Note: Sorry this has been so long in coming, but real life really killed me this month. (Fighting with friends, and raising wild possums in my apartment, and whatnot.) Hopefully, chapters will start coming more regularly again, not only for Requiem, but for everything else. (And yes, Mal and Solly are kicking my ass in The Update Wars.)
"Hear me as you walk in darkness
You can walk with me, I'll be your guide,
your light, your right
Know me, I see through your mask
I'll walk the same dark path you fall on
I'll lead you home, I'll lead you..."
--- Lethanon, In Requiem
"Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie sun? Where is my happy ending? Where have all the cowboys gone?"
--- Paula Cole, Where Have All The Cowboys Gone
"I'll march this road
I'll climb this hill
upon my knees
if I have to."
--- Tim Capello, I Still Believe
Requiem for the Sinners Part 33
Thirty Pieces of Silver
"Move aside."
The young L2 soldier posted in front of the darkened shipping hold where the Preventer hostages were being held jerked at the tone of the voice addressing him, looking up from where he had been leaning half-asleep against the door. "Sir?"
"Let me in."
"Y-Yes sir."
The figure moved into the shipping hold, moving with the shadows, seeing heads move towards the light, dozens of sweat-sheened faces, mussed hair, blindfolds.
"Commander Chang?"
Wufei's expression was inscrutable as he threw the soft gag that had been in his second admiral's mouth to the side, then unlocked the handcuffs where someone had fastened her good wrist to a pipe, rubbing her wrist clinically to make sure that her circulation returned to normal.
Chandler stared back at him, but he avoided her eyes. He couldn't look at the circles under her eyes, her hair unwashed and falling into her face, the bruise at her temple, the stretched and starved angles of her cheeks. He didn't want to see the hurt in her eyes. Or the betrayal. What she was thinking of him now, he couldn't even begin to guess. Her voice when she called his name had been that of a little girl.
He couldn't look any of them in the face, even though he felt forty-one pairs of eyes on him. The shame was too great for him to bear.
He stood and moved to the next soldier without speaking, repeating the acts of liberation. He kept his eyes on his work. He could feel the young man he was freeing tremble under his touch, but whether it was fear or exhaustion or something else, he didn't know.
"Commander!"
Startled, he reluctantly brought his eyes up to Chandler. Whatever little girl had been hidden in her tone before had been killed. Now he only heard the decisive, authorative voice of his second-in-command.
He could read the questions chasing each other through her eyes. How did he get there? And he was letting them go, but why was he in an L2 pilot's uniform? And why wasn't any of the L2 soldiers stopping him?
/I'm sorry, Chandler. I really am./
"Help me free them, Allie," he ordered softly, not meeting her eyes. He wanted to, but was afraid. He wasn't humiliated because he had betrayed them. He was humiliated because he couldn't admit it aloud.
It was the first time he had ever called her by her first name.
He saw the realization rise in her eyes. She lowered her head as she stood, moving to take a second keycard from his hand. She wouldn't look him in the face as she worked clumsily, the splint over her wrist making the work difficult. The young man she freed first whispered over to him with ecstatic relief. Wufei thought he probably wasn't even old enough to vote yet, much less drink. "Commander! Thank God you're here! They were talking about killing us all!"
"He knows," Chandler replied. Wufei had to repress the urge to flinch at the tone of her voice. It was flat with accusation.
"Just get them loose. I'll give them over to you," Wufei said softly, moving over to release his opposite commander, Asano Akira. The elderly commander, close to the age of retirement from the force, was gazing at him with the coldest look of speculation Wufei had ever seen. Though he had probably killed more men than the older commander, the weight of age in that dark gaze was intimidating even to him.
He removed the gag from the commander's mouth.
"Chang, what are you doing?" Asano said, his voice only loud enough to carry between the two of them.
"What I have to do, sir," Wufei replied softly, moving to remove the elderly soldier's handcuffs. As soon as he had, the man moved as quickly as a snake. Wufei saw it coming, and could have moved to avoid the man's grasp, but didn't. He simply stared back at his fellow Preventer commander.
/Duo was in this same position once,/ Wufei thought, looking into Asano's eyes, the man who had been his ally only days before. /Only then, I was the one who didn't believe./
"I don't think you heard me, boy," Asano said, a little louder. There was a warm tone of anger in the man's voice, but Wufei didn't think it was betrayal. "I asked you what in the hell you think you're doing? Whose side are you on, anyway?" A few of the bound Preventers looked at them uneasily.
"I side with the people, Asano. I always have."
The commander narrowed his eyes at Wufei, and the look of contempt in them was scalding. "I've heard of you, Chang, and I know what you did for the colonies. I thought you were a man of principles."
