Face of the Enemy
Chapter 6
Peacemillion
"How long until we reach comm range of the Libra?" Heero asked, all business once again.
"About ten minutes..." Noin said, tapping the console quickly. "The Peacemillion won't have a chance against that thing if it decides to fire at us."
"Noin's right. This ship moves slower than a Leo under water," Sally replied.
Noin glanced at Arys. The raven-haired pilot stood by another console, her gaze on the image of Libra on the viewscreen.
"Arys?" Noin asked, wondering what the distant look in her eyes meant.
Arys tore her eyes away from the viewscreen to look at Noin. "Someone will have to die for this war to end, Noin."
Noin nodded. "The casualties could be many more, but both sides are using mobile dolls..."
Arys shook her head. "No, you don't understand. Treize and Zechs are the leaders of the World Nation and White Fang. For the war to end, one of them must die."
Noin paled when she realized the significance of Arys' statement. Zechs might die? She could not bear the thought of it.
Arys turned back to look at the viewscreen. "But it won't be Zechs."
The blood came back to Noin's face and she touched Arys' shoulder genty. "How do you know this, Arys?"
Arys glanced at Noin again, her gray eyes faraway. "I just do, Noin. I always do."
"Noin," Sally called the former OZ soldier back to the radar screen, "I've got a hostile presence at Colony C-421 in the L3 cluster."
"Identification?"
"It was just captured by an OZ assault force."
Trowa had lifted his head when he heard the name of the colony. He went to a console and tapped a button. He saw the mobile dolls guarding the colony. The view of the Libra on the front screen was suddenly replaced by a news broadcast of the colony's capture. Hundreds of colonists were gathered in a circle between three Taurus suits. Trowa recognized one of the colonists. A girl with curly brown hair. She seemed to be shouting something at one of the OZ officers.
"Katherine," He whispered softly.
Trowa silently left the bridge. His Heavyarms was still being upgraded as were the other Gundams, so that left only the Wing Zero for him to pilot. Determination filled his eyes as he strode down to the mobile suit storage bay in cargo bay one.
"I'm coming, Katherine."
_____________
Heero watched his friend leave the bridge. Heero stood against the back wall, observing everything quietly. Arys looked back at him once curiously, a question in her eyes. She had noticed Trowa's disappearance. Heero smiled inwardly. The girl didn't miss a thing, did she? Arys walked over to Heero, her face serious.
"Do you want to go help him, Heero?" Apparently, she didn't think Trowa could take on so many of Oz's mobile dolls at once. "You can take the Archangel."
Heero looked up at her, his eyes calm. "Don't worry, Arys. Trowa can handle it."
Arys leaned against the wall next to him. Her eyes settled on the viewscreen. Instead of the Libra, it now showed the Wing Zero, heading toward Colony C-421. Soon, all they could see were flashes of light. Arys closed her eyes and reached up for her transmitter. Heero noticed the movement and grabbed her hand. Arys opened her eyes in surprise.
"Heero?"
Heero released her hand. "Don't, Arys. He has to do this on his own. You can't help him."
Arys let out a sigh of frustration. "If I have the ability to help, I can't just let him..."
Heero put an arm around her shoulders and leaned back against the wall. Arys laid her head on his shoulder. He watched the viewscreen impassively. "He'll be fine. Trust me."
___________
Trowa fired off the Zero's buster rifle into the peripheral mobile dolls. Of course, they disappeared. He blasted his way into the middle section of the guarding mobile suits. It took him five minutes to clear them out. All the dolls left were guarding close to the colony.
"Katherine..." Trowa kept murmuring under his breath as he blew away dozens of mobile dolls.
The Zero System began to take over his mind, amplifying his emotions. Showing him things that he didn't want to see. One mobile doll took the form of Katherine herself. He shot her and watched her form vanish in a wash of crimson. Grief filled his soul when he realized that he had just killed her. But no, he hadn't killed her. The Zero System was just playing with... his... mind.
Trowa shook his head violently, trying to regain control, but it was no use. He had already lost control.
Trowa's eyes glowed yellow as the Zero raised its buster rifle again. The crosshairs on his radar screen locked on a single mobile doll. Directly behind the doll was the colony.
__________
"Trowa! No!" Quatre was watching a close-up of the battle on one of the console screens. "He's going to shoot the colony!"
Arys leaped away from the wall, about to go down to the mobile suit bay, but Heero restrained her with a strong grip on her shoulder. Arys glared at him.
