| Chapter One Heero eyed the pile of paper and grumbled, “Which one? I need to make a choice.” Duo poked his head into the office and shook his head. “Talking to yourself?” Heero just laughed. “Anyway, why don't we have an office? Not this one ...” He gestured around casually. “One downtown, a store front like Buck?” “Don't need it. I get most of my work by word of mouth. Buck tells someone who passes it on and so one. In fact, that's my problem right now. I've got four jobs, all high paying but three look to be nothing much and the last one's just a 'find and follow', not my kind of job. But the client is a big wig, Relena recommended me to her.” Duo plopped down in his chair and took the file Heero pointed to. He read for a moment then tossed the file back on Heero's desk. “File 13 it. That's my rec. I wouldn't do that job unless I was starving. What else is there?” Heero eyed one file. “This one is a recover stolen goods. Love letters, I'm not inclined to do it either. If you're stupid enough to write love letters to your mistress then double stupid enough to lose them, you deserve the grief.” “I never could figure that out. And emails, they email like the damn things disappear when they hit send. Where the hell do they think it goes? Idiots! What else is there?” Heero tossed that file into the trash along with the 'find and follow'. “Well, let me see... there's a recover a vehicle. Don't mind doing a repo or two. High euro price tag and we get 20% of the worth. But, the damn thing hasn't been seen in ... two months. It could be thousands of miles from here. On another continent, even. 13 it?” Duo nodded. Heero trashed that file, leaving only one. “Ok, let me see what this one is. Hummm. Recover a boat? That could be interesting.” Duo got up to lean over Heero's shoulder and read along. Heero flicked the pages quickly but Duo kept up, he actually read faster than Heero did. They were almost finished with the file when the doorbell rang. Duo pushed the answer button and said, “Maxwell. Who is it?” “It's Quatre, Duo, can I come in? Please?” Duo pushed the lock button and nearly stepped on Heero's heels as he scurried after him. They greeted Quatre in the entryway with cheerful hugs and back slaps. Duo pulled him into the kitchen and busied himself making chocolate. Quatre worried at his lower lip until Heero gently reached out and pressed his thumb against it. “Stop that. You're going to make it bleed. If there's something you want to say, just spit it out.” He patted Quatre's hand. Duo hid his smile, Heero was still very distant to strangers, downright cold some would say. But he was learning to be affectionate with his friends, finally. Quatre quit nibbling on his lip and gave Heero’s thumb a quick lick. Heero yelped in surprise, making both Quatre and Duo laugh. “Mission Accomplished.” Heero's satisfied tone made them laugh again. Quatre took his chocolate and Duo sat down at the table pushing Heero's cup over to him. “Now, what has you so upset?” Quatre sighed. “Well, you know I've been having trouble with some of my sisters, right?” Heero and Duo both nodded, sipping at their coco in unison. “But only a few of them, didn't you say?” Heero's question brought a nod. “That's right. Father brought all the sisters into WEI when they were old enough, but they had to show that they were capable to keep their jobs. Most of my sisters are more than capable enough and either kept their jobs or left to form their own businesses. Most of the subsidiary companies are run by a sister or her husband. But a few seemed to feel that, just because they are Winners, they are entitled to whatever they want. And that's where the problem lies. It seems that Ameena isn't.” He stopped to take a drink of his now cooling coco. “Ameena isn't what?” Duo blinked into his empty cup for a moment. “Ameena means trustworthy. But she isn't. She's one of the older sisters. Father had them born in ... er ... batches. Five to seven at a time. Easier to keep them cared for. They're about a year apart.” Heero shook his head but motioned to Quatre to continue. “So, of all the sisters there are six or seven that are just a ... thorn in my side. None of the other sisters approve of them either.” Duo, who was making notes on a 'handy pad', stopped to ask, “How do you spell that?” Quatre told him, prompting him to ask, “I thought all your sisters names started with I, what's with the A?” “Each group got names starting with the letter of the alphabet in order that they were born. A first; then B; and so on. Ameena is one of the first set of babies. I believe that there were eight in the first group but I'm not sure. You'd have to ask Bahira, she's the one who knows who's who. With 29 of them, I don't even know about half of them, I've only gotten emails from them or paper letters, all to do with the business in one way or another.” Duo sighed and rubbed his face. “Let's get off the sisters, OK? Just the thought of all those girls in one place at the same time gives me the wiggins. This Ameena just ... er ... What the hell did she do?” Quatre flicked his glance from Heero to Duo then back. “She stole my yacht. Just boarded it and left. She's hiding it somewhere and, quite frankly, I want it back. I never have used WEI funds to build anything for myself so the yacht came out of my private purse. It was hugely expensive, took two years to build and is supposed to be my ... home away from home. I have to do so much traveling, from LaGrange to LaGrange and on to Earth, the moon and such, that I decided to build the yacht so that I could work while I was traveling instead of wasting my time just sitting on some shuttle or commercial transport. She just decided that she wanted it and she took it. Boarded it with her own crew and disappeared with it. It's mine and I want it back. Find it for me and recover it. I'll pay whatever it takes. And don't say it's pro bono, I won't allow it.” Duo sighed. “Damn, man, that's a kick in the balls for sure. Do you want to prosecute her?” Quatre just nodded, looking sad. “Yes, I've had enough of their stupidity. Of 29 sisters, 9 of them are more trouble than all the rest put together. I spoke with my team of lawyers and I'm taking their advice. You'll have all the proper paper work asap. An arrest warrant has already been issued for her and all her crew. I believe the charge is actually 'space piracy' which is different from regular piracy for some reason I can't fathom.” Heero snorted and told him, “Space ships are much more expensive than ocean ships. What are all the charges?” Quatre shook his head. “I don't really know yet. Trowa is working on that now. He'll send you all the papers as soon as he has it all organized. I'll transfer funds now if you'll give me your account data. Is 10% up front enough?” Heero looked at Duo, he wasn't sure they should accept pay from their friend. Duo just explained, “Heero, if we do it pro bono, we can't testify at any trial. Conflict of interest. But, if we get paid, not only can we testify, but Quatre keeps his pride. See?” Heero grunted softly, then said, “Yeah, I see. What's 10%?” Quatre handed Duo a PDA which he passed on to Heero. Heero just raised an eyebrow. It was enough money to buy their house about three times over. “Ok, that's a huge chunk of change. And that's ten per? Color me ...” He stopped to grope for a word. “Flabbergasted? Floored? ...” Duo's suggestions made both Heero and Quatre chuckle. “Pick one, I'm still trying to get my chin off the floor.” Heero mimed pushing his chin back in place. “I'll call Buck and tell him we've got a big one so he won't call on us. Give me a sec.” Heero called Buck and notified him that he and Duo would be out of town for an indeterminate length of time. Buck just told him to call when they needed a new job. His chuckled, “Keep the rubber side down.” made Heero laugh. “Well, we're free agents for the foreseeable future. Quatre, I really need all the information on Ameena that you have. Education, friends, hangouts, you know the drill.” Quatre handed Duo a flash drive case. “Here. It has four chips in it. One for education, not really much there. Another for hangouts, that one is maxed out. Another for her financial statement, and I'm not sure where some of her income comes from. And, her complete address book.” Duo took the credit card sized case from Quatre and thanked him. He busied himself down loading all the info into their server in the basement. This meant that they would have access to all the info from their PDA's as well as their laptops. Which were neither really laptop size nor as puny as they looked. Heero build their personal computers along the lines of PDA's but with components manufactured for him by WEI. They were about the size of a deck of cards with a tiny port on one side and another on the top. The one on the side projected a virtual keyboard onto any flat surface and the other port projected a view screen into the air. Heero was still trying to figure out how to get a touch pad to work. For now the mouse was a separate, thimble sized unit. Duo was always losing his, something which secretly amused Heero very much. He wondered if Duo would pout if he told him. After finishing their business, they settled in for an old fashioned catch up session. Duo made coffee and called out for some dim sum. They sat around the table telling stories and laughing. It all came to a rather odd halt as Quatre casually remarked, “I bought L4-347. I needed a construction facility for the yacht. It's also going to be WEI's new construction dock.” Duo blinked for a moment, then nearly howled, “Quatre, that station is older 'n dirt. How the hell did you get talked into buying that monstrosity?” Heero did a short mental calculation and realized that the station had to be at least – he rechecked his math and still came up with upwards of 250 years old. It was only triple digits. He thought hard for a moment then simply said, “Why?” Quatre gave him a grateful look. “Because I needed the facilities and it's actually easier and cheaper to renovate a colony than to build a new one. Especially for a private individual. I bought the colony, not WEI. I'm going into ship building as a private enterprise, that's the other reason I need my yacht back. It's my flagship for the enterprise and the jewel in the crown, so to speak. I've loaded it up with every luxury I could think of. A walk through is a seller to almost anyone who wants a yacht or ship built. It's even armed.” He grinned in a way that reminded both of his friends that he wasn't 'just a pretty face' “I built a prototype mobile suit. It's in the docking bay, in a secure compartment only I can open.” Duo froze, glanced at Heero then went back to his coffee. Heero just grabbed the bull by the horns. “What kind of mobile suit?” Quatre looked out the window, admiring the view of the bay and smiled. “A cross between Wing and Deathscythe. It's twice as deadly as either one. There's going to be another war, sometime, somewhere. We all know this. I decided that WEI is going to be ready when it happens.” He had to smile at Duo. “You all know I'm no arms monger, but I want our weapons to be better, bigger, badder. A short war is as good as they get. Right?” Heero nodded and Duo just sighed. They both knew he was right. The rumblings were already there, only this time it was the moon against the rest of the solar system. “They'll never learn, will they?” Duo's plaintive voice made Heero reach over and pat his hand. “Don't think so. But ... it doesn't hurt to hope.” Heero finished his coffee and put his mug down with a soft thunk. “Ok, Trowa should be here soon. Want a look around?” Quatre started to say yes but was forestalled by a buzz at the door. It was Trowa with the warrants and repossession papers. Duo let him in and led him into the kitchen. He flopped gracelessly into a chair and exclaimed, “Sometimes I really wonder about lawyers and judges, they seem to argue just for the sake of argument. It took twice as long as it should have to get these because some fool kept asking if Quatre was sure he wanted to prosecute his sister over a boat. I finally had to show the jerk a picture of the yacht and nearly rub his nose on it. I finally got to the judge and he had the same arguments all over again. Um ... le'see. Oh, the guy on our side, name's Jackson, really nearly had heart failure. He just held up the picture, told the judge the cost of the damn thing and then the judge had a spasm. Had the papers all printed out right at the bench and signed them before they were dry. Here you are.” He rubbed his face, took the coffee Duo offered and grumbled. “I didn't even read all the charges, the judge punched buttons for two whole minutes.” He shoved the papers across the table to Heero who scooped them up. “I don't know why we still have paper warrants. This thing must be ...” He shuffled papers for a moment. “It's 20 pages long. Legal size. Holy shit!” Duo got up to lean over Heero's shoulder. He didn't bother to read the charges, he just counted them. “Fuck! There's 15 charges here. Everything from piracy to grand theft auto and misappropriation of property. And there's ... um ... suborning a crew. Possession of stolen goods and ... She's in deep shit. And so's her crew. And the repo is 'with force'. Hot damn, Q, we've practically got free reign. Excellent!” Heero checked the papers carefully, some places would nullify them for a misplaced comma. These papers, however, were perfect. He folded them and tucked them into a fire proof, theft proof and official folder. He handed them to Duo to put into his working backpack. Trowa settled at the table and remarked, “Well, it seems that the only one of us missing is Wufei. Heero? You know where he is?” Heero opened his PDA and checked. “I think he's on L4 right now. He's an Inspector General now. That last mission he went on about four months ago blew his cover permanently. Some Paparazzi got a good pic of him. He's still hunting for that guy.” Trowa made a face. “I remember. I'm glad I don't speak that pidgin he swears in, my ears are still ringing.” He laughed. “But it was amusing. I've never seen him so red.” Duo chortled merrily. “I hope he finds that photographer. Ought to be illegal what they do. We've been on at least four jobs to recover incriminating or embarrassing pictures for people. Paid well, but still ...” He shrugged and started picking up cups. “More coffee? Tea? Punch in the head?” Quatre declared himself coffeed out. Trowa also shook his head. Heero grumbled, “I'm going to need mucho coffee to make sense of this mess of data on Ameena. Duo, start another pot.” Trowa glanced at his watch and sighed. “I hate to take off and drag Quatre with me but we've got to go, or we're going to miss our flight. We're due back on L4 in two days. Quatre?” Quatre grunted and got up. “I'm coming.” He followed Trowa to the door and turned to hug both Heero and Duo. Heero managed a bit awkwardly but Duo gathered his best friend in a warm hug and announced, “Relax, buddy, we'll get ... what the hell did you name her?” “Intisar. It means triumph. I know you'll get her back for me. Thanks. You too, Heero.” Trowa was duly hugged, backslapped and good-byed. He laughed at Duo and gently tugged his braid, resulting in the obligatory squawk of, “Not the braid, man!” He then punched Heero in the arm and told him to watch out for Duo. Quatre waved, they climbed in the waiting taxi and drove off. Duo closed the door and went to make more coffee. This was the part of the job he hated. He was a man of action and really didn't like spending hours upon hours collating data. No matter how necessary it was. Heero started the first of several dozen searches and settled down to read. The computer could do a lot but only a human could discern any sort of pattern from the assorted bits that the computer decided were relevant. Finally, at nearly midnight, Heero announced that they were going to have to go to L4-1509, Quatre's home colony, and have a sniff around. . An early morning, after a long night, saw Duo grumpy and ruffled, puttering in the kitchen while Heero booked shuttle reservations. “I don't know why they still call the damn things shuttles. They're more like ... flying motels. It takes two days to get from Earth to L4, with a stop over at the moon for refueling.” Duo looked up from the coffee pot and agreed, “Yeah, they are more of a cruise ship, like those floating hotels Celebrity has. But you can't call them a cruiser as that's a warship and calling them something new will just confuse everyone. So, shuttle it is. They do 'shuttle' people from one colony to the other after all.” Heero just went back to his computer, his need for exactness unsatisfied. Duo grinned at the back of his head for a moment, then went back to preparing breakfast. They ate while they waited for conformation of their reservations. When the computer beeped, Heero just tapped the print button and went back to his toast, his printout command accepting the accommodations. He should have checked first. Although Quatre's orders didn't really cause a problem, just a bit of confusion. Heero had booked business and the company, a subsidiary of WEI, had bumped them up to first class. This put them on a different shuttle, which left from a different departure gate, in a different concourse. Luckily, their phones got signal in the main concourse. Heero's beeped first with an incoming text then Duo's rang, he'd insisted in a combined Blackberry/PDA. Heero was a gadget geek of the worst sort and had a cell, a PDA, a Blackberry and a PC all stuffed into pockets. Duo hated what he called extraneous junk so he had a Blackberry/PDA combo and a PC. Both Heero and Duo got the same message, “Wait at the main entrance. You will be picked up and taken to your departure gate.” Heero eyed the text with a frozen expression while Duo was a bit more vocal on the phone, “Well, shit! Whose bright idea was that. We'll be sitting around for over three hours. What? Never mind.” He rang off and glowered at the inoffensive device for a moment. Heero just shrugged. “Q strikes again. Just go with the flow.” Duo grumbled, “I hate it when he does that. It's ... spooky.” He shouldered his backpack and nodded in the direction of an approaching customer courtesy cart. “Here's our transport.” Heero snorted as he eyed the conveyance, it was really just a glorified golf cart with a long bed, outward facing seats and a bin behind them for suitcases. However, it was better than schlepping their stuff clear across the port on foot. He tossed his pack into the bin and settled on the left facing seat. Duo took the right facing seat which put them back to back with their stuff between them. Duo laughed at the driver's expression and cried merrily, “Mush! Shoo! Go, go!” Their driver wasn't that amused but complied, used to strange acting passengers. He drove them through the main concourse and down a ramp. He decided he'd better explain what he was doing before one of the young men got nervous. “I'm taking you to the Priority Club. That's the waiting area for first class for the shuttle you're booked on. It's quicker and safer to go into the service corridors under the concourse rather than try to dodge other passengers and carts. We'll be there in three or four minutes. Ok?” Heero looked up from something he was reading on his ebook. “That's fine. Priority Club, you say?” “Yeah, all the high mucky-mucks squat there to wait for their connections.” Duo snickered at that as it was generally his opinion too. Suddenly, a loud bag made them all jump; but, while the driver controlled his swerve, Heero and Duo drew their weapons and scanned the area for the threat. It turned out to be the lid of a garbage bin, slammed by a hurrying worker. Their driver never noticed the ordinance and drove on, mumbling something about 'Noise asshats.' Duo grinned at that word and Heero was sure that it had just entered Duo's colorful vocabulary. When the cart drew up to the door of the club they were greeted at the door by a smiling hostess who let them into the Club proper. Duo couldn't help whispering to Heero, “Her smile is as plastic as her boobs. Yick!” Heero's bark of laughter made several people turn to look. Duo just smiled in a rather sinister way and took the seat the hostess offered. The hostess left them with another plastic smile announcing that their 'wait person' would be by to get their drink order in a moment. Heero just hissed, “And that's why there's so many drunks on shuttles. They drink their breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Duo nodded, “Yup, disgusting. So ... what are you drinking?” The waiter came by just then and Heero ordered green tea, Duo ordered coffee and they both decided on cookies. This seemed to be a source of amusement to the table behind them as the whole table started laughing when their refreshments were brought to the table. Duo ignored them, Heero didn't even bother to do that. This seemed to make a few at that table angry as they began throwing things at them. The hostess hurried over to try to get them to stop. This didn't go over well with the rowdy group and they changed their target from the back of Duo's head and the middle of their table to her. She retreated, followed by a barrage of bits of bread, waded napkins and ice cubes. The two bounty hunters would have been content to let things be handled by security but they didn't get the chance. Two of the drunks at the table fancied themselves martial artists. One decided to take on Duo and another Heero. One of their friends decided that he wanted a little fun too, so he jumped Heero from behind. That wasn't as good an idea as they'd thought. Heero didn't even try to get up from his chair; he just tipped it over backward, kicking his opponent in the groin as he did so. The one who'd grabbed him got a punch in the solar plexus that left him whooping for air. Heero turned to check on Duo just in case. He wasn't needed. While Heero had been dealing with his two, Duo had simply pulled that cannon he insisted on calling a handgun and stuck it in the man's face. Heero noted with some amusement that there was a suspicious puddle at the man's feet. Duo grinned that manic grimace that made even Heero thing twice. “You really, really don't want to piss me off. Officer of the Court and all that. I'll arrest your ass and let your lawyer try to sort it out. You know, fees, time in jail, court appearances; big waste of time and expensive as hell. Security should show up any time now, just go along peaceably. 'K?” “Yeah, ok. But ...” Duo sighed and shook his head. “How did we do that? How'd a soft target like me manage something like this? Try a number. 02? Ring a bell? A tiny little tinkle?” Heero nodded his head to one side. “Security is here.” Duo tucked his piece back into his holster and stepped back. “Hi, guys. Three for the tank.” Security, being very good at their jobs, recognized both Heero and Duo at once. They were very careful to keep their hands where they could be seen. “What's going on here?” The head of the team came two careful steps closer and looked around. He noted the drunken men still seated at the table nearby and the three attackers, one still on his feet and two on the floor. Heero pointed to the two on the floor. “They double teamed me, not a good idea. And the wet one, he got a good look at Duo's sidearm.” Heero snickered. “If you can call that cannon a pistol, that is.” There were some soft chuckles from the team which brought the 'drunk brigade' into a new froth. One demanded to see his lawyer, another just threatened their jobs. Exactly what he said was, “I'll have your jobs.” And some rather unimaginative profanity. Heero snickered and Duo snarked, “You couldn't do it. You'd get your ass handed to you in two seconds. Shut up!” “Who do you think you are? I'm Jason Hargraves III.” “Duo Maxwell, Gundam Pilot 02. Not at your service. Already did that.” He turned to the team leader and asked, “You got a real name or will, 'hey you.' do it?” The man just grinned back at Duo's 'I'm a nice guy.' smile and said, “Yeah, Harvey, and put that shit eating grin away, I know who you are. Now, what the hell happened here.” Jason Hargraves the third got on his high horse, demanding that Heero and Duo be arrested for disorderly conduct. Another man at the table suddenly announced, swaying drunkenly all the while, “You don't need to call your lawyer, damn it, I'm a lawyer. Tell you wa' I'll do...” Heero just glared at him, he suddenly realized that he had an urgent need for the men’s room. He got up to go and was promptly told to sit back down. He started to say something else then decided to just shut and sit, Duo's Shinigami Smile had a lot to do with it. It didn't take long to get everything sorted out, the drunks variously sent home or arrested and the security team out of the club again. The hostess came back to their table and asked if they'd like a comp of some kind. Heero glanced at his watch and realized that it had taken them over an hour to get the mess sorted. This put them very near their flight time so he said, 'no' glanced at Duo who shook his head and said, 'no, thanks.' The hostess went away again still wondering exactly what had happened but thinking them very nice young men. Duo just grumbled, “All I want is some peace and quiet before we have to board. Take off is going to be hell. I hate take off. Really, really hate it.” He continued to grumble as they gathered their things and got ready to go to the gate and board. Heero knew laughing would gain him a smack so he managed to exercise his iron self control and not snicker. Duo was horrible on take offs and landings, docking he wasn't too bad. As a former ship owner and pilot himself, Duo hated not being in control of the ship. Intellectually, he knew the pilots were the best there was, but emotionally, he couldn't convince himself that they weren't on the verge of some disaster or other. The ticket clerk took their tickets and handed them the stubs. “Please keep these as proof of your confirmed reservation in first class. Thank you for flying Inter-Galactic, have a nice trip.” She looked tired and a bit frazzled. “Sweetie, if you're worried about those drunks from the Club. Don't, they're not boarding.” She perked up a bit, “Oh, thanks for telling me. Go right down the hall, pre-boarding baggage examination won't take but a moment.” Duo grinned at Heero; to him this was always a high point of travel. They carried a variety of arms and equipment and they had permits for all of it, signed by Relena Peacecraft and Lady Anne Une themselves. It was interesting how many times Preventers got a call, all of which were routed straight to Chang Wufei; or, if he wasn't available, to Lady Une. So, while Heero calmly put his bag on the conveyer belt to go through the scan, Duo plopped his in front of an inspector and announced, “Ya might as well just search it, no sense in giving the scan operator a heart attack or something.” While the examiner was beginning the task of searching Duo's bag, Heero's bag was going through the scanner. The scanner operator did have a fit when he got a look at the silhouettes in the bag. He had it pulled and sent Heero to another examiner. Duo's cackle carried all over the walkway. Heero didn't understand why Duo loved doing this, it'd gotten them tossed several times, but he kept doing it anyway. He thought Duo did it just to thumb his nose at authority. Duo did have his issues. It never occurred to Heero that his putting his bag on the belt and letting it go through the scanner was worse than Duo's confessing it all. His attitude was what kept getting them tossed off their flights. He stood and glowered at the examiner like he wanted to eat her. She just glared right back. “Ok, what's in here.” “Ordinance.” Heero watched as she tried to open the backpack. “I need you to unlock this. And ... don't you think you ought to put ... ordinance in something other than a backpack. Even locked, it's easy enough to just cut it.” “Can't” “You have to unlock it so I can look in it.” Heero produced a key and unlocked the bag. “Can't cut it.” Duo rolled his eyes at his examiner and snickered, “And he keeps blaming me for getting us kicked off our flights. Man.” The examiner rolled her eyes right back, taking a moment to straighten up. Duo made a point of reading her name tag. “Dominic, that's a nice name. Let me get that lock for you. And, Heero's right, you can't cut this stuff. It's a blend of Kevlar, nylon and spun gundanium. It can't be cut, burned, blasted or torn. And neither can the zippers.” Dominic chuckled a bit. “Expensive stuff. How'd you get your hands on it, if you don't mind me asking.” “Quatre Winner. We're really hard on luggage so he had these made up for us. To test the fabric. If we can't damage it nothing can.” He leaned around Dominic to call to Heero. “Stop glaring at the woman. She's just doing her job and if you'd smile at her she'd probably quit treating you like a teenaged terrorist.” Maggie glanced from Heero to Duo and back. Then she called her supervisor. This was usually when they got bumped. The supervisor turned out to be an old resistance fighter who knew Wufei. He also knew Heero and Duo by sight. The first thing he did was call Preventers. Duo snickered and winked at Dominic. “This could get really interesting really quick.” “Never mind them, honey. I hate to do this but you gotta unbraid your hair.” Duo just snickered again. “Yeah and let you run that hand scanner over my gorgeous bod.” Dominic laughed but she didn't miss the quick flit of dismay that flashed over Duo's expressive face. “Don't worry, sweetie, I'll help you braid it back up again. And I won't wear those nasty gloves either. Pretty, pretty hair you've got.” Duo just stood up and held out his arms. Dominic ran the wand over Duo with a quick professionalism that impressed Duo. She also nearly had a fit. “Sweetheart, what the hell. You plannin' on startin' another war or sumthin'?” Dominic got ready for anything. “Nope, done that, took a pill an' got over it. Plannin' on stopping the bad guys. Tell you what, we'll play a game. You tell me what you found, what you think it is and I'll tell you if you're right. How's that?” “Sounds like a plan, but you still have to show it to me.” Duo snickered and said, “Geeze, Woman, pull your mind up out of the gutter.” “Honey I do, but it just falls right back down.” She started running the wand up and down Duo's body. Well, hell, lemme see.” she started tapping Duo here and there. “Gun, gun, knife, knife. Something that beeps like jelly, some metallic thing ... a coil of wire? Knife, knife, another jelly thing. And, honey, I have no idea what the hell you've got in that braid beside the lock picks. And your boots beep off the chart. I ought to have you strip searched...” she blinked at the quick flick of real fear. “Not that I will. I'd have to clear that with the super and he already looks like he's on his last nerve.” Duo pulled the band off the end of his braid and quickly unbraided it, saying, “Probably on the phone with Wufei. He tends to go off on a justice rant, it's ... 