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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"
Mars Colony Base Dome 2nd March AC 198 Time: 02:06 [approx Sanc time 23:57] Zechs “You know, it seems I’ve been watching that clock forever and cursing the hands that just won’t move around its face. Now I’m sitting here not wanting them to move at all. Funny that. I suppose I should be grateful that they don’t seem to be galloping.” Zechs smiled absently, barely listening to Giles who had his attention fastened not on the clock but on the door. He knew his companion was dreading the moment it would open and they would front Simpson. Barker had gone to check on his men and they had each sat here in silence entertaining their own thoughts until finally Giles had spoken. Zechs too was watching the door though unlike Giles he was not counting the possible disasters that could come with Simpson’s grand entrance. He had questions but they were not the same questions Giles asked himself. He had seen so much, witnessed in visions the deaths of so many men and women over the last months but here and now he was faced with a total blank. How many men in the next few minutes would die to add to the day’s morbid tally? That was the question that haunted him. Visions had given him warning of what would come and despite his efforts those deaths surrounded him now not in vision and possibility but in bloody fact. They were dead and he had been unable to do anything to save them. Now when he needed as much information as he could to keep the man at his side alive he knew absolutely nothing. Whatever had happened out in the hall when he had taken out the Sleeper, some intangible and ill understood ‘thing’ had irrevocably changed circumstances. By taking down that man he had somehow wiped clean the visions of what should have been happening. What his visions had hinted at and once he had worked for as the lesser of evils was now gone, voided and this moment in time was as unknown to him as it was to Giles. He should know how this altercation would end, for better or for worse, he should know. If one or more of the men to be involved in this fight would die in the next few minutes or if the confrontation would eventuate at all … he should have that knowledge … and he did not. //I should know … I did know how things were … moving … shaping. I … Something has … changed. I interfered. What I saw … Will anything happen as I saw it now? Is the ship still coming to wipe them all out? I saved Giles out there and now … I remember the vision … I think … Parts of it at least. Giles going down …// He shuddered delicately. //I could not allow it to happen. He’s the first since Treize who has known the insanity that haunts me and has not looked at me as though I am a freak or a raving lunatic. Even Noin couldn’t look at me as though I was sane but … He’s the first who knows and has not wanted to use what I don’t understand for their own purposes. He’s … a … friend. My friend. I could not stand there and allow him to die.// There was still the possibility that Simpson might bypass the room entirely. //As if. Were I in his place I would not leave an unknown element at my back and from what both Giles and Barker have told me he knows there is something about this room that has people on edge. He can’t leave it unexplored. No Commander worth his salt would walk away.// “I should work on your bandages now.” It was more of a question than a statement and showed how distracted Giles was. Where would his thoughts be wandering now that the moment was almost upon them? Did Giles give thoughts to his family and friends? Did he think of his home? Did he wonder if Raydon would blame him for the events of the day? No one was to blame for this chaos except him. He should have died with the fortress Libra and none of this would have happened. None of them would be dead now and they could have live their lives on Mars free of the horrors of murder and mayhem. “Zechs? Are you alright?” //I need to face facts and get on with this before it is too late. Now would be best to do the bandaging, I suppose, while we can at least guarantee a minute or two. To delay now is to beg for trouble and we have enough of that already.// He sighed softly and with particular care not to jar his injured shoulder he rested his burned hand across his thigh, angling the palm up to face Giles. Wordless consent to begin. He stared at the bandaging for a moment and turned his eyes away from his arm to the door once again. He wished that he could have some degree of confidence in the plans they had made. He knew only too well the limited resources they had available and while such had not bothered him before the simple truth of the matter was that before he had been guided by vision and had made allowances for event by placing caches around the base. The fact that he had no foreknowledge of this particular incident changed everything. If he had ever dreamed of this exact set of circumstances he had no conscious memory of it to help