There was too much at stake to have drugs affect his decisions. // I have a headache. I am tired and I can't think straight and I can't rest. There is too much to do to allow for a rest and I am not the only one who is no doubt longing for the chance to sleep. The only thing in this entire mess that I can be sure of is what I witnessed in that hallway and even then … Even then the details … are sketchy. Sketchy? I don't know. I am sure that I saw Merquise take a bullet.// He was exhausted from the struggle to keep Jenny Santos alive and even now he knew that he could still lose her. If he had managed to stabilize her and repaired the damage enough to ensure her survival then he doubted that she would ever have movement of her lower extremities. There had been severe damage to her spinal cord and as much as their medical technology had improved in the last hundred years spinal cords still defeated them. She was going to be paralysed if she survived the night. Perhaps when she was sent back to Earth and she was going to have to be returned to Earth or at least to one of the Colonies. Her hope might lie in the new and almost miraculous work being done with genetic treatments. There was a faint hope that the damage done by the bullets that had ripped through her spine might be repaired with the aid of a good genetic team. If he was honest with himself he had to acknowledge that though there was a chance of some improvement being possible he doubted that even the genetic treatment would help her. He had been considering those very possibilities of success and the varying degrees of improvement in the field of genetic medicine that might assist his patient when he had left the recovery room and entered the main hallway of the medical centre in time to see … He scowled, considering his hands for a long moment as he reviewed what it was he had witnessed. //Exactly what was it that I saw? I'm not … God. Just thinking about it churns my gut.// He literally felt ill just thinking about the sight that had met his gaze. The crawling of his nerves, the twisting of his vitals, the painful pressure that had seemed to weigh him down … It all seemed too real and yet so … unreal. What had he seen? Merquise and Giles had been standing in the hallway, at the far end of the hallway, near the main doors and they had been standing close together, talking. Then … No. No, that was not right. Something was wrong with that picture and he could feel that crawling of his gut growing. He could clearly recall that he had left the scrub room after cleaning up after the operation and he had checked with the nurse stationed in recovery to ensure that Santos had been settled and was in no difficulty. Yes. That much was as clear as crystal and he was in no doubt. After checking with the nurse he had felt it safe for himself to leave the surgical unit and write up a report on the operation as a means to unwind enough to get some much needed sleep. Report writing always put him to sleep. Yes, that was what had happened after he had left the operating theatre and of that much he was certain. It was after that that things became far from clear. //I need to rest but there is no time now for pampering myself and it is not as though I have not stood thirty six hour shifts in the past. I'll get my second wind soon enough. // Yet still he stared at the wall and considered the strangeness he had witnessed. Strangeness? How inadequate a description for what had happened. He could clearly recall setting his hand to the latch of the door opening out into the hallway from the surgical unit and from that point on reality had become something he desperately longed to be a nightmare he could wake up from. Such a relief it would be if he would just wake up and find that he had fallen asleep in his chair while writing his report because he was not certain how long he could cope with the odd... the surreal... the Otherworldly. The weird. //Argh. Stop this useless shit, you fool. You have better things to do. // He scrubbed at his face with hands that trembled and that very shaking terrified him. He was a surgeon. He had steady hands. Lives hung on the rock solid nerves and very steadiness of his hands. He rose, moving to the credenza and pouring himself a cup of coffee. It was exhaustion, nothing more. He just needed some rest, which he was not going to have a hope in hell of getting so a strong coffee would have to work its magic. It had before when he had needed to work double shifts in his intern days and during the battles he had thought he had left behind him. He had to gather his wits together and get through the night as best he could and settling for words such as Surreal and Otherworldly was not going to settle his thoughts. //Can't leave the bloody thing alone though. It keeps replaying over and over again and each time it gets stranger. // Trying to ignore it was doing no good so he sipped at the coffee and leaned against the wall bringing carefully to mind the scene as he had stepped out into the hallway. Merquise had been a step or two away from Haydon Giles, no