De Profundis

Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I own Gundam Wing... no really I do.  What do you mean you don't believe me!?  Fine, you got me, I don't really... they belong to much more talented people than myself ::crosses fingers:: :P

[Space Colony JX00019]

Getting past that dog would have been child’s play compared to this.   Perched on top of the huge warehouse that obviously held something this colony wanted to protect, Zechs surveyed his chances.   He knew that it was going to be risky, but it was the only way he could get inside, all entrances were guarded and there was frequent shift changes, whatever was in here they didn’t want anyone to see it.   He looked down one last time; he could see that he was above some sort of control room.   Probably where they controlled the machinery. He pondered.

The glass section of the roof was less than stable; he would have to remove the panels slowly, very slowly.   If he lost his balance and one of them fell, it would all be over.

Pinching his skin lightly he forced his fingers under the first panel, the glass made a gritting sound that sent a shiver down his spine.   Stopping to assess whether the guard below had heard, he held his breath.   No reaction.   Good.

As soon as it was released from its 4-year resting place, Zechs quickly discarded the sheet of glass.   It took at least 30 minutes, but he finally removed enough for him to squeeze inside.   It was one hell of a long drop, but he knew the pain would be momentary, he would just have to be fast enough to subdue the guard before any he could alert anyone.   Making sure no one was looking in his direction, Zechs lowered himself inside hanging by his fingertips.   The sight he saw was shocking, rows and rows of those dreaded machines that were supposed to have been destroyed, that caused an era in human history to be ashamed of.   His surprise caused him to loose his grip, hurtling him towards the floor.   The deathly thud as he hit the ground triggered the guard, making him rush over to the fallen intruder.   Zechs couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the uniform he wore.   His last silent thoughts as the guard approached him were of Relena, and how he had failed her once again.

[Earth: Sanc Kingdom Capital City]

The cold tears fell one by one down her face; she made no attempt to stop them.

Relena didn’t know whether to hate Heero or throw herself into his arms, thanking God that he was still alive.   She wanted to do the latter, but her anger and pride had stopped her.

“I keep hurting you, that’s why I did it.   No matter where I go, you’re there.   This was all I could think of to make you move on with your life.”

His words ran through her mind, reckoning her emotions.   

He didn’t want me in his life.   He wanted to make me move on, and forget him.   Doesn’t he know that he might as well ask me to stop breathing?

He was a necessity to her, she didn’t want to admit it sometimes, but she couldn’t live without him.   Her strength, her confidence, it all came from him.   Upon realizing he was actually alive, it was like she had been brought back to life herself.   But the anger that welled up within her was tainting what joy she could experience from his return.   She silently wished she could forgive him, but how?   He made it crystal clear last night that he didn’t return her feelings.   “Its not what you think.”   She remembered his words again.   Then what is wrong then? Why can’t he express how he feels?   Even if he hates me I deserve to know.

His unexpected arrival last night had overwhelmed her at first, she didn’t even think about the fact that he was supposed to be dead.   She was too caught up in the moment to even be concerned about it.   She would have slept with him; she would have made love to him last night if he hadn’t stopped it.   She wondered if she would regret it now if they had.   Who am I kidding?   For a split second her true emotions broke thought the wall of hurt and rage.   She smiled blushing slightly, but it quickly disappeared into a jaded sigh.   She could forgive him, but not like this, not if he refused to open up to her.   She had feelings too, and they could only take so much damage.   She was only human, and no matter how hard it was to believe sometimes, so was he.

A quiet knock on the door broke her from her troubled thoughts.

“Relena? Are you in there Miss Relena?”   She turned startled at the familiar voice.

“Noin, come in.”   She pondered for a moment whether or not to tell Noin of Heero’s appearance, and that she knew about what they had tried to do to her.   That recognizable anger filled her veins just thinking about it.

Stepping in silently, Noin tried to make out the figure standing by the vast latticed windows, the Sun’s glare shrouding her view.

“Relena, are you ok?   I saw you come from your room, you seemed upset.”

