Warped
Mirrors
(Shameless
Self-Insertion)
--------------------------
Evil Inspiration:
All Christy's fault
Authors: Mel & Christy
Co-conspirators: Jay, Dan,
and Asuka
Warnings: Weird humour, language, violence, and bad jokes. (Flee
Christy's boxer shorts!)
--------
Prologue
--------
Life was
good.
The various Principalities, Kingdoms, Republics and Empires were at
peace. Tentative steps were being taken towards establishing colonies on the
moon and Mars. There were rumours that a couple of scientific groups were close
to being able to produce zero gravity in a laboratory environment, which brought
up all sorts of exciting possibilities.
...And then the Theodorian Empire
got serious about being an Empire. They'd always had a national
philosophy of "Eventual World Domination", but they were pretty laid back about
it. The emphasis was on eventual. After all, it was their
destiny to-- eventually-- rule the world. It would happen
sooner or later, without any need for war or bloodshed; the Theodorians weren't
really sure how it would happen, but their leading philosophers
generally agreed that the other nations would See The Wisdom Of The Idea and
join up voluntarily.
Then the old Emperor died, and the new one had new
ideas.
----------
Ten Years Later...
----------------
'Warped Mirrors'
Chapter 1
...Not your
average soldiers...
----------------
"Yo! 'Scuse us... could
you give us a hand? We're kinda lost."
Lieutenant Valeri turned and
nearly choked. Strolling casually towards him were five of the most
unmilitary-looking people he'd ever seen. In the lead was a tall teenaged girl
with long brown hair in a plait, wearing cutoff jeans, flipflops and a t-shirt
that read "Peace Through Superior Firepower". Right behind her was a
short teenaged girl wearing black jeans, motorcycle boots and a
tank top; her auburn braid was nearly as long as the first girl's, and she had a
long black leather coat draped over her arm. Lieutenant Valeri would have
wondered why she was bothering to carry the coat, since it would be
far too hot to wear in the base's usual daytime temperatures,
if he hadn't been boggling at the very non-regulation sniper
rifle casually slung over her shoulder. Three more teens were trailing along
behind the first two, looking around at the base's buildings with a general air
of being on some sort of sight-seeing tour, but the lieutenant's assessment of
them got to 'not in uniform' and stalled there.
"Well?" the shorter girl
asked impatiently. "Can you help us out or not? We're looking for our barracks
or rooms or wherever we're supposed to be staying. Mel, did you bring the
e-mail?"
"Well, duh," the other girl said, rolling her eyes, "of course I
did. 'Be prepared' is my motto, after all."
"I thought it was 'Never put
off until tomorrow what you can postpone to next
week'?"
"One of my mottos," Mel said, digging into a
pocket and pulling out a battered piece of paper. "I have several. What's yours,
Christy? 'Die, scum, die!'?"
"I hadn't thought of that one! That's a good
one; I'll have to put it right up there with 'Close only counts with horse
shoes, hand grenades and thermo-nuclear explosions'," Christy replied, smirking
evilly.
"Riiiight. Anyway, we're supposed to be finding
barracks--"
"Wha-- wha-- where the HELL do you think you
are? ATTEN-SHUN!" the lieutenant roared.
"Eh?" The two girls blinked at
him.
"I say old bean, does that gentleman think we're grunts, what?" one
of the other teenagers called in an extremely fake Albion accent.
"SHOW
SOME RESPECT WHEN YOU'RE SPEAKING TO A SUPERIOR OFFICER!"
Mel snorted.
"Who stuck the hair up your ass?"
"That does it! I'm
putting you on a charge!" Valeri sputtered, pointing a shaking finger. "Name and
number, soldier, now!"
"Superior officer? Name and
number?" the shorter girl said derisively. "Well, my name is
Cristina Stepanopolous, and we only answer to Madame Garnier
and General Petrenkovich."
"I don't have time for this!" Lieutenant
Valeri yelled. "You're all on a charge! That'll get you lot
into a cell and out of the way until after we've got everything
ready for the Gundam pilots. I don't have to take insubordinate behaviour from a
bunch of wet-behind-the-ears puppies when we're about to
welcome the most important... warriors... of..." He trailed off, eyes widening
as he belatedly processed what he'd just heard.
"That would be us," one
of the two males in the group put in helpfully, smiling calmly behind his
glasses.
* * * * *
----------
PILOT
01 - GUNDAM STARTHRASHER
DANIEL MARTEL
AGE: 19
HEIGHT: 5'8"
(173cm)
ORIGIN: GREATER GAUL
ABILITIES: ADVANCED MARTIAL ARTS, HACKING,
FURTHER ABILITIES UNKNOWN.
SPECIAL NOTES: EXTREMELY PROTECTIVE, HIDES BEHIND
A HARMLESS FACADE. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE.
----------
Dan
adjusted his glasses once again. His hands shoved in the pockets of his khaki
pants, and he regretted wearing his customary long sleeved hunter
pullover.
"Good afternoon Sir," a young officer saluted the Gundam pilot.
The man's eyes were wide in awe of actually meeting one of the five pilots. He
shifted nervously before saluting the Gundam Pilot. Ross wondered which one of
the Gundams was piloted by the boy.
"Gah!! Sir? Please don't call me sir,
I'm not old enough," the young pilot replied, going into all sorts of hysterics.
"Just call me Dan," he said while pushing up the wire glasses. His antics had
worked in relaxing the young officer. In fact, he was glad to be interrupted
from his wandering around the base. He didn't have anything to do. So he burned
his time checking over the base's security, which was lacking. He was about to
ask the officer if they had a library when a loud shout pierced the
air.
"DAMN IT, STEPANOPOLOUS!"
Dan chuckled to himself as he heard Valeri yelling at
Christy, he shook his head in amusement. "Looks like she's up to it again." He
smiled as he imagined what the other pilot was doing to piss off Valeri.
"Sir...?"
"Sorry, she's a bit of a handful.
Watch out for that one, and I thought I told you not to call me sir," Dan mildly
scolded the older man. Brown eyes were shining with repressed laughter as the
officer began to sputter and apologize. "It's okay, I was only joking. Carry
on." With a casual wink, Dan left the furiously blushing officer.
~*~*~*~
"Mommy... can I have one?
"Baby, I don't know."
The little boy looked up at his
mother with wide eyes, he really wanted one. It was the first time he ever saw a
dog like that, it was cute. Soft brown eyes filled with tears, but he knew he
couldn't have a pet. They couldn't afford one.
"It's okay mommy, I don't want it after all."
"Baby..."
The child sniffled and fought the
tears, when he finally looked up at his mother he was wearing a smile. "Let's go
see something else?"
She looked
into his eyes, and knew what he was doing. Slowly she knelt before him. "I know
what you're trying to do. I'm sorry that we can't give you what you want..."
"It's my fault, mommy. I shouldn't
be so selfish."
"Dan, you're
just a child. We should be able to give you everything you want, I'm sorry that
we can't..."
"Mommy, I have you
and daddy. That's all I need."
~*~*~*~
"After all this time..." Dan whispered to himself as he
stared at the sky. He smiled, sadly, from the memory. A five year old child he
was, and he knew about the hardships of life.
"Can I help you with something, Sir?"
What is it
with these grunts and calling me SIR?? They're older than I am. The pilot
turned to the speaker and noticed it was a Lieutenant. "I'm fine," he replied
shortly before walking towards his designated bunk.
Nice going, just bite his head off.
Calm down... Dan told himself, but it didn't help much. He had a feeling in
the pit of his stomach.
"Something's coming..."
~*~*~*~
Two figures ran through the rain, trying their hardest to
make it on time. The sound of snapping twigs told them their pursuers were
catching up.
"Keep running,
baby. We're almost there..."
"Mommy... why are they chasing us?" the boy panted. He was
scared that they would hurt him and his mother. She told him everything would be
all right, that nothing would happen to him.
"There it is! Hurry, we'll be safe on the helicopter..."
The boy's mother ran faster, trying to get her son to safety. He was all that
mattered, he had to survive. They had already killed her husband, shot him
through the heart in front of their eyes. In that instant they both ran, the
helicopter was waiting for them to take them back home.
I won't
cry, she thought to herself, not in front of her son.
"Hurry son, get into the
helicopter!"
Just as the boy
got into the lifting helicopter, he reached out for his mother. Only then did he
notice that the bad men had caught up. "Mommy!! Hurry up...!!"
"I'm sorry baby," she whispered
before tossing a necklace to him and a final kiss.
"No!" he screamed as his mother turned around and pulled
out a gun, giving the helicopter time to lift off. The tears fell down his
cheeks as the men attacked his mother, he saw as she was forced to the ground.
The boy wiped the tears away, knowing they wouldn't give back his mother.
"Mommy, I'll find you again. I
swear," he vowed to himself.