8 hours difference from here to Sanq. That means ...” Duo consulted his watch, “super guy woke him up. He's a very grumpy dragon, Chang is.” As he was talking, Duo dropped various items on the table. Dominic's eyes popped a little as she realized that there were actually three guns, eight knives, a garrote, a strand of prima cord, two lumps of plastiq, the lock pick set, and a gadget to hack swipe locks. She didn't touch any of it, she just took a deep breath and asked to see the papers for it all. Duo handed over a folder, grinning and saying, “We're reserve Preventers, bounty hunters by trade, so we actually do have a real need for this stuff.” Duo couldn't help but lean over again, trying to get a peek at Heero and his long suffering examiner. Heero was doing his best but he really hated being touched by strangers and kept flinching, toward his sidearm. Not a good thing when the examiner was already nervous and the super standing so close wasn't helping any. Heero also wanted to keep an eye on Duo, just in case. Just in case of what, he couldn't say. The supervisor, meanwhile, was dealing with Wufei. He'd been out on a mission. He'd just gotten back, and fallen asleep when the phone rang. He was a very grumpy dragon indeed. The dressing down he gave the man was almost guaranteed to make him hold their reservations as long as he could. He was, however, made of sterner stuff than that. He listened to Chang rant, asked a few questions, then hung up. “Well, well, ladies, it seems we have two real celebrities here. I was sure I recognized them, but I had to make sure. Let them pass. They've got all the proper credentials and papers. Which I need to see, Mr. Yuy.” Heero nodded to the pack that Maggie was digging around in. “In there. Blue folder. Duo? You have your papers?” Dominic looked up from examining Duo's papers to snicker. Heero's normally messy hair was all on end, making him look somewhat like a baby bluejay. Maggie had run her fingers through it and was getting ready to wand him. Heero obediently held out his arms and let Maggie run the sensor over him. He was almost as bad as Duo. With a few less knives, and no explosives. But even after he disarmed himself he still set the sensor off. Maggie started the routine questions under her super's eye. “Are you sure you emptied your pockets?” Heero turned them out so she could see. “Do you have any pins, plates or other surgical steel or titanium?” “No.” Duo finally gave up the struggle and started laughing. Dominic smacked him on the shoulder and demanded that he hold still so she could keep her promise and braid his hair. Duo hated having anyone but Heero or Quatre handle his hair but this happened often enough that he was resigned to it. Besides, Dominic had been really nice about this whole mess. Heero shot Duo an irritated look, then actually huffed in irritation. “Ok, fine, what the hell is so funny?” “You're always blaming me for getting us tossed. But your attitude is what's the problem.” “What? I don't have attitude, it's just better to follow protocols. That means the bags go on the belt and through the scanner. Right?” He turned to look at the super. The man just sighed, trust Yuy to be a 'by the book' man at the worst time possible. Maggie just got right to the point. “Ok. No pins, plates or whatnot. You pockets are empty. So what keeps setting the sensor off?” “I've got a piece of gundanium in my back. It's not in a bad place so I haven't bothered to get it out.” “Gundanium, how the hell did you get a piece of that in you?” “Um ... I self-destructed. Literally.” His shamefaced look made Duo howl with laughter. “Ok, yuck it up, smart ass, if we don't get this over with in...” Heero looked at the overhead clock and grumbled, “fifteen minutes, we'll miss our flight.” Maggie looked shocked. “Self-destructed? What are you ...” She caught sight of the super's face and decided, “I really don't want to know. It's imbedded, right?” Heero just nodded glaring at Duo who was leaning on Dominic, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. Dominic was having trouble holding him up, his whispered asides and explanation had her giggling. “Mr. Maxwell, you're a very naughty boy. Shame on you. Now, pick up all your stuff, put it wherever and explain those boots. What the heck?” “They're mag boots. New style. And steel toed.” Dominic blinked once. “Mag boots? What's that?” Duo sat in a chair and put one foot on the examiners table, he wasn't about to unbuckle the ankle strap and unlace his boot, it'd take forever to get them back on. “Look at the sole. There's a small magnetic plate in the heel and the ball of the sole. I can magnetize them in case of an inflight emergency, or colonial grav incident. The charge in the battery, also in the heel will last about three hours.” He grinned at her expression. “Ok, I'm paranoid. But better safe than sorry and the toes are real ass kickers.” Dominic finally had a revelation. “Oh, my god! You said something about 02. You're one of those gundam pilots, aren't you? But ... but ... you're so young! How old were you?” Duo rubbed the back of his neck with an odd look on his face, half self-conscious, half pride. “We were all fifteen, I think. Except Trowa, I think he might have been seventeen?” Dominic just gapped. Maggie, who'd over heard, mumbled something that sounded like, “Jesus on a mop stick!” The super, whose name they never learned, just ordered, “Get their stuff back where it belongs and get them on flight, now! Go!” Both ladies scrambled to do as they were told and got Heero repacked in record time, Duo was already back in order and ready to go. He bowed elegantly to Dominic who couldn't resist curtseying back. Duo picked up his pack, tossed it over his shoulder and strode away with a jaunty stride. Heero grumbled after him, sure that something wasn't where it should be. Heero's attitude puzzled the examiners but any soldier understood. Everything had a place and everything needed to be in that place so that it could be found quickly in an emergency. It didn't do to be hunting for something when the shit hit the fan. Duo was just as obsessive, just not so evident. He was, after all, the master of stealth. The super escorted them to the next stop on their journey to board their shuttle. He turned them over to the ticket desk and stopped to have a word with the head steward of the shuttle, then he returned to his office to drink coffee and worry. Duo turned on the personality, grinning at the ticket taker and the desk clerk. Heero stood behind him trying to smooth his expression. He hated public transport almost as much as Duo did, just for a different reason. He felt exposed in an enclosed crowd like the terminal. And they were all round, for some reason he didn't understand, no corners for shelter. And neither Duo nor Heero realized why they hated flying so much. Duo sighed as they finally entered the boarding tunnel and went to find their seats. This was just the first leg of their journey but they wouldn't have to go through any security checks again. “Well, this is it, until we transfer at Moon 1.” Duo looked at his ticket. “Let's find our seats. I'm bushed already. I just hate security checks, no matter that I know they're not going to mess anything up. I just hate anyone I don't know messing in my stuff.” The steward helped them find their seats and started to pick up Heero's pack, which he'd dropped in his seat. Heero stopped him by grabbing his wrist, careful not to break it. “No, I'll deal with it.” “Sir, it has to go in the overhead. We can't have things drifting around in nul-grav.” Duo sighed, “Fuck! Here we go again. Look, we're both a bit on the cranky side. We've only had breakfast and that was hours ago. We know they have to go in the overhead, but they have to be stored in a special way and we'll deal. In a minute. Go hover over someone else, come back in a bit and check if you need to. Shoo!” The man went, glancing over his shoulder and noticing a suspicious bulge under Duo's arm. He went to get his superior who told him, in no uncertain terms, to cater to them like royalty. So, instead of calling in the air marshals to take them off, they just watched from the first class galley as Heero took Duo's pack and flipped it front side up and tucked it into the overhead, then did the same with his. Then he did something unexpected, he pulled a contact lock from his pocket and stuck it to the cover. A contact lock was a fairly new development of WEI, with one; you could lock just about anything with a latch. It was magnetic as well as surface adhesive, just a box with a lock, but when it was placed over a latch you needed the key to get it off. “Well, that's new, now what?” The first class steward, Homer, just decided that these were the weirdest kids he'd ever seen. And nothing to be messed with. Duo took the aisle seat because Heero would flinch every time someone walked by. Heero liked the window seat best and Duo couldn't stand to see the stars out the window, he always thought he should be piloting and seeing out the window just reminded him that he wasn't. Losing his ship still hurt him in a way he couldn't explain. It just hurt. So they got settled and waited for the take off. Duo checked his watch obsessively and cracked stupid jokes, a bit too loudly. Heero bore all this with stoic silence; he was going through his own pre-takeoff self-comfort. He silently went through the pre-takeoff engineering checks in his head. The announcement over the address system was a sort of relief. “Ladies and gentlemen, we're preparing to taxi to the launcher. We'll be towed to the launch point by the tow-motor that you can see if you're seated in an odd number seat on the left side of the shuttle. Please be aware that there will be a few jerks as the motor is hitched and again when the tow starts. This is nothing to worry about. Now. Please take a moment to read the emergency procedure pamphlet in the seat pocket in front of you. This contains all the emergency information that you will need in case of an atmospheric incident. If there is an incident in space please remain in your seat until staff makes an announcement then follow all instructions at once. Thank you for your time. And thank you for flying Galactic.” Duo sighed and hissed, “Incident, my ass. If we have a fuckup in space we're all toast. When's lunch? Or is it dinner?” Heero just grunted. “Never mind what it is, when do we eat?” “After takeoff, Duo.” “I know that, when after takeoff.” Heero heaved a long suffering sigh, Duo was in a mood. Not that he blamed Duo, these takeoff and landings were just a pain. He did long for the days when they just stole one of the damn things and went. Or they climbed in their gundam and flew away. He realized that, at the ripe old age of 20, he was longing for the good ol' days. “Fuck me, I feel so damn old sometimes.” Duo shook his head. “Me too, pal, me too. Sucks, but there you are. I wish we had a shuttle of our own. This is just nerve wracking. Next time, let's just steal one, ok?” Heero laughed softly. “Yeah, sure. And then explain to The Bitch why we suddenly felt like committing about eight felonies just so we didn't have to go through security and sit on a runway like all the other peons.” Duo snickered. “Oh, yeah, love to explain that one. Last time I got anywhere near that woman, she tried to execute me. No thanks.” Homer overheard this while he was walking the aisle, making sure every one had their seat belts on correctly, shuddered. Anyone who talked about hijacking a shuttle so casually was not someone he wanted on his watch. These guys would take careful handling and a close watch. He wondered who The Bitch was, then decided that he didn't want to know. The jerks of the tow motor hooking up made a few of the more nervous passengers yelp. A few small children started to cry. Heero relaxed, Duo tensed. The next jerk was because the tow started. Duo gripped the armrests with steely fingers. Heero put one hand on Duo's and squeezed gently. “Duo, relax, you'll bend the armrest.” “Fuck the armrest.” “Pervert.” Heero's amused tone finally got through to Duo. “Ok, ok. I'm a wreck. I hate this. I should be up there. I know it's stupid but I can't help it.” “I know. Wouldn't it be great if we did have our own ship? You could pilot, I could co-pilot and navigate.” Duo fell in with Heero's imaginings gladly. It kept his mind off takeoff. “Yeah, but what about an engineer? Who's going to do that?” “Wufei?” Duo's jaw fell for a moment. “Jesus, 'Ro, you suicidal? 'Fei as engineer? Not a chance. His idea of proper repair protocols is get a bigger hammer. Fuck me.” Heero laughed merrily. “Not 'Fei-fei, the master of the justice rant. Spare me.” Duo mock pouted, “I'm tellin'.” A sharp bang interrupted them, they were seated in the launcher. The PA came on again. “Prepare for launch. The acceleration will be unpleasant. Be sure that your limbs are in a comfortable position, the G factor will be ... four g's. Thank you.” Duo settled comfortably, making sure that his feet were flat on the floor and his arms, elbows especially weren't poking him, or Heero. Heero scuffled around, doing the same. There was a third series of jerks and bumps as the launcher started its cycle preparing to fling the shuttle into space. Duo put his head back on the headrest and wriggled to make sure that there were no wrinkles anywhere that he didn't want them. “Ready .... steady .... launch.” Duo mumbled in unison with Heero. The launch cycle completed as the shuttle engines throbbed from a rumble to a roar and they were off into space. The G forces jammed them into their seats, causing some to gasp for air. Heero and Duo panted in counterpoint, the quick, short pants getting oxygen into their blood with more efficiency than trying to breath against 4 G's. They were soon in orbit and the G forces fell off again. And the noise level rose proportionately. Regular travelers knew to sit for a few moments to get accustomed to the lack of gravity, the other's all forgot and treated the shuttle like an airplane. Several people took off their seat belts and started drifting out of their seats. Duo reached over the back of the seat in front of him to grab a man who'd done exactly that. “Thanks. I feel stupid. I should have known better.” “Not a prob, man. First time?” “Yeah, and my last. I don't think my stomach likes space much.” “There's a barf bag in the seat pocket in front of you. Check for it now, but don't sweat it, just be still for a bit and it'll go away.” Heero fished in a pocket for his ebook and settled back to read over some of the information on Ameena's hang outs. Suddenly a woman screamed, “My baby! Oh, my god. She's drifting away.” The rattle of unbuckling seat belts signaled another disaster in the making as the still screaming woman undid her belts to go in pursuit of her child. Duo sighed, poked a totally oblivious Heero and said, “You going or do you want me to.” Heero looked up and grunted, “I'll go. You keep an eye out for a steward. I'll yell if I need you.” Since it was first class there was plenty of room to maneuver, which also meant that there was a lot of room for drifting. Heero unbuckled his belts and flipped into the aisle. He squatted and launched himself in a trajectory that hit the ceiling at the halfway point between his seat and the now screaming and drifting woman. He hit the ceiling with both hands, flipped around to get his feet on the ceiling, which was now his floor. The next push off allowed him to snag the laughing child and push her gently into waiting hands. The old timer had started to unbuckle but he'd seen Heero so he waited to make a catch on the kid. Heero twisted in air and grabbed the woman who latched onto him like a limpet. “Stop screaming in my ear or I'll slap you. Your kid is fine. She thinks it's funny. If you stop acting like a fool, she'll never realize that there was a problem at all. Now, let go of my coat and bend like you're sitting.” The woman, shocked out of her hysteria by Heero’s threat to slap her, bent as he told her to and he shoved her back into her seat, fastened her belts for her and snarled, “Don't undo those until we have G's again.” She opened her mouth to say something and he just ran her over. “If you need the toilet, buzz the steward. He'll get you there and back. Now,“ he took a hand off from the old timer. “Here's your kid. Calm down.” He started to leave, then turned back. “And stop screaming all the time. It only adds to the confusion. No one can hear anything but you.” The steward, who'd rushed to the rescue the second he'd been informed of a drifting passenger, hid his snicker behind a professional calm and asked Heero if he needed help getting back to his seat, but added, “I know you don't but I have to ask. Company policy. And thanks for the rescue. I hate screaming women. If you need anything, please ask, or come to the galley and get it.” He grinned, he didn't know who either Heero or Duo were but he matched up a few observations and a few guesses and relaxed over their weapons and demeanor. Duo looked up from his ebook and said, “Everything under control?” Heero just nodded. “Great. When do we eat?” Heero just groaned softly. Duo was going to ask every fifteen minutes until they actually got food. The steward made the final announcement just then, “Thank you all for your cooperation in that little incident. Drifting infants are safe enough. If another child gets away from a parent, just push the panic button at your seat and wait for the staff to handle it. As this is a fast ship, our trip will take about 9 hours to complete, depending on factors of math I don't understand.” The announcer laughed lightly. “Dinner will be served in four hours, just after turn around. However, a snack cart will be by in about ten minutes. There will be a variety of sandwiches and chips, or crisps, and drinks available. Please remember to clamp everything down or stuff it into the seat side bins. Drifting crumbs are dangerous so be careful of that. If you should happen to lose something, please ring for a steward. Do not try to recover it yourself, unless you are a spacer. And do not, under any circumstances attempt to open the drink bulbs. Thank you.” Heero had laughed at Duo's dismayed expression when he found out what time dinner was served, then patted his hand when he sighed his relief at the snack cart. “Man, that scared me. I'm starving. How about you?” Heero allowed that he could eat a bite. When the cart got there, it was obvious that this was first class. The cart had fresh fruit, sandwiches, chips, drinks of all kinds and newspapers and magazines. Duo took two sandwiches, chips, cookies and a Mountain Dew. Had to have his caffeine but he wasn't about to trust their coffee. Heero took the same but had an apple instead of cookies. He also got a wrist bag from the steward. A wrist bag was just a zip lock bag with a string on it. You put the trash in it and the string on your wrist. This kept it from drifting away and handy. Heero unwrapped his sandwich and handed half to Duo. “Here, eat this. You got the same sandwiches as I did, we might as well share halves.” Duo accepted the half sandwich and took a bite. He moaned his pleasure. “Oh, man, this is great. They must have just made it. Wow.” He stuffed the whole rest of the half into his mouth, chewing vigorously, he managed to swallow it without choking. Heero laughed around his third bite and held out his hand, wrist bag attached and said, around his bite, “Open your first sandwich.” Duo did so and stuffed his trash into the bag, making sure it sealed properly. They were old hands at all this, trash drifting around in the cockpit of a gundam was not a good thing. Duo made a remark to that effect, turned to look at Heero and got a face full of napkin, thankfully a clean one. He spluttered a bit, grabbed it off his face and handed it to Heero. Heero took it, stuffed it into the bag and then accepted his half sandwich from Duo. “Man, is this the newbie shuttle or what?” Heero agreed that this particular shuttle seemed to be full of inept travelers. . Heero and Duo were both disgusted to realize that the class now had a haze of floating objects. Then they watched in amusement as the two first class stewards attached a line to magnetic hooks set on the walls next to the doors front and back. One of the stewards pulled himself from one end of the line to the other, down the central aisle, netting floating detritus as he went. When he caught something, he extended the net to his partner, who removed the item from the net and stuck it in a trash bag. When the stewards reached Heero's seat, he handed them the wrist bag and requested another. He also suggested that, instead of waiting for someone to ask for one, they be given one when they got something from the snack cart. And be instructed in how to use it. No one, it seemed, was able to use the seat side bin. After all the trash was collected the steward made another announcement, telling people that the next time the cart went by, they were to take a trash bag and use it. Heero grinned at Duo, who just clicked his tongue in disgust. Spacers were all a bit obsessive about floating trash, it could cause all sorts of problems. If it got sucked into the wrong bit of equipment all hell could break loose. Heero asked Duo if he wanted a piece of fruit, he'd gotten a banana and an orange, but the beef sandwich had been thicker than he'd expected so he wasn't going to be able to eat everything he'd taken. Duo thought for a moment. “Sure, I'll take the banana, ok. And we'll save the chips and cookies for later. I'm going to be snacky.” Heero just handed over the requested fruit and started pealing his orange. He knew he was in for a long flight and Duo's restless discontent was better coming out as relentless snacking than some of the other obsessive behaviors he could display. “That's fine. We do have an invite to the galley, you know. So if it gets really bad, you could just go up and ask for something.” Duo gave a silent cheer and stuck his nose in his book. Heero did the same and began the process of profiling Ameena. While Heero profiled, Duo spent his time reading all Ameena's contact information. Heero would glance over the addresses, cataloging the type of establishment. Duo went deeper into the type of people who would be there, how they acted, what they liked. While Heero might have a good idea of Ameena, Duo knew how to fit in with her crowd. This process lasted until dinner. CHAPTER TWO By the time dinner rolled around, Duo was more than ready for it. He had eaten his chips, then the cookies, now he was ready for real food, again. The steward maneuvered his cart with expertise, keeping it between the seats and on the floor. A glide system instead of wheels, helped with this, but not nearly enough. A big man decided that he had to get up and stretch his legs, despite the hourly warnings to remain in their seats. He bumped the cart hard which sent the cart into the air in one direction and him in another. The steward tried to cope with all this but his priority had to be the cart. It was filled with hot food, all in covered containers it was true, but one popped cover and people would get burned. The man, on his own, floated up, flailing wildly. This time it was Duo who launched himself to help out. He grabbed the man, hooking his foot into a nearby armrest to steady himself. The now outraged man flailed one last time, then wrapped his arms around Duo's waist and clung like a monkey. Duo maneuvered him back into his seat and ordered the wide eyed man. “Do. Not. Get. Up. Again. You hear me? If you need to pot, ask. Now fasten your belts and behave.” One look into Duo's eyes had the man nodding quickly, then he looked away, shamefaced and silent. Duo turned to the steward. “You ok? Even more important, is the food ok?” Duo grinned at him, read his name tag, and laughed, “Man, Clark, is it always this exciting?” Clark, the second steward on first class, shook his head. “No, thank goodness. This flight seems to be made up of newbies, idiots and arrogant assholes. With about four spacers thrown in just to keep the rest from crashing us into the sun. Thanks for the help.” Duo returned to his seat to see Heero laughing his ass off. “What?” “Shinigami came out a bit there. I was afraid we'd have a mess on our hands for a moment.” Duo snorted. “And hourly addresses to stay seated, call a stew if you need something are just so much hot air. Why the hell do these people think the crew keeps saying stay in your damn seat? What do they use for brains?” A voice from in front of them said in an amused tone, “They forget it's not an airplane. Then, they're all, 'well, shit, surprise' when they wind up floating near the ceiling. Nice work, young man.” Duo looked around Heero to grin at the Co-pilot, who was hanging on to a handy strap he'd stuck to the luggage overhead. “Glad I could help.” “Yes, and I do believe that both of you are due thanks. Mr. Yuy for rescuing that kid as well.” Heero snorted. “The child had more sense than the mother. Mom was screaming her head off while the kid was happy as anything, just floating around giggling. Cute kid.” The co-pilot stuck out his hand. “Captain Anderson, pleased to meet you. Mr. or do you still have a rank?” Heero glance at Duo, who shrugged. “I think we retired as Brigadier Generals or something. Got some money too. But you know how that goes.” Captain Anderson nodded. “I bet you got squat. I got about 6,000 euros. And I flew the big ships. But enough of that. Captain Reynolds would like to know if you'd like to come up to the captains table, other side of the for'ard galley.” Duo nodded. “Thanks, that would be nice. 'Ro?” “Yes, I'd like that. Thank you.” So they wound up eating with the pilot and co-pilot, while the navigator and engineer held the helm. They would eat next. The conversation ranged over a variety of subjects, it was lively and calmed Duo like nothing else could have. They returned to their seats to find the cabin lights low and most people trying to sleep. They drifted quietly into their seats and tried to sleep too. Heero again took the window seat, but this time he padded armrest and wall with blankets and pillows and gathered Duo into his arms. Duo snuggled down against Heero's chest and pulled a blanket over them both, tucking a pillow in the crook of Heero’s neck. They talked quietly for a few minutes then both dozed off. The steward checked on them, pulled the blanket up a bit more, unknowingly putting his life in danger and drifted on to check on the rest of first class. The bump of the braking jets firing woke them both. Duo gathered up their blankets and pillows, folding the blankets with ease. The pillows he just fluffed and stacked on the blankets. “Ready?” Heero took the pile and switched places with Duo. They had to be in their reserved seats for docking. The steward came bay and took the pile of bedding from Heero, checked their belts and nodded. “Docking in about ten minutes.” Heero just grunted and checked what was going on around them. He sighed and pointed. “Better check that guy’s belts. I don't think he's got them buckled right.” “I see, Thanks.” The steward drifted away, stopped to stuff the bedding in an overhead and then to correct the man's seat belts. Heero glanced out the window and shook his head. The traffic around the station cum terminal was awful. “Duo, be ready, I don't think debarkation is going to go well. We'll probably have to snag at least a couple of drifters.” Duo peeked out the window too, noticed that the debarkation tubes were clear and sighed. “I'll be ready. You ok? You look a little weirded out.” Heero just rubbed fretfully at his ear. “I haven't been into space since the war. I'm ... just a little ... on edge? Not sure. Just ... I'll be ok as soon as I get my space legs back.” Duo patted Heero on the shoulder. “I'm right here, you get into trouble let me know, ok?” “Thanks. I'll be ok as soon as we get colony side. I didn't realize how much a commercial shuttle would affect me until it was too late. I just ... would you believe, I think the reason I'm having so much trouble is ... I have no idea where the safe suits are.” Duo just pointed to a red locker near the exit. “Right there. And they're those universal 'you-can't-fuck'em-up-if-you-try' things.' “ Heero relaxed, that slight tension that he'd held in all his muscles just flowing away like dirty water down a drain. “Oh, well. That's great. I do feel a whole lot better. I wonder if there are extra crew suits?” “Don't know, but if there are, I want one of them.” After a few more bumps and another shot from the jets, they were docked. The tube from the ship to the terminal was attached and the PA came on. “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated until the zip line is set up. When it is, I'll make another announcement, until that time, take a moment to look around you and make sure that all your possessions are accounted for. Thank you.” So, of course, some yotz had to ask what a zip line was. The attendant was already gone but the old timer spoke up. “It's a line that will go from the back to the front of the compartment. It's motorized so all you have to do is take hold of one of the loops and it'll take you up front. Don't try to crowd it and one person to a loop.” He settled back in his seat and shook his head. This was not going to be pretty. He looked around, caught Duo's eye and nodded to him. Duo nodded back and prepared himself to sort out the sure mess coming up. And a mess it was, everyone on board seemed to loose their minds. They stood up before they were told to and drifted every which way. Some managed to get hold of something and get back into their seats, other's drifted, flailing and wailing. Duo reached out and snagged the nearest one, shoving him into the seat below him, he snarled, “Stay there until someone comes to help you.” He countered his objections with, “I don't care who you are or what you want ... stay!” The man subsided at that and clutched the seat belt to keep himself from floating away again. Heero glanced around and wondered why the company allowed this sort of chaos to occur. He was going to have a few words with someone, via Quatre if necessary. He made his way to the front and realized that the stewards were in a mess as well. The zip line was tangled and there wasn't enough room to untangle it in the forward galley. He just sighed. “Ok, who's supposed to be keeping an eye on the passengers?” One of the stewards looked up. “That would be me. How did you get up here?” “Got space legs. You better get out there, you've got at least twenty out of thirty-five passengers either out of their seats or in the wrong one. My partner is taking care of as much as he can but someone is going to kick over the traces and tell him to take a jump as he's not part of the crew. And the air marshals aren't any help for some reason.” The two stewards both swore luridly. Then the senior steward, Mr. Franklin, just gave it up. “I give up. We're not going to get this thing untangled and I'm going to find out how it got in this mess and ... later for that. What can you do to help out?” Heero thought for a moment. “I can organize this mess rather quickly, if you'll let me.” “All I've got to say is, rules and regs don't cover this, captain has no time for it and there's shit all I know to handle something where I have no zip and not enough help. We're suppose to have six stews just in this class, but four called in sick and every other class is also full up and short handed. Blue flu is going around again.” Heero just gazed at him for a moment. “Ok. Here's what we do. My partner is a spacer born and was a sweeper. There's also one old timer that I know of. We get them both up here, stuff them into crew suits so they look official and that gives us five people, you two, my partner and I and the old timer. I think we can manage with that. Right?” Mr. Franklin gathered up the zip line, took a moment to scribble a nasty note and stuffed the whole mess into the locker it had come from. He found the old timer who agreed to help out and came back with a disgusted expression on his face. “We now have exactly eight out of forty-five people in their seats. The rest are either stranded or clinging to who knows what.” No one bothered to comment on this, they were all scrambling into the crew suits that Mr. Franklin handed out from the crews locker just behind the cockpit. After they got into the suits, Heero got on the PA. His tactics were a bit different than the stewards. “Ok, everybody shut the fuck up! If there's still someone screaming, smack 'em, gag 'em. I don't care what you have to do, but I want it quiet. NOW!!” It took only seconds for the screaming and yelling to stop. There was still a bit of sobbing but mostly from scared children. “Crew will be going through in a few moments. Do not talk to them! They've got enough to deal with without dealing with demands from people who can't even keep their butts in their seats. The first order of business will be to get you all into your seats again. Once there, stay there! Children will be our priority. After you are all in your seats with your belts fastened, further orders will be issued.” He waited for this to sink in, then went on. “If you are an air marshal and drifting, that's your problem. If you're not, stay in your seat. If we need you we'll tell you.” Duo had one hand pressed firmly against his mouth to keep from laughing his ass off. Heero's voice now usually warm and friendly, had returned to his pre-peace tone, flat and deadly. He didn't think anyone would disobey. They all quickly realize that it was going to be a bit more difficult than they'd thought. While no one actually grabbed anyone, all the passengers seemed to believe that the crew had nothing better to do than to cater to their demands at once. This caused the kind of chaos that Heero despised. Duo finally lost it completely, the sight of Heero's disgusted face had him laughing like a maniac. The sound, echoing around the cabin froze everyone for a moment. Then Heero took charge. “Everyone shut up! You ..” He pointed to a well dressed business man floating close to the ceiling and demanding that he be taken off the shuttle right now. “There’s no way to get you off until the doors open, then you will wait your turn. Turns will be assigned according to seat numbers. Numbers closest to the doors will go first. That is the way it will be done.” There were several audible gulps at that. Duo just started at the seat nearest the door and began getting idiots back into their seats. It didn't take the four men long to get most of the people back in their seats, Heero had to intervene twice. Once when a man insisted that he was next, by grabbing Mr. Franklin by the arm. Heero dealt with that one by putting the man in his seat himself, hard. He almost bounced back out, but Heero jammed him back down and fastened the seat belts himself. They left bruises. The second time Heero had to intervene was with a woman. She managed to get hold of Duo's braid and refused to let go, no matter what Duo did. Duo was afraid to force her, for fear of breaking her fingers. Heero didn't have any such qualms but his grasp on her wrist was enough to get the panic stricken woman to let go. Heero was actually pleased to see that all the children cooperated with the staff and actually seemed a great deal less upset than the adults, almost all the crying had been caused by the yelling of the adults. One little girl cried for her mother but when Heero asked her were she was, she told him 'L4'. Heero didn't believe that someone had actually put a 7 year old on a shuttle by herself. Now that everyone was back in their seats, Heero returned to the PA. “When your seat number is called wait until the staff gets to you, then point out your bag. You will be brought to the front, suited up and given your bag. Do not let go of it. If it drifts off, no one will have time to go after it.” After seeing Heero and Duo work in unison, the rest of the crew relaxed. The old timer was put on the suit up as he admitted that he was a suit tech. This left the two stewards and Heero and Duo to bring people up one at a time and help get them into suits. As the passengers were brought up to the door, the old timer, who announced that his name was actually Pop, pulled a suit out of the rack and opened it. After the passenger was in the suit and sealed, he checked the seals and handed them off to the waiting crew in the tube. It only took them an hour to get everyone into suits and handed off. Heero was disgusted to learn that the rest of the ship had been emptied in less than half an hour. By the time they were done, they were all hot, sweaty and tired. Duo was all for locking down and trying to make their connection, he was disgusted to find out that they were booked into a small hotel on the exchange point. It seemed that the company had rules about smells. Neither Heero nor Duo objected to the rule. There was nothing like being in a closed environment with someone who smelled. They disembarked, checked their luggage and went to find their lodgings. They kept the suits. No one argued. . Exhausted, they ate room service hamburgers and fries, showered and fell into the one king-sized bed. When they woke it was to a knock on the door and a too cheerful voice announcing, “Breakfast, courtesy of Galactic Transport.” Heero got up and opened the door, unashamed that he was wearing nothing but boxers and a scowl. “Hi! Here's breakfast for you. I hope it's ok. No one told us what you'd like so there's eggs, scrambled; bacon, toast, coffee, orange and apple juices and ... um ... some sort of danish. On the house, or rather Galactic. Did you hear about the mess in Flight 307's first class? Only two stewards for forty-five passengers.” Duo groaned and flopped back on the bed. “Yeah, we were right in the middle of it all. Don't remind me. Bleh!” Heero picked up his pants and fished out his wallet. “Here. And keep it quiet, we'd rather not attract a lot of attention. Don't like it, don't need it. Good-by.” The bellman let himself be crowded to the door. He thanked Heero for the tip and left. He later told the Manager that he'd never seen eyes like Heero's and didn't want to again. They ate quickly. Duo showered first, then settled to dry and braid his hair while Heero showered. They stuffed their dirty clothing into vacuum bags and Heero rolled them up to press out as much air as possible. Their clean clothing would have made most Earthers blink; but, not that they were in space, no one much paid attention. They both had donned 'ship suits', skin tight spandex one pieces, zippered up the front that allowed them freedom of movement and from flapping hems and sleeves. It also made it easier to get into and out of vacuum suits. Heero's famous shorts were another version of what most spacers called second skins. They then put on the suits that they'd liberated from Galactic. Heero checked his computer for their new reservations and they left for the proper docking bay. Few people realized that this was not a station in the regular sense of the word, it was Moon-1. The 'airport' from which all Earth's outward bound traffic departed, even traffic for the moon itself. Their connection was leaving in about 45 minutes. They got packed and went to check out. The cheerful man at the front desk announced that Galactic had paid their tab and paid for them to get transport to the proper dock. It was waiting outside the door right now. He wished them an uneventful trip, smiled in a knowing way and escorted them to the door. Waiting there was another of the ubiquitous 'golf cart' customer courtesy conveyances, driven buy a woman this time. She smiled and said, “Hop on. It won't take me fifteen minutes to get you to the dock. I'm assuming you won't yack at a bit of nul-G?” Heero grunted, “No.” while Duo snickered and said, “Sweeper? Not likely. We going through the core?” “Yeah, ground-pounders aren't usually allowed there but I got orders. Special case, but I'm glad you won't yack. Hate cleaning up bio-hazards. Sweeper, you say?” Duo jerked his thumb at his chest. “Me. Howard took me on.” “No kidding? He doesn't pick up many. You have to be really good for him to take you on so young. What're you doin' out of the nest.” Heero shook his head. “We've both been out of the nest for a while. We at the core yet?” The woman took the hint and quit asking questions. “Not quite, 'nother five minutes or so.” They settled back to ride in silence, Duo looking around, Heero just sitting enjoying the respite from the constant background yammering of people talking, working, living; and the sound of the machinery that kept the station livable. The closer to the core you got the quieter it was. Heero thought it was because most of the machinery was just under the skin of the station. It made it easier to maintain if you could get to it by just removing a hatch plate. The drivers cheerful, “Ready for flip?” brought him back to himself. 