more than two steps, yes, that was right. Their backs had been turned to the hallway as they spoke. He considered that picture for a minute, painting the scene vividly and nodded finally. Yes, that seemed about right. The door of the nurses lounge had opened slowly and drawn his attention only because he had been looking in the exact right place to note the movement and he had felt his gut knot on seeing that gun precede the would be killer from the room. He drew a shaky breath but kept his attention focused on the mental image. He needed to sort out what had happened and get to the truth and reach a decision. He had people relying on him and he needed to make choices that might well decide if they lived or died. He was squarely back to his officers days in the Alliance, the last place he had ever wanted to find himself again where he was looking at blood, guts and gore without a surgical tool in sight. He was back to facing the unwholesome reality of murder and mayhem. Yes, the gun. Picture the gun. Silencer attached at the business end and muzzle and hand emerging from the shadow of the doorway and it had been aimed squarely at Haydon Giles. He scowled, dropping his gaze to his half empty coffee mug. From the beginning of the incident that gun had been aimed at Giles, not Merquise. That was a distinction that was important and one he must not forget in this evaluation of the situation that faced them. Try as he might he could not recall hearing a sound that might have alerted Merquise to the presence of the lurking gunman but suddenly and smoothly Merquise was moving and with his movement things had become insane. // The most important point of that scene was that Giles was the target. Why would a professional killer target Giles? If I believe the man then the killer was a professional and even a rank amateur would know that you take down the greatest threat first. The greatest threat to your mission and your personal safety if you have not completed your mission must be dealt with as a priority. Namely, Merquise. Everyone here knows his reputation as a Specials Elite and logically he should have been the one targeted.// Unless Giles had the right of it. Unless Giles was correct in his assessment of the mission and this entire debacle was a mission to remove Merquise and possibly his children from Mars. //God. Why? Why remove them?// Mars was about the most isolated colony you could get within the entire Earth Sphere with the exception of the mining communities scattered amidst the asteroid belt. He scowled as he considered the options open to the persons who had designated Mars as the prison for such a high profile prisoner as the former Prince of Sanc. As prisons went those mining communities scattered amongst the asteroids would surely be considered far from satisfactory. They tended to be wild places with little in the way of effective law enforcement and ruled by the mining conglomerates from the distant Colonies and Earth. All that was of concern out there was the mining of ores from the cosmic debris field. Scout ships dared the dangers of the field to mark the richest asteroids to be towed back to the hub colonies to be used as resource satellites but those asteroids not marked as suitable for the credit expenditure involved in relocation were mined in the asteroids by the settlements and the raw ore or the crudely refined product would be shipped back to the hub. //Wild and uncivilized places. You have to be desperate or an outcast to go out there.// Which, he supposed was answer enough as to why Merquise had not been dispatched to the distant asteroid belt. Try confining him amid those wild communities and it was possible that the remnants of White Fang or even the disgruntled Oz soldiers who had worshipped the famous Lightning Count and had had no where else to go might sympathize and rally to support Merquise. There were many displaced and angry ex-soldiers who in their desperation to find a place for themselves had gone to the mining communities only to find it no better than the hub worlds. //Was that it? Was the ESUN government fearful that Merquise might have found backing for another insane assault on the Earth if he was sent to the frontier?// Yet rumour had it that it was the man's own sister who had sent him to Mars and surely … No, she was a politician and from reports she was fairly rabid on keeping the peace. The consensus was that Merquise was insane and the Vice Foreign Minister surely would not wish to be reminded that she had a brother who was accounted public enemy number one. Or would be, if it was generally known that he had survived the Libra. Yet in all the time he had been on Mars there had been no hint of insanity or grandiose plans in the man. He seemed infinitely sane and sensible. // Mars would have been the better choice. I can understand that I suppose, but why now do they decide to change things, and so violently? I know that there have been elections recently on Earth and in the Colonies. Power games.