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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 66 Sanc New Port City Preventer Headquarters Date: 1st March AC 198 Time: 22:20 Lady Une “Mayday! Mayday! Help us. This is Mars Base Dome. The Raiders … oh, God … The Raiders are here! They're killing everybody. Help us …” Une straightened slowly from the desk, her brown eyes narrowed, her lips tightening with reaction to the message that had beamed over the emergency com lines. //How dare they!// the thought was a silent denial of utter disbelief and rage, the implications of the message unable to be ignored. //Bastards.// She was well aware of her Medical Officer, Sally Po, glaring at the screen with blue eyes widening in horrified understanding. She was not the only one who understood the implications. Her second thought, to her sorrow, was that she recognized it as a move that would have been considered to be worthy of herself when she had been Colonel Une of the Oz Specials. Yes, she could be that ruthless. She was more than capable of being that ruthless. Had she not threatened to blow up a colony to force the Gundams to surrender? It had not been an idle threat, she knew. Not an idle threat at all. She had actually intended to do it. His Excellency had not been pleased with her at all and looking back on how she was in those days, she had to ask herself now a vital question. Who was she to judge Zechs Merquise? //No. Not now Anne. You can't deal with that now, there is far more of importance to be attended to than dealing with your views on Him. Just not now. Save it for later. Alright, what do I do now? Think. Be quick and be sure you get this right, because you will not get a second chance.// Sally hissed her rage, fingers gripping the arms of her chair, blue eyes intense. “They will take out the colony and place the blame on the Raiders. For it to succeed they have to take down the entire colony.” “An effective response to trouble.” Une returned, managing to maintain her calm facade, careful to keep her voice even. Losing her temper would serve no purpose. “Very efficient, actually. With this one action they accomplish a number of objectives. Their funding for new ships and recruits to patrol the space lanes will skyrocket. They will be given a mandate to go into space in numbers and clean up the space lanes. They will gain so much by that one single action. Yes. They have been very efficient with their plans.” //Efficient? Effective? I suppose that is true, but it does not help the situation to admire their ruthlessness. Just how are we supposed to react to this? We know it for the farce it is, but how do we prove it? How do we prove the bastards have arranged for the murder of thousands and not disrupt the peace process? God. Is it worth peace? Is this price worth what is happening out there?// Sally shook her head, forcing herself to move beyond the shock. This was not being useful in the current situation. “Somehow I do not thing that those on Mars will think it so effective, to be used in this manner. I am of the opinion that they will think of it more along the lines of cold-blooded murder.” Sally returned. Une nodded in agreement, but absently, her mind running quickly over what they knew for certain and what was as yet supposition. The situation must be able to be of use. It was simply a matter of finding the best way to react for the good of all involved. There was obviously nothing she could do to stop the slaughter. Her ships were just too far away. It was her failure and she would carry the blame for those lives lost to her grave. “It is efficient. They have effectively established far more than a cover for the operation on Mars. If this action has been deemed necessary then I believe that it is fairly safe to assume that matters on Mars are well out of hand. No doubt Zechs and Noin have strenuously objected to the policy of their children being raised on Earth. This reaction is to the point in that it allows them a sound cover for the operation and the deaths that are being dealt. It also allows them to gain more than just a cover from this mission. No, Sally, I have to be honest here and cover all of the bases. It has been very well thought out and they have been very careful to consider as many possible scenarios as possible. Yes, it is whole scale slaughter, but you have to admire the efficiency of the plan. It has been meticulously planned and it has long term implications for the Earth Sphere.” //She admires the planners of this slaughter? God. Are you slipping back into the Colonel Une persona? I'm not certain that could be a good thing.// “If I am to be honest then I have to say that if it was really well thought out, then they would not have been stupid enough to use Zechs and Lu in this manner.” blue eyes spat fire, not in the least impressed by the situation at all. “God, I can just imagine what is happening on Mars. Confusion. Chaos. With their agents slaughtering the terraformers, those who are left and capable of fighting back will not know who they can trust. It will be a shambles, Une. No real organized defense against them will be possible. Those people are not soldiers. They are scientists and laborers, Anne. I can just see that Lu will kill anyone who goes near the babies, innocent or not. She will not take chances with her children. I doubt that even Zechs could organize a defense. With his reputation short of terrorizing them into submission they will not trust him to defend them.” Lady Une merely grunted an acknowledgement of the simple truth her second offered her. Yes, chaos would reign on the Martian base, but that was out of her hands. Merquise and Noin were professionals and would have to deal with it as best they could. There was also the Preventer agents she had established on Mars to be factored into the equation. She had done what she could there, and she must look to other horizons. Her own thoughts were turning to broader implications. Her concern was turning far closer