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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 Date: 1st March AC 198 Time: 15:32 MST [Mars Standard Time] Zechs He hated ventilation shafts. Having never had a reason to frequent them before he had never given any consideration to the design of them. Now, after due use and consideration, he decided that he loathed them. Even big ventilation shafts. After his now reasonable exposure to the bland, featureless metal and the not to forget endlessness of the damn things he was surely going to end up a claustrophobic. To increase his discomfort he could feel the upsurge in the possibilities. Some event or events had to be in the making that increased the variations of future possibilities. Havoc was breaking out in his head. Changes. Something was causing changes. The throbbing headache was getting worse, harder to ignore, harder to contain. If he was not careful he would lose control and go down into the well of options. At this moment he sorely missed Epyon. With the wide variety of options he already had witnessed how was he to choose the better course? He could not do this on his own. How could he, without the aid of the Epyon system, sort the multitude of possibilities that surged on future tides of event? He could not sort possibilities, probabilities and improbability at this point in time. He had tried. He did not have the training, the knowledge to handle the surges or the know how to look into and beyond what he saw. Epyon had been the means by which he could handle the flow of impressions and sort some balance into events. That had taken time, too, the sorting and choosing and the debating with the machine that was not a machine. Epyon was gone. He had no time. It was all happening now.
A ragged sound in the thin atmosphere and the doors were thrown into the air, flames leaping high into the Martian sky, fed by the escaping oxygen from the dome. Sections of the dome itself flowered into flame, great cracks appearing in the clear material. He could hear the alarm claxons loud even over the roaring of flames and explosions and the screams of people dying as the air in the dome was breached. Thinning, mixing with the poisonous atmosphere of Mars.**
Beyond the dome the doors to the shuttle bay blew open to a great flower of fire and metal shrapnel. The metal pierced the dome, even as other, minor explosions went off around the dome itself, cracking their life giving seal, allowing the atmosphere of Mars to enter and corrupt their environment.**
Shelves and shelves of them. The box sat, hidden in the shadow of the larger box, only the clock face changing. The room was deserted. No one moved here. No one watched the clock count down, its red digital numbers ever decreasing as the seconds passed. 00:02. 00:01. 00:00. A brief sound from the box and the room trembled in response to explosions on the surface.**
//Think, damn you. Think what it is you've seen. The room was... was a... Maintenance Room? Was it a maintenance room? Storage locker, perhaps? Ah, god, no, I can't. Hurts. Think you wimp. You know which one. You know where it is. You've been all over the bloody base. Think. It was... the timer was a... a radio controlled detonator? No. Yes. Yes. A Maintenance Room? Got to get to the maintenance room.'
No, he would not allow it. Shaking his head he forced himself to his knees. No, he would not allow it to happen. Too many people would die. Why? For what reason would it happen? So many people in the domes above ground would die an agonizing death. Those who had the good fortune to be in the underground complexes would survive the breaching of the dome, but more than a thousand people worked above the subterranean bases on any given day. Anyone at work or on station above ground would have no chance. Perhaps if they made it to the sealed units that were the hydroponics domes? He would not allow it to be that way. //Think. You know that maintenance room. You have been there. You have made it a point to be in every room of the base. Know your territory. Old rule. Never break it. Remember it. Remember which one of the rooms it is. They're not the same. They don't all look the same. Look for a difference.// A point in his favor was that the engineering sector was not far from his current position. Boxes of Machine Parts meant that it was in engineering and he was not too far from there. While he tried to determine which room he needed to find, he could be on his way. No time to be ill. No time to acknowledge the nausea or the cramps or the shaking of his limbs. No time to pander to the headache from hell. No time to sort much of anything. Move. Move and strength would return. It had before, when he had experienced this sharp spiral into insanity. Move and look for the room with shelves and boxes of machine Parts and... and... Just move. Trust Noin to watch her back. She was smart. Clever. She had survived the One Year War. She had survived the Barton Incursion. She would understand why he did this. She would understand why he did not follow her and forgive him. He had to find the hidden detonator. No time to find the bombs themselves. No time to even wonder what they thought they were doing, trying to blow the domes. What possible motive could they have for destroying all they had worked so hard for over the years? //I don't understand.