'Flip' was that one point at the absolute center of the terminal where you had to actually physically flip head to toe or you'd be oriented the wrong way when you reached the gravity of the other side of the core. You'd land on your head instead of your feet. They held onto the grab straps and the driver gave the orientation jet a squirt. They flipped and stabilized in a way that proved the driver had done this countless times. She was so smooth that they wouldn't have noticed except that she warned them. “Nice job! Smooth as silk.” Duo's compliment made her blush a bit. “Thank you, kind sir. We'll be at your gate in about another five minutes. Unless everything goes tits up.” Duo snickered. “Don't jinx us.” “Sorry.” The rest of the journey was completed well within the five minutes. They were greeted at the gate by a courtesy hostess who saw them through the gate and onto the shuttle personally. Nothing was said about yesterday’s adventures but every employee in the area went out of their way to catch a glimpse of the young men who'd saved their bacon, in more ways than one. Heero was uncomfortable and looked it. Duo was in his element and distracted attention from Heero by chattering cheerfully. They were shown their compartment and left to themselves. As this shuttle was a long haul transport, a shuttle that traveled only between colonies and stations and never set wheel on Earth or the moon, it was set up for a trip of several days. This leg of the trip, from the moon to L4 would take approximately three days and two nights. Since there was no gravity to pull them one way or another, the takeoff from the station was unfelt. The artificial gravity kicking in was announced by a simple PA announcement and they were off for L4. Duo examined their compartment and declared himself satisfied with the arrangement. It was a first class compartment and contained two beds, full sized but bunked. A small desk in one corner was big enough to hold a full-sized laptop and still leave room for paperwork. And the bathroom was well appointed with a sealing door and vacuum system so that they could shower. They spent the next three days researching Ameena, her hangouts and her associates; eating and sleeping when they felt like it. The room service was very good and the excuse that they didn't dine in the dinning room because it was full of newbies who let things drift and choked on their drinks was accepted with amusement by the steward for their section. On the evening of their last night he even shared a story. “You should have seen this mess. Some yayhoo got just drunk enough that he forgot and pried the top off his drink. Now, usually that's not a problem as we have gravity. But lunch was served, why I don't know, just as turnaround came up. We had about two minutes of nul-G right as he got the damn thing open. Of course, it went all over, drifting around in big blobs. Then the gravity came back on. The wine, yeah, red wine, fell. All over a table of high rollers and upper level executives of a casino. So, here we are, trying to serve lunch, wine everywhere and screaming, yelling hot shots threatening to sue someone. Mabel, you ought to meet her, tells the hot shots to sue the guy who opened his drink after being told a dozen times not to. Thought I'd die laughing when the idiot found out that one suit cost 5,000 euros and couldn't be cleaned. The silk dress was a designer original and ... you'll never believe that a dress the size of two hankies cost 8,000 euros. It's nothing but a scrap of lace and a few beads sewn onto a chopped skin suit. Not that she didn't look like a wet dream in stilettos.” Duo nearly hurt himself he laughed so hard and Heero did have a chuckle himself. They thanked the steward by tipping heavily and telling him he could hide in their compartment if it really got rank. He declined the invitation with thanks, took his tip and shut the door behind him. They docked in the middle of ship night and both of them woke up. It was usual for shuttles, especially trans-colony ones, to dock in the middle of either the ships night or the colony's night and disembark passengers in the morning. Well rested people were much less likely to lose their tempers. And arriving on-colony was almost guaranteed to make anyone cranky. Since they were already awake they packed up their stuff and went in search of help getting off the shuttle now, instead of trying to deal with the mess and crowding later. It didn't take them long to get to the stewards lounge. This was where the on-duty stewards waited for someone to ring for service. There were stewards on duty 24/7. Duo just stuck his head in the door, grinned and said, “How would someone like to get rid of the two of us early?” Heero snickered, trust Duo to put things in such a light. A young woman laughed and replied, “Honey, you two are the least trouble of all, but if you want, I'll get you off boarded right now.” Heero smiled slightly. “That would be very nice of you. Thank you. I really, really hate crowds and my nerves are about shot.” Duo snorted at this. “Shut it, you, they are. I don't like watching all these fools doing their best to kill themselves and anyone nearby. What is it with this flight? And what's your name, I can't see your badge and that makes me nervous too.” “Sylvia, sorry. First thing we have to do it get your baggage.” She started toward the hold. “This is all we have. I don't let my stuff out of sight. There's two changes of clothing appropriate to wash in a hand basin in here, as well as weapons that have no business out of my hands and the papers to confirm my right to carry anywhere in known space. Are we going to have trouble getting on colony?” Sylvia goggled at both of them for a moment, drew a deep breath and said, “Not if your papers are in order. Who signed them?” “Une.” Duo's short syllable made Sylvia sigh. “Um ... you won't have any trouble, but you might get a few ... er... unhappy looks.” Heero mumbled, “No shit,” shouldered his pack and motioned for Duo to go ahead of him. Duo just rolled his eyes and followed Sylvia. She led them to the shuttles main air lock, only because they had to present their tickets and be checked off the master flight list. This duly taken care of, they entered the airlock, the inner doors closed and the cycle started. Duo snickered, “I wonder when they're going to realize that we still have Galactic crew suits in our possession.” Heero shrugged. “Don’t care. As long as they don't want them back before we get good suits, not a problem.” “Right. Inner doors closed, cycle starting .... now.” Duo called the start of the exchange cycle, where air pressure from the ship and air pressure from the transfer tube equalized. The pumps grumbled and air hissed. Neither one of them realized they'd done it until later but both of them flipped their helmets up and sealed them to the body of their suits, second nature to both of them. The chance of the tube detaching, leaking or collapsing was minimal but training makes or breaks us. In this case, it did neither, nothing happened and they each took a loop of the horizontal zip line which took them to the other end of the debarkation tub with a soft whizz. They presented their passports, ID, and permits to the woman at the gate, unlatching their helmets as they did so. They waited while she read, stamped and refolded everything except the permits. These she set aside. “Because of the time of shift and the signatures, I'm going to have to call my supervisor. I'm not high enough up the chain of command to ok importing some of this stuff. Sorry.” Heero just shrugged, even on Earth, some of their stuff caused problems in crossing borders. They stood patiently until the super showed up, then followed him into a back office. “OK, guys, what's really up? Something bad?” The supervisor looked and acted like Alliance, upper rank officer at that. Heero blinked for a moment, then shook his head. “No. I know you?” “No, but I recognize you both. What's going on?” Duo laughed softly. “We're bounty hunters now. Preventers didn't appeal to either one of us. So ... we're doing a repo for Q.” The man relaxed then and chuckled. “Can't fault an old war horse for wanting to keep up on all the poop. Let me see your papers. I can't imagine what has Christina in such a sweat.” He started to read, stopped, scanned to the bottom of the page and whistled. “Holy cow! All this for a repo?” Heero smirked at him. “Old war horses have ideas of what they need and hate to be without it.” Duo nearly hurt himself trying not to laugh. The super did laugh, then he stamped their papers and handed them back. “Just make sure you keep those papers on you at all times and don't, for God's sake, lose any of that.” Duo gave a jaunty salute and said, “You got it. Can we go now?” “Sure,” the man sighed, hoping he was doing the right thing. Repo for Q had to be code for something bad, and he didn't want to know. “Go. Get out of here before I change my mind.” Heero just raised an eyebrow, gathered his stuff and held the door for Duo. They hurried into the back corridor before anyone could stop them and direct them into the main concourse. Neither one of them wanted to have to deal with it. Since this was the main entreport for the entire cluster the port was always crowded and teaming with activity. They needed to get from this check point to L4-33359. Duo opened a door, peeked through and crowed, “Jackpot! We're in the middle of rental row. What do you think about renting a hopper?” Heero thought about that for a second. “Sounds good to me. I haven't piloted a hopper since the war...” “And you're not going to now. I am.” Heero glowered a bit sullenly at that. “Don't sulk up on me. You never had a license. I'm certified and it's still valid.” Heero just snorted, grinned and stuck his tongue out at Duo. “Brat.” “You betcha.” Duo didn't sigh his relief, he knew that both he and Heero were stressed. The return to space was affecting Heero more than he wanted to admit and he, Duo, was feeling the loss of his ship more keenly than he'd thought he would. It was going to take both of them a bit of time to get back to normal, or what passed for that condition in them. He shook his head to himself and slipped out into the open area that most ports referred to as a trade node. Heero glanced around then pointed discretely, “There. WEIrent. They'll have exactly what we want. I'd like to get a hopper with reclining seats. It's going to take ...” Heero took a moment to make some mental calculations. “About another six to eight hours to get to 33359. We can each catch a nap on the way.” Duo eyed the counter for a moment. “Ok. Let's go see what they've got. I'd like a Sprite or an Omega, if we can get it. And flash that fancy card Q sent us. We might get better service or we might just piss them off.” “We'll probably have them falling all over themselves. But I'll show it, discretely.” It took a bit to even get service. The countertop had a big roll down shutter but it was up, however, no one was there. Duo pushed the 'for service' button and they waited. It took a bit but a young, pimply boy finally showed up. “What can I do for you? Sorry it took me so long, I was clear in the back, washing up a bit.” Heero glowered at him, then sighed. “What time is it?” “About ... 2:45am. Our time. You just in?” “Yeah. We need a hopper.” The boy dug a clipboard out from under the counter. “Here. Fill this out and I need a copy of your certs.” Duo dug out his certification papers, glad he'd kept them up, no matter how annoying it had been, he'd re-certified just two months ago. He'd assumed that Heero would argue about it but he'd just written out the check for the fee and remarked that they could take it off their taxes. Duo had passed with the first 100% the Bay Area testing facility had ever had. They clerk took his copy, the papers Heero filled and their credit card. He ran the card, filed the papers and produced the key card and docking slip for their hopper. He yawned, said good night and disappeared back into the back of the facility. Duo gave his back a worried frown. “I don't like this.” “Why not? It was way easier than I had expected. We practically get an escort from the ship to the rental, so why are you worried. Like is said, it was easy.” “That's what has me worried, it's too easy. Something’s going to blow up in a spectacular way, I can feel it.” Duo rubbed at the back of his neck, his frown deeper than ever. Heero gave Duo a tired look. He was well aware of his Sweeper superstitions, and this one was really usually right. But he was travel weary and really didn't want to think about it now. “Stop worrying. It's going to be fine. You'll see. Come on, let's get to our hopper and don't jinx us by talking about bad luck. Ok?” Duo shook himself once, like a dog shedding water. “Ok, not more bad luck talk. I just hope you're right. So, wonder what our hopper looks like. Probably a piece of pretty junk. You know, all paint and no guts.” Heero thought for a moment, then said in his driest tone. “Does it really make any difference? If you don't like the one he assigned us, we'll just hack something we do like. They can sort it out at their end later. It's not like we're not going to pay for it, right?” Duo laughed softly. “'Ro? When's the last time I told you, 'I love you.'?” Heero tugged Duo into a quick one armed hug. “It's been...” He thought for a second, “Six hours, twenty-one minutes, sixteen seconds.” Duo frankly goggled at him, “You keep track?” Heero smirked. “No, you don't. You ... baka!” Heero just pointed at Duo's nose and said, “Gotcha!” Then they turned their attention to the different hoppers in the large docking bay. There was a skeleton crew sitting around a table in one far corner and Duo pointed to them. “Why don't we just go over there and hand them the card, find out which ship we've been assigned and kick up a fuss if we don't like it?” Heero gave a small start, this wasn't war after all. “I don't know why not. Old reflexes are a bitch. We're both going to have to watch out that we don't get ourselves into some kind of trouble over this.” Duo bit his lip, a worried frown creasing his brow. “You're right. But, sorry, 'Ro, you're going to have to be more careful than I am. You have reflexes I don't. I was infiltration and stealth.” Heero nodded then said a bit sourly, “Yeah, and I'm more of a hammer. But I was trained by Oden Lowe, remember. I'll just be careful until I get ... my feet under me again.” Duo nodded, then took a deep breath. “Ok, here we go.” The group noticed the two bounty hunters before they got halfway across the open space in the middle of the bay. “Hey! What are you two doing here?” Duo just waved their paper work and the key card. “We got a rental. That boy at the front didn't tell us where to go so we just wandered around until we found you. And, man, am I glad. I just hope we're in the right place.” As he'd been talking, they'd kept walking toward the table. By the end of Duo's explanation they were met by the senior crewman. “Let me see. Yeah, you're in the right place, only you're supposed to be on the other side of that counter until we bring out your hopper. But ... never mind. It's night and no one's around to make a stink. My name's Joe and I'll just draw ... no, this one's on the sick list.” Duo made a face. “Why can't we just pick one we like and take it.” “Well .... no reason I know of, except cash. If you can pay for it you can have it as far as I'm concerned. So, guided tour sound good?” Duo rubbed his hands together. “Sounds great. Heero, why don't you show our credit card to the ... whoever wants to swipe it. Ok?” Heero just turned to look at the other people seated at the table. He waived their credit card at them all and asked, “Ok, who's the victim?” But they all took one look at the card with it's very distinctive logo. One of the men said, “Fuck me! With that you could buy this whole dog and pony show. We'll just change the paperwork with a comment that the Excelsior you were assigned was on the sick list.” Heero didn't bother to control his grimace, and Excelsior was a piece of crap. It would have been good enough if they were planning a short hop of not more than an hour, but they would have run out of fuel long before they reached their destination. He didn't bother to cover his flinch when he heard Duo's yell either. Duo was wound up and Heero knew that he was going to take this opportunity to blow off some steam. “An Excelsior? What the hell! Our destination is right here on the papers. We'd run out of fuel before we got halfway there. He trying to kill us or is he just stupid? Jaysus on a pogo stick!” Joe just listened politely until Duo wound down and huffed softly, blowing his bangs up in a way that left one lock sticking out sideways. Heero ambled over and smoothed it down grinning apologetically at Joe. “Duo, calm down. We'll just pick something else and they'll change the paperwork. The hopper we were assigned is out of order anyway.” “Yeah, ok. Just ... what the hell? You know?” Heero just agreed, “Yeah, I do know. But I don't think that boy had any idea. He's just clean up crew and had aspirations above his station as Wufei would say. Now, apologize for yelling at Joe and let's get on with picking a hopper.” Heero kissed Duo on the temple, making Joe smile. “Don't worry about it. I'd yell too if someone assigned me an Excelsior to make a six hour hop. Boy's an idiot but he's the owner's relation some way or another so what can you do? We've got a really nice Comet and there's a ... don't kill the messenger ... Maxwell. Newest thing on the market. Very nice.” Duo's jaw dropped so far Heero thought he heard it hit the deck. Duo's yelp of, “A what?” brought the attention of the rest of the crew back to them. Joe bent double, he laughed so hard. When he recovered, he explained, “Sweeper, me. Howard needed people where they could find out stuff. I'm one of them. I just like it here so I never bothered to leave. WEI just released the newest of their line of hoppers. There's one named for each of you, although almost no one realizes the significance of the names. We couldn't get a Yuy, they're way out of our price range. We could just barely afford a Maxwell. We've got a Barton and a Chang on the way, as soon as we get the dosh to pay for them. They're all five tippy-top of the line.” Heero blinked, wondered, then cracked up completely. The Yuy being the top of the top of the line amused him more than anything he'd heard in a long time. Duo patiently waited until Heero got himself back together. “If you're done laying that egg ...” he ducked Heero's easy swing at his head, “we'll go pick up my namesake.” Joe laughed at their antics and led the way, remarking, “I'll have to get you the right key card,” he turned and yelled in the general direction of the rest of the crew. “One of you assholes get me the key to the Maxwell, will ya?” There was some bumping and grumbling, then someone announced, “Only because you ask so sweet.” Duo and Heero just ignored this exchange as the hopper caught their attention. It was sleek and big. It took up the whole of the auxiliary bay it was situated in. Duo whistled softly. “Man, that's sweet. Room for?” He glanced at Joe. “Four. And a crew of two. The Barton and Chang models are smaller, room for two with a pilot. The Chang is faster but doesn't have the range. The Barton is slower but has about half again the range. The Yuy has both range and speed, but no cargo space at all.” “What about this one?” “It's got speed, range and room. A small but acceptable cargo hold. Holds about eight cubic meters of cargo, over and above the cubic yard per allowed for passengers and crew. We usually have a bit of something or other to send to whatever destination the hopper is headed for. It's a cheat but most people never even ask.” At Duo's inquiring look he continued, “Since we got caught off guard, there's nothing stowed and no time to get anything.” He grinned gleefully. “Doesn't hurt my feelings a bit. I think it's a cheat because the unknowing customer winds up paying for the fuel. Not my idea of fair. So ...” he turned to the man who handed him the key package. “Thanks, Hank.” He handed the package to Duo. “Here's the key, a manual, and your pilots package. Safe passage.” With that, he turned and left Duo to his business, sauntering away, whistling. Duo just headed for the cockpit, leaving Heero to stow both packs and check out the rest of the accommodations. A quick rundown of the preflight routine left Duo with a few moments to look around. The cockpit was roomy, clean and well organized, clearly designed by a pilot instead of an engineer. He noticed that all the readouts were better organized than any he'd ever seen outside his gundam. The most important gauges were right in front of him and the readouts were clear and easy to read. The rest of the gauges were organized by frequency of use and could be blacked out until needed. A simple computer program lit up the one the pilot looked at and left the rest dark. Duo heartily approved. He got on the radio and contacted the control 'tower', it wasn't actually a tower, in fact, as far as Duo knew, it was buried in the middle of the station. But the central launch control had been called tower from time immemorial. So he called the tower and filed his flight plan then waited for his launch time to be sent back. While he waited, he went back to see what Heero was doing. He was impressed with the rest of the accommodations as well. The back part of the hopper was divided into six compartments, situated around a large sitting area. There were four small sleeping compartments, a kitchen and a locker room where the luggage was kept in separate lockers. Behind that area was the cargo 'hold' which was nothing but an easily accessible room, separated from the front by a tiny air lock. “Well, very nice, if you ask me. Q did a good job. And I know he had more that just a hand in it. Wait until you see the cockpit. Speaking of which, I better get back and see if we have a slot yet.” Duo keyed the console and noted that they did have a launch time which was in about ten minutes. Just enough time to run through startup and taxi to the catapult. Heero took the co-pilots seat and read off the checklist. Duo flipped switches and read off data. He checked the fuel, noted that the tank was full and announced them ready to taxi. Heero contacted the tower, announcing, “Maxwell 037 to Tower, Tower do you read?” “Tower to Maxwell 037, read you 5 by 5.” “Maxwell 037, ready to taxi to catapult 06.” “Permission granted to Maxwell 037, taxi at will.” Heero nodded to Duo who fired up the engines and made the short taxi to their assigned catapult. There was a bump as they were hooked up, then the Tower contacted them again. “Tower to Maxwell 037, ready for launch.” Towers dry voice made it a statement rather than a question. “Maxwell 037 to Tower, fire when ready.” Duo's voice was calm and professional. “Tower to Maxwell 037, ready to launch in ...” “Five.” The winch took the slack out of the chain. “Four.” Duo revved up the engines “Three.” There was a sharp jerk as the catapult started its cycle. “Two.” They picked up speed and Duo opened the throttles to half. “One.” The catapult reached its apex and released them into space. Duo gave a whoop of joy, completely forgetting that he had his headset on auto. “Hey! Maxwell, Duo Maxwell? Is that you?” Duo, who knew someone almost everywhere, replied, “Yup, it's me. Who's this?” “Andy Diamond. You got a new ship?” Duo sighed. “No, man, gave that up as a bad job. Joined up with Yuy instead.” “Too bad, man. But Yuy, you say? That good?” “It's great, but we better can the chatter. You'll get an ass reamin' from the higher ups.” Then Duo switched his headset to manual and took it off. “Wow! That was so great. I'm ... I wish...” Heero knew what Duo meant. “I know. But as the old saying goes, 'Shit in one hand, wish in the other and see which one fills up first.' Set autopilot and get some sleep.” He held up a hand. “I know you just woke up, but I want you fresh for turnaround and landing. So take a nap.” Duo didn't argue after that, he just went to decide which room he wanted. As they were all the same, he settled for the one closest to the cockpit and left the door open. That way he could hear Heero if anything came up and he called. Heero settled back to try to find his equilibrium, he felt off balance for the first time in a long time. He knew it was coming back to the colonies. He also knew that he had to make sure that he didn't fall into the trap of returning to his pre-war persona. It wasn't healthy, for him or for Duo. He thought Duo was going to be battling some issues of his own. They'd just have to deal as best they could. He thought, worried and waited. He hardly ever let Duo see him worry. Duo couldn't help him not worry, it only made Duo worry too. Then he realized that, in this case at least, there wasn't that much to worry about. He decided to just give himself a rest. “Duo? Wake up, love.” Duo blinked and sat up. “We at turnaround?” “Not quite, but I'm kind of tired so I thought you could get up a bit early so I can bag some z's.” “Ok. You ok?” Duo's concerned look made Heero smile. “Yeah, I'm just a bit tired. Too much stupid worrying and ... I'm not dealing that well with returning to space, either. I feel off balance and I'm having trouble finding my center. I thought maybe a nap would help.” “Ok. I see. You need anything, let me know. I'll go up to the cockpit and do a bit of research. I had an idea and I want to see if it'll pan out.” Heero gave Duo a tired squeeze and crawled between the sheets. Both he and Duo were bare footed so there weren't even any boots to deal with. Duo smiled a bit. He wasn't very happy that Heero was having trouble but he was glad that he wasn't the only one. They needed to get their feet under them quickly or they were going to be in trouble getting their repo done. He spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to get both of them on 'track'. He decided that all they really needed was a day to just walk around and re-accustom themselves to the sounds and smells of a colony. So he started to plan a bit of a holiday, a sight seeing tour of the colony they were going to and a reservation in a nice restaurant. He also checked to find a hotel that was acceptable. He'd make reservations there as soon as he could. Heero usually took care of reservations at hotels and restaurants but Duo realized that he needed to take more responsibility in that. As he examined different hotels he tried to figure out how Heero picked. What were the deciding factors in hotels and restaurants. He realized that Heero always picked a mid range hotel but with excellent references. He checked his memory and decided that Heero always chose from the Diamond book, a guide to hotels and restaurants. They gave their awards purely on merit. Price was not a factor. Heero, it seemed, chose three or four diamond ratings in a mid-price range. Restaurants the same. Duo started going over the different guides to the colony's hotels. He wanted something in a four diamond rating, of course, but since they were going to be trying to run with the high fliers they were going to have to spend some money. He decided on the Savoy-Hilton. Then he turned his attention to finding some of the clubs and restaurants that Ameena frequented. And clubs, mustn't forget the clubs. He decided that both he and Heero were going to have to go shopping, after they saw the local styles. He got conformation of their hotel reservations, then checked the time to turnover. It was about four minutes away. He started calculations just for something to do. The computer would do the calculations from data sent by the control tower at L4-33359. This colony as at the fringe of the colonial cluster and one of the newest of the colonies at only thirty years old. The auto-pilot clicked, buzzed softly and started the countdown to turnover. At one minute a computer voice warned of the turn in a canned female voice. Heero woke and called to Duo, asking if he should come to the bridge or wait out turnover on his bunk. Duo decided to have Heero come to the cockpit, just in case. Heero drifted into the co-pilots seat and buckled in. It was very rare, almost unheard of, for something to go wrong on turnover, but better safe than sorry. Duo glanced at the computer and announced, “thirty seconds.” The auto pilot beeped and started a countdown by visual, a projected timer showed up in front of both pilot and co-pilot seats and started counting down from 30. At ten seconds the computer voice was back. At 'one' the ships rockets fired with a roar, the maneuvering jets blipped and the ship