"You Call This Vacation?"

Written By: Yanagi

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Gundam Boys. I just borrowed them

Rating: NC 17

Warnings: the usual

Pairings: 1x2

Summary: Fic 4 in the Bounty Hunters Series

" You Call This Vacation?"

Duo smiled and reached out for his drink. He was glad that Heero had agreed to use Quatre's island in the South China Sea. It wasn't huge but it was large, covering about fifteen square miles. Duo sipped his drink and watched as Heero waded out into the warm waters to swim a few 'laps'. They would surf a bit later when the swells were better.

Heero finished his laps and ambled up the sand to flop down on a towel. “Well, I checked the tide reports and we should have some good waves about 15:00. Did you clean your board?”

“Yes, and rewaxed it too. You?” Duo smirked. “Like I really need to ask.”

Heero smirked back. “No. What's for lunch?”

Duo shrugged, “I have no idea. The staff is all in a twitter after we took over the kitchen yesterday, so I decided to give them a break and leave the menu to them. It's bound to be something really good, I'm sure.”

It turned out to be shrimp scampi, garlic bread and a wonderful fresh avocado and grapefruit salad. It was accompanied by a light, semi-sweet white wine.

Heero sipped appreciatively then held the sweating glass out to admire the color. “Very nice.” He grinned at Duo. “Duo, I don't think you're supposed to hold the glass by the foot.”

“Not really, but I don't want to heat the glass with my hand. I know I look like a snob but, so what.” He stuck his nose in the air in imitation of one of the generals of Preventers, who thought he was very sophisticated. Everyone who was anyone avoided him like poison. Relena called him a 'jumped up, low class social climber' in that elegant way of hers. Her tiny sniff said everything she wouldn't. “I do think we should have a party. This island is nice and we haven't all been together in … years.”

“You want to invite Quatre to his own island?” Heero shrugged. “Ok. But … who else will we invite?”

Duo sipped at his wine while he thought. “Well, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei. Do you think Relena would have time? But not Une. Woman still gives me the creeps.”

Heero nodded. “If someone had tried to have me executed, I wouldn't like them either. And I'm not that fond of her myself, for other reasons. So … anyone else?”

Duo rattled off a list of their bounty hunting companions and a few contacts. There was a total of about 20 people. The logistics of getting them all to the island discouraged even them. They didn't have the resources of Preventers to help them and they didn't want to clue Quatre in, it was hard to surprise the man but they wanted to try.

After over an hour of tentative plans, they realized that it wasn't going to work without some help, so they gave up on surprising Quatre and called him.

Quatre was delighted and said that he'd be there in two days, as soon as he finished up some business and made arrangements to leave. He said that he and Trowa would take their private jet. A call to Wufei brought the information that he was between missions and would come tomorrow and they were all set.

.

Heero watched as the shuttle landed on the runway. “Wufei is at the controls.”

Duo nodded, also recognizing the piloting style. “No shit. I wonder who he displaced?”

“Don't know, but do you really see Chang letting anyone else pilot unless he was out cold?”

“Nope. He's such a control freak. But ... I bet he doesn't get much chance to pilot.”

Heero nodded his agreement to this. “Probably not. He's usually got to be in back with his squad, or ready to jump or something. Sucks. I'm glad we decided not to go that road.”

Duo shrugged. “We could volunteer for a few missions once in a while. But I'm glad too. I don't see us as ... we're just too wild for a standard military career.”

“Exactly. And we'd drive our control nuts. Come on, he's taxiing in.”

They ran to the small hanger to greet Wufei, jogging easily.

Duo waved as they approached, calling, “Hey! Wufei, how's it going?”

Wufei smiled at Duo, then nodded rather regally to Heero. “Well enough. You wouldn't believe the idiot they gave me for a pilot. He's ... inexperienced, at best.”

Heero just smirked at Wufei, then smiled at the pilot over his shoulder. “And how is he supposed to get experience, if no one will let him fly them? I assume that Une assigned him to this milk run with you so that he could do exactly that with a pilot who could save you both if he messed up.” the pilot made a face at that but kept his mouth firmly shut.

Duo just snickered. He looked at the pocket strip and asked, “So, Bateman, how many hours do you already have?”

Captain Bateman just grinned, “A couple a thousand, or so. But ... who am I to argue with Special Agent Chang?”

“Someone who likes his head where it is?” Heero questioned, his smirk pointed directly at Wufei.

“Ay-ya! You shut it. Like you wouldn't do the same.” Wufei picked up his bag and demanded, “Do I have a bed here, or are you expecting me to toss a sleeping bag on the beach?”

Duo put an arm over his shoulders, snatching his bag out of his hand with the other. “It's not a bad idea some nights but we've got you some floor space. Come on.”

Bateman just followed with his own bag. He was thirty-four years old and those kids made him feel every second of it. He had actually flown thousands of hours in his fifteen years or so of flight. And most of it had been in combat of one kind or another. He remembered days where he'd gotten in the pilot's seat, flown for hours, slept in it, awakened and flown again. War was hell, even for the young. He shook his head at his thoughts and hurried to catch up.

He knew he was going to get a decent room, probably in the servants quarters, and that was fine with him. He also knew that he was now relegated to being a distant memory, and that was fine too. He was going to enjoy his time on this island paradise, then fly back home with some good stories to tell.

.

Heero showed Wufei the room they had set aside for him. “You'll like this. It has a terrace and it's on the east side of the house. You'll be able to see the sunrise from your bed. If you stay in it that long.”

Wufei grimaced a bit, his expression a combination of disgust, self-consciousness and exhaustion, his sour rejoinder of, “Po says I'm burning out. That Onna says that I need to sleep in, eat more red meat and workout with you and Duo. To work off the stress. Onna no baka.”

Heero just noted the signs of stress and exhaustion and kept his own counsel. He wasn't about to tell Wufei that he looked like shit. The black circles under his eyes looked like spare tires. His complexion was pale yellow instead of the light umber it should be. The worst part of it was how thin he was. Wufei had lost at least twenty pounds, more like thirty, and that from a frame that carried just what it should.

Duo made a face at Heero over Wufei's shoulder. They'd talk about it later. Now, they needed to get Wufei into his bed, late evening was not a good time to arrive but it was the best Une could do. Duo had wanted him to arrive in the morning, hang around until dark, then sleep. It would have put him on their schedule more quickly, but beggars couldn't be choosers so they settled for what they could get.

.

A man entered the locker room and announced, “Ok, suits and boots, people, Winner is on the move.” so the men and women got their armor and weapons on and moved out. Quatre was perfectly capable of taking care of himself but the board of directors, which consisted mostly of his sisters, insisted that he take all reasonable precautions. And a few that weren't.

Unfortunately, Quatre was being more stubborn than usual. He was going on vacation to his own island surrounded by miles of sea. He wasn't taking any protection, other than his lover and best friend, Trowa Barton. The Commander kicked a wastebasket in fury as he found out that they were planning to pilot themselves.

He was well aware that both Trowa and Quatre had been Gundam Pilots but that didn't make him any happier. He had a job and they were keeping him from doing it. It drove him crazy that the two just wandered off to the plane, laughing and flirting, leaving him to stew in his own juices. Quatre's casual, “We won't be taking you with. We can handle a hop to the South China Sea. You can all take a vacation too. Good-bye.” had left no room for argument and Quatre's turquoise eyes had held that steely look that no one argued with.

.

Duo laughed as he trotted down the beach. He loved running on the beach, it just made him happy. What made him even happier was the fact that Quatre and Trowa were due in soon. The email said they should be in around 4pm.

Heero grinned as he trotted backwards. He was happy that Duo was happy and that they both would soon be together with all their comrades. They were alone together because Duo had threatened doom and disaster if anyone woke Wufei before he woke himself.

“Stop that, Heero. You'll trip.” Duo laughed again as Heero did exactly that, sprawling in the sand with a yelp.

They both laughed for a while, sitting in the sand side by side.

Heero got up, pulled Duo to his feet, then peered off into the distance. “Hn. Wufei is up.”

Duo glanced at his watch. “Well, he slept longer than I thought he would but not as long as I hoped. Let's go!” and with that he poked Heero in the shoulder and took off for the house.

Heero snorted once and dashed after him. He caught up quickly and jogged along beside Duo in companionable silence.

It didn't take them long to get back to the house and mount the stairs to the terrace that overlooked the ocean. Wufei was seated at the table, drinking tea.

“You look cool.” Duo flopped down on a lounger. He took a moment to look his friend over.

Wufei was dressed in a traditional Tai Chi uniform. It was white, instead of black. A sop to the hot, tropical climate.

Heero took a cup of tea from Wufei, then settled at the seat nearest Duo. “You look better already. How do you feel?”

“Much better. I wasn't ... I did not wish to believe Sally Po when she said I was exhausting myself but ... I do believe her now.” Wufei sipped his tea for a moment, then continued, “I will be glad to relax with all of you. When are Quatre and Trowa expected?”

Heero nodded at Duo who said, “Around four this afternoon. Sky is clear... but that doesn't mean much. They're coming from somewhere in the US.”

Wufei looked worried for a moment, then smoothed his expression. “Well, that just means they'll be even happier to be here. The weather over there is bad. Clouds, rain, unseasonably cold temperatures.” He sipped his tea. “It is very nice here. I'm actually contemplating taking a nap.”

“Nap away, my friend. You need the rest.” Heero laughed at Duo's sour expression. “I know, you were wanting him to play some sort of game with you. Later. Ok?”

Duo shrugged easily. “Sure. Later is fine. I was just hoping. I won't pass out from boredom or anything. I've still got a couple of games to play through.”

Heero just grinned at an already yawning Wufei and stated, “And I have a stash of games ... just in case.” He yelped, “Hey!” as Duo tossed a pillow at him nearly spilling his tea. He threw it back one handed and Duo yelped in return, falling off the side of the lounge.

Heero just snorted at that while Wufei remarked, “Wrong side, Maxwell, the force of the blow would have knocked you off the opposite side. But nice prat fall at least.”

Duo intelligently stuck his tongue out at Wufei, then flopped back down on the lounge. “Well ... Nap in the sun or go surfing? What a decision.”

.

It was 5pm, surfing was over for the day and the whole group was sitting at the small airport waiting for the plane to land. It was late, by about an hour, give or take ten minutes. This wouldn't seem like much but with a Gundam pilot at the controls, it was.

Duo looked at his watch with a scowl. “Why does my gut tell me something is very wrong?”

Wufei sighed, “Because, it probably is. But Winner has his team with him. That's something.”

Heero just stuck his cell phone to his ear and waited.

.

<Somewhere over Thailand>

Quatre glowered at the instruments. “Trowa, tell me again why we thought it was such a good idea to do this?”

“Um ... because we were tired of being followed everywhere by a group of well prepared, armed men and women?” Trowa eyed his own instruments with disgust.

“Or ... because we were stupid. Someone has sabotaged us or I miss my guess.” Quatre snarled as the yoke bucked in his hands.

“I think you're right. Why else would the controls all go crazy? We definitely need to rethink some of the design. LEAR did warn us.” Trowa had thought flying this new design to their gathering was a good idea. He hadn't argued with Quatre when he'd suggested the idea. Now he wasn't so sure.

“We're going to have to put down somewhere. Soon.” Quatre swore in Arabic as he pulled the yoke back as hard as he could and got a bare response. “Shit!”

“Yeah. We're goin' down hard. Yoke is totally non-responsive.” Trowa started broadcasting a standard Mayday, the automatic transponder would continue to broadcast until there was no more power, however long that was. He was glad that it was the type that could be removed and carried.

Their plane made unhappy noises, then nosedived. Trowa swore in some Slavic language, then snarled, “Prepare for crash landing.” He and Quatre assumed the 'safety' position and held on. The plane's auto pilot took over the emergency landing procedures and they promptly crashed into a jungle.

It took them both a few moments to regather their senses, shake the shock out of their brains and start getting out of the plane. It didn't take them long to assess their situation, crashing wasn't that unusual a situation for either of them. In fact, it was less traumatic to crash a plane than it was to crash a Gundam. And both of them had done that several times. Not as dramatically as Heero but still, it wasn't a pleasant experience.

Quatre started searching the plane for anything resembling survival supplies while Trowa checked the transponder and radio.

Trowa activated the transponder and was disgusted to see that the internal battery was only at 10%, which was about two days worth at low setting. This wouldn't have been a problem but the plane's main battery assembly had been smashed, this made it impossible to charge the transponder. Or use the radio. He compromised and set the radius to medium and hoped a satellite would pick it up.

“Quatre? Did you bring your cell?” Trowa scowled at the battery bank.

“Yes, I did. You?” Quatre absently eyed the supplies he'd managed to collect.

“No, your sister Izuna has been blowing it up for days. I ... damnit!” Trowa smacked the side of the plane with one hand.

“Stop that. We can't afford for you to hurt yourself. My cell is in my suitcase. That's in the luggage compartment.” He realized another design flaw. “Under the fucking plane. We'll have to cut through to it.”

Trowa just sighed, “The word FUBAR comes to mind. Also SNAFU. Can we get a do over?”

“No. And my sisters are going to be worse than ever.” Quatre rubbed his face wearily.

“Love. I'm going to put my foot down. We're not catering to them anymore. I'm tired of it and so are you. We both thought that they'd ease up after awhile, but they're not. So ... no more.” Trowa waited for Quatre to argue.

Instead he just agreed. “You're right. It's gotten ridiculous. If they hadn't insisted on a battalion of obviously armed bodyguards, we wouldn't be in this mess alone. We'd have at least four people with us. It has gotten way out of hand and we didn't react well at all. We should be choosing our people, not my sisters. We should be deciding how many, who and where and when. So, when we get back, I'll put my foot down.”

“That'll go over well.” Trowa imagined the uproar.

Quatre got 'that' look in his eyes. The one that made even Heero nervous. “I'm still the head of the family; and president and primary owner of WEI. I say jump they better ask how high ... or just jump and hope.” He turned back to what he'd been doing. “Now. We've got enough food for about six days. Mostly nuts, dried fruit, cheese and other snack items. We already ate the only prepared meal there was. There's bottled water, juices and some powdered drink mixes. And ... thankfully, water purification equipment, a tent, a sleeping bag, and mosquito netting. There seems to be some expectation that we'd be camping out. Why it's not in the luggage compartment is anybody's guess.”

Trowa just shrugged. “Well, I'm glad. At least we have some resources until we can cut our way in to get to your phone. I just hope you remembered to turn it off.”

Quatre snorted at that. “You keep forgetting that I invented, all by myself, a battery that will last at least 720 hours of continuous use. That's 30 days of constant talking. Even Elena can't manage that. I think we're safe on that count.”

Trowa nodded. “But it's still in beta.”

Quatre just glowered at him for a second, then threw a bottle of water at him. “Drink that, you.”

Trowa snatched it out of the air and did as he was told. He was not about to argue with Quatre about something like that. The man had been the only medic they'd had more times than not.

They decided to check the blueprint of the plane that Quatre had in his laptop. Thankfully, that was in the main compartment. They settled down to consult the blueprints and figure out how to get into the luggage compartment with the least amount of annoyance and labor. Quatre realized with some horror that the only way to accomplish their mission was to cut through a quarter inch of aluminum with a GI can opener.

“Well, shit.” Quatre rubbed his eyes in dismay. “At least we have gloves. Somewhere.” He closed his laptop. “Find them, will you, Tro.”

“Ok. No connection on your laptop?” Trowa was sure there wasn't or Quatre would have been banging off emails.

“No. The repeater is out with the radio.”

“I was afraid of that, but no harm asking.” Trowa got up to find gloves. He didn't care if they were dress or what, as long as they'd protect their hands from the wear of working that can opener.

.

Duo glowered at the phone for a moment, then snarled, “Someone has got to be shitting me. I swear, what god have we pissed off?”

Wufei just sighed, “Ok, now what? Where are Quatre and Trowa?”

“Crash landed some fucking where in the middle of fucking Cambodia. The second they went down, all signal cut off. They were flying that new 24 seater they designed for WEI exclusive use. Fuck!” Duo kicked a perfectly inoffensive ottoman out into the yard.

Heero just got up. “Ok. So? We go find them. Come on.” He got up and walked into the house muttering under his breath. Duo caught, “flying”, “Damned piece of junk.” and “murder someone”. He wisely refrained from comment.

It took Wufei three minutes to get through to Une. It took Heero two to get to one of Quatre's sisters. Duo stayed out of it as he was busy arranging gear and transport.

Une got someone to get a satellite picture of the supposed crash area. Nothing. She had Wufei hold on until she could initiate a satellite search pattern which covered a greater portion of Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. All this area was on a more or less direct flight path from the US to Quatre's island.

Heero snarled in wordless rage and had to visibly prevent himself from smashing his phone. “You know those bodyguards that Irea insisted Quatre have?” Duo looked up wide-eyed. “They're not with him. He left them behind because he was coming here in that piece of shit beta transport he's been building. Damnit!”

Wufei sighed. “Well, shit!” He went back to waiting for something from Une.

Heero returned to his phone, examined the crack in the case and decided that it wasn't worth worrying about. He dialed, waited, then snarled, “You find that transponder now! I don't care who you have to horse whip, find that damn plane ASAP!” He slapped it shut, ignoring the chip that flew out of it and turned to Duo. “Ok, what can we get and where? How long to get it?”

Duo held up one finger in the ages old, “Wait one minute.” sign. Heero snorted and said, “Be glad you didn't use the wrong finger.” Duo just made a rude noise and continued to type.

Wufei listened for a moment,t then hung up with a snap. “Shit!” He then went into a rant in dockside Chinese that would have made even Heero and Duo blush, if they'd understood it. “The transponder is broadcasting but they can't triangulate on it because of a fucking mountain or some damn thing. But they're in Cambodia. Somewhere near the Laos border, or maybe Thailand. They're not sure yet.”

Duo snarled wordlessly. That whole area had been bombed and strafed back into the 20th century during the War of the Alliance, or whatever they were calling it now. It was a tangled jungle without a single highway or even a dirt road. They were in for a hard slog, no matter what.

“Find me some sort of coordinates. Fuck!” Duo poked keys for a moment as he continued to stew at the slowness of his computer.

.

Anne Une went down to communications herself. She had already received called from ten of Quatre's sisters and six of his brothers-in-law. They all wanted something done ... now. No one had any suggestions what.

“Ok, people, I need intel and I need it now. One of the richest men in the entire Earth System has crash landed in a jungle somewhere around Thailand, Cambodia, Laos. Not to mention the fact that he's a Gundam pilot as is his spouse and copilot. Find them! Now!” She glowered around and a collection of gaping mouths and goggling eyes. “Move it, people! I need results ... unless you want Maxwell in Shinigami mode breathing down your necks.” There was a very satisfying scramble.

It took someone about ten minutes to find the signal. It was weak but there, triangulating on it was going to be a no go. There was a lot of unexplained interference in the area. Some bright soul said that it resembled Deathscythe's scramblers.

Une shuddered, if some idiot was using a form of those scramblers, she wanted to know what they were trying to hide. She sent the appropriate email to Duo. She knew Heero was going to freak. She was freaking herself.

.

Duo read the email and threw a real fit. One that had both Heero and Wufei running for cover. The only member of staff with nerve enough to enquire was sent off with instructions to gather everything on a list Heero shoved at him and have it divided into three packs as soon as he could manage. He went away, wiping sweat off his forehead. All three of those men were on the short side but he didn't want to be on the wrong side of any of them.

Duo finally wound down, panting slightly. He hadn't damaged any of the furniture or the walls but he'd screamed and ranted himself slightly hoarse. If someone was using a form of his scramblers, he was pissed. No one had any right to that equipment but him. And he wasn't sharing.

“Ok! Fuck this shit. We know they're somewhere within a hundred mile square. So we go, we hunt, we find. And we find the son of a bitch who stole my scramblers. They go together. So, wheels up in?” He looked at Wufei.

Wufei was the designated mission command if Quatre wasn't available. Wufei thought for a moment. “Wheels up in ninety.” He glanced at Heero.

Heero thought for a moment then said, “Probably can do. I'll check with the ... major domo or whoever he is. We need stuff.”

Duo nodded. “I'll notify Une that we're going to be landing ... all I've got is GPS, don't think the place has a name. Anyway, she'll get equipment to us there ... or else. And I'm really sure she doesn't want Shinigami standing on her desk.”

Heero rested one hand on Duo's shoulder. “You send her a list? Where did you get it?”

“Yes, I sent her a list, for each of us. And where do you think I got it?” Heero blinked once. “Yeah, I compiled a wish list for all of us a while ago. Remember?”

Heero snickered, then replied, “Yes, I remember, but we were drunk.”

“And that makes a difference ... how?”

Heero shrugged and allowed that it really didn't.

Wufei just demanded to see the lists. When he got through reading he just demanded, “And Une is going to send us all that shit?”

“Why not? She wants the source of that signal found, surveilled and possibly destroyed. We want to find Quatre and Trowa, find out who is using my junk and swat them like the maggots they are. So ... what's the problem?”

Wufei thought for a second, then barked, “And who the hell is signing for all that shit?”

Heero just shrugged. “Not me.”

Duo snorted, “Like Une would let me sign for anything.”

Wufei shuddered. “I'm not signing for it either.”

“Well, then she'll just have to sit and spin, won't she? If she wants us to do a duel mission she'll just have to cough up.” Duo returned to his computer.

.

Captain Bateman found himself called back to duty way before he expected it.

He answered his cell and was astonished to find that he was going to run a piggyback mission.

This was where a chopper was loaded on a C17 Globemaster XX. The basic design had been around since the 21st century; but, as Quatre had said once, 'It works. Don't mess with success.” The only changes made had been to the electronics and engines, the basic look was the same.

One of the changes had been to put in a belly dump. This allowed the chopper to be launched while the Globemaster was still in the air. The chopper was loaded in to a special rack then, upon signal, the belly doors were opened and the chopper simply dropped out. The rotors were powered up and off they went. Unless the rotors refused to engage, in which case, a crash was inevitable. A chopper only flew if the rotors were spinning, otherwise it had all the aerodynamics of a rock.

The chopper was a very old fashioned UH-60 Blackhawk. This particular model had never gone out of production. It's 'shoot through' double door design and side mounted arms, as well as it's carrying capacity had kept it a work horse for military applications for over four centuries. Like it's compatriot Globemaster, most of the changes had been to equipment and arms, not the basic design. The biggest improvement had been the elimination of door gunners. Instead, the gunner was safely ensconced in the body and controlled his guns, which were mounted above the doors, with a joy stick. This eliminated the danger of a man in an open door, a sure target for snipers. It also eliminated having a warm body partially blocking the door.

He scrambled for the airstrip, hoping that the runway was going to be long enough for the Globemaster to land and take off. It was, but just barely. He watched in dismay as the Globemaster landed. All he could think was, 'Son of a bitch, what the hell have I gotten myself into now?'

And he was taking three Gundam pilots and a chopper into ... what? Shit!

.

Duo, meanwhile, was explaining how he'd managed to get the C17 with a UH-60 here so quickly. “See, it was going to an air show without a crew. The pilot on board is just a jump jockey. All he does is move the thing from one place to another. I wouldn't trust him to drop a bread roll much less troops. Une says that Bateman can do the job. Wufei, you're certified on the UH-60, right?” Wufei just nodded. “Well, ok then. We're off. Une just mailed me that all the stuff on our lists is on it's way. We'll pick it up at ...” He checked his laptop. “Some damn hole in the wall without a name, halfway between here and that other misnamed piece of shit gravel pile they call an airstrip. Fuck!”

Wufei got a glint in his eye. “Get back on the net and tell Une that we want a Dragonfly. We can run our search with one, two would be better as we could run a double spiral search pattern, then zero in and run another to pinpoint either Quatre and Trowa and the signal, or both.”

Duo just started typing. Heero, meanwhile was wasting time, convincing Quatre's people to stay where they were until they knew more. It didn't take him as long as you would expect, but it took more time than he liked. He had other things to do, like browbeating the local officials into keeping out of the operation.

That didn't take much time either, all it really took was the signature, “Yuy Heero, GP01” That shut them up, the next email he got was, “As you wish, Sir.”

.

Quatre eyed the four inch cut in the floor with disgust. They'd broken a screwdriver, punching a hole to start their cut. But it was slow, heavy going with nothing but a GI can opener to work with.

“Damnit, Trowa, I'm going to design a proper emergency kit for everything that flies in our fleet. This is ridiculous. There aren't even any proper medical supplies. The first aid kit consists of twenty Band-Aids of various sizes, for God's sake. I think there's also a tongue depressor.” He returned cutting, grumbling under his breath.

Trowa just massaged his sore hand, worrying about the transponder. He was wondering if he could cobble up a hand generator out of parts scavenged from the plane. He'd have to see. He just hoped the damn phone was worth the work to get to it. He also wondered what else might be in luggage.

He decided to assuage his curiosity, “Quatre? What else might be in your luggage?”

“Hummmm? Oh, luggage. Well, a couple of handguns, a tazer, a few cans of Mace, a bit of this and that. If we can get through to it. Damn!” He swore as his sweaty fingers slipped off the can opener for the nth time. He settled back on his heels to rest a bit. “And what goodies might you have?”

Trowa smirked. “A handgun or three. Some C-4, a few detonators and a half dozen flash bangs.”

Quatre grinned in a totally Heero sort of way. “We are BAMF's. Sisters be damned.”

“Right.” Trowa stood up and settled cross-legged by the cut they were making. “Give me that. I'll work on it for a bit.”

It took them the better part of four hours to make an eight inch three cornered cut. This allowed Trowa to stick his long arm down into the luggage compartment and open his bag. He retrieved a knife with a saw back from the bag and got down to real business. It took him ten minutes to complete the cut.

Quatre eased his shoulders through the cut and pulled out their bags. He also found a first aid kit. What it was doing in the luggage compartment was anyone's guess.

“Well, there we are. Now what?” Quatre started sorting through his suitcase

“We get your phone and make a call. Who should we call?” Trowa crinkled his brow in thought.

“Not any of my sisters. Duo? Heero? Not Wufei, he's too stressed as it is. Une?” He checked his battery. “I've got a full charge, if we husband it, it should last us until we're found. I'm reluctant to leave it on but ... GPS. How's the transponder doing?”

Trowa sighed. “It'll be dead by this time day after tomorrow. Next time, every battery better be at full charge or I'll have someone's head.”

Quatre agreed but added, “That doesn't do us any good now.” He contemplated his phone for a moment, then said, “I think I'll call Une. She'll pass all the intel on.” He dialed and waited for a moment. The voice that answered wasn't Une, in fact Quatre didn't even recognize her. “Hello, this is Quatre Winner. Is Lady Une available?” He listened with a rather stunned look on his face. “Yes, I know we've crash landed. I need to speak to someone in authority. Now.” He took the phone away from his ear and eyed it as if it had suddenly turned into a snake or something else nasty. “What the hell? That bitch hung up on me!”He looked a Trowa for a moment. “Well, shit. That means either Duo, Heero or one of my sisters. Who?”

“Duo or Heero. Depending on who we can reach. Failing that, Irina. She's least likely to go hysterical and high enough in the chain to actually do some good. But that means she'll dispatch your ... er ... bodyguards. Not that that's actually a bad thing.”

Quatre just made a rude remark under his breath. He dialed again. “Hello? Who is this please?” Trowa just heard an unintelligible mumble but Quatre brightened. “Yes! Wufei, listen...” He explained everything quickly and then listened, nodding once in a while. “Yes, ok. We'll stay right here. Unexplained signal is very worrisome. Get my team on it. And find out who hung up on me at Preventers. Good-bye.” He turned to Trowa. “Ok, Heero, Duo and Wufei are already on the job. They're going to triangulate on my phone as they can't on the transponder for some reason. There's an unidentified scrambler in the area. We're to find that and terminate with extreme prejudice. Looks like the Gundam Boys ride again. We're to wait for them as close to the plane as we can stay. But ... we better dig in. If there's someone in the area working on some sort of forbidding arms project, we're in some danger from them. They might think we're here for them and come to find out what's actually going on. Not good for us if they're hostile. And I really think they are. Ok. Let's do this.”

Trowa just started looking up. Troops usually dug in by actually digging what was still called a foxhole and hunkering down to hide. He liked going up. Not many people expected a hide out in a tree. And the trees around here were huge, easily big enough to hold a platform for two.

“Ok, Quatre, we go up. I'll climb up, find a place and drop down a rope. You stay down here, gather up everything useful and we'll make a nest. What do you think?”

Quatre looked up, grinned and said, “I think I better get busy. So? Why are you just standing there?”

Trowa just smirked and began climbing. It took him seconds to find exactly what he wanted. The limbs were nearly horizontal, both of them. The tree had set off two limbs from one knot. The spread was perfect, just wide enough that they could make a nice platform with what they could scrounge from the plane, without being too large. The foliage beneath the fork was very thick. Trowa dropped the rope and waited.

Quatre gathered up all the food he'd found and the bottled water and juices. He ripped the loose plates from the wing and examined the aileron and flap to see if he could get them off. One flap was very loose, the mount twisted and fractured. He tugged and it came off. Both pieces were very large but exceptionally light. He hoped they could figure a way to get them into the tree. They'd been very lucky to find what rope they had. It had been tucked into a crevice in the luggage compartment. Probably to be used to tie things that wouldn't fit the nets.

Trowa dropped down to see what Quatre was wrestling with and smiled. “Don't tell me. We're going to use that? Ok ...” He took a moment to examine the flap. “It's a bit big but it's light. And here...” he pointed to the broken hinge, “we can tie off right here. It'll be easier than trying to make a sling. I don't think we have enough rope for that.” He efficiently tied the rope around the knobby hinge.

It didn't take them long to get the flap up and situated. Then they hauled up all the things they had gathered, all their weapons and other luggage and settled down to wait.

.

Duo nearly blew a fuse again when Wufei explained what had happened. “You mean some idiot at Preventers hung up on Q? What the fuck is that? Who did it? I want to speak to the fucker personally. Up front and close.”

Wufei smirked at Duo. “You'll only get Une's leavings. She's on the warpath, big time. Some self important personal assistant to the assistant to the assistant of some general was in the office and took it. They decided that, since Quatre had crash-landed, it wasn't possible for him to make a phone call. With a satellite enabled WEI company phone. What an idiot!”

Duo cringed a bit. “Oh! Well, ok, then. Une's a scary bitch when she goes all mental. But I won't feel sorry for the fool. So what do we actually have?”

Wufei shook his head. “No much yet. But we're wheels up in fifteen. Better get packed. Go!”

Duo and Heero vanished with Wufei right on their heels. They all had basic gear, they never went anywhere without it, and the rest would meet them at their base. All three of them wondered how much of their wish list they would actually get.

.

Irina took one look at the email and flew into a rage. “I want every single provider for that plane investigated to the hilt. And I want ...” she stopped to compose a list, “all these people investigated. Quatre is not going to come back and have to investigate this mess. Now, get moving, people. I want this settled before Quatre even knows about it.” All the information that had been radioed back from the plane proved, without a doubt, that someone had sabotaged the main computer. Why? No one knew ... yet.

