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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 ShenLong for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options" Chapter 195 2nd March AC 198 Wellington ESUN 3051C Time: 06:25 [Approx Mars time = 14:08 // Rosemount / Sanc / Peacemission time = 11:58 // Bounty time: 16:13 // Aphrodite : 21:20] Captain Edward Sampson Once, not so long ago, sleeping had been no problem for him. Two tones, high pitched and low, merging together into a sound that was hard to ignore. How long had he lain awake thinking when he was desperate to do anything but think? Trying to blank his mind served only to remind him of what it was he was trying to forget. He would find himself coming around full circle to dwell on the mission he wished someone else had been assigned. High and low tone, blasting through his cabin yet again. Impossible to ignore. That would not stop him from trying. The tone had been designed for just that reason; to impinge on the awareness of the human brain and demand attention. It could drag a man out of the soundest sleep and listening to it for any length of time caused one's teeth to grate… which his were doing now. How long had he managed to ignore it? Annoying sound. Annoying bastards on the bridge, surely they could handle anything that came up without demanding he stir himself? The last thing he wanted to do was acknowledge the summons but, he knew only too well, he was not going to get any sleep regardless of the persistent calls. He had retired from the bridge practically on Doctors orders, so long had he been awake. If he had taken the offered sedative they might have dealt with the problem themselves and left him to pretend the world did not exist… for some small time. If he could just stop angsting over his orders… He was a military man. A career soldier. He had made a life for himself in the military as an Alliance Officer and he had survived the war. He had joined the ESUN Security Agency, Space Division, after the war and he had enjoyed his work. Admittedly there had been missions before that tested the bounds of his morality, pushed at his sanity and made him wonder why he was still in the military… but this… This was different. Damned bloody sirens. If he did not answer the call shortly they would pipe the tones through the entire ship on the off chance he had left his cabin and then there would be no hiding the fact the Captain was recalled to the bridge. He did not want to acknowledge the call but that would be a mistake, of course, There could be some unforeseen danger to the ship and her crew, and he had responsibilities he could not ignore. Perhaps the com had picked up a distress call in the vicinity? It could be one of a hundred reasons they recalled him to the bridge. He was surprised they had not already put over a general alert, ship wide, summoning him. The coded alarm blasting through his speakers for… was it the fifth time? Must have been, he mused, and it had all of the delicacy of a sledge hammer kissing the finest crystal. Finding a secure place to hide from the unsavoury business he was expected to oversee was no easy thing…and sleep, it appeared, was definitely not an option. If he was lucky the Doc would be on the bridge or encountered enroute to the bridge, take one look at him and sedate him for a week; and then it would be too late to murder a bunch of scientists whose only fault was to be on Mars. He slapped his hand out to the side, seeking the cut off switch for the com, an attempt to silence the hideous sound blasting from his speakers yet again. His hand missed, encountering only empty air… there was something odd about that, but he felt too exhausted to chase the thought to a satisfactory conclusion. It was that sadistic bastard he called his second with his finger on the alert button. Usually a competent officer, and just as disturbed by their orders as he, but the man had not displayed any obvious lack of sleep to date; but then he was not the one who commanded the mission and on whose order civilians would be massacred. Once upon a time he had enjoyed his work. Once upon a time he had been proud of his career. A man could not rest his weary body when his mind wandered in restless circles, a ceaseless, voiceless, protest to the abuse of common decency he was expected to oversee. They had to be hours yet from the major deceleration point, where they would initiate the speed dump in a breaking manoeuvre and effect the final course change enabling them, over the course of a few hours, to slip into Mars orbit. Why then would the bridge be calling him now? This was the final stage of flight where a ships Captain would have any chance to rest until the conclusion of the mission and they were taking the express route to Mars, leaving their deceleration to practically the last minute. Any mistakes on his part could see them either overshoot the planet or plough into its surface. His scheduled appearance on the bridge would begin hours of work until the final breaking sequence tilted them that minute amount required to slot them neatly into a high geosynchronous orbit over the domes on Mars. Then there would be no time to think of what he was expected to do, no time to regret it… just kill and see the objective of the mission was secured. Had they received updated orders from Earth instructing them to scrap the mission? Sudden hope was squashed in a surge of despair. Not likely. No, they could not be so lucky. And with the Dakkar system down… Well, it was not actually offline, was it? At least not to the Wellington and to those agents currently on Mars, who would soon be assisting in the slaughter of the