~*~*~*~
I've spent everyday since then hiding who I was. Now I wear
this facade, he thought while staring at his reflection. Slightly callused
hands removed the nonprescription glasses and laid them on the small dresser.
Gundam Pilot 01 stared at himself even more, smiling bitterly. He had done a
little too well in creating a harmless image. The light gleamed off the dragon
pendant around his neck, his hand rose to his chest and closed over his prized
possession. It was the only thing he had to remember his parents, the only proof
that he had a family.
< <
Red alert, > > a calm female voice announced. < < Red alert. All
personnel to battle stations. Unidentified mobile suits approaching from the
east, visual contact only; no radar, no scanner returns, no response to our
demand for identification. Assumed hostile until further notice. I repeat-- >
>
Dan moved quickly,
grabbing his glasses off the dresser. He ran down the halls and was approaching
the rear of the hanger. He threw the door open and ran to his gundam. His
fingers flew over the keys of his wrist-unit, "Starthrasher, Online." He threw
the door open and ran to his Gundam.
The pilot grabbed onto the lift wire and was lifted to the
open hatch. Dan climbed into the cockpit and buckled his safety-harness.
"Activate weapon systems," he commanded. If only Christy
had finished with the rest of the
upgrade...
You're fucking with the wrong person, he thought while
the hatch closed.
* * * * *
----------
PILOT 02 - GUNDAM HADES
CHRISTINA
STEPANOPOLOUS
AGE: 17
HEIGHT:
5'1" (155cm)
ORIGIN: ATLANTEAN EMPIRE OF THERA
ABILITIES: SHARPSHOOTER, ASSASSIN, ENGINEERING, MECHANICS,
PROGRAMMING.
SPECIAL NOTES: MULTIPLE PERSONALITY. MAY BE
VIOLENT. APPROACH WITH CAUTION.
----------
"...and of course the
base commander will be more than happy to welcome you," Lieutenant Valeri said
smoothly, smiling at the woman sitting next to him in the back of the Jeep.
"I understand that the Gundam
pilots have been based here for the last few months, since they started working
together," she said, leaning forward slightly, recorder at the ready.
"Er, well, yes..." he said
uncomfortably. "That's, ah, that fact isn't classified."
"My producer would really appreciate it if I got an interview with
them. And I would too, of course," she purred.
"I'm afraid that won't be possible," he said quickly. "They
don't, ah, speak publicly. And even if they did, you wouldn't be able to broadcast anything
that might give a clue to their identity."
"But surely just a few words--"
"Sir! Gundam pilot at two o'clock!" the driver yelped,
slamming on the brakes.
"Which
one?!" the lieutenant screeched, spinning around to look just as a blurred
figure jumped onto the Jeep's hood, clattered across, and then rollerbladed away
across the ashphalt.
"...Which
one do you think, sir?" the driver asked
weakly.
"DAMN IT,
STEPANOPOLOUS!" Valeri roared, standing upright and clutching the roll bar. "IF
ANYONE ELSE PULLED HALF THE CRAP YOU DO, THEY'D BE DISCHARGED!"
"They're Gundam pilots, sir," the
driver pointed out, putting the Jeep back into gear. "It's not like we've got
spares..."
"...Stepanopolous, is it?" the reporter muttered under her
breath. "That's... A member of the Theran Imperial
family is a Gundam pilot?!"
As they moved off again, the
driver glanced back at the reporter, a worried expression on his face. "Uh,
sir... I don't think you should have--"
"Just shut up and drive, Corporal Seau," Valeri snapped,
sitting down and folding his arms in a huff.
----------
"Damn stick-up-the-ass jerk," Christy snorted, swooping
around a corner. "I'm not 'anyone else',
I'm your fucking sacrificial lamb... Oh look, an obstacle course!" Grinning, she
wove between the soldiers drilling on the practice ground, throwing their
formation into chaos as they jumped and ducked away from her.
"HOLD FORMATION, damn you!" the
drill sergeant bellowed. "If she runs over your lily-white toes, just suck it up
and stay in step! Hey, Toots, come back in five minutes; I'll be making them do
a wheel."
"Sorry, Sarge," she
called back over her shoulder, waving. "Maybe next time. You know how it is;
places to go, people to bother..."
The smile faded as she rolled away.
~*~*~*~
"Can we get on with it?" the five-year-old girl complained,
slowly skating around the courtyard. "I have places to go and people to bother,
you know."
"We can't start
until you come over here and sit down, Christina," her tutor said,
exasperated.
"Yes we can!" she
insisted. "It's not like you need to wire me to anything, and it's an oral test.
'Sides, I'm s'posed to practice multi-tasking, right?"
"Rollerblading and mathematics are
not two skills you'll have to combine in
the future--"
"So?" The little
girl sighed heavily, waving one finger in a blatant imitation of her tutor's
most annoying mannerism. "Mr. Coniff, I'm surprised at you. It doesn't matter
what the skills are, so long as it's a
physical activity and one or more cer-- cerbr-- cerebral exercises. Mother said so," she finished,
pulling out the clinching argument.
Her tutor sighed. "I suppose so. What is the cube root
of--"
"Three."
"Huh?!"
Christina grinned at him. "You ask
a question about cube roots first one-third of the time, and when you do,
four-fifths of the time it's the cube root of twenty-seven. You're very predictable, Mr. Coniff."
~*~*~*~
"Stick up the aaaaa~ass," Christy
whispered, smirking slightly as she picked up speed, approaching the motor pool.
"Way too many people around here have sticks up their asses... I think it's time
for me to pull something really outrageous
again. Shake them all up a bit." She waved to a cluster of soldiers working on a
truck's engine, smirk growing wider as she mused. "Maybe Mel and I can get
together to market that 'Lieutenant-on-a-stick' lollipop she was talking about?
Or I could roller-blade naked... that'd be a good start!"
Behind her, there was a coughing
rumble as the truck started up, then a loud *BANG!* as it backfired; the next
instant, she was crouched behind another truck, scanning the area with cold,
hard eyes, gun in hand.
"Um...
oops," a nervous voice called from the group around the truck. "Er... sorry,
Two-- I mean, Christy-- I mean, uh, ma'am!"
Christy closed her eyes briefly, a shiver running through
her, and when she opened them again they were back to normal. "Sounds like it
needs a little more work, guys," she called, sliding the automatic back into the
holster snugged against her spine (under the 'BITE ME!' Tasmanian Devil boxer
shorts).
"...Yeah," the private
called back, sounding relieved. "We'll, um, keep at it."
Blading away again, Christy
laughed, a little shakily. "Took me by surprise there," she muttered. "You
expect bangs in a battle... it's a bit
different when you're somewhere that's supposed to be safe."
~*~*~*~
"Christina?! Christina, quickly, come here!"
"Mother? What's happening?" The
eleven-year-old Christy looked up at her parents as they hurried her out of the
building, eyes wide and scared. She could hear explosions, and the base's alarms
were all going off...
"The
Theodorians are attacking," her father explained quickly, "so we have to get to
the shelters and get out of the soldiers' way. You remember the emergency plan,
don't you, honey?"
"Of course I remember," she grumbled, swallowing
nervously but trying not to show it. "Are they here because of your project?"
"They might be," her mother
admitted, holding her back as her father checked around a corner before
beckoning them on. "We've made some major breakthroughs recently, and if they
found out--"
The building
beside them exploded.
Christina
screamed in shock as something ripped diagonally across her back, slashing
through skin and muscle before it ricocheted off the ashphalt and bounced away.
She found herself on hands and knees, watching blood patter onto the path
beneath her, vaguely surprised that it didn't hurt.
"Mother?" she said muzzily, lifting her head to look
around. Why weren't her parents helping her? "Fa--"
Then she saw them.
I'm... in shock? she thought
with a strange sort of detached curiosity, staring at the bodies of her parents
through the cold frost that seemed to have settled on her. Yes... it's the usual response. Apparently. The first aid
textbook said... um. First aid isn't going to help, is it?
She inched forward to press bloody
fingers against her mother's neck, checking for a pulse, then sat back. It was
rather obvious that she didn't need to check her father, but she did anyway,
just in case.
No. It's not going to do any good.
There was a tremor through the
ground beneath her, and she looked up at the mobile suit standing in the burning
wreckage of the building. She watched, quite calmly, as its head swivelled to
point its main camera directly at her; then it stepped forward, one foot coming
down barely inches behind her, and walked away.
----------
When she woke up, she was in a hospital, and the nurses
wouldn't tell her anything, so she simply ignored them all until someone she
knew she could trust turned up.
"Hello, Uncle Janus."
"Ah... hello, Christina," the Emperor said, blinking as he
sat down. He'd expected a traumatised, withdrawn child who would have to be
coaxed to respond, and then he'd expected a flood of tears and hysteria. He was
prepared for tears and hysteria.
He wasn't prepared for a girl who
looked at him out of flat, dead eyes and spoke in a perfectly calm,
expressionless voice.
"Where
are my parents' bodies?"
