Note: My first story up to the twenty-chapter mark. Yay!!
"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?"
--- Benjamin Disraeli
"A woman is like a tea bag. Only in hot water do you realize how strong she is."
--- Eleanor Roosevelt
"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
--- Booker T. Washington
Requiem for the Sinners Part 20
Sentinels Stand
Well, Wufei thought, it could be worse. I could be dead.
The control panel of the small Legion vessel spoke cheerily to him, in the voice of a professional-sounding woman. "Access code. Please give your access code."
Wufei glared at the machine's panels; it didn't appear any more complicated than one of the Preventer ships. That wasn't saying much, though; it was L2 design, home of the Sweepers and the best salvage techs on Earth and in the colonies.
"Startup, Alpha-I." For a few moments, the screens didn't acknowledge his request, and he cursed sharply under his breath.
Finally, it spoke again. "Login at 12:38:09. Our Name is Legion, we are many. VM/TSTAT not available. Request commence-flight subset/matrix."
Wufei scowled, then tapped in the request manually. -alpha-engines ignite-
"Subset."
"Fuck," Wufei snarled, his hands flying across the keys as he hit them harder than necessary. For one of the first times since the five of them had ceased to work together, Wufei wished to be working with Duo again. Only Duo could wade happily through this mess of computer nonsense without being driven crazy. It did not help that he was dressed in a baggy, hot tech's jumper that smelled like stale cigars and old takeout Chinese food.
-Pers/alpha/Ops-
"Invalid entry."
-alpha/Pers/Ops-
"Invalid entry."
-Personnel/Operations/Alpha-
" ...Please give your authorization code."
"Finally," Wufei muttered.
This he could handle. Almost all military ships required an authorization code to pilot them, and almost all techs carried one. The unfortunate man whose clothes he had taken was obviously not very bright, and had written the code on the inside of his jumper collar in permanent marker, the letters and numbers a child's scrawl.
Wufei tapped out the random mixture of numbers, symbols, and letters, then waited for the computers to process it.
"Welcome Charles Delrey. Systems operational at eight-nine percent. Begin ignition sequence?"
"Yes. Set to autopilot, Nat-... Legion."
"Affirmative."
Wufei tensed slightly as he felt the ship lift from the docking clamp, feeling the vibrating hum of the thermonuclear engines.
He closed his eyes.
I'm sorry, Yuy. But I can't save you now. You'll have to escape under your own power.
He had no doubt Heero could do exactly that, if it was what he wanted. But Wufei wasn't sure whether it was what Heero wanted or not. Heero was Heero... if he wanted to dispatch Maxwell and singularly bring the entire L2 fleet to its knees, Wufei was sure that if anyone could do it, Heero Yuy would be the one to get it done.
It was his motivation that was at question. If there was something Wufei didn't need against him, it was Heero Yuy and Duo Maxwell partnered again. They were deadly enough individually.
But if Maxwell is right...
Wufei cut that thought off sharply. He was a soldier, not a politician, and Maxwell's motivations were none of his concern. The Preventers were his concern.
Check that. Preventer hostages were his concern. He had struggled briefly with himself about leaving them behind, but if Wufei was anything, he was viciously practical. There was no possible way he could escape the colony with eighty-three Preventers, even if he could allocate a ship large enough to carry all of them. He didn't even have a chance with just his own Perfidy's forty-one. But Duo had been a fair captor, and none of them had been harmed so far...
He was just going to have to take that chance, and hope that Winner was negotiating their release. He knew that if anyone was chosen to speak with the L2 general, it would be Winner. Quatre could talk Eskimos into buying refrigerators.
But his sister was killed, Wufei thought, his face darkening into a scowl. It will compromise his judgement. And he is too emotional for the job.
There wasn't anything he could do about it over a thousand miles away, however, so he settled back into the pilot's seat.
Below, he could see but couldn't hear the other techs in the hangar shouting up at him, waving for him to lower the ship that was currently maneuvering itself through the open doors of the spacedocks.
Good luck, Yuy. He pulled the tech's cap down over his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest, letting himself drift off to a place where he no longer had to consider killing the only friends he had ever known.
~*~
"Ten hut!"
The twenty Preventer recruits in the class stiffened into salute in cadence, a young unit that would soon be honed into a lethal killing machine. They stared straight ahead, four rows of perfect killers.
"Let me hear it!!"
The sound of the young soldier's voices echoed across the African plains that constituted their training grounds. Flocks of startled birds flew up from the nearby lake, the sound of their wings beating the air. "We are Preventers! We are the world's best! We will not fail our countries! We will not fail each other! We will never surrender! We will fight, so peace may reign!"
Lucrezia Noin paced in the front of her newest unit, dark eyes fierce as she surveyed them critically.
