The Forgotten

Chapter 4

by Dustin

“Duo, report.”

Duo glared at the offending speaker. It had said that every ten minutes for the past four hours. He toggled his comm system on.

“Target is still moving on heading one-one-six mark two. And it is still moving at thirty-eight thousand kph. Oh yeah, and it still doesn‘t look like it‘s heading anywhere in particular.”

Calder laughed. “I know. I just thought I’d bug you.”

“Don’t push it, new boy,” Duo warned. “I can still kick your butt if I have to.”

“But you said you were bored. I thought you’d like some company.”

“Don’t call me again unless the base is on fire, okay?”

“Roger that. I’m gone,” Calder said with a laugh.

Duo sighed and closed the channel. Okay, this assignment hadn’t been as fun as he thought it would be. He thought something exciting might have happened by now.

Ten minutes later. “Duo report.”

Duo responded. “Hey, I was just about to call you. You’ll never believe this, but the freighter just made a waste dump!”

“Oh, wow! We’ve been waiting for this to happen. I’ll tell Colonel Une.”

Suddenly an alarm went off. Duo frowned at his sensors. “Hang on Calder, I think something’s up.”

“Roger. Standing by,” Calder responded, suddenly serious.

Duo studied his readouts. The surrounding radiation level had just jumped to three times normal. He analyzed the readings, his brow furrowing. It almost looked like the energy signature of… Oh no, he thought.

Suddenly a blinding flash of light enveloped the cockpit. Duo shielded his eyes. He blinked. Then saw a critical light flashing.

On instinct he threw his mobile suit to the left just as powerful beam of energy lanced past him. “Calder, they have some kind of ionic weapon. They disabled my cloak, and the freighter is armed with a beam weapon!” he said as he dodged another blast. Something dropped from the freighter’s bay. Four somethings actually. They streaked towards him. “The freighter just deployed four of the gundanium armored suits. I could use a little help.”

“Arys and Trowa are ten minutes from your position,” Calder reported. “Colonel Une says to try and not lose the freighter.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Duo muttered, dodging a blast from the Taurus style beam cannons. He took out his scythe and activated it. He flew straight towards the Gemini’s, dodging their attacks. He singled one out and raised his scythe, preparing to bring it down into the other suits beam saber. At the last second though, he rolled away and swept past the suits. Almost immediately, Deathscythe shuddered as fire hit its back.

“Good reaction time,” Duo muttered. The freighter had cloaked again and Duo quickly scanned his instruments for any sign of it. There. It had changed coarse. Duo turned to follow, the Geminis close behind. The freighter decloaked and rerouted the power to the beam cannon. It fired and the blast scarred the decorative ornament on Deathscythe's chest.

A growl started low in Duo’s throat as a cold fury welled up in him, one he hadn’t felt in quite a while. The growl escalated as he brought his scythe down. It went straight through the beam weapon, cutting a two meter gash in the hull. Breathing hard, Duo quickly fired his engines backwards as the Geminis caught up. Two moved in close with their sabers and the other two tried to circle behind him. Duo activated the beam on his shield without firing it and met the first saber with it, and the other with his scythe. The Geminis quickly pulled back and slashed again. This time one scored a hit on Deathscythe’s arm, sending an electrical jolt through the cockpit. Duo grunted and flew straight up as the two behind him fired. He flipped around and fell in behind one of the suits. Before it could turn, the beam shield cut into its engines and they exploded, sending the suit spinning out of control. He fired the shield at another suit, but it dodged nimbly out of the way and rushed him.

“Man, these guys are good,” he said to himself. He got a bearing on the freighter and jetted after it, with the Geminis in hot pursuit.

A few hundred kilometers away, Arys and Trowa moved at maximum speed to Duo’s position. They could see the flashes of light indicating the battle. Duo’s voice came over their speakers.

“One suit disabled. The freighter keeps changing coarse, so I don’t know where it’s trying to go. And I could really use some help.”

“Are you in missile range yet Trowa?” Arys asked.

“Ten more seconds,” he responded.

Arys counted down. “Duo, get ready to break away. Trowa is sending some missiles your way.”

“About time. I’m ready when you are.”

Trowa fired. The missiles streaked away. “Detonation in three... two... Break!” he said.