"Ah--
I, um--"
"I do know they're
dead, Uncle Janus. You don't have to break the news to me."
"Ah. I... see. Your..." He
swallowed and quickly rearranged his thoughts, discarding the comforting words
he'd agonised over. "Your parents are lying in state in the Palace chapel. The
funeral will be in three days."
"Thank you. For not trying to shelter me," she added. "I
don't want to be sheltered."
"I
understand, Christina."
"I
don't think you do, Uncle Janus, but you will. He ignored me, you know," she
said calmly.
"...Who?"
"The Theodorian who killed my
parents," she explained, still in that deadpan voice. "He walked straight past
and ignored me, because I wasn't a threat.
She looked up at the Emperor, eyes glittering with cold
determination.
"I want to be a threat. I won't let them ignore me
next time."
~*~*~*~
Christy ran on autopilot for a
while, blading slowly (for her) around the base with a faint, surface smile on
her face; then she blinked and shook herself, smirking for real as she heard
Lieutenant Valeri screeching about something in the distance.
When the noise didn't stop after
the first couple of sentences, she picked up speed and cruised in that
direction, curious. Sounds like someone really pissed him off... and that's his 'something
awful has happened to my dignity' squawk, not the 'dressing someone down' one. I
might as well find out who did what, and congratulate them--
Alarms started to howl all over
the base, and a nearby loudspeaker crackled to life.
< < Red alert, > > a calm female voice
announced. < < Red alert. All personnel to battle stations. Unidentified
mobile suits approaching from the east, visual contact only; no radar, no
scanner returns, no response to our demand for identification. Assumed hostile
until further notice. I repeat-- > >
Christy was halfway to her Gundam and accelerating when the
message started to repeat, stabbing at buttons on her wrist unit. "Hades, prep
for combat," she snapped into it. "Hades, cockpit open."
Skidding to a halt between her
Gundam's feet, she grabbed the dangling lift wire and was hauled up. Clattering
into the cockpit -- still wearing her rollerblades -- she threw herself into the
pilot's seat and grinned, wriggling her arms into the waldo controls as the
hatch closed and sealed.
"Ignore this, you
bastards," she whispered, then raised her voice. "Hades! Cloak!
* * * * *
----------
PILOT 03 - GUNDAM MORKELEB
ASUKA
(no family name)
AGE: 17
HEIGHT:
5'5" (165 cm)
ORIGIN: GLACIS
ABILITIES: KNIFE-THROWING, CLOSE-COMBAT, INFILTRATION,
DEMOLITION.
SPECIAL NOTES: SOMETIMES DISOBEDIENT.
TOTALLY ERRATIC AND UNPREDICTABLE. APPROACH WITH CAUTION. NEVER SURPRISE.
----------
The chestnut-haired teenager blinked slowly twice
or thrice before putting on his shades. The light was so intense here, he was
nearly blinded. The heat too bothered him a little. After all, while he had undergone training to learn to bear extreme
conditions, his homeland wasn't a country where the general temperature was
really high... He remembered that people were surprised if it didn't snow or
freeze at least 200 to 250 days per year.
He'd gone out of his room because he had suddenly realised
that he was so bored he was thinking of actually DOING the exercises on
trajectory calculus his professor gave him before their departure. The second he
realised what he had thought, he was in the corridor, intending on finding
something, anything to do. But... In a military complex... Besides watching the
trainees running in circles around the base, and be baked by the sun, there
wasn't much to do. At least in his room, they had air-conditioning. Well, sort
of.
He hid in the shadows of
one of the hangars and amused himself by counting the number of trainees he
actually saw in his position and how much sniper bullets he needed to kill them
all. He wasn't near as good as the pilot 02 with a rifle (something to do with
the patience needed to aim correctly at a moving target), but imagining the
trajectories (and the resulting bloodshed) was fun. One bullet at exactly the
right time and the right location and he could hit at least five of them before
the bullet lost its speed. It was mentally interesting, but in a real combat
situation, to save bullets wasn't his forte... and he definitely preferred
blades, anyway.
Furthermore, he
wasn't authorised to shoot at the trainees. Never mind that he, too, needed to
train. It nearly made him pout.
He cursed mentally at this bloody heat that made him sweat
so much, and redid the knot that kept the black pullover on his hips. Hell
forbid that he lose this, even if it wasn't really needed at the moment. He
would kill to keep it.
Even if
because of it, his butt was a little too hot... And not the good kind of hot,
sadly.
~*~*~*~
The little chestnut-haired boy
tried to keep his balance on the chair's back to look through the window at the
children playing in the snow, between swings and a slide he had never used in
all the time he lived here. He wanted to go out too, to bury himself under this
white coat, to make himself a little igloo, to catch snowflakes, things like
that. Not necessarily with the others, after all he was used to playing alone,
but...
But today, his mother
hadn't even let him go out in the secluded garden where he could play. He didn't
know why.
It wasn't as if his
mother thought it was important that he knew beforehand. She didn't know how and
even if it would work out. She observed
the child from afar, not knowing what to do with him.
A light knock on the door
surprised the child, who nearly lost his balance on the chair's back but
regained it at the last second, before the chair could topple entirely. The
woman didn't even try to warn him or scold him for this. He had a catlike grace
and could walk on tightrope at four; she'd seen him go out of his room by the
window more than once, climbing on the roof and running on the edge. Luckily,
even if trying to forbid him this kind of exercise or any other thing was a dead
end, the only instruction he followed was to go unnoticed.
Leaving the room, she opened the
front door, and a man in his early fifties stepped in the house. She didn't
greet him, only stared at him and nodded curtly; their affair had been
terminated long ago and all her illusions of romantic love with it, the same
second she told him, so happy, that she carried his baby.
"Karen..." saluted the man, a
little nervous under the too-clear cold stare of the woman. She shrugged before
turning again to look at the room the boy was in, but the man held her back.
"Hem... How is he?" asked the man
while playing nervously with the collar of his black pullover.
"Correct," she said evenly.
"It wasn't what I meant," he tried
to say.
"I know," she answered,
voice flat. "Strange? Is that what you want to know? Yes, he is. But after all
it's hardly surprising, with the kind of life he leads. Always moving, never
authorised to play, without father..."
"A lot of children grow without a father!! And you know why
I can't be his!!" protested the man, not realising that his voice had risen and
that the boy could hear him now.
"A lot, yeah... But if you were dead, I could say it to him
and then find another husband to replace you. Now, I can't even have a
boyfriend. I can't even find someone who could take him if something happened to
me. I can't even let him play with other children. Because their parents could
ask about him. Because, officially, he doesn't even exist," she added
venomously.
The boy dropped his
hand off the doorknob and silently returned to the window. He didn't hear the
man who was his father protest, "But I
would take care of him!!! I can't really keep him with me, but I could find him
something... Mathilda would help too."
"How kind of her,"
the woman answered back.
"...she knows it isn't his fault."
"She knows it would lead to a scandal. Her husband sowing
illegitimate children everywhere."
The man sighed loudly. He didn't know why he tried, Karen
would never forgive him. Even if he
divorced to marry her... Which he couldn't do even if he had wanted. Sometimes
he wondered why he had had an affair with her. Had she always been that cold and
bitter? ...No, she was much more innocent, then, much more kind and happy.
"Enough, please. Can I see
him?"
When they entered the
room, the window was open, the curtains flapping in the cold wind, snowflakes
slowly falling to the wooden floor.
The boy was nowhere in sight.
"A-kun?" called his mother.
No response.
"Asuka?" called his father, suddenly afraid.
~*~*~*~
The pilot unconsciously caressed
the pullover he wore around the hips, remembering vaguely the day his father
followed him onto the roof. He had been sitting under the chimney, staring at
the snow fields, when the man climbed after him.
When Asuka told him he'd heard, he had talked to him, not
like at a boy, but at an adult, explained to him the why and the how. With
simple words, but the real reasons. He'd been grateful for that. A little
bit.
For the pullover his
father had put on him while they were talking too. Hell forbid he complain about
the cold, and he put all his energy not to show his problem, but it had been
kind of the old man.
And while
they were 'bonding' on the roof, the assassin paid by the opposition who had
been following the husband of the ruler of Glacis all day, waiting for an
opportunity, was torturing Karen to death to punish her for not admitting where
his target had gone.
A blur of
colours passed through the training field and the recruits he was facing and the
chestnut-haired boy started slightly, his memories fading and returning to the
back of his mind.
Christy was
visibly trying to beat her own slalom-at-top-speed record and her scaring-poor-recruits-to-death record. She
was totally psycho. He liked her.
He shrugged and went to the hangar where his Gundam was
stored. A bunch of mechanics were currently working on it... He had been a
little careless the last time he trained in it. Leaning against the hangar door,
he turned again to the exterior. He had thought that maybe under the building it
would be cooler but he forgot about the motors. Shit.