“I’m fine Noin.” Her tone gave away nothing, not looking at Noin once.   “Was there anything else?”

“Yes, Lady Une wants to meet with you and the ESUN council from Preventer headquarters to discuss the situation with JX00019.”   Relena let out a solemn breath.

“Very well, make the arrangements.”   Noin wasn’t used to Relena being so cold and distant, ever since Heero had disappeared Noin had become a sister figure somewhat, to the young Vice Minister.   Hesitating slightly she asked again.

“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong Relena?”

“I’m sure.   If that is everything, I’d like to be left alone.”   At her last words, Relena turned to face Noin, her face was stained with evidence of her misery.

“Oh Relena.”   Noin thought that Relena’s nights of crying herself to sleep were over; little did she know.

“Noin, please.   I just want to be alone, just for a while longer at least.”   Her voice was soft, demanding Noin to understand.

“Alright.”   Noin agreed, defeated. Never taking her eyes off the wreck of a girl she once knew, Noin felt a rigid anger, anger at the people who did this to her, anger at herself.

Relena closed her eyes upon seeing Noin’s retreating figure.   She couldn’t hate them; Noin, Quatre, her brother, but she didn’t know if she could forgive them.   Their reason for doing what they did was to protect peace, and prevent her from suffering a cruel fate.   Yet, Heero was altogether different.   He would rather live his life alone than face me?

Glancing at the door, Relena brushed the side of her hand across her face, removing all evidence.   She headed back to her room.

[Later that day…]

Relena stared across the conference table straight out of the window.   The tranquil beating of the morning rain had turned into an abysmal thunderstorm.   It wasn’t typical Sanc Kingdom weather for this time of year, she wondered frivolously if it was her own heavy heart that caused the heavens to cry out.

“Are we boring you Vice Foreign Minister?” The angered voice of ESUN’s President cut through and silenced all the other voices..

Sighing Relena drew her attention back to the meeting.   “Not at all.”   All eyes were on Relena; she knew that her silence during the meeting wouldn’t go unnoticed.

“I believe that with the experience of our last war with Dekim Barton we shouldn’t be so imprudent.   To think that we can just ignore this and it will go away is ludicrous.”

“Yes but Minister, we have no weapons to defend ourselves from Col. Dourchov.   If he decides he wants to attack we have no way of defending ourselves.”   The concern was evident in the young politicians voice.

“We don’t even have the Gundams anymore, the only reason we came out on top in the last battle was because those young pilots assisted us.   Those Gundams disappeared years ago, now we could be destroyed in the blink of an eye.”   After that comment, all hell broke loose; Relena listened for a while before interjecting.

“Gentlemen!”   Relena shouted, creating a gradual silence.

“We cannot loose ourselves in conjecture.   If Col. Dourchov decides to attack, then we must be ready.   The Gundams were there before, but they aren’t here now.   We can’t expect to be able to rely on them every time someone picks up a weapon wanting to wage war.   We have to accept that and prepare for the worst.”   Noin fixed her eyes on Relena from across the table, scrutinizing her features trying to see any emotion.   There was none.   Still, Noin couldn’t help thinking Relena was talking indirectly about Heero.   The silent shock and delayed agreement by the council members was ended abruptly by the voice of the Preventers chief commander.

“You’re absolutely right Vice Foreign Minister.”   A shuffle of chairs, as everyone turned to her, signaled to Lady Une that she had everyone’s attention.

“Chief Commander Une, you’re late.”   Une glanced over to the President, as she took her seat next to Relena.

“I apologize sir, I had an urgent matter to attend to.”   Une nodded to Relena.

“More urgent then discussing the future of this planet?”

“It couldn’t wait sir.” Was Une’s only reply.   With a stifled grunt from the President, the conversation continued.

“I don’t see that we have any choice.   We’ll have to begin production of defense systems immediately.”

“Defence systems?   By that you mean weapons!”

“If we don’t do something then we’ll be taken over by Dourchov and that colony.”

“But if we create weapons of any kind we would be going back on a promise we made to the people of the ESUN.   They would surely never forgive us for such an atrocity!”