"For those of you who don't know me, and that may be all of you, I am Major Noin, otherwise referred to by things slightly less flattering. You will call me Major Noin or Sir, or I will make your career in the Preventer Forces a veritable living hell. And this class is Firearms Intermediate and Theories Of Basic Warfare. If you're not supposed to be here, I suggest you leave now."
Not a single soldier moved, hardly even to breathe.
"You there!" Noin locked eyes with a girl in the front line of the unit that barely looked eighteen. "Can you tell me what the logical reason is for wars?"
The girl looked stricken, but answered within a few moments, with a textbook answer. "Scarcities within societies, mam."
"If that were true, with the excess of resources available to mankind, how could there be warring between societies?"
The girl couldn't answer.
"It's a trick question," came a new voice. Noin glanced over, smiling as Sally Po walked onto the field.
The blonde major winked at the female recruit, who relaxed visibly.
"Well, Major Po, can you enlighten us?" Noin answered drily, but Sally could see the amusement in her eyes.
"Of course. In all documented cases of war, the costs far outweigh the gains, in every single case, from capital to manpower." Sally smiled at Noin, who raised an eyebrow at her. "Therefore, though all people continue to fight, no wars have logical basis."
"And what is our goal?" Sally asked the recruit.
"To prevent war?" the girl answered, uncertainly.
"Don't ask me, tell me!!" Sally barked, eyes flashing.
"To prevent war Sir!"
"That's right," Noin answered quietly, looking them all over once more. She nodded once, curtly. "Ten laps around the compound. Go!!"
"Sir!"
Noin smiled a little as the recruits turned on their heels and broke into a swift jog, heading towards the far end of the training grounds.
"They're good kids," she murmured. She turned her head slightly, looking over at Sally. "When'd you get here?" she asked, her voice soft. "Aren't you supposed to be in Luxembourg?"
"Yesterday." The smile had faded from Sally's face, and she was all business again, her blue eyes dark.
"Why are you here?"
"It's the Council," Sally replied, scowling.
"And?" Noin said, feeling her heart sink in her chest.
Sally handed her a packet of papers, and Noin knew immediately what it was when she saw the seal at the top; it was a summons. "Our plane leaves in four hours," Sally said. "We've been recalled into active duty. Noventa wants to meet with us at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."
"Is it L2?"
Sally sighed softly. "What do you think?"
"I think we're in serious shit," Noin replied, turning back to gaze over the lake of Victoria Base.
~*~
In the offices of the United World Nations in the heart of the Cinq Kingdom, a soft knock came at the door.
Caleb Noventa answered the sound, breaking the stillness in the large office. Outside, sunshine poured in through the bay windows, filling the office with light. It was ironic, he thought, that the weather should be so beautiful, when the days were so dark.
He sat down the framed picture of Sylvia that he had been holding in his hands, turning it gently facedown as he looked up. "Come in."
A young Preventer, his uniform immaculate, came to a stop in front of Noventa's desk, touching his brow stiffly.
"You don't have to salute me. I'm civilian, remember?"
The Preventer looked properly abashed. "Ah, I'm sorry, sir."
"At ease, anyway." Noventa looked up at the soldier, brow furrowed. "What do you want?"
"General Gwinter Septem told me to inform you that we've received notice that the second admiral of the Perfidy has been executed by Maxwell."
There was silence in the office for a few seconds. The Preventer fidgeted slightly, unable to help himself.
"And?" Noventa asked, his voice suddenly harsh. "You expect me to be surprised?"
The young soldier flinched, as if he had been slapped. "N... No sir."
"Then you won't be disappointed. How did we come across the information?"
The Preventer looked more than a little uncomfortable, his hands clenching at his sides. "Former Gundam pilots Quatre Raberba Winner and Trowa Barton spoke with Maxwell personally. From what I was told, he killed her while he was talking on the vidphone. In front of them."
"Winner and Barton. Then they're cooperating with the Council..." Noventa trailed off, his gaze distant.
"Sir?"
He looked sharply back up at the soldier standing in front of his desk. "You're dismissed."
The Preventer nodded and walked out, shutting the door behind him. Caleb stood and walked over to the bay windows. It overlooked the ocean, and the sun on the waves dazzled his eyes. He didn't try to shield them.
More bad news, courtesy of the colonies. The damned colonies. He remembered the phone call his family had gotten when his grandfather's shuttle was shot down by colony terrorists; he had just turned eighteen a few days before. His mother had thrown the phone down and screamed, a furious, grief-stricken sound that had reminded him of a hawk. She would not allow his father to comfort her.
Sylvia had just stared out the window, not crying.
The same way he was now.
Noventa sat back down, turning the photograph over on his desk again. It was only taken a few weeks before his sister was killed, and he thought it was the best one he had ever seen of her. She was dressed in plain blue jeans and a blouse, her arms around her knees. There were flowers in her hair.
Without warning, he slammed his closed fist on the front of the picture frame.
The piercing sound of shattering glass filled the room.
TBC...
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