// "God. I feel sick. He forced himself from belly to knees, wavering on all fours, fighting a rebellious stomach and to lock his limbs to support his weight. Move. One arm, forward, lock at the elbow. Now a leg. Yes. Movement would settle down his physical reaction to the visions. "Epyon, I could do with you about now." Moving was forcing control. He tried to ignore the visions hovering just beyond his sight, not daring to look further. Was this what would happen? Would they blow the domes? Why? He could not take a chance on this being a false possibility. He had to check. He could not leave this one alone, uninvestigated. It was too vital to their security for him not to take the time and effort to check out this possibility. He could only hope that the pressure he felt from other impending visions were not so disastrous or important as this. He might get to the engineering sector and discover it was only a probability that they had set bombs. A thread that was loose from a weave already horrifying enough. He might waste valuable time chasing this possibility down to no avail. False vision. It could be a false vision. No precisely false, but one that had so slight a possibility that it was not worth pursuing against more likely options. He could not take the chance. He just could not take the chance. Too many people could die if he ignored this option above something that seemed far more likely to happen. By the time he reached the engineering bays he had regained his equilibrium, his physical as well as emotional stability. That was one thing movement was good for, making him focus on just the simple necessity to breathe, to move a hand, arm, leg. He was calmer, determined to waste no time and find this vision to be what it was, praying it was false. If they had plans to blow the dome then they cared nothing for the lives of the people they worked along side. The Sleeper agents. That moment of clarity shook him. Not the agents who had come in on the shuttle, but the agents who had lived and worked here for years. They were so willing to destroy the hours of work they had done to create the colony. They had no care for their work mates. He reached the outlet he wanted, dropping the vent grill in the small engineering bay, startling the three engineers seated at the center table, sipping coffee and chatting. A quick glance at them to make sure they were who he had been expecting to see here in an emergency and he dropped his feet through the vent and landed on the table. They sprang back from the table as coffee mugs danced with the force of his landing. He hardly registered himself grabbing a cup and downing its contents as he slid from the table. "We have only a few minutes. There is a radio transmitter around here, either in this room or in the big repair bay. A Maintenance room, I think in one of the bays. It is set to trigger explosives to breach the domes here and at Alpha." "Zechs, what the shit is happening?" Paul Markos, dark eyes bright in his dark skinned face stood, hands on hips, glaring. "What is going on around here and why the emergency?" "We have been infiltrated." he snatched the coffee pot, emptying the contents into the cup and drinking as he waved toward the main doors. "I have it on good authority that we have bombs planted around both domes and in the shuttle bay. If we don't find that transmitter we can kiss goodbye to everyone on the surface." "What's it look like, man?" Mighty Joe Lee, the engineer originally from the L1 cluster was already hunting around the shelves closest to him, having understood instantly the significance of the threat. "Small, plain accept for the digital face counting down. Black, I should think. These things are never made with imagination. I think its on a shelf full of machine parts, probably for the mobile suits. I'm not sure." He clamped down on the urge to bring back up the coffee, sliding the cup away from him. What had he been thinking? Coffee was not the best on a stomach as abused as his felt at the moment. "We'll find it, man. These guys... Raiders? We being attacked by Raiders? I hear tell they're always on the lookout for new sources of parts for repairs to their ships and suits. Surprised we haven't been bothered before." Preston Kurtz was already at the door. "I'll start in the other bay. How long we got?" "Not long." //I don't know. I just don't know how long we have. Damn. I can't remember details so soon after a vision. It takes time to sort it all out. God. I feel sick. I can't let them win now. I can't let them do it.