terra formers. Nor was it inaccessible to his superiors who commanded him to commit an atrocity at the behest of politicians. How many hours had it been since the Sleepers had begun their mass slaughter? Given the Dakkar system was offline to commercial traffic they had obviously begun the take over of the Martian domes and would be busily engaged in selectively killing off the hierarchy of the bases there. According to the mission outline he had reviewed, they should have isolated and contained Milliardo Peacecraft first. Once secured, if it had proven necessary, they would have begun to take out the com personnel and the base Commander and his second. If it had proven necessary. So many things could have gone wrong and if they had bungled the taking of the man and the children into custody… If? Shit no. Unfortunately that `if' was pretty much a certainty that the shit had hit the fan. The distress call had been the signal that something had gone wrong, it had activated hours earlier than he had expected to receive it. Sounding so soon, with the Wellington so far out from Mars, there was no doubt in his mind that they would be required to eliminate the base personnel. Was he still, against all common sense, hoping that it was still `if' something had gone wrong? More fool him. Such a fool to still cling to the illusion he might be spared the necessity of butchering so many people. What might it have been that went so wrong? Well, that one was a relatively easy question to answer. The `something' had to be Milliardo bloody Peacecraft. The Specials Golden Boy and, given her war record, his woman was probably up to her eyeballs in it too. Not that he could blame them. If he was in their predicament he doubted he would have gone quietly. Regardless of exactly what had transpired on Mars it was, with the arrival of his ship, now his problem to resolve. According to his mission brief he was to affect the wholesale slaughter of the men and women working to make a new place for mankind to live, effectively eliminating all witnesses to an atrocity ordered by the very people who they had elected and charged with taking the responsibility for their safety. God, what the hell had he signed up for? Not this! He had not signed up with the ESUN Security Force to spend his days slaughtering hapless civilians, whose only fault was to be on Mars at this time. The wrong time. The ESUN was supposed to represent a new beginning for everyone. It was supposedly the birth of a new age. A society that could grow without the heavy hand of military intervention. Had anything changed? More bloody fool him for thinking the promises made three years ago would mean anything. Three years later and he was the heavy hand of the fat arsed politicians who wanted the world to develop their way. For the good of all? Jesus, he had to stop thinking! The high pitched tone made his teeth grate and with a groan he swung again at the com controls beside his bed… only to hit bare metal wall and ram himself across the small cabin space and into the far wall. Well damn, he must have fallen asleep at his work station and not actually made it to his hammock. He had actually slept? He must have to be floating above the desk. That was the problem with zero g, there simply was no up, down or sideways as far as the human body was concerned. With a grunt he reached down, caught the edge of the desk and hauled himself back to his seat, taking particular care to hook his feet into the cleats beneath the desk to anchor himself; scrubbing at his face before reaching to activate the com. "This had better be good." "Captain, you are required on the bridge," No relief was revealed in that voice at his call in, but he could hear definite undertones of anxiety. "We have received a number of alert transmissions from a Sweeper ship regarding a debris field obstructing our projected flight path, and I think we are now receiving an echo of the extent of the field from our long range remotes." A debris field? Out here? "I'll be there in a few minutes, Number One. Captain out." "Bridge out." At least that put an end to the Banshee wail of the alert in his cabin. A debris field? Now what might that entail? Possibly the worst case scenario might be for a potential meteor swarm to hazard their course. It was possible mining operators in the Asteroid belt had, at some time, disturbed a cluster of asteroids, sending them hurtling free of the Belt to cause a hazard for space traffic as they entered the inner planetary space lanes. Admittedly the Wellington was a little off the normal space lanes, but the Sweeper alert would have been issued to warn traffic in the commonly used transport lanes. A coil of rebellion stirred, quickly squashed, but he could not forget the errant thought. If they chanced to have a decently sized obstruction between the Wellington and the still distant but nearing planet, then it might be possible for him to legitimately delay their arrival in Mars orbit. There was potential for him to delay and pray someone in the chain of command above him would develop a conscience and rescind his orders… or at least change the mission briefing to something a little more acceptable to his conscience. If he could delay their arrival… But who knew what chaos ran rampant on Mars? No, better not to think of what might await them there. He would be reprimanded, of course, if he managed to delay their ETA, but he was the Captain of the Wellington and he was personally responsible for the lives of over a thousand men and women on the ship. He was not here to endanger those lives from so much garbage floating around at exorbitant speeds in their immediate vicinity; no matter