// He snorted his disgust at that thought. // I suppose the power structure on Earth might have changed sufficiently to allow for this type of operation. A cover up would have been devised and they must be fairly confident that they are going to get away with it and gain by it. Fucking politicians. Add to that the fact that within the year Mars is due for a massive influx of population and considering the latest reports I read on the situation within the hub itself I would imagine that a fair few of the new Martians might possibly be expatriate soldiers. Yes, with that recipe I guess I can see why they would want to move Merquise. But to kill everyone just to keep his survival a secret?// Overkill. It had all the earmarks he associated with the leadership of the Alliance at the beginning of the One Year War and a few years before that when the Alliance hierarchy had decided to tighten their hold on the colonies and consolidate their position. //Consolidate their resources, further their power structure, settle their personal fortunes … Yes. All too familiar. Could it really be happening again?// He sipped the coffee, grimacing as for the first time he noted the too strong taste but he needed the drink as a pick me up. Now above all he needed to remain alert and on top of the situation. He was fairly certain that he had a reasonable assessment of the reasons for the invasion and massacre of the population and he was not inclined to have any more of his people slaughtered because he was too tired to function efficiently. //The Terror of Earth.// He had not had a great deal of opportunity for interaction with the man since Merquise had arrived on Mars as the man's health had been excellent. He had not had much call for a physician's attentions let alone the Chief Surgeon's ministrations. From the day of his arrival Earth Gov had made it clear to the leaders of the developing colony that Merquise was a prisoner exiled from the hub although the word 'prisoner' had never actually been spoken. Everyone from the janitor to the project chief had understood the address that had been transmitted from Earth an hour before the shuttle carrying Merquise and Noin had begun landing manoeuvres. Mako had looked as though he had been eating something particularly sour and distasteful as he had followed the transmitted public address from the chief of the ESUN Security Agency to the terra formers of Mars. He had acknowledged the transmission on behalf of the colony but it had been clear to all that he was far from pleased by the circumstances. //I admit that I did not know what to expect. There was no warning for us to prepare any type of reception and as for preparing security arrangements … // He sighed softly, shaking his head at the memory of the sudden scramble to see that there were quarters ready to be assigned for the new arrivals. //None of us knew what to expect.// With Merquise on the shuttle and the clear directive that he was to have no outside communications with anyone they had been in no doubt as to his status, but none of them knew quite what to do about his companion. Lucrezia Noin had not been mentioned in the directive from ESUN security. From the moment she had debarked the shuttle she had placed everyone in no doubt that she was to all effects and purposes the only one permitted near Merquise. Broadham found himself grinning into his coffee cup at the thought of the woman who had by her very presence warned that Merquise was private property. At first he had presumed her to be the assigned warden to the prisoner but it had quickly become clear that she was a self appointed warden. “What a woman!” he shook his head slightly with a low rumble of amusement. “Quite a spitfire that one.” Noin had been more than simply protective of Merquise from the moment they had arrived. Possessive was perhaps closer to the description he was looking for and in the time since their arrival she had proven to be well and truly obsessive and fiercely territorial. No less at the beginning of their stay here than she had been since learning of her pregnancy. // Nice enough woman. // he reflected. //Once you made it plain you were not going to trespass on what she considered her property, but Christ, there were times I felt sorry for the man. // She was a far more effective keeper than anyone the ESUN might have sent out to take on the responsibility of handling the security arrangements to ensure Merquise was kept within set limits. For differing reasons, no doubt, but the end result had been the same. He had a great deal of respect for Lucrezia Noin, both as a woman and as a professional, but for the very life of him he would not have wanted to be her victim if anyone crossed her. She had a notorious temper and she had made it clear from the instant they had debarked the shuttle that anyone messing with Zechs Merquise would incur her wrath. // Very protective woman, overly protective even, but from my observations I think that that was precisely what he needed at that time. I don't know what happened back on Earth but something clearly did and it affected them both in far different ways. She provided a needed