to home than lingering on that distant planet. In the bloodbath that would birth on Mars there was an abject lesson the ESUN councilors were sending to Relena. There was no doubt that the message was clear and that the girl would understand. It was likely they had given instructions to their agents to kill either Merquise or Noin, possibly even both of them, to teach the Vice Foreign Minister to know her place. They would have the children taken into secured custody and be assured that Relena would no longer think of fighting their influence. She had come to realize the influences being brought to bear on the girl, not just from the Council and their imprisonment of her brother, but from sources far closer to home. Bloodlines were being brought to bare on her education and Lady Une had noted that Relena was beginning to have some understanding of the importance breeding still exerted on the political scenes of the Earth Nation. That had not initially been the case, Une was certain. Relena's exposure to the traditionalist values of the people of Sanc were having a baring on her thought processes. During the war and in its aftermath Relena had certainly not had any love for her brother, and it was very likely she had none for him even now. What the girl had learned since the war was that one needed family. She had become based in the Sanc Kingdom, when not traveling amid the colonies and performing her duties as Vice Foreign Minister. During that time she had had a chance to learn of the reverence the people of Sanc had for the Peacecraft lineage. While she had been raised with wealth and prestige, she had not been exposed to the reverence with which the Sancian people viewed their ruling bloodline. With that reverence now witnessed on a daily basis and reinforced under Pagan's guidance, she would have learned that the old bloodlines were indeed revered. Unlike many other countries where the nobility and royalty had fallen into disfavor, in Sanc the exact opposite had happened. Not even the massacre performed by the Alliance had wiped away the peoples view of their ancient history. The people of Sanc viewed the Royal Family with a reverence and importance that was centuries old. Pagan had been taught from his childhood of the importance of preserving the bloodline of the family his people had served for generations. His family had died in serving the Peacecrafts and he served them to this day. He would undoubtedly have passed that imperative on to Relena. The bloodlines were ancient and above all must be preserved. She herself had been born into that society. Relena would be learning that lesson and others under Pagan's capable guidance. She was only too aware of the number of requests that had been made for Relena to take up the Crown of Sanc. Each and every request had been refused, at first adamantly and more recently with a tired resignation. Relena was beginning to realize that her people in Sanc were not inclined to consider themselves as just another group of citizens of the Earth Sphere Nation. Dissolving the national borders had been stupid. The girl had been young and naive and a pawn wielded by Romefeller, who had seen the chance to rule the Earth in its entirety. As if they had not, in truth done that, even though it had been in small parcels instead of the one big ball of rock. Too many countries had fought for too many generations to attain a national identity and they simply would not give it up on the say so of a fifteen year old girl who had been proclaimed the Queen of the World. She rubbed a hand over her eyes, considering the implications if Romefeller had succeeded with their aims. It was a frightening thought, but one she would need to entertain. At a later time. There simply was not sufficient time to do it now. More important power plays were afoot. //Get back on track, Anne. That's for later. Right now you have to see that she survives and is free to act to the benefit of the people, not just a small group who think they are the only ones fit to rule. That bunch of old lechers and their apprentices will have to learn that times are changing, and we have to change the system somehow. What to do first? It is time I acted, not sat on my butt letting events shape around me. His Excellency would not have been surprised by any of this. Treize. Ah, Treize. What should I do? I miss you.// Sally was waiting and must be concerned by her lack of response. Perhaps she feared a return of the old Colonel Une of Oz. There was no separation in her personality now, though, just solidarity. She was Anne Une, Preventer Earth, and she had a duty to perform. In memory of His Excellency she would preserve the peace. And she would do so in a manner that would make him proud. Taking a deep breath she reached for the inter com, dark eyes intense, thoughts racing, planning, considering and discarding and sorting. Searching for any means by which to regain some if not total control of the situation. The story of the raid on Mars would be picked up by every media group in the Earth Sphere. That could not be avoided, as it was already sure to be on the airwaves. No media mogul in his right mind would sit on that story. She needed something to knock it off the airwaves. Something of far reaching importance that it would smother the Martian massacre before people could get their teeth into the story. Nothing much had happened, save for the attempted assassination of the L3 Representative at the garden party that afternoon. An attempted assassination … and the media were thirsting for juicy bones to gnaw on? “Ah. Yes.” the breath of a whisper. The media of late had been too quiet, if anything. This massacre of the Martian Terra Formers would be built into a full scale invasion by a Reavers armada and action would be demanded. That was exactly what it was designed to do. She could turn the thirst for a good story after the quiet time to her advantage if she was careful, and provided she could get certain people to cooperate. If the