Arabian Nights Part 3
Beach Boys: Fall of the Innocent
Tense as a hunted animal, eyes burning from lack of sleep, Quatre rolled out of his sleeping bag with the first light of dawn that set the desert dunes aflame. He had spent the night wondering whether it was worth endangering the lives of his friends, bringing them to a place like this. It was not their type of battle. They had every reason to turn the mission down. But he had not. He could not let his friends be killed. Assassinating Sanaa did not mean he could stand by and let his fellow pilots-and his Maguanac soldiers-be gunned down trying to help and protect him.
Who was this al' Babi, the rebel they were supposed to be meeting in the city, the one who was supposed to help them? What game was he playing? Was their mission already known and countered? Were they walking into a trap?
The others, including Rashid, gave no signs of apprehension this morning. The only grievance Trowa had was that it was too hot. He had rarely fought in such oppressive heat, sticking mainly to arctic and northern climates.
Duo walked up next to Quatre, scanning the horizon from the dune he was standing on. The American looked in the same direction, shielding his eyes with his hand.
"This is one big fucking beach, Quatre. You could walk for miles and miles with your surfboard and you'd still be where you started off. Wasn't so bad a century or two ago. Now that they pulled all that fancy irrigation shit and sucked all the ground water out, it's almost totally sand, ain't that right? A beach in search of an ocean, that's what this is, buddy. A beach that never ends."
Quatre glanced sharply at Duo, hearing the strange note of dreamy foreboding in his voice, and when the American pilot ignored him, he looked back out across the desert.
// That's right, Duo. And you know what you call a beach that never ends? You call it a desert. Biggest motherfucking desert this side of the Sahara. // But he did not voice his dark thoughts. He almost hardly ever did.
Duo laughed suddenly, a sound that reminded Quatre of Heero in battle, a desperate, almost frightening laugh. "No Beach Boys," he said, shaking his head in mock dismay. "Biggest fucking beach on the planet, and there ain't any Beach Boys. Course, the Beach Boys have been dead a couple of centuries or so. Welcome to Surf City, bud. Surf City sans surf, of course."
He walked off as abruptly as he arrived. Quatre watched him walk off to argue with a Maguanac soldier--who didn't speak English--over breakfast. Quatre shook his head, having only the slightest idea of what Duo had been babbling about. Though, that wasn't really disturbing; he hardly ever understood what Duo was babbling about.
The five of them shared a quick breakfast of yogurt, honey, and dates with the Maguanacs. Afterwards, Quatre handed out tubes of dark cream foundation makeup. "We've got to look more like Arabs."
Heero smirked, almost invisibly. "You are the one that needs the most camouflage, and you are an Arab. A platinum-haired Arab."
"Don't forget about those pretty blue eyes, Heero," Duo interjected from behind him, taking a tube of the makeup. "He sticks out like a sore thumb in this place."
"Me and my blond hair will not stick out for long," Quatre shot back, managing a weak grin.
By the time Rashid had arrived in the camp, Trowa and Heero had daubed their faces as dark as their Maguanac companions. Duo and Wufei declined to disguise themselves, Duo on the grounds that he was going into the city as a missionary priest, Wufei simply because he felt disguise as a form of subterfuge was cowardly. Quatre had gone off to make himself up alone, and when he returned, all of them were shocked.
"Quatre..." Duo stuttered, trying to find the right words. "Y... Your hair!!" He looked ready to faint at Quatre's disfigurement. Even Heero looked surprised, and Trowa raised both eyebrows dubiously.
Quatre walked out into the middle of them, almost completely transformed. His skin, which had been mostly a mostly pale and fair complexion, with just a sheen of gold in it to show for his Middle Eastern ethnicity, was now as dusky and bronzed as the darkest-skinned bedouin Maguanac among them. His hair and eyebrows had been temporarily dyed a murky brown color. The only thing that was recognizable was his eyes, the same iridescent sky blue they had always been, emphasized all the more by his darkened complexion and hair.
"That... is sufficient," Heero remarked, a note of wonder in his normally monotone voice.
The pilot of Sandrock looked around at them with scrutiny. He knew from a mirror that he would pass for a native-born Arab, blue eyes in all; the bastard son of a Westerner, perhaps, but an Arab nevertheless.
He could do nothing about Wufei's stubbornness, but since it was Wufei who was going to meet with the rebel group based in Khamis Mushayt, he would be that much more easy to spot and rendez-vous with.
Duo... well, he'd just have to stick with Duo and protect the American as best he could. Saudi could be extremely dangerous... especially for someone who didn't know when to shut up.
Trowa's bangs and makeup were good enough concealment for his face to allow him to pass through the city without his face sticking out in anyone's mind later on.
Heero, however, was the real problem. His makeup was good enough, and his hair was naturally dark, but his fierce deep blue gaze was entrancing and Quatre knew it would be noticed and remembered. His stance and attitude and cold cunning instantly marked him as a soldier in a militant country. In his sand-colored battle fatigues, at best, he looked like one of the numerous terrorists that stalked the cities of the Middle East.
"What is it, Quatre?" Heero asked suddenly, startling the formally blond pilot out of his investigative reverie.
Quatre shook his head, taking a step back and looking at them all at the same time. // ...This is never going to work. But... I have to make it work. //
"Nothing, Heero." He gestured them over to one of the tents along with Rashid, and sat at a card table set up in it. The rest sat accordingly. Rashid sat with them, pulling out a chair and sitting carefully on it, as if testing to see if it could hold his immense weight.
Though the basic objective of the mission had been delivered to Quatre, it was up to him, as the best strategist among the Gundam pilots, to choose the best course of action. He pulled out maps of the nuclear storage facility at As Sulayyil, the city of Khamis Mushayt, and a nearby mobile suit base near At Ta'if. His plan was simple and breathtakingly daring.