"My principles are what brought me to this point, sir," Wufei replied. He felt the urge to drop his eyes under that intimidating gaze, but he knew somehow that to do it would be to condemn himself. As a child, he had been taught that only a man unsure of his path would dare look away from those who doubt him. He couldn't afford to have others question his path; he barely knew it himself, the way was so dark.
/But I've chosen to believe in it,/ he thought as Asano stood. The man stood over him an easy foot, but he just stared up at the man, trying not to clench his fists at his sides.
"Give me your wings."
"Commander, what's going on?" Almost all of the other Preventers were freed, standing around them both, instinctively moving to either side that their commander stood. The looks of fear and uncertainty of his own men were paralleled by those of anger from Asano's.
Forty Preventers faced off each other, and from the tension in the air like an electric current, Wufei knew what he had to do. He reached into the pocket of the L2 pilot's suit he was wearing, pulling out the silver wings he had salvaged from his uniform. He felt the firm, cool weight of the silver piece in his hand for a moment, running his fingertips over the ridges. He had worked so hard for that medal. Two years of humiliating himself to the bureaucracy, two years of being an overtimer and a paper tiger, two years of kissing ass to those who had been his enemies.
But it was also two years of raising bright and idealistic young peacekeepers, teaching them that their superiors weren't the only thing they were responsible for following. Two years of teaching that killing was not courage, fighting without cause was not valor, compassion was not cowardice. Two years of teaching all the things that he had never known at their age.
/No more./ He looked at Chandler, and the expression on her face was torn. Before, there had only been fury at him there. Now she understood.
He placed the wings in the older commander's callused, wrinkled hand, then removed the pistol from his right hip, holding it out butt first. He felt empty as the man took both from him, and clenched his hand back at his side, to hide the expression of loss.
"Commander Chang." Chandler stepped forward, beside him, and he found himself shamefully relieved at her presence there. She glared at Asano. "He isn't your superior. He doesn't have the rank to do that, sir."
"I know," he replied softly. He turned away from Asano, facing his own men. He made his face hard and authoritative, which was the opposite of what he felt. They looked at him expectantly, and he would not disappoint them. He expected to be terrified speechless by this point; he was a soldier, not a politician, and he had never been any good at speeches. But he thought about Duo's eyes when Duo had looked into his face, the tattered street kids shaking coins in Tupperware bowls, the tears of relief and gratitude in the eyes of civilians receiving rations, and he had no trouble speaking. His voice was easy and firm. The voice of a leader.
"I want you to leave L2," he said. "I want you to go back to Earth, and return to your families. This is a war, and you are not warriors. This is work best not left to you. If you never listen to another order from me, you will listen to this one. I'm naming Chandler your new commander in my absence, so do what she tells you."
Low murmurs filled the shipping hold. He heard dismay and surprise in their voices.
"But sir. We don't want to leave you. You're our commander." A young man stepped forward, and Wufei realized it was the one who had been knocked unconscious in the hijacking, one of the helmsmen of the Perfidy. Alexander Rice, by his ID.
He could tell that the boy was from L2; the young man's hair hung past his shoulders, tied back with a piece of cord. It was fashionable among the younger soldiers of that colony to wear their hair long, even though it was frowned upon (probably because it was frowned upon). Wufei thought he knew exactly who to blame for that particular inspiration.
He scowled down at the young man, trying to put on a stern, courageous face, even though he had never felt further from brave. "If I'm your commander, you'll follow my orders."
"I'm not leaving." The young man's eyes never left him, a bright innocent blue-green that reminded him of Quatre. There was none of Quatre's gentleness in his voice, however. Just as there never had been in Duo's voice. It was a voice forged of broken bottles and neon.
"That's an order, Rice." Wufei looked to Chandler, who stared back at him with an expression he couldn't read. Her eyes weren't cold anymore, not like they had been before. She stepped forward, as if she wanted to touch him, but didn't quite dare. "Chandler, order your men to evacuate this colony."
She flinched when he called them "her men."
"What do you intend to do, Chang?" Asano asked. He had stood silently across from Wufei, watching and listening, and startled the younger commander when he finally spoke. A few of the soldiers jumped.
Wufei looked back to him, resolved. "See that no injustice is done here."
The older man scowled, then spoke more softly. "You really trust this Maxwell so much?"
Wufei hesitated a moment, then answered. "...With my life."
"We won't leave," Rice repeated. He grabbed at the small, silver round medal at his breast, the one that identified him as a part of the Preventer Space Forces. There was a ripping noise that seemed to reverberate through the room as he tore the medal from the cloth, letting it fall to the floor. His eyes never left Wufei's face.
/What did I ever do?/ Wufei thought, looking into the boy's eyes. They were eyes that were prepared to die for him, if that was what was called for. /What did I ever do to deserve such damned loyalty?/
His head ached with all of it, and he turned away, ashamed. He glanced at Asano. "You will take your men out of here. I know you don't agree with what I'm doing, sir. But I hope you can understand why I'm doing it."