Meanwhile, at the dispatch center of WEI North America Quatre's bodyguards were getting the upsetting intel that their boss had crashed and they were not going on the rescue. They relaxed when they found out that Heero, Duo and Wufei were the rescue team.

It didn't take them long to gather up a 'care' package for the team. WEI was providing transport for the things that the trio had requested. One of the men just grumbled, “I don't know. Doesn't feel like they really got the idea. Why don't we send them some of the good stuff.” At this every man and woman had an opinion on what the 'good' stuff should include.

They finally decided to sent everything. The packing case ended up being a full sized 'carry' box. The carry box was a simple cube six feet on a side. Everything was carefully packed in foam padded individual boxes and sent on its way.

The group settled down to wait, grumbling at being left out of the fun.

.

Bateman managed to get the Globemaster off the ground in good form. He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and engaged the autopilot. He had thought such craziness was over when the war ended, it seemed not.

He nodded to Wufei, who was copilot and got up to check on his cargo. Every pilot worth his wings checked on the cargo, living or not, as soon as takeoff was accomplished.

“Hi. Any problems? Chopper ok? Ready for launch?” Bateman looked around the hold, noticing that everything was just as it should be.

“Everything's fine. We're as ready as we can be before we land at base.” Heero settled back to sleep. Duo hadn't even woken up.

Bateman just nodded at Heero and went back to the cockpit. He wasn't offended at Heero's behavior, he was well aware of a soldier's habit of copping z's anytime, anywhere. And taking care of the three S's as often as possible. As the saying went, “Never pass up a chance to shit, shower or shave. Who knows when the next one will come along.”

Several hours later they landed at the base airport. Bateman nearly had another heart attack as the runway was just as short as the one on Quatre's island, but not in as good a shape. He wrestled the yoke into submission with help from Heero, who had taken over the copilot's chair halfway there. This allowed Wufei to get some sleep. Duo had refused to copilot, not because he didn't want to, but because he wasn't qualified for a Globemaster, he was a shuttle pilot. He was certified on anything super-orbital, cargo carriers, shuttles, colony to colony transport, anything in space. But airships were not his thing.

They disembarked to find that there were several carry boxes waiting for them. Heero just shook his head. “What the hell? Do they think we're going to have a pack train or what?” this, despite the fact that he could carry three times as much as a pack mule. Duo and Wufei could both manage about twice that. Not to mention the fact that, once they found Quatre and Trowa they could at least call for a gear drop.

Duo just cackled in his usual maniacal way and started unpacking. “Oh, joy! Toys, toys, toys. I got most of what I wanted and a few things I didn't think of. Sweet!”

Wufei just leaned against a pillar in the hanger and watched as Duo unpacked all the boxes and arranged things by category. His categories. Wufei just earmarked what he wanted and prepared to argue for his choices.

The first thing Duo did was toss clothing into piles, one for each of them, including Quatre and Trowa. Then weapons, above and beyond what they already had. After that he included an assortment of knives, explosives and booby traps that would make an arms-master drool. He managed to keep everything within bounds of what could be carried easily, mostly by splitting the mess up into 'carry' and 'drop' piles.

The carry pile was exactly that, what they would carry in with them. The drop pile was what would be included in the equipment drop after they found Quatre and Trowa. No one was surprised when Duo insisted that they wear a tactical vest and that he pack its pockets. He also packed the pockets of their pants, their backpacks and a gear bag. The gear bag could be tied onto the pack frame instead of a sleeping bag. The sleeping bag was discarded in favor of a pallet and mosquito netting. And more explosives.

Duo's comment when Wufei remarked on the amount of C4 they were carrying was, “There is no problem that can't be fixed with a judicious application of high explosives.”

Heero snorted, then corrected him, “What you mean is, If it pisses me off enough, I'll blow it to hell.”

Duo nodded, “What I said.”

Wufei just said, “Ear plugs are a necessity around you, Duo.”

Duo gave him a raspberry and returned to sorting and packing.

When he was done, he and Wufei had around a hundred pounds of gear, Heero had half again that much. They could have carried more but, since they were going to fast rope down as close to the crash sight as possible, it was too dangerous. As soon as they found Quatre and Trowa, they would activate a dedicated transponder that would paint them so the rest of their supplies could be dropped to them.

They got geared up and each of them checked out the other two. Then they signaled Captain Bateman and his new copilot that they were ready. They climbed into the chopper and settled in to endure the three hour flight to their drop zone. The chopper was manned by a pilot and copilot who's names they would never know.

When they reached the correct area the intercom announced, “Drop in ... five ... four ... three ... Good luck ... one. And Go! Go! Go!” The belly doors opened, the cage dropped down and the clamps opened. The chopper dropped like a stone as the rotors deployed, then began to spin. The engines ramped up and the chopper was properly airborne.

Duo howled like a wolf, the captain laughed over the internal intercom then announced, “Ok, ladies, we're safe and free. Insertion in ten minutes.”

Ten minutes later Heero, Duo, then Wufei fast-roped down into the jungle as close to the signal as the chopper could get. This wasn't as close as they wanted as the jungle was actually too thick to penetrate right over the blip. They inserted about four miles from the signal, on the banks of a small river. It was the best they were going to get. The chopper banked away, the door man saluting before he slid the door closed.

.

Quatre's cell blipped softly. He answered it with a whispered, “Yes?”

“Heero here. We're coming up on your south side. About three minutes out.”

“Ok.” Quatre relayed this information to Trowa.

Trowa nodded and started sweeping the arc, trying to see his friends before they came in. Quatre just settled back to wait. There was no way anyone was seeing that trio unless they wanted to be seen.

It wasn't five minutes later that Duo poked his head down from the limb above them, “Hi, Guys! Shinigami's back from hell. So, what's the poop.” He dropped down onto the platform they'd made out of the flap and settled cross-legged.

Trowa made room for Heero and Wufei by pulling his legs into a similar position. It didn't take long for Heero to fill Quatre and Trowa in on what was going on.

Quatre thought for a moment then said, “I wonder if this has anything to do with the crash? Something ... I'll remember soon.”

Duo thought as well then said, “You've got all the schematics for all the Gundams stored at WEI, right? Who has access?”

Quatre agreed that he did have the schematics but said, “The only people who have access are we five. I suppose someone could hack into the data but ... I don't know anyone who could do it quickly except either you or Heero. Anyone else would take at least three days ... with a shiny new cracker.”

Wufei scowled suddenly, “That's why the crash. To keep everyone distracted enough that they won't notice.”

Quatre smirked, “Won't work then. There's two copies, one on my personal account which is not stored on WEI servers, it's on private servers that I maintain myself. And another at WEI, but at the first hint of any attempt to hack into that whole bank, it'll erase itself. Quadruple over write at 100x speed. It'll all be gone in four minutes. And the access address will be traced, no matter where it is or how many transfers there are.”

Duo grinned, “You're a manic, Q. You do know that, right?”

“Yes, I do. And it's not like you and Heero helped me design the safeguards on that data.”

Heero just smiled slightly. “So, once we get back, we snatch them up.”

Trowa snorted, “Only if we move faster than Une. The information on the hacker, account number, physical location and anything else pertinent, goest directly to her.”

.

Une was in her office. She'd dressed the aide down and was now waiting for information on Quatre Winner and party. When the alarm on her desk went off she nearly jumped out of her skin.

She checked, then sent word out to raid the address at once, using extreme prejudice if necessary.

She waited for several hours, taking care of other business, until the report came in.

It seemed that one of Quatre's brothers-in-law had been involved, in a financial way, in White Fang. He was trying to reawaken that faction by producing a mobile suit. Where, they had yet to discover. Une had her ideas, but proper procedures had to be followed. She made a sour face and returned to her reports.

She would never read the report on the mission to capture the instigator. It wasn't necessary.

Quatre's brother-in-law never knew what hit him. He pulled a handgun on one of the Preventers who barged into his apartment. It took the cleaners an hour to get his blood and brains out of the carpet.

.

Quatre's phone went off again. He opened it to find a text, informing him of the attempt to hack his accounts. It also informed him of his brother-in-law's death. He quickly texted back to start an investigation into all his activities, past and present. There was no future as Quatre froze all his accounts until further notice. He told the others what was going on and finished, “I'm sure, now, that he was responsible for this crash. We just need to find the mechanic. A few more texts and he was done.

Duo watched all this with interest, then handed Quatre a hand generator. “Here. Stick that in your gear. You're going to need it.”

“Yes, and so will you. Why don't you carry it?” Quatre just shoved the generator into his luggage.

“Because I've got my own. And you and Trow will have more gear soon. We need to move out in the morning. As soon as I get triangulation on the source of the scramblers.” Duo poked at his own phone, producing an indignant electronic squawk. “Bitch. Still no intel.” He examined the readout for a moment. “My informant says tomorrow morning. So ...”

Heero just grunted and settled against the wide bole of the tree, next to Trowa. “So, we hunker down and wait.”

So hunker down they did. Duo gave Trowa all the mosquito netting so he could hang it from the limbs above their heads. They then spread out the sleeping mats. Then Duo passed out the MRE's.

MRE stood for Meal Ready to Eat and had for centuries. The boffins thought up all sorts of new names for them but grunts are very resistant to change in some ways so they were still MRE to anyone in the field. These were very good, produced by WEI and actually called SRP's, Survival Ration Packs. But they contained the same ol' same ol'. This consisted of a main, a vegetable, a starch, dessert, a sweet such as a candy bar, M&M's or peanut butter/jelly/crackers, raisins, a thing called a multi-utensil, a package of 'necessities', powdered cold and hot drink mixes, creamer and sugar and a heater pack. The necessities were usually an analgesic, condiments to compliment the meal, toilet paper, wet wipes, matches, a few band-aid strips and chewing gum.

Heero smiled, “Mediterranean chicken. Nice.” He glanced at Duo. “What do you have?”

Duo scowled at his package. “Chili with macaroni. Who the fuck puts pasta in chili? That's sacrilegious.” He gave Quatre a hopeful look. “What do you have, Q?”

Quatre eyed his. “It's Ratatouille. I hate it. Sounds like it's made from rats. Wanna trade?”

Duo traded happily.

Trowa just opened his spaghetti and meatballs without comment.

They ate in silence. Heero gathered up the trash and mashed it into a compact ball, stuffed it into a pocket on his backpack, then flopped down on his mat. “We better get to sleep. No telling when we'll get the go. And I'm not counting on sleeping again until we're out of here.”

Duo just arranged his mosquito nets and went to sleep. Wufei spend a few minutes meditating before following Quatre and Trowa into slumber.

.

Morning came soon enough, the sun was fairly high before an errant beam woke Heero by shining in his eyes. He woke the others, handed out breakfast and silently ate his own.

They packed up quickly and started for the clearing where they would activate the beacon that would guide the chopper back to drop the rest of their equipment. They hadn't gone far before disaster struck, in the form of a group of men yelling at them in Thai.

Heero's first impulse was to shoot them all, Quatre's first impulse was to bargain with them. This conflict of intentions got them all captured, except for Duo. Duo had jumped into the brush at the first sign of trouble. He climbed a tree and followed the group back to their encampment. He picked up bits of discarded equipment as the others dropped them. This surreptitious discarding of gear kept it out of the 'wrong' hands. He winced every now and then at the jeering from the captors who were making a great deal of fun of the 'coward' who'd bolted on his comrades.

Heero kept track of Duo easily enough, as did Wufei. Trowa and Quatre were busy trying to talk to their captors. This wasn't going very well as the group didn't seem to speak the standard dialect. Quatre kept trying until one of the men turned on him and knocked him to the ground. It wasn't that hard as they were all tied. Heero just sneered at the man, tugging on the rope that bound him.

This rope was one of the new ropes; thin, light and very tough. Tough enough that it was giving even Heero's great strength problems. It also didn't help that they'd been tied together at the neck, loose loops dropped over their heads. Heero ducked and the loop slipped off, allowing Quatre to gain his feet without choking anyone.

Wufei just sneered at the group. “Idiots.” This caused one of the men to try to hit him. Wufei ducked under the blow and swore at the man in Shanghai dockside, an unrecognized but much used Chinese dialect. The man swore back.

Quatre struggled to his feet, demanding, “What did he say?”

Wufei replied without taking his eyes off the man, “You motherless son of a pox ridden dog.”

Heero just grunted. This was getting a bit out of hand. If they continued swearing at each other, it would lead to more hitting. This was not good. They were outnumbered five or six to one, not counting Duo. But their captors had knowledge of the terrain and numbers on their side. The Gundam pilots had arms and ruthlessness on theirs. This was why they'd allowed themselves to be dragged off. They just didn't want to have to kill most of a village. Heero and Quatre both hoped that they could reason with the village elders. Duo was their hold out.

This didn't mean they wouldn't kill every single man in the group if they had to, they just didn't what to have to.

Wufei said something to his tormentor that made the man turn away, motioning with his hand for them to keep walking. They all continued in complete silence.

.

They hiked most of the day, stopping once to rest, more because their captors needed it than that they did. They were given water, drinking from straw bottles that their captors held for them. They didn't get any food, no one did.

They arrived in the small village early in the afternoon. Groups of women and children stopped what they were doing to stare at them as they passed. One little girl said something to her mother and received a sharp scold. Wufei scowled at the mother, then walked on.

They were led to a central hut and pushed through the door. They had to duck to get through, which was something because the tallest of them was Trowa at 6' and a bit.

The interior was very dark and somewhat smoky. It was also crowded with people, all over the age of 30. In other words, they'd been brought before the chief and the elders. The entire tribe seemed to be gathered either in the hut or just outside.

They were untied and allowed to sit on small stools, just like the chief and elders.

“Are you with the one's responsible for chasing my hunters from our traditional hunting grounds?” The old chief was wrinkled as a winter apple and just as brown. But his eyes were bright with intelligence, darting from one face to the other with bird like quickness.

Wufei replied in broken Thai. “Not us. We know them not.”

The old chief changed to English. “Do you speak this language?”

“Yes. We're not responsible. We're looking for ... we're not sure what. There's a signal coming from this area that shouldn't be here. We're looking for it's source.” Quatre gave the chief his most angelic smile.

The old chief wasn't chief for nothing so he just looked at Quatre for a moment, then said, “Try that look on your mother. It won't work on me.”

Quatre replied with commendable mildness. “It doesn't work on her either as she's dead. What do we have to do to make peace with you and be allowed to go on our way?”

“Tell us who these people are and what they want. Get rid of them or give us the means to do it.” The old chief looked tired and angry. “They have blocked our hunters from half our hunting grounds, our women are not safe to search for fruits and nuts. The children are afraid to go into the forest to play. If we have to take care of this ourselves, we will be wiped out. The tribe has already lost three hunters we could not afford to lose.”

Heero just snarled softly. “Is that any reason to imprison innocent bystanders?”

A younger man yelled, “None of you are innocent. All of you come here, bringing your wars and destruction. Then you leave, leaving us to pick up your messes. Why can't you just leave us alone?”

Heero shook his head. “The wars are over. What you've got now is a bunch of scientists trying to be rebels. We're here to stop them. There's only four of us. Just let us go and we'll leave your hunting grounds.”

The elders gathered around the chief and began to argue. There was a small group that obviously wanted to imprison or kill them, they were fingering weapons. The rest just wanted them gone. They kept looking over their shoulders at the seated pilots.

Duo watched from a tree, all his senses extended to their uttermost, trying to figure out what was going on. Did he need to intervene? Should he just wait? What were they doing in there? He eased around the bole of the tree he was hiding in, getting closer for a better look. He was still very careful to make sure that he wasn't seen.

He could see in the door a bit. He could see all his friends seated on the small stools. Heero was holding the rope around his wrists to seem to be bound. Wufei had a small knife in his hand, ready to cut his ropes at need. Quatre couldn't be seen as he was on the end farthest from the door. Trowa would be able to get loose, he was the real escape artist of the bunch. Duo settled in to wait. He hated waiting but he was good at it.

After what seemed like forever but was about ten minutes, the chief shouted everyone to silence and settled down to think. He finally said, “We will let all of you go but one. That one will stay here. He will be well treated, fed, protected. When the ...” he waived a hand in the general direction of the compound, “intruders are gone, you may come back and claim him.”

Heero just looked at the chief with an expression of such fury that most of the younger men fingered knives and spears. “No.” the word was flat and simple, an absolute negative.

The chief looked at him like he'd lost his mind, “What?”

“I said no. No man left behind ... ever! You will not keep one of us if I have to wipe you all out to prevent it. Now ... we will leave.” Heero stood up. “We came to rescue two friends. We were also charged with investigating that signal. We will accomplish our mission, whether you like it or not.”

A loud boom from down river made every one of the villagers jump. The Gundam pilots made their break.

Heero dove straight for the door with Wufei a half step behind him, knife visible in his hand. Quatre head butted the man standing next to him while Trowa untied himself. They rolled out the door in a flash of fire and smoke. Duo's love of smoke and fire had saved them again. The flash bangs wouldn't hurt anyone but they kept them confused until the small group of captives could make it to the tree line.

Heero hit the tree full speed and scrambled up like a monkey. Trowa grabbed Quatre and tossed him in the general direction of a branch, Heero snatched him out of the air and dumped him on the branch. Wufei put his foot in the cup of Trowa's hands and Trowa heaved him into the tree, then scrambled up after him. It took them four seconds from the first flash bang to Trowa disappearing into the leaves.

Heero found Duo patting him down, obviously looking for injuries. “You ok? Man, I was so worried. Fuck! This crap job is FUBAR from the beginning. What the hell now?”

Quatre just sighed and settled against the tree. “We have to move quickly before they figure out where we are. Come on.”

Duo just snarled wordlessly.

Heero patted Duo on the shoulder and asked, “Now that you're sure I'm ok. Where's our gear?”

“All over the fucking place. I cached it as I went. I couldn't carry all of it, you know.” Duo just looked tired.

Heero hugged him gently. “I know that. So, we go back, collect our gear and head for someplace to get a chopper drop. Right?” He glanced around and got nods from the rest. “Ok, move out.”

They hopped from branch to branch, swinging on thick vines from time to time, until they were well out of sight of the village. The people there seemed reluctant to chase them, which was good. None of them wanted to kill any of those people. They just wanted peace in their territory. Something they weren't going to have for a while yet.

It took them nearly three hours to collect all their gear and they were exhausted. It was dusk, they hadn't eaten since breakfast nor had more than a mouthful of water so they settled down to eat supper, re-plan what they needed to do and rest.

There was no setting up proper sleeping arrangements of any kind so they just used the rope to tie themselves to the limbs of the tree so they wouldn't fall out. Heero took first watch.

In all the excitement they completely forgot about the explosion that provided the distraction they needed.

.

They were awakened by Duo's yelp of surprise. Heero glanced over to see Duo swatting at something in front of his face.

“Holy fuck! Did you see that?” Duo's wide-eyed expression made Heero and Wufei both laugh.

Duo, the product of L2, could never seem to get used to flying things other than birds. What they all saw was a huge moth or butterfly, fluttering away from the 'crazy' human. What Duo thought he saw was anybody's guess.

Duo grumbled, “That's right, you assholes, yuck it up. Just you wait, one of these days some bug is gonna bite you where it hurts the worst and I'm gonna get my own back. Come on, breakfast.”

MRE's were duly handed out, consumed and cleaned up after. Quatre pulled a map out and they settled down on a limb like a flock of odd birds and began to plan. The first thing they needed to do was get the rest of their gear. This meant finding a place away from the village but fairly nearby to accomplish their drop. The chopper was at the limit of its range so they couldn't go to far North or West.

Wufei finally just snarled, “So, we find a clearing within the range, paint it and wait. We have to have that gear. There's no way around that. So we suck it up and deal.”

Heero just gave a soft grunt. Duo didn't say anything, just started gathering up his gear but everyone could see that he wasn't happy.

Heero gathered him into his arms. “I'm sorry, love, it's just. It was funny, but I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

Duo put his head on Heero's shoulder. “That's not the problem ... what if ... if they stole more than just my scramblers? What are they hiding?”

Heero just hugged Duo harder. “Stop it. We'll fix it. They couldn't have gotten more than the scramblers and I'm really not sure how they got that. Q?”

Quatre bit his lip. “They, whoever they are, got the scramblers from somewhere else. All the data I have is protected to the hilt. If anyone tried to access those files, Une has them now. All we can do is move on, find the compound, or wherever, and deal. Maybe we'll find out more there.” He patted Duo on the shoulder. “So ... stop worrying, it'll only get you all upset.”

Duo sighed, tugged out of Heero's arms and said, “Sorry about that, but ... if someone's building a mobile suit out here, there's only one thing they're up to. And I don't want war again.”

Trowa grunted, stood up and said, “And they won't get a chance to start one. We'll see to that. Now, move out.” So they moved down to the ground where they spread out the map. Duo and Trowa kept guard while Heero, Quatre and Wufei found an appropriate clearing for the gear drop.

So, groaning and bitching, they started to hike the 20 torturous miles to the drop point.

.

“Find that signal. Now.”

The com tech fiddled with his gear, then pointed. “That way. About 18 miles.”

All the Gundam pilots had forgotten about the misbegotten transponder but someone else hadn't. The group was hired in by someone, they didn't know who. They'd been hired to find the transponder and destroy it, and anyone near it.

The small group headed out and, four miserable hours later, found the downed plane. They carefully ransacked it for any clue as to who had been piloting but came up empty. The leader of the group snarled, “Make it go away.” And started looking for tracks.

The team of eight men took anything they thought might be useful to them, which wasn't much, and planted explosives. No one thought to look up so they completely missed the platform. If they'd seen it they'd have found the still broadcasting transponder. It's batteries were nearly done, with only about 3 hours left, so it didn't really make that much difference. But it was a sign of their incompetence.

They placed explosives here and there, more at random than with any knowledge of how to blow up an airplane. They stretched a detonator cord from the explosives to a spot far enough away that they wouldn't catch any shrapnel, they thought. When the plunger was depressed, they found out that aviation fuel is not gasoline. The fuel tanks ruptured in a huge ball of flame, shrapnel rained down on them and two of them took wounds. One got some bad burns because he was standing up to see the explosion, the other copped a chunk of metal in the shoulder. Lucky for him it was about the size of a .22 and didn't do that much damage.

After a round of swearing, doctoring and dressing down, they headed out for home. Unbeknownst to them, the transponder flew into the air, the platform blown away by the blast of the fuel. It landed in the river, still broadcasting and floated downstream.

.

Heero stiffened and turned at the faint sound of an explosion. “Duo?”

“Not me! Didn't do it.” Duo's innocent expression was real, this time. “I didn't booby trap that plane. I was afraid that someone on our side would fall into it. So ... what the fuck?”

Quatre sighed. “We're blind out here. This whole area is blacked out because of that scrambler. We need to find it and turn it off.”

Duo muttered, “We need to find whoever made it and kick their ass.”

Trowa grumbled, “We need to get to that clearing and get our gear. Stop standing around nattering.” They moved out again. There was really nothing they could do except keep moving forward.

It was late afternoon when they reached the clearing, or what they were laughingly referring to as a clearing. The only thing that distinguished this area from the rest of the jungle was that the trees were shorter and the underbrush was thicker. Duo snarled, set the 'painter' and settled down to bitch.

“I'd like to know what stupid son of a bitch decided that this ...”Duo waived his hands around, “Is a clearing. It's ... a brush pile. All it's got is shorter trees and a shitload of underbrush. No one is going to be able to land in this mess. If someone asks me to chop brush, I'll hunt them down and turn them into fish bait.” Heero snorted. “I really sincerely mean that. They're going to have to just toss stuff out, or lower it on a rope. There's no way we can chop out a fucking landing pad.” Trowa snorted this time. “Oh shut up.” Duo went into a stubborn sulk. Even Heero's coaxing couldn't bring him out of it.

Duo knew he was being unreasonable but he hated cutting brush with a passion. He really hated doing any job he knew wasn't going to stay done. He hated cleaning house too, but he never let on as he liked living in a clean house. But this was just too much. He remembered the time he'd chopped brush for two days to make a landing pad, then the mission had been scrubbed and they hadn't even used the pad to pick him up. He'd been forced to hike out for fear of the Alliance shooting down the chopper.

Heero eyed Duo for a moment, then just handed out MRE's, then started setting up their pallets. Duo ate sullen still. Quatre finally settled on the pallet next to him and said, “We're not chopping brush. I promise. I remember. Now ... you can have my dessert. If you'll really smile for me.”

Duo eyed him suspiciously. “No chopping? Really?” Quatre nodded and held up his fist, pinky finger out. “Pinky swear? Ok.” Duo relaxed. It was silly but Quatre never broke pinky swear. “What kind of dessert is it?”

“Berry crumble.” Quatre didn't mind giving up his dessert, Duo would just trade with him and he really didn't like berry crumble.

“Really? You sure?” Duo beamed at Quatre. “I'll trade you. I've got ...” Duo examined the packet for a moment. “Peanut butter, jelly and crackers. Yuck.”

Quatre grinned. “And you know I really like that better. Here.” They traded pouches and settled in to finish their meals.

Wufei watched all this with some amusement, which he didn't bother to hide. He turned to Trowa. “You wouldn't think, looking at them, that they're both dangerous as a lit fuse.”

Trowa shrugged. “And take a look at Heero. He's about to snicker himself flat.”

It was true. Heero was lounging on his mat, stretched out and leaning on one elbow. He had the other hand over his mouth and was snickering, trying hard not to over balance and fall flat on his back.

Wufei had long ago given up any hope of his friends making anything resembling sense, so he just settled down on his mat and announced, “Ok, you idiots, I'm sleeping. Quiet down.”

Trowa just helped him arrange his mosquito netting, nodding at his soft 'thanks', then settled down himself.

Heero made his rounds, making sure that everyone was netted up properly. He wasn't too worried about himself. Mosquito's didn't like him much. If one or two got into his bed, they'd most likely just buzz around a bit, then light. So he settled in to take first watch.

Heero watched the moon rise, checked his watch and eased out of his bed to wake Wufei. Wufei woke at the first touch of Heero's hand, murmuring, “I'm up.” Wufei took his turn, making sure that Heero's netting was properly tucked and closed.

.

Morning brought a call to Quatre's satellite cell which said that the chopper was on it's way to drop their equipment to them. It would be there in approximately three hours. Quatre hung up and looked around. He smiled at Heero who was taking down his netting. Trowa had already taken down both his and Quatre's and was folding up the mats. Heero and Duo were cooperating in getting their netting folded. But Wufei was still asleep.

Quatre nudged Duo gently. “I don't like the look of Wufei. He's running on nothing, and here we are in the middle of another mess. He needs rest, not more running around.”

Duo gave Wufei a concerned look, then nodded. “We'll just have to keep an eye on him. Trying to baby him will just get his back up and make him determined to do more than anyone else.”

Heero overheard them talking but couldn't hear what they were saying so he came over. “What's the what?”

“Wufei.” Duo scowled at his backpack as he stuffed his netting away.

Heero sighed and rubbed his face. “He's not good. I can see that. Quatre?”

“Make sure he's hydrated, feed him B vitamins and hope. Take as much of a load off him as he'll allow. Not much else we can do.” Quatre zipped his pack shut, then went to Trowa to explain their concerns.

He didn't have to say much as Trowa had already accessed Wufei and gave him an 85 out of 100. This was not good as all five of them usually scored a good solid 100. Sally Po had said she'd give them all 110 but it was medically impossible. Needless to say, Wufei scoring 85 was bad.

Heero handed out rations, then went to wake Wufei. He reached in to the netting and patted Wufei on the foot. “ 'Fei? You ready to wake up?” He eased back when Wufei stirred.

He was ready for him to lash out but all Wufei did was mumble, “Mmmm? Wa? M up.”

Heero shoved the MRE into Wufei's hands and said, “No, you're not. It's way after dawn. Eat that while I break down the bed. I'll make tea when you've finished.”

Wufei just took the food and settled on a stump to eat. He knew he wasn't in good shape, but he'd been denying it so long that he wasn't sure how to confess. Instead, he just hung on as best he could and vowed not to drag the others down.

After eating, Wufei stood up and glanced around. He should do his kata but he really couldn't find the energy. He decided to skip for the first time since the wars. He didn't realize that Quatre and Duo both would have strenuous objections to him wasting his strength. As it was, he finished his meal and eased over to the small survival stove where Heero was heating water for tea. This little stove had been around for centuries. It was stamped out of steel and unfolded from a flat package about six inches square and one thick. It used fuel tabs that burned just long enough to heat 18 oz of water. The whole thing fit nicely into the 20 oz cup that was it's companion.

Heero just handed Wufei a small cup, containing about 8 oz. “Here. Medicinal. You want sugar?”

Duo took his own cup without comment and added several packets of sugar. “Need the calories. 'Fei?”

Wufei rejected sugar in favor of plain. Quatre and Trowa both took sugar. Heero sipped as he examined his team. And it was his team now. When it was planning, Quatre was lead. When it was action time, it was either Heero or Duo in charge, depending on whether they were blowing things up or just taking down a body count.

He was fairly pleased with what he saw. Duo was in prime shape, as was Trowa. Quatre was a bit softer, but not by much. Heero knew he was in prime shape as well, he consistently whipped Duo's butt. Wufei, on the other hand, still had circles around his eyes that made them look like they'd been blackened. He was way too thin, they were going to have to watch him carefully to make sure he got enough calories to keep from losing any more weight.

He thought for a moment then asked, “Wufei, how is your stomach? No ulcers?”

Wufei shook his head, knowing what was coming. “No. That baka onna, Po, says it's just exhaustion. I'll admit that I have no appetite. But ... I'll try to eat what you say I should.”

Duo bit his lip for a moment. “ 'Fei, is there anything you crave?”

“No ... rather, nothing we can get here. I really crave beef. Po says I'm on the verge of anemia.” Wufei finished his tea and handed the cup to Duo to wipe out with a cleaning cloth.

Duo wiped all the utensils and cups out with the waterless cleaning cloth and put them away in the proper packs.

Trowa lifted his head from the tree he'd been leaning on. “Chopper, incoming.”

The chopper couldn't land and Lady Une had vetoed more personnel, well aware that they wouldn't be welcome. So, the chopper circled once, then the door gunner just started kicking boxes out the door. They were super heavy duty, so they were well packed and sturdy enough to survive a 300 ft drop, if necessary. In this case, the pilot was very good and kept the chopper at about 75 ft. This was the reason that no one was chasing out to retrieve the boxes, the prop wash was killer.

They were all well aware that some of the dicier things were probably confiscated somewhere up the line, but they also knew that even Heero and Trowa couldn't horse the load that would be necessary to get all of it into the field. They'd be satisfied if they had sniper rifles all around and C4. They'd be thrilled if they had claymores and a grenade launcher.

Duo crowed over the contents of the first box. “Yes, ammo. Tons. Great.”