“What’s the alternative? Be taken over and lead by a man that will surely bring us all into another dark chapter in history?!”

Relena listened again as they threw back and forth the same argument, she had to admit that sitting back and doing nothing, hoping their pacifism would lead them to salvation was foolish, Dourchov would almost certainly take over without much effort at all.   But the alternative was to take up arms and begin another war.   The options were not good.

“What about peace talks? I thought all Dourchov wanted was independence, we can buy ourselves more time if we tried to negotiate peace with JX00019.”   Une stepped in before anyone could answer.

“Independence was a smoke screen he created so he could manufacture Gundams without the threat of being discovered.”   The room went silent in a flurry of confused grunts.

“Dourchov was never interested in independence from the Earth Sphere, he wants control.   By declaring independence he was able to start constructing Gundams right under our noses, without the ESUN’s inspections he was free to use the whole colony as a base for his army.   He doesn’t care about independence at all.”

“The rumours that Dourchov is creating Gundams are exactly that, rumours.   No-one knows what happened to that carrier, it could have been destroyed, space is a dangerous place, who knows-“

“Don’t be such a fool!   Not only did a gundanium carrier go missing but civilian carriers too.   Are you telling me that is was one big coincidence that it all happened in the vicinity of JX00019?”   The warring politicians were momentarily silenced.

“Lady Une, what is the Preventers take on the situation? What do you think we should be doing?”   Lady Une stood up, and walked to the front of the table.

“I believe that standing by and doing nothing is fool-hardy.   We would certainly be signing our death warrants by sitting back and waiting for Dourchov to attack.”   Seeing the smirks on several faces around the table Une raised her tone.   “However, what I am about to tell you, you will not like.   Not one bit.”   Relena looked up at Une, her eyes held nothing but an earnest desire for forgiveness, Relena didn’t know whether she wanted to hear this or not.

“After the battle with Mariemaia’s Serpent mobile suits, we became tragically aware that we are defenseless, and open to attack at anytime.   Its all well and good saying that we don’t wish to be involved in anymore battles or wars, but there is always someone, somewhere that has other plans.”   Taking a deep breath she continued.   “So, I decided on my own accord, to resurrect one of Oz’ mobile production plants.”

[Space Colony: JX00019]

Foster had to prevent the Gundam structural error being put on him.   He needed to find and silence the scientists as soon as possible.   The ones who originally designed the Gundams that they had been building for the past 3 months.   Lost in thought, and ignoring his aide’s call of concern; Foster stormed into his well-furnished office.   Whatever he was going to do, he had to do it fast.   Tapping away at his computer he eventually came across a file on the Gundam pilots.   He knew that the same men created those pilots’ Gundams, and that one of them had to know where they were.   He skimmed over the names until his eyes settled on the image of the young blond heir to the Winner Corporation.

“Ayane.” Upon hearing her name, Fosters aide appeared.

“We’ll be needing some equipment Ayane.   The information I need for my new assignment is here.”   Tapping on the image of the Gundam pilot, the young inexperienced soldier looked puzzled.

“I need to break into the Winner family’s private database on L4.”

[Earth: Sanc Kingdom Capital City]

“Are you out of your mind!?”   The President’s sudden outburst almost made Relena jump.

“Sir, I understand your disposition, but I felt it necessary to maintain some sort of defense after our experience with Dekim Barton.   His campaign made it all too clear that we could be taken over at anytime.”

The president frowned.   He knew that she was right, but it didn’t resolve the fact that she took it upon herself to build more mobile suits, however, Relena beat him to his question.

“Why didn’t you inform anyone else of what you were doing?”   Lady Une looked down at her young friend, her eyes were again pleading for forgiveness.

“I knew that if it became a general matter then there would have to be consensus.”   Une looked back at the council members, a hard look on her face.   “I knew that the majority would be against re-building the Taurus mobile dolls.”

Relena looked up sharply.   “Taurus mobile dolls?   Why would you re-create those awful machines?”