spun head to tail and they were ready for deceleration at the colony. “How long before docking?” Heero leaned back in his seat and put his feet on the central panel, not something anyone else would have done. “About 2 and a half hours. Feet off the dashboard.” Duo swatted at the nearest foot. Heero moved his feet. “You want to take another nap?” “Naw. I'm good. Wanna play a game?” Heero pulled a line from a compartment and ripped the hook and loop shackle apart. He wrapped the padded strap around his ankle and allowed himself to drift 'upward' as this was space there wasn't really and up or down but convention was, whichever way the seats were situated decided up and down. Duo laughed and stretched up to kiss him. “Checkers, chess, bridge or .... um ... Go?” Heero decided on Go, so Duo punched up the virtual board. They played until about ten minutes before docking. While they played Duo told Heero about his reservations and his reasoning. Heero thought about it while Duo was deciding on a move and agreed with Duo's reasoning completely. When they reached the colony and began final deceleration Heero contacted the tower and got their dock and so on. Duo docked efficiently and ran his shut down checklist. “Ok, that's it. We're shut down and checked out. Let's turn over the keys and find our hotel. I want a shower in gravity.” Heero just gathered up their things, stowed them, shouldered his pack and handed Duo his. “Here, I made sure we didn't leave anything behind.” “Thanks.” Duo glanced around. “Ah! There's the desk. I'll turn in the key. Why don't you find directions to the hotel while I get that done?” Heero nodded, striding toward an information kiosk. “Got it.” He typed in the address and got a hard copy map as well as one sent to his phone. He also gave the kiosk the number of Duo's phone. Both phones beeped to notify them that there was a new message. Duo glanced at his phone and nodded at Heero, then turned to complete the paperwork, turning the hopper back over to the rental agency. Duo's cheery voice rang out as he hurried over to Heero. “All done. Where's there in relation to here?” Heero consulted the hard copy map. “All the way to the outer ring.” His sour expression made Duo laugh. “Don't look like that. It's not that far.” Heero suddenly realized that there was no hurry. They had to establish themselves a bit before they could even begin the search for Ameena and the yacht. “Duo? What's the first thing we need to do?” Duo thought for a few strides. “First, we need to find our hotel, then we need to check out some of Ameena's hangouts. I've compiled a list. We need clothing, shopping trip. And we need to figure out what attitude is appropriate.” Heero smiled happily, trust Duo to know how to get people to talk to him. “Ok. Check out clubs, shopping, attitude. Got it.” They looked around as they walked and Heero realized that there weren't any combustion engines in sight. When he mentioned this Duo just sighed. “Well, there's not going to be any here. The colony outlawed them before construction was even begun. There's actually no facilities for them. All transport is electric, public and readily available. There's slide ways, bicycles, electric cars, carts and scooters. There are also several types of mass transit; like subways, buses and trains.” Heero blinked, “Subways?” “Well, that's what they're called, because they're in the access tunnels and stuff. Earth convention rather than reality.” Heero eyed the map for a moment. “This red line means we have to take on. Look for an entrance or whatever they call it.” Duo just pointed, just down the block was a huge red arrow pointing to the street. They went down the stairs to find the station was very like a subway station in Greater New York, but cleaner. They approached the ticket station, Heero showed the map to the clerk who sold them the proper tickets and gave Heero another map. This one of all the public transportation lines on the colony. Heero thanked her with Duo seconding the thank you. The clerk just smiled at them and reminded them that there was a hefty fine for littering and a severe punishment for vandalism. Heero glanced at Duo. “I don't remember ever being told that.” Duo shook his head. “Me neither. But I bet she has to say that to everyone.” “How can you tell?” Heero glanced back at the woman who was talking to an older lady, a slightly glazed look in her eyes. “See her expression? Read her lips. She looks like she's bored half to death. Bet it's a colony statute that she has to tell everyone. Not that I blame them. Casual vandalism is expensive. And littering costs a mint to clean up.” Heero agreed that Duo was probably right. They got on the subway and found out that like many such things, it was a bit of a misnomer. The train emerged from a tunnel and traveled over the surface, then plunged into another tunnel, there was a sight failure of gravity that told the two that they had passed through the core. Another five minutes saw them walking the few remaining blocks to their hotel, right through a shopping district. Duo amused himself with window shopping and Heero with his sometimes caustic comments on the displays. He was especially critical of one store. “Did you see that? Moses in a basket. Skin-suits aren't supposed to ... cover that little. And some of those holes? Excuse me, but no one's seeing the root of my dick except you. Thank you so very much. And i bet the price would make even Q turn green. How the hell can they charge so much more money for a bow and a string than they do for a whole suit?” Heero thought about that. “More engineering.” He waited, and Duo bit. “More engineering? What are you talking about? What engineering?” “The engineering needed to keep it from showing too much or falling clear off.” Duo nearly tripped his head whipped around so fast. Heero just gave Duo the sweetest smile he could manage. “Evil. You're just plain evil.” Duo cackled with laughter, hopping twice to keep from tripping. “I am not.” Heero put his nose in the air. “I'm the Perfect Soldier. You're the God of Death, so that makes you much more eviler than me.” They both cracked up and wound up hanging onto each other with people walking around them, amused expressions on their faces. Another three blocks found them at their hotel. They entered, nodding at the man who held the door for them. Duo glanced around and noticed that the hotel deserved it's five diamonds. The décor was elegant without being ostentatious. The help was unobtrusive but Duo noticed them eyeing their progress to the desk. The desk clerk was polite but distant. “May I help you?” Heero dropped his backpack on the floor. “We have reservations. The name is Maxwell and Yuy.” He produced the papers that Duo had printed out and handed them across the counter. The clerk accepted them with every evidence of distaste. Heero cranked his expression up from a sulk to a glower. Duo eased up beside him to say something conciliatory but the second the man read the papers he was suddenly all smiles. “Ah! You're that Yuy and Maxwell. Welcome to the Savoy-Hilton. We hope everything will be to your satisfaction. If you need anything, please ask. Shall I send for your luggage?” Duo just shook his head. “If you think we're actually trusting an airline with luggage, you're demented. We brought a change or two of clothing each, but the first thing on the agenda is finding out the most popular styles and shopping. Is there some place that you'd recommend especially or do we just wing it and wind up looking so last season.” Heero up-ed his glower to a glare and added a tapping foot. The desk clerk called the Day Manager, this was a bit more than he was prepared to deal with, checking in anyone from Relena Peacecraft to one of the Winner ladies, yes; two gundam pilots on the prowl for who knew what, no. Definitely no. Mr. Randall, the day manager, just greeted Heero and Duo as if he hadn't been called from his desk by a panicky clerk and filled out the registry himself. “If you'll sign there...” he pointed to the line with his stylus. “Both of you, please, I'll show you to the suit myself. If you'd like, I can send the hotel's fashion coordinator up to consult with you on what you might like, clothing wise. And, I do have to say, she is very up on all the latest fashions, for any age group and activity you might desire to participate in. From club hopping youth to bridge playing older generation and anything between.” Heero signed the pad while Mr. Randall was speaking and pushed it to Duo. Duo signed and replied, “That's good. We'll rest a bit, I think. Then we'll clean up. Let us know when she's available. We'll hook up with her as soon as we can. Key?” “I'll be bringing two. Will you be needing any more than that?” “No. We don't expect to have any guests. If we do we'll bring them up ourselves, but they won't need keys.” “Very well. This way.” He turned to walk toward the elevators. “Oh, would you like a bellboy to carry those for you?” Heero shook his head. “No, thank you. Wouldn't want him to strain himself or anything.” Mr. Randall looked a bit put out at that, then realized that Heero was not pleased at the fact that none of the available bell-persons had chosen to come see if they needed help. He decided that since they were so stupid they could just miss out on a tip. The elevator ride was accomplished in silence that none of them seemed inclined to break. Duo looked out the glass back of the elevator, watching the scenery as they rose. Heero spent his time looking at the view farther up. Since the colony's skin was partially transparent, especially made, heavy duty panels of clear plexiglas, the stars could be seen. Heero watched them and the traffic busily buzzing overhead. Mr. Randall took the opportunity to examine both of his new residents. What he saw was two young men, twenty-something at most, who were poised on the edge. They twanged with energy. They were in top condition and moved like dancers or martial artists. What they did not look like, was two young men preparing to party, dress in inappropriate fashions and drink and eat themselves in to a stupor. So, what were they up to? He'd keep an eye on them and hope to keep them out of whatever trouble they were hell bent on getting themselves into. The elevator finally got to the proper floor and Mr. Randall led them to their door. He swiped the key cards through the door reader and stuck a USB drive in a small slot in the top. He re swiped the cards and then did something to the lock. “Here you are, all keyed in a ready to go.” He handed them both a card and said, “That's my personal cell phone, I live here in the hotel so if you need anything, day or night, call me. I'll either come myself or send the appropriate person. Have a nice visit with us, and thank you for choosing the Savoy-Hilton.” With that he returned to the waiting elevator and let the doors close on him Duo sighed and opened the door. “I think we may have a real resource in that man. We just have to be careful how we use him.” He looked around at their suite. “Well, well, what do you think of the digs?” “Refined, elegant, exactly what we need if we're to break in with the 'right' crowd to find Ameena. Unfortunately, we might be a lot to young for her sort.” Duo nodded and started for the master bedroom, saying over his shoulder. “I'm afraid you're right. I'm definitely not cougar bait.” Heero followed after. “Me neither. You're too pretty and I'm not pretty enough. So, we'll deal.” Duo nodded. “Might manage by getting in with the kids of our targets.” “That's a possibility. We'll have to keep an eye out for chances.” “Ok. First, a general clean up. After all that traveling, I feel gritty.” Heero grinned. “I could use a shower too. We could save water?” Duo snickered, “Sure, save water, only proper thing to do. Visitors should leave as small a bio-footprint as possible, right?” Heero dug into their packs for clean clothing, this was the last clean change for both of them, and brought the clothing into the bathroom. While he was doing this, Duo had started the shower, which had made his eyes bug a bit. The thing practically took an engineering degree to operate. Heero stopped and blinked. “How many heads does that have?” “Eight, twelve when we get in.” Heero relaxed more and laughed at Duo's comment. 'Ok. And which two are we going to use?” ”Well, eight water one's and two others. Which two depends on how you feel. Tired?” Heero tossed his dirty clothing onto the pile of Duo's things already in a hamper. “A bit. But I could give you a blow job. Or we could trade off.” Duo grinned. “Trade off. You first.” Heero just dropped to his knees in the pouring water and sucked Duo into his mouth. Duo groaned and leaned against the wall while Heero continued his ministrations. It didn't take Duo long to reach a climax that left his knees weak. Heero held him up until he got himself back together. Then Duo returned the favor. Heero coughed once, then sat down on the small seat in the shower. “Wow! That was intense. I feel better.” Duo laughed softly. “Me too. Now, I'd really like to wash all the sweat out of my hair. Help me?” Heero reached out to unbraid Duo's hair. He finger combed it to allow water to reach every strand then Duo poured shampoo into his hands and Heero's and they began the process of washing nearly five feet of hair, thick hair. After they finished that job, they washed each other, with a little playful groping. Heero sighed softly in pleasure. “I just love warm towels.” Duo had to snicker. “That's why you grab them out of the dryer and head straight for the shower. You should have said. I'd have brought some to you so they'd be really warm.” “That's too much trouble for you.” Heero shrugged but smiled at the offer. “It's not either. You'd do it for me, right?” Heero had to admit that he would. Duo just shook a finger at him and wrapped a towel around his waist. As the colony was on a different time schedule than either the station or Earth, they were suffering from 'jet' lag. Heero stretched and groaned. “Agh! I ... what time is it?” Duo consulted his watch, which was self adjusting and on 24 hour or military time. All colonies used that as there was actually no day or night, just shifts. Some colonies, the older ones and ones which catered to tourists and business men, kept a day/night schedule. “It's 23:40. If we go to bed now, that'll give us ... 8 hours sleep to get us on a day schedule. Or would you rather sleep six, then take a nap and be on a second shift?” Heero thought for a moment then just shrugged. “In this case, I'll leave the shift to you. I have no idea when Ameena will be active.” Duo grumbled, “Well, neither do I. Why don't we go on a first shift schedule for now and adjust later, if we need to.” “Ok. I bag right side of the bed.” Duo jumped on the bed, on the left side. “You always bag right. Ass.” “Sleep.” Heero crawled under the covers and punched his pillow into shape. “Night.” Duo yawned. “Night. Wake up at 8:30?” “Yeah.” Heero turned out the bedside lamp and dropped off almost at once. Duo was right behind him. CHAPTER THREE They woke the next morning, went into the bathroom and took care of their morning routine. They dressed in the clothing that Heero had left the night before and went in search of breakfast. Heero leaned against the wall of the elevator and watched the buildings rise around them as the elevator took them 20 floors down to the restaurant floor. This floor contained half the restaurants in the hotel, the ground floor contained another quarter while the top floor held the rest. “What do you want for breakfast?” Duo licked his lips in contemplation of the delights that might be available. “Bacon, eggs, waffles, coffeecoffeecoffee, and juice. You?” “That sounds good to me but I want sausages. Dipped in the syrup. I wonder if they have real maple syrup or is it flavored?” Duo decided, “As posh as this hotel is, it's got to be real.” They stepped off the elevator and into a large lobby. All the restaurants ran around the outside walls of the hotel all the entrances led off this lobby. This was when they realized that a simple choice of restaurant could put a stumbling block in the way of their plans. If they picked the wrong one, people would talk and wonder when they started showing up at places that didn't fit in with their perceived image. Duo decided that the farther back they went the higher the class would be. They decided on strolling around and looking in doors. It worked quite well. They could see in windows of a few, other’s open doors emitted enough noise to tell them that this wasn't the place. Many of the restaurants were closed, but they finally found what they were looking for. The place was small and tucked into a sort of nook where the walls curved. The restaurant was shaped like a triangle with one point being the entry way. It was elegant and well appointed and obviously expensive. And very exclusive. There was even a hostess on duty. She approached them and said softly, “Perhaps you have come into the wrong place?” Heero glanced around and managed to get a haughty look on his face. “I don't believe so.” Duo looked only at the hostess. “I think we're not dressed appropriately, but we came to buy clothing so we only brought casual. I'm sorry. Should we leave?” The hostess, meanwhile, had been looking them over again. She recognized that she knew them but couldn't figure out where from. It was her job to know who was who and this bothered her. She decided on taking the safe way out. “I don't recognize you so I'll have to ask, I'm sorry to say, for proof of ability to pay before I seat you. Restaurant policy.” Heero glanced at Duo who just nodded, it had become common for some very high priced places to ask for proof before seating people. It avoided problems all the way around. Duo presented the hostess with his credit card. She scanned it and blinked, no limit amount came up, just an infinity symbol. “Gentlemen, I apologize. Please come this way.” She gathered up menus and led them to a table. She put the menus in front of them then asked, “What would you like to drink?” Duo sighed. “Coffee, lots; hot, virgin. Water, OJ.” She turned her attention to Heero who just said, “Same for me.” She went away still trying to figure out how she knew them. It didn't take long for the waitress to show up with coffee, orange juice and water. She put the drinks on the table and smiled at them. “Are you ready to order? If not, I can give you a few more minutes.” Duo smiled, “No, I'm ready. I would like the Southern Wonder breakfast. Bacon, eggs, scrambled; waffle. Got it?” “Yes, sir.” She smiled back then turned to Heero. “And what for you, sir?” Heero put his menu aside. “Sausage, pancakes, eggs fried over easy. Is the maple syrup real or flavored.” The waitress glowed with obvious pride. “It's real. All the way from Vermont, Earth. I'll just go put this in and be right back with refills on the coffee.” Heero watched as she gathered up the menus and left. “Duo? What's a Southern Wonder? I didn't read that one.” Duo's eyes lit up in anticipation. “It's a waffle, crisp, light and hot, topped with a compote of fresh peaches, brown sugar, butter and toasted pecans surrounded with whipped cream. I can't wait.” Heero just shook his head. “All that sugar and caffeine? I'm doomed.” Duo just chuckled. “Oh, yeah, you're doomed. What are you getting? Pancakes with real maple syrup. You drown your whole plate with syrup and butter. Not that I'm complaining, far from it. Enjoy it, I say.” Heero watched as Duo checked out the restaurant. After ordering it was natural to visit and look around so no one would wonder at their scrutiny. After a thorough examination of the restaurant Duo remarked, “We will be needing the services of that fashion designer or whatever she's called. If we're not careful we'll stick out like a sore thumb and not in a good way.” Heero agreed with Duo. “You're right. The wrong shoestring will ruin us with the type of crowd Ameena is running with. We've got to be really careful.” Duo sipped the last of his coffee. “I wonder if hanging around at the docking bays would come up with something?” “Might. But let's see if we can't narrow it down a bit. There's over 3000 docking bays on this colony.” The waitress came by to fill their cups so they changed to some innocuous comments on the latest news until she left again. “I know there's over 3000 bays, but there's only about 40 that are big enough to hold that yacht. And you know damn good and well that Ameena isn't going to tolerate using a tube. That's one of the reasons she wanted the yacht in the first place.” “True. I didn't think of that. You're right, size would cut down on the number. And, the fact that Ameena won't use a tube, cuts out any other boarding area.” Duo crooned, “Nice. We've eliminated almost 90% of the targets right off the bat. If we can get in Ameena's crowd, even on the fringes, we can pick up gossip and find her. I still don't see how she could just take off in Quatre's yacht like that. That's just not cool.” Heero agreed, “No, it's not.” The waitress returned again, this time with their food. She set out the plates and sides, smiled and asked, “Can I get you anything else?” She laughed as Duo just shook his head and dug in. Heero was a bit more polite and said, “No, thank you. More coffee later, perhaps.” The waitress left again, promising to bring more coffee later. Duo offered Heero a taste of his waffle. Heero just leaned over and opened his mouth. The taste of peaches and pecans hit his tongue, followed by waffle and whipped cream. He hummed appreciatively but returned to his plain pancakes and syrup, remarking, “Very good, but a bit more than I really want for breakfast. Bite of sausage?” Duo turned up his nose. “No, thanks. I don't really like syrup on them, you know.” “So, I'm trying to educate you.” As this was an ongoing discussion neither one took offense, instead they returned their conversation to how to break into Ameena's social clique. It didn't take two young men with healthy appetites to clean their plates, finish their juice and coffee and ask for their bill. The bill paid and the waitress tipped they returned to the hotel and called Mr. Randall. When he answered his phone Heero told him that they would like for the fashion consultant to come up to their suite. He replied that she was on her way. Heero's puzzled look made Duo ask him what was wrong. “I thought we were going to hit the clubs before doing any major shopping.” “We are, but we can't head for a high class club dressed like a couple of vagabonds, right?” This was a constant source of discussion between them. Heero was never going to be a clotheshorse; he tended to throw on anything appropriate to the weather. He dressed well but only because he wore whatever a clerk put together for him. Duo dressed well, with a keen fashion sense he'd learned to enable him to fit in where ever he needed to. He now dressed Heero, who obediently wore what Duo told him to. Heero just agreed. “Fine, I guess what we do is dress nicely, go to the club, see that the fashions are and then go shopping again. Right?” Duo smiled. “Exactly. So, not bland, or boring but generic, if you get my drift.” “Yeah, like Relena wears, guaranteed not to offend anyone, expensive enough but not too expensive.” Duo nodded, “Right.” “I'm bored just thinking about it.” Duo laughed so hard he fell off the stool he was sitting on. Heero gave him a disgusted look but it faded quickly into amusement. “Ok, ok. I'm no clotheshorse but I like to look nice on occasion. So this fashion designer, she'll have all kinds of questions, what do we tell her.” Duo thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Why not the truth? I'm sure she's not interested in busting us to anyone. We're the hotel residents and she owes her loyalty to the hotel.” Heero thought about that for a moment then said, “Why don't we feel her out a bit first. Talk about wanting to get in with Ameena's crowd and see what she says.” “Sounds good to me.” Duo got up off the floor with a grunt. The ringing of the doorbell had him changing directions to answer it instead of pummel Heero. He was bored and had decided to wrestle Heero for entertainment. “Come in, come in. We were waiting for you. Is it always this boring or are we just missing something.” The advisor just smiled. “I'm Jessica. And no, you're just not in the swing yet. There's lots to do. It's just that the hotel is on the wrong street. Two blocks up spin and the high life continues 24/7, it doesn't even make a difference which shift you like to be on. There's always something doing.” She settled on the love seat and dropped a huge purse on the floor. “Now, tell me what has two gundam pilots ...” At their surprised starts she laughed, “Yes, I know who you are. Did the second I saw your pictures. So, what's really going on? Don't worry about me talking to the wrong people for the wrong reasons. I'm very discrete. And very good. Who are you after and what for?” Duo glanced at Heero who just started telling Jessica the whole story. Ending with, “And Quatre wants his yacht back, Ameena in jail and his other sisters on notice. So, what do we do first?” Jessica fished in her purse mumbling, “You would need to get in with that crowd. I'd rather see you in with Hidalgo's group but what .... yes, here we go.” She put a projector in the middle of the table and a keyboard in her lap. “Ok, here's the deal. That bunch are all ... idiots. They're not smart, just sly. And ostentatious. I'd rather see you dressed in fish guts and swimming with sharks. They do drugs, drink, fuck mindlessly and in general are a waste of skin. But ... It would really benefit the whole colony if that clique was broken.” She smiled in a way that reminded both Heero and Duo of Une. “First, clothing. They dress in very expensive, very revealing skin-suits. Not that either of you have to worry about it but imagine a 50 something, fat, person in a skin suit. Even spacers know better.” Duo blinked, most real spacers covered up with a coverall of some sort, unless they were in private. Especially the older ones. Duo sighed. “That's going to pose a problem or two. Both Heero and I cover up for good reason.” “I'm sure. But the thing with this style is, it doesn't make any difference where the cutout's are. They're usually situated to startle and/or shock. Let me show you some styles and you can help me design your suits to ... er, suit you.” She giggled a bit, not as stupid sounding as you'd expect from a lady out of her teens. Heero and Duo chuckled along then settled down to work. Jessica showed them image after image, all skimpy, expensive and poorly constructed. They all seemed to be made to look worn to pieces. Duo finally snorted and remarked, “My old skin suit is better than any of that trash. I really object to spending a ton of money on ... whatever that's supposed to be. Why not buy a decent suit and just tear holes in it?” Jessica sighed. “And that's why I'd so much rather see you in Hidalgo's bunch. They're young, in the know and much better quality that Ameena's bunch of poseurs. I'd love to take her down a notch. But you need to find that yacht. Well ... I can't have everything. So ... I'll work up some designs that aren't too offensive, get you some walking around clothes and be back in time for lunch. Why don't you go to Hchoff's and just get some nice casual stuff? It's down spin, over a block and very pink. Can't miss it.” “We'll do that, be back in time to meet you at ... which restaurant should we be seen in?” “Miranda's. Everybody who is anybody eats there. I'll have reservations in your names. And, I'm going to very discretely ask around a bit. Your reputations might do you more good than harm. And don't worry about me ruining your cover.” She winked and gathered up her things. Duo escorted her to the door, then returned to Heero's side. “I wonder about that woman. She's ... There's just something about her that's real. I wonder what she did during the war?” Heero dismissed Duo's curiosity with a shrug. “Don't know. If she wants us to know, she'll tell us. Leave it.” Duo grumbled a bit, but said, “You're right. Just my bump of curiosity wants satisfied. Won't kill me not to know.” So they dressed in the cleanest dirty and headed for some serious shopping in the area they were told was called, “King's Run”. It was all situated around Hchoff's Department Store, small shops with high priced, good quality merchandise side by side with 'dollar' stores and kiosks with knock off goods. It was more of an open air mall than a shopping district. Duo was in his element. He had always loved shopping with Quatre during the war, they were like two kids in a candy store. Now that he had real money of his own, it was even better. He dragged a long suffering Heero from one store to another, cheerfully insulting the knock offs and tossing over carefully folded piles of goods. Heero just smiled and followed, obediently trying on stuff. They managed a nice wardrobe of casual, formal and necessities in a short time, most of it from Hchoff’s, all of it to be delivered to their hotel. When they announced that they were staying at the Savoy-Hilton they got the best service available. One store in particular was fun. Duo had a secret passion for leather. He loved it, the smell, the feel, everything about it. He didn't buy much as each piece he selected was top quality and chosen for longevity. He only had three garments now and they were all at home on Earth. So, when they saw the leather store named Hidalgo's, they had to go in. Duo even commented that it might not be a coincidence that Jessica had mentioned a clique by the same name. A cheerful voice from the back answered the ding of the doorbell. “Be right there, just take a look around.” Duo was attracted to a display of jackets. Most ground-pounders thought the colonies kept the ambient temperature warm, but that wasn't so. It was cheaper to keep it slightly cool, so the actual ambient temperature was actually around 60 to 65 degrees, even cooler when the sun wasn't shining on that portion of the colony. Jackets were more necessary than you'd think. Just as he was getting ready to pull a jacket out of the rack, the voice from the back made his appearance. “Hi, sorry to keep you waiting, I had to sign for a shipment. I'm Hidalgo. This is my store. What can I do for you?” Heero looked at the young man for a still moment. He was six feet tall, muscular and blonde. Not exactly what you'd expect from someone named Hidalgo but the northern Spaniards were sometimes blonde. Heero wondered vaguely if it even mattered anymore. Duo noticed Heero's distraction and poked him. “Doesn't matter. Right?” Heero laughed, “You know me so well.” Hidalgo, used to questions about his coloring, just said, amusement clear in his voice. “My mother liked the name. My last name is Jenkins. I don't use it for obvious reasons.” Heero laughed and admitted, “I do tend to get distracted by things that don't make sense to me. Saved my life a time or two. So, we need some ... club rags.” Hidalgo laughed. “Ok, so who do you run with?” Duo shrugged negligently. “No one yet. A friend said Ameena's bunch was interesting.” Hidalgo frowned, then said sourly, “Only if you're into drugs, booze, insipid conversation and fucking anything that'll lie down. My friends are much better. And that's not just pride talking. We're more into racing and x-sports, but the conversation tends to range over a little bit of everything. And no drugs, very little drinking. A drunk x-sporter is a dead one. You know?” Heero said that he did, while Duo silently mourned losing out on a friendship with this group. But business was business. He just hoped he wouldn't have to break too many fingers. He hated being groped with a passion. Just then all three of their phones began to ring. Duo answered, “Maxwell!” while Heero just said, “Speak!” Hidalgo laughed, then listened. It seemed that Jessica had connections in higher places than Heero or Duo had imagined. She had them on a four-way. “Oh, my, you're all together? That's good. Here's the scoop. No one in Ameena's bunch of nuts knows anything about a yacht or even where she is right now. The scoop is that someone in Hidalgo's clique might know something. 