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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: Definately 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 203 Mars Colony Base Dome 2nd March AC 198 Time: 5:40 [Approximate Sanc Time 03:31] Barker Despite the fact that he was alive (definitely a good thing) and capable of thinking, feeling, hurting and, in general, bitching, he could not say that it was proving to be a good day. What had started out yesterday to be an ordinary everyday working day had gone to hell in a hand basket and now, despite a new day having dawned, the crisis was far from over. But he was alive and he was healthy, more so than too many others on Mars at this time, if somewhat tired. Tired? Shit no, he was exhausted, but there was no time to rest, no time to think of personal needs, no time to permit himself to relax even for a few sparse minutes. He was not the only one who was alive and he had a responsibility to see that those people who had survived the betrayal and wholesale slaughter remained alive. And then there were aggravating men he respected who seemed to take the bull by the horns and presume he was a simple minded idiot who would believe whatever drivel they told him. Now that was aggravating with a capital A. How much of a fool did they take him for? No, no it was more than aggravating, it was infuriating. The bastards could have returned his respect, but no. Respect was not what he had gotten when he had gone seeking answers. Was it really too much to expect for them to come out with something plausible, something that explained the shit piling up around them and threatening to bury them in an avalanche of putrification? Corruption in high places he could understand, but those people who worked on the front lines were generally straight with each other. They protected each others backs against attack, sticking together to survive. A bit of respect from men in the same circumstance would have been nice, but noooo. No, they had to sit there and tell him… Well, in a warped manner, if he squinted a bit, it might sound vaguely reasonable, he grudgingly admitted, but regardless of how reasonable they had succeeded in making their explanation sound it was still reasonable sounding bunkum! Crap. Shit. Manure smelt honestly earthy compared to the stuff they had tried to feed him… and they had to know he would not swallow it so why waste time and breath? They were not fools, Marquise in particular. He knew far more about Zechs Marquise than he did about Haydon Giles, but that was beside the point. Both had struck him as being particularly intelligent men and generally, intelligent men did not expect such a load of science fiction to be believable. Intelligent men knew that to make the outlandish believable you had to offer up a generous serving of truth mixed with copious amounts of fabrication. //It's the only way to make idiocy sound plausible. You mix in a certain amount of truth to make such outlandish drivel sound not only plausible, but reasonable, and reasonable is the key to being believed.// It was going to be something of a hassle, certainly an unneeded distraction at this critical time, to work his way through the information they had given him to get at the truth it contained. Haydon Giles was largely an unknown factor, but given the reputation of the Lightening Count he could be certain there would be a lot of convoluted twists, turns and squeezing of the facts through fine graded filters involved. Barker scrubbed his hands across his face, wishing he could bellow his frustration to the world at large, but that was something he had to account as a luxury and, therefore, a needless waste of precious time. There might be no time for that but the question remained; how the fuck was he supposed to trust someone with the reputation that man possessed? Marquise certainly knew it was a valid question, he knew it, and Haydon Giles had to know it too. No matter if every word Marquise spoke at any given time, in any given situation, was the Gospel truth, he would be distrusted. It was not going to be easy to dig amidst the dross to find a single seed of truth and there might well be a veritable garden of truths buried in amidst the weeds he had heard earlier. But still, in a situation as serious as this, when so many lives had been lost and so many still hung in the balance, he had to ask if Marquise would play such word games? It was not as though the man was a politician where every word was carefully twisted to appeal to a listener, not that what Marquise had told him could be termed as appealing to anyone other than a hardened sci fi buff, of which he categorically was not. He was into crime and criminal investigation, not robots, intergalactic travel or ray guns. He kept coming back to the same thing. The man was not a fool and had to know how outlandish his information had sounded and yet he had said it. Even stressed it. Psychics was it? //Damnably shitty fall back from a crappy fifth rate sci fi novel.// So he was to shrug and nod and believe they were super heroes now? //Ah, shit. Why can't things ever go easily where that bastard is concerned?