They sped towards their enemy, grim with determination. They were met by a wave of mobile dolls. With a wild scream, Wufei charged into their midst. Heero broke away from the groups and shot off, in search of Zechs. Brekke drew Guardian’s double bladed saber and Duo fired up Deathscythe’s thermal scythe. Together they charged into the fray.
“No, wait…!” Quatre shouted after them, but they were already gone. His face came up on Trowa’s communication screen. “We have to fight together, Trowa! Heero said so. There are just too many of them.”
“We’ll be fine, Quatre.” Trowa told the boy calmly. “Just let them go.” Then he entered the battle. Quatre watched Heavyarms go in desolation.
“I told you Heero, I’m not strong enough to do this.” he whispered to himself. He closed his eyes for a moment, then joined the others.
Wufei grunted as he drove his thermal weapon into a mobile doll. He then ripped it out to defend against another attacking him from behind. Duo hacked through two at a time with great swings of his scythe.
“I hate fighting mobile dolls!” he snapped angrily.
“I hear you!” Brekke told him as she darted between suits, letting her thermal blade do her work for her. Trowa whipped out Heavyarms’s knife when a mobile doll attacked him too close to use his rifle.
“They aren’t fighting individually anymore.” he observed. “They’re using formations now.”
“I noticed that.” Brekke said. She had begun to pant with the effort of keeping ahead of the mobile dolls. “There are too many of them, Trowa. What’s going on?”
“Someone must be controlling their movements!” Quatre mused. “But how? And why?” He, too, was panting. The dolls were catching up to them. He closed his eyes for a moment. We can’t keep fighting separately, or eventually the mobile dolls are going to win. We have to start working together. In one decisive movement, his fingers typed ZERO into Sandrock's main frame. The cockpit began to glow. “No choice but to master the system now…” he told himself, and braced his shoulders.
The information poured quickly onto the screen and into his mind. He felt the madness that he had been suppressing stir, and he forced it down stubbornly. The system was trying to grip him. With a strength he had not known he had, Quatre fought the data feeding into his senses. Then suddenly, it all became clear. He saw the pattern in the madness. They were possibilities, endless possibilities, of how to beat the formations the mobile dolls were using. With each movement the enemy made, the Zero system predicted its outcome and offered up ways to counter it. “Wufei! Fly through that group of mobile dolls! Duo and Trowa, you aim all your fire at where Wufei was! Brekke, come down at those suits from above!” he barked out without thinking as each counter came up on the screen.
“Can do!” Duo said, grinning wildly.
“Alright.” Trowa acknowledged, turning Heavyarms.
“Now that’s a plan!” Wufei said.
“I’ll say it is!” Brekke agreed.
Wufei shot through the mobile dolls. They had been in the process of rushing towards were he had been. The movement of Altron was too quick for the dolls to realize their prey was gone. By the time their programs allowed them to realize their target had moved, they were destroyed by the massive firing from Duo and Trowa. Two dolls had been too slow in reaching their target and had managed to stay out of the firing range. Brekke’s Gundam shot between them. As they turned down to view her and lock her as a target, the lines where her saber had slid through them glowed, then exploded. There was massive cheering from the pilots, well, minus Trowa of couse. He just smiled.
“Alright!” Brekke shouted. “Take that! Quatre, I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but keep it coming!”
“Ok, Duo, you fly straight up. Trowa, to the right, and Wufei to the left. Brekke, be ready.” They followed his command without question. When the boys were done, the pursuing group of mobile dolls had knotted themselves together tightly between Quatre and Brekke. They quickly sliced through them. Inside his cockpit, Quatre couldn't seem to keep the smile from his face. “I did it. I really did it. I’ve mastered the system…”
One lone Aires worked its way through the battle and towards Libra. It went unnoticed, as it was not a Gundam. Hilde smiled to herself. This was going to be easier that she had thought. She made it to Libra with only having to destroy 6 mobile dolls. She couldn’t believe it. Getting on the ship was just as easy. With Zechs fighting Heero, Dorothy otherwise occupied, and Quinze barking orders on the main deck, no one paid any attention, or even saw, the slight figure in the space suit come though the door as more mobile dolls were dispatched. Not one soldier noted an unidentified girl slip into the hallways of Starship Libra, and begin her systematic search for an unattended computer.
She found one in the third hallway she searched, and shutting the door behind her, she began to hack. Once she had all the information on Libra she could possibly find, she saved it all onto a disc and slid the small piece of software into her bra, where, hopefully, no one would find it if she was discovered. She began to head back the way she came, but she had been so uptight just trying to find a computer, that she had not paid much attention to where she had come from. She was lost. With a sigh, she wandered until she found a door that looked familiar. She took out her skeleton key card and slid it through the door lock system. The door slid open and she stepped inside.
Relena glanced up as her door slid open, praying it was not Dorothy. She didn’t think she could stand one more minute for that girl’s incessant chatter over war and beauty any longer. To her surprise, a slight girl, dressed in causal clothes and with dark hair styled similar to Noin’s, entered, then stared at Relena in shock. Clearly it was not what she had been expecting. Relena stood.
