Chapter 22

            They were state of the art in every way - the beautiful silver-gray metal of the Titan Tomcat IV fighter plane glimmered in the pale purple light of dawn as the sun began to peek over the horizon.  Heero ran a hand over the sleek surface near the cockpit – so similar and yet so unlike his gundam.  There’s no place in this new world of peace for weapons, he thought bitterly.  Until someone realizes how much money is to be made from manufacturing weapons, maintaining weapons, and advancing new weapons.  Even Quatre was no exception.  No, he hadn’t built them, but he sold the metal, the base materials, the resources to the company knowing full well what they would do with them.  It was only luck that had caused Boyd Aeronautical to go belly-up before paying the Winner heir, and that the Maguanacs were not so forgiving as to not repossess the goods.

Heero had almost laughed when he hacked the warehouse database and found five pristine fighter planes sitting in storage, just begging to wreak havoc and destruction.  It had taken no time at all to give them a thorough check over, and run the necessary test flights before loading them up on the massive shuttle the four battle hardened soldiers took to Earth.  Quatre had agreed to let them have whatever they needed, but couldn’t reconcile his conscience to go with them.  He believed that they should wait and see how the legal battle turned out.  Heero sneered at the optimism and naiveté of such an idea.

A heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder and he turned to face his former enemy, now comrade on this grave mission that stirred Earth’s fiercest warriors out from under their welcome blankets of peace.

“Promise me you’ll take care of her.  I can live with never seeing her again as long as I know she’s safe.”

Heero nodded and met his sober gaze.  “I will.”

The hand was lifted from his back and Heero saw platinum blonde hair whip around as the older man walked away, towards his own craft.  He was already dressed in his black flight suit, and under the crook of his arm he carried the vengeful mask of Zechs Marquise once again. 

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Heero reached up to flip the switch to the air controls and then went back to running down the checklist.  He paid extra attention to his communications link as it was the key to Operation Decoy.  Tap tap tap, the information he needed appeared onscreen – the wiretaps were in place and appeared to be functioning normally.  He should be able to seize control of all comlinks leading from the Cromwell base using the computer he had installed especially for the mission.

Trowa pressed the green button down and heard the engines roar to life.  He took a deep breath and worked to mentally prepare himself for his part in this very precisely planned operation. He and Heero had worked out all the details with some input from Zechs, but when it came down to it, Operation Breakout rested on his shoulders alone.  He bowed his head and said a silent prayer to a God he wasn’t convinced existed.

Suddenly a shrill beeping sound interrupted his meditation and he fumbled for his pager.  It’s Catherine, she’s uploaded something to the server.  Worry creased his face in fine lines about his eyes and mouth.   I hope that she’s all right.

Duo paused briefly to listen to the mechanical thunder of the engines in the hangar before donning his helmet and programming the first part of the flight course into the plane’s navigation system.  “Warning, adjust altitude,” it screamed at him in bold red letters.  He entered the override command and with a last warning blink, it accepted the flight path, with an altitude setting far below what was considered safe or even sane.  But they had to stay low, below 1000 feet, so as to avoid detection by radar devices.  Operations Decoy and Break Out relied heavily on the element of surprise being on their side.  An arrogant smirk appeared on his lips, Stealth operations – my specialty.  36% chance of success might as well be 100. We’re on our way, Relena…

Milliardo lifted the mask to stare into its empty, hollow eyes – the eyes of man bent solely on revenge.  It had served him well all those years he had sought to avenge the deaths of his family at the hands of the Alliance.  He once foolishly believed that he could live in peace like the rest of the universe and never again have to wear the cold metallic prison of vengeance around his heart and obscuring his face.  Relena, I swore I’d protect you, my dear sister…

Without another thought, he settled it on the crown of his silken hair, his head bowed with the weight of a responsibility greater than himself.  Slowly, he raised his regal head, the familiar pain and determination flashing in his ice blue eyes hidden from the world beneath his mask.  She wears the crown of peace, and I must wear the one of death…

Heero’s icy monotone crackled in over the comlink device.  “T minus three minutes and twenty-two seconds ‘til takeoff.  03 will go first, Zechs will follow, then 02.  I’ll bring up the rear.  Flight paths have been programmed into the navigation system at an altitude not greater than 900 feet.  Keep your eyes open for subs and enemy aircraft.  Zechs must reach Hidelburg completely undetected in order for Operation Decoy to succeed.”