// He was left with no other option other than to try to extract fact from fiction. It was, undeniably, the truth that there were agents from just about every big business consortium and political faction that powered the economy of the ESUN now resident on Mars. With the construction and nearing completion of the Beta Dome, interest in the exploration and development of Mars had risen. It would take hundreds of years to terra form the planet, but the construction of domed habitats made the colonisation of another planet a real time viable interest. The self contained habitats made accessing the planet's raw resources reachable, more affordable than mining in the asteroid belt and therefore attractive to share holders. Money that had been hard to come by for the project had finally begun to flow a little easier. While the surface of the planet was hostile to the human condition, and would remain so for generations, it was less of an obstacle to overcome than the difficulties to be found in mining the asteroid belt. The mining consortiums would no longer need to construct the mega expensive habitats that were all too often breached by debris in the asteroid belt. The exorbitant funding requirements for a space mining enterprise were estimated to be halved if Mars was the mining site. The Beta Dome would become the home base for most of the big mining consortiums and smaller mining communities would develop and grow over time, thus aiding in spreading out the population and opening up the planet. Mars would flourish. The first of the refineries was already planned, the design specifications approved and its location chosen close to the first of the mining sites identified as being rich enough to warrant the initial expenditure involved. The foundations for the portable mining habitat and the refinery were being marked out by the survey and research team who had been fortunate enough to be absent from the domes during this macabre killing spree. Those few men and women were fortunate to have been assigned the tour and thereby have missed the blood bath and were not due to return for another few days. It would all be over by their return date, but he could wish they would return early and he could access their communications equipment. //I can't even recall them with our communications down. The bastards knew exactly where and how to isolate us; to make us vulnerable.// Or were there, perchance, Sleeper agents mixed in with the survey crew? Was there another massacre happening on Mars, unwitnessed as this was meant to be? That crew, from memory, had a couple of ex soldiers in their number, but most were technicians and grunt labourers. Would they, the survivors of the attacks on the domes population, have stood a chance if not for Marquise being somehow prepared for this event? //Damn. That just makes what he said sound more plausible.// Perhaps the exploration team out on the planet's surface might have become concerned with the long radio silence of the domes? If so, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that they might make the decision to return early. //I don't know whether to hope for it or not.// The vastness that was space was the greatest challenge to be overcome when the unexpected happened. It was not just on Mars that the danger lay, but out in the space lanes too that mechanical malfunction, or human error, could land you in shit deep enough to reach your armpits. Space was so big, so empty and their ships were so slow and so few. Be you a new colonist or a long term spacer, if there was trouble of any sort you were most likely to have to deal with it on your own. Adapt or die. The tech's fingers flew across the keyboard so fast that he could not follow the symbols and script flashing across the screen in response. In their favour Mars claimed some of the best computer techs in the ESUN and he had to put his trust in the people he had. Not so easy to do when the man sitting before him with his head bent in concentration over the console could be one of the bastards aiming to slaughter the lot of them. It was all a matter of trust. They would flounder and fail without it, but he sure as hell was not going to allow anyone to stand behind him. Any number of the survivors could still have their own agenda, and yet to stand a chance of surviving they had to trust each other. It was imperative that they relied on each other. He was going to have to go back in that room down the hall and have another attempt to garner some truth out of those men. The medics were taking their time looking them over, but the delay gave him some small amount of time to consider what his next move should be. He did not want to consider Marquise and his henchmen might be slaughtering the medics, or vice versa, but it was, he supposed, a very real possibility given the uncertainty of their situation. And in the aftermath the survivors could claim to have been set upon by the other parties… //Christ, I'm a paranoid bastard.