'Dalgo, darling, help the boys out, will you?” He gave a shark-like grin, “Will it give Ameena indigestion?” “More than that, sweetie, it's quite likely to break up her little nest of eels. See what you can do. Oh, and, boys? Tell him who you are. It'll help immensely, I promise.” Heero studied Hidalgo for a moment after they hung up, then he turned to Duo. “What do you think?” “I think we can trust him.” Hidalgo was now studying them closely, a confused expression on his face. “Ok, tell me what? What's Jess blathering about?” Duo just explained about the yacht, with some interjections from Heero. Heero finished their explanation by saying, “So we're bounty hunters turned repo experts. Quatre Winner hired us to repo his yacht from Ameena and arrest her.” “And what makes you special enough that The Winner hired you? Not trying to be difficult, just ... need to know what I'm getting mixed up in. And you both look damned familiar. Jess and I were Alliance during the war. Guerrilla fighters. So .. my cards are on the table. Let me see yours.” Duo snickered softly. “I'm 02, he's 01. Une kept our pictures and such off the media so how did Jessica recognize us? I'm sure she did.” “She's just really good with faces. If she's seen you once, she'll remember you. Your jackets were sent to the heads of some of the more important cells. She was our top contact. So ... you don't need to get in with Ameena's crowd, hanging on the fringes once in a while will do. We don't completely ostracize other cliques around here, but we do tend to hang with our own most of the time. There's a party coming up soon. Sort of like Mardi Gras, everyone puts on a show of some sort and all the cliques sort of merge a bit. Everyone talks to everyone else. Gossip flies like wild. That group loves to one up everyone else. If Ameena has told one person anything at all, you'll hear about it then.” Heero just sighed. “I really hate that sort of thing. Everyone backstabbing everyone else. Too much food, too much liquor, just too much of everything. ... it offends me somehow.” Duo nodded. “Yeh, I know exactly what you're saying.” Hidalgo nodded too. “It's a mess but everyone who's anyone goes. My bunch goes more to keep an eye on some of the other cliques than any other reason. We've got an agreement with Preventers to report anything too out of hand. Several of the other cliques do too. Now, you need clothing of all kinds. Jessica is doing some shopping for you now. I'll fix you up to fit in with my bunch. Have you got any other clothing needs?” “No, we took care of casual and under garments already. It's all being delivered. Now. I really want a good jacket. Something I'll wear for a long time.” Duo returned to the rack and started some serious shopping. Heero settled back against a nearby standing rack to wait. Duo picked up a pair of leather pants, a jacket and some boots. He threatened Heero with tickle torture if he didn't get the same. Hidalgo just watched with amusement as two of the most dangerous men in the known solar system acted their age. . They met Jessica for lunch at Miranda's as promised. Hidalgo had insisted on dressing them as their skin suits and coveralls were so 'last century' as to be embarrassing. So they showed up in leather pants, combat boots, silk t-shirts and bomber jackets. Jessica announced that she heartily approved of the look. They were seated in a very visible area, but surrounded by planters and weird sculptures so they didn't feel too exposed. Heero was happy to have his back to a planter, Duo likewise; Jessica had her back to the door but didn't seem to mind. They ate, talked about the mission and were seen by all the right people. A word, dropped by Jessica in the right place, had made them persona very gratta. Everyone wanted to get them into their clique. When their phones started to ring, buzz with texts and in general become annoying, Jessica advised them to get a personal assistant. Someone to manage their appointments, dates and party invitations. Duo snorted. Heero just said, “Who?” “Well, darlings, me. I know who you should talk to and who you should ignore, some pointedly. I'll compile a list of every date and we'll go over them together. That'll make sure that you don't attend something you don't need to. You'll need the time to do your investigation. I'm sure that there's other leads to follow. Just leave all that to me. Ok?” They both agreed with Jessica that she knew who was who. And they were both glad not to have to wade through that particular swamp of booby traps. After agreeing with Jessica that she should take care of all social engagements, they set their phones to roll messages from unknown numbers into her organizer. This meant that any call from a number not in their phone went to voice mail on her laptop. All text messages went to her email. It was a real relief when their phone stopped going off. “I'll get right on this. I don't have any other jobs right now so you're my only focus. I'll send you a schedule tonight, call you and we'll get organized. Let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and; have some fun, ok?” “Ok, ok. We'll have fun. I think Hidalgo will see to that. Now... conspiring time.” So they put their heads together with Jessica and figured out which docks were worth Duo and Heero's attention and which were a waste. After another hour of nibbling on leftovers, drinking coffee and planning, they separated and went their ways. CHAPTER FOUR They spent the next two weeks infiltrating Hidalgo's clique, following dead end leads. And actually having fun. One of the things the group did was fly; hang gliding on a colony was fairly easy. And these kids did it wild. Both Heero and Duo gathered a group of followers as they used their skills to stunt their gliders mercilessly. So it was a good day when Heero and Duo showed up at the hanger. “Hello! Who's ready to fly high?” Duo's cheerful call rang out around the hanger. Hidalgo came out from behind one of the gliders. “Sorry, no fly today. They're repairing something from this side and there's no flying in a repair zone.” Duo grumbled softly but said with understanding. “Sure, hate to get in the way of a repair crew and cause an accident. They've got it rough enough as it is. So Club tonight?” Hidalgo nodded and walked back behind the wing. “What's the problem? Can I help?” Heero followed Duo around the up tilted wing. The whole glider was set in a cradle which held it with one wing tip nearly on the floor and the other high in the air. “Only if you can figure out how to get this nut off.” Heero glanced at Duo and they grinned at each other. Memories of working on their gundams made them both snicker. “What's so funny? This is really stuck.” “Let me take a look. Heero?” Heero just bowed to Duo and stood back. Duo took a look at the nut, it was cross threaded. “Whoever put this on cross threaded it. Titanium?” “Yeah, and it's a bitch. Expensive enough that I don't want to get out the nut cracker.” Heero grunted. “Wouldn't work anyway. Can't crack titanium, that's the whole point of it in the first place.” Duo leaned over to examine the nut and bolt more closely. “Steel? Heero?” Heero leaned down next to Duo. “Yeah, steel. I think I can get it without cracking it. The bolt is done for anyway. Cross threaded and ruined. Hidalgo?” “I've got the right bolt. The only reason there's a steel one on there now, is the owner is an idiot. He wanted to use it last week, so he just jammed a bolt into the hole and screwed on the nut. Now he wants it off and the spec bolt installed.” Heero looked the mess over again then said, “Wrench.” Duo took the wrench from Hidalgo and crawled under the wing. He put the wrench on the bold and called, “Ready.” Heero took the other wrench from Hidalgo and put it on the nut. “I'm ready.” Heero used his wrench to unscrew the nut while Duo used his to keep the bolt from reaming out the square hole it was inserted in. Heero tossed the nut to Hidalgo, who caught it one handed and turned to accept the bolt from Duo. He examined the bolt and announced, “Yep, that's ruined. Glad it's only steel. Here's the new bolt, Duo, would you go back under there and stick it in?” Duo rolled his eyes. “Stick it, huh? Rude boy.” They all laughed, well aware that Duo was likely to take any opportunity to turn a casual remark into something dirty. “Just don't stick it where the sun don't shine. Ready?” “Yeah. Got it.” They worked in concert to reinstall the nut and bolt, which held one of the strut wire assemblies in place. “Thanks. That's that. I just hope the little fucker pays up in time. He's usually late and I have to nag like hell to get my money.” Hidalgo also owned the hanger where his group stored their gliders. Duo shrugged. “Don't let him have his ride until he pays up. It's legal.” “Hate to start that but you're probably right. I'll threaten to hold it, this time.” Hidalgo wiped his hands on a rag then handed it to Heero, who scrubbed at the grease on his palm, then passed it on to Duo. They settled at the battered table in one corner. Hidalgo grabbed some sodas from the equally battered fridge and handed them around. “Club tonight. There's a new one opening down the block from Adams. Club Inferno. If you could get more corny, I'd like to know it. But anyway, are you coming?” Duo nodded, gulped his soda and sighed, “Yeah. Not a peep of info yet so we need to keep up the pressure. I'd kill for a really good lead.” Heero swatted him on the back of the head. “What! I meant that in a metaphorical way.” “Ok. But you're right, this is getting old real quick. We've been here two weeks and not a thing. But it's the only lead we've got. Duo, have you checked all the docks.” Duo shook his head. “No, not yet. I've had some trouble getting into some. I've got to get my hands on a universal colony coverall. No one notices people wearing them. They all assume that they're wherever they are to fix something.” Hidalgo gazed off into the middle distance. “I think I know someone who can get one. She's a friend of my sister, works in a laundry. I'll ask.” “Thanks, man. That's a real help.” Duo settled back with his drink. Heero just put his can on the table top and said, “Better make that two coveralls. I'm not letting Duo go into a restricted area by himself. Not again.” Duo grimaced as he remembered the results of one of his war time escapades. The results of being found where he shouldn't be had resulted in a week of recuperation. And a furious lecture from both Wufei and Heero on not haring off on his own. So he laughed lightly and announced. “Ok, granny, two it is. And ... I'll need a tool box. You can hide a world of sins in a tool box and no one will ever think to check it. Especially if it's old and grubby.” Hidalgo nodded once. “I've got just the thing. I was going to throw it away but it's too good for that and just broken enough that I don't want it in my shop. I'll go get it. ... and some greasy rags. No one wants to touch stuff like that. Anything else?” Heero said, “A tool belt for me. One of the ones with all the little pockets. And some sort of cap or hat. This hair ...” he waved a hand at his messy bangs, “is sort of a give away.” Duo chuckled, waved the tail of his braid in the air and said, “And this isn't?” Hidalgo offered, “Well, stuff it down the back of your coverall and tie a bandana around your head, the tails of the tie will hide what your collar doesn't.” Heero laughed so hard he had to hang on to Duo. It wasn't like that wasn't one of Duo's favorite tricks. “And we better bring our shades too. Our eyes might give us away. We'll wear those Gargoyles that a lot of guys wear instead of safety glasses. The mirror will hide our eyes but won't interfere with our vision. Hidalgo suddenly looked excited. “Is this the way it always is? Planning, I mean.” Heero thought for a moment. “No, sometimes it's a giant argument. Especially if Wufei is involved. But we haven't had a mission with him since the war. With Duo and I, it's usually like this. Sometimes we don't even really talk about stuff, we just know.” “Oh, man. I'll call about the coveralls, and the tool box is over there. There's some secondhand tools around, help yourselves to them. I don't mind if you want the newer stuff but I think the old stuff is more realistic.” Duo agreed and went to rummage for tools that might actually be useful. Heero followed Hidalgo to find the box so that he could bring it back to Duo while Hidalgo made his calls. Things were finally starting to move again. Heero was glad. He wasn't much for clubs, noise and dancing. Duo loved it so he went, but after two weeks of nothing, it was nice to feel like they were getting somewhere. Even if he wasn't quite sure where the somewhere was. But that was the way this job went, days and days of boredom and an hour of pure adrenalin rush. He returned to Duo with the battered, worn box. Duo spent several minutes arranging things to his satisfaction, then he dumped a handful of greasy rags into it and closed it. “There, that's that. Tool belt? Why, may I ask?” “Grenades. I can hide several in the pouches, covered with other stuff.” Duo squawked. “Grenades? Jesus on a half shell. Heero, have you lost it?” “No, and not explosive grenades. Flash-bangs, concussion grenades, smoke bombs; that sort of thing. Major distraction, minimum destruction. I'll leave the blowing up gig to you.” He reached out and tenderly swiped a lock of bangs out of Duo's eye. Duo laughed softly. “Ok, but we're going to have to go back to the hotel to pick up our stuff.” Heero agreed, saying, “I know, but it's not like we don't have a bit of backup.” They'd both continued to carry a sidearm and Duo had a few bits and pieces of equipment with him at all times, but they had a lot more in their packs at the hotel. Hidalgo came back with the news that his sister’s friend could get the coveralls. And told them that, when she'd asked what they were wanted for, he'd told her it was for a costume party. Then remarked cheerfully, “And now we have to have one, because she wanted an invite for the favor. I'll plan it for next week.” Duo nodded absently as he thought about which dock to check out first. “Heero, we can sneak into that dock near the hotel easily. It's guarded by a couple of security men from the hotel. I think it's their private dock. I tried to use the 'I'm lost' bit but it didn't float. They very kindly escorted me all the way back to the main lobby.” Duo's disgusted expression made a listening Hidalgo snicker. “The lost thing doesn't float since someone we both know used it during the war. Stole a shuttle and crashed it into the com array. Put the whole thing out of service for nearly a week. Marquise had a fit.” Duo looked a Hidalgo with an assessing stare that made him say, “Absolve me. I couldn't manage the dumb blonde thing to save my life. She, on the other hand, does featherhead quite well.” Duo poked Heero and announce in a satisfied manner. “Told you.” “So you did. I agree.” And with that cryptic conversation, they headed back to the hotel, tool box and belt stuffed into a duffle. The coveralls would be delivered later that evening, hidden in a box from Hidalgo's store. Chapter Five The coveralls arrived the next evening, making a conflict between two things they needed to do. They were supposed to attend the opening of that new club and they needed to try to sneak into the dock. Duo decided that attending the grand opening was necessary to their cover, sneaking into the dock was secondary. They could do it tomorrow. Heero realized that he was just impatient. Duo was impatient too, so they took a little walk to see what shift the dock was active on. On colony, every one worked on shifts as they were on a 24 hour clock. So a usual greeting amongst strangers was, “What shift are you on?” Duo knew that, if the dock was on third shift as their work 'day', they had a good chance of sneaking in despised as repairmen. If it was on second their chances were still good, but first shift would pose problems as the opening was on that shift. Heero suddenly said, “Duo, why are we worrying about what shift they're on?” Duo gave him a duh look. “I mean, why don't we just ask Jessica?” “I have no idea. I'll call her, shall I?” But Heero was already dialing her number. She told them she'd find out and text them, she also sent them a schedule for the next three days. She'd refused several invitations for them, but listed them anyway. Heero announced that there was no way he was going to a recitation of New Age Body Motion, what ever that was, charity or not. Duo just blinked once at the whole idea. They also were glad to see that she'd refused a wine tasting, the wine was made from garbage. And an Eclectic Junk as Art show. Duo just shook his head. The invitations that she'd accepted were a club opening, the aforementioned Inferno, a lunch with several of Hidalgo's friends and a dinner for one of Quatre's charities. They were both grateful for all her help; she kept them on the right social track without over burdening them with engagements. Something they were very grateful for. So, they dressed in their best casual clothes and headed for a quick walk done the mall, see and be seen. Duo called it a bit of social window shopping where they might actually buy something. Heero just called it humoring Duo. He really didn't mind much, so far this mission had been boring and safe. He got the nasty feeling that it wasn't going to last They walked from the hotel down one side of the street to the cross street that marked the end of the shopping district, crossed the main drag and walked to the other side of the area. Then they returned to the hotel, just in time to change for their lunch engagement. They changed from 'walking around' clothing into business suits for their lunch. Very expensive suits, Duo called them Quatre-esque. Heero liked them, he felt very dressed up. He knew he had good fashion sense but he also knew that Duo and Jessica were better at this than he was, so he just enjoyed the results. He'd never been so well dressed unless Relena picked his things. “So, do I look ok?” Duo turned around to look at Heero. “Like sex on two feet. Me?” “Edible. Where's this lunch? So far we've stuck fairly close to this area, I hope we don't have to go halfway across the colony to get there. And, what's this lunch about? Charity? Save the whiffle-bopper?” Duo laughed. “It's some sort of art thing. Boring, not controversial and probably so white bread we'll choke on it. Come on. Hidalgo set it up for some reason.” “Ok. I'd just like to know if I'm supposed to ooo and ahhh over something.” “No, just glower at everyone and give us an excuse to leave early.” Heero nodded once then asked, “And dinner?” Duo smacked himself on the forehead. “Damn. Let me check something.” he pulled out his BlackBerry and checked the scheduler. “Fuck. Lunch is informal, with Hidalgo, Mike, Jason and their girls. Dinner is the damn art thing. We'll have to change. The Dinner is white tie.” Heero just shrugged and went to change in to a sport jacket, trousers and button down shirt, no tie. Duo did the same. They both wondered how anyone could enjoy living like this. The idle wandering, shopping, partying and general uselessness were beginning to pall on both of them. As they walked to the elevator, lunch was on the rooftop, a restaurant called Paradise. They discussed how much longer they were going to work this angle before they tried another. “I'd give it another week. If we don't find out something, we figure out something else. I don't think we're in with the right crowd to find out much about Ameena. Hidalgo's a nice guy and all but he ... doesn't know the,” Duo snickered, “wrong people. If you know what I mean.” Heero agreed with Duo. “I do. Ameena's crowd is so useless that it's pathetic. I think Jess may have miscalculated her ability to squeeze us into two such different ... cliques. I'm bored and restless, hang gliding is all well and good but not that ... demanding. We've got to get something moving.” Duo rubbed his face. “I know. Hurry up and wait. This is worse than that stakeout in Florence. We sat around in that van for ... how long?” Heero grimaced. “Six days. I was ready to just barge into that house and shoot someone. At least we don't have the potty problem.” Duo snickered, “Right. That was just ... ugh!” The elevator binged and they walked into a garden. It was supposed to look like the hanging gardens of Babylon. They looked around and Duo had to admit, “Very nice. They've got a really good selection of hanging baskets, orchids and ... what's that vine?” Heero eyed it for a moment while he compared the vine to his memorized list of plants. “Hoya, I think.” He nodded his head at the hovering host and said, “Hidalgo.” “Yes, sir, this way please.” The host picked up menus and led the way to a table situated in a nook half way to the back. This was a serious restaurant, used by high class business men to conduct business, not a see and be seen place. Their privacy was assured by a maze of planters and hanging baskets, supplemented by trellises and other wrought iron arrangements. Hidalgo was already there and looking very satisfied with himself. Mike and Jason turned up as they were getting seated. The ladies, it seemed, had all needed a short visit to the facilities. Hidalgo got right to the point. “Ok, you got coveralls coming and I got a clue. There was a big yacht docked at Level 6, Dock 361 about three months ago, having kitchens and baths installed. Ameena threw a big fit about it, saying that 'he' was just spoiled and she should have been the CEO of WEI as she's one of the 'original' children. Sounded like her usual rant against her brother, but she disappeared shortly after that, came back with several muscle men and hasn't been heard from since.” Heero started to tell Hidalgo that they already knew that, but he held up a hand. “Bear with me. The ship stayed right where it was supposed to be for another three weeks. Then, it was supposed to be delivered to Mr. Winner, but it went missing instead. Now, the poop is that she was asking questions on the dock and then a couple of the crewmen quit under questionable circumstances. If you ask the right questions around that dock, you might find out something, and I'm still trying to get names of the crew. So ... I do good?” Duo nodded while Heero quickly entered all the info into his BlackBerry. “Yeah, you did good. That's the best lead we've got. Who do we owe what?” This question didn't get answered as the ladies came to the table just then, but Mike and Jason were looking very pleased with themselves. There was some shuffling and chair moving to get everyone at the table and relatively comfortable. The menus were studied and orders placed. All the ladies had salads with various toppings, all the men ordered some sort of sandwich. The food arrived, they started eating and that was when the two bounty hunters found out the other reason for their little lunch. It seemed that two of the ladies were well acquainted with Ameena's group, having friends that were either inner circle or children of inner circle. The gossip flew like snow. It seemed that most of Ameena's crowd was planning some sort of trip somewhere very mysterious. It also seemed that someone had let the cat out of the bag. Ameena was bringing her 'prize' to a satellite colony for a big going away party. All they had to do was find the ticket that told them were and when. The ladies all agreed that Ameena was a bitch not to just invite everyone and be done with it. Instead, there was a list of clues that had to be interpreted to find out the location. Anyone who showed up at the correct dock at the correct time could go. Duo nearly choked on his tea. “Is she barking? Why not just take out an ad in the paper? Something along the lines of, “I've stolen my brother’s yacht, if you want to party be here.” and give the coordinates. Woman is a complete fool.” Hidalgo shook his head. “Not only that, she's arrogant. And greedy. She's still going to charge an admission. Who ever heard of that? Claims it's for charity but ...” he was interrupted by Lulu, Mike's date. “How can you tell when Ameena is lying?” Duo replied, “Her lips are moving.” which earned him a pretty pout and snickers from the rest of the table. After they finished eating, Duo made a grab for the bill and Hidalgo managed to get it by snatching it out of the waiters hand and standing up. His considerable height advantage left Duo in the lurch, he thought. Duo tickled him and when he doubled over, Heero snagged the slip of paper and laughed softly. They split up after finding out that Heero and Duo were the only two who were going to the dinner. . They returned to the suite and settled in for a quick analysis of the new information. “You really believe that? That Ameena is going to just give hints about where she is?” Heero thought about that for a moment. “I don't think so. She's not that stupid. You know what gossip is, it takes a kernel of truth and coats it with pretty lies. So, what could the truth be?” Duo picked at his lower lip as he thought about it. “Mmmmm, not sure. She's planning something. Some showy stunt, or I miss my guess. But ... I just want to find Q's yacht before she does something really stupid with it. And ... wonder if we can charge her with grand theft auto.” Heero snickered, “Along with piracy, subverting a crew ... I've forgotten all the minor charges. Trowa had a bale of 'em. I'm trying to decide how that woman has managed to actually hide a yacht that size. Where the hell is it?” Duo actually scratched his head. “I haven't a clue, not one. She's sly, but not really smart. Every one we talk to says the same thing. And I'd really like to know how she got the crew to cooperate.” Heero rummaged in his briefcase, searching for another memory chip. “That's easy. She bribed them. And threatened the one's she couldn't bribe. The people she threatened are probably laying low until the stink goes away. I'd like to find one of them.” He found the chip and slipped it into a slot on his computer. He'd set it up on the coffee table the day they'd arrived and it hadn't been turned off since. “Hummm. Wonder .... I'm sending an email to Quatre asking for everything they have on the original crew. Maybe we can shake something loose.” Heero typed quickly and sent the mail off with a quick click. Duo glanced at his watch. “We better start getting ready. We've got about an hour to get ready. We have to leave a bit earlier than I'd like. The damn dinner is at the Arts Council facility. It's half spin and down colony.” Heero sighed. “That's halfway across the colony.” “Yeah. So, we better get a hump on.” They washed, redressed and left in good time. Heero insisted on leaving over an hour early, who knew what might happen and he hated being late almost as much as Duo did. It was a good thing they did as the first thing that happened was, they missed their train and had to wait for fifteen minutes for the next one. Then they missed their stop, although they had a perfect excuse. Necking is an excuse, right? Then the walk-way that was the most direct route to the venue was down for repair and they had to detour four blocks, then take a slide way. Duo hated slide-ways as the moving sidewalk like metal belt shook in a way that reminded him of a ship with unbalanced jets. It made him vaguely nauseous. When they finally got to the dining hall, they were faintly fussed and a bit stressed. It was made worse by the gathering of photographers and reporters just outside the door. The 'red carpet' was rolled out and everyone who was anyone was doing their best to hog the lime light as long as possible. “Fuck. I so do not want to get in that mess.” Heero growled softly, “Me neither. Let's see if we can't find a different way in.” They started to ease out of the crowd and immediately ran afoul of a colonial security officer. “Sorry, boys, invitation only. You'll have to get back behind the rope.” Heero seized his opportunity quickly. He pulled his invitation out of his inside pocket and showed it to the officer. This, along with the elegant tux he was wearing, made the man check a list on a data pad he was carrying. “Ok, you're in.” He turned to Duo. “Show me your invite, please.” Duo handed his over for inspection. “Good. So what's with the sneaking in a side door?” Duo sighed and rubbed his face, a quick glance at Heero got him a jerk of the head that Heero called a nod. “Take a close look at us, then look at our names. Ring a bell?” The officer did a double take. “Yeah. And I really, really don't want my face plastered all over the papers. We're here on a job, mission, assignment; whatever you want to call it, and we don't need the attention. So, we just want to get inside as quietly as possible. So ... think you could give a guy a hand?” The officer nodded. “Give me a sec.” He got on his radio and called someone higher up for and 'escort for shy VIP's'. It didn't take long for a liaison from the venue to come and show them a way inside, even going so far as to lead them all the way to the dining room and find their seats for them. They settled in for a boring evening of speeches and bad food. They were not disappointed. Most of their table mates were what Relena called empty headed moneybags, only invited because they would donate to almost anything, either for tax reasons or bragging rights. There was the usual opening speech, telling everyone which charity was giving the dinner and inviting them all to enjoy the art scattered across the walls of the dinning room. Heero observed that he could do better with a paintball gun. Duo agreed. If the art was bad, the food was worse. And the conversation consisted of nothing more than empty headed observations on politics, movie stars and fashion. The only other man at the table of six looked like he couldn't decide whether to blow his brains out or someone else's. Heero leaned rudely across his table companion and asked, “And what do you actually do for a living? Just so I know.” “Oh, sorry. My name is Alex Rogers. I'm CEO of Celco. We specialize in cargo handling applications.” He winced as the woman with him kicked him in the ankle. “Don't bore those boys with that. They're not really interested.” Duo took immediate revenge. “Oh, yeah, Celco. You're the company that produces the new C40-51 container. I like that one. Big enough to carry a good payload, with those recessed load bearing attachment points. Those are a great invention, really made it easier to stack containers without having handles get hung. Do you plan on making containers in other sizes?” Heero snickered behind his napkin as everyone at the table stared at Duo. Alex because he was delighted that someone finally recognized the usefulness of his passion and the rest of the table because they had no idea what Duo was talking about. “Oh, man, sorry. No one at this table has introduced themselves. Too much social chatter, not enough manners. Duo Maxwell, pleased ta meetcha.” Duo held out his hand, right across the woman seated to that side of him. This encouraged everyone to introduce themselves to Duo and Heero. And with that Heero, Duo and Alex started up a spirited conversation about shipping containers and structural materials that left the three ladies glassy-eyed and yawning. This lasted until desert was served, a very disappointing apple something which even Duo rejected with scorn. His plaintive, “How the hell can they charge 60 euros for shit on a shingle, limp salad and that?” Alex chuckled and said, “Because it's a charity. Most of the money goes directly into the accounts of the Arts Council. And they're going to stick us for a donation before we get out the door. Now, your best bet is to circulate. Avoid that corner as the group that gathers there orbits around that Winner woman. Unless you've got some sort of death wish.” Duo's eyes lit up at that. The Winner woman had to be Ameena. Alex's wife announced. “I don't like the way your eyes lit up at that. She's an awful woman, hangs out with all sorts of drug users and such. Drinks too much and has the most awful morals I've ever seen. She even takes a trip to Outer 7 every so often. And she's gone for a month at a time. Terrible. You stay away from her.” Heero's eyes flicked to Duo for a split second. Duo jumped into the conversation easily. “Outer 7? What's that?” Alex shook his head. “You don't want to go there unless you're looking for someone to arrest. It's a decommissioned scientific station. Some of Ameena's bunch took it over and they're manufacturing all sorts of stuff there. And it's also called Party Hardy.” Heero said, “I see. And no one has done anything about it yet?” “No one can. It's privately owned and they can make their own laws. Preventers can't do anything about it without proof of some sort of violation of ESUN laws. Manufacturing drugs isn't illegal, and taking them isn't, just selling them.” Heero blinked once. Duo asked the obvious question. “And so... how do they make a profit off giving them away.” “Easy. They call the whole sewer a 'vacation get away' and charge an entry fee and room and board. It's really expensive because everything you want is included in the package you pay for. They can't prove much, because the only people allowed entry are in one or the other of several people’s social circles.” Duo nodded his understanding. “I see. Jessica strikes again. Hummm. Heero?” Heero shook his head. “I'm calling Une.” This was when their names really clicked with the table. They watched in astonishment as Alex turned a funny shade of puce while all the ladies became fluttering messes, even Mrs. Rogers. Heero bore with the results of their recognition with cool aplomb while Duo managed to keep his friendly smile in place, but they were both distinctly uncomfortable. They managed to separate themselves from the table by going to examine some of the art more closely. . They roamed the room, like every other attendee, and examined some of the works closely. “It's a pair of knickers.” Duo's puzzlement was obvious. “Yeah, it is. Covered with ... acrylic paint?” Heero was just as puzzled. “So ... Fuck me! Will you look at that?” Duo pointed to the price. Heero squinted as if he thought his eyes were going back on him. “It's 3,000 euros? For crusty knickers? That's ... that's ... what the hell is this guy smoking?” “Dunno, but it's sure to be illegal, addictive and expensive. How the hell else is he charging that for this.” Duo's scornful tone and sweeping gesture made his opinion clear. “Let's blow this nut farm.” So they did what they did best and stealthily slipped out of the venue without anyone being the wiser. Heero managed to get Une's secretary on the phone while they were on the subway back to the hotel. Duo paired his BlackBerry with Heero's so he could be in on the conversation too. The secretary told them that, between the time lag and the time of day, they would be better off sending email. Duo just asked the woman if they couldn't just tell