Heero opened another and found C4, grenades and claymores. As well as some odds and ends he didn't recognize.

Trowa and Quatre both opened boxes that contained hand guns, long rifles and the launcher for the grenades and a mortar. Quatre laughed softly, “They know we all have a 9mm, so they send more handguns. But no sniper rifles, just these short barreled AR-17's.”

Wufei called over, “I've got the snipers as well as a couple of full auto, midrange TEC 20's”

Quatre nodded. “Those are still experimental but they've cleared all the tests. I guess we're the first to field test them. Did they send enough belts?”

Wufei rummaged a bit. “Yes, whoever carries these babies is going to be humping over spec.”

Duo glanced at Heero who said, “Me and Trowa, then. I can still manage a full pack.” Duo opened his mouth to say something but Heero interrupted him, “Remember that nearly half of our load is food and that's a consumable. We don't have to pack much water as there is plenty available and those new purifiers will make sewage potable.” Duo nodded and shut his mouth.

They unloaded everything, packed their backpacks and pockets with things, then divvied up the ammo. There was still some stuff that they were sure they wouldn't need, such as the handguns and some odd bits that no one knew what they were. All this was packed into one box which was set up on a skyhook, the chopper would come back by and pick it up as soon as they signaled.

This meant they still had two boxes, plus backpacks, to carry. Heero and Duo would take one while Quatre and Wufei would take the other. Trowa, being taller than all the others, would throw most of the load onto his partner because of his height.

This left him to be point.

Some of the goodies in one of the boxes had turned out to be a tracker tuned to home in on the scrambler signal. This seemed to be a contradiction in terms but the thing had been made by the same man who'd made the scramblers in the first place. Duo had commented that the 'Doc' was nuttier than a hickory tree but smart. They also had two more satellite phones and a solar charger capable of charging all three phones in two hours. Trowa had it on the top of his pack, with the phones safely inside a side pocket. The second they were charged, they'd stop long enough to give his back to Quatre, one to Wufei and one to either Duo or Heero.

They traveled carefully, taking their time so as not to exhaust Wufei. He knew what they were doing but kept his mouth shut. They weren't under any time pressure so it was better to arrive at their destination rested.

Duo hissed at them. “Shhh! I hear ...”

Wufei listened too. “A waterfall. We should check it out.”

Heero considered for a moment. “We should. And we should see if we can't call Une. We need to know more.”

Duo agreed, “Yeah. What the hell could be going on out here that could trash your master computer and crash you. I mean, that signal has to be hiding something big. Right?”

Quatre considered. “It does. Something that originated in WEI. And I intend to find out what the fuck it is. Some heads are going to roll.”

Duo cackled like a mad thing, “And I'm helping.”

Wufei suddenly laughed a bit hysterically. Trowa gave him an assessing look. “Oh, I'm not slipping. I just had this mental picture of Duo stalking one of Quatre's sisters with a scythe in his hand.”

That caused them all to stop for a few minutes to laugh, wipe their eyes and re-adjust their loads.

It took them five minutes to find the waterfall. It was situated in a small clearing at the base of a 150 ft cliff. The tumbling waters rumbled like a freight train. Heero worried for a moment that the noise would hide sounds of attackers but gave it up when he saw the blissful expression on Wufei's face, seconded only by the nearly identical expression on Duo's face. Quatre was calmly taking pictures with his phone, while Trowa was unpacking MRE's from his backpack.

Heero just grinned at Duo's hopeful look. “Ok. We stop here. It's a bit early for lunch but we're not under any time constraints I'm aware of. We'll eat, rest during the heat of the day and pull out about ... three?”

They all agreed that siesta was a good idea. There was a reason that many people in this part of the country still stuck with that tradition. Quatre tried his phone but got a 'no signal' message. This was a constant problem in this part of the country, no matter what kind of phone you had. Between mountains and the high canopy of the jungle, there were plenty of physical barriers to block a signal. Quatre was frankly surprised that they'd managed to keep track of the scrambler signal. He idly wondered if some sort of shielding was possible. Shielding would have protected their computer from frying ... maybe. He was still vacillating between accidental crash caused by the scrambler and some sort of sabotage.

He wondered if Une had any information about what had happened.

.

Une was showing her temper a bit. She wanted results and she wanted them now.

They'd managed to pick up another of Quatre's brothers-in-law. A man rather unimaginatively named Abdullah Winner. All Quatre's sisters who had married had insisted that their husbands take the Winner name, agreeing that, should they divorce, the man would return to his former sir name.

It seemed that Abdullah was still a White Fang supporter and was trying to finance a return to power. Une wondered who the hell he thought would head such a recovery. Then decided that he, Abdullah, had elected himself. The thing that infuriated Une the most was, the idiot was using Winner monies to accomplish his ends. Quatre was going to go out of his mind when he found that out.

Right now, they had their best interrogation team in the interview room, trying to crack the man. They were having some success, but he hadn't broken yet.

They did know that his wife didn't know what he'd been up to. They also knew that he had paid a tech to sabotage the onboard computers on the new model plane that Quatre and Trowa were testing. He thought it would be passed off as a state-of-the-art experimental test plane doing what many of them did, turning out to be buggy. Only the tech was a candy-ass and sang like a bird, hoping to save his own ass. He wasn't about to go down alone, especially for what he'd been paid. He was taking anyone and everyone down with him. He knew quite a bit about the group unimaginatively named Neo-White Fang. Une snorted irritably at that.

The chief interrogator finally finished, just as Une was thinking about giving the interrogation a try herself.

“Ma'am, we've wrung him dry. So ... here's the what.”

It seemed that Abdullah was simply a jealous idiot. He wasn't the instigator, just the finance man. The instigator was an ex-general named Shoringham, no first name; unless it was General. He'd talked Abdullah into supporting his NWF by flattery and the offer of some sort of governmental position, when the war was won.

Une ground her teeth over that. “So ... he somehow got into the data banks and got the schematics for ... what?”

“Deathscythe. They're trying to rebuild the mecha. Not gonna happen. You can't build a machine like that without gundanium and they don't have a source. So ... now what?”

Une smirked at the man. “I get to have some fun. I'm going to go in there and make that stupid man piss himself. Or I've lost my touch completely.” She opened the door and walked into the interrogation room.

“Well, Mr. ... what was your name? I know it's not Winner anymore. Your wife is most displeased with you. Abdullah” Une smiled that eerie smile that made even Duo just a bit nervous. “I can call you Abdullah, yes? Now ... it seems that you've put Mr. Quatre Winner to considerable inconvenience. He's out ...” she waved her hand airily, “searching for your little laboratory. When he finds it, he's going to remove it from existence. Then I'm sure he's going to want to have a conversation with you. After I'm through with you.”

There was a faint hissing sound and then a soft patter of water dripping onto the floor. Une just smiled at Abdullah and walked out.

One tech glanced at his watch, then told another, “See, three minutes. Told you. Pay up.”

A bank note was duly passed from one hand to the other. Then they returned to their recording and analysis. Une returned to her office, expecting reports in a timely manner. She got what she expected.

.

The transponder happily floated down river, lodging in a snag about ten miles down river from the now destroyed plane.

The com tech swore luridly, then announced, “We fucked up. We didn't get the transponder. I've got it about ten miles down river. We'll have to go after it.”

The commander nodded. “Right. We show up with that transponder still transmitting and the boss will have our heads. Don't fancy wading in that river though. Pirañas and all that.”

Another man in the group gave him a disgusted look. “This is Thailand, not South America. Pirañas are native to the Amazon basin.” He turned away muttering, “Idiot.” and headed in the direction that the tech pointed.

Captain Leath just shrugged. “Ok, ok. Still there's got to be something nasty in that river. I'm sure of it." He slogged after his men, swatting at bugs and grumbling about jungles in general.

It took them several hours to go the ten miles. Two of the men took drinks from the river, one ate a strange fruit. The two men who drank from the river soon had what is usually referred to as the GI's. Gastro-Intestinal distress. In other words, they had the shits. The man who ate the fruit spent several miles in the bushes too, throwing up. This put a group of eight down to five effective fighters and three deadweights. Captain Leath just snarled and stomped on his way.

When they finally got to where the transponder signal was coming from, they camped for the night.

Little did they know that they were only half a days quick march from disaster.

.

Quatre snapped his phone shut and announced, “I'm going to go down to development and kill someone ... with a spoon.”

Duo looked up, saying brightly, “Can I watch?”

Heero eyed an exhausted looking Wufei, then asked, “Why?”

Quatre growled, “All the data recorders are in the same case as the transponder. The transponder we left behind. They want us to find and recover it. It contains the evidence to prove that the plane was sabotaged.”

Trowa just got out his map and compass. “Ok, we go back to the plane's location and find it.”

Quatre grinned. “No, we don't. We just follow the pretty arrow. Now that I don't have to worry about battery life, I can do lots of things with this phone.”

Duo snickered softly, he'd been after Heero to upgrade their phones to a more multi-tasking variety. The newest phone was more like their computers, or data pads. He coveted one and admitted it.

Quatre punched in directions and the arrow popped up, pointing to the source of the signal. “Well, shit. That's not the direction of the plane. I don't know what happened, but that transponder is not where it should be.”

Heero furrowed his brow in thought. “Well ... damnit. Remember that boom that distracted those villagers. Someone ... did something.” He turned to Quatre. “We need to check to see what?”

Quatre shook his head. “No, that plane was pretty much destroyed by the crash. We just need to recover the black box. It's that way.” He pointed, then started off in the proper direction, phone in one hand and the handle of the gear box in the other.

Trowa reached out and took the phone from him. “Watch where you're going, love. I'll handle this.” He glanced behind Quatre, “You holding up ok, Wufei?”

Wufei nodded, looking grim. “I'm fine. But I will admit that I want to camp soon.”

Heero glanced around. It was beginning to get dark. “We'll camp as soon as we find a good place.”

Quatre gave Duo his 'mother hen' look. Duo just gave a grim shrug and mouthed, 'Later.' Quatre returned his attention to keeping the gear box from snagging on the underbrush.

They kept moving in the general direction of the signal until it started to get dark, then Heero realized that they were in the thick of the jungle with no clearing in sight. They were going to have to camp under the canopy. This was not a good thing as all sorts of 'crittie crawlies', as Duo dubbed them, lived in the trees. There were poisonous snakes and caterpillars, scorpions, spiders, monkeys, ants and giant centipedes. As Duo announced, “If it isn't poisonous, it's slimy, or it bites you, then injects poisonous slime.”

Wufei wearily flopped down and started to take off his boots. He just wanted to eat, then sleep.

Duo nodded at him after catching Quatre's eye. He turned to Wufei and said, “Don't forget to bring your boots into the netting. If you don't, you're liable to find some crittie crawler or other in the toe.”

Wufei started snap at Duo, stopped himself and replied with forced politeness, “Yes, Duo, I'm aware. I won't forget.” He gave Heero a pleading look. “How soon do we eat? And have tea?”

Heero glanced at Duo, who looked really worried, then said, “Food in five, tea as soon as water boils. You rest.”

Wufei didn't argue, a sure sign that he was exhausted. This was not good.

Meals were handed round, by Duo this time, as Heero was boiling tea. Trowa hung the nets and laid out mats. Quatre was on the phone again.

He didn't look pleased at all so Duo unashamedly eavesdropped. It seemed that someone was trying to tell him how to do the job and he wasn't taking it well. He finally snarled, “If you don't like the way I'm doing this job, you come and do it yourself.” He listened for a moment, then snapped, “I'm THAT Quatre and a Gundam pilot. You desk jockeys need to fuck off and let the experts do their jobs. Oh, and by the way. You're fired.” There was a beep as Quatre redialed his phone. He left a voice mail for his secretary then hung up. “Idiot. Who the hell does he think he is, telling me how to do this job? I'll have you know that I'm still in perfect shape.”

Heero seconded that with a smile. Trowa just mock growled, “Go flirt with your own boyfriend. Come 'er, you.” Quatre laughed and gave Trowa a quick kiss.

Heero settled on one of the boxes and pulled Duo down beside him. “Tea. Drink it all.”

Duo accepted the cup, grumbling about no ice. But he drank it all, knowing he needed the fluids and the sugars. They were all going to have to carb load to make it through this, especially Wufei. They all noticed that, despite his distaste for sugared tea, he was drinking the syrupy stuff without comment.

After a bit more fussing, they all settled down to finally eat their food. Duo traded his dessert with Wufei this time. He liked apple crisp but he knew that Wufei would never eat a brownie so he traded with him. Heero had made sure that Wufei got a chicken fried rice, trying to tempt his fussy appetite. It worked, sort of. Wufei ate what he was given, whether he wanted it or not. He was well aware that he was on thin ice, health-wise.

“I thought I was supposed to get a vacation. I'm not complaining, mind you, just saying.” Wufei finished his meal, stashed the bits he hadn't eaten and cleaned up the wrappings. He started to get up to toss them in the fire.

Duo waved one hand at him, saying, “I've got it. You stay down.” Wufei didn't object, he just settled down on his mat, dragged his boots into the netting and went to sleep. Duo checked to make sure the net was closed properly, then went to sit beside Heero.

“I'm worried about 'Fei, Heero. He really doesn't look good. He was worn thin before he came to the island, now ... he looks like he's hanging on by a thread.”

Heero nodded. “He'll make it. Then, we better be ready for a complete collapse.”

“What I was thinking.” Duo shook his head. “Quatre's ... whatever better not let me catch him in a dark alley.” Heero snorted. “Just sayin'.”

Heero replied, “You better hope you see him first. I won't be leaving any leftovers.”

Duo just grumbled something unintelligible and prodded Heero until he arranged them both comfortably. “Not sleepin' alone. I swear, jungles give me the heebie-jeebies. They're full of weird noises, funny smells and crittie crawlies. I hate bugs.”

Heero chuckled a bit dryly, gathered up Duo's pallet and combined the netting and mats to make room for two. “Grumpy. But, I'm not fond of the idea of poisonous caterpillars. That's just ... beyond anything. And do they turn into butterflies? Are the butterflies poisonous? I mean ... poisonous butterflies is just ...” He gave up when Duo patted his shoulder, kissed him, then rolled over and was snoring before he was completely settled.

Heero made sure that Duo was settled comfortably, then went to sleep, it was Trowa's turn for first watch. They had developed the habit of two nights first watch, then rotate during the war and had just dropped right back into it now.

.

The group of merc's who had blown up the plane were now in some serious trouble. The two who'd gotten the GI's were weak from dehydration and the 'fruit bat' was also still vomiting. He was now bringing up nothing but bile and whatever water he'd gotten down.

Captain Leath had ordered camp and they all just dropped where they stopped. They didn't bother with mosquito nets or sleeping mats. After all they were BAMF's, they didn't need that sort of frivolity, they'd just tough it out, what could possibly go wrong?

.

Duo woke up when Quatre patted his foot. “My time?”

“Yes. Found your spot?” Quatre eased toward his pallet.

“Yeah. Up that tree.” Duo climbed into his tree easily enough, then hopped from branch to branch until he was in the fork he'd chosen as his perch. He glanced around, then sprayed bug spray everywhere within reach. He knew it was silly and that what bugs he killed would be replaced with others within seconds, but it made him feel better.

He stood rather than sitting down and leaning against the bole. This gave him two advantages; one, his head was higher; two, it would help keep him from falling asleep. He'd never fallen asleep on guard but there was no sense in taking chances.

Dawn came, as dawn will, and Heero was on guard. He'd decided to use Duo's perch as being optimal to the duty. As he scanned the canopy he noticed the river. He could see it quite plainly, as the trees thinned about 10 feet from the banks. No one knew that they thinned because of persistent flooding. He also noticed a strange glint. It looked like glass, but there shouldn't be any glass on the riverbank way out here in the wilds of Thailand, or Myanmar. The borders in this area were a bit iffy. It might even be Laos. Maybe.

Heero slipped quietly out of the tree and woke Duo. Duo started to say something but a quick hand patting his lips shut him up.

“mmm?” His soft hum left Heero with no choice. He leaned over to whisper in Duo's ear, but Duo, thinking of something else entirely, kissed him.

Heero chuckled softly, then bypassed another kiss to whisper in Duo's ear. “I saw something down at the river.” He kissed Duo back on his way to his feet. He moved on to wake Quatre, who woke Trowa. Duo reluctantly woke Wufei.

They'd been hoping to let him sleep a while this morning but it wasn't to be.

They ate their rations on the march, taking turns to team carry their cargo boxes. Heero was beginning to reconsider his need to haul everything with them. He began to look for a place to cache what they couldn't carry on their person or in their, admittedly heavy, backpacks.

When they were close to where Heero had seen the flash, they climbed trees, hauled their boxes up into the trees and tied them to boles. Heero just hoped monkeys didn't do any damage.

After they stashed their boxes, Heero used sign language to send each of his compatriots into position. He signaled Duo to reconnoiter. Duo slid into the jungle like a cat. Even Heero couldn't follow his movements.

Duo returned about five minutes later, snickering quietly. He motioned for Heero to follow him. Heero raised an eyebrow. Duo pointed to Trowa and indicated that he wanted him too. Wufei and Quatre got the signal to stay where they were.

Duo signaled for Heero to flank left and Trowa right. He took the middle and hung back a bit. When he heard two sharp whistles he knew Heero and Trowa were in position.

Duo gave a chirrup and they all dashed into the clearing. Duo wasn't taking any chances but he was pretty sure that the only man boots up was not going to resist much. He was too busy trying to pull the giant centipede out of his boot. His expression told it all.

Heero and Trowa helped Duo take inventory, so to speak. One man was unconscious and obviously very ill. Two more were in the same condition, only they'd lost control of their bodily functions. Another had been bitten by something that had made his leg swell to huge proportions. He was also feverish. Still another had been stung by ants or mosquitoes and had an allergic reaction to the venom. His face was so swollen he couldn't open his eyes. The last three were in better condition, sort of. The captain, his bars gave him away, had broken his leg slipping down the bank. The last two were dead from no known cause. Snake bite came to mind.

Duo sighed softly. “I really shouldn't have laughed, I didn't realize that those two were DOG. Sad, really. So ... what now?”

Heero shook his head. “No idea. We can't take care of them and we can't leave them here.”

Trowa meanwhile had been accessing their captives. They were all too sick or incapacitated to put up a fight. He removed all their weapons, anyway. It didn't take him long to search the unresisting men and confiscate everything that shot, stabbed or exploded. He then used zip cuffs to bind their hands and ankles.

“Ok, we got a big problem. We've got to get those men out of here, or they're not going to make it. There's also the option of offing them.” Trowa's expression gave his opinion of that option. He didn't like it much but it might be the only way.

Duo whistled again and Quatre and Wufei trotted out of the brush to take in the situation. Wufei just sat down wearily on a log. Quatre began another assessment of their captives.

He was a trained medic, amongst all of his accomplishments, and he didn't like the look of any of the men.

He used his phone to send their vitals to Sally Po. The information he got back was not encouraging. The one with an allergic reaction received injections to counteract his symptoms. The captain had his leg splinted with a blow up splint and was told that he would be interrogated later so he better be thinking of the right answers. The three who'd eaten or drunk something were given drugs to counteract their symptoms. The one who was unconscious was coaxed into swallowing successfully. The man with the swollen leg was a problem, he needed action taken soon or the skin would rupture, causing lesions that would take forever to heal. Sally said that, if he were in her care, she'd slit the skin to relieve the pressure.

Quatre looked grim and said that there was no way he could do such a thing. He was ruthless as any high level business man and he could kill when it was needed but cutting someone who was not attacking him was just beyond him.

Duo smiled kindly and said, “Q-bean, get over yourself. We all have our squicks. Yours just happens to be surgery. I'll do it.”

Their patient just kept his mouth shut. He didn't speak English very well and he wasn't about to anger these fierce young men by trying to argue. He just hoped that they weren't contemplating cutting off his leg. He was in enough pain that he thought he might reconsider that at a later date.

Duo pulled a knife from his boot, poured disinfectant on the blade, letting it drip onto the man's leg. No sense in wasting it after all. He then tried to explain what he was going to do to the man. That was when they realized that he didn't speak good English. Quatre tried all the languages he spoke without any ringing more than the vaguest of bells. Each of the pilots tried in their turn without much success. Trowa got the best results with Croatian, but that wasn't the man's mother tongue either. Quatre considered trying to find someone on his staff then gave it up. They really didn't have time to mess around with it.

So, Heero held the man down while Duo made three cuts in the swollen to bursting leg. One on each side of the shin bone and one on the back of his calf. The man screamed like a girl but no one thought much of it. It had to hurt like a bitch.

Quatre returned from making a call to bandage the leg. They then tried to decide what to do with their prisoners.

Heero just shrugged, “I don't know what to do with them. Quatre, you figure that out while Duo, Trowa and I find and retrieve that black box.”

Quatre just nodded his agreement, then started trying to make everyone more comfortable, starting with Wufei.

Wufei started to object, then just gave up. He was the weakest link right now and needed all the rest he could get. He watched Quatre carefully, though, just in case someone decided to put up some sort of resistance.

Wufei had the strangest need to be in a tree so he just batted Quatre's hands away, grumbling, “Stop acting like an onna. I'm going to climb that tree...” he pointed to a tall tree with some low limbs, “gather all our stuff and tie myself in. I ... just don't feel comfortable on the ground.”

Quatre batted at Wufei playfully, then returned, “Ok, grumpy, as soon as I get these idiots in their bedrolls, I'll come up to check on you. If you're more comfortable in a tree, that's where you should be.”

They parted ways and Wufei climbed up the tree and gathered up all the equipment they'd stashed except for the equipment boxes. He hung their backpacks as high as he could climb and tied himself to a convenient fork nearby. He fell asleep in that uncomfortable position before he even realized.

Quatre untied all the men and got them settled as best he could, most of them were too sick to do much. The only man who wasn't sick was the captain and he was out of commission due to his broken leg. Quatre seriously doubted that any of them would cause any trouble but, just in case, he warned them, “I'll be keeping my eyes on you. And I guaranteed that you won't like what happens if you step out of line. And a Winner guarantee is iron clad.”

With that, he climbed up the same tree Wufei had and settled down to keep his eyes on both Wufei and their captives.

Meanwhile, Heero, Duo and Trowa were searching for the black box that they knew as close. Their phones all said they were practically on top of it. Duo suggested that they put their phones away and do it the old fashioned way. Eye-ball the damn thing.

So they walked up and down the banks, poking sticks into holes and snags.

The results were six snakes, an ants nest, a bunch of spiders and the black box.

This, unfortunately, was caught in a snag that had built up on a fallen tree. Not a log, but the whole tree; top, roots and all. The roots were still anchored on the bank but the limbs were caught in the riverbed. And they had captured all sorts of odd things and a lot of limbs and brush. The black box was half under the middle of the mass.

Heero eyed it for a moment, then said, “Well, Trowa, either you or Duo are going to have to walk out there and get that. There's no way I can do it. My balance isn't that good. I don't want to fall in and have to hike back up here from where I finally get to a bank. Who's the goat?”

Duo eyed the trunk of the tree and shrugged. “I could make it out, but getting the box back would be a bitch. I say, have Trowa walk out with a rope, tie it on and you and I will haul it back to the bank. Good?” He looked at Trowa, then Heero.

Heero nodded his agreement with that idea. Trowa just started taking his boots off. While Trowa walked out to the black box, Duo took a few minutes to get Wufei a treat. The ants nest had collapsed and the ants were busily removing their eggs to a safer location, except for the mess kit cupful that Duo managed to harvest. He left the ants alone as they didn't have oil in which to fry them. He carefully capped the cup with a leaf and set it aside. The ants wouldn't find his booty as he'd been very careful not to leave a scent trail.

Trowa tossed the rope to Heero, then started to walk back to the bank. Duo hurried to join them and pull the black box back to the bank. It took some heaving to get it started, the tree top was reluctant to release its booty. But they finally managed.

Heero took the box, Trowa coiled the rope and Duo picked up the cup.

“What do you have there?” Trowa eyed the cup suspiciously. Duo was well known to eat some very odd things.

“Ant eggs. Wufei loves them. I thought he might like some.” Duo grinned happily.

Heero made a gagging noise and made a 'yuck' sort of face. “Yuck. You're welcome to them.”

Duo just grinned again.

They gathered up their stuff and went back to the encampment. Not that it was that far off, only fifteen feet or so. They hadn't been paying much attention to what Quatre and Wufei were doing so they were a bit surprised to find their friends up a tree and all the mercs on the ground.

Trowa glanced around, realized that none of the mercs were really any threat and climbed up to drop down the rope.

Quatre and Wufei pulled the black box up and tied it with their packs. Heero followed Trowa up, then they both helped Duo up.

Duo was having a bit of trouble climbing because of the cup. He'd capped it with a leaf but it was going to spill if he didn't keep it level.

Wufei looked at Duo. “Did you hurt yourself? What is it?”

Duo proudly offered the cup. “Take a look.” Wufei gave him a slightly skeptical look. “It's nothing nasty, I swear.”

Wufei accepted the cup carefully and took off the makeshift lid. His eyes lit up. “Ant eggs! Duo, thank you.” He looked Duo over carefully. “You didn't get stung, did you?”

Duo showed his hands with a grin. “Nope. Ants were too busy moving eggs from a different chamber. Now, eat up. They're good for you.”

Wufei just carefully dipped three fingers into the cup and scooped out about a tablespoon full. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked the eggs off. “Mmmm. Goo'.” He swallowed, a bit embarrassed, then smiled in genuine enjoyment. “Thanks again.”

He offered some to Heero, who shook his head. He went around the circle but was refused by all the others. Quatre and Duo both liked the eggs, but they also knew that Wufei needed the fresh protein and amino acids more than they did. Since Duo had carefully harvested only about a third of the eggs in one egg chamber there really was only enough for Wufei. They all turned down Wufei's generous offer with smiles.

Quatre shifted so he could keep his eye on the mercs. They weren't doing anything except sleeping, or at least laying very still.

Heero climbed higher in the tree to check on their belongings. He took a moment after to just admire the view. “It's raining higher up.” He pointed. “Look! A rainbow.”

They all took a moment to look and they all had to admit that it was beautiful. Not only was it a full rainbow, a full arc stretching across the horizon. But it was double. No one thought of the consequences downriver of a huge rain storm upstream. They were to regret it later.

.

Quatre took the cup from Wufei, who admitted that he really appreciated not having to climb down and wash it himself. Quatre checked on his patients, then went to wash the cup. He returned, checked again and climbed into the tree.

Heero, who was keeping an eye on the mercs now, asked, “Status?”

“Not good. The three dehydrations are still leaking fluids at an alarming rate. The one with the allergic reaction is beginning to wheeze. The bad leg is going septic. The only one who shows any sign of recovery is the captain, his leg hasn't swollen and he's alert and aware. He says he won't answer questions, but we might persuade him in the morning.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “While you were getting the box, I called Une. She says that there's no way to get in to us. She's been refused permission by the locals. And there's no way that we can carry them all out. We'll have to leave them and hope. I don't like it, but ... the mission is way more important than they are.”

His phone suddenly beeped. He opened it and glanced at the readout. “My uplink is ready to take the data dump.” He pulled a cable out of one thigh pocket and plugged it into the side of his phone, then he plugged the other end into a port on the side of the black box. The whole box was sealed to prevent tampering, leaving the only port covered by a waterproof, shock-proof cover that could only be opened with a special tool. One that Quatre had on his pocket knife. Heero refrained from asking why Quatre had it.

Quatre's phone made a few random electronic comments, then an automated voice announced, “Down load accomplished. Please disconnect.” There was a short pause then the voice said, “All data secured. You may now hang up and discard the origin.” Quatre just grunted, closed his phone and tucked it away.

Heero picked up the box. “What do you want to do with this?”

“Toss it. We don't need it. It's still broadcasting. The river might be a good idea. Might put someone on the wrong trail.” Quatre was now thinking of something entirely different.

Heero just shrugged and heaved the box into the river. He noticed that it was a bit higher, the log was more submerged than before, but didn't think much of it. Rivers rose and fell all the time. If they'd had time to do more research, or knew more about the area in general, they'd have realized that they were at the start of the rainy season. That river was getting ready to turn from a easy going lizard into a roaring dragon.

It turned just at dusk. The first sign that something was up was a sound like a huge, rushing waterfall. Heero looked up in alarm from where he was talking softly with Duo.

Duo looked up too and said softly, “Oh, shit! This is so not good.”

Trowa didn't say a word, he just grabbed Quatre and started pushing him higher. Quatre protested all the way, saying that they should try to get the mercs into the tree.

Wufei snarled, “Quatre, forget them. It's unfortunate but how the hell are we supposed to get five incapacitated men into this tree before the flood gets here. If we can hear it, it's too late. Now get moving.”

Quatre gave up and climbed. He knew Wufei was right but it still didn't sit well.

They scrambled as high as they could get, then watched helplessly as the mercs were all washed away. It helped a bit that Quatre had handed out sleeping pills with a liberal hand. There was a good chance that none of the men knew what hit them. Duo whispered sadly, “We never even knew their names.”

Quatre sighed, “I was going to ask in the morning.”

They all sat, staring at the rushing waters and thinking until they started falling asleep. Heero commanded them all to tie themselves to the tree and try to sleep. Unfortunately, the flood chased all sorts of creatures into the tree. They couldn't sleep for fending off everything from caterpillars to a panther.

When morning came they were disgusted to see that, while the river had receded, the ground was now a slime of mud, leaves and puddles. They were going to have to 'Tarzan' it back to their gear.

This was not a good thing as it was difficult enough when the ropes were provided, but they were going to have to use the one rope they had and make do with vines when necessary. And swinging from tree to tree was only comfortable for Trowa, maybe.

It took them three hours to work their way back to their gear, thankfully only two of them in trees. Swinging from one branch to another or jumping was not fun, especially near dark. And there was always the chance of falling. They were all glad to get their boots on the ground again. Wufei especially.

All the others were worried about Wufei. He looked bad. He was exhausted and all the travel by tree top had really taken it out of him. He was in real need of a good nights sleep, in a real bed with a hot meal before and after. He wasn't going to get it. Heero looked at Duo who grimaced unhappily back. Quatre and Trowa shared a similar look. Wufei ignored all of them in favor of keeping his exhaustion hidden. He knew he failed but ignored that fact.

They slept fitfully, waking with a start at random intervals. None of them had felt much like trying to make up a pallet in the dark. It had been nerve wracking enough to travel the last hour by flashlight. Now they were trying to make up a bit of sleep before heading out to find the source of that scrambler. It was now their primary target.

Quatre was finally awakened by his phone. He scrambled to get it out of his pocket. “Yes?”

Une gave Quatre all the intel they'd managed to collect. Quatre scowled as he realized that one of WEI's former chief developers was as nutty as the 'mad five'. He rubbed his face. Dr. Heartnet was brilliant but very much what Duo called an Ivory Tower Twit.