// But not without reason, he mused, after the hell they had thus far endured. It was a life changing experience, going through a massacre and coming out the other side alive; alive but certainly not unaffected. He could not help but wonder if he would ever really trust another person again. Certainly it would not come easily, not even for those who worked with him for years given the Sleepers and how long some of them had lived and worked on Mars; always provided he lived to see this mission done, of course. Yes, trust or the lack of it, would be an issue that would haunt him for the remainder of his days, however long that might prove to be. What did surprise him was that Marquise gave every appearance of trusting Haydon Giles who, he was sure, the man had never met before this hellish night. Why? Marquise, given his unique situation, would not trust lightly so why would Marquise trust a man he did not know? Too many questions sounding all too similar, with too many aspects affecting his needed course of action. He was tired, he wanted, needed, to sleep but there was no time and the sheer volume of questions buzzing around in his head would not have allowed him to rest anyway. There was just too much to think on to allow him to give himself over to relaxing to a level where sleep would do him any good. Fact, and it was a fact too, despite whispers to the contrary; Marquise was not a fool. Zechs Marquise was well aware of how everyone watched him, wondered about him, thought of him… well, how most people thought of him at least. Haydon Giles seemed to be awfully comfortable with the man dubbed the Terror of Earth. They seemed rather chummy actually and that in itself was worrying. In his capacity as the Preventer representative on Mars he had reviewed the records of every person who had come to Mars, be they a member of the common workforce, administration, planning and tactical, scientist or what ever. He had viewed their records, even the files of those who crewed the supply ships that brought supplies and personnel. He had given those records more than a cursory glance, mindful of Marquise and what he might be planning to escape the confinement on the planet, or of others planning to eliminate the man. There was nothing in Haydon Giles' record that suggested there was any links to Marquise in the past. Of course in hindsight there was so much in so many of the Mars personnel records that had been covered up it was not funny. He had not pegged this Giles, or Chris Polnar, as being suspect when he had reviewed their records on their arrival, and he had made private notes on everyone he suspected as working for consortiums and other agencies. The two men had worked their jobs, put no foot out of turn and avoided his notice, and it was not only them who had succeeded in slipping in under the radar. Just how many people on Mars answered to someone in a higher authority from Earth or the colonies and had a suspect agenda? He had missed too many of them, given the massacre taking place. Just who was it hidden behind convoluted paper trails and subterfuge that he could point a gun at and gain some personal satisfaction for their betrayal? Who was it who was behind the bastards murdering everyone? That was speculation for another time and place. Right now he needed… needed… //Coffee.// He desperately needed a good strong brew of coffee and, thankfully, they were making progress with arrangements to the point someone had made coffee in the doctors lounge. He could smell it pervading the hallways and rooms of the medical centre and that might just give him the needed lift to keep going. Space stations, psychics and insane assassins running loose butchering everyone they came across… anything could be dealt with calmly and methodically if he could just get a decent cup of coffee. "Well?" The tech rubbed at his eyes, no doubt just as tired as he, but the man made no complaint nor did he look up from his work. They all understood the time constraints and the dangers they yet faced. "The virus is buried deep, but we will get it out of the system. We just need more time." In other words, piss off and leave him to his work. He could respect that. Barker grunted and stomped to the door. "I'll have someone send you coffee shortly." "That would be appreciated." At least it wasn't a short tempered grunt. He was not the only one who could appreciate a decent brew of coffee, and at the present time he did not particularly care if it tasted like burnt dishwater, just so long as it was coffee. Barker strode down the hallway, watchful and listening, unwilling to leave himself exposed. Now was not the time to be careless. No one was in the hallway at present, but he could hear the low murmur of voices from the room ahead and someone was moving around in the room opposite him; he could hear the sounds of someone cleaning up. There was, unfortunately, a great deal of cleaning up to be done. They had searched the medical centre and found no one suspicious, as in no one who had not been on his team or on the medical staff whilst the butchery had been underway, but that was not to say none of them were above suspicion. Anyone could be a killer biding their time. Anyone. You could, in this situation, only trust yourself. You knew `you' could be trusted but you dared not trust anyone else, not even the one you thought your best friend. He would not have suspected anyone at the base to be capable of this wholesale slaughter, not even Marquise if half the wildest rumours about him could be believed. He paused at the door to the lounge, looking over his shoulder as the doors leading into the medical section were thrust open and a sealed life support capsule was pushed through. Two attendants, medical orderlies, were almost running, their hands locked on the sides of the unit as they guided it. "Intensive care bay three. I sent ahead to have it readied so wheel it straight into position." The man striding along behind the attendants pushing the capsule ahead of them looked harried, reams of paper clutched in his hands and arms. His