Hell, he was so hot. Looking
remotely at the psycho girl and cursing mentally at this bloody heat, he tried
to decide if he should take off his red tanktop or his jeans first. The tanktop
was lighter than the jeans so it would be a lesser benefit, but the jeans,
unfortunately, had nothing under them. To flash everybody or not to flash
everybody? The first answer seemed to become more and more interesting now that
he thought of the reactions he could provoke in the poor mechanics and
recruits...
A mechanic that was
running arms full of pieces without looking nearly bumped into him, and he shot
him a glare fit to kill all by itself.
"Sorry, I... *gulp*" the sturdy man choked when he
recognised the small, lithe teenager as pilot 03. Three was a psychopath, it was
a well-known fact. They made bets on him; like, if he hadn't become a Gundam
pilot, would he have become a serial killer or a hitman?
Asuka lowered his shades and
stared at him in silence, not showing how much it amused him to see a man twice
his weight nearly wet himself in face of his frost-blue eyes.
The man ran. Asuka smirked, before
following him inside and stopping in front of his Gundam. He admired the suit
for a few minutes, terrorising the poor technicians who were currently working
on it as they wondered if he was searching for errors in their repairs or
scratches in the paint so that he could kill them for it.
"Is it finished?" he asked curtly,
not looking at anybody save his Gundam.
"Yessir," came a trembling voice.
The teenager nodded imperceptibly
and climbed to the cockpit, and closed the door behind him. Maybe he could put
on the air-conditioning.
He
turned on the hi-fi and let it shout. His favourite CD was in; a group of
hard-rockish sort with gothic kind of lyrics. Evil warlords, dragons, dying
unicorns and bloodied knights in quests for a refused peace. He had a hidden
interest for this kind of stuff. The more blatant example was his Gundam, named
Morkeleb after a black dragon in a
heroic-fantasy book
he read at twelve.
~*~*~*~
The ruler of Glacis and her staff
were discussing the choice of the pilot for the Gundam they were secretly
working on. Their country was neutral in theory and hadn't that much political
influence in the world area -- not that they wanted the influence at all, they were happy as
long as they were being left in peace -- but with these bloody Theodorians
better ten times safe than sorry, even if the current joke in the government
said that the Theodorian's army would be seen here only if their Emperor took a
shine to ice-skating. The project had been decided on ten months ago by the
ruler herself, helped with some of her council that were faithful to her, and
the mecha was nearly finished. It was a secret project; most of the population,
mostly self-sufficient, didn't see the need at all and wasn't interested in even
thinking of the other countries' problems. Well, a Gundam wasn't so expensive
for an entire state after all. They lost much more money in other stupidities.
Asuka was wandering in the
base where the man his father had put him with -- an ancient school friend who
was being paid to pass as his father -- was currently working as a technician.
Logically the boy had absolutely no right to do so, but he had always been a
master at sneaking around and hadn't needed more than three days to learn the
complete layout of the base off by heart.
But there was one sector the boy didn't know what was in
two weeks after his arrival and he was curious. The security was so high he had
needed all this time to find a way in, it had to be for something really
interesting.
He kept totally
silent and discreet while he was sneaking in, paying attention big time to the
wanderings of the security and of the techs... until he nearly bumped nose first
into something blood red and metallic.
He looked up... and up... and up...
"HEY KID!!!! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU
DOING HERE?!??" shouted one of the guards who had never thought he would find a
ten-year old skinny boy in front of the biggest weapon of mass destruction never
built.
...And Asuka fell in
love.
----------
After he was captured and sent to
his father's wife, he just had to push a few buttons (namely his own existence
in the world) to obtain the right to be put on the Gundam-pilots-to-be list.
After that, it didn't take long before he was the only candidate left.
~*~*~*~
< < Red alert, > > a
calm female voice announced, jerking him out of his semi-sleep state. < <
Red alert. All personnel to battle stations. Unidentified mobile suits
approaching from the east, visual contact only; no radar, no scanner returns, no
response to our demand for identification. Assumed hostile until further notice.
I repeat-- > >
Smirking
slightly, Asuka brought the Gundam's systems on line, roaring the engines. The
controls were cold under his hands, but he didn't even feel them under his
gloves.
The music blared in his
ears.
"I can hear the war cry over the
hills
while dragons fill the sun
Rage in the wind at the touch of steel
blindness in their evil eyes
Another war another fight
to defend
my kingdom
from the evil lords.
Eternal Glory you are my aim
ride in my heart again angel of revenge"
"Here we go, Morkeleb..."
* * * * *
----------
PILOT 04 - GUNDAM DYSCALCULIA
JARVIA VENCEDOR
AGE: 18
HEIGHT: 5’4” (163cm)
ORIGIN: VATERA
KINGDOM.
ABILITIES: WEAPONS & EXPLOSIVES SPECIALIST,
DIPLOMACY, UNKNOWN ABILITY (CLASS IV)
SPECIAL NOTES:
VOLATILE. CEREBRAL ANOMALY. UNDER MEDICAL INSPECTION. PREV. RECORDS SEALED.
POTENTIAL SECURITY HAZARD.
----------
Jay ignored the slightly
fazed stares from the soldiers on the base as she strolled through the halls,
apparently aimlessly. She had to smirk at the image she presented, however: a
petite Vaterean -- but she looked like a Mongol --
with smudged glasses and mussed hair, walking sedately along the corridors of
what was probably the world’s most important strategic military base in a
bathrobe that might have been worthy of even Emerigo’s most infamous purveyor of
‘adult entertainment.’
It was
only worse when she stopped to talk.
“Ahoy, you there!” She waved at a uniformed man that seemed
to be undergoing facial ataxia. “You look like a rather sporting chap, someone
who would help a damsel in distress,” Jay said cheerfully, the (painfully fake)
Albion accent touching the first words but not the last. “Where’s the mess
hall?”
“M-m-m-ma’am?”
“M-m-m-mess hall,” she repeated,
mimicking his stutter and making vague motions with her hands. “Where a girl can
get some fodder of the caffeinated sort. I seem to have mislaid our canteen, and I want coffee.”
One of the
female pilots, he thought to himself. I don’t know
if she’s the schizo, the assassin, or the--
“Choice c,” she said promptly, as if answering his
question. “Now, about this elusive mess hall--”
The young man started and then looked at her with a growing
incredulity. 04.
“Very pleased to meet you.” Jay’s eyes gleamed behind her
glasses; it was almost friendly.
The man was not comforted.
~*~*~*~
Karida Vencedor rapped on the door of her daughter’s room,
fingers twisting her shirtsleeves awkwardly. The sun streamed over her bronzed
features from a nearby window, hiding the brightness of her eyes in lines of
shadow. Her skin was slightly sticky, as always, from the humid heat of
Vatera.
“Come in.”
She winced at the sound of the
voice that was distinctly his, despite the feminine
lilt. She never even smiled at the Albion accent that touched Jarvia’s -- a
product of her tutor, she supposed.
The door clicked open, and she entered the massive chamber.
Jay lay on her bed, dwarfed again by the vastness of the mattress. At the age of
seven, it seemed like she would drown in the sheets. Karida was about to speak,
but her voice caught in her throat.
Taro’s shotels were out, set down carefully beside his
daughter. Her tiny hands tapped on the blades as the light winked mercilessly on
the metal. The same sunlight reflected on the liquid pools that shimmered over
Jay’s irises, stubbornly cohering and refusing to break from her eyes. Karida’s
shoulders crumpled for a moment.
“Of course you know,” she murmured.
“Papa lost the duel,” Jay
answered. Her voice trembled a little, but held its ground. She added, “He
thought -- he thought of you. Of forgiveness. And -- honor.” She was silent
afterwards, only staring at the gleaming shotels, comforted and mesmerized by
the razor-keen edges.
She had
walked alongside her father as a ghost, sensing both that inner serenity and
outer storm. His mind had been in a perfect calm, but the world had swirled
around him like a maelstrom. She had felt the touch of cold steel against
callused fingers as he lifted the rapier, and what followed was that fatal
ballet of feints and thrusts. She could feel the sweat running down the back of
his neck, see the glare of the sun in his eyes...
She had felt the slash across his right hand, just below
the wrist, felt the rapier clatter to the ground. She closed her eyes, pressing
against the pain in her temples.
She had felt him reach for the familiar shotels, felt his
hands grasping nothing. There was a moment of lancing despair in his poise.
When he died, something snapped in
her head. The visions that had once been so clear, so lucid, now blurred into
overlapping shapes of the undefined. What remained was sensation and fragmented
thought. Forgiveness. Honor. Despair.
When she looked up to tell her mother, she found herself
looking at empty space.
The
door was still ajar.
~*~*~*~
“I can do this,” Jay muttered. She
was standing at the fork of two halls, staring blankly down each. Her forehead
creased in brief annoyance. “This is absurd,” she said aloud. Stuffing her hands
into the bathrobe, she strode down the hall to the right.