Trowa’s face blinked onscreen, green eyes glittering in the electric light as he seemed to look through the panel at Heero himself.  “The penalty for a failed mission is death,” he said in a voice that was eerily quiet.

Heero scowled fiercely at the image. “Just bring her back,” he replied coldly.  He had no intention of killing anyone.

He wasn’t supposed to have to anymore.

Trowa’s hand came up in a smart motion, and rested on his forehead in salute.  “Understood,” he said in a clipped tone, like a soldier given an order by a commanding officer. 

He held Heero’s gaze a moment longer through the wonders of technology, and in the depths of the turbulent sapphire eyes staring back at him, Trowa could see the question, and the fear.

I’ll fight for her, Heero, if it costs me my life. But I do not envy the one you will be fighting the rest of yours.

Today is not a good day to die.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

The powerful engines sang in deadly harmony as the four men prepared for takeoff into an unknown future.  Trowa finished his last inspection of the instruments and double-checked his flight path directly to Preventer headquarters in Luxembourg, again at an altitude below 1000 feet.  He placed the helmet onto his head and gave the appropriate hand signal to Heero before grabbing the thruster bar and easing it forward.  The pitch of the engine changed and the Tomcat started forward slowly.  He drove it into position on the abandoned runway of an old Oz base that the men had commandeered for the mission.  Then with a last deep breath and a nervous tug at the collar on his old Preventer uniform, he pushed the bar to tip the engines into high gear and shot down the stretch of concrete at amazing speed before launching into the brightening sky to the east. 

The other three men took off in quick succession, and the four conspirators rocketed expertly through the air towards their destinations, Trowa and Zechs in the lead, Duo and Heero following behind, flying in loose formation. 

“Trowa, I’m counting on you,” Heero said quietly just before the former Heavyarms pilot reached the breakoff point, his sleek fighter falling out of formation and turning at a thirty degree angle as it rocketed off towards Luxembourg and Preventer Headquarters.  His friend’s words echoed in his mind, The penalty for a failed mission is death.  “We cannot fail.  It is not our own death that will be the penalty if we don’t succeed.”

His train of thought was interrupted suddenly by a loud beeping noise coming from his navigation system.  They had reached the first checkpoint over the Western European airspace – somewhere over what had once been Italy.  His voice crackled over the comlink as he put his fighter on autopilot in order to begin remote hacking the Cromwell base’s master communications controls.  “Radio silence commencing. You know what to do,” he said in a commanding tone, then immediately set to work cracking the necessary codes and bypassing encryptions to seize control of the security cameras on base.  After a few more minutes, the picture of the main structure appeared on his computer screen. 

Plink plink plink. Windows with images from each camera feed quickly opened in succession, overlapping one another as the desktop on his monitor was flooded with pictures.  First objective achieved. He thought grimly, but it brought no cleansing relief to the anxiety in the pit of his stomach.  He looked up from the active matrix screen and took the flight controls back as the mechanical wonder continued to slice through the smoggy atmosphere at breakneck speed towards its destination.  Up ahead, Heero saw Zechs’s fighter fall out and break hard to the right, leaving the telltale white streak behind in the sky.  Second checkpoint acquired.  Mission proceeding, he told himself and cut back on his speed.  He and Duo were coming up on Cromwell airspace, and they couldn’t reach that point too soon.  Timing for this part of the plan was of the essence.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Mission control

Luxembourg

Preventer Headquarters

            The communications officer blinked at the anomaly and gave the unit a ‘friendly’ tap, but the light would not come back on.  He figured it was just a burnt out bulb, or shorted fuse, but his job was to check to make sure everything was all right.  He pulled on his headphones and tried to contact the Cromwell military installation located in the center of the Western European Region.  “Cromwell, we’ve lost contact, come in.”  There was no response.  He tried again.  “Cromwell, come in, Cromwell.”  But there was still no answer.  Fighting down the feeling of panic that ran through his veins, the junior officer punched a few buttons trying to bring up the security camera feeds.  It took a few moments, the connection seemed sluggish, but finally, the live feed of the main building appeared on screen.  Everything looked quiet and normal, which brought a calming feeling of relief.  He needed to check all the cameras, though, and see if he couldn’t find out why radio contact had been lost.  He knew he would also have to report the outage to the colonel.  Taking a deep breath, he set about his duties.