He was easily prodded in the wrong direction, which Quatre had found out too late. And he was obsessed with mecha. He'd thrown a complete cat fit when he found out that he couldn't get a permit to experiment with gundanium. Quatre had put him under the direct observation of the head of development. Heartnet had suffered that humiliation for all of one day. He'd turned in his resignation and left. Evidently with the plans to Deathscythe. How he'd gotten involved with General Shoringham was obvious. He'd gotten gundanium, somehow, and was now making his very own Gundam.

Quatre ran his hands through his hair, muttering, “Oh, fucking hell on a mop stick.”

Duo sighed. “Ok, hit me with it.”

They all gathered around to hear the bad news. Quatre filled them in quickly. Then ended, “And Une is trying to move a satellite into position to get some real time pictures, but it's the beginning of the rainy season so the clouds are causing problems. We're not going to get much help. One, it would take too long to get boots on the ground out here. Two, it might alert our target that we know something. Right now they just think we're a downed airplane with a transponder that is attracting unwanted attention. That's taken care of by now. That transponder has to be miles away. That flood ...” he paused to give a shuddering sigh, “took the black box miles downstream. They'll be looking for us miles from where we really are, if they bother to look at all.”

Duo nodded. “Ok. We need to find the signal quickly, before what troops they've sent out get back to their HQ. This sucks. We need a ton of equipment but we can't carry it through this jungle. It's too thick. We can only really carry what we can get into backpacks or pockets, or carry in our hands. So ... we need to make some decisions. Hard ones.”

Heero agreed. “I can carry a double load. Trowa can carry a load and a half. The rest of you can carry a full pack. So .. we divide things up and carry what we can. The rest we stash for later pickup.”

Wufei just started sorting. “Ok, Duo and Quatre, sniper rifles and ammo. Heero, Trowa and I, shorter range rifles. Heero, you carry the mortar and it's rounds, Trowa the grenade launcher. Too bad they didn't send us the rifle/launcher combos we wanted.” He paused a moment, then continued, “We don't really have enough ammo. Lead is just so fucking heavy. Damnit. But, beggars can't be choosers.”

When he was finished, the group was as well armed as possible from the stuff they had. Everyone had arms commiserate with their skills and more ammo than they really needed, but maybe not. Trowa had remarked, rather acidly, “There's no such thing as too much ammo. There's only, still going and fuck I'm out. A condition I'm all too familiar with.”

Heero carefully packed his pack himself. They'd scavenged extra modules from other sources and he was loaded down like a pack mule. He didn't care. He was carrying most of the extra ammo, weight vs bulk. Trowa was carrying the extra food. Everyone else was carrying a balance of things from food to ammo for their designated arms to explosives. They started on their march with Heero and Trowa in the middle of the group, they were the only two whose packs they really couldn't afford to lose.

They had stashed their discards, carefully repacked in the boxes, in the tree, tied to the bole. They would be safe enough there until they either came back for them or sent someone else to get the equipment.

They traveled for most of the rest of the day, stopping twice to rest and eat. They were all expending an incredible amount of energy so they didn't skimp on the rations. They had enough food to last all of them thirty days. They had no intention of allowing the mission to last that long so they each ate all they wanted from two meals, stashing the sealed remnants in their packs for later. Beside, it lightened their load more quickly.

Quatre checked his coordinates against the map Une had sent him. “We're still about three or four days out, depending on terrain and obstacles. I'm hoping that Une can send us some better intel on the compound at a later date. And we need to keep our strength up. We can't afford to wear ourselves out by humping too fast. There's no signs that they're much beyond the experimental stage. That scrambler trick seemed like a good idea but it only served to smoke them out way too soon. We've got time enough and to spare.”

Heero grunted in that way he had, then said, “That's good. We need to find a good place with clear water and good sleeping. We all should bathe. We've only got so much in the way of clean clothing, especially socks.”

It sounded very odd coming from someone Heero's age, and male, but they were all well aware that they had to take good care of their feet. An army is said to march on it's stomach but ask any grunt what marching with sore feet was like. So they made sure to keep their feet clean and dry and have plenty of clean, dry socks on hand. This meant that they had to stop, if they could, and wash socks and underwear at least.

Trowa checked his topographical map for a hint of someplace to stop. “There's what looks like a good place ...” he checked between his compass and the map for a moment, then pointed, “that way ... about four miles. Not that far. We can be there fairly soon, depending on conditions. We should spend the night at least.”

Wufei just stood, head hanging, wearily contemplating another march. His feet ached, as did his head, he knew he was on the ragged edge of collapse. He also knew that there was a good chance that his skills would be essential when they reached the source of the scrambler. Also, he was the only sworn Preventer on the team. He was the only one with the authority to order an attack. So, he had to take care of himself so he'd be in condition to do his job.

Heero eyed Wufei with ill concealed concern. Duo looked from Wufei to Trowa, then Quatre. He knew what Heero thought, he thought the same. But what he wanted to do, which was split all Wufei's gear up between then, was impossible. One, Wufei would never permit it. Two, it was physically impossible for any of them to carry more than they were. Later, when they'd eaten more of their rations, they might manage, if Wufei would tolerate it.

When they reached the clearing, Duo proclaimed it a small paradise. It wasn't that large, only about 60 ft in diameter, but a small, clear stream ran through it and the bend in the stream gave them room enough to pitch the tent that Heero had insisted on keeping.

The tent was large enough for six men, which meant that there was plenty of room for five, admittedly, still small men. Duo and Trowa pitched it at once, pegging it down firmly.

Wufei flopped down on the ground with a groan to watch while everyone else worked. No one said a thing to him about it. He was usually one of the first to take on a job while setting up camp. The fact that he'd just dropped told more about his condition than he liked, common sense made him do it.

Quatre dug into his pack and got out a small sip bag and handed it to him. “Electrolytes, vitamins and protein. Drink it. If you can manage, I'd like you to have two.”

Wufei just took them. “Sorry to be so much trouble. Thanks.”

Quatre gave him another worried look, then turned to finishing camp.

When they were done, the tent was up, they had a small, smokeless fire going, camp stools were set out and Duo had put down their sleeping mats.

It might seems silly, when weight was a consideration, to keep such things as camp stools. But, the newest technology made a stool capable of holding more than 300 pounds weigh less than an ounce. They folded up small enough to resemble an old fashioned match box. An entire camping outfit; tent, sleeping bag, ground mat, camp stool, camp stove, and a few other things was about the size and weight of a two inch thick, trade size paperback book. Not a consideration when you thought about the problems that were avoided by proper camping gear.

They had missed the tent and stools at first examination because the box was shoved between padding and the wall of one of the boxes. They were pleased to find it and would only discard it in a worse case scenario.

When all arrangements were in place, Quatre chivvied Wufei onto one of the stools and said, “Get your boots off and give me those socks. I'll heat some water and we can wash anything dirty, socks, underwear, that sort of thing. If anyone wants bigger stuff washed ...”

Duo interrupted him by shoving several pairs of socks and shorts into his hands. “If you want anything big washed, I'll do it. Down at the bottom of the clearing. I've got some cold water soap.”

Heero tossed a shirt onto the ground and just started shucking off. “Me for a bath. That stream comes from a different drainage basin that the river that flooded. Thank goodness for that. And, it's warm. I already checked.”

It didn't take them long to sort things out and get started. Wufei tugged off his clothing with a sigh, he really wanted a bath too. But, things needed done first.

They situated all the billy cans, huge mess kit cups, around the fire to heat water. When it was warm, they poured it into a folding wash pan, added some no rinse soap and settled to do washing.

Heero and Duo picked up a pile of pants and shirts, then headed for the downstream end of the clearing. Heero checked the clear water for hazards while Duo sorted things.

“All clear. Hand me a couple of shirts. I'll wash them while I bathe.” Heero held out a hand for the shirts.

Duo handed the shirts over, then waded in himself. They washed as they bathed and soon had the job done. They both climbed out of the stream and started hanging the clean garments on nearby bushes.

Duo went to Quatre and retrieved the clean things from a pile on one stool. “I'll take these to hang too.” His quick assessment turned into at stare of horror. “Jesus Christ on a crutch. Wufei, what the hell have you done to your feet?”

Wufei returned a blank look. “My feet? I don't know.”

Duo grabbed a second stool and plopped down on it. He tweaked the sock he was washing from Wufei's hand and tossed it into the basin. He nearly dumped Wufei off his stool as he tugged him around so he could get to his feet. “Holy mother fucking hell. 'Fei! You've blistered ... just about ... everything. Damnit to hell. You idiot!”

Wufei sighed, “I ... hurt all over. I really didn't notice. I'm sorry. How bad is it?”

Duo moved so Wufei's feet were on his lap. “Quatre? You better look.”

Quatre eyed Wufei's feet for a moment, then allowed, “Not as bad as it looks. But ...”

Wufei, who knew what was coming next just snarled, “Winner, stop beating around the bush, just do it.”

Duo sighed. “Easy, 'Fei.” He knew what had to be done too. All he could think was 'ouch'.

Heero ambled over to see what was going on and hissed when he saw the mess Wufei had made of his feet. “What the hell? Chang Wufei! Wrinkles in your socks? How many times have I warned you about that?”

Duo gave Wufei one of his wide eyed looks. “Dude! You've been double named. You're in for it now.”

Wufei just chuckled a bit darkly. “At least I don't have a middle name.”

Heero settled on another stool behind Wufei and gathered him against his chest. He crossed his arms over Wufei's torso and grasped his wrists. Trowa settled by his thighs and held them down. Duo gripped Wufei's ankles and held on.

Wufei didn't resist except verbally. “I don't need to be held down like a baby.”

Duo just snorted, remembering the sore jaw he'd gotten the last time Wufei had needed treatment in the field. “Yeah, right. Just suck it up, china boy.”

Quatre rummaged in the medic kit to find what he needed. “Ok. This will sting a bit.” And with that, he poured a pack of disinfectant over Wufei's feet. Wufei bucked like a wild horse, swearing in Pidgin. This was the combination of Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Shanghai dockside that was the common language used on Wufei's, now destroyed, colony. No one would admit it, they held firm that the common language was Mandarin.

It took the combined strength of Heero, Duo and Trowa to keep him in place. Luckily, Heero had a good grip on his wrists. He subsided, panting softly.

“Sorry. Damn, that hurts. I swear ...”

Duo interrupted, “A lot. I think I learned something new.” He patted Wufei on one leg. “Better now? Want me to blow on it?”

Wufei gave him a disgusted look. “I do not. And I never understood how blowing on an injury was supposed to make it feel better. Doesn't make sense.”

Duo shrugged. “Sister used to do it. It really did help, for a bit. Placebo effect, do you think?”

Wufei thought about that for a moment. “Possibly.”

Quatre stood up with a sigh, saying, “There. All done. Stay off your feet. Completely.” he scowled at Wufei's stubborn expression. “I mean it. If I have to have Heero hold you down, I will.”

Heero stood up, making sure not to dump Wufei in the process. “No way. I'll just tie him up.”

Duo grinned, then gave Heero one of his weird, wide-eyed looks. “What?! You'll tie him up, but not me. That's so not fair. Shibari ...” He shuddered dramatically. “Sooooo, sexy.”

Wufei's jaw dropped then he tossed a wet sock at Duo. “You pervert! None of you will be tying me up ... or down. Or ... in anyway. Idiots.” He settled in to sulk, but his heart really wasn't in it.

Duo cackled like a maniac, announced dramatically, “And now ... my job is done.” Then he squatted down to help Quatre finish washing socks.

Wufei leaned over and aimed a swat at Duo's head. Duo just ducked it without even looking up.

The day wore on. Quatre got his bath, and Trowa got his. Duo remarked that almost any girl they knew would pay good money to see what was going on. None of them had bothered to put on more than boxers so they were all more or less naked. Wufei was the only one who hadn't gotten a bath yet.

Heero knew that Wufei desperately wanted a bath, but he also knew that he wasn't to walk until Quatre allowed it. And that wouldn't be until his feet had scabbed. So he just picked Wufei up and carried him, tossed over one shoulder, to the stream and waded in with him.

Wufei took all this with good humor. “Heero, put me down. You great oaf! Desist. I can bathe myself.”

As he said this, Wufei batted at Heero's wandering hands. Heero just caught him under the knees and shoulders and dunked him.

He emerged, spluttering and laughing. “Idiot. Give me the soap.” A bar came flying at his head, thrown by a snickering Duo.

Wufei washed, with a bit of help from Heero, who mostly held him around the chest, under his arms.

Wufei sighed, “Ok, I'm done. Thanks.”

Heero chuckled, then got Wufei into his arms bridal style and carried him back to the fire. He plonked him down on a stool and settled on another.

“Feel better?” Wufei nodded, combing his hair back with a comb Duo handed him. “Good. Food.”

Wufei laughed a bit and took the MRE from Heero. “What's with the Me Tarzan, you Jane routine?”

Heero blinked in surprise. “Oh! Was I?” He glanced at Duo who was rolling on the ground in hysterical laughter. “Well. I guess I was.”

They found themselves laughing like loons at nothing. When they finally finished, they got up and settled around the fire in postures of rest and relaxation. Every now and then, one or the other of them would get up and check the laundry. When it was dry, Heero, who had been the next to check, brought it all back to the fire and started handing it to whom ever it belonged to. That person folded it and piled it on the ground beside his feet.

When dusk came, they were all glad to retire, dry clothing folded and tucked away. Heero again carried Wufei. He eased him to his knees in front of the tent so he could crawl in.

“Good?” Heero eased in after Wufei.

Wufei nodded from his sleeping man. “Yes, good. Where are my boots?”

Quatre nodded to a line of boots beside the door. “There.”

Trowa stuck his head into the tent. “I'm up for first watch, but I'll be taking an extra hour. So will everyone else.”

Duo glowered at Wufei without a word. Wufei, who had started to say he'd take his watch, ducked his head and kept his mouth shut. No one argued with that look.

.

Une glowered at her secretary who just gave a fatalistic shrug and motioned to the computer. “I'm sorry. That's all we could get. The cloud cover is just too thick. And, we're nearly out of contact anyway. The satellite signal can't penetrate either way.”

Une resisted the urge to kick something, hard. She was wearing dress shoes in deference to being in the office as opposed to being in the field. Something she was beginning to miss. She got a nasty expression on her face, thought then snarled, “All right. That's it. I'm going myself. Whoever managed to crash a plane piloted by two Gundam pilots and drag three others into the search for ... never mind, that's getting way too convoluted for even me.”

She just marched out of the office and headed down to the armory. She was sure she had a 'combat package' down there somewhere. And the armorer better not give her any grief either.

Her secretary, the third this year, which was why she didn't know her name, just shuddered and called, “I'll keep in touch, shall I?”

Une snarled again and kept moving. People pressed themselves against the walls to get out of her way.

She emerged triumphantly from the armory, dressed in Preventers dark grey and started doing up her hair.

She usually wore it down now, in a cascade of dark gold. But now, she was french braiding it starting just behind the pouffy bangs that she still maintained. As she snapped an elastic around the end of the tail, she smiled in a way that many would remember. And shudder at.

The Lady was back, and on the warpath.

.

While all this was going on, the scientists at the hidden laboratory were happily working away at their gundam. As gundanium was not obtainable without extensive paperwork and authorizations by Preventers, ESUN and no one was really sure who else, they were working with titanium and plastic. It was well known that Winner Enterprises Inc. had permits. Every staff member grumbled at that.

However, their new, experimental plastic was looking very good. It was sturdy enough to support the weight of the equipment contained within it and the new skeleton of titanium alloy was supporting the entire mecha properly. Now all they had to do was get a myriad of small details figured out. Like, how to make it walk without falling down.

Dr. Heartnet looked up from his computer when one of his aids handed him an email. He refused to connect his working computer to the 'net, he didn't want it hacked. So all email came in on a different unit and was printed out for him to read. His aides all thought he was nuts.

He read the mail, snarled and scribbled something on it, then shoved it at the poor aide. “And tell the General, if he calls, that I'm busy. If he wants someone removed, he should do it himself. Winner ... Pft! Loser. We'll find funding somewhere else. It's such a brilliant ... Neo-White Fang has nothing to worry about from me. My researches are too important to interrupt for such idiocy as ...” He waved a hand, already forgetting the source of his ire in his eagerness to get back to his figures.

The aide just sighed and left to send off the email. He was just glad that the General had decided to rotate staff. None of the aides could stand that nut Heartnet for long. He was demanding, irritable and rude, at best. At worst, he had screaming fits that would put a two year old to shame. He'd actually been described as a hysterical maniac. Of course that aide had gotten a stapler thrown at him when he'd used a paperclip instead of a staple.

Heartnet had very strict ideas about how things were to be done. He wasn't Obsessive-Compulsive, quite. But he was a great pain in the ass. And he could throw a tantrum at nothing.

General Shoringham put up with Dr. Heartnet, barely. He was aware that the Dr. was the only man who knew all the particulars of the attempt to build a mecha. He also knew that you couldn't call what they were building a Gundam because it wasn't built out of gundanium. But it was a mecha and a machine of war. A machine they needed if their plan to return the Earth Sphere to the proper path.

They were in the right, now all they had to do was show everyone the way to go. By force, if necessary. His eyes gleamed with righteous fervor.

.

Une stormed into the hanger with an expression of rage on her face. “What the hell do you mean 'I can't have any ground troops'?”

The man she was addressing was Head of [something troop deployment] so he saluted her. “I'm very sorry, Ma'am, but all our troops are already on the ground. All over the damn place. There's no way I can recall any of them in time to be of any use. And it wouldn't be good to shut down any of the missions, they all need to be completed.”

Une stopped cold. “Well, damn. Ok. I see your point but ... someone is making a mecha. Out in the wilds of Thailand, or Myanmar, or Laos.” She waived a hand irritably. “Somewhere around that area. We can't get a lock on Winner's phone. The rainy season has started and he won't paint a target until he has one, so we can't find them. I'm ... annoyed.”

“I see. You do know that Winner has a whole squat, three sections of four men each. They're his personal guard. His sisters arranged it. And that's one of the reasons he's in this mess now. He wanted to get away from the annoyance of having four to six people following him into the john.” The commander shook his head. “So ... go find them and drag them along with you. That's my advice.”

Une gave him a wicked little grin and hurried off. He saluted her retreating back and breathed a sigh of relief.

Une had her phone to her ear and was talking quickly. She had Quatre's aide on the phone. She had marveled at first at the fact that Quatre had more than one aide. He had Trowa as a personal aide, and a secretary, and an aide who kept track of all his business appointments. She was still confused as to who actually did what. But this woman was a woman after her own heart, no nonsense, up front and frank.

“Ok, Betty, all I need to know is where they are and who. I'll arrange transport.” Une listened for a moment, then said, “Well, if that's the way it is. Fine. I'll be waiting.”

Betty had made it plain that if they were providing Une with troops, they would also provide transport. They would fly to Sanq, pick up Une and head for Thailand. Une would either cooperate and go or argue and be left behind. She shut up.

.

Duo woke to take his turn at guard duty. He smiled at Heero, then automatically checked on the others. Wufei was on his side, curled up with one hand under his cheek. Quatre was cuddled up to Trowa who had a leg over his lover's hip. Heero settled down on his mat and was asleep before Duo could finish zipping up the tent.

Duo watched the moon rise and begin to set. He thought about the Alliance War and the Eve War. Astonishing as it seemed, both wars had lasted a little more than a total of three years. The skirmishing before the declaration of all out war had lasted for decades. He'd been born on L2 just as the conflict had been heating up.

Now he stood here, in a jungle, watching over his friends as the moon rose. He couldn't help but think the peace he felt was the calm before the storm. At least the cloud cover had parted.

He watched in disgust as the clouds covered the moon again. “Well, goes to show. Jinxed us good. Should have kept my thoughts to myself.” But the few minutes the clouds had parted had given Preventers a chance to find their phone signals and 'mark' them. They would be moving in the morning but their support had a starting place now.

He circled the clearing, following the path his predecessor had worn. Everything looked good. He made another pass just for good measure, then went to wake Quatre.

.

At dawn they packed up everything and started out.

It was to be a miserable day. It rained, then drizzled, then rained again. There was no direct path to where they wanted to go so they were forced to wind back and forth, following game trails and stream banks. The underbrush was too thick to force their way through and hacking a path only happened in movies and travel documentaries.

Wufei had put on two pairs of socks to cushion his feet better and it was working, until they'd gotten wet. Now he was limping, his feet ached like they'd been shoved on hot coals. All he wanted was to be dry and warm. He suppressed a shiver.

Duo grumbled, “Damn, it's the fucking tropics, but this rain is cold. Fuck. And I hate being wet. And cold. I thought we were going to have a nice vacation where it was warm.” He shuddered. “Quatre, that island of yours is great. We going back when we're done here?”

Quatre wiped rain off his face. “Yes, we are. And relax in the sun. Surf, eat wonderful food and be waited on hand and foot by that very expensive, highly trained staff.” Heero grunted. “No, no argument.”

Trowa looked at Quatre for a moment. “Give it up, Yuy. He's got that look.”

Wufei had to laugh. “Oh, damn, he's got THAT look. Ok, I give, I surrender. Not that the day and a half I spent there was torture or anything.” He grinned at Quatre and said, “And I want a tea ceremony. A real one, not that cobbled up 'good enough' I got last time I visited Japan.”

Heero snorted. He'd been invited to the same ceremony, given by some jumped up twit who was courting Quatre for a contract. It had been disappointing. Yuy did better and he wasn't trained. It had actually been a bit sad. “I'll have one for you.”

Quatre vetoed this by saying, “No, you won't. Not that yours aren't very nice. But I'm going to hire the best in Japan and bring him or her to the island, offer anything and everything they want. It'll be nice.” His dreamy look amused the others but they put up with his notions because they were usually fun.

Wufei sighed, “That'll be nice.” He stopped, then said, “Guys, I hate to hold you up, but I've got to stop.” He looked at the sky, trying to see the sun. “Is it noon yet?”

Heero glanced at his watch. “Nearly. We'll stop as soon as we find a wide spot and eat. I want Quatre to look at your feet again. I don't want you crippled.”

“I'll walk as far as I have to. No matter the condition of my feet.” Wufei huffed a bit in irritation. “I'm not some soft, new recruit.”

Duo interjected, “No, you're not. You're too valuable to have you at anything less than your best. Shut up and be coddled.”

Wufei snorted like a recalcitrant horse but realized that Duo was right. If he used his reserves now, he'd run dry when he was really needed. He decided to ask for breaks when he needed them rather than waiting for Heero to call one.

Heero dropped back to walk beside Duo while the trail was wide enough. “How you doin'?”

“I'm fine.” Duo reached out to touch Heero on the shoulder. “You?”

“Ok. Pack's a bit heavier than I like but I'm fine.” Heero hitched the pack higher on his back. It was around fifty pounds heavier than he liked to carry. A pack this heavy slowed him down significantly if he had to run. He just hoped they didn't wind up in a running situation. He'd have to drop the pack and hope they could come back for it.

Duo chuckled a bit. He could read the 'unreadable' Heero like a book. “If you have to drop it, drop it. We'll manage.”

“We always do, don't we.” Heero sighed. “Damn ... so much for fun in the sun after a cold case.”

Duo snickered as Quatre grumbled, “Fun in the rain more like. I did so want you two to have a nice vacation. This is ... I'm doing some major house cleaning. After my vacation ends. And I AM going to have a vacation.”

Trowa snorted softly. “Really? One of your sisters calls and you'll be in in a flash.”

Quatre's jaw set. “Will not. They all want more authority but the second something goes wrong they're in my face. Well ... no more Mr. Nice Quatre. They nag me into giving them a responsible job they can either do it or lose it. If they can't do the job I'll fire them just like I would anyone else and their immediate subordinate can take over the job. Period.”

Wufei nodded. “I've been telling you to do that for years. Why now?”

Quatre glanced back to make sure Wufei was all right. “Because I ... I'm just tired, too. I never get a real vacation. Some disaster or other always comes up. And they try to swaddle me in bubble wrap. I've had time to actually think during this mess. I just keep reacting to the situation rather than stopping to think about it. I don't think they mean to manipulate me but they are and it's stopping. They want the perks of their jobs without the problems, which they dump on me. No more. I've got all of WEI to be responsible for, so they need to do their jobs or I need to find someone else who can actually do it. I finally realized that you're right. Happy?”

“Ecstatic.” Wufei hitched his pack into a more comfortable position. “I wish someone would invent anti gravity packs.”

Duo shook his head, braid swishing against his chest. “Not possible. The physics don't prove out.”

This comment started a discussion of physics and gravity manipulation that went on for the rest of the morning.

Wufei took over the march almost without realizing it. He stopped them when he needed a rest and had everyone drink when he needed to. They stopped for lunch when he was hungry. No one minded and no one said a thing. They all realized that they had to cater to Wufei or he'd be down and out when he was needed.

“I really wish we could find another ant nest.” Wufei poked at his MRE with his spork. “Those eggs were really good, Duo.”

Duo grinned around a mouthful of spaghetti and meat balls, a strand of the spaghetti hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “You're welcome. I'll keep an eye out. I really wish we had some oil. I'd fry some ants. Crunchy.”

Wufei got a rather greedy look in his eye, “I do like them on rice, with seaweed. Furikaki, you know?”

Heero agreed, saying, “I like that too. Sorry we don't have time to hunt. Something fresh would go down good. But a gunshot would give us away and I'm not familiar enough with fish in the area to do any good there either. Sucks.”

Trowa agreed, grumbling, “MRE's are ok, but fresh would really be nice. I was dreaming of avocado and grapefruit salad last night. That's ... weird.”

Quatre just announced, “Well, we all like them so we'll have them at Winner Retreat when we get back there.” He glanced around, “What? That's the name of the island. And no, I did not name it. I'm not sure who did.”

There was a lot of snickering from various sources.

They cleaned up their paper, stuffing it all away in Wufei's outside pack pocket for later disposal. This just meant that he'd burn it in their campfire that evening. MRE's used to be packed in plastic made from petroleum, now they were packed in biodegradable soy stuff called rather unimaginatively pseudoplas. It burned without smoke, if you buried it it would decompose in months. They only burned it because it could be found if they were being tracked. That would give away their presence and point out their direction of travel, if the tracker was good enough. Not that leaving fire pits along their way wasn't like painting an arrow on the ground, but habits were habits.

They got back on the trail, talking about what they wanted to do after the mission was done. Just the usual sort of chatter any squad of men would indulge in. Duo commented that he really wanted Heero to be able to surf some really big waves as the waves at the island were good but not spectacular.

Quatre agreed, then said, “We could all head to Australia for a bit. The surf there is good. What do you think? Sound good to you, Heero?”

Heero grunted as no one could see him nod. His pack was doubled which meant it was both taller and deeper than normal. It extended more than eight inches above his head and bumped the back of his thighs. “Sounds nice. We could get a beach house for a week or two. Unless you have one already?”

Quatre laughed. “I do. I checked once, just out of curiosity. I've got a house or apartment in every major city in every country in the world. And vacation houses at every major attraction. Of course, they belong to WEI and all my sisters use them as well as VP's and so on. But, if I want to use it, they have to move out on demand. And I'm not shy about that anymore.”

Wufei said wearily, “I wish I had a home.”

"Thought you did." Dou caught up with Wufei to give him a concerned look.

“No, I still live in Preventers barracks. I don't even have a regular room. Not allowed. They give us storage when we leave for more than three days. I have to move all my stuff to storage, then back out again. I applied for a loan but, due to my chosen profession, it seems I'm a bad risk. So, no loan, no permanent residence. And don't even think about renting. I tried that.” He scowled at a spider that scurried across his path. “I rented a place, went on a mission for three months and came back to find out that my landlord had continued to collect my rent, moved my stuff to the basement and move in another family. Needless to say, Preventers collected on that. But ... I just don't feel like I can trust my few precious belongings to ... anywhere. I've got my sword and a few other things in a safety deposit box.”

Heero made a sound suspiciously like a snarl. “Well, no wonder you're worn to the bone. You'll quit Preventers when we get back and take a job with us. You'll move in with us, if you like. Or just until you find something you like near us. And no argument.”

Wufei gave Duo a deer in the headlights look, which Duo returned. “Um ... ok.” Duo nodded vigorously. “I will then.”

Quatre interjected, “I know of several nice apartments in that area. One of my subsidiaries is a real-estate company. We can rent through them or go with anyone you like.”

Wufei sighed. “It really is just that easy, isn't it?”

Trowa nodded. “Yes, it is. You've got an overactive sense of duty. You put yourself at risk of burn out and now ... you have. Admit it, get over it and move on. It's time.”

Wufei grumbled, “I hate it when you guys are right. After this mission, I'll turn in my papers, collect my ... holy hell.”

Duo demanded, “What? What?”

Wufei laughed a bit hysterically, “Une is going to shit. I've got ... and why I remember this is beyond me ... six months paid vacation, three months paid medical and nine months leave with pay accrued. And there's the separation bonus. I'm entitled to two years active duty pay, plus hazardous duty pay in proportion to what I actually do. I wonder how much that will amount to?”

Quatre had his phone out and was using its calculator to do the figures. He looked up, wide eyed. “Oh, my, god!” He handed the phone to Duo, who looked, turned a bit green and handed it on to Wufei.

Wufei glanced at the figures, blinked then said, “Um ... well, shit. That's ... enough ... I think I'll by a car ... or a motorcycle ... or both. Hell on a half shell.”

He handed the phone on to Heero who looked, snorted and handed it back. “You're an idiot.”

“Yeah. Right.” Wufei looked around, “Here's a nice place to stop for awhile.” He flopped down on a log and dropped his pack behind it, after checking that he wasn't sitting on something nasty.

Duo put down his pack and came to squat in front of him. After a quick, sharp look he put on his best puppy dog eyes. “Can I compose your resignation? Please? Pretty please? Can I? can I? Huh? Huh?”

Wufei grinned in a fashion that his mother would have recognized. “Yes. But only if it includes a song.”

Duo shrugged, a bit puzzled, but willing. “Sure. Which one?”

Wufei smirked wickedly. “Take This Job And Shove It.”

Duo blinked, yelped and fell on his butt. “Wufers! You're evil. I love it.”

After Duo and Wufei tag-team explained what had happened, they decided to set up camp a bit early to doctor Wufei's feet and let him rest.

.

Lady Une waited at the airport, ensconced in a hanger. The plane bearing Quatre's guards was supposed to land in twenty minutes. She just hoped they were on time. She was restless in a way she hadn't been in a long time. She was beginning to reconsider her decision to ride a desk almost exclusively. She felt she was losing touch with the 'regulars'. This was not a good thing, desk bound people made mistakes that those with 'ground pounding' experience did not.

Just as the minute numeral flicked over, the plane taxied up to the hanger door. A door in the side opened and a man yelled, “Hey, boots, on board now.”

Une trotted up and took his hand. He pulled and she scrambled into the door. “Sit there. Name.” He looked at her, “I can't keep calling you boots.”

“Anne Une.” Une smirked as the Sergeant's eye widened. “Yes, I am that Une. I want my people back. Preventers can't shake anyone loose to do the job, so you've got it. Happy?”

