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"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options" Chapter 28 Sanc Sanc Palace Date: 1st March AC 198 Time: 13:24 Relena Relena was certain no single day in her life had been longer than this day. Even the day when Sanc fell for the second time, when she had surrendered to Romefeller and then had to make the decision to surrender not just her freedom, but her pride. Pawn of Romefeller, Queen of the World. She knew she was blushing. It was not a time she looked back on with any pride. That it had turned out so well was through no real effort on her part, but through the efforts of her grandfather and his followers. Yet it had contained more undercurrents that she had ever considered. She had beaten Romefeller, yes, but it was a hollow victory indeed, when the War had not been ended, but escalated at the hands of her brother and the White Fang. No. No, she had not defeated Romefeller. She had managed with the aid of certain Romefeller factions, to best another faction of the organization. She had to understand where the real power lay. Most of the assembly of Romefeller who had not been involved with Duke Dermail's faction were now regaining their former positions; becoming active in political circles once more. Where was the victory in that, if the same people ruled once more? Where was the improvement if the people who had stood back and allowed Dermail to rule and encourage war, were now back and influencing policies that if not watched and controlled could lead to another war. Watch and control. Watch every faction and control them. That was so reminiscent of the old days. Watch and control the political factions, circling amid them to keep checks and balances in place or to influence decisions to push your policies and become the leaders in political circles. Everything was done to advance position and prestige. It was coming full circle and it was barely three years since Romefeller was defeated. How they had ever manage to make advances in improving the living conditions for the people of Earth and the colonies was beyond her, but they had made improvements. There was certainly room to improve, of course. There were vital trade negotiations that needed to be made and she was a part of it, but could she continue to be a part of it if she was nothing more than a puppet? The hands of the clocks all through the palace crawled around the clock face. It seemed to her that there were hours between the chimes, not the fifteen minute intervals there usually were. She dreaded hearing the com links chime, fearing what news would come in. Things were happening on that distant planet that she could not influence and it dragged at her, weighed her down. It was depressing and all too real, her helplessness. She could not concentrate on the work that had been her challenge and joy. Nothing made sense to her. The words all blended into each other. She stared and stared at the documents she needed to learn for the talks to take place after the dinner this evening, but the words were just scratches on the paper. Through it all, her mother sat quietly, a silent presence that should have been soothing and was, instead annoying, because it was so normal. Too normal. Her mother sat near the window, reading. That grated on her nerves more than anything, that her mother could be calm and collected and read while who knew what was happening on Mars. How could her mother be so calm? Pagan came and went with refreshments and correspondence, a silent figure usually, speaking only when he needed to inform her of the correspondence she just could not bring herself to deal with. She felt ill. Sick to her stomach, unable to eat or drink. Tense. Heero came twice to tell her that no news had been received from Mars and on each occasion she thought she would burst into tears, but something, some vestige of control had saved her. Near noon her mother had sighed and made a com call that produced no results. No one seemed to know what was happening. Lunch was a dismal affair, no one seemed to want to eat, yet felt compelled to eat. Relena wanted to crawl into a corner and make the world go away. She hated the silence. The palace had never before seemed so huge and silent. Like a tomb. Great silent halls and ghost people who walked in silence. Not even the occasional whisper broke the silence in the halls that once had seemed to resound with voices. The staff knew that something was wrong, picking up on the tension that just seem to escalate as the day wore on. She was certain she could not deal with it much longer. There were duties to fulfill this afternoon. How could she possibly attend that stupid garden party? How could she possibly go to a garden party and chat as though nothing was wrong? It was a charity fund raiser that was for a children's charity and she had accepted the invitation to attend months ago. She had no choice but to attended and Relena forced herself over lunch to face the fact that she really had no choice. It was her duty to attend the garden party. It was for a good cause, the children's charities on L2 had been one of her most ardently adhered to pursuits. Since talking to Duo Maxwell she had made improvements to the street children's quality of life her personal business. She was now surprised that those who pulled her strings had allowed it. So, she mused, it must have met with their approval, or else they simply did not care. Had it not been important enough for them to take notice? Or did they allow her certain victories to keep her content while dangling from their strings? //It's for Duo's home. I'll go. I really have no excuse not to attend. There is nothing I can do to influence anything that happens on Mars. Life goes on. This is my personal problem, and those children are not a part of it.