what the nature of the obstruction field was standing between the Wellington and Mars, especially not for the bloody task that awaited them on the planet. He was, undoubtedly, damned whatever he did. He had not considered himself to be a bad soldier, but scrabbling for excuses not to obey his orders would make him a bad soldier; and as God was his witness, he was reluctant to obey these orders. Wholesale slaughter of innocents was not something that sat well with him and, despite what his orders stated, you could not tell him that a bunch of scientists and engineers were a threat to the security of the ESUN. Marquise, on the other hand, yes, him you had to consider a threat. But to hold one man securely did he need to kill hundreds? Give him a good clean fight any day. Give him a situation where there was an equal chance of him dying at the hands of his opponent as there was of him killing and yes, he was up for the fight. It was fair. A fight between trained soldiers was one thing, but to stand over a group of civilians and cold bloodedly hunt them down, slaughtering them as they ran… He should have retired after the war. He should have resigned his commission and not signed up with the ESUN Security Agency. He was fifty three years old and he felt ninety three with the weight of this mission bowing him down. He would retire, turn his back on the mission and tell the world what their vaunted peace leaders were intending… if he did not know full well they would have assassins waiting in the wings to silence him. Was there any way out? He and his men were not the notorious Blue Squad, and how long would his crew remain silent? How long before someone's guilty conscience got the better of them and they talked? How long would it be before they started dying to ensure they remained silent? For this mission to have been ordered did not give him hope that those who ordered it had consciences that would permit them to leave his crew out of the cover up. There would be a contingency plan attached to the mission… a sub folder somewhere attached to the mission outline on someone's desk… that adjunct to the initial mission briefing would require every man and woman on the Wellington be killed, or terrorized into silence. It would be a lot easier for them to ensure the Wellington had an accident following the safe delivery of their passengers. Paranoid? Hell yes. With reason? Given the introduction of certain names into the House of Representatives over the past few months with the new round of elections…and their past political standings… Yes. No, much as he hated to think it, he doubted that immediate retirement and promises of silence would save any of them. They would have to silence him and the crew; somehow guarantee that no one would talk about the truth behind the Raiders attack on Mars. Amongst a crew numbering in excess of one thousand persons, there had to be at least one with a conscience who could not live with the memory of what they were expected to do. So what was he to do, not only for his crew but himself too? Good question and one that lacked an immediate and glowingly brilliant answer. There was also the surprise appearance of a Station Alliance to be considered. To do the best he could by his crew he could not afford to ignore the appearance of anyone who might be operating in the immediate vicinity of Mars. If they had even one ship in the area something, some at the time seemingly insignificant 'thing', might be noticed that could rebound back onto the ESUN. If the Station Alliance should prove to be a real power, and was not simply some jumped up wreck of a ship floating somewhere in space whose crew suffered from delusions of grandeur, then he could not just order the destruction of a vessel from a foreign power. He was no politician, but he had no difficulty in imagining the fun and games taking place behind closed doors on Earth with the appearance of a potential threat emerging in space. Every man and his dog would want to know where this Station Alliance had come from, and why there had been no rumours circulating as to their existence. Station Alliance indeed! Some cobbled together cluster of old mining sites? A ship or two of dissenters trying to break away from the ESUN? Not that he could blame them, given his orders at the moment. Hell, maybe it was a dissident group, or maybe it was the Sweepers finally making a move to distance themselves from the secular authority of the Earth and Colony's. And there was yet another problem to compound his already long list. The Wellington was supposed to be under a radio blackout; her course was unknown to anyone but his immediate command structure… and the bridge crew had received word from a Sweeper ship about a debris field? //Someone please tell me it was a general alert the comms picked up, and not an actual ship to ship communication that would mean I have to kill the ship to keep the mission a god awful secret!