faction in the security council who had arranged this coercion of Relena wanted the massacre broadcast all over the ESUN, then she wanted to tone it down and give the media and the people something else to consider. If she could throw a scare into the old buzzards at the same time, then well and good. Of course, her selection of personal to take part in this operation would be critical to its success and to making sure that it did not explode beyond her control. It would be a disaster if she lost control of the plan, but at this time it was the only plan she had that had a chance of success. She judged the risks as being worth the price for success. “Establish a secured line to Heero Yuy at the Sanc Palace.” Une withdrew her hand from her intercom, looking up to meet Sally's eyes. “By the time you get to the palace they will have her ready to leave. Make your departure from there quick and quiet. I want her at a safe house ASAP.” // So you think they may use this as a distraction to isolate her further from help? Yes, you could be right. It's wise to get Relena to safer ground.// “You? You could be at risk in this situation as well.” //Remember our earlier conversation, Anne. You are a target, as the head of Preventers.// So Sally, too, had been doing some thinking. Good. Very well, this would help, not hinder the situation. She had learned she could rely on the blonde woman to be stability itself in tense situations. Sally could be relied on not to lose her head and to be objective in a tough situation. “I am head of Preventers. My absence would be immediately noticed. On the way to the palace I want you to pick up Marie and get her out of this mess before they decide to use her to curtail my activities. I will need a clear field to work in and that means getting Marie and Relena to safe ground.” “How long do I have before the shit hits the fan?” She was no fool. She knew that absent minded, automatic reflex where a hand rose, finger extended, to push up glasses Une had not worn for three years. //I will need to keep an eye on her, but for now, maybe we need something of Colonel Une's strength.// “Yesterday would be good.” softly. Absently, her mind already moving on to other preparations that needed to be made. “I want Relena gone from the palace in less than an hour.” Sally nodded and was moving, not rushing by any means, but hurrying to carryout her instructions. She would place her trust in the Lady for now, but she would keep her eye on the happenings, to ensure that Lady Une did not slip into Colonel Une. Une pressed her fingers together in a steeple, palms rubbing gently, absently, fingers lightly rubbing at the bridge of her nose. How best to make this work? She must be quick and thorough and above all she must maintain control of every nuance she set into motion. The intercom buzzed, drawing her attention to the secretary announcing the secure call to Heero at the palace had been established and cleared. “Ice. Water's on the way. Get Tinkerbell ready for immediate transport to secured location.” No time for pleasantries and he would respond far faster to this tone anyway. “Acknowledged.” not even a second's hesitation in the response. “Out.” She settled back in her chair, eyes drifting to the window, fingers stroking the line of her nose, seeking and not finding the wire rimmed spectacles she could feel nestled there. Step one complete. For now she would need to trust that Sally and Heero could remove Mariemaia and Relena to secured locations within the time span she had allotted. She was uncertain if the ESUN would be daring enough to make a move on the daughter of His Excellency now, but it was not beyond the realm of possibility that they would take this opportunity to act. If Sally was correct and those involved in this matter were aiming to gain control over her using Mariemaia then she needed to have the child removed as speedily and quietly as possible. To give them the time to move both Relena and the child who was like a daughter to her, she had to act in as normal a manner considering the situation as possible. Easily enough done. There were protocols to be observed and arrangements that had to be made. First, the matter of Mars. It was the simple truth of the matter that Mars was a very long way from Earth and any action that happened there was going to be long over before they could do anything about it. Distance had always been the problem since mankind had looked beyond his little ball of rock and water. Their technology just did not allow them to cover the distances involved in time to act on anything that happened out there. Spatial distances reduced the size of the Earth to a thumb nail on the human body. Space was so vast, and Mars and Earth were close considering other planetary bodies in the solar system. The human race would not consider itself tied to any one point in space for much longer. Certainly not this mud ball of a planet that had seen humanity crawl out of the primal filth. She knew it was coming. Perhaps the mining colonies would be the first to determine independence from the Earth Sphere and look deeper into space, extending their fields of influence. They were far enough away from Earth to make policing them almost impossible, without having large population centers in existence totally loyal to the ideals of the ESUN. It took them a minimum of three months for a one way physical presence to be established on Mars with the planet in its current orbital position. A three month flight. The distance was simply too great. They could not police the area, just react to what ever happened there far too late to make any appreciable difference. In this situation the ESUN were all over them, having a physical presence there with the fire power to back them up. The nearest Preventer ship was weeks away. //Maxwell. I'll need to decide what to do about him, though there is the mission to pursue the Raiders to be considered. Still, for his own safety maybe I should leave him just where he is. Merquise could still pull off a miracle, I suppose, though I can not see what he could do. For now I leave him there.