And promptly collided with a
mechanic; the parts in his hands went flying over the floor, ricocheting off the
walls. As she picked herself up, she found herself staring into an extremely
panicked face. The man gulped.
I hope she’s not crazy.
“Only on alternating Sundays,” she
responded.
The man went
dangerously still.
Jay
chuckled. “Relax, it’s Monday. At least, I think it is.”
The man never responded; he merely
stared at her, face draining of all color.
“Um, I’m going to find my coffee now. But--” She paused.
“Hitman. Serial killer seems much too blasé, don’t you think?”
The mechanic, finally gathering
his wits, managed a feeble, “Ma’am?”
“03. I’d be inclined to say hitman. Serial killing doesn’t
really pay the bills, know what I mean?” She shook her head, musing, and then
continued. “Anyway-- is there an officers’ lounge anywhere around here?”
He opened his mouth and then
snapped it shut. After a long pause, he pointed down the corridor. His hand was
shaking.
“Thanks, old sport.”
The Albion accent was back with a vengeance.
~*~*~*~
“Explain this to me, Lucas.” Karida’s voice was icy and
proud.
She had gone down the
dozen flights of rickety stairs that creaked ominously under the pressure of her
weight, her hands clasping the rails like lifelines. Down, down, down, it wove
its way into the earth. The air smelled different here.
“Mother, you know as well as I
know that the peace will not last forever.” Lucas Vencedor pinched his nose
wearily, his dark eyes shadowed with frustration. His bronze skin was sallow in
the lights.
Jay sat, her legs
swinging, on the edge of a platform; for the moment, she remained unobtrusive
and completely ignored. The air was crisp down here and chilled, and there was a
perpetual humming in the background that she couldn’t place...
“If war comes, we will remain
neutral. The Vaterean Matriarch will ensure that we will not be involved in any sort of strike.”
“Mother, surely--”
“Lucas, we are pacifists, we will not condone violence through the
preparation of defense.”
“And
father? What was he?” Lucas’ voice was bitter and condemning. “Could you have
loved him, mother? Or is that why you couldn’t stand to birth us yourself,
because you could not bear the children of a man of heated blood.”
There was the swift sound of air
parting before the back of her hand struck his mouth. He staggered backwards,
stunned for a moment. Karida drew herself up.
“You will destroy the Gundam,” she said. Her voice was
sharp, but detached. “Tomorrow. Sunrise. God help you if that machine still
stands.”
She had to clamber up
the stairs as quickly and silently as she could; her mother was walking away
now, her mouth a tight silence. Lucas only stood alone, his fists clenched, eyes
downwards. Jay tentatively reached out and instantly recoiled at the cacophony
of feeling that crackled in the humming air. It made her dizzy, like she was on
the edge of some great vertigo.
When the Vencedor household was largely asleep, she had
slipped through out of her room, down the red cushioned halls, and into the
library. Her fingers had pressed the cracked leather binding of the book on the
far right end of the third shelf on the left wall, and she watched as the
bookcase turned with seamless ease. Again, she descended the stairs, shivered as
the cold air washed over her skin. The humming was still there.
It seemed to emanate from beyond a
metal wall. Jay stared at it for a long time, and then tentatively pressed her
hands to it. She moved across the wall, fingers feathering over the smooth
surface, searching for some unknown catch. There was a small depression on the
right side, and she pressed her ear to it.
The humming was louder.
Suddenly, her eyes narrowed; there was a barely perceptible
line down the center of the wall.
Jay closed her eyes. Her brother, Lucas... He was one of
her favorites, always more of his father’s son than his mother’s. He had the
same innate ability with weapons, though Karida had forbidden their instruction
to him. He loved the stories their father told them, about bandits and thieves
in the desert, riding horses and screaming war cries. There was one story that
he had memorized, about a magic cave that...
Her voice was unhesitating: “Open sesame.”
The metal slid open like an
invitation.
It was obsidian
black and glittering gold, looming over her, impassive. More gold decorated the
top, like a crown over what looked like the face. She circled it, fascinated by
both its size and undoubted ability for... Here, she shuddered. One hand reached
out to pat the luminous metal. In the wrong hands, a handful of machines like
this could destroy what humanity had built for the last dozen centuries.
Still-- the awe was there. Its
hands were by its side, tight fisted. She tried to imagine it if it were
functional and could only think of the eyes, glowing from the dead green that
they were now.
There was a
platform that wound itself around it, and Jay walked up the stairs eagerly. By a
set of computers, there was a handwritten note. She recognized Lucas’ slanted,
narrow scratch.
‘Gundam
Dyscalculia.’
She grinned at
the wry humor, clucking her tongue.
What made her stop was the choice of weapons, though.
There, hanging from its back, were a pair of shotels, like the ones she kept in
her room-- like her father’s. The pounding of her heart was almost unbearably
loud.
The entrance to the
cockpit was open, tempting and seductive. Her bare feet smacked against the
metal floor, and she peered into it. The seat looked inviting. The entire
compartment could not have seated a grown man; it seemed suited for a smaller
frame-- for a child’s. She hadn’t realized that she’d climbed in until the hatch
closed and the lights started flashing.
Mesmerized, she touched the monitor, feeling the hum
snapping in her bones; it took away all the ambient white noise in her head.
Jay’s smile glowed blood red as
the glowing modules fed off the static.
~*~*~*~
Everyone else had his or her own mug.
It would have been a mite too
wistful to ask for her own personalized mug to be brought over from the pilots’
canteen, but all the same, Jay was dreadfully disappointed with the Styrofoam
cup that was presently busy poisoning her coffee. Her reflection stared back at
her in the black liquid, and she sighed. Taking a long gulp of the house brew,
she eyed the table in the center of the room. Several magazines were scattered
over it, but one caught her eye; a strikingly lean young man in army fatigues
stared out at her. Blond hair spilled out of the helmet, his eyes were a frigid
blue... and his nails were perfectly manicured.
The name on the subscription for that month’s issue of
‘Terrorist Chic’ magazine was LT. VALERI.
Chuckling, Jay scooped up the magazine and with her nose
buried in the ‘Mission Mecha Makeover!’ article, began strolling through the
halls again. She had to stop now and again to patiently go through checkpoint
after checkpoint-- retina scans (access approved), fingerprint scans (access
approved), alphanumeric keypads (0413JAYV1391-gd, access approved), until she
was finally at the hangars.
Entering from our end of the
hangar is much easier, she thought vaguely. Of course, no-one in their right
mind would try to sneak in through our quarters...
Mechanics and recruits milled
around her, and for the moment, she was not the object of intense scrutiny: that
was reserved for the Gundams.
Still flipping through the magazine, Jay began walking
towards Dyscalculia. She passed Asuka’s Morkeleb and paused for a moment; at
fifty feet below, she could still hear the music, thin and tinny. It was the
only mecha not surrounded by an obscene amount of
people, and she attributed that to 03’s... reputation.
Hitman.
Definitely, her mind supplied dryly.
< < Red alert, > > a calm female voice
announced. < < Red alert. All personnel to battle stations. Unidentified
mobile suits approaching from the east, visual contact only; no radar, no
scanner returns, no response to our demand for identification. Assumed hostile
until further notice. I repeat-- > >
For a moment, Jay couldn’t understand the words, the
blaring alarm, or the flashing red lights. She stood, still clutching her
now-lukewarm cup of coffee, and watched impassively as utter chaos took hold of
the hangars.
Suddenly, her
fingers were pressing into her wrist unit. “Dyscalculia, online, open hatch.”
The voice was detached and calm. It reminded her of her father’s, in some
strange way. She was still wondering why the alarm was so bloody loud.
The black and gold Gundam in front of her roared to life,
its green eyes glowing with a primordial fire. Distantly, she could hear other
machines doing the same.
The
coffee slipped from her fingers, splashing at her feet just as she wound herself
around a lift wire and was suddenly propelled upwards. She belatedly realized
that her left hand still fisted around Valeri’s magazine, and she dropped it
just as she reached the open cockpit.
Jay’s hands hovered over the controls. “Monitors online.
Scan northeast, southeast, display coordinates and visuals.” One eye skimmed the
scrolling data on her rightmost screen.
The funny thing was that there was nothing at all in her
head; no static, not even the humming.
* * * * *
----------
PILOT 05 - GUNDAM
TANIWHA
MELANIE TANGAROA
AGE:
18
HEIGHT: 5'11" (181cm)
ORIGIN:
PRINCIPALITY OF AOTEAROA.
ABILITIES: CLOSE COMBAT,
HAND-TO-HAND, DEMOLITIONS, SABOTAGE, HACKING/EW.
SPECIAL
NOTES: EFFICIENT BUT LAZY, MERCENARY. MAY BE CORRUPTIBLE. WATCH WITH CARE.
----------
Lying back on her banana lounge, shaded by a broad, fringed
umbrella, Mel sighed contentedly and reached for another chilled strawberry. No
missions, no training exercises, no interruptions...