// He groaned as he ran his hands through his unruly hair. Everything was going pair shaped fast. He had a very specific set of orders for what he had to do if another ship neared Mars orbit while the operation was underway. While they were supposed to be under radio blackout, unless there chanced to be actual mechanical difficulty, no ship in space could afford to be without communications open and scanning all frequencies. Space was vast and far from safe. Raiders and debris of all sorts were dangerous enough threats to contend with. Any ship encountering such difficulties was by law required to send out alerts in the area of actual effect, as well as to the civil authorities. Earth and the Colonies were a long way from Mars orbit and space jockey's, no matter who they worked for, looked out for each other. The ships near you could be your only hope of survival should something go wrong. The alert on the debris field should simply be a Sweeper ship alerting all traffic in the general area of a hazard, but that placed a Sweeper ship in the Wellington's immediate vicinity. He would need to check on the identity of the ship and determine her exact location… and just how easy it would be to silence her. Not liking himself much he hefted himself out of his seat, unclipping his boots with a practised twist and entered his bathroom. For a long moment he stared at his reflection in the mirror and wondered who the old man was who looked back at him. Had his hair really turned that grey? His eyes appeared sunken into darkly shadowed sockets under frowning, too bushy eyebrows. By the time the mission ended would he retain any of his original colour? This mission was aging him and he had not been so preoccupied that he had not noticed the Doc watching him with concern. With a grunt he applied sanitary wipes to his face and upper body until he thought he could consider himself to be human and not sweaty, smelly old dog. He could not afford to delay long, he had already dallied longer than he should have, but it was an effort to move and comb his unruly hair into some semblance of order. He looked at least a decade or more older than he was, but there was no time to dwell on that. He had too much to do to save what he could, who he could, from this situation. He had not been eating well, the thought of food sickened him with the weight of so many deaths sitting on his conscience… and he hadn't ordered the slaughter to begin yet. He needed to keep himself together until it was finished, convince the Doc he was capable of command or he would be replaced; would his second have the guts to think of going against orders? Think? How about get past the thinking and actually do something about it? //You bloody old coward. You know the right thing to do.// He had always followed orders… even the ones he had silently questioned. He had been a good soldier and obeyed his mission briefings. Was that having the guts to obey… or was it being a coward and not facing up to doing the right thing? //Enough, you son of a bitch! Enough.// Being as presentable as he could make himself he straightened his ships overall, brushed a hand over the Captain's insignia and strode out of his cabin. The door slid into the wall cavity behind him, locking and he inclined his head to the crewmen walking past, grasping a handle of the slip line and allowed the mechanics to pull him along the hallway toward the central well of the ship. He would have liked to retire and try to live with himself. Try to make something of the life left to him if he happened to survive what was to come. //Fool. They won't let you live; they can't afford to. And that means everyone on this ship has to be silenced.// The first thing he would need to do was to ensure the ship was checked over with a fine toothed comb after they docked and were serviced next. Particularly the engines. If someone wanted to take the ship out quickly, so quickly that no one could send out an emergency signal, then the engines were the logical point of attack. It would only require a small incendiary device placed in exactly the right place to produce a spectacular, and brief, explosion to mark the passing of over a thousand men and women. In the vastness of space anything could go wrong. Such a grand excuse for so many lives to be snuffed out so quickly… and so quietly. The explosion would, in one action, guarantee the silencing of a terrible secret that could spell the ruin of a government. It would be the easiest method, though far from the only means by which to buy silence. It would only be another version, an extension, of what they were intending for him to do to silence the terra formers. Just another slaughter. Would tragedies like this have to keep on happening? Would the slaughter ever end? How many other people, over time, had died to effectively silence those who held secrets that could topple the powerful? The Wellington looked nothing like a Raider. She was a shark cruising the ocean of space. Unmistakably a hunter. She was no ramshackle piece of junk that could be mistaken for any other ship coursing the space lanes, and anyone who saw her disgorge attack ships whilst in Mars orbit, and stood witness to the destruction that would ensue, would have to die. Including the people who actually did the dirty deed. The remote controlled drones that gave the ships plying the space lanes such good range on sensors, might witness the operation while the mother ship was still beyond the range of the Wellington's own sensors. Their own drones would need to have their sensor arrays set to maximum to detect any anomaly which might indicate a witness existed to their operation. Perhaps, if he thought in purely military terms, he might get through this mission? It was, after all, a sanctioned mission. His instructions were very specific and the chain of command placed the task at his feet with much back slapping and praising of his military career and promises for advancement. He was not likely to get a new set of orders cancelling the mission. He could not be so lucky. The crew of his ship would be safe until they had succeeded in delivering the children and Milliardo Peacecraft to their designated destination. Until that duty was accomplished he need not fear for the safety of the ship. The danger would come when the Wellington was serviced preparatory to going out into space again. That was when it would be easiest to slip