"Let me go..." Arys whispered fiercely.
Heero shook his head and let go of her shoulder.
Arys growled something under her breath and turned around to bang her fist against the wall. When she whirled back around to yell at Heero, he was gone.
___________
A mobile doll struck the Zero from behind. Enraged, Trowa clamped his hand down on the control levers and turned the Gundam around to take on the threat. The Zero flew backwards and fired the buster rifle again. The doll fell back as the beam of energy slammed into it full force. It floated aimlessly for a few seconds before exploding. The remains of the doll drifted into place with the other pieces of scrap metal occupying the debris field Trowa had created.
The Zero turned back around to find that the other doll was still there. It seemed to be waiting for Trowa to destroy it. Trowa was glad to oblige. He raised the buster rifle, waited for the crosshairs to lock, and...
BANG! The mobile doll disappeared off his sensors, and the Archangel swooped in to take its place. Its hands were still raised in beam emitter position.
"Trowa. Don't let it control you." It was Heero. "You were going to shoot the colony, Trowa. Katherine is there, on the colony."
Trowa looked at his friend blankly for a few moments and then back at the colony that drifted right in front of him. "I... I was going to shoot the colony?"
Heero nodded.
"Katherine..." Trowa bowed his head. "Are you all right?"
"The OZ forces are leaving the colony, Trowa. You saved Katherine."
"Did I, Heero? I almost destroyed the colony." Trowa looked up and scanned his viewscreen to see several Taurus suits leaving the colony and heading back toward Earth.
"Don't blame yourself, Trowa. The Zero System is unpredictable. It can make you see things that aren't really there, make you do things you would never do."
"It steals your soul, Heero." Trowa said as he fired up the Zero's engines. "How do you deal with it?"
"I fight it, Trowa. Fight it with all that's in me. Only then will the Zero System submit to me rather than the other way around."
"It's a dangerous system, Heero. We have no business playing around with it." On his wraparound screens, Trowa could see the Archangel's wings flapping gently as the Gundam hovered in place .
Heero almost smiled,... almost. One corner of his mouth lifted in a cynical quirk. "Who said I was playing?" The smile vanished. "Go look after Katherine, Trowa. I'm heading back to the Peacemillion."
Trowa watched as the Archangel gracefully flew off. He sighed. Katherine hated it when he fought in his Gundam. And now, he had almost killed her. He wondered what Katherine must have thought when she saw the Zero aiming its buster rifle at the colony and knew that Trowa was piloting it. Trowa bowed his head, his hands clenching around the levers on either side of the pilot's seat.
"I'm sorry, Katherine."
____________
Space Fortress Libra
Zechs Marquise watched as the Wing Zero defeated all, ALL, of OZ's mobile dolls that were guarding Colony C-421. Treize had his work cut out for him if he kept sending out forces that could be destroyed by one Gundam. An outsider would have said that Treize and Zechs would end up at a stalemate due to the equality of their forces. However, Zechs had yet to play his wildcard. He smiled. And what a wildcard it was.
"Impressive." Zechs crooked a finger under his chin. "Fire the cannon."
"Sir? The colony's been liberated..."
Zechs stood up and waved the crewman off. "Not at the colony, idiot. Fire it at Earth."
"But..."
Zechs glared at the weapons officer. "Leave, now. You dare question me?"
The crewman scrambled out of his seat as Zechs stalked toward his station. He ran for the door.
Dorothy Catalonia watched all this curiously.
He's going to fire the cannon at Earth? Why?
Dorothy had arrived on the Libra as soon as Arys had left. She was not sorry she had missed her former classmate. She was sorry she had found the wrong time to come aboard. Zechs was in a rage because of Arys' defection and seeing Dorothy had only made him angrier. She had managed to convince Zechs to let her stay on the Libra, saying that she could be of help in some way.
"Help?" Zechs had snorted in disgust. "You?" He had looked at her disdainfully and then turned away.
However, Dorothy was used to such looks. She had gotten them often at the Cinq Kingdom. So Dorothy had shrugged off Zechs' disgust with her like water off a duck's back.
Dorothy glanced at Zechs. He stood by the weapons console, waiting for Earth to show up on the radar screen.
"Sir, we've got a civilian shuttle at one o' clock!" A crewmember spoke up.
"Zechs, don't do this!" Relena's face appeared on the main viewscreen.