// She glanced up as Heero entered her office after the most cursory of taps on the door, not waiting to be summoned. Mrs. Darlian frowned, but said nothing. She was only too well aware of the feelings her daughter harbored for the taciturn ex gundam pilot. Ex Terrorists were not exactly on Alice Darlian's most likable list, but she was a realist. A politicians wife had to learn to deal with people from many walks of life, and she had to admit that at least the pilots were polite and generally well mannered. They were now finding useful functions for themselves. Her daughter felt safe around them, though she herself was not so certain that was a good thing. Still, when you looked at it from a slightly different perspective, the one who did have good breeding, her daughters brother, had threatened to blow away the entire planet. Breeding was obviously not everything. "Heero? Any news?" "Lady Une sent word. The shuttle is down and all quiet so far. They think the agents may wait for the shuttle to be serviced before they make any moves. Apparently the commander requested to see Zechs and review his security while they are on Mars. It could be three or four days before they take any action." "Do you think they will wait?" Mrs. Darlian questioned, curious. "If it was me, no. I would not wait. Not if I was properly briefed on Zech Marquise past military record. I'd go in fast and in secret. Strike before anyone could prepare to oppose me. You may not like to hear it, Relena, but of all the Oz soldiers, none was better than Zechs. He was their elite. He was the one who could take out a Gundam Pilot on his own. I fought him enough to know. Those men on Mars are going to be in for one hell of a fight if they go against him." "The psych reports don't seem to indicate how my brother will react to this threat." Heero shook his head. "What do the reports say about Miss Noin?" "She will resist anyone touching her babies." Relena returned softly, thinking of the woman who had been her mentor and protector when first she had come to Sanc. "She will not take it quietly." Heero nodded. "Exactly. Noin will fight back against anyone who comes for her children and Zechs will not allow her to fight alone. The news from Mars is around three hours old, Relena, the routine acknowledgement for the safe landing of the shuttle. There has been three hours for it all to changed up there. I'd say it has started. Lady Une sent me the report on the agents sent by the ESUN. Most of them are Blue Squad, an elite commando unit who worked under the Alliance during the One Year War and before. They did not have a very savory reputation. Their commander was replaced shortly after the Barton Incursion and seems to have the squad in firm control, but I don't have all the information I need on him just yet. The updated report is due in a few hours. I'll better know how to judge the situation then." "I was under the impression the Oz commanders were promoted through bloodlines and influence with Romefeller." Mrs. Darlian said, closely studying Heero. "Fantasy. The alliance commanders would have liked to think that, but most were not so foolish to believe the rumors Romefeller circulated. The Specials Officers were put through a harder training program than the best the Alliance Military had. An Oz private had better training than the best of the Alliance non commissioned officers. I have seen the training records of the highest officers in Oz. No, I will not say how I acquired them or why. Your brother and Miss Noin were elite soldiers, even Treize Kushrenada. He was enrolled at a private military academy when he was eight years old. He might have looked elegant but he was deadly. All the top officers were elites. Romefeller might have bankrolled the Oz military faction, but bloodlines were not so important on the front lines. You had to win the war and when you were as out numbered as Oz was, you had to have the best. Yes, the Alliance had more than ten times the men and equipment and they went down to Oz. War will break out on Mars. The only question about what is happening there is how large the casualty count will be." "It should never have been allowed to happen. If I had taken action sooner this would not be happening." Relena sighed covering her face in a gesture Heero had heard her brother had used often. Almost placing a mask over her face. "I was never fair with my brother. I never even tried to see things from his point of view. It is my fault for starting this situation. I have been so blind to what is happening around me. If I had not surrendered Sanc to Romefeller what would the world be like now?" "Relena, what ifs do not work. What ifs are designed only to give headaches." Mrs. Darlian sighed. "We can not turn back the hands of time, my dear. It simply does not work that way." Heero grunted. "I need to return to the control room. Your security arrangements for the garden party have been okayed. I will let you know more about Mars when I know more, but you should be aware that it could be tomorrow or even later before we learn anything,." "Thank you, Heero." Relena smiled, but it was a small shadow of the smile he was used to seeing on her. "Trust your brother, Relena. I have a feeling if more people had trusted him... " he sighed, shrugged and left the room. Mrs. Darlian frowned, looking from the closed door to Relena. There had been a wealth of unspoken emotion in that shrug and it was not what she had expected from the young man who so often seemed almost robotic. "What did he mean by that, dear?" Relena in turn shrugged and then apologized at her mothers disapproving look. Young ladies did not shrug, she recalled with a sigh. "I suppose he means himself, mother. Brother offered him the command of White Fang while we were on the Libra. I didn't understand at the time, but I think Heero understood then what my brother was really trying to do. I think he understood and chose to watch from the side lines, until he felt he had no choice but to act. I believe he did not think whatever my brother had planned would work and that now he is not so certain he was right." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13:43 Heero ~/The treasure is with the War God./~ Heero stared at the screen, the simple words having just flashed up and now were there, silent and uninformative. He was monitoring all communications in and out of the palace and this one caught his attention above all others. What did it mean? Could it mean what he thought? A message concerning Zechs? He initiated a search on the message, trying to trace its point of origin within the palace, his frown deepening when the search returned no information on the terminal used to send the message. That rang alarm bells in his mind. Someone had the means by which to send a message via a palace terminal and keep its point of origin secret. It had to be sent from a terminal within the network in the palace, for the security system to bring it up on the routine scan. //Romefeller?