// This round undoubtedly went to the ESUN Security Council. Unless, of course, Merquise could pull off that miracle. It had been meticulously planned and very well executed. Even the agents losing control of Merquise and Noin had been factored into the equation. If they did not go quietly, then the terra formers were expendable. There had been no way that Noin would go quietly, not where her children were involved, and that would have been understood by the ESUN very early on in the planning stages. It was very likely that from the very day the decision to allow Merquise to go to Mars had been made and Noin had placed herself on the shuttle with him that the tacticians had been hard at work. Done was done. They, herself and her Preventers, had been played. They had gained some little time, but not much else in sending Zechs to Mars. It was likely that the birth of the children had given them a little more time, though it was more likely still that the ESUN Councilors involved in this had actually hoped that Noin would become pregnant. She must not forget that point. The ESUN faction that was controlling this power play might well have wanted Noin on that shuttle with Zechs. Regardless, the ESUN had used that development to further their plans. With babies under their control they had secured a very old and revered bloodline and gained guaranteed political footholds with Relena as their pawn. Preventers had watched it all happen and had not made a move to stop it. She was at fault. She was found lacking in her anticipation of events. Was it her anger at Zechs? Was Sally right that she resented the blonde for his association with His Excellency to the extent that she would make so stupid a blunder? Or had she, unforgivably, sat back and hoped that he would be taken down? Revenge for imagined slights and … Whatever, it was done. The ESUN would win this round and she would need to make provision to limit their victory as much as possible. She would have to trust in her memories of the Lightning Count to pull yet another miracle from a hopeless situation and herself deal with events that she had a hope of influencing. She had no documented proof to present to any hearing against those who had instigated this entire mess. She might suspect who was involved, but she could not name names in a court of law and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were responsible for mass murder. She could not prove that it was not Raiders who were going to massacre those people. Any autopsies that would be made could reveal that the people on Mars were killed over a longer period of time than a Raider assault would allow for, yes, that was true. Raiders hit quickly and vanished into the depths of space. Yes, they could prove there were oddities in timing, but they could not prove who had done the slaughtering. The Wellington would take nearly two days to arrive above Mars and all that time people would be dying. Slowly, a few at a time, but inexorably they would die. It would be a running battle, and on Mars there just was no where to run. Yes, Doctors could examine the bodies and establish times of death, but when it was the ESUN who would be running that investigation what did that mean? They would state the time of death of each individual at the exact times they wished, within a few hours of each other, no doubt. Just enough time to give the nod to the theory of a Raiders assault. Virtually foolproof. They were not fools or rank amateurs at this covert deception. It would take her years to ferret out the proof of what really would happen on Mars. Years of painstaking investigation and time was one thing those people on Mars just did not have. She only prayed that no one would answer that mayday. //Any captain who answers that call will have signed the death certificate of everyone on board his ship. They will not allow there to be any witnesses to this deception. The first thing I need to do, I suppose, is make the usual useless instructions to ships that are just too far away to have any effect on the outcome. It is to be expected that I will instruct all ships to head for Mars, but I think I will put them on notice. I think I will suggest to the planners of this farce that I will not play their game. It is time to order my people to establish formations at set locations between Mars and the Asteroid Belt, to try to cut off the retreat of the Raider responsible for the atrocities we can do nothing to avoid. If Zechs should somehow manage to stop the agents running loose on Mars, it really makes no difference to the overall outcome. There is nothing he can do that will stop the Wellington. They're dead. Or as good as dead. I hate this.// It did not help that she was certain that this would not have happened had Preventers been under the command of His Excellency. The man had been brilliant. A genius tactician with a natural gift of charisma that could convince anyone to cooperate with his ideals. He had never been surprised by an event in the political arena in the years that she had known him. He had seemed to have an instinct for intrigue and its complexities. He had even acquired some type of warning on the Gundams before the first whispers had been received by the Alliance, prior to the machines and pilots beginning their assault on Earth. No, he would have been able to pick up on subtle clues from the day Merquise had returned to Earth to fight Barton. He would never have been stupid enough to have allowed the situation to develop, as she had. Stupid? Lax, certainly, but stupid? Distracted by personal concerns, that was her excuse. Poor excuses, too. He would have gotten Merquise off Earth another way. Or at least had him quietly removed from Mars before the ESUN could act. Lord knew, if he had been here, there would possibly have been no Barton Incursion. Not even Dekim Barton would have taken on Treize Kushrenada. //He is not here, Anne. No good will come of you dwelling on it. Let him lie in the past. You now have to ensure that your people can get his daughter to safety and the Peacecraft girl with her. Get them out of harms way and then start picking up the pieces of this mess. I'll have those bastards. I'll have them for this affront to basic human dignity. There has to be justice for this mass murder they sanction. So, where to begin? First the death threat, I suppose.