...except for the sound of a pair of heavy boots marching
towards her from behind.
If that's Valeri, I swear, I'm going to stuff this
strawberry straight up his left nostril, she thought, frowning slightly;
then she looked at the strawberry in question and changed her mind, popping it
into her mouth instead. Far too good to suffer such an
ignominious fate. Perhaps a grape instead? One of the ones that's going a little
mushy at the stem end...
"What are you doing, Five?"
Mel tipped her head back and
smiled happily. "Why, Sergeant Palmer, how nice to see you! Grape?"
The drill sergeant scowled, but
her eyes were twinkling. "No thanks, that bunch looks a little mushy. Got any
blueberries?"
"You're right,"
Mel said, dropping the grapes onto the table and digging through the fruit and
ice in the bowl, looking for blueberries. "I'll save them in case Valeri comes
by... ah, here."
"You're going
to give grapes to him?" Palmer asked, one eyebrow
raised as she accepted the fruit. "Even mushy ones?"
"No, I was thinking of insertion," the pilot mused, hiding
a smirk as the sergeant nearly snorted a berry out her nose. "Did you want
something? Apart from my fruit bowl?"
"Yes, actually; I want to know what you're doing here."
Mel blinked, looking surprised. "I
thought it was obvious. This is a banana lounge; I'm lying on it. This ingenious invention is an umbrella, which I'm
lying under, and I'm eating this fruit out of this
bowl on this table. I also have a jug of home-made lemonade. It's called
relaxation, Sergeant, you should try it some time."
"Drill sergeants who relax turn into officers, so we don't.
I can see what you're doing," Palmer said,
mock-patiently. "What I meant was, why are you doing
it here?"
"Space."
"Space?"
"Space. It's in the sun, and well away from the surrounding
buildings, so there's actually a bit of a breeze. It's the perfect spot for me
to set up."
"On a drill field?"
"Well, the other one was in use." Mel pouted slightly,
looking up at the sergeant out of big green-brown eyes. "You're not going to ask
me to move, are you? I had a huge lunch, I need some time to digest it."
Palmer smirked. "Actually, a
little gentle exercise is supposed to be the best thing for the digestion--"
"Oh, ick." Mel shuddered theatrically. "Don't even say the e-word, please. I'm
lazy, Palmer, you know
that."
"All right, all right,
I'm not asking you to move... but is it all right with you if we play
through?"
Twisting to look over
her shoulder, Mel raised an eyebrow as she saw the advanced drill squad waiting
patiently. "Welllllllll... okay. Just don't let them step on my fruit bowl."
~*~*~*~
Running inside from the garden,
the little girl giggled as she felt the large fuzzy spider tickling her hands as
she held it, careful not to harm it. The only question now was whether she
should show it to Aunt Ngaire, who hated spiders, or
see how long she could hide it in her room.
Pattering quietly down the corridor, keeping an eye out for
anyone who might stop her and ask what she was carrying -- which was everyone, since she had quite a reputation -- Melanie
was brought up short when she heard raised voices.
Mama? And Daddy, and someone I
don't know, and-- oh, ick, Aunt Ngaire. What's going
on?
Being a firm adherent
of the theory that states 'Grown-Ups Never Tell Kids The Good Stuff', Melanie carefully dropped her spider
friend into a flower arrangement and let herself into the room next to the one
where the argument was happening. Corridor walls were built to take part of the
weight of the roof, so they were always thicker (and more soundproof) than walls
between rooms...
"...told you it was a mistake to marry a Pakeha," Aunt
Ngaire's voice said with a strange sort of sour triumph.
"I have never regretted marrying
Adrian. Never! It was not a mistake!"
Mama sounds really mad!
"And see what it's got you! A daughter so white she doesn't
even look like a Tangaroa, and a constitutional
crisis."
"It hasn't got to that
point--"
"Yet. It will, and it's all your fault for not facing up to your duty six years
ago."
"And what sort of child
would I have got if I'd married him? If my baby had
taken after him? Alcoholic, violent--"
"You'd have a child who could inherit, not that milky Pakeha whelp--"
"Shut UP!" Melanie's father
roared. "Ngaire, just shut up. We are supposed to be
here to discuss the problem -- rationally -- not so you can insult my wife and child!"
In the icy pause that followed,
Melanie blinked, pressing her ear closer to the wall. What can't I inherit? Why is it a problem? Inherit...
that's when somebody dies and their kids get stuff, right?
Ngaire sniffed haughtily. "I don't
see why you're here. You're not a Tangaroa."
"No, but I married a Tangaroa and
I fathered a Tangaroa, and damned if I'm going to
let you decide my daughter's future without my input!"
Somebody coughed. "If we could get
back to the problem at hand...?" the stranger's voice said. "Princess Whina has
not, as yet, been able to bear a living child, and although she is again
pregnant, her current illness makes it even less likely that she will produce an
heir. Therefore, when she dies, the throne must pass down to her next sister,
Princess Ngaire. However-- ah--"
"Ngaire is definitely barren,"
Melanie's mother said coldly.
"Thank you so much for putting
it that way, Hinemoa," Ngaire hissed.
"Facts must be faced, Ngaire. Even more so than duties."
"Therefore, the throne will
eventually pass to Princess Hinemoa, assuming both of her sisters predecease
her. Unfortunately, her sole child, Melanie, although a Tangaroa princess, is
less than one-third Maori and consequently cannot inherit the throne. There are
no more heirs in the direct line, and the issue of who is next in line of
succession is... ah... tangled."
"Bloody impossible to work out, you mean," Adrian
sighed.
"And if you'd just
married someone who was at least one-sixth Maori,
you would have had a suitable heir!"
"Ngaire, when I married Adrian, Whina had just become
pregnant for the first time. Everything was going well, and nobody thought I needed to produce an heir to the throne. Even you agreed that if I wasn't going to marry a Maori,
someone from the Austral Territories was a good choice, to bind them closer to
Aotearoa. And if your candidate was the best choice
from the other Maori tribes, I shudder to think what the worst choice would have been!"
"His was the best bloodline.
Character was immaterial."
"Not
to me it wasn't. If you liked his bloodline so much,
you should have married him."
"He didn't want me," Ngaire said bitterly.
"...Then I'm sorry."
"What are the alternatives, anyway?" Adrian cut in,
changing the subject. "You said there were three obvious options."
"Well." The stranger coughed
again, and Melanie thought she could hear papers rustling. "The simplest
solution would be for Princess Hinemoa to divorce Mr. Whitfield, marry someone
with sufficient Maori blood, and--"
"Not acceptable," Melanie's
mother said coldly. "Even ignoring my personal motives, I can think of several
reasons why not. One, we'd be sending the Austral Territories a very clear message that they're 'not good enough' for
us. Two, what would it do to the children? It would be like telling Melanie that
she wasn't good enough, and the future heir to the
throne would grow up knowing that he or she wasn't really wanted, just needed. It's not going to happen."
"...Very well. The second option
is a little trickier. There is precedent for
succession 'skipping' a generation when a candidate is, ah, 'unsuitable' for
some reason but their child is not. This would, of course, require Princess
Melanie to marry someone with sufficient Maori blood for her children to be
one-third Maori, and is also dependant on her producing children before the question of succession arises. This is an,
ah, uncertain method of ensuring the succession; while you will almost certainly
survive to see your grandchildren, we have to keep in mind the possibility that
you will not. Also--"
"I don't want to put restrictions on who Melanie can marry.
She might fall in love with someone who fills the
requirements, but... Besides, she's only five! There's over a decade before she should have to think about marriage.
What's the third option?"
"Constitutional reform. Alter the law so that Princess
Melanie can inherit, by dropping the bloodline
requirement to one-quarter Maori."
"And we all know what that
would cause..." Adrian groaned.
Hinemoa started listing objections again, and the listening
girl could imagine her mother ticking them off on her fingers. "The Pakeha would
like it; the bloodline restriction irritates a lot of them, and any relaxation
would be welcomed. Everybody who's between one-quarter and one-third Maori would
adore it. Unfortunately, a lot of people who are
more than one-third Maori -- especially all our
Tangaroa cousins who would be one step further from the throne, and all the
pure-Maori anti-Pakeha activists -- would hate it.
It would cause the crisis we want to avoid!"
"Not to mention that it would start the Austral Territories
activists up again, arguing that it should be 'Maori or Koori blood', or that
the restriction should be lifted completely. Nobody over there is one-third Maori, and the whole 'minority rule'
question would come up again."
"Nevertheless," the stranger said regretfully, "these are the questions that are coming up. Princess Whina's
inability to bring a child to term, and its possible consequences, worries a
large percentage of the population. The Aotearoan royal line has been stable for
centuries -- no serious disputes over succession, no
attempts to usurp the throne, no civil wars... people have come to depend on
that stability. The possibility that it might end frightens them, and frightened people act irrationally.