her what they wanted and have it mailed to them. They lost the connection when they entered a tunnel. The amount of metal in the hull of the colony, as well as that in the decking, cut them off like a knife through butter. Heero snarled but Duo just started composing his message, using the tiny keyboard on his BlackBerry with quick efficiency. By the time they got back to the hotel, Duo had sent his message and was ready for their next step in finding the yacht. It didn't take them long to get to their rooms, shed their tuxedos and find ship-suits. The box of coveralls was right where it was supposed to be, on the coffee table in the sitting room. Duo unbraided his hair and got Heero to help him re-braid it. It didn't take long but Heero ended up shaking his head at the amount of ordinance Duo managed to braid into it. No wonder that braid was so heavy sometimes. Duo just gave Heero a totally unrepentant grin and picked up his coverall. Heero took the other one; it was easy to tell which one belonged to whom by the size. Heero was still short, stocky and a bit more heavily muscled. Duo was the same height as Heero, but he was slender, willowy and wiry. The spacer fit of their coveralls allowed for hiding a number of interesting objects; Heero buckled the tool belt around his waist and checked the pockets, making sure he knew where things were. Duo stuffed things into his pockets; Heero doubted they were entirely legal. Then they did as most workers did and unzipped their coveralls to the waist and rolled the top down, holding it in place by tying the sleeves around their waists. They hid their sidearms in the bulky roll where they would be easy to get to and hard to see. “Well, I'm ready. You?” Heero just picked up the toolbox and handed it to Duo. “Yeah, we better be quick though. Management will have a fit if they see us and I don't fancy having to make explanations. The freight elevator is hidden at the end of the hall to the left, behind that bank of silk plants.” “Yup, I saw it first thing. I'll stick my head out and give the hall a quick scan.” Duo did so as he spoke. “Ok. Let's hustle.” He scurried out the door and made for the end of the hall. Heero followed quickly, only pausing long enough to lock the door. They nipped around the barrier, set there to keep the sight of a utility elevator from the delicate eyes of the customers. Duo quickly hacked the key card lock and opened the door. The elevator was on a different floor but it was easy to call by just pushing the button on the lock. The elevator arrived silently and they entered it. Duo punched the 'B'1 button and the elevator dropped smoothly to the first basement level. When the door opened, Duo took a quick peek out. Seeing no one they bolted through the large parking facility and into the shadows of a service corridor. “Ok, that was easy. Now all we have to do is find Docking Bay [ look up number].” As he was talking his BlackBerry beeped. He quickly answered it. “It's a text from Q. Addresses of all the original crew, with info on whether they're still on colony or not.” He studied it for a moment. “There's three still on colony. We need to go speak to them. One is even on this shift, but the other two are on ... third. We can stay up and see if we can't find them.” “Ok.” Heero glanced around to check on their location. The colony's under belly was marked all over with numbers to tell people where they were. It was too easy to get lost as every corridor looked like every other one. Everything was numbered from nul-gravity to the outer skin and from an arbitrary point from one end to the other. With quarter divisions in every direction. So a designation like 0-1-214-60 meant that the location was in the core at the first quarter, section 214, corridor 60. There would also be a room or bay designation. Heero checked the numbers against their address and said, “We're only three levels away and it's almost directly under us. If we can find a drop shaft, we've got it made.” Duo glanced around, then headed down a side corridor. “This way. There's probably a node close. There ought to be a drop shaft there.” Heero grunted but smiled at his partners back. Duo knew more ways to sneak in and out of places than anyone else he knew. They walked around a bend in the corridor and into a large circular room, in the middle of which was a drop shaft. A drop shaft was a bit of a misnomer, it was actually a cable with hand loops on it that moved around two pulleys, one on one level and the other several levels away. There were two sets of pulleys on the 'master' level, one 'descending' the other 'ascending'. All you did to use it was stick a foot in one loop and grab another. They used the drop shaft to go from their current level down three. They stepped off in a room so similar that the only way to tell the difference was to check the numbers on the wall. Duo made sure they were on the right level, then led the way. Heero really didn't need the guidance but he didn't object, the sight of Duo's braid swaying near his waist seemed to point at something Heero really enjoyed watching. It only took them a few minutes to find the docking bay. Duo just stood in the employees door and looked around for a moment. He pointed. “Heero, look there. There's a burn on the wall. Wonder what caused that?” Heero eyed it for a moment. “I don't know. But it's a perfect excuse to be here. We need to check behind it to make sure there's no damage.” Duo grinned. “Great idea. You're so slick.” Heero just headed for the burn. He was spotted almost immediately by one of the docking bay crew members. “Excuse me! Who are you?” Heero just stopped and looked at the man. Duo eased up beside him and smiled a bit. Heero's forgery skills were amazing so he wasn't too worried. Heero waited for him to come to them then handed the papers he'd prepared over. Heero read the badge the man was wearing. Hugo Altorfer held out his hand, took the papers and glanced at them. “Ok, I was wondering when someone was going to come check that out. No one can figure out what happened.” “Having any difficulties? Things that don't work? Anything?” “No, not that anyone's mentioned. Computers and electronics ok. Pressure lines all at spec. Hoists and such ok too. I don't know why they sent you.” Duo gave a shrug and announced, “You know management. No one knows why they do what they do. So ... we'll check it out and get out of your hair.” “Great, thanks.” He started to walk away but Duo started talking to him. “Man, Hugo ... you don't mind if I call you Hugo, do you?” Hugo shook his head. “Thanks.” Duo rubbernecked shamelessly. “I'm new on colony. I've never seen a bay this big. What the hell docks here?” “Private luxury yachts mostly.” He shook his head. “I don't understand how some people can be so damn stupid. That Winner woman, for example, she just got all in a snit about something and fired two of her own crew fro nothing that they could figure out. And they can't even get new jobs because she wouldn't give them references. I just don't get it. Carl and Jory are good men. But ... you're not interested in that sort of shit.” Duo caught Heero's eye and jerked his head toward the burn. “Sucks, but I know how rich people are. Wonder why Mr. Winner let her do that. It's his yacht, after all.” Duo caught a look at Hugo's face. “It is. Big thing in that rag my sister reads. Full page spread of the blue prints and everything. He built it out of his own pocket, for himself. She took off with it, so the poop is. He's a bit pissed. Can't figure it out. So ... what's with the burn?” Duo went to join Heero in examining the area. It was odd in that it looked very like a flash-bang burn. The surface of the plating was scorched but nothing underneath was damaged. Heero gave Duo a significant look. This didn't look good. More might be going on than just a simple theft, but what? They replaced the plate and wandered around a bit. The dock was clean, neatly kept and well used. The air lock which allowed the ships to enter the bay was perfectly maintained and didn't show any marks. The only oddity in the whole place was that one burn mark. As they were wondering what to do next a voice called out, “Hey, it's lunch time. We ordered pizza. You want some? There's plenty.” Duo immediately called, “Sure, thanks. Be right there.” He hissed at Heero. “We have to find out more about that crew. Maybe the dockhands know more than they've said. But we'll have to be careful.” Heero just grunted softly. He was better at interrogation than smoozing. He was going to have to depend on Duo's ability to pry gossip out of a clam. Not that he was worried, Duo's friendly, gossipy personality was mostly smoke and mirrors but it worked very well, he had high hopes. He wasn't to be disappointed. Duo settled at the table and announced cheerfully, “Man, pizza, thanks, guys. We forgot our lunches.” “Man, that sucks. I hate being hungry.” Heero managed a heavy sigh. “Me too. Is there any sausage?” “Yeah, man, here. And that's a supreme with extra cheese.” Duo made grabby hands at the speaker. “Yum! Gimme.” He was handed a piece of the supreme and a piece of pepperoni. “Here, and this is for ... what's your name?” “Yuy. Thanks.” As they started on their slices, Duo announced, “This is great. Thanks again. Oh, and my name's Max. What the hell happened to that wall. Looks like someone threw a handful of flash powder on it.” “We don't know. I was just there about a month ago. We checked everything out, found out that there wasn't any damage behind it. So we just wrote up a job ticket and let nature take its course.” “I see. Well, anyway. Someone was telling me that you had Winner's yacht here.” “We did. And a nasty stink there was too. She... by she I mean Ameena Winner, made everyone think it was hers. But you're not the first person to say that it was Quatre Winner's personal yacht. I bet he's really pissed. I would be.” Duo furrowed his brow in puzzlement, not all if it feigned. “But, if it was his, how did she get it off colony?” The people at the table looked at each other, then all the crew looked at an older woman. She just sighed, took a bite of pizza and chewed. After she swallowed she said, “No one's really sure, but my theory is this... That woman just convinced the crew that she was the owner, or convinced all of them but ... three? The crew tossed them and they just cleared the tower like any one else and went their merry way. Why? I couldn't tell you, but that's my story an' I'm stickin' to it.” Everybody laughed at that but the conversation took a serious turn when Duo asked, “What happened to the crewmen who wouldn't go along with Ameena?” She gave Duo an annoyed look. “Told you, they got fired.” “Yeah, but where are they now?” “Oh, sorry. Lower docks. They didn't get a rec so they're down below.” Duo grimaced in sympathy. The lower docks were rough territory where the low end companies kept their dock space. Salvagers, Sweepers and the fringe sorts. It wasn't a good place to wind up after working in a dock like this one. Heero just sighed, he knew they were going to have to go down and try to find at least one of those men. Maybe he'd know something, maybe not, but they needed to check. They still had no idea whether Ameena had headed for Outer 7 or somewhere else. They needed a good solid lead and this was as close as they'd gotten so far. He just hoped their info from Une was good. It should be on their computer by the time they got back to the hotel. They ate pizza, talked and relaxed for a while more then Duo stood up, stretched and announced, “Well, that’s that. There's no damage, all that need's done is replace that plate. I'll write up a work order and send it in. See you.” Heero picked up his tool belt, which he'd removed and put on the floor when he'd sat down. Duo got his box and they headed for the door. Before they got very far, Hugo stopped them. “Look, I don't know exactly what you two are up to. I wasn't going to say anything, but ... I recognized you the second you sat down.” He held up a hand. “Take it easy, I think Midde recognized you and I'm sure Jake and Fred did. So, if it's not a real 'tell you then shoot you' thing, what's going on?” Heero eyed Hugo for a moment, glanced at Duo and got a nod. “Ok, it's really simple. Quatre wants his yacht back and asked us to get it for him. We're doing our best but leads are slim pickin's. We're trying to keep as low a profile as possible so Ameena and her cohorts don't find out what we're up to.” Hugo thought about that for a moment. “I don't think it would make much difference if you took out a full page ad in a paper. She's not well liked on colony, even by her so called friends. They're mainly a bunch of hanger's on, hoping she'll throw them a bone. She's tight fisted as an L2 street rat. No offense.” He glanced at Duo who just grinned and shrugged. “You need to talk to those guys that got fired, just find them and walk smash up to them and ask. I bet they'll be glad to talk. If you could do a little something for them, that'd be icing on the cake. They didn't deserve what happened to them. Two of them have families to take care of. Think about it, Ok?” Duo nodded. “Sure, in fact, we'll go back to our hotel and check up on some things. While I'm there I'll email Q and see if I can't get them hired back. I don't think Ameena had the right to fire them in the first place. Um ... thanks.” Hugo just smiled. “Old habits die hard. You two did a good job during the war. You deserved more help than you got. So, payback isn't always a bitch. See you around.” He walked back to his compatriots, waving over his shoulder. Heero looked at Duo, Duo looked back, then they both started laughing. They laughed their way out the door and had to lean against the corridor wall. Finally, Duo wiped his eyes with a bandana he pulled from his hip pocket. He handed it to Heero, who did the same. “Man, do I feel stupid. He's right. This isn't war, or even a capture. It's a damn repo. True, some of Ameena's new crew are rough costumers but it's not a shooting thing. We've used up two weeks on something we should have just walked in and asked. But we know where she's most likely gone, just not why. We need conformation before we go off half cocked. But, all we really have to do is ask. So. Let's get back and see if Une or Q has sent us anything.” Heero just laughed softly and said, “Well, as you said once, you can't teach old dogs new tricks. But, really, I'd rather be safe than sorry. They did commit a felony after all. So, we'll go talk to these men, get them to tell us everything they can thing of, then caution them not to blab too much. When we go to do the actual repo, we'll have to be careful.” Duo nodded. “You're right about that. We might get shot at by the local security, unaware that the yacht isn't hers.” He suddenly stiffened. “Oh, shit! How many crew do we have to have to run the ship. Not servers and waiters and all that. Real crew. Fuck!” Heero's face went still, his war face, as Duo called it. “I don't know. Shit! We're slipping. We should have thought of that first thing.” Duo sighed. “I think we both need a real vacation after this. We've been on ten captures without a break. So, you handle Une, I'll find out about crew. We better get on the stick if we want to catch those guys when they get off shift. And I'd like a nap in there somewhere.” “Right, me too. Why don't we get back, do our thing, then nap until we get the intel. We'll just call all three of these men after we hear from Quatre. I think we ought to see if Quatre won't hire them back.” “Good idea, and that'll give us a good reason to see them. And give them a little good news to sweeten the pot.” . When they got back to the room, they were both still feeling a bit annoyed with themselves. Their war-time reflexes had wasted so much time. But Duo had announced that they were better rested than they had a right to be so it was all good. “Great! I've got an email from Q. He says ...” Duo took a minute to finish reading the message. “Ameena didn't have the authority to fire those men. He's reinstating them from his end right now, with back pay. That's good. And ... he's sent ...” Duo read quickly. “We need a crew of three. Pilot, co-pilot and navigator. But we can manage with two as either one of us can navigate at need. But, all we have to do is gain possession of the ship and get it into neutral space, sent our coordinates to him and he'll have a WEI crew take possession.” Heero sighed unhappily. “My news isn't so good. There's actually been a sighting of the yacht... at Outer 7. And Ameena is using the ship, which she's named the Azeera, to ferry the high rollers around. She's moving it every two or three days. I think it's to keep us from finding it.” He read a bit more. “Une's in a temper too. Outer 7 is manufacturing drugs on an unprecedented scale and they are using it all there. If you snort it, shoot it, swallow it or rub it in your bellybutton, you can get it there. And it's all free. That's how they're getting around all the laws. It's not illegal to use, just sell. And, all you have to do is be able to afford the horrendous price of residence on the station. Preventers is desperate to find some way to crack that mess.” Duo thought for a moment, “Well, if Ameena is taking money to ferry people to the station that includes them in piracy. Doesn't it?” Heero's grin was feral to say the least. “It sure does. If we find the ship on or going to the station, Preventers has a toe in the door. And you know Une, toe, nose, finger, followed by a whole troupe of bodies. We'll hand her this mess on a plate. All due to Ameena being a bitch.” He couldn't help laughing, not his usual, hearty laugh, this was the one that made the God of Death shiver. “Heero, damn it, don't do that.” Heero just raised an eyebrow. “What?” “That laugh is just plain creepy.” “And yours isn't?” Duo just snickered and went back to what he'd been doing. It didn't take long to make appointments with the three men, print out their reinstatement papers and back paycheck. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for the time of their appointment to roll around. Duo promptly flopped out full length on the couch and went to sleep. Heero just kicked off his boots and did the same. He would have taken Duo's boots off for him, but they both seemed to be in war mode so he didn't. It wouldn't be a good idea. Chapter Six Duo woke when his internal alarm prodded him to and snorted, his bangs were tickling his nose. “Ump ... huh? Oh, Heero?” “Right here. If you get up now, we've got time for some breakfast before we have to leave.” “Ok, after all that pizza, I really shouldn't be hungry but ...” He glanced at his watch. “Well, maybe I should be. I couldn't eat that mess they served at the dinner. 60 euros and it's inedible, and that's saying something when I say it. The pizza was good, but I only had two pieces. So, yeah, I could eat.” Heero laughed. “I couldn't eat much of that crap either. I just cut it up and shoved it around a bit. And I only had one piece of that pie. I really felt kind of guilty, eating their food and pumping them for info at the same time. So ... get dressed in something a little more comfortable and socially acceptable ...” He got an evil look on his face. “Or not. What say we show up just like this and cause a scandal?” Duo snickered. “Why not. It'll serve them all right, the snobs. Might even start a new fashion.” Heero had a few doubts about this prank and voiced them but also announced that he really, 'can't be arsed to care much. We'll never be back here, as far as I know. And, if we can replace that nearly naked holes in everything style, it'll be a good thing.” Duo just snickered and agreed. So they went down to the most expensive restaurant in the hotel, dressed as repair crew and asked for a table. The mater' d nearly had a heart attack. He tried to discretely hustle them out, then demanded proof of ability to pay. Heero casually handed him a credit card and the man choked on his own spit when the infinity symbol showed up on his reader. He hurriedly got menus and led them to a small table at the edge of the room. Heero chose to be offended, his glower nearly set the man’s hair on fire. “i don't like this table, it's too small. And there's no view. I don't care if I'm seen or not but I do like to see the room.” The waiter led them to a different table, this one near the center of the room, surrounded by decorative planters and pots. It was a good situation, they could see and be seen but not be intruded upon without permission. They settled down to survey the menu and decide on breakfast, or was it lunch. Neither one knew or cared. They were just hungry. Duo decided on a hamburger, fries and a coke. It wasn't on the menu but he told Heero that they'd either make it or they'd walk out. Heero sighed, Duo was in one of his moods, not that Heero blamed him. They were both tired, disgusted with themselves and ready for a break. He decided that he wanted a hamburger too. When they placed their orders the waiter announced that it was impossible. Heero just looked at him. “Look at the menu, that's what we have. Order from it and we'll be happy to cook it anyway you want.” Duo eyed the menu. “Ok, I'll take a steak tartar, only cook it medium well. A salad of tomatoes, onions and lettuce. Mustard on the side. A dill pickle. And a potato, pomes frite. With catsup. Can you do that?” The waiter nodded. “Oh, and a roll the exact diameter of the steak tartar. Got it?” The waiter nodded again, looked at Heero who announced, “You forgot the coke. I'll have the same except with coffee.” The waiter wrote, sighed and walked away. Chef was going to have a fit. But the chef didn't have a fit, he just made the patties, fried them carefully, arranged the plates neatly and made sure the fries were hot, fluffy inside and crisp outside. Anyone who had the balls to come into a five diamond restaurant and order hamburgers deserved the best he could do. He even toasted the buns. Duo rubbed his hands together when the plate came and calmly thanked the waiter. Then he put the patty on the bun, added the contents of his salad bowl, topped that with the mustard and pickle and topped that with the other half of the bun. Heero did the same thing and they settled in to eat. “Mmmm, very good.” Heero stopped eating to wipe his mouth with the fine linen napkin. “Yeah, it's really good.” Duo tried a fry, “and the fries are great too. See, I told you, all you have to do is ask.” “Asking is one thing, paying is another. I bet this cost an arm and a leg. Special order that it is.” Duo just nodded, chewing his fry. After he swallowed, he remarked, “I don't care what it cost. I wanted a burger, I got a burger. And coke.” Heero just ate. They still had to get to the little coffee shop they were meeting their contacts in. It didn't take long to finish. When they did, the waiter brought the bill. Heero didn't even look at it, he just handed over his credit card. The waiter swiped the card, had Heero sign his name on the data pad and went away. Duo stretched a bit, then got up. He looked around the room and saw that there actually weren't that many people in the restaurant. And the one's that were were all young. He snickered a bit then slowly sauntered to the door, making sure that everyone in the room saw him. Heero followed, cracking his knuckles and watching the reactions of the people to the loud crunching. Duo said, in a voice pitched to carry, “Heero, you see that girl with the pink hair? I thought she was going to fall out of that ship suit. Very realistic, not. No one with any sense would actually wear something like that on ship.” Heero announced his agreement. “Or in a gundam. Come on, we need to get going.” They were both very satisfied by the expressions on several faces. . It took them twenty minutes to get to the cafe and get settled. They'd found a table for eight in the back, in one corner and staked it out. They had decided to talk to all three men at one time. They didn't have long to wait. The first two showed up together as they'd just gotten off shift. The third man came in just as the other two were ordering. Duo started the meeting with, “Ok, guys, you all got a raw deal. Here's how it goes. Ameena wasn't the owner of the yacht. She didn't even have the right to name it. So, Quatre sent us to fix everything. Lemme see. Joe Hankens?” one man raised his hand and Duo slid a folder across the table to him. “Mike Anderson?” Another hand and another file. “Yamata Ichigo?” The third man just smiled. “Great. Now I'll explain what's in the files so we can move along. Quatre has rehired you, paid you back wages and wiped your records clean.” There was a stunned silence, in the midst of which the waitress brought their coffee. Duo took his and sipped while Joe, Mike and Ichigo got themselves back together. It took them a few minutes of whispering without an excuse me, which bothered neither Heero nor Duo. “Ok, here's the deal. We want to know exactly what the hell is going on. Why did Winner hire us? Lady Ameena had to blackball us, we couldn't get shit around here.” Duo just told them flat out that Ameena hadn't had the authority to fire them. The ship wasn't hers and she'd taken off with it, their job was to get it back. This time there wasn't any whispering, all three men just went over everything they knew about Ameena, where she might go and what she might be up to. They also admitted that one of the reasons she'd kicked them off the ship was that they were suspicious about things. They had thought the ship was being fitted out for Quatre but she'd denied it so vehemently that everyone believed her. Then she'd explained that she was going to use the yacht as a floating hotel and transport for people who'd paid for a vacation package at Party Hardy. That had been the last straw for them, their complaints were what had finally gotten them dismissed. “Well, you're back on payroll, report to WEI here on colony and they'll put you to work. Now, do you have any idea if she had some sort of set route?” Again, there was a lot of discussion, some of it a bit on the loud side. Heero finally shushed them, saying, “You guys calm down, we're going to get kicked out if we make too much noise.” Ichigo snapped, “If these idiots would shut up for two seconds I'd tell you what I found out.” Joe and Mike gave him a dirty look each but settled into silence and let him talk. “Ok, here's the deal. She files a flight plan, as required by ESUN law, but that doesn't mean she sticks to it. The hard part is going to be figuring out where she could go along the course she claims to be following.” Duo nodded. “Ok, that's not that hard for us. Predictive navigation isn't a big deal for a gundam pilot. Yes, we're both pilots. Une kept our pictures and stats out of the news but that's beginning to be unnecessary. We're both bounty hunters and, sometimes, the rep is a help. We're not taking an ad out in the paper or anything, but...” Duo glanced at Heero, who nodded his agreement, “we feel the time for secrecy is past, for us at least.” They got awestricken looks from all three men. And a soft, 'Oh, my God.' from someone. Heero and Duo had discussed this for the last six months. The war had been over for enough time that old hurts were healing quicker all the time. There would always be some that hated the gundam pilots for what they'd done, but there were fewer all the time. Heero had said, and Duo agreed, that it wasn't their right to 'out' anyone else, but their jobs were actually made easier by dropping a hint here and there about who they really were. After all, who really wanted to go up against the Perfect Soldier and Shinigami. Wufei had already been thrown under a bus, as Duo put it, by some idiot in the Preventers public relations office. They had heard the ranting all the way from Sanque. Duo had felt bad for Wufei but Heero had been philosophical about it and remarked a bit sourly, “It was bound to happen sooner or later. That doesn't keep him from doing wet work, which is what they wanted him for anyway.” Now, their reputations led the three men to tell them everything they could. Ichigo even admitted that he had a preliminary flight plan on his computer. He'd thought about deleting it but hadn't bothered. He produced a laptop out of his messenger bag and handed it over to Heero. Heero hooked his computer up to Ichigo's and transferred the information. “This will help. It might not be up to date but we'll get an idea what he's up to. How did you get your hands on it?” “I was supposed to be the navigator, before She fired me. I'm stuck in an accounting position now. Checking fuel consumption logs, of all things. I'll be glad to get back on a ship. She even managed to fix it so we can't get off colony. I just don't get it. Bitch.” Duo didn't get it either, why make sure they couldn't get off colony? Heero had the answer. “She's power hungry. For some reason I don't get, she feels like she's been robbed of power she should have. So, she fires you, then makes sure you can't get way from the effects of her actions. She's just demented. We need to find her, get Quatre's ship back and make sure she never has enough power to light a match ever again.” Duo agreed, remarking, “You know, I think you're right. She's just going to keep doing things like this and hurting innocent people, just because she's rich, bored and thinks she can get away with it. We really need to check up on the rest of her crew. What happened to them? Where are they? Have they quit? Need to know.” He grinned at the rest of the table. “I know, I’m just a bundle of why.” Heero picked at his lip while he thought, the rest of the table drank their coffee and waited. “I wonder... we need to track the rest of the crew, yes, but ...” He looked from Ichigo, to Mike, to Joe, “any of you have any ideas about who would quit when they found out what she's really up to? Or who might go along for the ride?” Ichigo shrugged, “I think most of the service crew, cooks, waiters, maids and such wouldn't pay much attention to what's actually going on. They're kept pretty sequestered from the guests. They do their job, then go back to crew quarters. They have enough entertainments that they are kept happy. The ship crew is only a captain slash pilot, co-pilot, navigator and engineer. They would have to actually know exactly what's going on and, more or less, be in on it.” Heero thought about that for a moment. “Wonder if any of the service personnel have been let go? If they have been, would they actually know anything?” Joe thought, then shook his head. “I was general manager, the top guy for the service personnel. If anyone got fired, they'd know a bit, but not enough to put much of anything together. I think Ameena might put pressure on some of them to ... cooperate with the guests, if you know what I mean. But I don't think she'd make too big a deal about letting them go. It's against the law. She'd probably just get them transferred to a different ship and bring in someone more cooperative, male and female. The level of service is probably way down, and that's going to give her a whole different list of problems. One's she's not equipped to deal with.“ He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking quickly. “I might be able to find out something. I'll ask around.” Heero gave the man a puzzled look, then asked, “Why are you doing this? We really need your input on this but I'd have thought you'd be at least a bit reluctant.” Mike just grinned at him in an evil sort of way. “Revenge. She fucked with us now we're fucking her back. I have a few ideas, but I need a bit of time. How do I get a hold of you?” Duo just handed out cards. “If you think of anything, or any of your contacts come up with something, there are our numbers. Call one of them and, if we don't answer right away, we'll get back to you as soon as we can.” They all shook hands around and split up. Heero and Duo to go back to their hotel and get some sleep and the three very happy newly rehired men to squeeze anyone they knew for what information they could get. . Any outsider would have wondered at how much the guys were sleeping, but old soldiers knew to take care of the necessities whenever they could. Sleeping, food and showers could come easy or very hard, when they came easy it was wise to take advantage. When Heero woke up, he stretched, scratched and headed into the bathroom to take care of the three S's. He left Duo sleeping the sleep of the just, or tired. He'd wake Duo when he was done, order some food and sit down to go over the flight plan Ichigo had given them. Time was not of the essence anymore as they were sure that Ameena wasn't planning on selling the yacht. His missive to Quatre the evening before needed an answer before they went farther. Heero finished his ablutions and woke Duo. Duo opened his eyes without the usual moaning and groaning, this indicated that he was half awake already. “I'm done, take care of things. I'll check for an email from Quatre and order some food. Any preferences?” Duo grumbled, “Breakfast. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, juice, coffee, toast.” Duo tossed the covers onto the floor and wandered into the bathroom, rubbing his face to finish waking up. Heero placed the order for breakfast, then settled to check his email and start analyzing the flight plan for diversions. He was sure that the plan that the Azeera had filed was a screen for the real destinations. He just had to figure out where they were really going. He started by projecting a 3-D image of this part of the solar system into mid-air over the table. Then he entered all the coordinates from the flight plan. It didn't take the computer to spit out a chart that showed the whole flight as a series of lines. Duo wandered in finishing his braid. “Got food yet?” “No, but I do have this.” He pointed to the display. “And an email from Quatre. He still wants us to snag Ameena, and anyone from the crew that's guilty of helping with the theft. He also wants all the service crew arrested until they can be cleared of charges of prostitution, solicitation and ... there's a list I printed out here somewhere.” Duo goggled for a second, then declared, “Man, Q's really got his shorts in a bunch. Remind me not to piss him off, Ok?” Heero just rubbed at the ache that was forming in his temples. “If I was Quatre, I'd be more than pissed. He's given everyone of his sisters a chance to better themselves. Most of them have done very well for themselves, either within the ranks of WEI or on their own. A few haven't had the talent and moved on to other things, with his help. But Ameena and a few other's seem to think that they should have whatever they want just because of who they are. I don't blame him a bit. So ... we need to get his toy back before Ameena decides to break it.” “Yeah ...” A knock at the door alerted them to breakfast’s arrival. “I'll get that.” Opening the door admitted a young man pushing a trolley with several covered platters on it. There were also two place settings and a pitcher of orange juice and a thermal carafe of coffee. He pushed the cart to the coffee table and left, accepting a folded bill with thanks. Duo plated up the food and handed one to Heero. He also poured the juice and coffee then sat down beside Heero to eat and examine the display. “Well, I see several places where they could go a bit out of their flight path without too much delay. And one place where all they'd have to do is dock at a different bay. All in all, I swear she could get away with murder and not get caught. Unless Preventers gets a clue. Which you'll be glad to send them.” Heero shook his head. “I don't think so. I'd really rather sink Outer 7 while we're at it. All we have to do is catch someone selling drugs or trying to bribe an official of either ESUN or Preventers. With this bunch, I think it'll be fairly easy. But ... what official ... that's the question.” Duo gave Heero one of his preternaturally wise looks and said, “I'm suspecting that the official is going to be one of us, right?” “If Une agrees, yes. If not, we'll just have to find someone else. I really, really want this one.” “Why?” “Family oughtn't to do things like this to each other. And ... it's Quatre.” “Gotcha in one, buddy. My sentiments entirely. Now, eat that before it's ruined.” Duo pushed Heero's plate into his hands and put the juice by his elbow, close enough to reach but far enough away that he wouldn't accidentally bump it. Then he turned his attention back to the display and his analysis, devouring his breakfast as he did so. After breakfast they dressed in ship-suits that they had had since the war and plain dark blue coveralls, rolled down to the waist. Duo hid a few things in his braid and Heero tucked a sidearm away carefully. They just wandered the mall for a bit, then window shopped, making loud comments on the cheapness of the materials and the silliness of the cutouts. They stopped at Hidalgo's and filled him in on everything they knew. Hidalgo was no one's fool and realized that this might be the last time he'd see his new friends. “Ok, I can read the writing on the wall as well as the next. You two keep in touch, you hear me? I'd really hate to have to look you up and bitch slap you.” Duo patted him on the shoulder. “I know. We'll let you know how all this comes out. And we well keep in touch. Who knows? We might just come back to harass you.” “Good. But what about your gliders?” Heero sighed, he'd really become fond of the sport. Then he brightened. “Send them to the local WEI with instructions to pack them up and send them to us on Earth. They're ok for use there, aren't they?” Hidalgo brightened. “Sure are. I'll take care of that as soon as I can. Probably next weekend.” Duo rubbed the folds of a jacket between his fingers, this was the part of their job he really hated. Leaving new friends was never easy. “Thanks, man. That'll be fine. Heero, we better get on the move.” Heero shook Hidalgo's hand, so did Duo. They left, leaving Hidalgo with a long face. He was going to miss Heero's dry sense of humor and Duo's relentless cheerfulness. Heero patted Duo's shoulder as they left, he was well aware that Duo hated leaving. Heero wasn't too fond of it himself. He wondered if that was one reason why they had very few friends on the colonies anymore. Coming back to Earth after a visit was just too painful. Quatre and Trowa paid regular visits to Earth for business reasons and made a point of visiting. Wufei had a monthly date to meet them for dinner which he only missed when he was on a mission. “Come on. We need to see if there's any new emails from anyone.” Duo sighed, rubbed his cheek and agreed. “Yeah, I need a cup of coffee in the worst way and we do need to check the mail.” Heero steered Duo in the general direction of one of his favorite coffee bars. The coffee was good and the bar was quiet. It didn't hurt that it had free wi-fi. “Duo, get us some coffee while I check the mail, will you?” “Sure. Your regular?” Heero, engrossed in getting synced with the wi-fi, just nodded. Duo chuckled a bit at that, trust Heero to keep his eye on the main prize. He went to order the coffee. His return to the table was greeted with a grin that had made strong men wet themselves. Heero had a solid lead at last. “We have to get to L4-634. Ameena was sighted there three days ago. Her, not what might be the right ship. So, we need to get there as fast as we can.” Duo just handed Heero his coffee and headed for the door. Heero packed up his laptop, picked up his backpack and followed, sipping his coffee as he walked. They went to the hotel, gathered their belongings and checked out. Then they went to WEI's local headquarters and asked if there was a fast courier headed for L4-634. The clerk they were speaking to checked her computer and said, “No, but even if we did have one, you couldn't get a seat on it. It's reserved for WEI emergencies only.” Heero just sighed, he truly hated bean counters. “Get in touch with Quatre Winner. He'll authorize it.” This earned him a snort. “If you think I'm going to bother the CEO himself, just to be told that he doesn't know you, you're crazy. Now, I don't know how you got in here but, if you're not gone in one minute, I'm calling security and having you thrown out.” Duo eyed her for a moment, then just shrugged. “Ok, it's your funeral. Heero, let's go.” Heero just eyed the woman, then whipped around on his heel. He marched to the door and opened it, held it while Duo walked through it then followed him. “We'll send an email to Quatre, but we need to be on that courier and on our way a-sap.” Duo blinked, “But what good is emailing Quatre going to do. We need to get going now.” “I didn't say we were going to wait for his authorization. We're going to take it, now. So, get out your hackin' things and get ready to swipe that courier.” Duo pumped one fist in the air and exclaimed, “YES!” . It didn't take Duo long to stuff what he needed into pockets and his braid. Heero added more arms to his supply of weapons. They repacked what they didn't think they needed but made sure that the rest were where they could get to them fairly quickly. Heero checked a map of the colony on his computer and located the WEI complex, then he zoomed in until only the complex filled the screen. Duo pointed over his shoulder. “There. It the only dock they have on this colony so the courier has to be there. Zoom in some more. Heero zoomed in more and looked the docking complex over carefully, finally he found it. “Here it is. It won't be that hard to get to.” Duo shook his head. “I think we may have more trouble than expected. There's got to be some kind of security around that courier and Miss Can't help you surely sent out some kind of warning.” “You're right. We'll just have to play it by ear.” Duo sighed, “I ever tell you I'm tone deaf?” “Yeah, didn't believe it then either.” Duo laughed softly, he was beginning the mental preparation to break and enter and steal the courier. “Ok, man, let's get this dog and pony show on the road.” They made their way through the colony to the docking bay complex belonging to WEI. Duo slipped through a vent and into the complex. There was a guard on the main door, just one man but he checked everyone like they were terrorists in disguise. He was a good man and Heero hated to have to do anything to them, so they were sneaking in. And Duo wouldn't have it any other way. He eased through the air duct carefully so as not to make a bang. Any noise would echo through the duct and be magnified. This would attract more attention than they needed. He paused from time to time to peer through vents into the docking areas, looking for the courier. When he found it he would call Heero on the phone and have him follow. For now, they didn't need two people wandering around in the ducts above the complex. Heero tracked Duo on his laptop. He was hidden in the very cliché janitor’s closet with the laptop on a drum of solvent. He had projected his 3-D display into the air above it and was watching the red blip that was Duo move through a wire frame display of the complex. He'd managed to hack into the local WEI computer and get blueprints of the complex. They didn't help much as they didn't show where any of the bays were, just the utilities. Heero grumbled to himself about that. He watched as the red dot moved this way and then that. It also moved up and down. Heero wondered what that was all about. Duo swore again. He was going to have to leave the relative safety of the air ducts to scamper across a docking bay. The ducts dead ended from time to time forcing him to either backtrack or leave them. Since the worst he could expect if he got caught was to be arrested, or ejected, he didn't worry he just dropped to the floor and darted from box to tool locker to vent. It took him over an hour to find the courier, stashed in a small bay on the far end of the complex from where they'd entered. He looked it over carefully. It wouldn't do to get into the ship and find out that it wasn't space worthy. He watched for a few moments, looking for anyone in the bay. There didn't seem to be anyone around so Duo took the vent cover off and dropped to the floor. He drifted quickly to the shadows to watch for security. There was no alarm going off or any other sign that he'd been noticed. He quickly hacked the electronic lock on the main air lock and slipped inside the ship. He made his way to the cockpit, which wasn't too hard as it made up half the internal space of the courier, the other half was cargo hold. He slipped into the pilots chair and checked the fuel gages. The tanks were full and the ship checked out as ready to fly. He called Heero and let him know. Heero examined the mental map he had compiled as Duo made his way to the bay. He knew that it wasn't going to take him long to get there. It had taken Duo over an hour because he had to explore every duct until he found one that went through or find a way around the dead end. Heero only had to follow his map straight through. Duo said, “I'll hold off on starting up the ship until you get here. Don't want to alert anyone too soon.” “Ok, I'm on my way.” Heero hung up, stuffed everything back in his pack and headed out. He eased into the ductwork and started crawling, he measured his progress against his mental map and realized that he was coming up on one of the places where he was going to have to leave the ducts and make his way across an open area of the docks. He wasn't looking forward to this at all. He knew he looked as much like the dock crew as they could manage, but the coverall wasn't quite the right color and he didn't have an employee badge. If he was stopped, this could lead to him being ejected. That would mean starting all over, with the whole docking complex aware that there was an intrusion. He eased the vent cover off, dropped to the stack of boxes conveniently right under it and slid the cover back in place. He quietly clambered down to the floor, staying between the stack and the wall. A quick scan of the area let Heero note every person there and figure a way across the room without being seen, or try to. There was someone at every workstation and none of them showed any sign of leaving any time soon. Heero braced himself and started walking. He had to walk fast enough that he looked busy but not fast enough to attract the wrong kind of attention. It helped that he looked young and had a bag with him. He nipped into the supply closet where the vents would lead him back into the duct work with some relief. It was a moments work to get the vent cover off, climb in and pull the cover back on. Unfortunately, he made a noise. Freezing, he waited for someone to notice. The sharp bang had echoed all over the nearby area. He held still, barely breathing for several moments while he waited to see if anyone would come to investigate. No one did, but he moved much more carefully, and slowly after that. It took him several minutes and one wrong turn to reach the next danger point. This time he only had to dart from one side of an empty storage room to the other. He did this quickly and managed to get back into the ductwork without making a noise. Duo, meanwhile, was running silent checks of all systems on board the courier. He wanted to be ready to leave as soon as they could after Heero arrived. He knew they were supposed to file a flight plan but was hoping to at least get out of the docking bay without anyone being the wiser. This hope was doomed to disappointment as he found out that the flight plan, per WEI procedure, had to be filed before their local WEI controller would authorize the bay doors to be opened. He fiddled around, trying to find a way around this. He finally decided that Heero was going to have to hack the system and open the door manually. He kicked the nearest control panel and muttered, “This sucks. Where the hell is Heero?” Heero was making his way through the ducts of the last leg of his journey, wondering why he never thought to wear knee pads. His knees hurt, his hands hurt and his back hurt. He grumbled softly, “I swear, I'm getting to old for this shit. Never again. We want something, we'll hire it. And why didn't we hire something this time? Oh, yeah, because this is the fastest thing on the colony. Why don't we just borrow it? Because no one fucking knows who we are. Shit!” This last exclamation was brought about as he forced the vent out of the duct work and lost his grip on it. It fell to the floor with a muffled bang. Heero swore some more as his sweaty hands slipped and he landed awkwardly. He thought for a moment of retraining then realized that it really wasn't needed, he just needed to keep his mind on what he was doing, instead of letting it wander to the next step. He had to chuckle quietly at himself, retrain indeed. Duo was going to cut him a new one for that. He never even considered not telling his lover about it. He jammed the cover back in place, checked to make sure no one was about, mentally kicked himself for being careless and slipped into the shadows of the bay, sneaking quickly into the side bay where the courier was. He saw the small ship with considerable relief. A quick dash and he was opening the air lock door. He closed it and turned to face Duo, and the pistol in his hand. Duo quickly tucked his side arm away and said brightly, “Hi, 'Ro. We got a little problem.” He went on to explain what it was and ended with, “You can hack it, right?” Heero just got out his laptop and plugged it into the proper jack on the console. “Won't take but a few minutes. I'll send a note to Quatre too. Just ... a ... Got it!” Heero tapped quickly at his keyboard, opening the docking bay air lock, setting up the launch and filing a legitimate looking flight plan. There was no reason to lie about where they were headed so he gave the proper coordinates. The air lock opened, the launcher cycled and Duo started the pre-flight check list. It didn't take him long to get through it. Heero sent the launch command, then buckled his seat belts and started his duties as co-pilot and navigator. All the checks were completed and the onboard computer agreed that they could launch. The launch went as smoothly as possible and they were back in space. Duo set the auto pilot and consulted the onboard computer display. “Ok, we should be there in 16 hours, plus or minus the usual. So, what do we do now?” Heero sighed, eyed his skinned palms and said, “What we do best, get ready for what ever comes next. Got a first aid kit?” Duo sighed, Heero just couldn't manage to get through duct work without cutting himself and skinning his knees. “Yeah, I was hoping...” Heero sighed, “Me too. I swear, no more ducts for me. Next time, we'll just rent something. You know, none of our jobs are really life and death, rush or lose, not anymore.” Duo couldn't help the slightly bitter laugh. “You're right. We'll learn.” Heero pulled Duo into a gentle kiss. “You're right, we will.” Duo returned the kiss then said, “But for now we've got a yacht to find. So ...” He chuckled a bit. “Onward and ... upward? Or is it more to the side?” Heero glanced at a display. “From here it actually looks more like downward.” He shifted to face forward again and got his laptop. “I'm going to do some research. You?” “Try to contact Wufei.” They turned to their appointed tasks, talking back and forth and offering each other suggestions, some of them having nothing to do with the task at hand. Duo soon got a reply from Wufei, he was checking into laws, trying to find something to help them get the yacht back and shut down Outer 7. He knew he had some laws, just applying them properly was the sticking point. Duo told him that he and Heero would keep their eyes and ears open for anything and keep him informed. Wufei returned that he was going to be on the closest colony or station, with an assault team. One that was fully armed and prepared to raid a fully operational station. Duo shuddered, this was not something he really wanted in on. Heero noticed the shudder and sighed, he wasn't any happier than Duo was. The size of the cockpit kept them from doing more than dozing, taking turns incase the auto pilot alarm went off. It didn't. They reached their destination, sweaty, dirty and hungry. They docked at the WEI complex at the colony core and exited the ship, with some misgivings. But they were greeted by a woman who smiled at them and said, “Come with me. We'll turn in the key and get you a room. Mr. Winner was a bit dismayed that you weren't just given the ship. In fact, he ... had a conversation with a few people and ...” She grinned. “Heads rolled. I swear, I don't know how some of these people make it from one end of a day to the other. It's not like every entry point doesn't have a list, with pictures, of every name that is to be given anything they want, no matter what it is. So, he's not real happy. Key?” Duo gave her a slightly shamefaced smile. “We ... um ... didn't get the key. Heero hacked the systems and we just ... sort of launched.” The woman cracked up, laughing so hard she had to hang on to a door handle to keep from falling down. “Oh, man, that's priceless. The company programmers have been bragging that their latest additions to security have made it impossible for anyone to hack the systems. What did you do? Use a super hacker?” Heero just shrugged. “No, I just used my laptop.” Duo snickered at her startled expression. “Oh, a laptop. Ok.” She shook her head, then grinned brightly, “That’s nice. So ... you need a hotel. Do you have credit? Sorry to ask but I need to know whether I need to get you a card.” Duo produced his credit card with a flourish. “We have credit. All we need is a squat. We're both tired and hungry. After we rest, our search of the colonies data banks should be finished. We need to find out about the Azeera. Where her next port of call is supposed to be, that sort of thing.” “Well, first off, my name is Anne. You tell me what you want to know and you'll have it a-sap. We can do a lot of things for you more easily than you can do them yourself. Now, I'm going to take you to your hotel, and it's not a squat. It's one of the finest on the colony. Come on.” Heero followed Anne with Duo by his side. Things were really starting to look up. After a few false starts and some wasted time, they were hot on the trail. A trail that worried Heero more than he wanted to admit. Duo flicked a sideways look at Heero. He knew the expression on Heero's face very well. To anyone else it was a lack of expression but the crinkle between Heero’s eyebrows and the slight squint told a tale. A tale of worry. “It's going to be ok. You know that. Right?” Heero nodded, one jerk of his head. “Yeah, because if this heats up, we're leaving. We don't have to do this anymore.” Duo nodded. “Right. We're bounty hunters, not Preventers. Une wouldn't put us on the spot. She knows better.” Heero had doubts but he kept them to himself. . The hotel was small, but very fine. They were greeted with the information that the things they'd left behind were in transit and would be there in 20 hours. The General Manager, Ed Cortland, said that he'd gotten in touch with his compatriot at their old hotel and made arrangements the second he'd found out they'd had to leave most of their things behind. He assumed it was because of the business emergency that had forced them to take a courier and neither Heero nor Duo disabused him. Instead, they thanked him for his efficiency and asked that he find them some clean clothing to wear until their things arrived. Mr. Cortland offered to get them some sweats from a nearby store, asking their sizes. They gave the required information and were shown to their rooms. The rooms were well appointed and very much like the rooms they'd just left. Duo headed for the showers while Heero set up his ever present laptop and ordered them food. He decided on Curry Chicken over rice, steamed broccoli, salad, and fresh fruit. He felt dehydrated so he ordered iced tea for Duo and hot green tea for himself. Duo came into the room, blotting his braid with a towel. Heero smiled at that. Sometimes Duo would just rub shampoo into his scalp and bangs, leaving his braid done up. This seemed to be one of those times. “Ready for the shower? I'm done. Did you order food? I'm really hungry and I'd like about a gallon of water. Why the hell do they keep some ships so damn dry?” Heero stood up and headed for the bathroom. “I'm more than ready for a shower, ripe for one, I’d say. I ordered curry chicken, broccoli, salad and tea. Oh, and fresh fruit for desert. I don't know why they do that. It's a mystery of the galaxy. And it's not even good for the ship. I'll be quick.” “Ok. If the food comes before you're done, I'm starting without you.” Duo flopped down on the couch, glancing at the monitor. Heero had left up the list of search parameters he'd sent to Anne. “I might add to this, if you don't mind.” “Fine with me. I'm gone.” Heero shut the bedroom door and went into the bathroom. It didn't take him long to finish his ablutions and return. He found Duo seated at the computer, reading avidly. He glanced at the quickly scrolling data and smiled. Duo read as fast as he, Heero, did. A soft buzz let them know that their food had arrived so Heero walked on through the room to the door and let the bellwoman in. she wheeled a cart in, took off the covers and bowed slightly before she left without a word. Heero just picked up a plate, stuck a fork on the edge and handed it to Duo along with the glass of tea. He took the other plate for himself and set it on the coffee table along with his pot of tea and a cup. Around a mouthful of chicken, Heero asked, “Is there any good news?” Duo scrunched up his face for a second. “Not really. The Azeera was here for three days, just left. The flight plan puts her docking at Outer 7 in 18 hours from launch. But she'd due back here for six hours in about a day and some. So we can get a few plans set in motion. Maybe.” Heero grumbled, “If that woman is as paranoid as I think she is, we better have cast iron credentials.” He picked at a rough cuticle for a moment, until Duo swatted his hand. “I think we made a good start on L4-632. All we have to do is expand on it a bit.” Duo grumbled, “And how long is that going to take? We don't have all century.” “Not that long. All we really have to do is start the rumor mill grinding. She's not smart enough to figure out the difference between gossip and fact. If someone she knows tells her something, she'll accept it as fact. So, who do we know who can start a rumor?” Duo replied immediately, “Anne. She'll drop a word to someone she knows is a big gossip, tell them not to breath a word and it'll be all over the colony in 24 hours.” “So how do we get a rep as wild boys?” Duo snickered. “Well, tell the truth. That little escapade with the courier doesn't need to be blown out of proportion much.” Heero agreed, got in touch with Anne who laughed and agreed that it was going to be easy to set them up as rich, bored, wild and up for anything. She estimated that it would take about 12 hours for the rumors to make the rounds in the right, or wrong, set. Chapter Seven Anne Robards liked her job, very much. She was a top PR representative for WEI as well as being contact person for most of the visiting VIP's. As a usual rule, she wasn't allowed to talk about the people she worked for. Now she'd been asked to spread word of her latest contact far and wide. She thought carefully then smiled, a rather vicious one. She knew exactly who to tell her story to. There were four young ladies on the secretarial pool who were the worst gossips on the colony. All Anne had to do was make sure that they knew about the goings on. She planned for a few moments then called her secretary into her office. “Celia, I need a favor, sort of. So, you're sick...” She held up a hand to stave off the coming objection. “I know. But ... all cards on the table and this goes no farther. OK?” When Celia nodded, curiosity shining in her eyes, Anne continued. “I need a certain rumor to circulate. The best way to do this without getting into problems I don't need to deal with, is for you to go home sick and me to give a false report to a certain loose lipped person to type up for me. See?” “I sure do. And I know which one to get for you. I'll ... can I borrow your mirror?” Anne just handed the requested mirror over and watched as Celia wiped off her blusher and re-powdered her face. She smeared her mascara a bit, then examined her face. “There. I don't look like I'm on my last legs but I don't look like going home is out of the question. So...I get a full story when I come back tomorrow. Right?” Anne nodded, smiled and replied, “You will, and I owe you lunch. Now Shoo!” She flapped her hand and Celia went out the door. Anne wrote up her report and grumbled, “I don't know why I can't just do this myself, but ... rules are rules and, in this case, it's a help. So ... off we go.” She wandered out into the pool and approached her target. “Gladys, Celia went home sick, in case you hadn't noticed. I need this typed up on the proper form and returned to me on paper.” She handed over her handwritten notes and walked away, completely 'forgetting' to tell Gladys not to discuss what she read. Gladys picked up the notes, typed them into her terminal and grinned. Anne had forgotten to tell her not to gossip about what she was reading. That meant that all the information was fair game. She immediately turned to her best friend and started talking. This friend pulled up the records that Anne had carefully planted and read avidly. “Oooo, what bad boys. And cute, see?” She turned her monitor so that Gladys could see the pictures of Heero and Duo that they had provided to Anne via email. They were the typical bad boy pictures that silly girls liked. Duo and Heero, dressed in leather and sneers. “Mmm, yummy! Tell you what. Why don't we see where they're stuck. I bet it's some stuffy ol' hotel hell on Level 300. We could sneak a peek at their address. And, I'll call Jillian and Shirley.” She tapped her chin in thought. “Oh, and Marcus and Andy and Connie.” “Ok, get them to meet us for dinner, we can give them the scoop then. Wonder if those two are awake yet. ... but we better give them a day to get themselves together. Don't want them all grumpy due to a time change. Get on the phone and see who all you can dig up. I want to call my sister.” And with that, the rumor mill began to grind. The rumor was that Heero and Duo were very rich, very bored and very, very bad. Not bad as in evil but bad as in up for any prank or trick, party or adventure. All the right people heard about them before they got up the next morning. . One of the results of the gossip mills workings was that, when Heero and Duo went down to breakfast, they were shown to a class 1 table at once. This table was in the most desirable position in the restaurant. They could see and be seen but were protected from annoyance by a carefully arranged screen of floating panels and flower arrangements. Duo pointed out that all the flowers were silk, Heero reminded him that this colony wasn't set up for a lot of live foliage. Duo sulked a bit and announced that he was really ready to return to Earth. It seemed that the colony born couple were becoming more and more acclimatized to Earth and less and less used to colony ways. Something with which they were both very happy. They were just getting ready to order when someone approached their table and said, “Hi! I'm Jillian. You're 'Max' Maxwell and Heero Yuy. Can I sit down for a moment?” Heero nodded, gazing at the girl rather warily over his menu. Duo just stood up and pulled out a chair, seated Jillian and returned to his own seat. Jillian gave him a smoldering look over her shoulder, then accepted the menu that Duo pushed in her direction. “Here, breakfast, lunch, whatever; on us. So, what brings you to our corner of the world?” Duo gave her a bright smile in counterpoint to Heero's narrow eyed look. “Well, ... I'll have a fruit salad and tea. Girls got to watch her figure, you know.” She smiled at Heero. “And, I have to ask, Heero? Yuy? As in, the guy who was such a pacifist, well, you know.” Heero just shrugged languidly. “My folks named me after him. There's only about a million Heero Yuy's out there. Very boring. I've considered changing it but I'm sort of used to it.” Duo interjected, “And really, really tired of the same stupid question, time after time. I'm considering changing my name too. Max? Max what? Sex appeal? Wealth? Max skills? And who, exactly, are you anyway?” Jillian snickered at the snarking and shook her head. “I think you'll fit in with my friends quite well. That's what I'm doing here, sticking myself into your breakfast like a total dweeb. We've heard a few things. Like how you got here. Liberated a courier? Very nice. Intense. Just the sort of thing my gang likes. So, ya wanna come to a party? It's on for tonight only.” Duo glanced at Heero who nodded. He turned back to Jillian. “Sure, but why tonight only?” “Rave. We find a warehouse and fix it up. But ... rent? What's that? So we have one night to party, then we have to find somewhere else. But it's fun while it lasts and no clean up. So, you up or chicken.” Heero snorted, then leaned over, giving Jillian his best sulky glower, he snarled, “I'm no chicken but I'm not stupid either. We'll see what's up; but, if we don't like what we see, we'll be leaving.” Jillian's retort was put on hold as the waiter came up to find out what they wanted. Duo ordered his usual, Heero did too, and Heero ordered Jillian's food. Jillian just sat back in her chair, trying to keep up a brave front, but Heero's expression and Duo's had scared her badly. These two were way above her level, she just hoped she could deliver on her promise of fun. Duo gave her the creeps, that smile hid something nasty and Heero was just plain bad, with a capital B. She really hoped that Ameena appreciated all that she was doing. She didn't mind recruiting, it was fun and interesting. She had met some very interesting people along the way, but she'd also met some really weird ones. And a few that had scared her, like these two. She hoped she wasn't getting herself into something she couldn't handle. Heero eyed Jillian over a fork he was pretending to examine for cleanliness. She was nibbling at her lower lip in a way that proved she wasn't happy with what she was doing. Why, he wasn't sure, but she was. He'd have to consult with Duo later to figure out why. Duo flicked a quick look between Heero and Jillian and thought the same thing Heero did. A significant glance and a short nod put them on the same page. They'd analyze this later. They sat, drinking the coffee the waiter brought and mouthing polite nothings. Duo monopolized the conversation, telling witty jokes and asking about the social scene. Jillian didn't hold anything back, happily answering Duo's questions. Heero limited his remarks to a few questions and appropriate 'yes' and 'no' answers. He left the complicated stuff to Duo. Duo didn't mind as it added to the mystique of Heero’s bad boy image. He, Duo, was much happier being the slightly hyper chatterbox. People were always