Duo moved off as the missiles exploded around the three remaining suits. Then he moved back in before the pilots’ vision could clear. He took one suit out by slicing both the arms off at the vulnerable joints. The other two turned towards him just as the half-moon shaped bursts from Arys’ Shiv rifle cut into their engines. They exploded. Arys glanced at Deathscythe and winced. Sparks flew across it and smoke billowed from one of its engine nozzles. “You all right there Duo?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. But look what they did to Deathscythe’s chest!” he complained.

Arys grinned as she saw the blackened gold ornament. “Yeah, that’ll be top priority to replace for sure, Duo,” she remarked. “Then the minor stuff like the engine. Where’s the freighter?”

“Um, it’s bearing... one-seven-five mark six. You go after it. I’m just going to sit here and cry for awhile.”

“Come on, you baby.”

Alexia watched this from a distance in her shuttle. This was a problem. She hadn’t counted on the Gundams being able to track them. They were planning to follow it all the way to the laboratory, but now that it had seen them... what would they do?

She wracked her brain for a solution. The ion pulse generator on the freighter wasn’t powerful enough to actually disable the Gundams. They needed the freighter’s cargo, so they couldn’t destroy it, but they couldn’t let it fall to the Preventers either. What to do? She began typing rapidly on the computer in front of her. A schematic of the freighter came up on the screen. She narrowed the view to just the engines. She glanced up at the Gundams as they closed in on their prey. She typed in several more commands. She hailed the freighter. A scared face appeared on the screen.

“Yes ma’am?”

“I need you to do something for me, Captain. Do you have an engineer on board?”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied.

“Get him to the engine room and on the line.”

A few seconds later a new voice came on. “Lieutenant Hobson here, ma’am.”

“Hobson, I need you make some modifications to your engines. And I need you to do it quickly. First, reroute primary fuel flow through the secondary fusion generator.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Good, he didn’t ask questions. A few seconds later, “Done.”

“Good boy. Now, shut down the primary thrust and reverse the flow of the coolant. You’ll want it to be at around six hundred psi.”

“Roger. Done.”

“Now disconnect the auxiliary batteries from the main grid and route the power to the secondary fusion generator. Watch your main power levels and make sure its stable.”

“Roger. Batteries engaged. Power levels are stable.”

“Now, initiate a power buildup in the fusion generator. Put your computer on stand-by. Then tell me when the power build-up reaches two thousand five hundred kilowatts.”

“Ma’am, we’ll be flying blind without the computer.”

“I know. Just make sure you aren’t going to run into anything and do it.”

“Roger. Stand-by.” Hobson smiled. Now he knew where she was going with this.

Alexia crossed her fingers. The Gundams were almost on top of the freighter.

“Two thousand three hundred kilowatts,” Hobson reported. “Two thousand four hundred. Two thousand five hundred.”

“Now release the control rods on the reactor and hang on to something.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hobson replied. He pressed the button and an alarm went off. The room gave a mighty heave as the control rods were wrenched out of place and a high wine began to build. He grabbed on to a pipe and held tight.

Alexia watched as the power levels escalated off the scale, then a blinding shock wave emanated from the freighters engines and washed over the three Gundams.

“Uhhmmnn!” Arys groaned as she felt an electrical jolt go through her body. She put a hand to the transmitter behind her ear. She realized it was off line. She looked at her panel. In fact, all of her systems were off line. She tried several switches to no avail, and slammed her hand on the console. She tried hailing the other pilots without success. Her Gundam was completely without power. She unbuckled her harness and pulled the manual release on her cockpit door. There was a hiss of escaping air and she pushed the hatch open. She stepped out and looked at Deathscythe and Heavyarms. She tried the comm in her helmet. Nothing. She pushed carefully off of Archangel and drifted over to Heavyarms. Its hatch opened as she grabbed onto the motionless machine. Trowa stepped out and pushed over to her. They touched helmets so they could talk.

“Do you know what happened?” Arys asked.

“No. Somehow, they overloaded all of our systems.” He glanced around. “We’re very vulnerable like this.”

She nodded. “We’d better get Duo,” she said, indicating Deathscythe.

They drifted over and Trowa took out a flashlight and pounded on the hatch. It opened and they looked in. Duo was digging around the circuits beside his seat, his mouth moving in silent curses. He glanced up them and said something. Then looked irritated when he realized they couldn’t hear him. He stood up and they all touched helmets.

“I just can’t believe it. First they mess up my chest, then they go and do this. I’m going to kill them,” Duo said.