There has been... talk. Rumours."
"Such as?" Ngaire snapped.
"Such as... Princess Hinemoa deliberately had a child who was less than one-third
Maori, to force constitutional change as part of a Pakeha-rights movement. Such
as, Princess Whina's miscarriages and illness are due to her being poisoned by
members of the other tribes who wish to see the throne pass out of Tangaroa
hands. Such as, Princess Melanie is already showing signs of high intelligence
and is therefore a better candidate for the throne, so the Constitution should be changed, and she
should inherit directly from Princess Whina. Suitably advised, of course, since
she will probably be very young when Princess Whina dies... assuming Whina is
not, ah, 'persuaded' to abdicate in her favour."
"I will not have my daughter
used as a pawn in some political game! And the idea that I'd do it myself -- oh, gods..."
"Who is saying this?!"
"Members of various tribes.
Anonymous letters to the press. Rumours, Princess Ngaire, that we haven't been
able to pin down. Yet."
No
decisions were made that day; Melanie's mother, Princess Hinemoa, insisted that
no decision could be made until Princess Whina was
well enough to join in the discussions, and they needed more information on the
rumours. They had a lot to think about.
So did Melanie. She might have been only five, but she was very intelligent, and she had some reading habits
that would have amazed her tutors. They thought she
was still reading Enid Blyton. So, she thought about what she had heard, and
decided two things.
One: Aunt
Ngaire was going to become very well acquainted with
Melanie's eight-legged furry friend.
And two: She had to do more research.
Thanks to that research --
conducted late at night in the family library when everyone thought she was
asleep -- Melanie expanded her vocabulary, gained a much greater appreciation of
the lengths to which people would go to get their hands on any inheritance, let alone one that involved a title,
and developed an addiction to murder mysteries. Murder mysteries and thrillers
were fun, and the best characters were the ones who
were always being underestimated, like Lord Peter Wimsey and the Scarlet
Pimpernel.
The idea of an
ineffectual false front over a competent core appealed to Melanie. Or, as she
put it to herself late one night, "If you look like you're no good at anything,
the bad guys get really surprised when it turns out you can do everything. And they lose."
In the end, there was no
constitutional crisis. Princess Whina recovered, and gave birth to a healthy
son. Rumours persisted for a while, saying that little Prince Hohepa was sickly
and possibly retarded, but they were squashed for good when the then
seven-year-old Melanie told a reporter that her cousin was already starting to
say his first words. In almost the same breath, she announced that she was glad she couldn't inherit, because she wanted to be a
dilettante. Ruling was too much like work.
----------
Some years later, when she
thrashed a visiting Han prince (one of her best friends) at every game of skill
he could think of (including Go, chess, and five-card stud), he looked at her in
frustration.
"You act like a
useless layabout most of the time, only interested in fun and money, and then
you do this! Why pretend?"
Melanie smiled at her
fifteen-year-old opponent, shuffling the cards again. "I Ching, hexagram 36,
Ming I. 'Concealment of illumination in a basket is beneficial if correct'."
He snorted. "Hexagram 44,
Kau."[1]
"Well, that's a
shame," she said calmly, starting to deal. "I'd rather like to marry you."
Tzu nearly snorked his tea. "Me?!
Why?!"
"I like you. We get
along together. You're only three years older than me, which is a good age
difference in a marriage. Your parents are discussing alliance against the
Theodorians with my aunt, and a marriage would strengthen that. You're a younger
son and I'm not in the line of succession, so it wouldn't cause internal
political problems, and it would take my children even further out of consideration for the Aotearoan throne."
She propped her chin on one hand, smiling slightly at his rather boggled
expression. "The throne's in good hands, Tzu. I don't want it; I don't want
people considering me for it. I've been working since I was five years old on not getting considered for it."
"Well... that's a good reason,
yes... but doesn't it mean that you can't openly serve your country?" he said
earnestly.
Melanie kept her
face straight with an effort. "I serve my country best by not being the cause of a constitutional crisis.
Besides, there's a lot I can do behind the scenes..." Like piloting a Gundam. Taniwha should be operational next
year; if the alliance works out, I might even be allowed to tell you about it by
then. She giggled. "Oh, don't look so worried, Tzu! I'm not about to march
up to your parents and demand your hand in marriage. I'm only twelve!"
"Right," he said, then paused. "Of
course... that's not to say I object to the idea," he said tentatively, picking
up his cards.
"Oh?"
"You're quite right. We do get along. And as the youngest son, I'm going to be
married off to strengthen an alliance anyway..."
"True."
"So... if you feel the same way
when you're sixteen... we could talk to our parents. If you like," he said
quietly, concentrating on his cards very hard.
"Sounds like a good idea to me,"
Melanie replied, looking fixedly at her own hand.
"Good. Hexagram 44 be damned. I much prefer 37. Or even
31..."[2]
----------
Three years after that
conversation, the remnants of Tzu's family arrived in Aotearoa as refugees. His
youngest sister sought out Melanie to pass on a message... and a gift.
"My brother wished me to tell you
that he regretted his inability to fulfil the agreement you had entered into. He
wished you to have this." Bowing, she carefully passed over a large silk-wrapped
box. "It is a family heirloom, a treasure of our country, something that should
not be given away... but our country is gone and what remains of our family is
scattered, and before he died our father agreed that it was best to send it to
someone who would cherish it. Besides, as my brother's betrothed, you are a member of our family, even if the marriage can
never..." She swallowed, blinking away tears.
Mel looked up from her examination of the silk. "I didn't
know he'd told you..."
"He had
to. Two years ago, there was talk of an arranged marriage for Tzu; he went to
our parents and explained. Father was angry, but Mother said she had met you
during the alliance talks, and she thought you were... deceptive, but
honourable. She believed you would do much for our country."
"I regret... that I did not get
the chance." Taniwha could have made all the difference
to that battle if I'd just been there, not half the
world away! "I would have liked to become better acquainted with your
parents."
"Father thought Tzu
had made a bad choice, but he relented when Mother took Tzu's side; and later,
he changed his mind. I don't know why, but he would have welcomed you."
"Thank you." Probably because he was told of the Gundam
project...
Once she was
alone again, Mel carefully unwrapped and opened the box. There was a bundle of
scrolls, fragile with age; a bundle of thin, dry sticks, tied with ribbon; and a
small pouch. Opening the pouch, Mel tipped three gold coins into her palm, and
looked at them for a moment before setting them aside. Then she gently unrolled
a few inches of one scroll and looked at the faded characters.
"I'll have to learn to read Han,"
she mused softly, looking at the ancient copy of the I Ching. "Ancient Han, at that. And learn the yarrow-stalks
method of casting hexagrams..."
Picking up the coins again, she cast them several times,
noting how they fell. "Hexagram 33. Tun: Retreat. Well... it won't be
forever."
-----
[1] Hexagram 44, Kau: 'Kau shows a female who is bold and
strong. It will not be good to marry such a female.'
[2] Hexagram 37, Chien Jo'e'n: 'The Family. The
perseverance of the woman furthers.' Hexagram 31, Hsien: 'Influence. Success.
Perseverance furthers. To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.'
~*~*~*~
Yawning, Mel eyed the drill squad
as they marched and counter-marched around her, sometimes heading straight for
her banana lounge until a bellowed command from Sergeant Palmer split their
formation and sent them past on either side. Fishing a last strawberry out of
the melting ice in the bowl, she grinned at one of the soldiers and flicked it
at his face.
"Hey Brenton!
Think fast-- ooh, nice catch. I bet you practice
with popcorn."
Chewing happily,
he made a smart about-face and marched away, both hands still firmly on his
rifle.
"Don't distract my
soldiers," the sergeant growled, stalking past and snitching some more
blueberries; Mel pouted.
"But
playing with them is so much fun," she whined,
fighting to keep the smirk off her face. "And he stayed in step--" She was cut
off by a huge yawn.
"I do hope we're not keeping you awake," Palmer said
sarcastically.
"No, no, really.
I find the marching noises and whatnot quite soothing," Mel assured her,
stretching. "Rhythmic. I've been dozing--"
"DAMN IT, STEPANOPOLOUS! IF ANYONE ELSE PULLED HALF THE
CRAP YOU DO, THEY'D BE DISCHARGED!"
Sergeant Palmer grimaced at the bellow. "That's not soothing. You can probably hear him all over
the base. Not to mention that we're not meant to use
your names! Hell, we're not even supposed to know
them..."
"I Ching, hexagram 41:
Sun, Decrease," Mel quoted primly. "'At the foot of the mountain, the lake. The
image of Decrease. Thus the superior man controls his anger, and restrains his
instincts'... and doesn't disturb the serenity of my digestive pause. Valeri is
definitely not a superior man. I will have to make
my displeasure clear. You can have the rest of the blueberries," she added as an
afterthought, getting up and strolling off in the direction the yell had come
from.