something nasty, and dynamically volatile, onboard. He would need to have the ship searched and have any new transfer crew watched… and a few of his current crew who aroused his suspicions too. Just how many of his present crew were plants? Did he dare give his trust to anyone? He would have to brace up and make up his mind if he was going to sit back and allow another slaughter… God! Had he decided he was going to kill everyone on Mars and then rescue his own crew? Could he kill those people and expect to be blameless of their deaths? Pass the buck off on to… who? If they killed those people… did they not deserve to die themselves? What other options did he have? Turn around and vanish with the latest ship in the ESUN fleet? Become a Raider himself? Jesus! Where did that thought come from? What would it involve to steal the Wellington, over a thousand crew members and do… what? Raiding outlying colonies and mining sites was what had killed his sister. The bastards had come out of nowhere and slaughter had ensued, just so the Raiders could secure provisions for their ships. Appear, kill and pillage… and vanish into the great, dark expanse of space to repeat the slaughter when the need took them. No. No, he could not become a Raider himself. He had a personal reason to be hunting the bastards down, and he was not about to become one himself! He was distracted from his thoughts by the necessity of executing a complex series of gymnastic movements required to negotiate the fluctuating gravity of the central well running through the length of the ship. Any spacer knew if you were careless and lost concentration here, you might find yourself smashing into walls and the superstructure of the ship as you negotiated its length. Off the top of his head he could name a half dozen men who had been killed because they had lost concentration in the Well. He was far from the only user at this time of the day, and one needed to watch all directions at once. You might not be the one who became an out of control obstacle, but you well might be a victim of their trajectory. It was all too easy to lose one's bearings and panic in the fluctuating gravity fields of a military spacer. He did not particularly fancy being taken out in passing by a low flying midshipman. His exit loomed ahead and he reached for a strut, hefted himself at right angles to it and pushed. His feet oriented to the new floor as the gravity caught him and the door at the end of the short hallway opened as he neared it; the sensors detecting the Captain's keypass embedded in his rank insignia. The chatter of the computers seemed loud in the abnormal silence he found as he stepped onto the bridge. His crew, he noted, were all intent on the main display screen, staring up at the multitude of flickering light specs. Traces of contact which, in turn, held him immobile. //What the… ?// "Captain on the bridge!" Those crew members who were not engaged in work vital to the smooth running of the ship snapped to attention, springing to their feet in a display he ordinarily would have appreciated. Not today. Today it seemed… superfluous. Like children playing adult games. They were children playing a very adult game and he was afraid, like children, they were going to become distracted and the repercussions would be… deadly. He absently waved a sloppy salute, never taking his eyes from the screen; his presence sending everyone back to their duties in a sudden flurry of activity. Catching a hand on a consol he pushed himself toward the bridge position currently occupied by his Number One, taking advantage of the low level of gravity on the bridge to avoid taking the steps down to the lower level. His feet settled on the floor and he took the final two steps to front the forward sensor display. The contacts kept flickering on the screen, more and more of them as they registered on the distant drone's sensors, and then were lost with their drift. It seemed to him that more remained visible than vanished. "What the hell is it?" "Sir. An automated message was received a few hours ago from a Sweeper ship which gave us our first hint this… obstruction… was in the area. The alert message includes the warning they have not charted the extent of the field and that this is no small, isolated pocket of debris. They advise they will update the warning with further details as they determine the size, component types and overall structure of the obstruction. " No small field; well that was obvious. He could see how big an area it covered; and why had a debris field of this size not been detected before? "You have an estimate for how badly this will interpose itself on our projected course for entering into Mars Orbit?" He glanced at his second expectantly. "The estimated course direction and speed indicates the field is drifting towards Mars, and that at least the outer edge will be drawn in by the Martian gravity field. We think the bulk of the field should miss the planet. Initial readings from our outer long range drones suggest the field is… quite extensive… and will necessitate us rethinking our course and proposed orbital flight path." //Damn! Where the hell did all of this come from?