set the course to be followed for best results. In this instance he was just as blind to the outcome as anyone else on the base. He did not like that ignorance. Not when people would die because of it. “Do it now.” He did not need to say that they should already have taken this step and he was at fault for not pushing the action. They both knew that. He had made these plans in the space of the last hour and to take this step seemed to be an admission that he had lost all control of the situation. With no memory of dreamed event to guide him to counter what he would consider undesirable outcomes leading from actual event, he should have taken the precaution immediately their position had been made clear to him. He should have ensured that the trap for Simpson was laid long before there was any possibility the man would burst through that door and find him lagging. He knew it was dangerous to deny the inevitability of the situation but he had been hopeful up until this point that some revelation in the form of a memory might eventuate and he would find another solution. One that did not put Giles or himself at such risk. Perhaps a vision … but no, such would have taken him entirely out of the chain of events to take place. The throbbing in his head suggested that there was something there but he felt a great distance separated him from realizing the vision. The hope that a memory or a vision might make a difference, like the delay itself, was foolish in the extreme. His eyes rested on the bandage Giles set on the bed near his thigh and turned his gaze from the neat roll to the small pile of assorted items resting at his right thigh. The gundanium throwing stars, the few sedative darts left to him and the hollow tube he used to fire the darts. They seemed a pathetic little pile. He did not want to take down Simpson using the stars. He could do it, he had no doubt of that. He could rip the man’s throat open with just one of the sharpened gundanium missiles but he did not want to do it. The man was only doing his job and he did not deserve to have his life bleed out of him because of the orders given by those far away bastards who never had blood staining their hands or flowing through their dreams. No excuses now. No bemoaning the fact that he had not covered all possibilities. He was not Epyon. He was not God. He did not know it all and he should not expect to have that omnipotence. If he continued to rely on visions during the dark periods where he was no different from anyone else, innocent of the knowledge of future event, then he could, in his own stubborn ignorance of the facts, cause someone to be hurt or killed. Neither Giles nor any of the other Terra formers deserved that fate because he was being a stubborn ass and looking for what was denied him. He only hoped he had not already delayed too long while praying for a memory to match the circumstances that surrounded them to guide him in the best course of action to be taken. How dare he bemoan the visions and the knowledge they granted him when he did not wish them to tear his world apart and ache for their guidance when he needed them the most and they deserted him. How dare he behave in such a manner? But there was some small comfort in the knowledge that such emotion did at least prove him to be human. It was so very human to crave both the knowledge of foreseeing and the innocence of ignorance. //Fool.// He watched in brooding silence as Giles began to unwrap the outer layer of bandaging the doctors had used to bind his burnt hand. He was thankful that he had been unconscious while they had been working on him and was blissfully ignorant of the extent of his burns. Giles had assured him his shoulder was not broken but had not offered much in the way of comment on his hand and forearm. “They slathered you in regen gel specific to burns and said it would heal quickly. You never said exactly what you did to get burned but the doc said it looked like you had been too close to an electrical discharge of some kind and maybe a flash fire. They put a regen glove over the gel so I’ll apply a couple of gauze pads over your palm and the back of your hand and re bandage it. That will give you a bit of padding to help protect the burns.” He glanced at the man who was all attention on rolling the bandage up as he unraveled its length and Giles met his gaze before shrugging. They both knew it would almost certainly come down to physical contact between himself and Simpson and in truth he was banking on that contact. Any sane person would be praying to take the man down from a distance and there was still the chance that he would be quick enough to use the blow gun to dart him. It was possible but not probable. He would get only the one chance to dart him and he doubted Simpson would simply stand there and present an easy target. He would have a greater chance of getting a shuriken into him. No. Much as it would simplify matters he would not deliberately go out to kill the man and using the throwing stars was a