Zechs looked up from his console. "Relena..." He whispered.
"This is wrong, Zechs! The Earth's done nothing to you! God will never forgive you for this act!"
Zechs bowed his head again, his eyes closed. "Pull back, Relena."
Relena glared at him angrily. "No, I won't, Zechs."
"Your shuttle is no obstacle for the main array. You'll die for naught."
"I don't care. But let me say this. Using all this force to conquer people... Aren't you ashamed to use the Peacecraft name?" Relena leaned forward, her blue eyes flashing.
"Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
"Brother! Listen to me...!"
He punched the comm button and Relena disappeared off the main viewscreen.
Zechs poised his hand over the button that would fire the Libra's main cannon.
The Libra trembled like a building caught in an earthquake and a beam of fantastic proportion shot from the main cannon. Dorothy watched, a smug look on her face, as the beam ripped into two of the World Nation's mobile suit carriers as if they were made of nothing more than sheet metal. And she watched as the beam slammed straight into Earth, causing a blast that could be seen even from their position near one of the Lagrange points. A pillar of white fire shot high into the atmosphere only to fade to nothingness in the oxygen-less exosphere. And an ominous cloud began to spread across the section of the Earth that had been bombarded. The earth's weather patterns would change for decades.
Zechs' gaze was on the viewscreen. His ice-blue eyes were stoic, empty.
"Your move, Treize."
______________
Peacemillion
Arys slowly walked forward, an unbelieving look on her face. Zechs had just fired on Earth! She had known he eventually would, but not so soon. She stopped in front of the viewscreen, watching as that deadly black cloud crept across part of the earth. The blue oceans disappeared beneath it.
"Zechs, how could you?" She whispered under her breath.
"Arys, are you all right?" Quatre put a hand on her shoulder. His eyes were filled with pain.
Even Duo had a serious look on his face. "All those people... gone, just like that." He snapped his fingers.
Wufie stared at the viewscreen with emotionless eyes. He had seen so much destruction lately that even this attack on Earth hardly fazed him. He turned away from the screen, struggling not to remember what had happened to his home colony. He was afraid he would lose control again if he allowed the memory to surface.
Sally and Noin both had angered looks on their faces. Sally's held pure anger, while Noin's held a mixture of anger and disbelief.
"The butcher..." Sally muttered under her breath.
"Oh, Zechs..." Noin leaned against a computer console, her shoulders hunched in sorrow. "I never thought..."
Heero walked onto the bridge. "Zechs never targeted the colony."
"You mean, Earth was his target the whole time?" Sally asked.
Heero nodded.
"Why didn't you say anything, Heero?" Arys said softly, not understanding Heero's silence on the situation.
Heero gazed at her silently for a few moments. Then, he replied, "There was nothing we could have done to stop the Libra from firing at Earth."
Duo raised a clenched fist. "But this attack leaves us free to fight back."
Heero nodded again. "Exactly."
___________
Aboard a civilian shuttle heading for the Libra
Relena vainly tried to raise her brother on the comm again, but apparently he was ignoring her transmissions. She banged the console disgustedly with a clenched fist.
"Milliardo, I can't believe you! Where did you learn to be so cold?"
"Relena, I thought I told you to pull back!" Zechs' enraged face appeared on her comm screen.
Relena glowered darkly at him. "Milliardo, I'm getting aboard the Libra whether you like it or not!"
Zechs nodded. "Fine. You can dock in shuttle bay four." The comm clicked off and his face vanished off the screen.
"And then, Milliardo Peacecraft, we'll talk,... about a great many things."
Author's notes: This is the last time you'll hear from this overly obsessed fanfic author until the end of the story. :-) I managed to get a hold of a few of episode scripts, so if you recognize some of the quotes I use, that's where they came from. Also, I've got a pic of Arys if any of you faithful readers would like to see what I think she looks like. If it's not up at the site you found this story, e-mail me at Starling14@aol.com and I'll send it to you in .jpeg format. Oh, and I've found that listening to the song "Last Impression," from some version of Endless Waltz, while reading this story fits really well. I think that's my favorite GW song so far :-) I'd like to say a huge thanks to all you readers out there. You're the ones who keep me writing this story! And the website owners deserve a huge round of applause for putting up with my flooding their inboxes with submissions. I'll stop blabbing now, so without further ado and no commercial breaks, I give you... the concluding chapters of FACE OF THE ENEMY. Coming soon to a website near you!