// Again the reach for the intercom with one hand, the other hand reaching to bring her computer up out of sleep mode. “Ma'am?” “Recall Chang Wu Fei. I want him in my office in five minutes.” //Sally should have had enough time to be out of the building by now.// He should, at this time, be in the locker room, preparing for the scheduled shuttle flight to L3 where he was to further investigate the assassination attempt she was about to blow out of all proportion. It would only take him a few minutes to reach her office, unless he had been showering after his investigations had led him into the slums of Bremen. It had been a long day for Chang and he was not likely to thank her for this, but she believed he would understand the necessity. It was a matter of a few minutes speedy typing to formulate an untraceable death threat against the Vice Foreign Minister and selected political affiliations. Sighting Relena's political affiliations and the lunacy of her impeccable bloodlines and making certain not to overdo any aspect. This must be done carefully, not just singling out the girl, but a good spread of candidates from the Council. Nutcases always had reasonable ideas mixed with lunacy, she reflected. Using knowledge known only to a few from her days in Oz she established the existence of a cell group of terrorists and formulated a hit list of political targets that was more than just feasible. Each and every person on the list would be a prime target if a terrorist group was really active and intended to stir up the ESUN. A final check of the email with a critical eye for detail, it must not, after all, lead any investigators back to Preventers, and she sent it out to bounce around the world a few times and finally arrive at three international news agencies headquartered in Sanc, Luxembourg and New York City. Within minutes they would receive the threats and hopefully enough of a stir would be generated to smother the reports of the Mars attack into insignificance. She chuckled softly at the thought. Oh yes. Mr Treize would approve, she was sure. They wanted a media blitz on the attack from the Raiders, did they? The media were infinitely pliable, however, despite the bribes that would have changed hands to ensure their story received prime air time. This entire lie she fabricated was a method to tighten security around Relena and lessen the impact of the massacre, taking away from the perfectly executed coup of her rivals. The attack on the L3 representative would work in beautifully. She would see just how much air time the massacre on Mars achieved when the lives of the council representatives was threatened by a rebel terrorist group. He was perfect for this work, though she did not doubt that he would not appreciate the deviousness of it. He had acted as a terrorist before. He had been a terrorist, in truth and he was renowned for his demand for justice. She could use that to work for her, playing on that to get him to cooperate with the necessity of the plan. He would call it dishonorable, no doubt, but that was unavoidable, so long as he agreed in the long term. Which of necessity had to be the short term, if she wanted to control this mess. If he wanted Justice she would point to Mars and what was happening there. She jabbed at the inter com again. “Where is Chang?” “On his way, Ma'am. He was located at the car pool, about to leave for the shuttle terminal.” //That was close.// she reflected. //Almost missed him, and time is of the essence.// It would be tight, the timing on this, but she could not help that. She had no doubt that he could vanish quickly once his instructions had been issued. He was always efficient and coldly practical in his missions. He was a demolition expert and he had made runs not unlike this in the days of the One Year War. She could rely on him to be as efficient now as he had been then, if not more controlled at least. Even the weather could be said to be cooperating with the scheme. The building storm would make his task of hiding evidence that much easier, though he might not appreciate it. It was time to stop pandering to the egos of the council. Time her office was made permanently bug free. They could not complain if she ordered a sweep of the office after the email was received, which should be any minute now, she noted. The media would forward the threat directly to her, as they had done so before, wanting to garner exclusive tit bits if at all possible. Which she would be only too happy to provide, when she needed them to be known. One more thing to do before Chang walked in her door and she must focus exclusively on him, to convince him of the necessity for these rather extreme actions. She quickly entered into the computer the codes she had never thought she would need to use since the disbanding of Oz. The terrorist organization that would now rear its ugly head just for a brief time, had been designed by His Excellency to further the plan for peace. In the end, the Gundam pilots had come to Earth before they had used the false group. The Gundams and their pilots had proved to be so much more reliable and easier to control, but now the terrorist cell could be brought into play. In the interests of peace, of course. Let the ESUN Security force wonder where the terrorist cell had come from. Before dawn there would be just enough information in Preventer files to give credence to the lie of this fictional terrorist cell. It was hardly her fault if ESUN sources were lax.
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