“Ecstatic. I notice that you don't have any equipment.” The sergeant settled in the seat beside he and Une knew that he had every intention of questioning her intensively.

“I didn't bring anything buy my bug-out bag because I was told you'd need to equip me with your stuff. Especially the electronics. Problem?” Her expression said there'd better not be.

“No, no problem, just wondered. Here.” He gave her an earpiece and helped wire her in. “Test, test. One, two, three.”

Une fiddled with her earpiece a moment then replied, “Five by five. Test, test. One, two, three.”

She didn't get the reply she was expecting, “Sorry, boots, wrong channel. Cen com is on Tach One. Global is Tach Two. Your private is ... Twelve.”

“Thank you, Cen Com. All testing complete? Over.” Une committed the numbers to memory, wondering who was who in the private channels.

Cen Com, who was located in the seat beside the navigator, laughed a bit. “We've got the newest and best. Listen and you'll hear a beep, that means the speaker shut their mic.”

Une listened as instructed and heard the sharp beep. She coveted the new com system with whole hearted greed.

She opened the general channel and listened to the chatter. It was just the usual general bitching and whining about things, but one thing struck her, all of Quatre's people were very upset that he'd taken off without them. They prided themselves on protecting him, when he'd let them.

“Ok, people, here's my take on that. He was a Gundam pilot and I think he resents the thought that you all protect him like he's helpless. Where's his com link? Where's his presence on training days? Think about it.” Une settled back to hear what they had to say about that.

The babble was unintelligible and the sergeant finally shouted them into silence.

“Ma'am, are you sure? We were assured that he needed protection desperately. We've been working, for the last five years, under the assumption that he and Gundam Pilot 05 just shared the same name and had some family relation.”

“I'm sure. I tried to off him myself, several times.”

A different voice said, “Well, shit.”

Une laughed softly into her open mic, then said, “Now you know. Stop trying to wrap him in cotton lint. Get his cooperation. Let him play with the new toys.”

“Awesome. The Winner, Gundam Pilot 05. Wonder why the boss lady didn't want us to know.”

A different voice said, “Because the fruit bat was afraid we wouldn't do our jobs if we knew.”

“Stupid.”

“ 'nough said.”

The chatter died down in favor of eating, sleeping or reading. A few of the younger men produced handheld games and started playing them.

Une glanced around and realized that the whole group was either men or older women. She had to smile a bit at that. No, Irea wasn't taking any chances of throwing an unapproved, young, beautiful woman in front of Quatre. Not that it would do any good. Quatre and Trowa were a very solid item. She wondered idly if Quatre was going to adopt a nephew or what. She decided that it really wasn't her business and leaned back in her seat to get some sleep while she could.

What she didn't hear was the 'ear-to-ear' whispers that made their way down the line. “That's really The Anne Une. Lady Une. Shit.” was the general chatter. She also didn't see the awed looks.

.

Quatre settled on a stool near Heero. “I'm worried about Wufei's feet. He's got blisters that have popped. That's not good. And they're not scabbing over like you'd expect. I've got some limited options for treating him. They've mostly already popped and are draining well. I've put antibiotic ointment on them and gel plasters to cushion them. But. He really needs to not walk for at least two days, 48 hours. And that means with his feet open to the air so the skin can dry completely. He's wearing two pairs of socks ... thankfully his boots are loose enough that that's not causing more problems. The gel plasters are keeping the ointment on the blisters instead of soaked into his socks. So that's it. Now what?”

Heero sighed. “Well, we have no contact with our control, so we wing it. I don't think the Source knows we're here yet, so that's good. Perhaps they're not even looking for that transponder anymore. It's out of their sphere of influence, if you know what I mean.”

Quatre nodded. “I do. I've tried my phone several times and gotten no signal. When I get a signal, I've got a data dump prepared to send in a two second burst. I'm hoping to get one back. If I don't, there's going to be some questions asked when I do get back.”

Heero nodded then stood up. “Hey! Guys! Come here, we need a confab.” He pitched his voice to carry.

Everyone showed up quickly. Wufei hobbling on his sore feet, half carried by Duo.

Heero waited until everyone was seated then he just put all the cards on the table. “Ok. Wufei needs to be off his feet entirely for 48 hours. Quatre said, so shut up, already.” he glared at Wufei, who scowled back half-heartedly. “We have no intel other than Quatre and Trowa's crash was surely caused by a scrambling signal trashing improperly shielded computers which were possibly sabotaged. I'm sure they were, but I can't prove it. So, Preventers wants us to trace the source of the scramble and nuke it.” He snorted at Duo expression of glee. “Not literally. But they want it gone. We know where it is and approximately how far away but not anything else. We're on a 'war' footing again. Only this time we're not without resources, we're just out of reach for a time.” He glanced around then continued, “I suggest that we stay here for the 48 hours Wufei needs. We go over all our gear thoroughly and we wait. While we're doing that, Quatre will do his best to get contact with someone. Hopefully someone with some brains. Ideas? Suggestions?”

No one said anything for a while as they all thought this over. Finally, Heero called for a vote.

They all voted to stay where they were for the 48 hours, rest and hope for a window in the clouds so they could get intel.

Heero nodded. “I'll do some recon and find a good place to camp. We need a clearing big enough to get out from under the canopy so that there's no physical barriers to the signals. And we can set up a nice camp instead of just tossing the tent down and pegging it.”

He got up and disappeared into the jungle, carrying a new WEI-1040, a very nice 10mm with a capacity of 40 rounds in a double banana magazine and capable of handling a 300 round drum. He also carried a 10mm handgun and a machete.

He'd checked out the map and had a few locations close by that he wanted to look at.

The first one wasn't quite as wide as they really needed.

The second one was too brushy.

But the third and fourth were both perfect. Heero chose the fourth as it was closer than the third. Less walking for Wufei.

He checked his coordinates, then started back for the rest. He kept to trails and chopped back bothersome brush and tree limbs.

It took him a while to return to the others but when he got there, they were all ready to head back.

.

Wufei dropped his pack and started pulling things out. “I'm going to hand out MRE's from my supplies. That'll take about five pounds off my load. Not much, but every bit counts.”

Duo tossed the camp box to Wufei after getting the tent out. “Here. Set up the stools and stuff. Ok?”

Wufei caught the box. “Sure. I'll get stuff set up. Any preferences in dinner?”

Duo just laughed merrily. “Food, man, you know me, just food.”

Wufei laughed, set out the stools, started a fire, then sat down to take off his boots. He hissed as he pulled off his socks, one of the medi-gel wafers had rolled up and was now stuck to his foot and his sock. He swore in dockside cant as he carefully peeled the sock off the gel. He wasn't about to try to get the wafer off his foot. Quatre would do that.

After prying his sock off, Wufei set out all the food. He put an MRE on every stool along with a plate. MRE's could be, and were, eaten out of the package, but it was nice to have it on a plate. It just made it more relaxing. He also set a billy can of water by the fire. No matter how hot it got, he still wanted his tea.

After they set up the tent and sleeping mats the rest of the guys came to the fire and sat down to eat.

Dou eyed his meal with a distrustful expression. “Chicken Balti ... something I can't pronounce. Is it curry?”

Heero wrinkled his nose in thought. “I ... don't think so. Is it awful?”

Duo nibbled cautiously. “No. But it tastes of cardamom and ... mmm ... something else faintly Indian. It's ... bland.” He fished in his condiments and found a tiny bottle of Tabasco. He dumped it all on the chicken and stirred it in.

Quatre eyed his with disgust. “Meatloaf. Not a favorite. They put too much soy in it for me. Trowa? Trade?”

Trowa just handed his chili over. “It's chili. Not bad. Is there ketchup?”

Quatre handed it over, along with three other packets that he fished out of his pack. “Yes, and extra. Thanks.” He ate some of the chili, humming with pleasure. He did like the chili. He knew it had just as much soy in it as the meatloaf did, it was the texture of the loaf that he disliked.

Wufei had picked oriental beef for himself and tofu surprise for Heero. They both enjoyed their choices.

Duo eyed Heero's meal with disgust. “How the hell can you eat that stuff?”

Heero mumbled around a mouthful, “I like tofu.”

“But ... tofu surprise? I mean, what's the surprise? And why do they muddle up perfectly nice tofu with that stinky sauce. Blarg.” Dou made a face and stuck out his tongue on the last word, looking all of six.

“Mmmm. I like the creaminess of the tofu in contrast to the sour sauce.” Heero swallowed then asked, “So it's the sauce you don't like?”

“It's too sour. It should be more like sweet and sour sauce than that stuff.”

Duo went back to his food while Heero contemplatively licked some sauce off his spork. He had to admit that it was very sour, but he liked the contrast of sour sauce and creamy tofu. He shrugged and went back to his food.

They lounged around the campfire after they ate, discussing what they wanted to do when they got home.

Duo wanted to go surfing with Heero, Heero wanted to go surfing with Duo. Quatre and Trowa wanted to clean house at WEI. Wufei surprised everyone by announcing that he wanted to learn to surf from either Duo or Heero, or both. And he wanted a cha no yu. Quatre said he'd get what he wanted.

.

Dr. Heartnet watched in fury as the mecha refused to walk. He had done everything exactly right, followed the schematics and blueprints down to the last nut and bolt. But the pilot couldn't get it to walk.

The thing that was most annoying was, it flew like a bird. Except that, the second it landed, it froze. The pilot swore that there was some trick to making it walk. He just couldn't figure out what it was.

So the doctor was going over everything again, just in case he'd missed something the last six times. It didn't look like he had.

.

Duo took over the care of Wufei's feet. He washed them in warm water and rubbed antibiotic cream into every open blister. He wrapped them in gauze, then eased socks over the gauze. He brought Wufei tea, food and his phone.

Wufei was used to being stuck in airports and offices with nothing much to do so his phone was loaded with books. Since he preferred to read Kanji they were easy to store and no one else would ask to borrow his phone to read something. Or check their email or whatever. He really hated to loan his phone, just like all the other pilots. And most of Preventers.

Quatre had settled beside Trowa to finish reading the reports he'd gotten in the brief burst download he'd managed to get. He'd gotten exactly what he'd wanted, luckily. But the more he read the worse his temper got. He was ready to unleash on someone, as soon as he got them in his sights. Since that would have to wait until he got back to WEI HQ in Detroit, he was not a happy CEO.

And when Quatre wasn't happy, no one in WEI was happy. “Trowa, when we get back, I'm going to turn the company upside down and shake it. I want to know everyone's business. I don't care if it's Jimmy in the mail room or my sister Shaha. Damnit!”

Trowa shook his head. “That's not possible and you know it. But ... we have some good intel. Or, rather, Une does. All we have to do is follow the trail. The money trail from Abdullah to all his little fuzzy friends. Then skin them and make a coat. Yeah?”

Heero called from across the fire. “He's right, Quatre, it would take entirely too much time to vet everyone in the company. Not that long to trail the money from Abdullah to whoever. Easy.”

Duo put in, “And who's to say that someone else won't do the job before we get back?”

Quatre snorted rudely. His furious, “And you really think I'm going to trust any of my sisters to do the job right? Especially when several of them have already missed this?”, made them all blink.

Wufei just said softly, “Yes, exactly. And it really hurts worse when family, even married in family, betrays you.”

Quatre just nodded and went back to reading.

.

Une looked around in disgust. “This is their base of operations? What the ...” She cleared her throat with a slightly self conscious look, then snarled, “Fuck that shit!” She eyed the chopper for a moment, then announced, “If they can fast rope in, so can we.” She turned to her pilot. “Set it up.”

She stormed away, yelling over her shoulder, “And tell someone in the know that the next time I find out that my top agents have been dumped at the ass end of nowhere in a place like this, they're going to be on the next plane to outer Podunk.”

The whole Preventer group just saluted and barked, “Ma'am, yes Ma'am”

The incoming squad just sighed and settled in to wait.

While they were waiting, Une was directing the set up of a satellite dish. This dish was powerful enough to penetrate any cloud cover short of pea soup. Her instructions were simple, “Wait on investigation of Abdullah until Winner is there.” She refused all emails and reports.

.

Heero examined Wufei carefully, not even trying to hide it. He, Wufei, looked better. His eyes were clear and the bags under them were half the size they had been. He also looked rested. He was still too thin by far, something that they couldn't do anything about until after this mission, but he looked like he was actually going to make it through this mission.

“Like what you see?” Wufei smirked genially at Heero. Duo's vague, “oi!” made them laugh.

“Yes, I like. You look better. I still want you to eat as much as you can. We're not going to run out of supplies before we run out of mission. I want this thing done in three days or we pull the plug and come back loaded for bear.” Heero turned to checking his arms and pack.

Duo grumbled, “If we meet a bear out here, I'm eating it. Fresh meat.” He tucked a block of C4 into a pocket.

Quatre eyed the explosive for a moment, then said, “Or hamburger. What the hell are you planning to do with nearly a pound of that stuff?”

“Don't know. Never can tell when it'll come in handy. Might have to make a door knocker or something.” Duo turned his attention to his pack and Quatre went back to what he was doing.

Heero caught Wufei's eye and rolled his. The last time Duo had made a door knocker, he'd blown the blast doors off an Oz bunker. Not that astonishing until you found out that the doors had been intended for the loading bay of a colony and were eight inches thick, reinforced, 12 ft tall by 10 ft wide and braced. They'd looked like twisted playing cards. Wufei just said blandly, “Meep.” and went on with his business.

After a thorough equipment check, Heero put his head together with Trowa and they checked their map, GPS coordinates, and planned their route. After they planned, Heero got them all together and said, “Ok, we've got some problems. One, the cloud cover has phone contact, computer contact, etc, FUBAR. Two, all we've got to follow is that scrambler signal, if it goes, we're going to have to just go in the same direction until we either find something or realize we're fucked. So, suggestions?”

Duo shook his head. He had confidence in Heero's assessment. The last time he'd argued with one, they'd gotten lost -- in Seattle. No fun.

Wufei shared Duo's opinion, so he just shrugged a bit.

Trowa offered, “If the cloud cover breaks for an hour, we'd be able to triangulate on the signal via satellite. If.”

Quatre nodded, “I sent orders in that burst for my communications people to move a satellite to a better orbit. I don't know what they're actually doing. Something useful, I hope.”

.

The satellite tech fiddled with his keyboard. There were no controls for such a thing, no joy stick or steering yoke. It was all done with commands to the satellites master computer.

He mumbled, as he fiddled, “I'd love to be the sort that can just move a satellite he owns on a whim.” He tapped a few keys, then hit return, “There.”

His buddy handed him a cup of coffee and replied, “Yes? Sure you would. That rich son of a sea cook is in the middle of a bug ridden jungle somewhere in Thailand or, Laos, or somewhere. He crashed. Now he's on a covert mission for Preventers. Yeah, some fucking whim.”

The tech gave his friend a wide eyed look, saying, “Well, shit. Changed my mind, thank you very much.”

.

Lady Une stood in the middle of the path and swore. She was examining the remains of the airplane. The blown up airplane.

“Well, it looks like Maxwell was doing his thing.” The sergeant rubbed the back of his head.

Une just snorted. “If you think Maxwell would leave that much of it whole, you're crazy. He'd use the fuel tanks to his advantage, rather than rupturing them and letting it all burn.” She snorted again. “Get me some tracks and let's get moving. I want to catch up with them ASAP.” She glanced around at the men who were designated trackers. “Well, gentlemen? Hop to it.”

The grizzled veterans hopped.

It didn't take them long to sort things out.

“Ok, ma'am, here's the skinny. Natives went that way, following small boots. That would be our bunch. One set of larger boots. Not sure who, but Barton is fairly big. Thing that puzzles me is ... we seem to be one set of small boots short.” He pointed up river, then turned to point down. “Another squad went that way. All large boots. Probably our blow up guys. Mercs from the look of it. So ... which way?”

Just then the other tracker hurried up. “Ok, we got a prob. There's another set of small boots. They're headed down river, then back up again. They seem to have circled around from somewhere, then gone down river either with or following the big boots.”

Une snarled, she hated this sort of thing. Which way to go? They didn't have all that much time to lose. They needed to catch up with the Gundam pilots and back them up.

“Well, shit. What do you recommend?” She glanced from one tracker to the other.

They conferred for a moment then one said, “Follow the freshest small boots.”

The group settled in to wait until the trackers figured out which set that was.

“Water?”

Une accepted the bottle with a nod. “Thanks.”

“You think we'll find them alive?” The older woman looked worried. “I mean ... well, I really like Quatre, he's a good man.”

“I'll tell you something on the down low. He is a good man but he can be a real BAMF when he needs to be. You never saw him at the controls of Sandrock. Calm as they come, and deadly as Yuy or Maxwell in his own way. So ... yes, I think we'll find them all alive.” Une smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way and drank her water.

“Um .. ok. Thanks.” The woman nodded and turned to walk away, calling over her shoulder, “Finish that water and eat something.”

Une just fished in her pack for an MRE. They were expending huge numbers of calories and she didn't want to fall behind because her blood sugar had tanked..

While Une was trying to find them, the Gundam pilots were getting farther away. They were narrowing the distance between them and the signal with grim determination. Heero was on point, despite the size of his pack, followed by Trowa, then Duo. Wufei followed Duo with Quatre on his heels. Quatre was determined to keep track of Wufei. He was going to make sure that he took care of himself.

They went slowly, keeping track of the scrambler signal as best they could with the instrument Quatre had. It blipped softly, slowing and speeding up the pace of the blips as they followed the twisting, turning game trails through the jungle. Quatre had had to give up on his cell phone up as he needed the satellite connection for it to work.

Duo kept up a constant grumble about bugs, rain and low hanging branches. Everyone knew that he wasn't pleased.

Heero finally said, “Duo, lover, shut the fuck up. You're not happy. Take it out on the bad guys.”

“Ok, ok. Shutting up now.” Duo subsided into a sullen sulk. Heero rolled his eyes and turned back to the trail.

Quatre kept glancing at the sky, hoping for a break in the clouds. He was to be disappointed all day.

They stopped every three hours until dusk, then made camp. Duo grumbled at this as they were close enough to the source of the signal that it was a cold camp. No campfire meant no tea. Wufei added his voice to the bitching.

No one else was very happy about a cold camp so they didn't say much. Quatre quietly agreed with Wufei, he wanted tea as well. They all felt that Wufei, especially, was entitled to some grousing. He'd been on the first vacation he'd taken in at least three years and now, here he was, in some lousy jungle, swatting bugs and walking his feet bloody.

After his little fit, Duo made Wufei sit down so he could tend Wufei's feet again.

“Blast and damn! You're feet are ... hamburger. What the hell is going on?” Duo eased the gel patch off Wufei's foot. “The tops are blistered. Something is going on with those boots.” Duo picked up one boot and examined it carefully. He was disgusted to see that the liner had wrinkled in several places. “Damnit. The liner is fucked. It'll have to come out.” He stuck his hand in the boot and pulled. The liner all but fell out. “This is so not good. On a scale of one to ten, this is clearly an eleven. Fei, you're boots are FUBAR.”

Wufei eyed the ragged liner in disgust. “The next time I accept Preventer issue boots, smack me. OK? I've had that happen with dress boots. I really wish I knew where Preventers gets their boots.”

Quatre scowled at the boot as if it had personally offended him. “From one of my subsidiaries. I'll have that sister up on the carpet ASAP. You can bet on it.” He made a note in the notepad on his phone and shoved it into his pocket. “Ok, so what do we do now?”

Duo fished in his pack. “We all donate a pair of socks. Fei's going to need to wear three pairs. One pair to replace the liner and two for extra padding. Along with gauze and gel pads, he should be ok. Especially now that those wrinkles have stopped irritating his open sores. Shit and damn.” Duo scrounged in his pack, then tossed a pair of socks at Wufei.

Wufei caught them one handed and tucked them into his pack for morning. “I'm going to leave my feet bare as long as I can. That'll help the blisters scab over. Or should I put on a pair of socks to keep the mosquitoes off?” He waved a hand over his feet and mosquitoes buzzed away.

Heero handed his spare socks over. “Here. Put on one pair now and the other in the morning.”

Trowa handed Wufei a pair of his socks. “Put these on last, my feet are the biggest.”

Quatre passed over two pair of socks. “These are silk, wear them next to your skin.”

Heero leaded back against a log to watch the camp. Duo settled next to him. “Here. Eat. Quatre is fussing.”

Heero accepted the MRE and opened it. “You know, I don't miss this at all. I'd rather be home, making love or even chasing a runner.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too. And I want something fresh to eat. I'm starting to crave oranges. Stupid, I know. We haven't been out here long enough for scurvy to be a problem. But I still crave oranges.” Duo poked his food pouch into the larger pouch, dropped in the warming tab and added some water.

Heero scowled at his MRE for a moment, he wasn't that fond of ham and beans. “What do you have? I've got ham and beans.”

Duo clutched his pouch to his chest. “Not a chance. Remember what happened the last time I ate beans.”

Heero made a face. “On second thought, keep what you have. Just ... what is it?”

Duo snickered softly. “Pork and beans.”

Heero moaned while Trowa just said, “Oh, God.”

The last time Duo had eaten beans without taking Beano had been – interesting. And stinky.

Quatre reached into his pocket and handed Duo a tiny, plastic case. “Here.”

Duo took out a sheet of the Beano and placed it on his tongue. “Thanks.”

“Seconded.”

“Thirded.”

Heero just laughed while Wufei ate in silence, his tiny smirk telling them all his opinion without his having to speak.

They ate in silence, each one thinking about his part in the mission. They were still on the right track to the source, they hoped.

Heero stuffed the trash from his MRE into a pocket on his backpack and stretched out. “We'll have to get some sleep soon. Quatre, any chance of intel?”

Quatre checked his phone. “Nope. We'll have to wing it.”

Wufei snorted. “Not the first time we've done that, is it? We'll manage. Duo's good at recon, so am I.” He glowered around. “And my feet aren't going to keep me from doing my job so don't start.”

Heero held up his hands, palms out, and said, “Don't look at me. I'll be running with Duo. You're not going solo, so it's either Quatre or Trowa with you. And no arguments.” He gave Quatre a sharp look. “From anyone.”

Quatre just gave Wufei that sweet smile that they'd all learned to fear. “Who me? I'm glad Trowa is going with Wufei. I'll keep trying my phone and see if I can't come up with some sort of preliminary plan. And I'll wash things.”

They all stared at Quatre for a moment, then just gave up. Sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth to try to figure out what went on in Quatre's head.

They settled for the night, with Heero taking first watch. He climbed a tree, which seemed to be everyone's favored site now, and found a limb he liked. He began his watch by checking on the tent and it's surrounds. Then he performed a visual sweep of the clearing. He would continue this until he was relieved by Quatre in two hours.

.

Lady Une wanted to continue their trek but she was wise enough to know that trying to hike in the dark was like playing Russian roulette, sooner or later the hammer would fall on the 'deadly' chamber. She wasn't up for that sort of thing, so she didn't protest when the sergeant called a halt.

“Ok, people, we'll stop here. It's as good a place as any.” He glanced around. “And it looks like our quarry stopped here ...” He fingered the ash in the fire pit. “Night before last.” He dropped the ash ,wiped his hand on his pants and ordered, “Ok, Jenkins, build a fire. Parker, start getting the tents up. Lady, if you would, assign billets for the night.”

Une just glanced around. There were three women in the group, the rest were men. She knew they had three tents, so she just said, “Women in one tent, men in the other two. You guys fight it out for yourselves. Ladies, shall we?”

The ladies agreed that they 'shall' so they occupied themselves with setting up their tent to suit them. After they got their sleeping bags and nets settled, they returned to the fire for their food.

A man named Sullivan handed out the MRE's and some hot water so they could make coffee with the instant that was in their meal. Some had hot cocoa instead but Pvt Sullivan had extra coffee and accepted the trade out without comment. Une wished for tea but settled for coffee.

After they ate and cleaned up their area, the sergeant suggested that they make an early night of it so that they could be up with the sun and on their way. No one objected so the camp was soon silent, except for the soft foot falls of the guard.

Une knew she was going to have trouble sleeping, she was too worried about 'her' boys.

She was well aware that Heero, Trowa and Quatre tolerated her. She also knew that Duo, while he didn't actively hate her, wasn't too fond of her and tended to avoid her. Not that she blamed him much, she had, after all, ordered his execution. Wufei obeyed her orders and avoided conflict with her, but she had a feeling that he wasn't that fond of her either. She sighed and rolled over.

“Trouble sleeping?” A voice from the dark asked.

“Yes, I'm worried about ... my boys.” Une finally admitted it out loud, for the first time.

“I know. They're so young. But still, don't forget that they're all trained. They should be ok until we can find them.”

Another voice announced, “Quiet. The Sarg will have our heads if we wake the camp.”

Une just grunted and settled to sleep, whether she really wanted to or not. The whole tent was soon asleep.

.

Dawn brought a quick break down at both camps and a move out that left a few people still chewing.

Duo munched on crackers and peanut butter as he walked. This was the part of the whole mission thing that he really hated, this frantic feeling that they were somehow behind.

Heero noted Duo's tension and knew it's source. “Duo, relax. We'll find the signal soon, I'm sure.”

Duo grumbled, “Yeah, but I'd like it a lot better if we had intel. Quatre's people just have to have all sorts of information that we're not getting.” He eyed the sky for a moment, then snarked, “And it's not like this place needs more rain or anything.” He batted at a limb which resulted in a cold shower of water from it's large, flat leaves. He yelped, then went back to bitching.

Quatre quietly told Trowa. “I agree with Duo. And how the hell can rain be cold in the damn tropics. I almost wish we were in the desert. But ... not really.”

Trowa shrugged, “We'd be mostly miserable, no matter where we are. Wufei's feet. You and Duo with the cold rain. Heero and I just feel for you and Duo. We'll be out of this soon enough. What do you want to do after?”

This question led to a lively game of Any Where But Here which kept them occupied for most of the morning. A morning that led them closer to their target.

.

Une ate with angry intensity. Even their top of the line, powerful portable satellite couldn't penetrate the cloud cover. It was just too thick. She eyed the umbrella- like device with disfavor.

They'd carried that stupid thing in, hoping to get intel from either Preventers or Quatre's people. It had been unfolded and set up overnight but the weary tech just grumbled about clouds and rain being the perfect block. They'd also found that the scrambler signal didn't affect the dish. The tech said it wouldn't until they were much closer. He also said, and proved, that their cells wouldn't function when they got under the 'umbrella' of the scrambler.

Une was not a happy woman. The group wasn't happy either. They wanted on the move now, the tech was taking his own sweet time about breaking down the equipment.

“Come on, dude, we need to move out.” Sarge nudged the man with his toe.

“Sarge, if I don't pack this stuff up properly, division will have my head. It's expensive, experimental and irreplaceable.” The tech just kept doing what he did.

“Ok,ok. But get a move on, will ya?” Sarge looked around, grumbling.

The tech finally got his equipment packed to his satisfaction and stood up with a grunt, pack already on his back. “Ok, so? What are you waiting on? Not me.” With those words, he strode off into the brush.

The rest of them scrambled to get their packs up and follow him. Une smirked into her sleeve.

.

Heero nodded at Duo. “We'll stop here. It's a good place for a base camp. The valley narrows here, and there's a nice stream.” He eyed that stream for a moment. “Glad that puppy drains out of a different basin than the other one. So, we flop here ... reconnoiter that valley. Then plan. Questions, suggestions, general bitching?”

Duo just turned to Quatre. “You sure, man?”

Quatre checked his tracking device, “Yes, the source is in that valley somewhere. And the map shows that this ...” he waved his hand, “is the only way in other than by air.”

Wufei had plopped down on a convenient rock as soon as they'd stopped. He was looking at the map in disgust. “Will someone please tell me why every evil scientist in the universe seems to pick some out of the way, inaccessible except by air, fucking stupid valley to do their evil in?” He found himself faced with four sets of wide eyes. “Just asking.”

Heero managed to maintain a straight face for about three seconds before he literally fell over, laughing. Duo joined him while Trowa and Quatre clung to each other to keep from falling too.

Wufei eyed them with disgust. “Well, what the hell is so funny about my question?”

Duo flopped over on his back. “Only you, Wufei, would ask a question worded like that in all seriousness.”

Quatre answered, between snickers, “Because they don't think like normal people. Most of them have never been in the outback of anywhere. They just don't realize how far people can hike, because they can't walk three blocks without wheezing. Ok?”

Wufei snorted. “Yes. Thank you.” He shook his head at the others, then said, “Idiots.”

Duo got up and gave Wufei a quick hug. “But you love us.”

Wufei laughed fondly, “Yes, Duo, I do.”

They turned to pitching camp. Trowa put up the tent, as usual. His longer arms made it easier for him to put it up with only a little help with pegging down. He wound up smacked in the face with one end of a pole as he bent it into it's pocket. “Fuck. When this is all over, I swear, I'm going to burn this damn thing. Quatre! Put it on your phone to develop some sort of tent that doesn't need these damn rods.”

Quatre refrained from telling him that WEI had developed one before he was born, it was just that the military wouldn't certify it for combat use. That meant it wasn't issued to subcontractors either. He vowed to make sure that Preventers certified it as soon as he got back. He made a note in his ToDo list, then shut his phone.

“Ok, all done.” Quatre picked up the handful of pegs and started pegging the tent down. “I wonder why we got this tent instead of a taller, bigger one.”

Wufei answered this comment easily. “Because it's a survival tent. That's why it has poles instead of some other sort of support.” He smirked at Duo. “You can make a spear out of one of the poles if you need to and the tent will still stand.”

Trowa snorted, “I'll sacrifice the spear in favor of a whole face. I can make a spear out of a sapling. Any idiot can.” Wufei just shrugged, “Bet! Step one, cut down sapling. Step two, sharpen one end of same. Voila! Spear. Fuckers.”

Duo blinked at both of them for a second. “Spear? We don't need no fuckin' spears.”

Wufei opened his mouth, despite Heero's rather frantic head shaking, and said, “Well, what would you use?”

Duo just smirked, then announced, as if it was obvious, “C4! Make a ball, apply detonator, proximity is good, toss in appropriate fishing spot and ... Boom! Fish rain. Easy, peasy.”

Heero just put one hand over his face, shaking his head, and said, “You had to ask.”

Trowa just sighed and went back to pitching the despised tent, his shoulders shook suspiciously from time to time. Quatre didn't bother to hide his snickers.

Wufei sighed too, “Only you, Maxwell, only you.”

Duo ignored the hilarity in favor of food. He made sure that Wufei had two meals that he liked.

.

Lady Une glowered in fury at the remains of a claymore mine and four of her people. She was sure it was set down by hostles of some sort, probably the mercs whose footprints they had found.

“Maxwell, has a lot of explaining to do.” Sarge fought back tears, he'd been working with three of the men for six years and the woman for 18 months. He was attached and not ashamed to show it.