guarantee that he would be a dead man. You did not use those weapons to wound. As much as it risked serious injury for himself he preferred to deal with this in close quarters and leave Frazier to Giles. Simpson would come through the door with his weapon drawn and expect to have instant control of the situation but somehow he was going to have to sucker the Commander close enough to him that he could take him down with the least risk of damage to either of them. “Zechs …” “Don’t. We try it this way. With you wearing that coat in this setting he will presume you are a doctor and underestimate you. We need to rely on that if things go wrong.” “Stubborn.” Giles growled. Giles did not like the plan and he knew it only too well. The man had voiced a great deal in the way of protest but in the end the question of whether or not he had a better idea had silenced him. Where he might normally have taken on Simpson in a physical confrontation, pitting the strength of his arm and the speed of his reflexes against the Blue Squad Commander he had to face facts. The option no longer existed. He would not stand a chance in his current physical condition. Every avenue of their situation had needed to be considered if only in the hope that it might trigger some memory of event glimpsed in vision but such had not occurred. He remained blind to the outcome of the situation, blind to the potential aftermath and time had been against them from the beginning. Options had been considered, sifted through for faults, pulled apart in as much detail as the constraints of time permitted and when all was said and done he had chosen what he believed was the only chance they had to survive and take out Blue Squad without more deaths. Even if neither Giles nor he particularly liked that option and it was their limited resources that defined his final decision. “Are you sure about … this?” Giles looked pointedly at the pathetic little cluster of items he had chosen spread on the bed near to his good hand. “We’ve discussed it Giles. You couldn’t come up with a better solution.” “Barker wasn’t here then. We have back up now.” “And perhaps no time to take advantage of it. Do what you can to make the hand comfortable. It’s going to hurt like hell if we grapple and I know that we will. Just bind it tighter than it was to give me some support.” The man was scowling as he placed the palm pad, smoothing it out to avoid the additional discomfort creases would offer him. There were no words of comfort he could offer to sooth Giles’ sensibilities and there was no time for such anyway. He just wished the man would not consider the necessity of this as a personal failure. Giles had done everything he possibly could to keep him out of Simpson’s control. Events had just been too much for them. “Okay. Just thought I’d ask. Just be careful with those tranquilizer darts. If this shit should enter your bloodstream you could be in all sorts of trouble. The doc was adamant about the danger of the amount of chemicals in your system. An overdose in your condition could have serious repercussions.” The man was like a mother hen after her brood. It was rather a nice feeling to have someone watchful of his well being without wanting something from him or being bound in terror that he might breathe at the wrong time. Lucrezia had seemed to live in fear that if he smiled it would be misconstrued as a threat to his jailors. Giles was a refreshing change. “I know the risks.” “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what worries me the most. There are no visions guiding you and you won’t listen to reason.” He met the man’s eyes and grinned, trying to exude confidence though he felt like screaming and gibbering like an idiot. In this situation he was the same as Giles, both of them head blind to the course of the future but deep within him there was something that he listened to … a gut feeling that he was taking the right path out of the darkness and he had to go with that feeling. //Does the future always have to come from clear visions? I’m tired of trying to see my way through the maze. Very tired of the whole thing but … I have to put my trust, my faith in human instinct sometime. Is there no longer a place in the world for gut instinct?// He could not always wait for vision to guide him and just look at the mess following vision had produced. Epyon and Libra had led to this and he was thinking more and more that he had failed miserably. If this murder of innocents was a better option … Fleeting glimpse of shattered buildings, dark and silent and the stark bleached bones of those who had fallen … the wailing of a child alone and frightened and in pain … No. Not now. Not here. He could not afford to remember and his head ached enough as it was without remembering the horror of those visions. “I don’t need visions to know the deep shit we are in and that chances have to be taken if we are to get out of the mire.” He watched the careful wrapping of his hand and the care Giles took in the exact placing of the