|
"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 46
Rosemount Station Asteroid Belt Orbit, sector 5 Date: 1st March AC 198 Time: 13:50 EST [Earth Standard Time] Rose Errant ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ //War God. God of War. Mars. What are you doing there, Zechs? What are you doing on that forsaken hunk of space debris? You are needed here.// The cursor on the screen flashed regularly at the end of the single line of script displayed on the otherwise dark monitor. Blinking slowly and regularly, reminiscent of a heart beat. He could almost make his heart beat in time, but it was a little too fast, and if he had the time to waste, which he, in truth, did not. Seven little words, but they changed everything. Found. They had found their treasure and now events could move forward with more certainty. ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ The office was a quiet reflection of another time and another place, full of elegance and the memories of a life lost to him a long time ago. It seemed so very long ago now, yet it was only a few years. Short years, less than an eye blink on the cosmic scale of things. Really, less than the flutter of movement the eyelid would make before it began its descent. Old world charm and elegance, all the way out here, so far from the world that had given it birth. So far from the world that had given Him birth. ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ //Mars. What are you doing there? Why were you not picked up at the battle field? You should have been picked up after the Libra was destroyed, but you vanished. They assured me that they looked for you for a week after the battle. Long past the time your life support would have failed. I thought you were gone. I thought when they could not locate you, that it all had gone wrong. That you were dead, and this project placed back as much as a generation or three, until we could find another with the genetic pattern that we need.// He winced, hating himself for that thought. It put him in the same low rank as Romefeller, with their genetic charts and manipulation. Valuing life only for what they had written into the genetic make up of the individual. He was not proud of that. No, he was not really the same as Romefeller, but thoughts like that last needed to be curbed, in the fear that one day he may begin to see people as the sum of their genetics. All the lives brought and sold by Romefeller over the centuries. All that suffering by those unknowingly manipulated for their dynastic games and later the actual genetic modifications made before birth, at the very DNA level. All that work performed by the Romefeller Foundation in carefully guarded secrecy would soon bare fruit, but it had come so close to being destroyed, their hope. The Libra. All that blood and pain and the tears that had been shed over the dead, the dying and the maimed. All that pain. His own pain measured in there, somewhere, but it was as nothing in the sum total of pain that had been shared. His own death had been needed then, his end sealing the peace that they had all sought, though in so many different ways. It had been a price he had been willing to pay, to end the wars and bring peace to the Earth and the Colonies. Yes, he had been willing to die a painful death, but his pain had been nothing to the anguish that his friend must have had to endure to bring about the best of possible results. He felt himself to be sorely lacking both in ability and courage, for he had not had enough of either need to make it happen. He had not had the strength to endure the tearing of heart and soul that had been required to pierce the future's veils. //I do sound like Romefeller sometimes. That is not good. I am not the same, though I have had to play with lives and in some circumstances I have had to decide who lives or dies. They see us all as their toys, to be played with, shaped and crafted to their express needs, from the moment of conception. Before conception, in many cases. God. I know you are up there. Out there. Somewhere. I know you look at us mortals and you must despair at our stupidity. Our greed and our foolishness. How do you look at us and not wipe us out of existence? Ah, I am in one of those moods today. This damn headache does not help. They said the pain would ease over time, but they can not tell me just how long will be needed to heal.// It was more than the head pains, though. His entire body knew pain, never ceasing, but eased, yes, by the timely administering of drugs. Not just the memory of pain haunted him, but active pain, the left over results of injuries that should have killed him. He had needed to die, to secure the peace. His instructions had been left with the one person he could trust to ensure they would be obeyed, and he had come very close to actually fulfilling that need. He should have died. He had almost died. He had wanted to die. //To the Earth Sphere, at least, I am dead, as I should be. It was very close. He was the best choice, the pilot of 05. I have to believe that. The best possible choice. Still, it is my shame that he suffered for it. I was not shown that he would become so despondent after our `duel'. I was not shown his anger. Nothing was revealed to me about Barton waiting in the wings to pounce. He was not supposed to become a leader of a revolt against the peace we had fought for. He was not supposed to become a soldier again, in the name of my... in the name of Mariemaia. I was not... I did not know about her. I did not know that you existed child and I am sorry for that. Not even Epyon showed me... // He would give a great deal now to be able to lean back in his chair and sip a glass of deep red wine. It was an old pleasure, one he had not been able to indulge in now for almost three years. The medication he was so far dependant on would not allow him to indulge in that small simple pleasure. //Some days I wish that I had died in truth. I should not. I should not wish that I had died. I can not wish for that, not now that I know so much that was hidden from me before. Knowing what I now know of the past, and what the future could... can be. It could all be so different. If He will cooperate. Zechs, how did you end up on Mars? Still, it is closer to reach you there than it is to send agents to approach you on Earth.