Emerging from between two
buildings in time to see the Jeep pull up in front of the main admin building,
Mel raised an eyebrow as she saw Valeri ushering a woman inside. "That's right,
he was supposed to be escorting someone today," she muttered quietly. "A
reporter, yet. And he says we're security risks? I
think I will go ahead with the
'Lieutenant-on-a-stick' project." She smirked, strolling towards her quarters to
fetch something. "But first..."
----------
"This is Valeri's personal Jeep, isn't it?" a cheerful voice asked;
Corporal Seau wasn't sure whether to grin or salute when he saw who it was. He
settled for the grin, since it felt a bit strange to salute someone who was
wearing scandalously short ragged cutoff jeans and a slogan T-shirt that
proclaimed 'THEY DON'T PAY ME TO CARE'.
"Yes'm, it is."
"Good!" Mel said, grinning evilly as she pulled something
out of a plastic bag and started shaking it. "You might not want to be a witness
for this; I'd hate to cause a conflict of loyalties."
"Uh... I see," he said, eyeing the contents of the bag. "Or
rather, I don't see. I don't see anything, and I'm not going to, because I think I'm
about to go for a long latrine break. That fruit I ate with breakfast must've
been a bit green or something..."
His grin was even wider than hers as he jogged off.
----------
After ushering the reporter into
the base commander's office, Valeri ducked around the corner to General
Petrenkovich's office and asked the staff officer on duty to request an
appointment for him.
"Just a
moment," the major said, one hand going up to touch his headset; then he looked
sharply up at Valeri. "He's here now, sir, asking to see you," he said into the
microphone. "...Yessir. Go right in, Lieutenant, he's expecting you."
Blinking in shock, Valeri
automatically straightened his uniform jacket and marched past the staff
officer's desk without another thought. A mere lieutenant didn't keep a general
waiting, after all!
It wasn't
until he was closing the door behind him that he actually wondered why the
General wanted to see him.
"Vot
the bloody hell you think you vere doing?" the General snarled dangerously as
Valeri turned to salute. "Yelling Two's real name in front of reporter! You have
any idea how many favours ve need to call in to keep it kviet?" Petrenkovich was
from Tatarstan, and his accent always got thicker when he was angry. Right now,
he sounded very angry.
Valeri gulped and slammed to attention, thinking
frantically. Did I-- oh shit, I did. "Sorry, sir!" he barked, eyes fixed on the wall above the
General's head. "At the time, I didn't realise I'd done it, sir!"
"Schtupid reason," he growled, glaring and running one hand
through his rumpled ginger hair.
"You lack self-control, Lieutenant," Madame Garnier said
coldly from her seat to one side. "Cultivate it."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"I deal vith your schtupidity
later," Petrenkovich snapped, waving one hand dismissively. "Ve handle damage
control first, see chust how schtupid you have been. So! You vanted to see me.
Vhat for?"
Valeri swallowed
again, starting to feel even more panicked. "Ah, actually, sir, this may not be
the best time -- I'm, er, supposed to be available to escort Ms. Yamamoto--"
"After that outburst, you're not
going anywhere near that reporter," Madame Garnier
snapped. "Someone else will be assigned."
"Schpit it out, man."
"Uh-- actually, sir--" Valeri bit the bullet. "I intended
to make a formal complaint about Pilot Two. About all the pilots, in fact, sir, but mainly Two. She's
undisciplined, insubordinate, has no respect for rank or regulations -- if she
were a normal soldier, sir, she would've been
dishonourably discharged within a week of enlisting!"
Petrenkovich laughed out loud. "Very stupid," he said scornfully, his accent almost
disappearing. "The pilots are not soldiers, they are civilians. Therefore, they
are not required to abide by military regulations."
Madame Garnier sniffed. "Also, if their status was
converted to military rank, they would be at least
colonels; more likely brigadier-generals. They don't respect rank because they
have it, and don't care. They don't think of
themselves as soldiers. Five calls herself a 'consultant'; Two prefers the term
'terrorist'."
"But, sir,"
Valeri protested, "even taking that into account, Two often doesn't seem stable! Why is she permitted to pilot a Gundam?"
"Because she can," Petrenkovich pointed out acidly. "Believe me when
I say that ve can build more Gundams far more easily
than ve can find more pilots."
"Two is actually doing very well, considering her mental
problems," another voice put in cheerfully.
"Mental... problems?" Valeri choked, turning slowly to
stare at the speaker. He hadn't even noticed the small, thin man sitting
inconspicuously next to Madame Garnier until he spoke. "So she is unstable?!"
"Oh, more than that," the man said calmly. "She's a
full-fledged split personality case. Two distinct personalities -- three,
actually, if you take into account the fact that Personality B is considerably
more... shall we say, intense, when she's in her
Gundam."
"So she's insane."
"If you must use that term,
yes," he said disapprovingly. "Due to childhood trauma."
"Then why is she piloting?!"
"Oh, it's not a problem! All her
personalities are quite rational and competent."
"I'm surprised you haven't noticed before now," Madame
Garnier said, eyes glittering with cold amusement behind her glasses. "Most of
the base personnel seem to have drawn their own conclusions, and decided it
doesn't matter so long as she does her job. Which she does."
"None of the pilots are what you
could call stable," Petrenkovich said impatiently,
"but they all do their jobs, and they are the only
people who can. For that, they can be forgiven almost anything. They do not have
to get along vith you, Lieutenant; you must make allowances for them. This is an order. I
vould transfer you to another base if I could, but because you know so much
about them I can not. I can, however, lock you up if
you breach security again; and I vill. Is this
clear, Valeri?"
"Yes, sir,"
Valeri said miserably.
"Good!
Dismissed."
"Oh, and
Lieutenant?" the small man called as he turned to go. "Do be careful around Two. You don't want Personality B to take an interest in
you."
----------
Walking out of the building into
the sunshine, Lieutenant Valeri took a deep breath and straightened his
shoulders.
I can do this. I can keep my temper under control and be
polite to the pilots. I can't honestly say they don't do their job, after all;
it's just the way they do it that--
He stopped short as he saw his
Jeep. His Jeep, his personal, shiny, new, perfect Jeep, was almost invisible under a tangle of
six different colours of Silly String... except for one side that had been
carefully left bare to display the piece of spraypaint art that had been
perpetrated on it.
'WELCOME TO
HELL', it proclaimed in large letters, and there was a small but detailed
cartoon of Valeri desperately running away from a pitchfork-wielding devil that
had a definite resemblance to Christina Stepanopolous.
Totally forgetting his earlier
resolve, Lieutenant Valeri took a deep breath and started screeching.
----------
Watching from around the corner of
a building, Mel snickered as Valeri circled his Jeep, raking away handfuls of
Silly String and ranting at the top of his voice. Glancing behind her as she
heard someone approaching at speed, she smirked as she saw Corporal Seau.
"Goodness," she said in a shocked
voice, backing away from the corner and leaning against the wall, "it seems that
some evil person has vandalised the good
Lieutenant's Jeep. I wonder who could have done such a heinous thing?"
"Don't ask me," Seau said, taking her place and peering around the
corner. "I wasn't there... Silly String?"
"Seems to be. I think spraypaint might have been involved,
as well. And--" A loud 'pop!' and a splattering noise came from around the
corner, and she grinned. "--I do believe that sounded like a paint bomb going
off. Did it get him?"
"Oh,
yes," Seau said, staring fascinated. "Bright green."
"Oh, my," she said primly. "That means--" Another 'pop!',
and Valeri's voice went up half an octave. "You know, some people would stop tugging at the Silly String
after they set off the first paint bomb. What colour
was that one?"
"Red."
"Oh, dear. That'll clash. I wonder
if there are any more?"
'pop!'
"Blue!" The corporal was starting to snigger.
"He's definitely a slow learner, isn't he?" Mel shook her
head sadly, then jerked upright as klaxons went off all over the base.
< < Red alert. Red alert.
All personnel to battle stations. Unidentified mobile suits approaching from the
east, visual contact only; no radar, no scanner returns, no response to our
demand for identification. Assumed hostile until further notice. I repeat-- >
>
Mel bolted for her Gundam,
yelling into her wrist unit as she went. "Taniwha, prep for combat! Hatch open!
Active scan for hostiles!" Bouncing up an access ladder and throwing herself
into the cockpit, she started trying to refine the scan as the Gundam moved out
of the hangar.
Patchy returns... very patchy,
even with the new upgrades, she thought as faint blips wavered on her
screen. Three? Four? Can't tell... they've got better
jamming and ECM than we've seen from Theos before now, that's for sure.
"Thought you'd catch us unawares, huh?" she muttered.
"Hexagram 1, Chi'en: 'In the third line, undivided, we see the superior man
active and vigilant all the day and in the evening still careful and
apprehensive. The position is dangerous, but there will be no mistake'!"
-------------------------
End WM
Chapter 1
-------------------------
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