Une shook her head, “Not Maxwell's work. He'd build his own and make one that would just cripple. He's not for killing unless he's sure who's getting done.” She moved to collect the secondary ID tags all of them wore.

The sergeant shook his head, “I'll do it. Then we better break out the shovels.”

Une just turned to pick up a shovel. “On it.” She glanced around at the rest of her group. They had started out with twelve people, including her, now they were down to eight. This was not looking good. She jammed the short shafted trenching shovel into the root riddled ground and stomped on the foot ledge. “Fuck!”

As she dug, she went over who was who. CO Sergeant Weathers, the officer in command, was old school, good man. Then there were the two youngest men, Pvt. Masters and Pvt. Roland. They were young but well trained, not their first job, obviously. Then there was the ComTech Landry, knew her electronics. And her companion, SatTech McMillan, he was the smart ass with the dish. He was well trained but a bit egotistical, not that he didn't have reason but still. Then that left the other two women, PFC Shorty and Master Sergeant Adams, both tough and willing, well trained too. She just hoped they had the juice. She wished she'd been able to bring in her own people; but, as Duo said, 'Wish in one hand, shit in the other. See which one fills up first.' She'd just make do.

It took them most of the morning to dig a hole large enough for the remains. They wrapped each body in a rain poncho and laid it in the hole. The CO said the proper words, they filled in the hole and started on their way.

Une couldn't help but remark, “It's so odd that such a thing took so little time.” She got an odd look from Shorty. “I mean. Four people took ...” she waved a hand, “so little time to die and be buried. It's just ...” she ended on a sigh.

They picked up their pace, trying to make up the lost time. Each one thinking their own thoughts about what had happened.

They made up the lost time by marching through lunch, eating on the move.

.

Duo slipped through the underbrush without touching a thing. He'd had to leave Heero at a vantage point about a mile back. Heero was nearly as good at stealth as he was, but that was the active word, nearly.

He'd stepped on a twig, which had snapped with an audible crack. Then he'd brushed against a bush, the dry seed pods on it had rattled loudly. That was when Duo had stashed him and gone on alone.

The trek from their camp to the area of the signal had been a ten mile forced march with a minimal pack. Now Duo was faced with the hard part of the task, checking out the HQ compound. Heero had been left with all Duo's pack, except what he could stash on his person. He didn't need a backpack catching on something at an inopportune moment, nor did he want to have to abandon it if he was spotted.

It didn't seem as if he would be, spotted that is, as there were no guards to speak of. Nor were there any corner towers. The compound was surrounded by a fence with concertina wire at the top of it, and that was about it. The gate was electronic with a guard hut on one side. The gate was opened by a simple 'slide to the side' mechanism, activated from the hut. Or Duo thought it was. The hut was unoccupied and the gate was chained shut with a log chain and padlock. He shook his head. “What a maroon.”

Duo moved carefully, staying well within the tree line, hiding in the brush there. He circled the compound and realized that most of it was above ground, in cheaply built metal buildings usually referred to as pole built. They were easy to put up, all that was needed was a frame of 4 by 4 uprights with 2 by 4 stringers between them. The side walls were then capped with a header of 4 by 4's to support the joists and rafters. The entire building was then covered with sheet metal siding and roofing. The buildings he was looking at ranged from 40 x 60 residential, barracks and private housing, to four buildings that were at least 200 x 200. Duo wondered vaguely about structural integrity, then decided that Quatre might know.

He took the time to count the buildings and make an educated guess at their purpose. He saw several machine shops and two fuel depots. He also realized that there had to be nearly 100 people there. Most of them, however, seemed to be scientists and support staff. Not a lot of fire power around. Duo shook his head. This was turning out weirder and weirder. And Duo hated weird.

Trowa whistled in the distance to signal that he was done. They had arranged a signal beforehand. Duo whistled back and headed for Heero.

No one said much until they got back to base camp. Then Trowa gave his report.

He'd seen much the same thing that Duo had; laboratories, machine shops and offices. No dwellings to speak of.

Between the two of them, they drew up a diagram of the entire compound.

Duo frowned at it. “Ok, they're using the scramblers constantly, where is the broadcasting unit? And what the hell are they building. There one really tall building that ...” he stopped, looked at Quatre and shook his head. “Oh, no! Oh, fucking hell no. They are so not!”

Quatre examined the diagram and the dimensions scribbled on the not quite to scale buildings. “Um ... I'm afraid so. Well, isn't that just ... shit!”

Trowa frowned at the diagram for a moment, then snarled.

Heero and Wufei just glowered, first at Duo, then Quatre, then the diagram.

Everyone was thinking the same thing. They had to be building a Gundam.

.

Une smiled at last. Their point man had come running back to tell them that they were only about 200 yards from their goal.

Une looked around. “Ok, do not, and I emphasize, not startle them. They'll shoot first and ask questions later. I don't want to lose anyone else. Clear?”

A chorus of 'Yes, ma'am.' let her know that it was.

They headed out again and it wasn't long before they were at the edge of the clearing. They were just in time to hear a shriek of sheer fury echo around the area.

Une just sighed, Maxwell had figured out part of the problem for sure.

“Damn. Well, we better be there, now.” Une led her group in a quick march over the last 200 yards.

When they came in sight, they were greeted with a very nice view of the muzzles of two M4's, two sniper rifles and a handgun.

“Stand down!” Une stepped to the forefront of her group.

She was a bit hurt to see Duo step to the side, this put him behind Heero. She dismissed this as something to worry about later.

“Gentlemen, we are your backup.” She sighed at the looks they Gundam pilots exchanged. It was fairly obvious that they weren't sure whether this was a good idea or not. She made a decision, “I'm placing all of us under your orders.”

Quatre snorted at that. “That's a good thing as I'm paying the salaries of everyone but you.” He counted noses, then said, “You're four short.”

CO Weathers just said, flatly, “Dead. Claymore. I scanned their ID. And recorded the GPS.”

A look of pain flashed across Quatre's face. “Well, damn.” He turned to the subject at hand in self defense. “Ok, here's what we have.”

CO Weathers found that he was relegated to 2IC, in charge of not much of anything. He found out why Quatre had questioned a lot of his decisions over the years. He was used to planning missions. He just sighed, kept his mouth shut and listened, for the first time ever.

Heero sidled up to the older man and patted him on the shoulder. “A bit disconcerting to find out that the helpless young man you've been hired to protect could kill you with a paperclip, isn't it?”

“Yup. And I'm havin' some words with Iria and all the ladies. Gundam pilot. My achin' ass.” Weathers turned to look into twinkling blue eyes. “Well, shit. Yuy, right?”

“Got it in one.” Heero smiled a bit, just to watch the man flinch. “Sorry.”

“No, you're not. But that's ok. We're supposed to rescue you, according to the paranoid sisters. Back you up, according to Lady Une. But ... I get the feeling that they're both wrong.”

“They are. You're here to afford covering fire and general support. Quatre won't ignore an asset. So, got plenty of ammo?” Heero glanced around.

Shorty, ever the smart mouth, just said, “Plenty of ammo and attitude. Sir!”

Heero looked her up and down.

She was tall, for a woman, and weighed in at more than it looked like she would. She was muscular, with short hair and her uniform was sweaty. Heero liked her at first glance, the second didn't change his mind.

She liked back. Heero was just a bit taller than she was, she hated being loomed over. He was muscular but sleek, not a body builder.

Duo noticed and staked his claim easily. “Hey, lover, over here. What do you think about this three story building right in the middle of everything?”

Shorty glanced from Duo to Heero, then said, without heat, “Well, damn, the gals are right.”

Quatre glanced her way, “Excuse me?”

“All the good men are either taken or gay. A single gal ain't got a chance.” Shorty grinned at him, unashamed.

“Not true.” Wufei interjected, “I'm neither gay, nor taken.”

Shorty just grinned at him and purred, “Well, hello, handsome.”

Wufei snorted his amusement, then announced, “Not now. That's why I don't have a girl. Mission first, flirting after.” He returned his attention to the diagram, scowling at it.

It didn't take long to figure out who was going to do what. Quatre wanted more intel before the final decisions and told Weathers to do something about it. Weathers just looked at Duo for a moment, then said, “Maxwell, me, sniper rifles, high ground. Ok?”

Quatre nodded absently. “Fine. Be careful.”

Duo just grinned at Weathers and motioned for him to follow. “This way. Heero?”

Heero nodded. “I'm taking Trowa and heading back for the spot I was at before. We'll take the pair of high powered binocs Une brought. Why we didn't have them, I'll find out later.”

Une answered that. “Some brilliant ... someone who's not a Preventer anymore, when I get back ... decided that you didn't need them because they'd be useless in jungle. Like you didn't specifically ask for them. Not like all of you climb like monkeys. Dumb ass.” She returned to her conversation with Quatre.

Duo took Weathers to the equipment cache and started sorting through it. Weathers took a moment to mention the claymore. Duo glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged, “Not mine. I don't use that sort of trap. I don't like them. Too much chance of someone innocent or at least inoffensive wandering into it. If we were in a pursuit situation, I might take time to set one. But we didn't even bring any. I prefer to make my own.”

Weathers sighed. “Well, I was hoping that was the case. I'd hate to think ... friendly fire, no matter the actual source is just not ...”

Duo nodded absently, then handed Weathers a rifle with a huge scope on it. “This yours?”

“Yeah.” Weathers was glad of the change of subject.

Duo fished out his rifle, the scope was even bigger. “Ok, let's move out.”

Weathers followed Duo, wondering if he was crazy. This kid was older than he looked, of that he was sure, but he still had a delicacy about him that was a bit off putting. And that hair, tightly braided though it was, really put a crimp in Weathers' attitude, although he tried not to show it.

Duo, however, caught his look, “It's the hair, right?”

“Well, it is a bit ... girly.”

Duo snorted. “Girly. Yeah, right. Just remember this, I was piloting a Gundam by the time I was fourteen. And nearly got executed for terrorist activities by fifteen. Then I fought a war in space at sixteen. And I'm a bounty hunter. Get over yourself or go back to camp and send me someone else as backup.”

Weathers thought about that for a moment then said, “Ok, ok. Sorry. I get it. Just ... well ...” he sighed, then grumbled, “I'm just a bit protective of all my men. Women too. And ... well, you're on the list now.”

Duo laughed then returned, “Ok, so I'm on your list. Nice to know. Now, be quiet just in case they have 'ears' out.”

“Mum as a nuns hen.” Weathers made a zipping motion over his mouth.

.

Heero and Trowa returned to Heero's fox hole. He'd dug in when Duo had left him so that he'd have some cover if everything went to shit.

Now he and Trowa were back, taking turns looking the compound over, trying to figure out what each building was used for. They knew that Weathers and Duo were doing the same thing from the other side.

They were using a well honed recon technique. Each team checked out the other team's work, not because they didn't do a good job, but because one team might see something the other didn't, or recognize something through differences in training.

Heero blinked, rubbed his eyes and looked again. “Oh, shit! Take a look.”

Trowa took the rifle and looked. “Oh, shit, is right. That's Deathscythe.”

“Yup. Duo is going to go mental.” Heero put his eye back to the scope again. “Laboratories to the west. Some sort of machine shop between them and the hanger.”

Trowa took notes, then his turn at the scope while Heero added to the notes.

They returned to the camp and Quatre took the notes with a nod.

“Ok, what we have is a mess. There's three separate labs, not sure what for. Two machine shops. And two separate fuel depots. That's all in the middle of the compound. Then there's the residences, all on the opposite side of the compound from the gate. That's good as they're more than 500 ft away from anything else. Doesn't look like women or children.” Heero breathed a silent sigh of relief over that. “And there's a motor pool right beside the gate ... which is not manned, I might add.” he shook his head over that idiocy.

“Ok, I think that's it. Let's get back and report in. I don't what Quatre giving me that sad eyed look.”

Trowa snickered, “You mean, he's got you whipped too.”

“Oh, yeah, and who the hell are you to talk? You're so whipped it's not even funny.”

Trowa snickered, “Like I really care. And Duo hasn't got you whipped too?”

Heero just shrugged. “It's nice to have someone to care. Right?”

“Too right.” Trowa shouldered his rifle and slipped into the brush.

Heero just followed, ghosting along after Trowa.

.

They added their recon to the general data pool, then went to get something to eat.

They were all pleased to find out that Master Sergeant Adams was also the group cook. And a fairly good one too.

She'd taken all the MRE's of one dinner, some sort of gravy train, and opened them all. She'd then added a few things from her pack and heated it all up in a pot. She'd actually managed to do something with the mashed potatoes that made them taste like potatoes, instead of wall paper paste.

Duo settled next to Heero with two plates. Heero took his absently, took a bite, then did a double take. “Oh, hell, that's good. Who...”

Duo nodded in the general direction of the now set up tents. “Adams. Hell of a cook.”

“Mm-hum.” Heero refrained from talking with his mouth full.

Une glanced in their direction but didn't go over. She knew she was going to have to make up with Duo, somehow, but it wasn't going to be easy. It seemed that the young God of Death wasn't trusting her as far as he could throw a Gundam.

Trowa glanced around, looking for Quatre. One of the guards noticed and nodded at a tent.

“In there. He's got maps spread all over and diagrams and ... shit. You know.” Pvt. Masters sat down on a stool with his plate and began to eat.

Trowa did know, so he just went back to his own food. He'd managed to snag a plate on his way through.

Une checked to see that everyone had food. She had to laugh, most of her people were as obsessed with food as teen-age girl on a diet, for a different reason. They worked hard and played hard, burning up calories at rates that made professional athletes look like couch potatoes. She had always made sure her Preventers had good, clean, nourishing, healthy food, even in the field. Preventers field rations were the best in ESUN.

.

They were all sitting around, cleaning things or just idly talking when a deep rumble brought every head up.

“What the fuck?” Quatre looked at Duo. “Duo?”

Duo just headed for the head of the valley at at fast trot, Heero on his heels. They both carried their weapons, Heero the mortar and Duo his sniper rifle. None of the group had allowed their weapon of choice out of arms reach, so they were gone in seconds.

It didn't take them long to reach a vantage point, a higher one than Heero's 'nest' and get a good look at the compound.

Duo watched, wide-eyed, as the copy of Deathscythe attempted to take off.

This was not a good thing as the pilot obviously didn't know what he, or she, was doing. Deathscythe picked up one foot, then put it back down, picked up the other and did the same thing. Then there were a few attempts to actually walk but the mecha only stumbled a bit, then subsided.

After a bit, the engines revved up and the pilot managed to get the Gundam off the ground. It landed seconds later with a tremendous crash.

Duo had to lean on Heero to keep from falling down, he laughed so hard.

They returned to the camp to report to Une and Quatre.

“Oh, man, you should have seen it. I mean, it was pathetic. It's Deathscythe Hell ... but not ... I don't think it's gundanium, doesn't have that special sheen, see. And the pilot is just pathetic, like I said, tried to walk and couldn't manage it, tried to fly and nearly crashed. That was the crash you heard, got off the ground then came back down. I did better my first try.” He grinned cheerfully. “And I was only thirteen.”

Heero snorted, “I did better my first flight too, and I was about the same age.”

Une just rubbed her face. “Well, fuck. So ... suggestions?”

Quatre sighed. “We have a body count. There's only about a hundred men, no women, in the compound. Mostly scientists and mechanics. A few mercs who will probably run at the first sight of real trouble. I'd say it's divided about 75-25, with maybe ten of the mechanics combat capable.”

Une sighed, those scientists were dead and didn't even know it. “I have a terminate with extreme prejudice order for everyone in that compound and a destroy or confiscate on all equipment. Issued by the ESUN privy council. So ... let's get to it.”

There were a few shocked sounds from the group but Quatre ignored them. “Very well. Heero, Duo, you're to get to that Gundam and find out if it's actually useable. Trowa, Wufei and I will recon the labs, set explosives and detonate them when it's safe to do so. The rest of you are to keep the mercs and anyone else off our backs while we do that.”

ComTech Landry asked, in a rather sour tone, “And what are we supposed to be doing while you're being all blow up the world?”

“Making sure that you stay the fuck out of the damn way, asshole.” Pvt. Roland's distaste for his companion was clear.

No one really cared for either of the techs as they were isolationist and down right snotty. They were only on the team because Quatre often needed their skills to keep in contact with WEI Central. They weren't used to combat and didn't like it, and made no bones about letting everyone know it.

Wufei glanced from one to the other then announced, “Landry, you'll be spotter for one mortar team, McMillan the other. I'm sure that even you two can manage to read off numbers from a spotters scope and get it right.”

Duo grinned, "Wufei, are you recommending what I think you are?”

Wufei smirked at him, “I am. Mortar march.”

Une blinked, “That's not a good idea. Even with the modern mortar units, constant firing will overheat the damn things.”

Nearly every man and woman there shook their heads. Finally, Shorty spoke up, “Not really. You need around ten seconds for the auto coolers to work, three mortars, which we do have, can lay down a field of fire that is nearly impenetrable. I guess we're supposed to drive the personnel away from the buildings so they can't gear up? Drive them ... where?”

Duo grinned, one of his less pleasant ones, and replied, “Une, stay out of this, please.” He turned his back on her to address Shorty. “Away from the motor pool and the labs and machine shops. Try to get them to gather at one of the fuel depots, then we can blow up the depot. Save ammo that way. Do not hit either depot first. Ok?”

Quatre nodded, “That's right. And ... um ... did anyone identify a cafeteria? If you did, hit that. We want to hit the barracks, residential areas and any gathering places first, then drive the populace to the depots, preferably the one on the west side. Any questions?”

There didn't seem to be any so they broke up to rest and prepare. They would strike at dawn.

.

Dawn came and with it, problems. It seemed that the two techs had gotten together and decided that they weren't paid to spot, or actually do anything, in real shooting combat. They were 'on strike'.

Quatre just nodded his head and remarked, “Fine, you'll be paid out as of ...” He glanced at his watch. “now. Gather your personal gear and pick a tent. You'll stay inside that tent until we're done. If you leave it, I will personally shoot your ass.” He turned his cold, impersonal gaze on both of them, one at a time. “You got me?”

They both nodded their heads, fear plain on their faces. They'd never seen Quatre like this and they were both beginning to reconsider their decision to buck his orders. A decision that came too late. They'd just ruined their careers. Neither one of them would be able to get a job in the tech field again. Quatre wouldn't do a thing, but word would get around never the less.

Une mourned this loss as it put their effective team down to six support and the Gundam pilots. “Damn.”

Duo just shrugged. “Lady, don't sweat the small stuff. And they're very small stuff.” He grinned at the two men in a maniacal way that made them both start to sweat. “I can rig the tent to go boom if they try to leave it. That way we don't have to worry about being shot in the back. Or having them suddenly find a rift in the clouds and contact someone they shouldn't. Wha' da ya say? Huh?”

“I say, just make sure you can decom the damn things on short notice. Otherwise? Knock yourself out.” Une gave the men a slightly crazy look of her own. “I'll take over spotter for one team.”

Quatre thought about that for a moment, then said, “No, I need you with us. That'll make it me and Trowa, Duo and Heero, and you and Wufei. We'll each have targets to rig. I don't trust a mortar march or even spotted grenade fire to take down everything properly. And I want as much of a data dump as I can get. So that means we sneak in, get the data, then order the march. We'll rig up before the march begins.”

CO Weathers agreed with this, only asking, “And what is the signal going to be? Just so we know.”

Duo thought, eyeing his companions for a moment. “How about this? If I can managed, Deathscythe Hell is going to fly again. If not, a red flare.” he suddenly grinned rather wildly. “Oh, man, I wonder if they got the thermal scythe? Wouldn't that be something?”

Wufei just put one hand over his eyes and sighed. “Damnit, Maxwell. You're insane.”

Duo pouted at him, “I'm perfectly sane. And I have papers to prove it. Jerk.”

“Idiot.”

“Yellow peril.”

“And I am,” Wufei agreed, taking the wind out of Duo's sails.

Duo pouted some more.

Une just sighed. This was the kind of behavior that had made her and her compatriots think they weren't a threat. Now, she knew better. She scowled at Wufei and Duo. “Enough chatter. Who's going to spot?”

Shorty announced, “Adams and I make a good team. And Masters and Roland make another. Since we only have two, that takes care of that.”

Weathers nodded his agreement, “And I'll be eyes behind, incase some smart guy figures out what's going on and tries to do something about it. When the march is done, we'll all come in for clean up.”

Duo glanced at Heero. Heero looked at Quatre.

Quatre looked back for a moment, then said, “If there's anything left. If Duo can even just walk Deathscythe, there won't be much left. If there's a buster rifle there ...” He laughed with cold humor. “I'm running. Ok. Everyone on the same page?”

They all nodded. “Ok, Duo, do your thing with the smallest tent. Une, check their belongings for anything you think they shouldn't have. Everyone else, head out.”

One of the techs, it might have been Landry but no one really bothered to look, objected to the confiscation of his private phone. Une told him to shut the fuck up. He took one look at her and shut. She was wearing what Duo called her 'scary, crazy lady face'.

Weathers stuck around to make sure Duo and Une didn't have any trouble with the two techs. He was a bit disgusted that two of his men would turn out to be so – soft.

Duo picked the much hated pole geodesic tent they'd been using. It was small but still plenty large enough for two men. He rigged it so that any attempt to open the zipper would result in an explosion large enough to incapacitate both men. Then he rigged another attached to a motion sensor that he put on the top of the tent. He then explained to both men that any attempt to cut the sides of the tent would result in enough vibration to set off the sensor and the explosive.

Une went through their stuff and found plenty of contraband. Including a few 'recreational' drugs that were on what Quatre called his 'no-no' list. She just tucked everything into an evidence bag and put it in the company locker. She'd turn it over to someone later.

She did allow both men their personal handheld games, after handing them to Duo so he could shut down all communications functions. This he did with a grin, a screwdriver and a knife. She had no idea what he'd done but he seemed satisfied, so she was too. She was pleased to see that Duo seemed to be reconciling himself to her. She hoped.

While Une, Duo and Weathers had been taking care of the two errant techs, the rest of the group had been getting into position. They'd had to make two trips, grumbling happily about the number of mortar rounds Heero had been humping.

Quatre and Trowa had already started their infiltration. Heero was waiting a bit impatiently for Duo while Wufei just stoically endured.

Heero glanced sidelong at Wufei. “Feet?”

“Ok. The rest and extra socks did the trick. Along with getting rid of that liner. I'm never wearing Preventer issue again.”

Heero grunted softly. “No, you're not. After this mission, vacation. Then ... you're turning in your resignation. Or I'm chaining you in the cellar until you do.”

Wufei blinked at that, then snarked, “And you have a cellar? I don't think.”

Heero allowed, “Well, it might be a basement. But we do have one. Don't think I'm fooling either.”

“And how will I earn a living?” Wufei knew he was wavering.

“You'll work with Duo and me. We need a third often enough that there'll be plenty for you to do. And there will be solo ops too. You'll earn the same as we do.” Heero looked away as Duo came out of the brush. “Duo.” They faded into the brush again.

Wufei eyed the spot with annoyance. “Well, shit.”

Une popped out of a bush, carefully rattling it first. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

.

The group was now split into four, Heero and Duo, Quatre and Trowa, Une and Wufei; and the mortar crews Shorty and Adams, Masters and Roland, and Weathers as eyes behind and extra spotter.

The assignments were Heero and Duo to check out the Gundam. Quatre and Trowa to down load any data available and Une and Wufei to do a general sweep of the area to try to 'paint' the cafeteria and any other occupied gathering area. They all knew they had to be careful not to be seen, that went without saying.

.

(Authors note: this splits the story into four parts, one for each group. After the mortar march begins they will rejoin.)

Quatre and Trowa cut the chain on the gate to get in, then slid the gate shut and rechained it with a new lock. They'd been lucky enough to find one just like the original. Quatre jammed both of them with a strip of metal, shoving the end into the lock and breaking it off.

“There. That's that.”

They ghosted from one building to another, checking carefully before dashing across any open spaces. They were lucky in that most of the compound seemed to be put up on the 'oh, we need a building, let's stick it there' method of planning. In other words, the place was haphazard, with no discernible streets, just buildings plunked down wherever.

It didn't take them long to find the main lab. It was helpfully labeled, “Main Lab” over the only door. Quatre waited, 9mm in hand, while Trowa picked the lock. The old fashioned, tumbler lock. They hadn't even bothered to put in an electronic security system. Quatre nearly hurt himself trying not to laugh.

Trowa grunted his satisfaction as the last tumbler clicked over. “There. Come on.”

Trowa eased the door open and slipped through with Quatre on his heels.

They took a quick look around. The building was two stories with rooms partitioned off with makeshift cubicle partitions. Most of the ones in the front of the building were half walled, only waist high. The only stairs to the next floor were right beside the only door. Quatre nodded up the stairs.

“I'll go up. Make a quick check for warm bodies. Make 'em cold.” He turned to lock the door before he went up the stairs

Trowa nodded and slipped away. He checked each cubicle by eye as he moved up and down the aisles.

It didn't take him long to get to the offices in the back. These offices had full walls. They were obviously for high ranking scientists, or managers. Trowa opened each door and looked in carefully.

In the third office Trowa found a man, seated at the desk with his back to the door. He never knew he was going to be killed as Trowa eased in and slit this throat. The man slumped over his reports, bleeding out all over them. Trowa locked the door from the inside, shut it and moved on.

He was mildly pleased to find no one else was an early bird. He wondered for a second what had urged the man to come in so early, then dismissed it as not important. After a final look around from the vantage point of the middle of the staircase, Trowa went to find Quatre.

While Trowa was sweeping the ground floor, Quatre had silently made his way up to the second floor.

This floor was dedicated to two laboratories and two offices. Each unit took up half the floor space with a hall between them that extended about half the length of the floor. This hall terminated in a small entry area which contained a desk. Quatre sat down at the desk and examined the desktop for a moment. After assuring himself that he wouldn't set off an alarm, Quatre booted the computer. While he was waiting for the computer to finish it's startup, he examined the rest of the desk.

It seemed that he really hadn't needed to start the computer. The lab doors were unlocked with a key. A key that was on a ring in the desk drawer.

Quatre sighed softly, muttering, “And that idiot wondered why he was under observation. No common sense at all.” He took the ring and opened the door of the lab on his right.

A quick glance around had Quatre hurrying to a work bench to examine its contents. He fingered a rod of a black substance and shook his head. “Not good. Titanium alloy.” he picked up a notepad and read the figures there. “Mmmm, they just might have something. And, since it's based on research Heartnet did while he was working for WEI, it falls under his research contract.” Quatre put the rod and notes into a pocket.

After checking around a bit more, Quatre checked out the other lab. This one turned out to be Heartnet's lab. Quatre booted up the computer and typed in the required password. How did he know it? He knew it because Heartnet never changed it. He even bragged about that, saying that no one would ever guess it. Quatre didn't bother, he'd just asked IT, they had it on file. They'd sent it to him in the one data dump he'd managed to get.

He plugged his phone into the USB jack and started a download of the entire hard disk. He knew he had enough memory but did wish that he could up load it for safety's sake. He decided to check to see if the compounds dish had enough power to penetrate the cloud cover. He sighed unhappily, it didn't. “Well, shit.”

Trowa cleared his throat from the general direction of the reception desk. He really didn't want to be shot by his lover. “Quatre?”

“Yes. I'm down loading this computer. It's Heartnet's personal research. All based on things that WEI owns. It might turn out to be useful ... or not. We'll see. Anything?”

Trowa moved to stand behind Quatre, facing the door. “One poor sap in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's cold now.”

“Too bad. Did you see anything useful?”

“No.”

Quatre checked the progress of his download. “Shit. Well, his is nearly done. After I crash the system, we'll set the charges.”

“Ok.” Trowa put his backpack down and started pulling explosives from it. “Where do you want to start? Here?”

Quatre check his download. It was finished so he plucked the jack from his phone, tucked the wire into a pocket and looked around. “Good enough. I'd like to find the servers and make sure of them.”

Trowa nodded. “Good idea. Wonder if there's a physical map on there.” He nodded at the computer.

“I checked, just in case. Nada.” Quatre snorted, “This is the most half assed mess I've seen in a long time. Just exactly what does this idiot think he's doing?”

Trowa shuffled through a drift of papers on a near by table. “Not sure he's really thinking about what he's doing. He's just flailing around, doing stuff because he can. I really think he's so ivory tower that he doesn't realize that he's building an illegal mecha.”

“And I'm going to have Duo steal it. If it'll actually fly.” Quatre got that sly smirk that made smart industrialists all over ESUN worry.

Trowa just shrugged and planted some explosives under the computer console.

Then they divided up the bombs that Duo had provided from his never ending supply and started sticking them on the main supports of the building. They also planted some just for the fun of it. The whole operation took about thirty minutes.

After that they eased out to take a quick look around for any more mischief they could get into.

.

Wufei and Une drifted from one building to another, avoiding the Main Lab as they knew that Quatre and Trowa would be there.

Une asked, “And why are we painting these places instead of planting explosives?”

“Because, if we just plant explosives some snoopy s.o.b. might actually find them. This way the mortar crews can just bomb the shit out of it. We aren't leaving any thing alive. Right?”

Une nodded once. “Right. Can't do that. Someone might get the idea that we've gone all soft on them.”

Wufei just grunted and opened a door. It was a machine shop with the usual mess associated with one. Wufei eyed a barrel, then slipped over to look into it. “Oil, rags and sawdust. Idiots.” He dropped a charge into it and pressed another onto a barrel of solvent. Une moved to the other end of the shop and found a similar arrangement there with the added benefit of a five gallon can of kerosene. She helped herself to a handful of clean rags, soaked them in the kerosene and dropped them under a shelving unit containing cans of unidentifiable things that all smelled explosive. She dropped an incendiary pack on the rags. Between the incendiary pack, charges and the general explosiveness of a machine shop, she was satisfied that things were going to go boom in a very interesting way.

They moved on to another building.

They found the cafeteria after two more machine shops. It was a low slung building between the general compound and the barracks. The front was empty but the kitchens were up and working. Two men were up and started preparations for breakfast.

Wufei nodded his head to the left and Une moved behind him and to the left. Wufei pushed the door all the way open. It hit the wall with a bang that attracted the men's attention to the wrong place. Une rolled under the table and jerked her target to the floor. She stabbed him under the ear and rolled away from the spurting blood.

Wufei used his martial arts skills to vault over the table in front of him, grab his target by the head and, using his momentum and the weight of his body, snap his neck. This also put him in position to roll into the hall behind the man and check for other occupants.

It appeared that the two men were the only ones there so Wufei signaled Une and then moved to search the storage area. Une checked out the freezers and refrigerators.

“No one.” Wufei didn't turn to face Une as he spoke, he kept his head and eyes moving, checking to make sure no one saw them.

Une did the same, keeping her eyes on her half of their perimeter. “No one my side either. I planted a charge on the refer and another on the coolant tank.”

Wufei considered this for a moment. “Good enough. I'll paint it and we'll move on.”

Une nodded. “Ok. But remind me why we're painting places we're also rigging?”