bandaging across his palm and the back of his hand. “A little firmer I think. I prefer to be safe than sorry.” “I don’t dare put too much pressure on the burns. I still don’t like the idea of you doing this. If Raydon was here he’d have my guts for garters for allowing you to step into the fight zone. Simpson is not going to be easy to deal with and you are in no fit condition to go a round with Frazier, let alone the Commander.” “Even Raydon would have to acknowledge that it was inevitable, Giles.” ———————————————————————— Barker “… know the risks.” He paused, resting a moment at the whisper in the vent. If he could hear Merquise then he had to be close to the ward access and he could take a couple of seconds to catch his breath. Perspiration poured from him soaking his uniform and doing nothing to cool his aching over heated body. The vent seemed like an oven and what little breeze there was he found to be far from refreshing but he could see the glow from the room just ahead. Somehow they would manage to take Simpson and Frazier down and confine them and then they could deal with those murderous bastards killing off the terra formers. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what worries me the most. There are no visions guiding you and you won’t listen to reason.” Without conscious thought his arms bent to lower him to the floor of the vent as his mind grappled with that curious statement. Visions? What were they talking about? Visions as in images floating in the air before the eyes belonging to a deluded mind? He was exhausted from the day’s exertions and from lack of sleep but the adrenaline was beginning to pump through him with every thud of his heart at their proximity to a showdown and perhaps that accounted for what he thought he had just heard. “I don’t need visions to know the deep shit we are in and that chances have to be taken if we are to get out of the mire.” Merquise had always confused him but he had found him to be largely very down to earth in his basic views. The man had always been withdrawn and quiet but there had never been any hint of anything … weird. He winced at the thought. // Weird. Not a very nice word when applied to a fellow human being but sometimes you had to struggle to find an appropriate word. // Somehow weird seemed to fit the conversation he was listening to. “A little firmer I think. I prefer to be safe than sorry.” //Huh? I’m missing something obviously. That’s what I get for coming in on a conversation half way through and jumping to conclusions.// He braced his hands against the floor of the vent and pushed himself back to his hands and knees position. “I don’t dare put too much pressure on the burns.” //Ah, Giles is checking his bandaging.// “I still don’t like the idea of you doing this. If Raydon was here he’d have my guts for garters allowing you to step into the fight zone. Simpson is not going to be easy to deal with and you are in no fit condition to go a round with Frazier, let alone the Commander.” //Raydon?// “Even Raydon would have to acknowledge that it was inevitable, Giles.” //Raydon?// He sank back to lie on his belly, head cocked as he searched for any memory of the name and came up blank. //I don’t understand. Who is Raydon and what is this talk of visions?// “Knowing Raydon as I do he undoubtedly would have managed to come up with something equally as hair raising but it would not have featured you taking the fall.” //That man does not sound happy. What the hell has Merquise planned?// “Giles.” Barker caught the low rumble of warning in that deep voice and remained frozen in place just short of the vent cover. A small voice was whispering incessantly in his ear that he should get his priorities right and get his backside moving. Time was moving on and it would not wait for him to finish eavesdropping on a conversation he had no right to listen in on in the first place. Maybe it was the Preventer training but he remained where he was, ears straining to catch the low voices certain somewhere deep within him that he was about to learn something interesting. //Visions? Raydon? Merquise has always kept his own council since coming to Mars. How he learned what was going to happen and make so many preparations I don’t kno …// The thought trailed to a halt. //No. No way.