head was lowered to allow him to study the readout in one hand whilst the sheets of paper kept cascading out of his clutches every few seconds, no matter how he gathered them together. "Doc?" The capsule came abreast of him and the attendants did not so much as hesitate, moving quickly past him, but he looked down into the almost blue face of the woman who had seemed to be so full of life and fire. There was nothing fiery about Lucrezia Noin now. He glimpsed minor cuts and bruises on her face, arms and shoulders though she had been cleaned up, and there were bandages and dressings aplenty hiding the more serious damage. The capsule emitted an assortment of rhythmic beeps that told him she was at least alive, though he would have said otherwise without that tell tale sound. "Barker." The doctor trailing behind the capsule nodded in greeting. "She's alive… just. Other than that, I can't really say anything. Her injuries appear to be largely superficial and I can't find a head wound that would account for her current condition. Keep moving, you two, I want her in ICU before she goes into cardiac arrest again." Barker arched an eyebrow, looking up as the orderlies passed him to meet the physician's gaze. "Again?" The man stared for a long moment at the reams of paper clutched in his arms. "You don't want to know how many times the shuttle's emergency medical program has revived her." Barker blanched, knowing that the next time might be the last with a human to make the decision, not an automated medical program. The doctor nodded in passing and strode after the retreating capsule leaving Barker to watch after the tight cluster of people hurrying down the length of the hallway, wondering if Marquise had any idea how bad the woman's condition was. But if he and Giles had placed Noin in the life support capsule, as they had claimed, then it was answer enough. "Shit." Coffee. He needed coffee before another crisis could present itself and leave him on the verge of becoming the gibbering village idiot. The teams searching through the accommodation blocks for survivors would be returning soon and he dreaded to think what they might report. He had seen enough death in the last few hours to last him a life time. All he wanted was for the crisis to be over, but when that would happen… "Coffee. Now." The doctor's lounge was deserted, which did not come as a surprise to him. There was a great deal that had to be done and not a great many people surviving to do it. Like him they would come in one's or two's and pour coffee and take it with them to continue their assigned tasks. The second of the two coffee makers was almost empty, a clear indication of others taking a few minutes to get some liquid stimulant, and he took the time to make a new pot. By the time it was brewed and ready there would be someone ready to enjoy it. Dropping a new filter into place he pinched the bridge of his nose, considering his agenda. He would have to let Marquise know they had retrieved Noin from the shuttle bay, and he would arrange for the doctor to report on her condition when he had time enough to settle the woman into intensive care. He had time before he would need to do that duty, the medics were not finished with the two men as yet and he had a little time to fortify himself for the next round of questioning. //For the next round of twisted half truths and blatant lies. Christ, this is not the time for deception and game playing.// He kept thinking it, telling himself they knew he was not a fool, and they would know that he knew how the game was played. He was well aware Zechs Marquise had had one of the best teachers at how to warp deception and lies in with facts to sound plausible. Treize Khushrenada had not risen to where he had stood during the war at so young an age without a frightening amount of natural talent, and Khushrenada had not suffered fools to be close to him. //So, maybe as much as five to ten percent of the garbage he fed me I could possibly trust. The question is, which bits of that `explanation' are they?// Scoops of coffee into the machine… extra strong? Maybe an extra scoop, they all needed as much of a lift as possible and no one would be sleeping for a good few hours yet. Khushrenada would have taught his henchman how to handle sticky situations, how to deceive and worm his way unscathed out of many varied situations, but he doubted the man would have expected Marquise to resort to science fiction. Which gave him cause enough to pause and reconsider his instant dismissal of what he had been told. Marquise was far from being a fool, and he was trained by the best. The Order of the Zodiac, under Treize Khushrenada, had not turned out science fiction addicts with little grasp on reality. //For him to outright lie about it… It makes no sense.// He turned from the coffee machine to the first unit and poured himself a foam cup full of rich, black liquid, frowning thoughtfully as he spooned four teaspoons of sugar into the brew. Strong and sweet to give an energy boost, that was what he needed. Of course there was the theory bandying about the ESUN that Marquise was a certified nut case, how else did you explain him trying to blow holes in the planet? But on meeting the man and over subsequent exposure, Barker had found him to be anything but insane. Incredibly insightful, in fact. Nothing he had said or done on Mars gave the impression he was mentally unstable, and he certainly did not have anything to say about the Libra incident. Surely if he were insane he would boast and scream his reasoning for all to hear? Mug in hand Barker shook his head, admitting he did not understand the man and left the doctors lounge, turning toward the examination room. He had not taken three steps before the door opened and the medics stepped out, closing the door behind them. //Perfect timing.