Asano looked around at them all. Over thirty young men and women, men and women who had barely learned how to hold a weapon, young men and women who hadn't even had their uniforms for a year. He took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh. Wufei could see how old he was in that moment, the fine white streaks in his jet black hair, the crow's feet around his eyes. The commander's hands were shaking.
/Too old. Too old for a war. Not another war./
"I understand. But I have grandchildren, Chang."
Wufei nodded a little. "Yes sir. Go to them." Chandler's voice came from slightly behind him, words that weighed heavy on his heart.
She looked around at them. "I relinquish my orders. Take them from Commander Chang, like you always have. If you want to leave the colony and return to base, do so now. Step forward. No one will call you a coward. You won't be mocked for your choice. If you wish to remain here, to fight whatever battle our commander has for us, then stay. I'm staying. So is Rice. Who else will fight with us?"
No one moved. Then, as if an unseen and unheard wind swept through the hot, dim shipping hold, someone's medal hit the metal floor with a high, bell-like sound. Others followed, sounding like chimes in the half-light.
Asano's men looked to him, and the old commander's shoulders slumped slightly. But his voice was strong.
"I'm returning to headquarters. Those who wish to come with me can. Those who wish to stay with Commander Chang will be under his orders."
A little less than half of the Valkyrie Preventers lined up, respectfully handing him their medals. The others stayed at his side, looking at their defecting brothers with a mix of longing, hurt, and anger. /How could you do this?/ their faces said. /How could you turn against us? How could you fight for them?/
One of Asano's men turned to Wufei. His voice was soft, but Wufei could hear a sadness in it. There wasn't any anger there. Only regret.
"Pardon me, sir. I'm not going to try to stop you, but I have to tell you...what you're doing is folly. There's no way a rag-tag colonial army can stand against the Earth, not even one led by Maxwell. If you're truly the man your reputation advertises, please reconsider. You're signing your own death warrant, sir. And those of your men."
Wufei shook his head. "Perhaps. Most likely. But I've seen what these people have gone through. If we simply stand by and allow what's happened to them to continue happening, injustice will spread from this colony to the next. It's not just a matter of L2 anymore. It's a matter for all colonists. I won't see these people suffer under a tyrant from thousands of miles away."
"But sir, you're going to die for people you've never even met."
Wufei smiled gently, in a way that made the younger soldier back away. His voice was kind and somehow terrible. "When you joined this corps, what exactly did you think you were getting yourself into?"
The soldier fell silent.
He turned to the rest of them. "Nobody has to stay."
"We know," Rice offered quietly. "But we are."
Wufei lowered his head for a moment, almost in surrender, then turned back to Asano. When he spoke again, his voice was calm with dry and unquestionable authority. "I'll escort you and whatever men you'll have to a ship. You can get back to HQ, and tell them what you've seen here. But use whatever story you like." He thought he saw a small flinch from the elderly commander at that last.
He glanced at his men again. "I'll instruct the guard at the door to show you where you can clean up, rest, and get some food. I'll come to you with your assignments later, after I meet with General Maxwell."
"Yes sir!"
~*~
"You met with Maxwell?"
Wufei leaned up against the wall of the shipping hold, where Chandler was standing, waiting for him. The rest of them had gone on to find beds in the pilots' quarters. But she had waited. Waited for him.
"Yes. I think 'The more the merrier' were his exact words. He trusts you if I trust you, is what he means. I think. I can never really know for sure what Maxwell means, to tell you the truth. I'm not sure if it's an American thing, or if it's just him."
"And Asano?"
"I told him that there were no hard feelings between us, but if I saw him on the opposite side of a battlefield, I would count him as my enemy."
"What did he have to say to that?"
"He said he was considering early retirement."
A soft, somehow harsh laugh came from Chandler, and she shook her head. "You're a piece of work, Wufei. You really are."
First name, he thought in confusion, but when he looked into her eyes, he understood. /Ah. She's forgiven me, but she hasn't forgotten. She won't forget, either. She'll catalogue it away in her mind in a file with my name on it. Save it if she ever has to bring it up again. And why?/
"'Cause she's a woman," Wufei muttered, then burst into laughter, his first genuine, bright laughter in a long time. It startled a smile onto Chandler's face, even though she tried to scowl at what he said. "What about being a woman?"
He shook his head, waving it off, still laughing softly. He looked up at her, his voice quiet and serious again. "You don't have to do this, you know."
"Give me a little credit. Of course I know."
"Then why?"
"You may trust that Maxwell and his second-in-command, but I don't. If things go wrong, I want to be around to be able to say I told you so."
Wufei stared down the distance of the long, silent corridor. It was night, now. And things were peaceful. So deceptively quiet, too far from the hospital wards to hear the screams there. But he had a feeling that things wouldn't be quiet for very long.
"If things go wrong, I doubt you'll get the chance."
TBC...
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