// “I know, I know. You didn’t make the decision lightly but the fact remains that if I survive this shit I am going to have to face Raydon over it. If you get hurt any more than you already are … and there’s that too. He’s not going to like it that you were injured at all. You’ve not been graced with the joyful experience of being the focus for Raydon when he’s in a snit. Let me tell you the man fairly chills my blood when he is ‘displeased’.” Barker caught a hint of amusement in the man’s voice but overshadowing the humor was very real concern for Merquise and no small amount of respect for this Raydon character. There was no fear in Haydon Giles voice when he spoke and that told Barker, who had served under a wide variety of officers in his career, that this Raydon was a fair man. “Treize was the same. He never needed to raise his voice when a look would do the job and if he had to do more than look at you to get the message across you knew you were in the deepest shit possible.” There was unmistakable amusement in Merquise’s low voice and hints of a familiarity with Treize Kushrenada that had Barker wondering about the rumors that had circulated in Alliance circles during the war. Just what had been the extent of the relationship between Kushrenada and Merquise? Surely not lovers. What could possibly have set estranged lovers at each other’s throats during the war to warrant the Libra incident? Anyway, there was Noin and the children nor was this the time for such speculation. //A hell of a lot more went on in the war than I’ll ever know.// “I wouldn’t know a lot about Kushrenada but I do know something about Raydon and I have to wonder what it is he’s up to. He’s never said anything to me when I’ve sent off a report or on the few occasions I’ve managed to talk to him directly but I honestly would have thought he might have witnessed something in one of his visions that would relate to this. Considering his past record it would be bloody strange to have totally missed some suggestion of this butchery. I’m pretty sure he never saw you on Mars in his visions from what was said after I reported your presence here but I know only too well that visions are not infallible and sometimes you just don’t get warning. Sometimes it’s the interpretation that is at fault not the vision. I have known Raydon to be taken by surprise before but it’s a rare thing especially when you consider the pool of Gifted individuals we have on Station One. A large amount of those Gifted are clairvoyants of varying strengths and specialties and I would have thought there would have been enough of them for an incident to have occurred warning of this scenario.” //Raydon? Visions? Clairvoyants? Station One? What the hell is going on? I feel that I’ve escaped sanity to take refuge in an asylum.// “Visions, as you have said, are not infallible nor are the people who suffer them. I know the Gifted on Station One have accepted their abilities and that I’m a long way from being one of them but Giles, it’s not as great to see future event as you think it is. I think visions are overrated.” //Merquise … has … visions? Oh no fucking way!// He dropped his head into his hands, scrubbing his face against his rough palms and trying vainly to wake up from this disturbing dream. “Handy though. You can’t deny that.’ //Visions. Handy? Overrated? What the hell …? Can I wake up now?// He rubbed at his eyes, wondering if this was all some weird dream and he would wake at any moment to find he had endured a particularly weird and vivid nightmare. No Blue Squad on Mars. No Sleepers killing off their population. No Merquise laying plans to save those outside the domes … No people locked out to face the freezing Martian night … Above all, no talk of visions. He could only hope that he would wake from the dream and find himself in his own bed and a new day dawning with comfortable dreary routine ahead of him. //Lord, I’d give anything to find out it was all a dream.// “I’ve had my fill of visions.” The low words whispered through the vent and Barker felt chilled. Merquise sounded tired. Incredibly weary and Barker knew it was not just physical exhaustion. There was something, some hint, a shift in his tone perhaps, in that quiet deep voice that suggested this man wanted an ending to more than the nightmare of what was happening around them. It was a subtle undertone but unmistakable once you had heard it and he had heard it often toward the end of the war and always from soldiers who had had their fill of the bloodshed and the horror that came with conflict. Those men then had been exhausted physically and emotionally and too many of them had been perched precariously on the edge of sanity. //Maybe Giles has cause to doubt Merquise has a sound plan. I don’t like the sound of this.// “You need the Training Masters, my friend. I’ve told you before that they can help and they will help you Zechs. They will be able to show you that you are not a raving lunatic. They will be able to introduce you to others who have something of the same skills. They will be able to introduce you to others who have suffered as you have from the ignorance and misunderstanding of those who have not awakened to how diverse the universe is. We just have to get you safely off Mars and into their care. Raydon must have responded by now to the alert we sent and he won’t be sitting on his duff doing nothing about the situation. I’m certain he would have been able to contact a ship or three allied to Station in our vicinity and have directed them to contact us by now. All we need to do is survive long enough for them to reach us.” //What is this, the fucking Twilight Zone? I have no idea what they are talking about. If I’m not dreaming then I think I need to find out