// "You don't look so good, Zechs." Markos commented. "You look sort of green." He waved aside the concern, fighting the nausea. Maybe if he moved? "Hurt my shoulder. No time to deal with it now." "I'll help Preston in the other bay." "Keep your eye on the doors. Don't turn your back on them. Some are in ESUN combat fatigues and they are likely to shoot first and think about it later." "Combat fatigues? Where the hell did they score those from? Bloody Raiders have no respect." Pressure. Time was passing. The pressure was building, headache pounding in time to the beat of passing time. This could not be just another option. Not with the way he felt. Frighteningly it felt like another crux point; a focus point, but so soon? Surely he should have had more warning? A hint of this happening months before? What had he missed? He had to have missed something for this to be happening. He did not know enough about this ability. This curse. It was a curse. A curse that had brought him nothing but pain since it awoke. Epyon had sentenced him to this. //No. You knew this before.// Something deep within him, hidden in a deep and secret, safe place, quivered in terror. He drew a sharp breath, clenching the machine part he had picked up off the shelf near him tight enough to draw a gasp of pain as a sharp edge bit into his hand. Something... some 'thing' stirred. A terror. A long ago terror that quailed in dread. No. Not now. He could not deal with this now. //Bomb. Focus. Find the bloody transmitter.// "Zechs? Hey, man, you really don't look so good. You look green, man. You alright?" "I will be, Joe, when I find this transmitter." He poked around behind the boxes nearest to him. "You look like you gonna puke." "Feel like it too. Just reaction to my shoulder." // Don't say it, Joe. Ah, god. Just don't say it or I'll do it. I won't be able to help it if you keep reminding me how shitty I feel.// How much longer? How much longer did they have? //Damn it, it had to be here, How much longer before it was too late? Think. There had to be something. Think. Black box. Small black box. Hidden behind another box. A larger box. They all looked the same! Okay, what about the room? Something about the room. A small room. Yes, small. It had not felt large. It had not felt as large as this. This is the smallest of the bays for repairs.// There was, of course the storage lockers, but on reflection he was sure that was wrong. It had felt larger than a locker. Larger than a locker, smaller that this, the smallest of the repair bays. So where... His eyes lighted on the door in the corner of the room. One storage locker was larger than the others at the facility. It contained spare parts for the fusion generators. There? "Check the locker." "That locker? That one is locked, Zechs. You know that." Even as he protested Might Joe Lee tugged at the door and stared in shock as it opened. "Damn! That's not supposed to happen." His gut clenched. Wishing he had not drunk the coffee he motioned urgently to the engineer. "It's in the locker. It has to be. Check the shelves, behind every box there is. It has to be there." Both crowded into the locker, Zechs taking the higher shelves and Mighty Joe taking the lower. The engineer was a small, slender man but he was a bundle of energy at the best of times. At this, the worst of times he was dynamite, checking quickly shelf after shelf, feeling behind those boxes he could not move or peer behind, until he found the one box that hid the small unassuming black box with the clock on countdown. "Here, here! Got it! Ah, man, its counting down. Is it safe to touch, do you think? I don't know nothing about disarming bombs." "Its not the bomb. It's a timer and it transmits a radio signal that triggers a detonator hidden elsewhere." Zechs crouched down beside the engineer, trying to peer around him. "You know something about bombs?" he pulled back out from under the shelf level with Zech's calves. "I know something about them. Let me have a look." "We dare move it?" Joe wriggled out of the way, wedging his butt on the next shelf over to maintain his view. "Not yet." Zechs stretched out as best as his 6' 2" frame would allow in the cramped space choosing to ignore the fire that provoked in his shoulder and thrust his head under the shelf. A moments visual examination and he grunted, carefully turning the box with just the tips of his fingers. "Can you get the shock gun out of my belt? Pass it to me." "Shock gun?" Joe Lee looked in shock at the weapon tucked in the back of the wide belt. "Where did you get that?" "From our visitors. Pass it here." He felt the weapon pulled from his belt and had a sudden sickening feeling that Mighty Joe was a sleeper agent and he could go down into darkness here, taken out of the game entirely because he needed to trust someone. "How you learn about bombs, man?" the engineer wriggled closer, stretching his wiry form against the larger, solid bulk of the tense man. "Oz." "Oh. Right. Forgot about that. Here you go." The butt of the weapon was pressed into the hand he stretched behind him and he chose to ignore the pressure of the mans body against his, and the hand that ran lightly down his thigh. "Now hide your eyes." "What are you going to