“How long do you think it’ll take to get up and running again?” Arys asked.

“Once we get the turbine generators back online, it should be just a matter of restarting each system. Maybe an hour,” Trowa replied. “But if, as I think, they used some kind of electromagnetic pulse, the computer and navigation systems will be useless. We would have to literally fly by the stars.”

Duo laughed. “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I remember nothing about astronomy. If we can get communications back up, we could just call for help.”

“Yeah. And the Preventers are probably looking for us, so they might find us before we get repaired,” Arys said. “Either way, I suggest we get started.” She pushed herself back to Archangel and disappeared into the cockpit. Trowa moved off, leaving Duo to himself. He grumbled and began to work.

Calder glanced at his watch. Trowa, Arys, and Duo hadn’t reported in for over an hour. He and Heero had been systematically searching the space around where they had last been seen, but hadn’t found anything. The Forgotten shouldn’t have been able to destroy all three, but they hadn’t even detected a distress beacon. Calder sighed.

“Grid nine one six completed,” Heero said. “Moving to nine one seven.”

“Roger. Keeping parallel to you,” Calder responded. He entered the new coordinates and Wraith came about. His console suddenly beeped at him. He was receiving a general hail. He opened a channel.

Trowa’s face came on the screen. “Calder, this is Trowa. Are you reading me?”

“Yeah, Trowa. What happened?” Calder responded.

“We destroyed all of the suits, but the freighter hit us with some kind of electromagnetic pulse. I just now restored main power. Duo and Arys are with me.”

Calder homed in on Trowa’s signal and turned towards it. “All right. I’m headed for your position. So you didn’t see where the freighter went?”

“No. It could have gone in any direction.”

Calder sighed. “Oh well. Guess we’re back to square one.”

He signaled Heero and they closed on the three unmoving suits. Heero signaled Colonel Une at the Preventer base. A few seconds later her face appeared. “Colonel, we lost the freighter. Trowa, Duo, and Arys’ suits were disabled by an EMP.”

She sighed. “Very well. Stay with them until they can move, then report back to New Quebec.”

“Roger.”

Randell shut off his monitor. That had been close. He shook his head. He still couldn’t figure out what to do with Alexia. He had to admit, she had really saved them that time. But the woman was unstable. He didn’t trust her not to betray him. When the time came, he would decide. He contacted his second in command, who was preparing the imminent attack. A face appeared on the screen.

“Mr. Randell,” he said, nodding.

“Mr. Trent, how are things progressing there?”

“Very well, sir. All troops are in position and standing by.”

“Good. There is one slight change I want to make. I want Alexia Slandovich present at the attack.”

Trent looked uncomfortable. “With all due respect sir, why do you want her there?”

“I know how you feel. But she wanted to be there and I saw no reason to deny her it. She’s going to be in a Taurus, out of the way of the battle, so you shouldn’t hear a peep out of her.”

Trent nodded. “Yes, sir. Does she have any operational authority?”

“No,” Randell said quickly and Trent looked relieved. “She will have a small contingent of mobile dolls under her control, but that is all.”

Trent was confused. “Under her control? You mean…” his eyes widened.

“She’s there to assist you. Don’t worry about it.”

Trent didn’t look satisfied, but he nodded. “Of coarse sir. Trent out.”

Randell sat back and sighed. The last thing he wanted was Alexia experimenting with the Zero System, especially now, but what could he do? He thought Alexia was more interested now in Calder than she had when he lived with her and Nicholi. He didn’t understand the woman, nor did he try to.

Trent waited expectantly as the Taurus suit in flight mode landed on the pad in the bay of the command ship. Alexia stepped out. He stepped forward and extended his hand. “Ms. Slandovich, I’m Commander Trent.”

She removed her helmet and shook his hand. “Commander, very gracious of you to let me be here,” she said, favoring him with a smile.

He tried to return it, only half successfully. “It was no problem ma’am.”

She walked towards the bay doors and he followed. “When does the attack begin?” she asked.

“In three hours,” he replied. “If you like, you can review the battle plan.”

“Yes, thank you.”

He handed her a disk and motioned to a door. “Here are your quarters. Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, this will do nicely,” she said.

Trent gratefully left. Alexia sat down at the desk and put the disk into the computer there. But her mind was on other things. “I’ll see you soon, my son,” she said to herself.