// The readings he was observing suggested the field consisted mainly of small metallic and plastic objects. The sensors' readings further suggested some objects were as small as half an inch in size, whilst other objects were as large as a man. "Suggested explanations, or even an educated guess, as to exactly what it is and how it got out here?" Commander Edwin Darish, his First Officer, looked far from comfortable and he could not blame him. They were on a top priority mission, under radio silence and ahead of them stretched death by a billion paper cuts. "We have no information on a source of origin, or its drift at the present time, Captain, beyond the fact it is squarely between us and Mars." Hardly surprising, but with the expanse of the field ahead of them they could not stay in the dark for long. They would need all the information they could get, and quickly, for him to make his decision. "What is the name of the ship that registered the debris field?" "Com?" The First Officer glanced over his shoulder to the communications station. "The alert was logged by a ship identifying itself as the Peacemission, Captain. Peacemission, H65193P, a Sweeper vessel registered out of Sanc, Sir. I've checked the data banks and she is so new the paint has yet to dry. She is listed as being on her shake down cruise." Peacemission? That sounded… familiar… Where had he heard something like that before? And Sanc registered? Few space ships could claim registration from that tiny country which boasted being the home of the Vice Foreign Minister who had once been Queen of the World… Wait a minute. Peacemission? No… Peacemillion! Peacemillion was the name of the ship that had been involved in the destruction of the Space Fortress Libra during the war three years ago. She had had Sweeper registration, and had not been registered on Earth as this Peacemission appeared to be. A sister ship? Peacemillion had been destroyed along with the Libra when the fortress had been detonated. What would the chances be for it to be a mere coincidence that the names of the two ships were so similar? "I want the Peacemission found and I want to talk to her Captain." "Sir?" Yes, well he could understand the Commander looking so shocked. They were meant to be exercising radio silence, but the fat arsed politicians on Earth had no concept of the dangers that haunted space, and his own superiors would understand why he would break radio silence given the substantial obstruction laid out on the computer screen. "Ship safety first, Commander. Set the long range remote drones to scan the field and see if they can identify any debris or find a pathway through it. I want the Peacemission found; she has to be charting the size and depth of this debris field, so she would not be too far away. Have the probes dispersed to trace the edge between us and Mars; I want an idea of how deep the field is. I want to know if it will be possible for us to set shields and plough through the middle of it. Alternately, navigation, I want you to chart alternate courses given estimated size and density fields to bring us into an orbit around Mars; update details as new information becomes available." "We could… use the guns to clear a path." "I will take all suggestions on board for consideration, Commander. This is something no one expected to find." Was it a Godsend? Was this their out? Dare he think they might use this to stand down from the mission? Did he want it to be possible for them to continue on their present course? He certainly was not looking forward to arriving at Mars and what they had to do when they arrived there. If this was an unpassable barrier between himself and the planet, what would he do? He would need to viably dismiss every possible course of action to reach the planet and thereby cover his own arse. Not that it would do much good, not if there was a bullet with his name on it waiting in the wings to take him down. Someone would want to cover up even a failed mission, and at least in that scenario the bulk of the crew would be safe. Thus far only a half dozen officers on the ship knew why they were heading for Mars. The infiltration unit on Mars had to have already made their move, and muffed it otherwise the Dakkar system would not have broadcast that message of a Raider attack. That message, coming so early, was the signal that things had not gone quietly and there was opposition which they could deal with in only one possible way. "Has our liaison on Mars contacted us in the last four hours?" Captain and Commander looked to the Com Officer who was busy at her boards. "No contact has been received in the last four hours, Captain." Shit. Not that he expected there to be any contact. Still… "Has there been any contact of any sort from the Martian surface?" "Negative, Sir." That left him nicely in the dark. What was he supposed to do if something had gone wrong? How was he to know what would face him on Mars if no one contacted them from the planet? Something must have happened if no further contact coded or otherwise, had come out of Mars. Could he have a hope in hell of bluffing his way out of the situation? Might it be possible to give the impression he was here in response to the Raiders and was present to actually help the terra formers? What if, somehow, Marquise had managed to take down the operatives dispatched to Mars? It might be possible; the man had a certain reputation and you did not get that sort of reputation without there being a history to back it up. The Specials were not simply Mobile Suit pilots, despite what the general population had assumed. On Mars had things gone to hell? If, somehow, Marquise had learned something of the plans made for him and his family…? Christ almighty! Not a good thought. t.b.c Karina Robertson 2009 ------------ --------- -------- Notes: ESUN 3051C Wellington. Doctor Sampson = Chief Medical Officer / ESUN 3051C Wellington. Raider One = ESUN 3051C Wellington. Osprey Leader = ESUN 3051C Wellington. Jackal = ESUN 3051C Wellington. Captain Sampson = ESUN 3051C Wellington. Commander Edwin Darish = ESUN 3051C Wellington First Officer.
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