do, man? Is it safe?" Zechs adjusted the setting on the weapon carefully, more feeling the settings than seeing them in the dim light. He was uncertain just how much power these weapons could discharge, but he had been privy to the original blueprints and design specs on the weapons. They were an invention of Oz, thought up in the latter days of the One Year War. Unless their design had undergone radical modifications from the original specs, there should be enough of a kick on maximum setting to short circuit the transmitter. Totally frying the insides would be even better, but he would not even begin to think about that. The way things were going it was likely to set off the transmitter. The weapons delivered a short electrical shock to their targets, enough to stun a man on low settings and enough to kill on maximum. "Its our only hope, Joe. I don't have the tools or the time to defuse it any other way." "Ah, sure, man. If there's no other choice." he wriggled out from under the shelf, turning his back on the shelf and hooked a hand in the waist of his companions trousers, slipping fingers under the tan shirt and running his fingers over silken skin. "Joe!" "Just gonna help you out of there." but his hands retreated quickly. Resting the barrel just off the box Zechs twisted his head around, away from the box, ignoring the screaming pain in his shoulder where he was taking the pressure. He chose to use his left arm, unwilling to chance injury to the uninjured right arm. Taking a deep breath he squeezed the trigger. //God, I hope this works.// A flash of blue light and a bang accompanied by a blast of heat and foul smelling smoke set both men to coughing. The stench of ozone accompanied Zechs wriggling frantically to get out of the confined space, hacking and coughing to get the smoke out of his lungs. He rolled off the shelf and onto the floor, scrambling to put some distance between himself and the smoke pouring out from the shelf. The coughing fit eased and he leaned back against the wall, beside Mighty Joe Lee who was waving his arms frantically in the air in a useless bid to disperse the stench and smoke. "Foul, man, foul." Joe grinned. "It worked?" "Well, either it had no effect on the box, or we blew the whole base up." he paused, waiting and then sighed. "No bangs, shudders or booms from upstairs, so I guess we didn't trigger the bombs." Zechs waved away the smoke still issuing from the shelf and when it thinned enough to allow him to crawl back he slipped carefully back under. Following a moments investigation he eased himself out again, a charred, ruined box in one hand. Joe leaned close, studying the scorched and warped box. He shook his head and grinned, deepening his voice. "I think its dead, Jim."[1] Zechs shook his head. "Where did that come from? Never mind, I don't want to know. Where's the first aid kit?" Joe noticed for the first time that Zechs still held the stun gun. The hand holding the weapon was flaming red and blistered from the proximity to the contained explosion. He gingerly eased the weapon out of the burned fingers and motioned toward the engineering bay. "I'll do what I can for that, but you need to go to Medical to get it seen to properly." While he could still use his hand it was not going to be comfortable, he reflected, as he regained his feet, and led the way into the larger room. He would have to bandage the hand quickly. He still had Noin to Find, somewhere in the base. Instinct told him she was above ground, under the enviro dome. At least now the pressure of the vision was off. The possibility of the destruction of the domes was defeated. No choking pressure now pushed inexorably at him, no sickening visions pushed at his consciousness. It was one good thing to come out of this. He had been right to pursue this course. He had not failed on this occasion. "How did Raiders get into the base? How did they even get near the base?" For an instant Zechs considered correcting Mighty Joe, glancing at the smaller man, sorely tempted to tell him the truth. He sighed, shaking his head in defeat. No. If it got out and became known that the ESUN was behind the destruction of the domes then the colonies and the people of the Earth would lose faith in their government. The peace would go down in screaming revolution. Enter the wars he had done so much to avoid. No, as much as it stuck in his craw, he could not destroy the peace he had lost so much to achieve. Let them believe it was Raiders. He would not be the one to so threaten the peace. "We have infiltrators. They have worked along side us. Now must have seemed a suitable time to raid us." he commented. "Suppose it makes sense. We have equipment they could use and with a shuttle just in we would have added parts for them to choose from. Lets see about your hand." Zechs glanced at the clock on the wall. 15:58. The day seemed intolerably long. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] = Dr McCoy's main scripted phrase in Star Trek. ~ * ~
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