Hidelburg Airspace

West European Region

Unmanned former Alliance base

            Zechs swooped down, surveying the old relic of a military base once in a wide arc around its perimeter.  It was abandoned, left over from the former Alliance military, and untouched for several years.  Its twin, the Cromwell military installation, built by the Earth Sphere Unified Nation in AC 198 lay not even 100 miles away.  And if the other members of his team were in proper position, then it was about to bear witness to a most interesting battle. 

            Zechs checked the clock on the navigation system.  Two minutes and twenty-two seconds, he thought grimly, and turned the fighter around to make another wide pass around the base.  He flicked a few switches and watched the greenish glow of the artillery control panel come to life. 

One minute and fifty-three seconds, he continued the countdown, as he selected the Geiger-one missiles, and felt the panels open in the underside of the wing.  Mean looking streamlined shells dropped down, appearing to dangle from the either side of the metallic bird, like prey caught in the merciless talons of the predator. 

One minute and sixteen seconds.  The red light came on, indicating that the system was checking the missiles for operability.  It quickly changed to green, indicating the instruments of destruction were armed and all was ready.

Forty-seven seconds.  Zechs flipped open the top on the joystick-like flight control, gaining access to the firing button.  He placed his gloved thumb on top of it, as he flicked his wrist to make the last adjustment in flight path, shoved the throttle forward, and dipped the nose of his plane to make a viciously fast run at the main building on the Hidelburg base.  He had to make this look good, but it was Yuy’s job to cross the signals of the security cameras and make it appear as though he was attacking the manned base.

Five, four, three, two, one… He pressed his thumb into the red plastic and released the missiles, while pulling up on the controls to miss the top of the building.  It erupted underneath him in a cloud of billowing white smoke.  Zechs changed course, making a wide arc in the sky in order to get back into position and do it all again.  Here we are, Preventers.  Come get us.

Mission control

Luxembourg

Preventer Headquarters

            The junior communications officer finished checking through most of the security camera live feeds coming from the Cromwell base, then made the call to Colonel Une.

            “Colonel, we seem to have lost radio contact with Cromwell.  I have done a thorough check of all security camera feeds, and everything appears to be quiet.  Perhaps it is a malfunction of some sort on their end.”

            Lady Une frowned at her officer.  She didn’t like the sound of that.  If the Cromwell base had been having problems with their main control system, there should be some back up battery-powered radios or some other way of contacting Preventer Headquarters to apprise them of the situation.  “You’ve tried calling?”

            “Affirmative.  We can not get through on any lines.”

            “Keep watching the security cameras for now.  I’m on my way.”

“Yes, Colonel,” he replied and terminated the connection.  With a slight yawn, he switched back to the feed of the main building.  Everything looked so quiet, he wondered if anyone was up and about.  He was about to flip to the next feed when a strange shadow appeared on the face of the stone structure.  The shadow loomed larger and separated, becoming two distinct shapes.  His jaw dropped in horror as he helplessly watched missiles materialize from amidst the dark shapes just an instant before the large stone and steel building exploded in a fiery cloud of dust and debris.  Without thinking, he stood up and cried out.  “Oh my God!” as he flew into a panicked flurry of activity trying to call the Colonel again.

            Lady Une appeared annoyed at the interruption, but annoyance was quickly replaced by an ice-cold feeling of dread as she took in the look on her officer’s face.  The pale, shocked young man finally managed to stutter out. 

“C-c-colonel.  Cromwell base….Cromwell base is under attack!”