more. Polnar claimed he and his partner were private security but never said who he was working for. I think there is a little more to it than that. I can’t recall any Preventer alerts issued for any references to a place called Station One or an individual named Raydon. It’s obvious Merquise knows the reference to both man and place. Station … Station … No one I know identifies a colony by calling them stations though I believe when they were first experimenting with space habitats they were called space stations. Station One. Is that a true colony identification or just a coded reference to one of the colony clusters? L1? Maybe. I think I need to get word of this to Preventer Earth and see what the brain trust makes of the information. I believe I have heard enough to warrant a search be initiated. // “Alright, is that too tight?” “No.” “Jesus, Zechs, don’t curl your fingers so far! Oh stop looking at me like that.” “You worry too much.” Merquise sighed and Barker heard the bed creak as he shifted his weight. “Well if I don’t, who will? Certainly not you when it comes to preserving your own hide. Just curl your fingers into a half fist for me … Okay, that should do for placement. Reasonably comfortable?” “As comfortable as it is likely to get. Stop fussing.” “You have to keep some movement in that hand and while it is tight I don’t think it will do any harm and it will not allow for shift. Let me get the cover off … Okay. Just be bloody careful not to stick yourself. How fast can you aim and fire that thing?” //What the hell are they up to? Covers? Aim and fire what? Damn, what the hell do I think I’m doing? Simpson could barge in there at any time. I’d better give them warning before it’s too late.// Levering himself back to his hands and knees he crawled forward, noting the grill was only a meter or so ahead of him. If not for the sweat clouding his vision he would have seen it before now and been reminded of his mission. “Okay, I’ll just secure the end of the bandage …” Barker froze at the sound of a door slamming against the wall and even as he lunged forward he heard doom fall upon them all. “Merquise!” Simpson’s low growl was unmistakable and satisfaction dripped in the identification of his ultimate prey on Mars. “On the floor! On the floor now!” Barker lunged forward to cover the last couple of feet and thrust his face hard to the grill, trying to make out detail on what was happening below. His body strained and trembled as he fought to restrain the instinctive demanded he punch out the grill and drop into the ward and do something to save the day. Instinct demanded he take action but training and a healthy dose of common sense won out and stayed his hand. While he sucked air into suddenly laboring lungs and while his fingers scrambled for purchase on the grillwork he did not lash out or shout in reaction to the fear in his gut and give away his position. He still felt like a coward. He was a Preventer and while there were innocents on Mars they had to come first on his priority list. If Merquise and Giles should go down now he might be the only one who was free and capable of taking action and making a difference between life and death for the terra formers still alive. He could not silence the insidious thought that demanded he place himself in reserve should Simpson, with Merquise safely secured, decide to emulate the Sleepers and start to take out the base personnel. The facts could not be denied. Simpson needed to clear the way for the Wellington and keep the news of the incident isolated to Mars and that necessitated the killing of potential witnesses. All potential witnesses. “God.” He hated himself for freezing and remaining in safety and for watching the events taking place and doing nothing to possibly help or hinder the operation. He could only press his face to the grill and watch that restricted view of the room he could see … and pray. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the shadow of a large dark shape that had to be Simpson as he hurtled across the room, his shadow a brief flicker over that square patch he could see but he had a better view of Frazier as he followed on the heels of his commander. The tech paused directly under the grill, gun in hand but all Barker could think about was that low voiceless snarl that echoed in the vent he thought might belong to Simpson. The foot of the bed rocked to a massive blow, threatening to overturn the bed and he heard a grunt of startled pain from someone in the room. There was a yell that he thought might be from Giles but he could make no sense of the words over the thundering of his heart and then there was a solid thud of bodies hitting the floor, the bed rocked back to settle to all four legs again and there was a clatter of metal on metal and a metallic ringing sound intermingled with swearing and cursing and a pained scream bitten off in a grunt. “Got you, you bastard!” Simpson’s satisfied voice chilled him to the bone.
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