“Hi, my name is Relena Peacecraft, who are you?” she asked pleasantly.
“H-hilde” the girl said. “Relena Peacecraft?! What are you doing on board Libra?”
“I’m trying to stop my foolish brother from fighting this terrible war. I’m trying to make him see it won’t solve anything.”
“But, you’re in danger, you can’t stay here!” Hilde began. “The Gundam pilots are figh-”
“The Gundam pilots?! Do you know them?” Relena interrupted. “Do you know Heero Yuy? Is he alright? Is he out there?” Hilde took a moment to sort out all the questions and answer.
“No, I don’t know Heero Yuy. But I know Duo. I’m taking them some data on the Libra that I downloaded, so they can defeat the White Fang. Relena, you have to come with me, they are planning to attack this ship!” Hilde told her. Relena shook her head.
“No, I can’t. I have to stay here until my brother sees what he is doing is wrong! I’m sorry. But please, take your data to them Help them defeat Libra.” Relena pleaded. “I’ll be alright.”
“Ok.” Hilde said, accepting the girl’s wish. “But how do I get to the hanger from here?” Smiling, Relena told her, then Hilde left quickly and quietly, determined to bring that disc to Duo. ,hr>
Quinze glanced to the radar next to the keyboard almost absently. It was unimportant right now, with the battle going on. But something caught his eye. One of the dots was moving steadily away from Libra.
“Computer, bring up image five seven A.” he said. Thee main screen zoomed in on the image. An unidentified Aries was making it’s way away from Libra. As if had just been there!
“Sir, there's been a breach in the system.” one of the men said suddenly. “It was hacked into it seems.” Quinze glared at him.
“But that can only be done from inside the ship.” he said.
“That’s correct, Sir.” the man said. Quinze got on the loudspeaker. Send the Mercurious and the Vay Eate dolls out after that Aries!” To himself, he added, “The pilot has to be the one who did it! But why?”
Hilde realized that the two mobile dolls that had popped up on her radar were not just passing by, but following her. She had zigzagged a little to be sure, and every time she altered course, the enemy dolls followed accordingly.
“Damn! How did they discover me so quickly?” she wondered. She sped her Aries up. “I have to get this disc to Duo and the rest of the pilots. I don’t know if this suit can can handle two mobile dolls at once!” She strained forward, urging the suit onwards toward Peacemillion.
It did not take long for the Mercurious and the Vay Eate to catch up with the old Aries. They attacked her from behind, toying with her like cats toy with mice. Hilde was jostled between the two suits as she tried to fight back. However, the shield was too strong. She realized, as her head cracked against the wall of the cockpit from another hit that caused a few of the minor systems to short out, that she would not make it alone. She got on her communication screen, opened it up to all lines running into the Peacemillion.
“Hello, h-hello? Do you read me? This is Hilde. Duo, can you hear me?” she paused as a sparks from a short circuit came into contact with her skin. She fought a scream. “I have a disc for you! It contains all the information on Libra. But, these mobile dolls are too much for this Aries! I need help-aaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhhh…” Static broke the connection.
Duo indeed had heard. His body was cold and numb from the transmission. He came to at the scream at the end, and realized that Brekke had just stopped a mobile suit from blowing his scythe clean out of his grip.
“HILDE!” he gasped.
“Duo, go to her. We can hold out here without you, she needs you more!” Brekke told him, her face appearing on his communication screen. He nodded grimly. “Thanks Brek.” He turned Deathscythe around and sped towards the struggling Aries.
Hilde felt herself blacking out. She tried to fight it, but her eyes were rolling around in their sockets with the effort, and she just couldn’t seem to find the energy. She had already given up fighting the dolls, she was too weak. She just concentrated on moving forward, and staying conscious long enough to get the disc to Peacemillion. She was almost gone when one of the suits was flung wide of her. She glimpsed a black blur.
“Hilde! What the hell are you doing out here?” he snarled, facing off with the suit. He noticed the distinct red color of the suit. He gasped.
“The Mercurious!” he whispered. “They made it into a mobile doll!” His blue eyes narrowed. “Well, we’re not gonna let that bother us, are we Deathscythe? It’s still just a machine!”
He attacked it viciously, and the suit fought back with more force than he anticipated. Soon he was sweating and panting with the effort.
“What going on here? This suit… It’s like…like…” he trailed off as he watched the mobile doll for another second, then the realization hit him. “It’s like fighting Heero! And that other, it’s the Vay Eate! Trowa!” He shook of the shock. If he let it get to him, he might not make it through the fight. And he had to, for Hilde’s sake.
The two dolls attacked him together. He hacked and slashed and dodged and most of all, he prayed. He just needed to make it through this one little battle so he could get Hilde some medical attention. She was just so stupid for coming out here all alone like that! Thinking about her gave him the anger he needed to fight back. He fueled his rage and took it out on the two dolls. They may have been programmed like Heero and Trowa, but no machine could ever be like fighting a real pilot. He held onto that thought, and it was the final encouragement he needed to rip the two mobile dolls apart. When he was done, he floated back to Hilde’s suit and towed her back to Peacemillion. .