// He pressed sensitive fingertips to his temples, rubbing delicately to avoid as much pain as he could. It was approaching time for his meds. He would be glad of the relief it would bring him. //Why such a low profile, my friend? There has been no word on your whereabouts or activities for so long. You vanished immediately after the Barton fiasco. There is something wrong here.// He glared at the screen with its single line of script and flashing cursor. //As preliminary reports go, this one sucks. Ah, language, my boy. Such language is uncouth and you have been listening to your attendants far too long to slip up in that manner. You miss the old days, don't you? Of course you do, and it is not a good sign that you sit here, longing for a good wine to savor and for intelligent company that is long gone to you. This is solving nothing.// ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ They had designed the study he occupied after a study located in his manor in Kiev. In the early days following his recovery, when he had at least been freed from the hospital sector of the great ship, if not from the needs of his regenerating body, he had been thankful for the familiarity of the room. It had been far preferable to staring at the white on white of his hospital room, with the blinking lights and beeping machines surrounding him. He wondered if they had taken the actual items from the Kiev manor. So much was the same. The books that lined the walls were the same titles he recalled, though some were not where he would have had them catalogued. The major difference between this room and the study so far away, was the windows that looked west, over a rose garden in that distant manor. Here the west windows were actually a specially constructed single sheet of super toughened glass, further protected by energy shields. Framed with wine red velvet curtains and divided by mahogany panels to make them resemble the windows of the manor they overlooked not a rose garden, but the vast panorama of space. He was not in his manor in Kiev. He was not on the European continent. He was not on Earth. He was in space. He was deep in the solar system, staring out at the moving points of darkness and light that were asteroids of many sizes and shapes, reflecting the distant sun. There was never a setting sun to admire, as it glinted off the dark green leaves of his rose garden. Nor was there anyone here he truly ached to see. Certainly not the friend from his childhood whom he had betrayed repeatedly or the Lady he very much would have liked to allow to get to know him. They were so very far from him, but if all worked out they would come here. They, and the other innocents who had had their lives designed for them by the thrice cursed Romefeller Foundation. When they came, his lady and his friend, would they forgive him his machinations? //Will you forgive me? Can you ever bring yourselves to forgive me the wrong I did to you both? It was necessary, I assure you, but what good does that do to say to these walls? I need to tell you to your face, to explain why it was necessary that I used you and hurt you both as I did. It was necessary for the peace to happen. You were never supposed to die, either of you. You both came back from the dead, my friend more than just once. And now it is my turn to be resurrected, though I shall choose to remain dead to most. We have things to do, my friends. Many things lie ahead of us. Wonderful things, and this time there will be no interference by Romefeller. We will be free of them. Finally free. We will take them down, if you will it so. I can afford the time, I think, to take them down and give the past generations some form of Justice. If you will it so. You need to know what is going on, Zechs, Lady. You need to understand what is happening, and I can not tell you, until you come to me.// ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ He reached to touch fingers still sensitive to the point of pain to the controls, leaning back in his chair to watch the softly pulsing crystal displayed on the vid screen in the very center of his desk. There it was, the heart of the ship. The crystal glowed softly golden, a quiet, resting pulse they could control. The technology was new to his people, but it was an old, ancient technology in truth. Not this crystal, no, but the techniques and science that went into the creation and use of such devices. This crystal had been grown with painstaking care in the vats on board the station, and was now complete. It rested in its mountings, the exact size and shape the writings said it should be. It was there, ready, infused with all the power they would need. //Except we are missing the key ingredients. The key elements. There are others out there who need to be freed so that we might begin. We have time yet. I know there is time, but there are so many we need to gather before it may begin.// ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ He watched as the crystal pulsed, even, steady rhythm, slow, almost double beat. Very reminiscent of a human heart beat. If he looked long enough, it drew in the eye and seemed to enter the blood, his heart would begin to mirror the beat and the alarms on the machines that monitored his condition would sound and shatter the harmony he found. He sighed and looked away. They were right. He was not ready for that. Not yet. //I need to make some decisions here. Putting things off is not an option. Moving too quickly is likely to ruin everything and reveal our presence. Circumstances must be right for us to succeed in our endeavor and the crew is far from complete. Most will be only too pleased to come and to escape from their captivity and slavery to Romefeller. Most will be only too happy to leave the Earth Sphere behind. Some need to be approached with great care. They have spent the time since the wars making lives for themselves and finding a future beyond war time occupations. Soldiers. Terrorists. Rebels. Mechanics who once worked only on mobile suits now work in the mines in the asteroid belt, slaving in the cold and the danger to make their fortune quickly and set up their new lives. I know you tried, Lady, but there were so many Soldiers and only so many places you could make for them. It is time I gathered them up, those who have no place to call their own. I have places for them. I have a future for them to find places for themselves in the design of things to come.// he sighed, pressing a hand to his temple. //I suppose it is not imperative that we have everyone onboard, but for those who have found themselves adrift, it will be a solution. If fear does not hold them back.// Curiously enough, he was not afraid of the future. Once, it seemed so very long ago, he had told Heero Yuy that Epyon had said he had no future. He had said that it had shown him no future and he had not lied. No, he had not lied, merely manipulated the truth just a little. He had been very good at doing that. Manipulating the truth. It was not something that he was overly proud of, but it had been necessary to break Romefeller's strangle hold on the Earth Sphere. It had been necessary for them all for him to play his cards so close to his chest and to sacrifice so many lives on the alter of peace. The one thing he had been totally honest about with Yuy, was the warning he had given him concerning Epyon itself. He was not certain that Yuy had understood the warning, either before flying the machine, or after the battle. He had told Yuy that Epyon was not a weapon and that had been the truth. It had never been his intention that Epyon be a weapon designed for war. He had needed to know if Yuy was the one to later become the Pilot they needed, but he had had his answer when Yuy had fallen from the cockpit of the Epyon, shaken and sick to his heart over what he had experienced. It had been a crushing disappointment for him. //Not Yuy. He can handle the Zero system, as was later proved but he just was not what the Epyon sought. No surprise, really, when I consider how different the two systems really are. I suppose they still think that Epyon was another version of Zero. They had no imagination, those scientists, no vision, when they designed the Zero System. Does he realize even now what Epyon really was? He asked me if I thought I had created a God, before he flew Epyon. He never mentioned what he thought of the machine after he returned to the castle. Did you think it more demon then, Yuy, than a God?// he sighed, switching off the view of the softly pulsing crystal that might, or not, become the future to so many of them. It was tempting him and he did not trust himself to stay clear of it. //You were not meant to use the Epyon any more than I was. We both learned that the hard way, did we not, Mr. Yuy? It was not us who learned how to use that beast.// He thought of silver blonde tresses and eyes of blue crystal that once had looked at him with trust and not pain and betrayal. He had made a choice and given the monster to Yuy, even knowing that he was not the pilot it sought. Had it been his decision, or had it been Epyon making the choice for him? //I'm sorry, my friend. I could not warn you what it was capable of. It ripped your soul apart and put you back together again, did it not?// How the machine had come into the hands of Zechs Marquise he did not know, but he suspected it had been Yuy's doing. Did the seemingly emotionless Perfect Soldier ever feel guilt for that? Did he ever feel guilty for giving the Epyon over into the hands of possibly the only one capable of understanding it's true function? Did Yuy do so willingly? Had he willingly given the machine away, or was it the influence of the machine itself, sensing the proximity of what, who, it needed to truly come alive? Epyon had been very much aware of the world around it. //I warned Yuy as best I could what the machine was NOT. Did he have the grace to warn you, Zechs? Did you have any idea what you were getting yourself into, when you donned that helmet for the first time? By then it would have been too late for you.// He shook his head, wincing at the pain that action produced, but pain was to be bore as penance for the lives he had played with. Someone must pay a price, and he did not see that it must be his friend who paid the price alone. He had cast his friend into the pits of hell. It was only right that he share some small measure of that darkness. "What do you think you are doing, Kushrenada? This is not solving the problems that must be faced and dealt with before it all can begin. The crystal is completed, and now being tested, as best we may. It is new technology and we do not know half of what we need to. Will I be once again casting Him into hell? Enough. I need to concentrate on acquiring the crew that is needed for this grand design to work. I know where most of them are and it is time to begin to gather them in." he hated the strain in the words, the pain it cost him to voice them. It would improve. The doctors had assured him that it would improve. ~/ The treasure is with the War God./~ He looked again to the screen with it's one line message that gave hope to the entire project. The flashing cursor at the end of the printed words pulsing slowly. Patiently. He chose to ignore the opening of the door across from his desk and the low hum of the robotic nurse as it trundled across the carpeted floor. He chose to ignore the device as it stopped at his side and he chose to ignore the sting and