“It’s a fact that the Taurus mobile dolls were the most powerful suits we had next to the Virgo’s.   We didn’t have the resources to create Virgo’s unnoticed, so we settled with the original Taurus models.   We never intended for them to be used, they were just a precaution…” Une glanced back at Relena for one last time.

“…and without the Gundams we need them now, more than ever.”

Relena looked up at her colleagues.   All of them seemed to reluctantly agree with Lady Une’s reasoning.   Still, Taurus mobile dolls were not going to be enough.   Getting up slowly, Relena excused herself from the meeting; the council members staring at her as she left.  There was still something she could do.

***

Relena slumped into her well-worn chair, examining the files before her, everything was going so wrong; she didn’t have a choice anymore.   These files she had sealed so long ago, now re-opened was all she could do to assist the Preventers.   It was only a few short months ago that there was peace, and she was struggling to fill her time.   But now, now the Earth was on the brink of war, the brink of occupation.   She drew her mind from the events of the day, swiveling her chair to view the rain.   It was still raining, it was comforting in a way, the sound of rain hitting the pane was soothing, but it kept returning her mind to Heero, and the way she had left him this morning.   When she returned to her room he had gone.   She wasn’t surprised really, he was dead to the world and he had revealed himself to her and she didn’t know why.   She had been determined to find out, but he had already left.   She feared he wouldn’t ever return.   Relena got up from her leather recess, to place a warm hand on the cool glass.   She closed her eyes and let her mind remember better days.

“Heero please, come back to me.”

“Relena?”   Her eyes flew open as she quickly looked at the unannounced visitor.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t answer when I knocked.”   Quatre stepped fully into the sparse office.

“Quatre? My god, Its been so long.   When did you arrive?” She went to his side, taking his hand in a friendly gesture.

“Only a few hours ago.   I’m sorry I missed the meeting.” Quatre’s voice was poignant, hiding nothing of his emotions.

Relena just sighed in response.   “Then you haven’t heard?”

Quatre lightly shook his head.

“Lady Une.   She has been working on a defense system.”   Seeing Quatre’s oblivious look, she continued.

“She has created an army of Taurus mobile dolls.”   Quatre’s expression became contorted, a mix of anger and confusion.

“It gets worse.   They’re currently being stored on JX00019.”

“What are they going to do?”  

Relena sighed once again.   “I’m not sure.   With all communications severed with JX00019 there’s no telling what’s going on over there.”   Quatre made his way over to a chair facing Relena’s desk.

“After everything we’ve been through, everything we did.   Will it ever end?”   Relena shook her head.   Silence answering his question.

“Quatre.   I have to ask you something, and you must tell me the truth.” Quatre lifted his head slowly.

“What is it?”

“The scientists the created the original Gundams.   Do you know their whereabouts?”   Quatre was again confused.

“Why would you want to know that?”   Relena retreated to sit in her chair behind her desk.

“Someone had to of created Dourchov’s Gundams right?   I can’t think of anyone else who could have created them.”   Quatre nodded somberly.

“I agree, but how would knowing where they are help us?”

“If there’s anything they can tell us about the new Gundams, anything at all, then we need to find them.”   Quatre shook his head once again.

“Even if we found the slightest weakness, it wouldn’t matter, the Taurus suits are no match for Gundams, especially if Dourchov has made them into mobile dolls.”

Relena looked back over to the files she was inspecting before, she picked them up and threw them in Quatre’s direction; they landed softly before him.   She stood again walking over to the window.

“Maybe it was fate that brought you here Quatre, because if I am going to do this, I will need your help.”

Quatre lifted the manila folder from its resting place.   His eyes widened as he saw what was inside.

“Where did you get these?”

“It doesn’t matter, the real question is…” Relena turned to face him. “Will you help me build them Quatre?”   Quatre’s shocked expression didn’t leave his face for one second as he looked back down at the images of the pilots’ lost companions. Sandrock, Deathscythe, Altron, Heavyarms and Wing Zero.

Finally the disbelief settled, a serious expression taking over his features.

“Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.”