Wufei blinked for a second before replying, “SOP. The big shots call it something fancy. I just call it hedging my bets.” He turned to give her a grin worthy of Duo in Shinigami mode. “Besides, nothing says fuck you like a nice, big boom. Come on. I want to check out that geodesic dome thing. Then we should see if we can't find that mecha. I want to watch Duo make it dance.”

The geodesic dome turned out to be empty. It looked like they were setting it up as a theater and entertainment center. There were TV's, game systems and other gear scattered around, as well as some couches and chairs. Everything was either still in its box or placed around the walls. Wufei happily rigged the whole thing to blow when Duo sent the signal. There was no question that Duo would be the one to send a signal. One, he'd pout, no one liked a sullen Duo. And two, he was going to be the one trying to move the mecha, so he was going to be in the middle of it if it went off too soon.

Une looked around. “We better head for that hanger. We've done all the damage we can here.”

Wufei nodded once. “Yeah. I really think this compound is too small to have more than one cafeteria. I bet the big shots all either cook for themselves or have someone come in. Wonder if any of them are actually awaked yet.”

Une eyed the sky for a moment. The jungle kept dawn away until the sun was fairly high in the sky, but it was beginning to make it's way to windows. “Probably not.”

She glanced at her watch. Despite the seeming time lapse, it was only 7am. “Since this isn't a military compound. Most of the people are scientists, I think. I'd be willing to bet good money that there's only eight or ten people up now. The rest are just beginning to roll out of bed, head for showers and all that.”

Wufei agreed, “Probably. Most of that sort are either the type that work at all hours then crawl into bed and pass out or they don't get up until late on general principles.”

Une glanced around, trying to judge how much time they had before some perky sort spotted them. “Still ... we need to keep and eye out.”

“Right. Hanger?” Wufei didn't wait for an answer, he just trotted off.

Une followed him, grinning like a loon.

.

Heero knew the look in Duo's eye like he knew the back of his hand. Duo was on a mission. Not a mission like they were on, but a mission/mission. Heero shook his head. Sometimes he even confused himself. But he knew that Duo wanted that mecha in the worst way and he was going to have it or know the reason why. And if it wasn't a good reason, there was going to be hell's fire and damnation all round.

Heero muttered, “Nothing like the smell of cordite first thing in the morning,” and followed Duo.

They moved carefully through the compound, their sole target the four story hanger near one edge of the compound. Behind that hanger was a landing 'strip' that was more a square. It looked like a chopper pad only about four times the size. It even had a bulls eye painted on it.

They'd gotten one good look at it through a spotters scope before they'd come in. And now they were headed straight for it. This was their only goal. Find the hanger and steal or destroy the mecha. Duo was going to steal it. Full stop. Period. No question.

Heero just went along for the ride, eyes behind, backup and deadly cheering section.

On the way to the hanger, they checked out the machine shop that was between their entry point and the hanger.

It was empty of personnel but they did find a prize. Two actually. Deathscythe Hell came equipped with a buster rifle and a thermal weapon in the shape of a twin bladed scythe. Both weapons were racked in this machine shop. Duo's eyes lit up like Christmas had come early.

His whisper of, “Oh, man, Heero. Isn't she beautiful.” left Heero grinning in a silly fashion that he'd heatedly deny. He just hoped that Duo wasn't disappointed. That damn mecha would fly if Heero had to toss it into the air himself. Little did he know that the main problem was not a problem for them.

Everybody who had paid any attention to the post war news knew that all the Gundam pilots were bio-engineered in one way or another. One thing that had been altered was their strength. Heero was the strongest by far but all the others, except Trowa, had been enhanced. This made Duo much stronger than a man twice his size. He also had enhanced bone structure and healing, as well as an exceptional sense of balance.

Most of the modifications had been made to help them pilot a Gundam.

Duo nodded to the door. “We need to get those...” he gestured to the weapons, “through there and into the hanger.”

Heero eyed the buster rifle and scythe. “No, we don't. You just come back, rip the roof off and pick them up once you have that mecha going.”

Duo just snorted, then said, “Well, duh. Wonder what it's problem is. We saw it sort of fly, but the pilot couldn't walk it. Why?”

Heero thought about that for a moment. “Don't know. We'll figure it out. Come on.”

They moved toward the hanger, carefully keeping to piles of junk and boxes to keep from being seen. They didn't really need to bother as no one was moving around yet.

They weren't so lucky when they actually got into the hanger. There were several people inside, most of them standing around the mecha, arguing about something.

Heero eased to the right and Duo went left, both of them screwing on silencers as they went. They got their targets in a crossfire and picked most of them off before the men even knew something was going on.

Duo took the man farthest from him, then Heero took the next. They shot five of the eight men they could see before the rest even realized something was happening. They only realized something was going on because a man fell into his neighbor as he died. The neighbor died next but not before giving a startled shout. One of the men dropped to his knees, the other died.

“Please, please! I'll do whatever you want, just don't kill me. I'm just a tech! I'm just a tech!”

Duo looked at Heero, who just shrugged. “Maybe he'll prove useful.”

The tech nearly cried when he heard that. “I'm useful. Just tell me what you want. Anything. Anything.”

Duo pointed to a chair. “Sit down there and stay until we call you.” The tech collapsed into the chair.

Heero started dragging the bodies out of the way, stashing them under a long table.

When he returned, Duo was into the computer, checking the specs the tech had shown him.

“Well, there's no reason that mecha shouldn't walk. It was constructed from Deathscythe's specs. Exactly the same.” Duo checked a few things again.

The tech grumbled, “I keep telling them that all the specs match but no one listens to me. I told them that no one but a Gundam pilot could make that thing walk. Fly, maybe; walk? No way. There's something going on here that no one can figure out.”

Duo smacked the man in the back of the head and said, “Shut up, dumbass.”

The tech shut. He was hoping to get out of this in one piece, but he was doubtful. He was right, he probably wouldn't make it out. Especially as the mission was 'total devastation'. They were going to make Sherman's March To the Sea look like a cake walk.

Heero climbed up the catwalk to the cockpit. All the cables were connected so he slid down the ladder, holding on with his gloved hands and pressing his boots to the sides. Free falling was a lot quicker than using the rungs.

“All the jacks are jacked in. Check the readouts. I'll do an eyeball to see what's what.”

Duo just nodded and started typing, pulling up schematics and data. He hoped that they had kept good notes on any significant changes they made. It didn't take him long to find out that Heartnet and his crew hadn't made any changes to the schematics. The only changes he'd made were to the materials. He had made the skin out of some new plastic alloy he was experimenting with. Duo was doubtful of the outcome of that.

While Duo was checking data, Heero took the opportunity to check out everything else. He searched the building for anyone hiding in unnoticed nooks or crannies. He came up empty. While he was searching, he also locked all the doors manually. This hanger and the fuel depots were the only buildings with electronic locks and manual backups. The rest of the buildings only had old fashioned key locks.

He was headed back when he heard a soft tap on one door. It was in a cadence he recognized from the wars so he just opened it. Une and Wufei slipped in quickly. He relocked the door and motioned for them to follow him.

Heero led the two to the desk Duo was at, then pointed up, “I'm going up to clear the crows nest.” Heero started up the long ladder to the small room called a crows nest, the room where tools were kept so that workers wouldn't have to climb up and down three flights of stairs or ladder as they worked on the upper part of the mecha. A complete set of tools was kept there as well as other supplies.

Une gave Duo a tight smile as she approached him. Duo returned it, then turned back to his examination of the computer files.

Heero was nearly to the top of the ladder when he heard a scuff from below him. All he could do was yell, then watch in horror as a mechanic who'd been hiding somewhere on the second level stood up and leveled a handgun at Duo.

Une heard him and moved so quickly that Wufei didn't have a chance to do more than snap off a shot, hoping to spoil the man's aim.

He did but it wasn't quite enough. Lady Une took a shot directly in the chest, between and blow her breasts.

A second, third and fourth shot rang out nearly as one. The shot from Heero entered the top of the man's head and expanded, then shattered. This blew his head apart. Duo's shot hit him in the abdomen and Wufei's shot caught his heart. He was, as the saying goes, dead before he hit the floor.

Duo grabbed Une as she went down and eased her into a chair, exclaiming, “Son of a fucking bitch! What the hell?”

Une groaned, then replied, “I'm not. Ow! That fucking hurt.”

Duo yelped again. He started pulling at Une's shirt, trying to get a look at her to see where she was wounded.

Une smacked at his hands. “Off! Get off! I'm fine. My vest isn't.”

Wufei nodded, sighing in relief. “Thank goodness we both put on our vests.” He glanced at Une who was panting, trying to recover the breath that had been knocked out of her. “That's going to leave a nasty bruise.”

Heero leaned over to check on Duo and Une. Wufei waived him off, so he went on up to the crows nest. No one was in it, so he headed down to the second level, kicking himself for not checking it first.

He met Wufei coming back to the ladder.

“Where the hell did that asshole hide?” Heero couldn't figure that one out. The whole of that level could be seen from the floor as it was more or less a mezzanine. Heero had puzzled over that all the way up to the crows nest and back down again.

“In a tool locker. He pulled all the welding equipment out of it and squeezed inside. We got really lucky all he could get his hands on was a .38.” Wufei turned a bit sour. “We're really lucky that's all he had. And that Une had her vest on.”

Heero just nodded. “Yeah, but this really makes me like her a lot better. She took a bullet for Duo. Just ... blows my mind.”

Wufei nodded. “She's really that way. She's claimed us all.”

They scrambled down the last ladder together.

“Ok, Duo, sit rep, now!”

Duo glanced at Une who was half reclined in the most comfortable chair. “Hell of a bruise. I gave her some pain killers. She's going to be sore as hell, but otherwise, she'll be fine. On the other hand. That mecha isn't a Gundam by any stretch of the imagination. It should walk. The alloy is lighter than Gundanium but not as strong. I'm not sure but what it'll fall to pieces if I get too rough with it. I also checked for up link. No go. They're just as isolated as we are.” He turned to check on Une again.

Une was just sitting in the chair, gazing at a bottle of water with a bemused expression on her face. Duo snapped, “Drink that, it's not pretty enough for all that admiration.”

Une started, then started to drink the water.

Duo returned to his run down. “So. I'm going to mount up and see if that thing will really walk or are we just going to give it a kiss and run.” Duo's outrageous grin let them all know that he didn't care which it was.

Heero fiddled with a control on the mecha and the zip-line lowered. Duo put his foot in the bottom loop and grabbed the top one with one hand. He wrapped the other arm around the line at waist height and announced, “Man, one problem they had, their pilot was too fucking tall. Send me up, Heero.”

Heero punched the appropriate button and Duo started his trip up to the chest cavity and the pilot's compartment. This only took seconds.

Duo scrambled into the cockpit and checked things out. He found a headset and put it on, then he stuck his head out the door and pointed to his ear. Heero nodded and gave a thumbs up.

Wufei just fished around until he found a similar head set on a nearby console. He turned it on and adjusted it. “02, test, 02 test.”

“Coming in 5 by 5, 05,” Duo returned.

Heero found another headset and tested it, “01 – 02. Check.”

“Also 5 by 5.”

“I hope that thing walks for you. I know how much you really want it.” The soft bing let Duo know that Heero had 'keyed off'.

“I do really want it to go. But ... if it doesn't, it doesn't. It's all good either way.”

“So, walk that bitch.” Heero watched as Wufei and the still living tech went through the launch sequence, releasing the clamps so that Duo could walk. The tech had wanted to activate the sled the mecha was standing on and move it out of the hanger that way, claiming that was standard procedure. A procedure that would let everyone in the compound know that something was going on. Wufei smacked the tech hard enough to knock him out and instructed Une to tie him up.

She did so, muttering, “Sir, yes, Sir. And when did I lose control of this operation?”

Wufei overheard her and mumbled back, “You never had control, we just let you have delusions. With Yuy and Maxwell, there's no such thing as in control of them.”

Une rubbed her chest and snarled, “And that is what worries me. What the hell can Maxwell think up?”

“Total chaos, doom and disaster. And that's on a bad day. On a good day? Global thermonuclear war.” Wufei smirked in a rather self satisfied way. “I would just point them and get out of the way. They always get their target, man or machine.”

Une decided that that was exactly what she was going to do. She put on a headset, nodded to Heero, then told Duo. “You have sanction to engage and neutralize. All parties in this compound are suspect in unauthorized and illegal experimentation with and construction of a battle mecha. Confiscate all discovered weapons and mecha. All confiscated items will be the property of WEI. Do you read?”

Duo just yelled, “Oh, yeah. Shinigami's back from hell, mother fuckers.”

Une just winced. Her chest hurt and she had the horrible suspicion that things were going to go very wrong.

Wufei patted her shoulder. “Should I send up the flair?”

Heero just laughed, that horrible, insane battle mad laugh of his, and went to watch Duo.

.

Meanwhile, Duo was finishing the startup check sheet, giving Wufei and Heero readings from his instruments. Wufei was typing them into his phone for later reference and Heero was using the scientists own programs to help Duo correct imbalances in the gyros and other problems that the group hadn't even known they had.

It took about ten minutes to deal with all the nit-picky details that were keeping the mecha from working properly.

Then Duo released the clamps that held the mecha to the huge gantry that was the support station for it and walked it out. It strode into the main area like a god. Heero just smiled and told Duo, “Go pick up the buster and scythe, I'll send up the flair. Ok?”

“You got it, partner. I'm on the roll.” Duo stepped out of the building as he spoke and headed for the machine shed where the weapons were.

It wasn't hard for him to get the weapons, he just pulled off the roof of the building and tossed it aside. This was the first intimation that there was trouble in the compound. The second was the first mortar strike.

A mortar was really nothing but a tube with a firing pin at the bottom of it. Of course, it was fancied up with aiming mechanisms and so on but that was all it really was. All the important stuff was in the round. This was a small rocket with a bomb on it's nose. More or less. The rocket was simply dropped down the tube, the firing pin set off the propellant and, when it landed, it exploded. Either by a timer, impact; or, if you got really fancy, a proximity detonator of some kind.

The mortars the squad had were the simple, light P-60's. P for Preventers and 60 for the caliber. They were a tube with a base plate to steady it and some aiming mechanisms. All the operator had to do was set two dials, drop the round down the tube and duck. With two operators, this could be done quite quickly. One man, or woman, dropped the round, then the other adjusted their aim and they did it again. Ad infinitum. With two mortars, a mortar march was a deadly affair of quickly aimed rounds which leap frogged from one end of the target zone to the other.

Heero sent up the flair. Then, just to add to the confusion, he started setting out flash bangs with trip wires.

“Chang! Get Une on the go. Head for the high ground.”

Wufei didn't argue, he just grabbed Une and started hustling her in the direction of the gap in the fence they'd cut.

“It walks! That's ... oh, dear.”

Wufei turned to glower at Quatre. “It fucking walks, talks, and ... if Maxwell gets it under control, dances.”

Trowa just watched the mecha with envious eyes. Quatre gave him a poke to get him moving again.

Heero was talking to Duo. He was going to record everything he could for as long as the com systems worked. They would shut down sooner or later as Duo destroyed everything in his path.

“01! Head out. Don't just stand there, I might step on you by accident and this buster is crap. No aiming mechanism to speak of. I think they just put it together because they could.”

Heero returned, “O2! Just fly that damn thing. I'm headed out in a few seconds. I'm just setting up a few surprises for our buddies. Then I'm headed for the hill. We'll probably lose contact as soon as you take out the antenna array. Happy hunting.”

This chatter was nothing to the Gundam pilots but it was overheard by someone in the compound who was linked into the system. He, rather unwisely, sent it out over the compound loud speaker system. This brought everyone out into the streets to see their mecha walking down the main 'street', chopping at buildings with the thermal-scythe.

This had the effect you'd expect as the heat made anything flammable either start burning or just explode.

Shorty's voice over the general band yelled, “But what about hitting that mecha with a mortar? Damage? What?”

Duo replied, “Don't worry. If it can withstand the forces of walking, I think it's safe to say, mortars won't be a problem.”

The mortar march was in full cry now, mortars exploded at three second intervals, with devastating effect. Each crew had a field of fire and, with Weathers spotting, they were efficiently bombing the compound to rubble.

Duo yelled, “Ok, you craptastic idiots, this is it. 01, we may lose contact, I'm in the array.”

Heero turned to watch as Duo blasted the whole array with the buster rifle, bits of dish and antenna flew in every direction. Some of them even landed in the barracks. They lost contact, proven by the white noise of an open frequency.

Quatre snarled and fiddled with their radio. He managed to get Duo's frequency back and patch it in to their general frequency. This put him back on the compound loud speakers as well. Une made a mental note to find out why no one had proper radios. There were going to be quite a few people answering uncomfortable questions when she got back, including herself. She winced as she rubbed her chest again.

Quatre noticed her and demanded, “What happened? Why are you rubbing under your vest?”

Wufei smirked at Une, then said, “She got shot. Took a hit for Maxwell.” Quatre gave him a glower too when he answered, “Vest.”

Quatre motioned to Une. “Well, let me see.”

Une eyed him until Heero said, “I'll strip you myself, if you make me. Quatre is a trained field medic and very good. He patched us all up at one time or another.”

Une just grumbled, “I yield to force majure, under protest,” as she stripped off her shirt and vest. Under the vest she was wearing a sports bra. She noticed that all the men carefully 'didn't' see anything they shouldn't.

Shorty and Adams both took a quick peek. Adams did comment, “Shit! You're going to be sore as hell as soon as the juice wears off.”

Une agreed, “Yeah, I'm hopped up on adrenalin right now but, when it wears off ... I'm just hoping we're on the way out.”

.

The mortar march continued its devastating 'thump, thump, thump. The rubble left behind continued to spark and burn long after the mortar rounds exploded.

And Duo wasn't just standing around, looking dangerous. He was happily knocking down anything that looked like it might be too much for a few mortar rounds. This meant that he attacked anything taller than two stories.

His yelling, swearing and, frankly, screaming sounded over the PA, adding to the fear and confusion in the compound.

Men ran in every direction.

At first, they thought the mecha was on their side but when it stepped on one of the few vehicles they had, they knew better.

Duo made his way to the fuel depot on the far side of the compound, leaving the nearside one for the mortar crew. He knew that the far side of the compound was out of range for them so he went to deal himself.

The unfortunate thing was that they'd all forgotten that most of the compound crew were scientists and mechanics, nearly total non-combatants. They had all run away from the mortar march and were now milling around like sheep. None of them with any idea where to go or what to do.

The few that actually knew what to do were hampered by the rest, who ran hither and yon in a search for safety that didn't exist. Several scientists even destroyed one of the few weapons that were available, trying to shoot down the mecha. All they managed to actually do was jam the gun, then ruin the action when they tried to clear the jam with a screw driver. The only guard that was in the crew quietly cut the fence and ran for his life. He was to tell the stories for years after, swearing that he'd had no idea what they were doing wasn't sanctioned.

A few of the support personnel did the same, some of them didn't make it beyond a day or two before they succumbed to the dangers of the jungle. Those that did, disappeared into the underworld, never to show up on the radar again.

The rest of the guard personnel gathered in a small shack near the gates. This was their personal armory. They armed themselves and quickly planned an attack on the mortar position. The commander had only managed to gather about thirty men together but they thought that would be enough to overrun the two mortar crews. Even though not all of them were guards, some of them were support personnel with illusions of competency.

They hadn't counted on Heero, Quatre, Trowa, Une and Wufei. Not to mention Weathers.

The first attack went fairly well. The guards managed to get to the fence, through the already cut gap and to the bottom of the hill. That was, however, the last of their luck. They were seen by Une who yelled, “Incoming boots on our twelve. Gap in the fence is under attack.”

Trowa just picked up his rifle and started shooting. Quatre threw himself onto his belly with his sniper rifle in hand. Une backed him up with her handgun while Wufei and Heero stood up in front of the mortar crews to protect them from attack, if someone managed to get that close. Weathers took a position behind the group to keep an eye out for a flanking attack.

Adams and Shorty and Masters and Roland just kept hammering away with their mortars. They were glad that the current type of round was small, as they still had nearly fifty rounds to go.

The Opposition, as they began to call them, tried a rolling assault on the hill. Several men got through the gap and began shooting at the mortar emplacement, while another group squeezed through and set up in front of them. Then the first group moved forward.

Quatre gave a ululating cry and started picking off anyone standing. Trowa and Une laid down a covering fire that kept the Opposition ducking and trying to advance to within their field of fire.

This didn't work very well as, between everyone, they pretty much had the field covered.

The first wave didn't survive the withering sheet of bullets that the group sent their way. The few of the second wave that managed to avoid Wufei and Une, not to mention Heero, were met at the crest of the hill by Quatre's shotels and Wufei's ninja blade. Trowa stood by Quatre's side with a 9mm in one hand and a K-Bar USMC knife in the other. Une joined Wufei with her 9mm. Heero wedged himself between Quatre and Wufei, a K-Bar USMC in his hand. This put the best fighters in the middle with support and eyes behind on each side.

If the attacking men got through the fire of two 9mm's, they were not making it past Quatre or Wufei. Heero, narrow eyed, made sure that he was in position to protect the whole hill if necessary.

Quatre didn't turn his head when he remarked, “Not thermal but still.”

“And where the hell did you hide those?” Wufei didn't turn his head either.

“In the frame of my pack. You?”

“Same here.”

The last of the attacking group managed to get to the Gundam pilots just in time to meet a pissed off Heero head on.

Heero was pissed for two reasons, one, he'd forgotten to do something about the gap in the fence and two, he wanted to watch Duo, now he had to deal with this mess. So, he wasn't happy.

He took his unhappiness out on its cause.

Which meant that Quatre followed him, screaming like a fury with Wufei right behind him, silent, as always.

Une let out a yell and ran after the three with Trowa right beside her, firing all the way.

The ten men who'd made it this far fell like ripe grain, riddled with cuts and bullets.

The small group returned to the mortar emplacement, wiping blood off weapons and person. Une had a small cut on her arm, which Quatre promptly apologized for.

Une glanced down. “Not from your shotel. I think that guy with the red hair got to me. I shot him so it's even, more or less. Just slap a bandage on it and let it go. I could use a happy pill though. My chest is really hurting. It's a bit hard to take a deep breath.” (You had Duo give her pain pills. Different kind?)

“Ok, one pill and a bandage coming up.” Quatre looked around. “Anyone else?”

There was no one else, so Quatre made a quick business of cleaning and bandaging. He handed Une a foil packet with one pill in it and a bottle of water. He kept looking up while he was working. Une didn't blame him one bit. She was frankly staring at the devastation Duo was wreaking on the compound.

.

Duo for his part was happily destroying things. He didn't bother trying to keep an eye on the mortar emplacement, if they really needed him, Heero would tell him so.

So he just went on a rampage of destruction that he hadn't indulged in since the war was over.

He started out on the hangar, then the machine shops. He was hit with a mortar round that staggered him but quickly recovered, relieved that the mortars didn't have much effect on the mecha. It handled a bit differently than a Gundam, even the Deathscythe Hell it was modeled after. It was a bit heavier, but the servo's could handle the weight. It didn't take him long to get accustomed to the differences.

He finished with the shops, then told Heero he was going after the antenna array. They needed to destroy that to keep the compound from communicating with outside sources. Quatre had downloaded all the files, so they'd be after the outside sources soon, but they didn't what them showing up now with something that they couldn't combat. This compound needed to be toast, ASAP.

He continued his attack by flattening the main lab building, then the one's on each side of it. This led to several rather magnificent explosions. The mortar crews were treated to the sight of Deathscythe Hell striding out of a ball of flame and smoke, scythe glowing an eerie green.

Duo had turned on the external speakers of the suit and Ride of the Valkyries was blasting away.

Things were flattened, cut asunder or blown to bits as Duo walked from one end of the compound to the other.

Finally he heard, “02, mortars are out. We're hunkering down. Do your worst.”

“01, thanks a bunch. What you haven't gotten to is toast.”

Quatre chimed in with, “Both fuel depots are still up. Residential area is out of range. If it's live, make it dead.”

Une just nodded. This was the part of defending the peace that she didn't much like. Most of the scientists in the compound were guilty of several offenses that carried years in prison, but the offense of being in the wrong place at the wrong time carried a death sentence. No one who had knowledge of the new alloy or the schematics of Deathscythe could be allowed to live to pass that on to anyone. WEI had proprietary control of the schematics, which actually belonged to Duo. And the research the alloy was based on also belonged to WEI. The real problem was, combined, they were the next generation of combat mecha. This was why it all had to go away.

The buster rifle barked once then again. The fuel depot at the north of the compound, the area designated a 'side', exploded violently, tanks flying into the air, then exploding. More explosions followed as Duo hacked things apart.

Then he headed for the other depot, right through the middle of the residential section. No one would ever know for sure but he, intentionally or not, stepped on a few people on his way to the other depot.

The scientists were now realizing that, due to the situation of the compound and current ESUN policy, they were all doomed to die. This put them in a quandary.

Most of them were not violent, in fact, most of them had never held a gun. Most of the support personnel were in the same boat. The only people who could actually defend the compound were mostly dead, those who weren't dead were gone, either into the jungle or in the few vehicles, driving down the road to the small air field that none of the Gundam pilots had seen. Yet.

Heero, resting until he was needed, suddenly said, “How the hell did all these people and all these materials get up here? I assumed that they were carried in by road, until now. There's no real road up here. Quatre?”

Quatre consulted his phone. “Small airport. Choppers. This sucks. I'm killing someone when we get back.”

Heero just toggled his headset. “02, landing strip. Fix it.”

“Gotcha.”

This was when the remains of the compounds occupants realized that Duo had been loafing, until now. They all died in a wash of buster rifle fire that devastated the residential section in seconds.

Then Duo lit up the verniers and flew.

From the air he could see that the small airfield was in a depression just large enough to hold it. This was why they hadn't seen it from their vantage point, it was nearly invisible until you were nearly over it.

Heero stood up. “You think we should follow him?”

Quatre used his scope to examine the compound, or what was left of it. Between the mortar march and Deathscythe recreated, there wasn't much. He couldn't see any sign of movement so he just shrugged. “You think we can get there?”

Trowa looked for a useable vehicle. “Nope. Every single transport is fubar. Totally.”

Une ground her teeth for a moment, then snarled, “Tell me why we thought a Sherman was such a good idea?”

Wufei had an answer for that. “ESUN and Preventers policy.”

Shorty snorted, “And they're so experienced. Bunch of scared ol' ladies. What the hell.” She shrugged, then opened her pack and pulled out a bottle of water. After taking a drink, she eyed the mortars.

Adams eyed them too, then started taking them apart. Roland moved to help. There was no sense in carrying them without ammo but they didn't want anyone to figure out some way to use them against them either.

Roland stuck the firing pins in his pack and they moved out to see what was what.

While they were doing this, Duo was strafing the fleeing vehicles into oblivion. The few men in them either jumped out and ran into the jungle which pressed close on either side, or died in the flaming ruins.

Of the hundred some men in the compound only a handful survived and their continued existence was questionable. Heartnet was one of them. And the General. They had both hightailed it for the landing field at the first sign of trouble. The only problem was, no pilot. Neither the scientist nor the soldier could fly anything.

.

Une turned her head. “What about Landry and McMillan?”

Quatre sighed, “Well,shit. I forgot about them. We'll have to send someone back for them.” He got a positively evil grin. “Maybe Duo could pick them up?”

“You are evil.” Wufei smirked at him.

“I know. I'd hang my head in shame but ...”

Trowa finished for him, “You have no shame.”

Heero just shrugged and said, “Right. And neither do I. I'll tell Duo to get them as soon as he's done.” He got a wide eyed expression, then keyed his mic. “02! do not destroy a chopper. Especially a Hewy. We need transport out.”

Duo cheerful return of, “Ok, 01, good to know. There's a really nice something or other under a net. Not big enough for the mecha but I've got a full load of fuel and can make it out under power.”

Weathers chimed in with, “And, if you don't totally destroy the airstrip, maybe someone can land there?”

“Oh, I think I can manage to leave some undamaged landing space.” Duo laughed eerily and they could hear noises in the background. No one really listened closely enough to figure out what they were.

Trowa just said sourly, “If we can find a way to call in something.”

Une silently agreed with that but said, a bit flatly, “We'll find a way. I'm not sitting in this jungle until the rainy season is over. I've got a cat at home.”

There were a few snickers which were quickly stifled when Une glowered around.

Quatre sighed. “I'm going to have my R&D people work on something that will penetrate any cloud cover, or blizzard or anything like that. I'm tired of being out of contact on the whims of mother nature. So ...” He made yet another note in his phone, then turned to Weathers. “Contact. Dish. Ideas?”

Weathers shook his head. “Not a clue. We've usually got some sort of booster ... and that's the last time I trust any one but me to pack for this group.”

Quatre gave him a pleased smile and went back to doing whatever it was he was doing.

.

While the rest of the group was sitting on their asses, gossiping like old women, Duo was finishing up his job.

The airport was clear of warm bodies and the last chopper was uncovered. He keyed his mic and asked, “Ok. So ... the port is clear. I'll go get our two idiots, then what?”

Quatre looked up when Heero started talking.

Heero answered, “Ok, great. We'll meet you at the port. How's the fuel situation?”

“Still got 95%, that's more than enough to get to the nearest town with good com.”

Duo hopped, literally, to the campsite and snickered as the tent quivered, not enough to set off the explosives, but enough to make sure that its occupants needed clean underwear. He used the zip-line to ease down. He then disarmed and disassembled the explosives and let the men know that he was there.

He told them to wait a few minutes for him to finish 'things', then come out of the tent.

When they came out he just bent down and picked them up, one in each hand. They were both terrified, of course, but Duo just told them cheerfully, “Calm down. If I had wanted you dead, all I'd have had to do was step on you.” It didn't help that the PA system was turned up as loud as it would go.

Duo started off, then turned back around to put one of the men down, pick up their electronics packs, stuff it into a handy 'pocket', really just a bucket like depression on one thigh and pick the man back up. “Ok, ready? Never mind, it really doesn't matter.” And with that, he took off for the airstrip.

.

While Duo was cheerfully terrorizing McMillan and Landry the others were almost to the airstrip.

Heero grumbled, “I don't see why Duo couldn't have just scared everyone out of something and left it for us to drive.” He eyed Wufei, who was limping again.

Une didn't look all that well either. She was pale and sweating more than she should have been.

They were very lucky that no one else was in bad shape. Heero's cut arm was the next worst injury. There were a few bumps and scrapes and Duo was probably bruised from the harness. But that was all.

They finally made it to the airstrip and found that the chopper in question was large enough to hold all of them, but it was occupied.

General Shoringham knew enough about choppers to arm one of the door guns. He been hiding in the navigation cubicle when Duo had uncovered the chopper. Dr. Heartnet had been in the small building that contained the spare parts. They were both now in the chopper and holed up.

Unfortunately for both of them, the Gundam pilots and companions were very experienced in warfare and knew more tricks than a circus pony.