the crawling of liquid entering his veins. He had instructions to give, and he could trust the robotic nurse to provide his body with the medication it needed to complete his healing. The injected round of pain medication was well timed, he reflected, as he fitted his all too sensitive hand into the writing glove designed for his use. It had taken him some weeks to fully appreciate the device, and learn to master the techniques of using it, but it allowed him to pass on his instructions to those who waited for them. This was a long time in coming, but it was nearly here. This generation would be the one to succeed. True, it was Romefeller's machinations that had made all of this possible, but they did not need to thank Romefeller for the puppet pulling and murders they had committed over the generations. "Lilac, Sir." her voice broke the silence of the room, conjured up in response to his summons. One day he would meet her face to face, instead of this medium of the vid screen. One day he would be able to leave his isolated rooms and meet this rather remarkable woman he had come to admire for her dedication. She was a handsome woman, one of the generation personal; a second generation born to Rosemount Station. In her mid forties she looked to be barely thirty and she was wholly dedicated to making this project a success. They had come to the final stages and soon they must succeed. He was grateful for all they had done for him, and he worked for them and his friend and Lady, whom he had betrayed, perhaps more than for himself to see that it all came to fruition. Together they would change the face of Mankind's experience in space. His fingers twitched in the motion of writing, barely noticeable flickers to any eye that might have been watching, but enough for the sensitive filaments in the glove to register, as he had learned to do, his eyes centered on the screen as the words appeared there. ~/ Our treasure has been found, Lilac. Zechs Marquise is on Mars. Who do we have in that region who could contact him?/~ A moments silence, perhaps the suggestion of a sucked in breath at the news. "There are two ships within seven days of the planet. One is in transit to L2, to effect the removal of the subjects at point R5." He considered that. No, he could not interrupt that mission. They needed to carry on with that project before Romefeller caught a hint of the action soon to be taken against them. They already had lost one crop of Romefellers genetically enhanced children to a Preventer raid on a laboratory on Earth. Rather than draw the attention of Preventers he had called off the plans to gather in that crop of children and bring them to Rosemount. They could not afford, however, to lose a second such group. ~/ No. Allow that mission to carry through. The second? /~ "The second is a cargo ship headed for the L4 cluster. The Last Horizon is slated to pick up the shipment of processed Gundanium and Titanium from the smelter satellite." //Ah. We need that material. Not so good then. We can not afford to have either mission delayed, considering the travel time that is involved between locations. We need the raw materials, but we need Him, too.// ~/ There is no other ship in the vicinity of Mars? /~ "Yes, Sir. The closest ship after the Last Horizon is a nine day flight from Mars. A patrol survey of the sector almost completed by the Sun Dancer. She's small and fast, but a good distance from the planet." Nine days. Longer that he ideally wished to wait, but when you dealt with the sheer size of space, you had to take the distance into account, and nine days was better than nineteen and certainly better that the ninety odd days it could take to prep and send a ship from Rosemount at this time. ~/ That will do. Instruct her captain to make all haste to Mars and interview Zechs Marquise. Whilst they are in transit you will endeavor to learn just what Mr. Marquise is doing on that rock. You have four days, Lilac, to discover why he is there. That should permit us to formulate some plans before the interview takes place. /~ " I will assign a research team immediately, Sir." ~/ It is time to locate the former Gundam Pilots, Lilac. I need to know their locations and recent history of activities./~ He saw the glint in her light green eyes and the faintest twitch of her lips that suggested a smile. The hope that his instruction meant that the waiting was almost over was clear enough to read. All of the generations born to the station were waiting for the day they were ready, and with this exchange of instructions he knew the word would spread that they advanced another important step to achieving their goal. What would they do if their prospective pilot proved incapable of operating the systems, or if he refused to aid them in this endeavor? "Sir. I shall instruct my agents accordingly. With the location of Mr. Marquise now known, I shall reassign the search team to appropriate duties." ~/ Assign agents to locating Lucrezia Noin with a report on her activities over the last two years. A detailed report on the activities of Anne Une is also required for assessment. Divide the team who worked on Marquise to provide details on the Gundam Pilots. I will forward to you a full list of personal who must be investigated and marked for contact. I believe it is time for you to send out three collection ships. By the time they reach the Earth Sphere we should be ready to gather in those who choose to accept our offer./~ "Sir." now the smile broke through her restraints, just as the circuit closed and granted him his isolation once more. He pulled his hand from the glove, cradling the source of his pain to his chest. It had been much worse, once. Much worse. It improved, but he wondered some days if he would ever truly recover from that explosion. //I will thank the day I did not die in truth, if this dream becomes reality. All of the heartache, all of the pain, will have been worth the effort.//
|