Both the mobile suit base and the nuclear storage and testing facility were being equally guarded by OZ, but if there was an attack on the mobile suit base, reinforcements would be sent from the nuclear site, leaving it less stringently shielded. They would then go in full-force at the nuclear site using the Maguanac Corps and rebels against the military regime OZ had set up in occupied Saudi. With luck, they would be able to take over both bases, kill Riyadh Sanaa, and confiscate the conventional nuclear bombs in Saudi Arabia, the some of the last left in the world. When all the dust settled down, Quatre had every intention of sending those god-forsaken things into the sun.
The mission perimeters were set down. Quatre and Duo would enter the city and get information out of the city's governing dictator, Youssef Hamaar, forcibly if necessary, which Quatre was sure it was going to be. Heero and Trowa would attack the small mobile suit base at At Ta'if on foot, with a dozen Maguanac soldiers under their command, six in mobile suits, six on the ground. Wufei would venture into Khamis Mushayt on his own and await the leader of the rebel group that was going to help them disarm the nuclear weapons.
After setting out his plan, Quatre stood silently in front of his friends, awaiting their reactions. "That's well thought out, Winner," Wufei admitted grudgingly.
"Right. Then it's settled," Trowa said.
"Yes." Heero's answer was-like the soldier he was-cold and completely unhesitant. Quatre could see that the Japanese pilot was willing to lay down his life for this.
// When has he ever been unwilling? // Quatre thought to himself, with a sense of awe.
"Let's do it, Q-Man!" Duo cheered, standing so quickly he almost knocked his chair over backwards. Quatre turned his back to them for a moment. He heard Heero's voice from behind him.
"I agree that this country has a serious problem, Quatre, but you know that this sort of operation is usually outside our line of operations. You have a personal motive in this mission." It was a statement, almost accusatory, and not a question.
Hesitantly, Quatre turned back to them. "Ever since I came to Earth, I have put aside my moral codes and ethic beliefs in order to bring peace, even if I have to do it through combat. Because of the people I've already lost to war. I don't care to lose any more. But..."
Quatre's attention wandered slightly, but he caught himself, meeting their gaze again. "It's one thing to discover that an organization you've backed has hands that are soaked in blood. Not only the blood of your enemies, but of your comrades, as well. To find out that you yourself were an accomplice in their deaths..."
"Quatre..." Trowa started, hesitantly, to stop him, but Quatre went on.
"OZ has enslaved these countries by taking them over," Quatre continued, his voice choked with emotion. "Killing innocent people because they were too prideful to be overthrown by a bunch of aristocrats." His hands were balled tightly at his sides. "Bosnia, Serbia, Luxembourg, the Cinq Kingdom, Iraq, Iran, Colombia, and yes, even Saudi Arabia. Or any of the other places I've killed and watched others killed in the name of peace and freedom. But can you imagine what it was like to discover that the only freedom I could find anywhere on this planet that anyone of power or influence was interested in was the freedom to control and oppress?"
"I'm not a fool, Heero, although I'm sure you think I'm naive enough sometimes," he added, gazing coolly at the Japanese pilot. "At least, I don't think of myself as one. Why, then, didn't I see it? Any of it? The international trade organizations and security alliances my father had stood alongside, whose authority my family guaranteed--did they ever stamp out tyranny, exploitation, genocide, in any of the places we were told they would? Did they ever bring peace to any country?"
Quatre slammed his fist down on the table, incensed. Duo recoiled from him instinctively, not used to seeing the quiet and pacific blond pilot like this. "But my father continued to hope. We were once aristocrats in Romefeller, after all. Until Operation Daybreak, my father was an influential colonial leader in the Alliance Pacifist Party. He continued to plead with them, to try and make peace with them, and let our own people in Saudi be killed while we begged at their feet for reconciliation. And still I continued to believe that peace could be achieved. But why should my grandparents have been assassinated for that kind of tyranny? And why didn't I see it before there was no chance to stop it from happening?!"
"What does it matter now? You wanted to be deceived, just like Relena does." Heero replied, quietly. "They're dead. Nothing can change that. You know it, and so does she. She just doesn't want to admit that pacifism is a waste of bloodshed."
"Heero!" Wufei's voice was stiff with anger. Even he could not see the sense in the cruelty of Heero's words.
But Quatre's somber expression returned, and he smiled gently. "Thank you, Heero."
"I apologize-"
"No, it's alright," Quatre interjected, running a hand through his hair. "Thank you for not patronizing me with false comforts. I did want to be deceived. I wanted to believe the lessons I'd learned as a child. When my grandparents were cremated and sent back to our estates on L4, I wanted to believe that they had died in the name of pacifism and peace. Something deep inside me told me I was being foolish, that it was stupid to refuse to fight and ultimately die for pacifism, that I couldn't let the same thing happen to my father or any of my family. For awhile, my belief in pacifism fell apart."
He smiled at Rashid. "I began to band the Maguanacs in Saudi, and back at home, I learned everything I could about the revolt that was stirring against the Alliance. By the time I began gathering information about the entire movement for rebellion in the colonies, I was a ghost in my own home, one who, having been deceived, learned to deceive. And I would have ended up backing White Fang if I hadn't met one of the Gundam engineers. That's how I ended up joining you."
He walked towards the entrance of the tent, stopping in the doorway. The harsh desert sunlight streamed around him, leaving nothing of him but a dark silhouette in the doorway.
"Now we have to prove to the people of Saudi Arabia that the oppression caused by OZ here can be stopped."
With a rustling of the tent flap, he was gone.
TBC...
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