buffer zone between him and the world at large and that woman had no intentions of permitting anyone to offer him insult. I can remember thinking that the man was too placid and that he could not possibly have been the same Milliardo Peacecraft who had threatened to take out an entire planet. He seemed too quiet, too willing to be told what to do and to begin with he seemed willing enough to separate himself from the rest of us. No, the more I watched that man those first few months the more certain I was that he could not possibly be the man they called a demon. // He could clearly recall one instance when in the dining hall someone had made a comment on Merquise never joining the general population for meals and the comment happened to come in a lull in the general noise of the meal. Lucrezia had been there on that occasion and had fairly flattened the man, an open handed blow that had rocked him off his seat and was accompanied by a heated look that would have melted steel. A snarled comment concerning the dining hall turning into a zoo for everyone to gawk at a trained monkey and why should he have to do that for their pleasure and she had stormed out of the hall. Certainly an over reaction on Noin's part but it had served to cause people to consider the pair of them in a more human light. The monster had become more human. //Rehashing events from the past is not going to help me make sense of what is happening now. // Scrubbing a hand over his face he sighed and considered what needed to be done. He was desperate for a shower and shave but personal concerns were unimportant. The most important matter he needed to consider at this time was dare he not believe Giles? He had already lost people to the killer who had stalked the medical centre and if there were more of these heartless monsters … What must he do to ensure that his people would be safe from them? Haydon Giles insisted that there were more killers, Sleepers, he called them, stalking the base. More than the one who now would be on his way to lie on a slab in the morgue was a terrifying thought. At least he had no doubts that the security guard from the shuttle bay was the responsible body for having murdered his people in the nurses lounge. The man had been taken down as he had left the nurses lounge and he himself had witnessed that incident, thus there was no doubt of his guilt. But might there not be others stalking the medical centre even as he stared at a half empty cup of quickly cooling coffee? Broadham shook his head slowly, eyes narrowed knowing that there just was no way that he could know for certain what was happening to his once nicely ordered world. He had walked into the main hallway of the centre at a very interesting moment, his thoughts of Jenny Santos and her possible degree of recovery falling away in awed disbelief at the events taking place before him. Ambush. Cold blooded murder. There was no other word to adequately describe the events unfolding before him. Almost in a haze of unreality he had watched that gun rise, the silencer glinting under the glare of the artificial lights. His eyes had tracked the direction in which it had been pointed and found the two men standing by the door and he had known in that instant that one or both of them were dead men. It had been unreal. He had been in the military. He had been an officer and he had never found himself in a situation where he could not bellow when the need asserted itself, but for some reason he had been unable to do more than stare. Why had he found himself frozen in place, vocal cords seemingly paralysed, unable to utter a warning? He had found himself paralysed and as useless as a civilian, not the ex Alliance Officer that he was. A useless civilian who was about to witness what was obviously cold blooded murder. Why had he stood there like an idiot? He was a trained soldier for all that he was a surgeon, both in the past and in the present. He was a veteran of more battles than he cared to think about and he had never found a situation in any of them where he had frozen. Never. He had caught a glimpse of the killer's eyes and with an icy chill he had recognized it. He had witnessed that same wild, fanatical gleam in those insane eyes during the height of the war. He had seen that exact same look on the faces of those who had lost their way and in their insanity had become killing machines who lived for the blood lust. Yes, he recognized that look. To his sorrow he had watched the loss of humanity in too many men during the wars and it had been fear of losing his own humanity that had seen him giving up his military career. He had been terrified that he would eventually kill the healer within him. That had been too high a price for him to pay. Most of those stressed beyond endurance who lost their grasp on reality tended to turn inward, many becoming self-destructive and focusing their anger and despair on themselves. Those were the ones he had felt himself most likely to mirror if he had not resigned when he had, but some few of the lost ones would loose all semblance of