Shoringham might have been a general but he was a very poor tactician. He'd forgotten one very important point, the chopper had two doors, he was only guarding one.

The other thing he'd forgotten was, he didn't have any sort of backup. Heartnet couldn't be counted on to make coffee, much less reload a belt. The door gun ammo was chain belt driven but each belt was only so long and it took two men to reload the belts.

When Shoringham saw the truck coming, he immediately started firing, not knowing the rage of the gun, he started firing while the truck was still way out of range. He was out of ammo by the time they got in range.

He'd given away his only advantage, that of surprise. Now that he knew Shoringham was there, Heero easily planned his attack.

“Wufei, you stay with the truck. No sense in ruining your feet for this idiot. Une, you drive, you're too sore to do much else.” He gave her a look. “If pouting doesn't work for Duo, why do you think it'll work for you?” Une glowered half-heartedly. “Quatre, Trowa. We'll drop you off at the tree line, ease up behind. We'll drop everyone else off in an arc in front of the chopper door. Everyone make a lot of noise but do not, I repeat, do not damage that chopper. We'll distract those idiots and Quatre and Trowa will enter via the back side door. Eliminate any threat with extreme prejudice.” He glanced at Une. “Comments?”

She thought for a moment. “If one of the people in that chopper is either Shoringham or Heartnet, I want them alive. Damaged, if necessary, but alive. I want to squeeze him like a lemon.”

Heero nodded his agreement, not knowing that he had both targets in his sights. “Fine. Wound but don't kill. You all know what both those assholes look like?” he got nods all around. “Ok, let's do this.”

Wufei drove the truck straight at the chopper, then veered off, as if he just realized where the shots were coming from. This gave Trowa a good look into the chopper. “The gunner doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's struggling to reload.”

Wufei made a long arc, dropping bodies as he went. As he whipped behind the chopper Quatre and Trowa jumped off and hunkered down to wait.

Wufei then drove back around the chopper and dropped the rest of the crew. He parked just out of range and settled down to wait.

Une frowned, “You're not going to object to being out of the action?”

Wufei just snorted and said, “I don't argue with Yuy when I know he's right.”

Une rubbed her chest and agreed, “You're right. And I do hurt. Despite the pill.”

They both looked up as Duo flew overhead. He swooped back around, drawing the attention of both men in the chopper, then landed.

As he landed the group in front of the chopper started their distraction. Shorty and Adams started setting up their mortar emplacement, with a lot of shouting and gesticulating. Roland and Masters started firing at the chopper, careful not to actually hit it. Weathers started shouting orders, contradictory ones, which no one listened to.

While all this was going on, Wufei threw in his two cents worth by honking the horn of the truck. Duo got in touch with Une who told him what was going on. He just laughed his ass off, over the suits PA.

All the noise and confusion distracted Shoringham from his task of loading the door gun. This proved to be his downfall as he was watching out the front facing door while Quatre was carefully opening the back one.

Trowa jumped in, grabbed Shoringham and put his 9mm to his head. “Give it up, buddy. You're toast. One way or another.”

Quatre followed Trowa in, backing him up. His quick look around the chopper proved that no one else was in the body. He quickly checked the cockpit, no one. But he heard a gasp from the navigation. “Ok, come out with your hands up. You're out of gas.”

Heartnet eased out of the nook with his hands up. Quatre pulled a pair of zip cuffs out of a pocket and made a motion with his pistol. “Turn around.” Heartnet did so. Quatre slid the loops over his hands and pulled the ends tight. Heartnet winced. “Oh, don't give me that. I know they're not too tight.” He stuffed three fingers through both loops. “Pussy.” Quatre grabbed Heartnet by the collar and dragged him into the main compartment.

Trowa meanwhile was giving Shoringham the same treatment Heartnet had gotten. With about the same amount of whining.

It annoyed Trowa no end that Shoringham demanded, “Do you know who you are fooling around with? I'll have your job.”

Trowa snorted. “I know exactly who you are. You're an idiot. And you can't have my job. You couldn't do it. I'm Mr. Winner's personal assistant and lover. So ... bite me.”

Quatre, overhearing, just said, “He better not.” He glanced out the door. “I see Duo has landed. Seems that the only pilots that can manage a gundam replica are Gundam pilots.”

Heartnet snarled, “You don't know what you're talking about. That mecha isn't a Gundam.”

Quatre agreed cheerfully, “No, it's not. But it's built off the same schematics as one, with the same handling. That means you have to have a bio-engineered Gundam Pilot to fly it.”

Shoringham glowered at Heartnet, then snarled, “I thought you said any pilot could fly that suit.”

Heartnet just fell into a sulk that would have made any two year old proud.

The rest of the group crowded around the door when Trowa signaled, “All clear.”

“Oh, shit, is that ... ?”

“Damn! We scored!”

Heero scowled down the rest of the exclamations. “Ok, Roland, take charge of Heartnet, Adams, back him up. Masters, take charge of Shoringham, Shorty, back him up. Do not take your eyes off of them. Do not let them touch anything, even their own dick. Got me?” vigorous nods. “Good.” He glanced around. “Quatre, any luck with the com?”

“No, but Landry might be able to do more than I can.” Quatre stifled a sticker as Landry staggered to the chopper. Duo had just dropped the man and his companion from about ten feet up and let them deal with landing on their feet themselves. Landry had managed, but the ride had been rough. Not to mention that traveling held in the giant fist of a mecha was not fun.

McMillan hadn't been quite so lucky. He'd sprained his ankle on impact and was now limping to the chopper.

Duo got on his com system and said, “Quatre. Do you read?”

Quatre, who was in the co-pilot's seat of the chopper, headphones on, returned, “Yes. I read you 5 by 5. What's up?”

“Just checking on status.” Duo was worried about his friends. They hadn't been involved in something like this in years so he was a bit concerned.

“Everyone is fine. We have three on the injured list, but nothing to worry about. Got every one patched into the choppers com system and you're on external. How about you?” Quatre gave everyone in the back a thumbs up, then pointed in Duo's direction.

“I'm gonna be sore as a boil. The harness didn't adjust quite tight enough for me. So ... ow!”

Quatre chuckled into his open mic. “Massages all around when we get home.”

Heero snarked back, “Yes, because you own the place.”

“Of course I do.”

Une had given up trying to control the chatter long ago. She had realized that they all chatted back and forth, until it was time to get serious, then everything said was about business.

Now she butted in. “Ok, guys, let's tend to business now. We have to get this bird in the air, establish contact with Preventers and make sure that no one tries to shoot down Duo.”

Quatre just said, “On it.”

Duo announced, “Verniers are hot and ready. I'll fly below and behind you.”

“Got you.” Une glanced at Quatre.

“I'm going to let Landrey try to establish contact. Put him in the navigators chair.”

Landrey didn't argue with anyone, he was in enough hot water as it was. He and McMillan had used their crippled laptops to research as much as they could in their local data bases. What they'd found had had them nearly pissing themselves. Now all they wanted to do was keep out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.

He checked various gauges and settings then said, “Once we're in the air, I can establish contact with Preventers.”

So they took off, chopper piloted by Quatre and Trowa. Duo kept the mecha right where he said he would.

Heero stayed on a separate channel with Duo. Everyone else was on a general channel which kept the, as Une called it, inane chatter contained.

McMillan tried the dish on the chopper but the cloud cover kept it out of commission. The height of the chopper above tree line finally got them a line of sight contact with Kulen Prum Tep Wildlife Sanctuary who kindly slaved one of their phone lines on to Bangkok.

Une got in touch with Preventers there and warned them that they were coming in with a mecha. They replied that they'd already gotten some panicky calls. She told them not to scramble any sort of escort as that would only cause more panic. The controller asked if they could put something out on the radio. Her return that that would be helpful left the controller happily telling his contact at the radio station what he knew.

They were about halfway to Bangkok when they managed direct contact. Quatre made a note in his phone to give Kulen Prum Tep a nice donation then dialed WEI Bangkok. He got the assistant to the assistant to a junior VP who told him in a snide voice that they had more important concerns than some miner member of the family with delusions of grander.

Quatre broke the connection with a dark expression on his usually pleasant face.

Heero just eased away carefully. “Oh, shit! I do not envy someone.”

Duo just said, “Ari?”

“Someone just shut Quatre down. Hard. He's got that look.” Heero knew he sounded odd.

“Oh?” Then Duo got the idea. “Shit, he's got that Zero look, right?”

“Exactly.” Heero pulled Une to the side, shutting off his mic he told her, “You better get someone from Preventers to the airstrip with a car. Quatre's on the war path. Big time.”

“Why?” Une had noticed the look, no one in the chopper could miss it.

As pilot, Quatre was situated right in the nose of the chopper with a camera on him. Another was pointed at Trowa. They both had feeds from a camera that was pointed at the back of the chopper. This kept anyone from being wounded or other wise incapacitated and no one knowing about it. There had actually been a few crashes because the pilot and or co-pilot got hit and bleed out.

So, everyone in the back could see Quatre and Trowa on a split screen feed right over the door between the back and the cockpit.

Duo could also see as he'd managed to patch into the choppers com systems, with some help from Heero. What else were they supposed to do for the two hour fight?

Une was sympathetic and told Quatre to make all the arrangements through her contact, then turned to make her own arrangements.

The Control Tower made contact with Quatre and Une and they both made arrangements through a very nice man there.

Krit Aromdee was a very nice man. He was used to dealing with officials of all sorts. He was very annoyed to find that someone had hung up on The Winner. He was also a bit unhappy to find that Lady Une of Preventers was on her way.

He called a friend of a friend in WEI and found that they were all in a dither about The Winner coming, but they were expecting him to come in on a commercial flight and couldn't find out when or which airline. He informed the friend that a car was needed at the airport in a certain Preventers area. He gave the approximate time and said they better brace themselves as The Winner was not a happy man.

He then called a cousin who was a captain in the local Preventers and gave him all the information he had and suggested that the communications people try to establish a direct frequency from their end.

The result of all this was that Krit Aromdee acquired several favors and both WEI and Preventers got the information they needed. Everyone was happy with this.

Preventers was very pleased to be able to make contact with Lady Une so quickly. She gave them approximate arrival times and asked that they be met at the airport by a squad of armed Preventer agents. Agents who could lock down a mecha.

She was not a happy person when she found out that no one there knew anything at all about mecha. She was going to have to depend on WEI to handle arrangements. She was aware that the mecha belonged to WEI but she wanted 'eyes' on the project for her own satisfaction. She grumbled as she cut the connection.

Quatre's voice over the person-to-person channel said, “Don't worry. In this case, I'll be sure to send in a report, your eyes only. How's that?”

“It'll do.” Une knew she was lucky to get as much so she decided to let it go. If anyone didn't like the way she handled this, they could try to deal with the multi-armed WEI giant.

.

They were directed to land on the outskirts of the airport at Preventers area. This was fenced in and contained two hangars and several outbuildings, as well as a very large landing pad for choppers. Duo and Quatre did a fly over, consulted and decided that Duo should land first and walk off the pad and into a paved back area. Then Quatre would land.

They told the tower their plans and requested that any vehicles from WEI be allowed into the area.

While WEI was getting itself together, Preventers had dispatched a car for Une and a truck for the mecha. Unfortunately, no one had any idea how large a mecha actually was. It surely was not going to fit into the ten by ten box truck they sent. And the car was only large enough for Une.

Quatre, now in touch with someone who should be smart, demanded a limousine that would handle everyone, or an SUV. He was offered a school bus. He took the phone from his ear, looked at it for a moment, then just said, “You are fired. And that Assistant to an assistant is fired, as well as the assistant and the Jr VP. I'll go up the line until I find someone with a brain.”

Heero had seen Quatre in a temper like this once before. He'd been in a chemical factory, found that it was ill maintained, asked questions, then fired all the executives in the place. He had found out that they were cutting corners and hours to make their bottom line look better. They were hoping for a bonus. They got unemployment instead. The maintenance crews got the bonuses for doing as good a job as they had. Now he was wondering what the hell the problem was. There had to be cars, WEI assigned a fleet to every Regional HQ. So where were the cars.

Quatre got bumped up a level and immediately demanded, “Where the hell are all the vehicles? There should be several cars and SUV's available for visiting dignitaries.”

Since Quatre had turned on the speaker so he wouldn't have to clamp the phone between his shoulder and ear, everyone heard, “I'm so sorry, sir. All the cars and SUV's are claimed by various high level employees of this HeadQuarters. I can send a tour bus in about an hour.”

Quatre snarled at the phone, “Don't bother. Preventers will provide me with something. Tell everyone who has claimed a vehicle that they aren't entitled to that I want to see them in the large meeting room as soon as I reach HQ. And anyone who isn't there, doesn't have a job.” He snapped his phone shut with a sharp flick of his wrist.

Heero mumbled to Duo, “What happened to letting the sisters sort their own shit?”

Duo just hissed back, “Quatre. Temper. Idiots. 'Nough said.”

Trowa just pulled his phone out of his pocket to check for signal. He had a good one.

Wufei, Une and Heero also checked, more out of habit than for any other reason. Duo didn't care if he had signal or not.

Quatre finished shutting down the chopper and heaved himself out of the pilot's chair. Trowa followed him into the body of the chopper. They were met by Wufei and Heero.

Une just groaned, she'd stiffened up on the flight. “I'm not up to this anymore. You need anything, call. Otherwise, this is all up to you. I'm not dealing with civilian shit.”

Quatre gave her a smile that didn't reach his eyes. “That's ok. You go get checked out by a doctor. I'll deal with WEI Bangkok. And heads are going to roll.” He picked up his shotels, put them on one shoulder and finished, “Literally, maybe.”

He left the chopper followed by the rest of the pilots and his bodyguard, except for Landrey and McMillan They followed Une. She gave them a look that made both of them duck but let them follow.

When her car showed up, she let them crowd into the front of it with the driver. They'd spend the next month filling out reports and paperwork, then they would be black balled and disappear into the underground, never to be heard from again. Not that Une cared about that, nor did Quatre.

Une leaned her head back against the seat and took the in-car phone off it's hook. She spoke for several minutes and hung up, a satisfied smirk on her face. WEI Bangkok was about to be invaded by men who obeyed only Quatre Winner. She wasn't happy still, but she was feeling better. Except that her chest still hurt.

.

Quatre endured the ride in the SUV with patience. Duo jittered his leg. Wufei and Heero just sat. Trowa, sitting next to Quatre, stared at the driver with an intensity that made the man sweat.

When the SUV had arrived about twenty minutes ago, Quatre had told his bodyguards to stay with the chopper and mecha. He didn't trust anyone else to keep both of them air ready. He was going to want them later. Then he'd gotten into the SUV, told the driver to take him to WEI HQ and settled back.

The drive through the streets only served to irritate the group more. The streets were all partially blocked by traffic headed toward the airport and the sidewalks were crowded with people craning their necks to stare at the sky. They all knew what it was all about.

They listened to the radio but all the news anchors were talking about was the possibility of an attack by what they were calling a 'pseudo-gundam'. Quatre made a call. The reports on the radio changed to 'No problems here. Go back to what you were doing.'

Duo sighed and fidgeted. “How did you do that?”

“I own the station.” Quatre's expression didn't change.

Duo shrugged. “Oh. Ok.” He went back to staring out the window.

They arrived at WEI HQ with little notice. The driver just pulled up under the portico and parked. They got out and headed for the front door in formation.

Quatre led the way with Trowa on his right and Heero on his left. Duo stalked beside Heero while Wufei slipped along on Trowa's right. They did not look happy, mostly because they weren't.

The Main Reception team tried to stop them but backed off once they got a good look at Quatre. They might be nothing but muscle but they were anything but dumb. One of them even stopped the receptionist from calling upstairs. He liked his job and wanted to keep it. Trowa noticed and nodded at him.

The elevator was easy, Quatre just said, “The Winner, 04.” The doors shut and the elevator started up. Heero punched the button marked, 'M' and they waited until the doors opened.

Wufei asked, “How will we know where everyone is? The Meeting Room?”

Quatre just snarled, “They come to me, not the other way around. I'm going to the Main Meeting Room, which is on this floor. It was marked M, remember?”

Wufei just nodded and settled back in at ease stance.

Heero poked Duo and nodded his head. Duo looked in that direction to see a mirror. In the mirror he saw the whole group. They looked like exactly what they were, warriors fresh from the battlefield. They were sweaty, dirty, battered and wounded. But they held their heads up proudly.

“Oh, yeah. They're all gonna piss themselves. So ...” He chuckled a bit, then nudged Wufei.

The nudge went down the line and ended at Quatre. He glanced at himself then snickered. “Ok, I do hope they get the hint.”

Quatre led the way from the elevator to the Main Meeting Room and settled at the head of a table. “Remove three-quarters of this.” Servers scrambled from their hidden place in the back of the room to do what he said.

This left just enough room for the five gundam pilots to sit down with a bit left over for the basket Quatre asked for. The servers then moved to stand at the side of the room, awaiting further orders. Quatre absently thought that they looked very nice in their traditional costumes.

They'd no more settled into their chairs than the executives started arriving.

As they arrived, they were directed to put the keys to all WEI Vehicles in their possession into the basket. Most did so with various grumblings and dirty looks. A few refused. Quatre just had them removed from the room, telling them that the vehicle was their severance pay.

When all the remaining VIP's were settled around the room, standing as no chairs were provided, Quatre addressed them.

“Very well. Now that that is over.” He glanced around for a moment, then continued. “I see four of my sisters here and two brothers-in-law. Fact ... none of you want to obey me. Fact ... none of you want to see the bigger picture. Fact ... you're all idiots. So ... here's the way it will be. I'll assign each of you a subsidiary of this company. You'll manage it anyway you see fit. But ... it will be your sole income, forever. If you run it into the ground, you'll have to claim bankruptcy. If you have to do that, I'll buy the company out, at a price that will pay off your debts and absolutely not one penny more. “ He glanced around, then continued, “I will find out who was responsible for that mecha. I will turn them over to Preventers. I will confiscate all their WEI related wealth. Anyone have anything important to say?”

A man raised his hand and, when Quatre nodded at him, said, “I think it might have been a group from a different branch office. They asked for a few favors, including a location that was both distant from civilization and defensible. We gave them what they wanted as it didn't seem to be anything much. Lots of researchers want to keep everything secret and they're paranoid. I'm sorry, but I really don't think anyone in this group had anything more to do with the problem than that.” He paled a bit at Quatre's glare.

Quatre glanced around at the rest of the people in the room. Whatever he saw seemed to please him as he just nodded, stood up and walked out of the room. His friends just followed him out.

.

Quatre turned the second they entered the hall. “Ok, here's the deal. Heero, you and Duo need to get back to the airport and take command of that mecha. I'll take Trowa and deal with the situation at WEI. Wufei, I would like for you to return to Preventers HQ here in Bangkok and check on Lady Une. Also, make arrangements for that mecha to get safely to WEI HQ in San Francisco. I'd really appreciate it.”

Wufei just bowed and hurried off. He was very sure he did not want to be around when Quatre rounded up whoever was responsible for this fiasco. He'd rather face Lady Une in 'crazy' mode, thankyouverymuch.

Trowa nodded and pulled out his phone to make arrangements for them to leave, then he paused. “Um, Quatre? Where are we going?”

“As soon as I find out who requested the favors, I'll let you know. Just get a crew to the jet with the longest range.” Quatre took a second to give Trowa a quick hug. “And call up to the penthouse. I need a bath.” He wrinkled his nose. “In fact, we all do. Wufei? Well, shit, he's gone. Duo, Heero? Bath?”

Duo just nodded. “Right and a massage, if you can manage that. Heero?”

Heero groaned as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Me too. Too bad Wufei didn't hang around until Quatre came up for air.”

Duo thought for a second. “I bet Une ambushes him the second he gets to HQ and sends him straight to the medic.”

.

Wufei walked through the main door of Preventers Bangkok and Une was right there; with a medic and a scowl. She was also wearing a sling, noticing Wufei's glance, she snarled, “Seems I cracked my sternum. And can I just say, Ow! As for you, check up time.”

Wufei didn't bother to argue. He was tired, filthy and his feet sent stabs of pain up his calves with every step. He just got on the gurney, glad to finally be off his feet. The cab ride here was the first time he'd had a chance to survey himself since the mission started. He was never wearing issue boots again.

The physician was a small Asian woman who made soft clucking noises over his condition. She scribbled quickly on her tablet, then tapped the send. “Fine, now. Bath. Massage. Feet. Any questions?”

Wufei just raised one eyebrow at those rather cryptic words but refrained from comment. Une smirked at him over the physician's shoulder. He was glad to be wheeled away for his bath. He was going to take care of business, his feet and anything else needed; then, he was taking his vacation. He really needed it.

.

Quatre led the way to the penthouse and ordered the drunken man removed from the building, saying simply, “Find out if he has keys to a vehicle, then toss him out in the street. He's not allowed into the building for any reason.” He gave the weaving man a considering look, “Unless he might shed some light on the recent ... idiocy. Then, I want him grilled like a cheap steak. Got me?”

The security men who'd been summoned just nodded and quickly removed the man by the simple expedite of picking him up and carrying him bodily out of the suite. He swore and struggled ineffectually. It didn't help much and the security men dropped him twice. Quatre was sure it was on purpose. He really didn't care.

A crew entered right behind the security team and started cleaning everything in sight. A smaller group split off from the main crew and headed into the bathroom. Duo just grumbled, “I hope they put out plenty of towels. My hair's a mess.”

Heero just replied, “It is, but I'll help you with it. If you wash my back.”

Duo grinned at him and they both started stripping off their dirty clothing, completely forgetting the cleaning crew.

A few of the younger women giggled but a man snapped something that had them scurrying back to work. He turned to Heero and held out his hands, saying, “You give dirty to me, I get cleaned.”

Duo just scooped up his things and handed them over. “Put all the weapons on the coffee table, will you?” The man paled a bit but nodded.

Heero just started tossing things onto the couch. After he was sure his clothing was 'unloaded', he tossed it at the man and ambled away.

Trowa and Quatre were right on his heels with Duo a step behind. It had taken him a bit longer as he had to clean the explosives and lock picks out of his braid.

The cleaning crew just eyed the now cluttered table, shuddered in mass and went back to cleaning. The beer and whisky bottles were piled up, again. No one was quite sure when that senior vice president had moved into the penthouse, he just had. And made a total pig of himself. He brought up whores, they were too low class to be prostitutes, and drank like a fish. He was gone now, and good riddance. One of the girls wondered aloud if he was going to jail or just the gutter. The whole crew was a bit surprised with Quatre's voice floated out the bathroom door. “He's going to jail. The thief. And he's involved in the mecha somehow. Find out how.”

Duo's voice announced, “Quatre, move. You're standing in a whispering spot.”

There was some lurid swearing and then silence. The crew went back to their jobs.

.

Quatre tossed the phone onto the floor and eased into the tub. It was a huge thing, perfectly capable of holding all of them plus a few extra. It was warm enough to sooth sore muscles but not so hot as to be uncomfortable. He sniffed carefully. Someone had put herbal compounds into the water, compounds that were good for minor cuts and bruises. And bubbles.

Trowa snorted as a clump of bubbles hit him in the face. He smiled at Quatre but wiped the bubbles off. “I'm too tired. Sorry.” Quatre blessed him with a smile and put a foot over one of his.

Heero eased into the tub as well, followed by Duo. “What's this stuff going to do to my hair?”

Quatre shrugged. “No idea. But I don't think it'll hurt it.”

As soft voice from the door said, “It won't hurt it. But, if you'd prefer, I can tie it up for you?” the lady advanced into the room on bare feet, smiling at them easily. “I am called Intera. If you need anything, I'll be just outside the door. Just call my name.”

Duo had just submerged himself when Intera had said the herbs in the water wouldn't hurt his hair. He was filthy and needed to be clean. He hated being sweaty and stale. And he hated having grunge in his hair. He'd had enough of that on the streets and during the war.

At first all they did was lounge around in the tub, getting clean again. Then Quatre accidentally splashed Heero. Heero splashed back. Duo ducked Trowa and Trowa retaliated by ducking him back. This degenerated into a water fight that soaked the floor, curtains and everything on the deck of the tub. Intera was amused.

While they were making a mess, she just called down for more towels and some help mopping up. Those boys needed the release.

After the water fight, Intera just walked into the bathroom and announced, “You drain that tub, the water is filthy. I'll wash the young sir's hair while you soak more. Then out, massage and sleep. I don't care if it is the middle of the afternoon, a nap will make you feel better. No argument.”

Quatre snickered, Trowa rolled his eyes. This attracted Duo's attention. He nudged Heero who snorted and said, “Jesus, Barton, what are you? Twelve?”

Intera just laughed. “Enough! I'm old enough to be your mother, maybe even grandmother, so get to gettin'.”

They all laughed again and the boys all scrambled to obey.

The tub drained quickly and refilled almost as fast. Intera poured more of the herbal bubble bath into the tub and motioned Duo over to a recess in one side of the tub. He settled in and found that it was a seat with a rather strange sloping device behind it.

Intera reached over and pulled Duo's hair up out of the tub and laid it on the slope. “There. Now it is easy to wash. Very beautiful hair. Yes.”

Heero watched for a moment but relaxed when he realized that Duo wasn't going to have a fit. Duo was very particular about his hair and defensive over who touched it. Intera obviously met with his approval, so it would be fine.

Intera never realized what a privilege she'd been granted. She just washed Duo's hair, picking out bits of stick and leaf as she went. “So pretty.” She poked Duo. “It is not fair that a young man should have such beautiful hair. You are surely hated by at least half the women who see you.”

Duo splashed a bit, then said, “You should see Marquis. His hair is easily as long as mine and ... I swear ... it's silver.”

Intera snorted, “Bah! I have seen him. His hair is white. It suits his paleness but you ... your hair is copper and gold and red. All sorts of beautiful colors.” She started to rinse his hair with a hose that came from the side. The head was wide and the job was done quickly. “There! Now ... everyone out. Towels are on the bench by the door. Don't worry about dripping. A crew will mop up when you are done. So. I go now.” She bowed to them all and ambled out, hips swinging gracefully.

It didn't take them long to get dried off and into drawstring pants. Duo took longer as he had to wait while Heero combed his hair. He left it in a very loose braid so it would dry quickly.

They found that the cleaning crew had dumped a pile of large cushions on the floor for them, along with thin, silk sheets. They tossed the cushions into comfortable arrangements and flopped down to sleep. Most of the sheets wound up on the floor or draped over the cushions.

.

Duo woke when Quatre poked him with a toe. “Awake?”

“Am now. What's up?” Duo stretched, groaning. “If I'm going to pilot that mecha, we have to do something about that harness.”

Trowa grumbled, smacking his lips sleepily. “Harness? Wha'?”

Heero snorted, he'd awakened at once when Quatre started moving around. “Wake up first, Trowa.”

It wasn't long before everyone was awake and hungry. At Quatre's call, a large platter of fruits in honey, noodles, rice, a fried pastry that they found was called pa thong go, custard dipping sauce and fried eel. There was also tea.

They ate quickly and got dressed in fresh BDU's provided by WEI. They all had their names over the pockets in military style and the WEI logo on the shoulders.

Quatre was on the phone off and on all through breakfast. He finally hung up for the last time and announced, “Excellent! All arrangements are made. My security man in Singapore has finished his investigation. Unfortunately, one of my sisters is a really stupid bitch and has put her foot in it completely. I'll have to go there and clean up her shit. Then ... I'm taking a sabbatical of at least five years.” he grinned around. “Oh! Don't worry. I have lots of things to do. Which includes sitting on my ass on my island for several months, surfing all over the world and learning to glide on ... L4, was it?” He grinning in a way that boded no good for his sister.

Duo shivered. “Blah! Quatre, put that look away. You still want Heero and me to handle that mecha?”

“Yes. All the arrangements are made for you to fly straight to San Fran. Go to the airport and land in the WEI section. I've made arrangements for hangar space for it until we can decide what to actually do with it. I'm seriously thinking of taking it into space and using it for salvage operations.”

Heero commented a bit absently. “I'd think that all that mess would be cleaned up by now.”

Duo made a rude noise. “Ya think?” He shook his head. “No chance. It'll be years and years. There's approximately a hundred years of ordinance, expended and not, as well as wreckage of all kinds floating around out there. It'll be another century before all of it is cleaned up. And that's only if things pick up some.”

They all winced, especially Trowa; they were responsible for a great deal of the newer stuff. Trowa's Heavyarms had been notorious for running out of ammo at the worst possible time. All his rounds were explosive so much of it was still floating around out there somewhere.

“Ok. Sounds good to me. We really should think about creating a couple of mecha capable of cutting wrecks into manageable chunks.” Duo picked up a mango and bit into it.

They spent the rest of breakfast discussing that idea and a few others. Quatre finally told them to get going as he had to leave to catch his flight to Singapore as he wanted to get there before dark.

So they split up, going their different ways.

.

Heero found out that someone had gotten Duo's measurements and rebuilt the harness while they were sleeping. He got the feeling that everything was winding down quickly. He was right.

The flight to San Francisco was accomplished without problems. Duo landed, walked the mecha into its hanger and dismounted easily. He tossed his helmet to a handler and announced, “Man! When things go right, they go beautifully. When can we go back to Quatre's island?”

Heero chuckled, “Soon. We need to rest up so ... this way.” He led the way to the Lear jet Quatre had arranged for them. They were to fly back at once.

On the flight they got a call from Quatre that the Singapore WEI was being shut down entirely and all operations transferred to another office. It was riddled with corruption, most of the senior officers including Quatre's sister were under arrest for various offenses. He'd confiscated everyone's accounts until the Accounting Department was done preparing a report for the local LEO's. Then what they couldn't officially account for was going into a slush fund. For Quatre. He wasn't even offering any excuse or explanation.

Wufei also called. His feet were a mess and he was on indeterminate leave. He expected to be at the island until further notice.

Une saw him off in a Preventers chopper that he was piloting with a jealous expression. She knew he was very near burnout, so she just waved him off with a slight smile.

.

ONE WEEK LATER

.

Duo examined his drink with satisfaction. “Surf up yet?”

Heero glanced at his watch. “No. But Q is down on the beach already.”

Trowa walked out of the house with a grin. “He's sun bathing. He's determined to get a real tan.”

“Where's 'Fei?”

“Same place.” Trowa flopped down on a lounger. “He's just watching the waves. Meditation.”

“Mmm. Great. How long do you think this is going to last?” Duo sipped at his drink.

“Until the science jack-asses get the other two mecha finished.” Heero grinned happily.

Duo thought about that for a moment. “And then?”

Heero smirked. “I think we're out of the bounty hunting business for a bit.”

Duo shrugged, “Not really. Just a different sort of bounty.”

They all returned to their occupations, waiting for the surf to be up.

>>>>

This is done. Next year, the whole group go into space to hunt the 'bounty' of unexpended ordinance. I hope.

 

Back to yanagi's fics

Back to GW Authors Index.