// he wondered. War God. Mars was the God of War. At this time all hell was probably breaking loose on Mars. The Treasure. Zechs Marquise, perhaps? Or the children? Something or someone else? There were various factions within the palace who reported to their controllers, that was unavoidable in the political environment of the day. This, though, was something that was almost personal and had his attention almost by default. A soft beep alerted him to a trace he had established on the Romefeller communications lines after Duo had confided in him. He touched a control quickly, eyes flashing to the small screen on his personal lap top. ~/Target located on Mars. Possible elimination of target by ESUN Security force imminent. Additional information. Priority message to genealogy division. Target has progeny. Request instructions./~ Heero stared at the message in disbelief and then glared accusingly at the first message still on the screen, captured there until he released it. //Damn. How many people are interested in you Marquise? That's two different messages within minutes of each other. Why are you so damn popular for a guy who is supposed to be dead? If that message is to Romefeller,// he glared at the second message from the monitored lines of communication. // then who the hell is that one to? There is another party involved. There has to be, but who, and why?// Returning to the first intercepted message he initiated a trace not of its origins, but this time seeking to find its destination, and very quickly Heero winced, sitting back from the screen. In the space of a few minutes it had bounced to two hundred locations and was still bouncing. With a defeated sigh he left the trace running, doubting that he would trace it to its true source, as anyone of those points it already had contacted could have been the intended target. Very clever to have it bounce so quickly and to so many locations to cover its tracks. He had to accompany Relena to the garden party and the time was fast approaching when they must depart. He would check on the search results when he returned and see if Romefeller had issued instruction in reply to their agents message. At least he could positively identify the faction this message was aimed at. As he changed his clothes preparatory to acting as Relena's escort and security agent he considered the messages. He was disturbed by the first message more than the second. The second was clearly Romefeller's agent in the palace. The second represented an unknown party and he did not like unknown cluttering up his neat security arrangements. He would need to review the personal yet again. He needed to determine who was the Romefeller spy and who this unknown Other was. If not for his key word monitoring of the communications network he would not know of that message. All references to Mars and key words listed pertaining to Mars were being monitored by his search engine. `God Of War' and `War God' were only some of those key words. Heero locked down the search so that only he could access the results, hung up his Preventer uniform and left the control center. Work to do. He found himself wishing that Duo was there. He had gotten too used to working with that braided menace, he supposed. It was probably best that they had been separated, as going solo again would reawaken and sharpen his skills. It was disturbing, though, because it brought back too many memories of a time he would rather forget. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14:52 Quatre Quatre Rubaba Winner studied the screen for a long while, staring at the flashing logo with a sense of foreboding. The message logo flashed silently in the bottom right hand corner, blinking on and off. He was curiously reluctant to open that message. Something deep inside told him the instant he did, things would change, and not necessarily for the better. Sometimes he hated the empathy that had served him so well during the war. More often than not the empathy seemed more of a curse than a blessing. It was also disturbing that in the last few years his empathy had been increasing steadily. Since he had gone insane under the stress of his fathers death, he knew. Nor had it helped that the Zero System had changed him. Zero. He shuddered at the very thought of that system that had ripped into his mind and changed something that was fundamentally him. It had changed him. Altered his perceptions of people and places in a fashion he was finding it hard to deal with. Zero had opened his awareness to the wider stream of humanity. His ability, while stronger than ever, was also more controlled, which was a blessing. The last thing he wanted to deal with was out of control empathic ability in the world he circulated in. High finance was a cutthroat business. It was not something that he enjoyed, but he was the head of the Winner Corporation and it was his duty to do his best for his board members and investors. Out of control empathy was not conducive to good business. It did, however, help him to read his business associates and that was fine, but if he was not careful he would find himself relying on his empathic abilities and not on himself and his advisors. He had also noticed that he had developed an odd sense of awareness that seemed to reflect changes in his personal life, and that of his friends and close acquaintances. A sense of `something' that would shift and become something else. He could not describe with words what he felt, he had tried, if only to himself, but he had not satisfactorily found the right words to describe the feeling. That sense of `something' was active again, and it concerned this flashing icon on the computer and curiously he thought it might concern Duo and Heero. Something was going on. Heero had been more taciturn than usual over the last few days and out of the blue Duo had vanished, left L2 with no warning or word sent to him. His agents had sought to confirm certain points with the agreement that he become young Aidan's guardian if something should happen to Duo and Hilde, and they had reported to him the disappearance of his friend. Unless this message was from Duo and somehow Quatre doubted that. It did not feel like Duo, nor did it feel like Heero or Trowa. Not that he understood that. He could not pick up on emotions off of an email. No, he admitted, it was the air around Sanc that upset him. Something intangible in the atmosphere of the city and particularly at the palace that he picked up on. It was purely a coincidence that this message arrived when the atmosphere was so tense. With a quiet sigh he double clicked the email message alert. Best to just get it over with and deal with it and he could see how ridiculous it was to stare at a computer screen with a sense of growing dread. He frowned at the message screen, something deep inside that had been tense before now threatening to explode into screaming rage. Quatre printed out a copy of the message, folded it carefully and placed it in his pocket and left the room. He had a garden party to attend. ~ * ~
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