morality. Those eyes belonging to the one who had held that gun not so long ago had screamed killer. It had been obvious from the moment the gun had emerged from the shadows of the doorway what he was going to do and it had become equally obvious in that same moment that Merquise had realized that they were not alone. “How the hell had that man moved so quickly? I was there, I saw it and … and he should not have been capable of reaching him, let alone taking him out before he fired that gun.” Lightning Count, they had called him in the days when he had been an Oz officer. It had been too much like a dream. Surreal. He could not explain it, even now, but a sense of wrongness had surrounded them all and strangely enough he could still feel a faint echo of that odd sensation. That twisting, gut churning sense of … something he could not quite wrap his mind around to provide just the right description. The fact he could still feel it even now had to be a by product of his exhaustion but that weariness had to be pushed aside as he still needed to function for the good of everyone. Merquise included. That man, even after proving himself so capable now was helpless. A patient. His responsibility. //He must be exceptionally strong. I know that in times of extreme stress the human body is capable of feats of strength and dexterity that under normal circumstances it would be impossible to duplicate. Yet … What he did was … I know he was rumoured to have incredible reflexes during the war but for him to have crossed that distance to reach the killer, even with the added length offered by the whip … Incredible reflexes. He has to be stronger than the average man to have tossed that man that distance and with such force into the wall. He crushed the skull and compressed three neck vertebra with that throw. That takes a great deal of force. An uncommon amount of strength was required to perform that feat, even under the stressful conditions that existed. The momentum of the throw alone could not have accounted for the damage done. // He set aside the coffee cup and began to work a stiff muscle in his neck while glaring at the door and knowing that he had more to do than sit here and reflect on the impossibilities of the night. He could not continue to put off the inevitable. Giles had informed him that Lucrezia Noin appeared to be in a coma presumably induced by what had to be the cruellest weapon he had ever heard of. Regardless of whether he believed Giles concerning the ESUN Agents from the shuttle he needed to prepare an intensive care unit and arrange for suitable nursing staff to monitor Noin under observation. He needed to take at least two orderlies to the shuttle bay to assist in transferring her from the emergency shuttle to the medical centre. He dared not leave her for any length of time under the care provided by a med computer. Those machines were all well and good for maintaining basic life functions but computers had no instinct and as far as he was concerned a single physician's instincts were worth more than a dozen of those machines. “Okay, Broadham, get your list in order. You have to restore the medical centre to working order. You will have to decide one way or the other if you are to believe everything that Giles claims or if you are to give the ESUN the benefit of the doubt. If I could talk to the commander of the agents who were on that shuttle … but Giles claims he is Blue Squad and sent to eliminate us all. Shit. I wish my headache would settle down. I'll have to check on Merquise shortly and make certain that Giles has not tried forcing him to wake. However he managed to take down that killer it took every reserve the man had. It is clear that he has had enough.” He had not quite reached the door before a short bitten off scream from the hallway beyond propelled him into motion. Throwing himself at the door he wrenched it open and threw himself through the doorway, frantically searching for the source of the scream. His feet discovered a will of their own as he had no conscious memory of willing himself to move but he found himself running down the hallway toward the nurse who had screamed and the small cluster of people waiting there, backing away from the glaring figures who stood by the door. The combat fatigues worn by both men stood out like sore thumbs against the tan walls of the medical centre. The men wearing the distinctively out of place clothing backed off from the nurse, making small soothing motions as orderlies and nurses poured out of adjacent rooms where they had been attending to the needs of tidying up after the massacre. “Blue Squad.” The sound of his own voice snapped him out of his daze as did the sight of Haydon Giles rushing out into the hallway from the treatment room. He saw the man blanch as he saw what was happening and then he spun and was gone, vanished back into the room. //This is not good. If he is right and Merquise is the key to all of this then they have him on a silver platter. He's helpless against them. What do I do?//
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