// They looked relaxed enough and though there was a small amount of blood on their clothes it did not look enough to suggest there had been a massacre in his absence. Marquise would not have gone down without a fight and he already knew Haydon Giles was capable of holding his own, even injured. No massacre in the examination room then, good. At last, something had gone right. "You have a report for me?" They turned towards him, nodding amicably enough. One placed a hand to his lower back and arched a little, relieving cramped muscles and the other stifled a yawn. Yes, they were as tired as he and, like everyone else, they would not comment on it. "Haydon Giles has three fractured ribs, multiple bruising, cuts and abrasions, and he has strained damage to the ligaments in his left shoulder. We have treated him as best we can, strapping his shoulder and given him painkillers. He informs us he treated himself with a broad spectrum antibiotic earlier, so we will leave it at that for the moment. He should get some sleep, but then we all could do with a few hours and none of us are likely to get it." That was true enough, he mused. "Marquise?" The medic shrugged slightly, a bare lift of his shoulders as he eyed the foam cup in Barker's hand with an almost predatory glint. "He's on the edge, physically, and with someone in his condition normally I would sedate him, but unfortunately that will not be possible. I am unable to give him even a painkiller at the present time, and he's already been given a dose of broad spectrum antibiotics. Other than check his bandaging and keeping him as quiet as possible at the present time, there is little we can do for him." "Why no pain management?" "From what we have been told by Giles and Marquise himself, he's had too much medication in too short a period of time to safely have more meds administered. His body needs time to recover from the chemical cocktail already in his system. I understand why he pushed himself so far and took the stimulants and painkillers, but one can only take so much before your body reacts adversely. It simply is not worth the risk to give him more. I'd hit the man over the head if I though being unconscious for a few hours would do him some good." The man being hyped on meds might well explain to some degree the sci fi story he had been fed, but Marquise had seemed lucid enough. Barker sipped the coffee, considering the door to the examination room for a long moment. "Is he fit enough to get out of the bed?" "No. Not that he would not try getting up given half a chance, but that one is going no where for a while. Not until he gets some quality rest. The chemical cocktail has to burn its way out of his system, and when it begins to do that he will crash and burn fast. Best to keep him in bed for when that happens." "And when will that be?" "Any time now. The man has an iron will, I have to admire him for that, but it will do him no good. I would estimate he will be down inside of thirty minutes or so. He will not be able to resist it any longer than that. I honestly don't know what is keeping him as alert as he is, all the signs indicate he should be coming down now, but he is only human and we all have limits." On a positive note Marquise could at least be contained, and he would need to get to the man soon to try to garner additional information out of him before he did collapse. The medics were right about one thing, they all had limits beyond which they could not go. The human body had its own defence mechanisms and pushing too far would trigger them. Not even a man of Marquise's calibre could avoid them. "Injuries?" "He's strapped and bandaged and that's the best we can do for him for the moment. He's going to be sore with the amount of skin he's lost, he's practically peeled himself raw in a number of places, and he has mild burns to his arms, hands and back. They look like electrical burns. Flash burns, probably. He has strained muscles in both legs and lower back and shoulders, and there are a four cracked ribs but thankfully no actual fractures. One shoulder is heavily bruised and there is a fantastic boot print patterned in dark purple to explain how he acquired it. In general terms, nothing is life threatening, and provided he is kept relatively quiet the pain should be manageable for a few hours." Any comment Barker might have made was silenced at the screaming wail of an infant. He half turned, looking down the length of the hallway as the doors to the medical centre swung open and Polnar, with his companions holding the doors open, was ushering in two nurses. "I believe Marquise might have been waiting to see that," he murmured. Each of the nurses had an infant tied to their chest by a jury rigged harness and their arms were laden with bags which Mighty Joe Lee was quick to take from them now they were safely in the medical centre. The medic snorted softly. "You are probably right."
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