very surprised when he went Shinigami on them. Their food came and Jillian started on a bright, sparkly story about the group she ran with. Little did she know that both Heero and Duo found the whole thing pathetic and depressing. The whole bunch seemed to be substituting drugs and liquor for friendship and respect. Heero ate calmly, dissecting his eggs into need morsels while Duo tended to pile one thing on top of another and put it all on toast. Heero gave Duo a sideways glance and caught his eye. Duo frowned and Heero nodded, they needed to get rid of Jillian, politely but quickly. Both of them were on the verge of losing their tempers. She had no idea that they were annoyed by her foolishness and they couldn't risk making her angry or hurting her feelings. Duo managed to pick a comment out of Jillian's chatter and use it to get rid of her. “Clothing? Well, shit. We have to go see if our luggage was forwarded yet. We haven't got a decent stitch between us. Then we need to go shopping for something that your bunch won't consider rags. Where should we go?” Jillian squeaked and said, “Oh, you poor dears. Well, the best place to go to get something respectable is Joyce's. She's a good designer and knows who's wearing what. But if you bought anything at Hidalgo's while you were on L4-33359, it's fine. Silk is in, wool is out. Too itchy. Linen is nice but wrinkly. Not in. leather in any form is top stuff. Now you know as much as I do. Tight is better than loose and belts and buckles are the new jewelry.” She looked at her watch and announced. “I've got to scoot. You need to check on your stuff and I need to be somewhere else in ... thirty minutes. Bye!” And, with that, she stood up and hurried off, waving over her shoulder. Duo finished his food and drank another cup of coffee while he waited for Heero to finish his. Heero ate calmly, drank his juice and told Duo to drink his. Duo grinned and did as he was told, smirking around the rim of his glass. After paying their tab, then went in search of the Day Manager to ask about their luggage. He replied that it had come during the night and they were only holding it until one of them asked for it. Heero asked that it be brought up to their rooms and was surprised when he was told that the bags could come but the larger pieces were too big for their rooms, never mind the closet. “Well, what the heck is it?” Duo gave the manager a blank look. “It seems to be two hang gliders. The boxes are much too big for your rooms. I'd advise a storage compartment near the docks.” Heero nodded. “Ok, will you take care of that for us? We'd really appreciate it.” “Yes, I'll be glad to. One storage compartment, I'll have to find out the cubic meters before I know how much it'll cost. How long do you need it for?” Duo shrugged. “’Til called for.” “Very well. I'll send the details up along with the key.” “Thanks. We'll unpack then we'll be leaving to go shopping.” “If you'd like, I can have someone from whichever shop you favor bring samples to your room.” Duo shook his head. “Shopping is an experience. It's no fun to have some stuffy clerk bring stuff to the room. Thanks for asking though.” They made their way to their rooms and spent two hours unpacking and taking inventory. Duo was of the opinion that they only needed to go shopping to make sure everyone knew they were on colony. Heero accepted this but announced that he wanted a new pair of boots as the pair he'd bought on their last shopping trip didn't fit very well. “Ok, boots it is. And I could use a couple of shirts. Let's go.” . Heero looked at the boot the man was holding out to him. “No.” That one flat negative made the man sigh and put the boot back in its box. This was the 20th pair he'd shown Heero, none of them had met his standards. “What is wrong with that one?” He'd asked that question after every pair that Heero rejected. “The toe is too flat.” Heero gazed around with a bored expression on his face. The fact that he was bored only helped him. Duo sighed and fiddled with the end of his braid. “Will you please pick something! I'm bored out of my skull. I need some excitement soon, or I'm going to start banging your head against a wall.” Heero just curled his lip at Duo. “Try it.” Duo made a grumpy little noise in the back of his throat and muttered, “Bored, bored, bored. And I'm HUNGRY!” The clerk jumped, Heero just eyed Duo out of the corner of his eye, then pointed at a pair of boots in the window. “Those.” “Excuse me?” The clerk blinked. Heero had rejected those boots with every evidence of scorn the second he'd seen them. “The one's in the window. I want to try them on.” Heero's tone of voice implied that the clerk must be an imbecile. Duo snorted. “I told you those were exactly what you wanted.” “Ok, you're right. I bottom. Shut up.” The clerk just rolled his eyes, got the boots in Heero's size and helped him put them on. Heero decided that he wanted them, paid for them and had them delivered. The clerk later told his best friend, “I swear they were just bored and wanted something to do. I really thought they were going to get into a fight at least once. But they just snarked at each other, then quit. They were kissing, right out in the middle of the street, ten seconds after they left the store.” The friend just nodded, “You know how that sort of person is. Anything for entertainment. They'll both be dead in a year. Swear!” If Heero or Duo had heard that, they'd have agreed with the two friends. . It didn't take Ameena long to get word of the two newcomers, newcomers who seemed to be just her sort. Bored, bad, and ready for her sort of entertainment. She decided to invite them to her next party. It looked to be very interesting and entertaining. She was going to take the Azeera out on a short cruise to sort out which guests seemed most likely to pay for a visit to Outer 7. The two young men looked to be just the sort but you could never really tell until you got them under a microscope. Then the scaredy cats tended to fall by the wayside rather quickly. She tapped a reminder into her PDA, she had to remember to reward Jillian for this one. A new dress, maybe. Or some really nice shoes. She'd check her closet tomorrow. Everyone knew that she gave them her cast-offs, but they were all very expensive and Ameena declared that she never, ever wore anything more than twice, which was true. She decided on sending the to men tickets to an exclusive dance club. One that everyone who was anyone wanted into. She would send them the most highly sought after gold tickets. She just hoped they accepted them. Some people just didn't realize the honor she showed them until someone in the know told them. She settled back in her chair and sipped at her coffee, trying to decide what delights would most tempt her new targets. . Heero opened the envelope with his name inscribed on it in lavender ink. Duo had on just like it which he was eyeing like it might explode. “Ok. Lavender ink? I'm officially creeped out. That's just so ...” “Ostentatious?” “Not the word I was looking for, more like fucking weird but more polite.” Heero snorted, opened his envelope and read the card. “Well, it seems that we are invited to a party. Not a rave, but some special event in a new club, gold tickets.” Duo extracted his card and ticket from their envelope and eyed them with visible disfavor. “What's wrong?” Duo shrugged. “I just have a very ... I dunno. I just feel like it's ... never mind, just the hair on the back of my neck is standing up.” “Mine too. I think it's just that we know Ameena is more dangerous than anyone, except us, knows.” Duo nodded. “Yeah, I think you're right. I just don't like the whole thing. A whole station dedicated to nothing but drugs, sex and booze. Even a Sweeper would be freaked out. It's just not natural. Heard from Wufei?” “I did. His last email was ...” Heero smirked. “A bit incoherent. He's just hoping that we get enough evidence to close the place down.” Duo nodded his understanding then rubbed his face with both hands. “How the hell did we get involved in smashing a drug ring? I mean ... yeah ... we're supposed to repo a yacht, not ... do whatever this is.” Heero tugged Duo into a hug. “I know. I don't really like it either, but we're the only one's set up to do anything about it. Preventers can't do anything about it until they get solid evidence and no one in Preventers can get in there.” Duo put his head on Heero’s shoulder and grumbled, “Fate's a bitch and I hate her.” Heero held Duo for a bit then remarked, “We need to get dressed, that invitation included dinner at seven, it's 5:30 now. And it's going to take me half an hour just to decide what to wear.” Suddenly Heero realized what he'd said and shot Duo a look of such horror that Duo nearly hurt himself, he laughed so hard. Heero snarled wordlessly at him and stalked to the closet. “See if I help you braid that mane of yours, then.” Duo just cackled like a hen laying an egg, he knew Heero didn't mean that so he didn't bother to try to stifle his laugh. After he got himself together, Duo joined Heero in the closet to pick out his outfit for the evening. Together, they decided on matching leather one-piece coveralls, skin tight and liberally sprinkled with belts and buckles. Heero finished buckling the last buckle, then groaned, “Man, we're going to be dancing. We're going to sweat like pigs.” Duo shook his head. “No, the fashion in clubs right now is to keep the temperature cool. The girls complain but all the guys like it as it gives them a good excuse to put their arm around their date. And I'm glad. You'll put your arm around me, won't you, Heero?” His flirtatious sideways glance and fluttering eyelashes made Heero laugh. “I will. All you have to do is ask. You know how I am about PDA.” Duo shrugged. “Me too, but they will expect it.” Heero took a look at Duo's face, he looked a bit sad. Heero reached out and snagged him around the waist. “What is it?” Duo nibbled at his lip for a moment. “You know, all my life I wanted family. And then family does something like this. What's up with that?” Heero nuzzled Duo's neck. “I don't know. But we're family, you and I. Right?” “Right. And ... I don't know. I just feel so bad for Q. You and I ... we've made our own family; better, I think than his. And it's sad.” “Yes, it is. We'll just have to be extra nice with him for a while. So ... enough heart burnings. Let's get on the road.” Duo kissed Heero's cheek, then turned to finish getting ready. Chapter Seven Their trip to the club was interesting as they went from a very nice area to a rather bad one then on to a worse one. Heero wondered, and asked Duo, “Why the hell do people always start clubs in the worst neighborhoods possible? I'd think...” Duo interrupted him, “You would. But these people don't. Think that is. The rent is cheap, the buildings are big and, if you're that scared, hire one of our bodyguards. They make money coming and going.” Heero sneered. “Well, I just hope someone tries something. I'm in a mood.” Duo made cheering noises, then started bouncing from foot to foot. “Fight! Fight!” Heero just poked him in the ribs, making him 'eep'. When they reached the club they saw that the line was a block long. Heero sighed and said, “Well. It looks like we wait.” They tacked themselves to the end of the line with some grumbling on Duo's part. The girl in front of them took pity on them and turned around to ask, “Have you got tickets? If you don't you might as well just go back home. You can't get in without one.” Heero displayed his ticked. “We have tickets. How long do you think we'll have to wait?” She eyed the tickets for a moment. “Not any longer than it takes you to walk to the front of the line. Gold tickets don't wait in line.” She sighed and shifted from one foot to the other. “Don't I wish. My feet are killing me and I haven't danced one bit yet.” Duo just smiled. “Well, come on. I'm sure we can get you in as our guest. Right? We're allowed one each. The ticket said so.” She brightened and gave a little hop. “Thanks. That'd be so great.” Heero offered her his arm and they walked up to the head of the line. The doorman looked at their tickets, consulted a list and waved them in. He didn't even blink at the girl, who had introduced herself as they walked to the head of the line. Her name was Tracy. “Tracy, do you want a drink?” “Please. Something warm, it's freezing in here.” She shuddered and hugged herself. Heero eyed her flimsy dress for a moment, then said, “Why didn't you bring a sweater or something?” “It's not fashionable. You're supposed to get your boyfriend to put his arm around you.” Heero shook his head. “That's not logical. A woman should depend on herself first and some accessory man second.” Duo nearly bit his tongue in half to keep from laughing his ass off. Trust Heero to come up with something like that when some girl was trying to flirt with him. . Ameena turned to listen to her aide, who whispered in her ear, “the gold tickets are here, with some hanger on they got from the line.” “Oh, good. I'll deal with the girl. Is she pretty?” “Yes, but not our sort. Although, I'd be a bit careful about angering those two. They're not the sort to be managed.” Ameena inclined her head to show she'd understood. “I think the best thing is to have Roger just ... edge her off. Offer to dance with her, then take her to dinner. That'll separate them and make us look good. Do you think she might be useful?” “No, copper ticket. Pretty, helpful, floor dressing but very white bread.” “Oh, well. Just see that she has a good time and spreads the word then.” “Yes, ma'am. I'll see to it at once. If Roger is busy already, who else?” “Anyone, but make sure that they know that she's not on the menu.” “Fine. Excuse me.” And the aide walked away to find Roger or some other suitable escort. Tracy, meanwhile, was doing her best to coax Heero out of his jacket without being obvious about it but he was being singularly obtuse. Duo watched this with some amusement. Heero was neither as thick nor socially inept as most people thought. But he had always been rumored to be cold and socially retarded. He wasn't, he was just singularly focused on his mission. Now that he had no mission and had been in therapy, he was fairly social and very adept at picking up on signals, when he bothered to pay attention. He didn't pay attention to very many people either. Buck, the other pilots and two or three others and that was it. So Duo was amused as Heero deftly avoided Tracy's hints and one actual touch. Everyone was relieved when some blonde man approached Tracy and asked her to dance. She asked if Heero or Duo minded, when they said no, she took the man's arm and walked to the dance floor. They overheard the man say his name was Roger. “You think she'll be ok? I kind of feel like we tossed her to the wolves or something.” “Ameena is way too smart to shit in her nest. She's not about to allow a copper ticket to get into any kind of trouble. If you like we can take turns checking up on her.” Duo thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “I think we should, if only for my peace of mind. How did you figure out about the tickets?” Heero leaned against a railing and looked over the dance floor. “Simple logic. We're gold tickets, so there have to be silver and some other metal. I got a good look at her ticket when she showed it at the door even though the door man barely glanced at it. It was copper colored. And I got a real good look at ... 'Roger?' I think that was his name. He was looking at her with curiosity but no lust. She's safe with him.” Duo ran a mental movie of what he'd seen. “I think you're right. We'll check up on her though.” Heero just nodded once. “It would make me feel better too.' But before they could do more about it, Roger brought Tracy back to the table with a slightly disgruntled expression on his face. Tracy couldn't see it but both Heero and Duo did before he could wipe it away. “Guys, I know I don't really know you but you got me in... so it's kind of like I came with you. And it's not polite to bale on someone without letting them know. So ... Roger wants me to go to supper with him. I kinda thought I would. So, we're going to leave the club and I wanted you to know, so you wouldn't worry or anything.” Heero smiled at her. “Ok, thanks for letting us know. And ... Roger?” Roger nodded, a slightly wary look on his face. “If anything happens to her, anything at all. I will find you and you won't like it. Got me?” Tracy looked a bit startled, but Roger just nodded and remarked, “She's a nice lady. I'm not so nice but I know better than to pull a stupid stunt.” He smiled in a disarming manner and nodded behind Duo. “You're about to be summoned. Excuse us.” With that he put a hand in the small of Tracy's back and eased her away. Duo didn't even flinch with the aide cleared his throat and said, “Miss Ameena would like to invite you to sit at her table. This way?” Duo just let Heero lead off. They reached Ameena's table without too much trouble, there seemed to be some kind of taboo attached to the two levels below her table. There were only a few people seated at the tables there and they stayed out of the way of people who were walking around. Of course, some of them were so stoned that they could barely move for any reason. Duo checked out some of the closer tables and saw a few things he wished he hadn't. Heero saw them too and knew that he was going to have to call Wufei as soon as they left the club. The raid would be postponed until after he and Duo had gone on to the next step in their search. He wondered how the hell they'd gotten mixed up in all this, from a simple repo to whatever the hell this was. He wasn't sure he was happy with it either. After a mental grumble Heero turned his attention to the small group around Ameena. They were all a bit older, a bit more bored and a lot richer than they pretended to be. But they were all giving Heero and Duo plenty of space. It seemed that Ameena did run a tight ship, in some ways. Evidently, she didn't want old customers running off the new ones. Heero couldn't help but be glad of that. He didn't feel like fending off the panting attentions of some of these people. Nor did he feel like killing one for bothering Duo. Not that Duo couldn't do that for himself. Duo plopped himself into a chair by Ameena and arrogantly scanned the nearby tables. Heero settled for sitting down and putting an arm around Duo's shoulders. This was going to be a pain. Ameena started out by trying to pry, not something they were going to put up with. “Do I know you? You look familiar.” Ameena put on her brightest smile Heero scowled at her. “No.” Duo gave every evidence that he was bored beyond description, twitching at a buckle until it sat just so. Ameena sighed, she really hated dealing with this sort. They didn't realize who she was and she couldn't snap at them. It would only put them off. “Well, I'm sorry if I insulted you but you look so familiar. Somehow.” Duo resolved to find out how she'd gotten into Quatre's private files. That was the only place she could have seen pictures of them. There hadn't been a picture of them in the news for a long time. “It's ok, Heero’s just a bit sensitive about that sort of thing. We both hate being in the news. So ... what's the what?” Ameena sighed, this was going to be difficult but she really wanted the two beautiful boys to come to her 'vacation spa' they would be jewels in her crown. She wouldn't have to do much for them either. And she would make sure that they didn't get jaded too quickly. They were 'eye candy' and a temptation to others to come see if they couldn't entice them into their bed. She just hoped they didn't spoil the image too soon. “Well, I just thought, as you were new to the colony, that I could help you make the right connections. Here, here's Charity. She's one of my ... girls. She'll entertain you tonight.” Duo eyed the posing woman with clear distaste. She was standing too close, one hand on her hip, foot cocked just so to show off her assets to the best. Her perfume was too strong, her skirt too short, her bodice too tight. Heero curled his lip. “I don't like girls.” Duo snorted, “Especially Miss Peanut Butter Thighs.” They had to establish their relationship quickly. They wanted Ameena to view them as bored, restless and ready for almost anything, but also establish that they were not willing to have sex with anyone but each other. Duo had announced that he didn't want whatever 'clap' was going around this week. Ameena chose the easy way out and allowed herself to be distracted. There were some that would take any drug she offered but wouldn't have sex with anyone but their stated partner. She wasn't about to queer her deal by suggesting otherwise. But she couldn't help questioning, “Peanut Butter Thighs? What do you mean?” Duo patiently explained. “Girl has thighs like peanut butter. They spread for anyone. And I'm not interested in getting bugs or clap.” Ameena stifled another sigh. “I see.” She waved a hand at the indignant looking girl and settled into some serious seducing. “Would you like a drink?” Heero just said in his most flat and nasal tone, “Guinness.” Duo shrugged, setting buckles to jingling. “Me too.” Two expertly drawn pints of Guinness showed up at the table only minutes later. Heero picked his up, sniffed it, then took a sip. He looked at Duo, nodded and said, “Good.” Duo lifted his glass off the tray and took a gulp, he sighed and agreed, “Yup. Nice.” Ameena blinked, “Ok, I'm glad you like it but...” she turned to look at Heero. “Only one sip?” Heero pinned her with a flat glare. “I like to know what drugs I'm taking and how much.” Duo nodded over his glass. “Yeah, we've been slipped one mickey too many.” Which was true, as far as it went. “Mickey? We don't do that here. In fact, you can't buy drugs here.” Duo gave her a skeptical flick of the eyes. “Yeah, sure, then what's the point of all that?” He pointed to a pile of pills on a near by table. “It's not what it seems. That's all free, and legal on this colony. I know a place where you can get anything you want and it's all free.” Heero raised an eyebrow at her but kept his mouth shut. Duo nearly sucked in his breath in a gasp, things were moving very fast now. He wondered if this as a test. It was, Ameena felt that no one could hide their true thoughts from her. She'd know if it was a set up, cops couldn't keep their expressions under control. She gave both Duo and Heero a very close look but neither one of them seemed startled or disgusted. They both still seemed bored nearly to tears, she was determined to change that as soon as possible. The music had been quiet while Ameena was talking to Duo and Heero, but now it started up again. Duo sat, bopping his head up and down in time to the music. Heero unbent enough to tap a finger on the table. Ameena nearly gritted her teeth, but refrained; ladies didn't grit their teeth. Heero noticed Ameena's expression and decided it was time to loosen up. The start of the music was as good an excuse as any. “Dance.” Heero stood up and held out his hand to Duo. Duo took it, smirked as several nearby women glared at him and said, “Of course.” They both heard Ameena grumble, “All the best one's are either queer, or taken. Damn it.” When they got to the dance floor Heero glowered at the DJ until he sent someone down to find out what music they wanted. He knew which side of his bread the butter was on. Ameena paid him a small fortune to keep the newbies happy and that was what he intended to do. The gofer hurried back with the single word, 'Samba'. The DJ sighed, he seldom played music like that as so many of the dancers were so bad at it. A true Samba required a level of athleticism and flexibility that even most of the younger set didn't have. When the music started Duo began to sway, slightly at first, until Heero joined him. Then they seemed to explode into motion. Samba wasn't called the forbidden dance for nothing. Duo writhed like a snake, grinding against Heero. Heero possessed Duo, taking his braid in one hand and nearly leading him around the floor, hips twisting in a way that suggested he didn't have a spine. It didn't take them long to clear the floor and take possession of it. This gave them room for a moving Sashay that changed into several walking turns and a samba roll that made everyone there wonder where they performed. The music went on for several minutes, in which Heero and Duo essentially had sex on the floor. Then the DJ faded the music out and went into a quick patter. “Ok, ok. Thanks, guys, but let's let the less talented back on the floor. Everybody dance!” And he changed the music to something modern and techno so that everyone could dance. This didn't bother either of the two, they just danced to whatever the DJ played, and did so for the rest of the evening, returning to the table to have drinks and snacks. They spoke to whoever was at the table, Ameena introduced them to everyone in her circle over the course of the evening. They left shortly after 2 in the morning, sweaty, tired and overloaded with information. But Duo had seen one of the hangers on selling pills to a boy with a copper ticket pinned to his shirt. This seemed to be some sort of convention as he'd seen that most of the copper and silver invitees had their tickets pinned to their clothing. Gold tickets didn't bother as the staff knew them all by sight. So, Duo had clear evidence that there was selling going on on the premises. He would turn over his pictures later. He knew Wufei was going to be really happy about being able to close up this club, it had been a thorn in his side for much too long. . They met Wufei for breakfast, or brunch as it was nearly noon, and Duo gave him the little camera he'd hidden in his hair. Heero had not approved of the pouffy do, but it had proved to be a handy place to hide the digital device. It had been easy to run the shutter trigger down the back of Duo's head and hide it in his collar, a quick squeeze, disguised as fiddling with the collar took a picture. And Duo had plenty of them. All evidence that there was a lot of selling going on in the club. The closing of this particular club as a done deal. Wufei grumbled about having to wait until Heero and Duo were off colony but agreed that they shouldn't do anything until they were gone so as not to blow their cover. “But the second there's no chance of endangering your cover, it's getting raided. I swear, I don't know how the hell she managed to keep it relatively clean this long. How she thinks she's going to keep them from making profits, I don't know.” Duo had his mouth full of eggs so Heero replied, “She's arrogant and stupid. She's sly enough to plan this but not smart enough to pull it off. She thinks because she's a Winner everyone is going to do exactly what she says. And she hasn't got sense enough to check up on things. But she is smart enough to make sure that no one gets raped, not even by ruffies.” Wufei shook his head, eyed the turkey bacon with disfavor, and grumped, “That's not much to say in her favor. Once the people are out of the club, they're fair game to any thug, masher or creep out there.” Heero nodded. “That's true. I'm just hoping we get an invite soon, I don't like the club scene much. Unless I know the place really well.” Duo agreed with that, thinking longingly of the little club near their place that they frequented. It was small, the music wasn't too loud and they knew nearly everybody in there and all the staff. Ameena's club was huge, loud, and crowded. And it stank like a locker room in a cheap gym. On top of that, the floors were sticky. All Duo could think was, “Yuck!” He wondered how anyone could truly enjoy themselves in such a place. He voiced this question just to get Wufei off the rant he was on. Wufei replied quite logically, “They don't. They're just so jaded and bored that they don't pay attention to the faults. They're looking for a reason in life and can't find one. So they replace proper behavior and a useful existence with drugs, liquor and sex. It's sad.” Heero sighed, he hated it when Wufei got reflective, it just led to one of his more long winded lectures about proper behavior and karma. This time Wufei surprised them both by just saying, “You know my feelings about that. I'm not going to go off so get that look off your face. I know that you really want this over as much as I do. I just hope you're not in over your head.” Duo gave him a fierce, cold stare. “We're not but Ameena is. Here's the thing. We're prepared to do whatever. I don't think they really understand what they've gotten themselves into. It's a wonder one of the combines hasn't taken it over yet.” Wufei rubbed one arm wearily. “They're looking at it. There's rumblings. Some of our snitches are warning us to get it shut down before it's taken over by people we'll have real trouble up rooting. Be really careful. Ok?” Heero just grunted. Duo nodded and went back to his food, eating like it was the last good meal he was going to get for a while, a sure sign that he was more worried than he wanted to admit. Wufei hated the fact that, somehow, his friends had wound up mixed up in this mess. All because Ameena couldn't keep her hands to herself. Stupid onna. They finished their food, visited about nothing much for a while, then went their separate ways. Wufei admonished them to be careful and told them that, if they needed equipment, no matter what it was, all they had to do was ask. Heero thanked him while Duo got 'that' look in his eye. Wufei was sure that there was going to be a requisition for something that went boom, very soon. He left with a slight smile on his lips. Duo would never change, nor would Heero; not in any significant way. Wufei climbed into his car and drove away, Heero and Duo standing on the curb watching him, both thought that he was looking well. Duo remarked, “He looks a lot better than he did before his cover got blown. He was looking so tired. I bet Une had him really hopping to keep up with everything she wanted him to do.” Heero nodded. “Yeah, she'll chew you up and spit you out the wonder why you're not in top form.” Duo just hissed, “I know, believe me, I know. I don't trust her farther than I could throw Wing.” Heero blinked, gave him a sideways look then asked, “Not Deathscythe?” Duo shrugged. “With 'Scythe, all I'd have to do was ask and he'd jump over the moon. I really miss him.” “I miss Wing, but what were we supposed to do?” “No idea.” He ran a hand through his bangs, ruffling them into untidy disarray. “I just feel ... guilty? Something ... but enough of these heart burnings. Let's go see what kind of mischief we can get into. Something Ameena is sure to see.” “Yeah, but what?” Duo nibbled at his lip for a moment. “Dunno, let me think about it a bit. I'll come up with something.” And come up with something he did. It seemed that all the group were fans of racing; dogs, horses, men, cars, motorcycles, anything. It didn't matter what as long as it was fast, could be tracked and bet upon, someone was interested in it. Duo calmly came up with the idea of racing old Taurus mobile suits. There were plenty of them on colony. While the gundams had been destroyed, most of the other suits had been converted to more productive pursuits, such as construction. Duo managed to get his hands on six of them. He used two to part out for the other four and had them all going strong. He stripped off a lot of the armor and all the handling mounts. Now the suits were nothing but humanoid speed demons. He beefed up the verniers and improved the navigation computers then dared anyone to beat him with one. He even had documentation to prove that all the machines had the same specs. Heero just rolled his eyes and signed on the dotted line. They were both more than a little surprised to find that the list was ten names long. That meant that Duo would have the announced drawing, to pick the names of his first three opponents. Of course, Heero was one, Duo didn't know the other two, but their names were Dillon Fallon, and George Wilkins. He didn't even bother to try to meet them. He just sent them the address of the docking bay he kept the suits in. . The four contestants gathered in the bay along with a small ship that carried cameras to supplement the one's that were positioned all over the colony for use by the control tower and other interested parties. The race was sure to attract the attention of all the news feeds just by it's very existence. Duo cheerily called out to the crews, “Hi, guys! We're here. Fire things up, will ya?” The crews, certified mechanics hired off the streets and turned loose on the suits under Duo's supervision, did as they were told and started the suits gyros spinning up to speed. Heero watched for a moment, then asked, “What about them? After we're done, I mean.” Duo just said, “Q” and left it at that. Heero gave a satisfied nod and turned to the next part of the race. Duo got Dillon and George to join them near a small canon shell. “Ok, I've put all our names in this shell.” He looked around then called, “Hey! Come here a sec.” A man walked over, a questioning look on his face. “Hand this around so everyone can take a chip.” He picked up the shell and held it out to each contestant in turn. Duo nodded to him so he put the shell back on the table and went back to what he'd been doing. “Ok, everyone show their chip. It's the number of your suit.” Dillon showed his chip which was number 1, Heero got 2, George got 3 and Duo had 4. Dillon asked, “What’s with the numbers?” “All four suits are exactly alike, so it just seemed to be the best way to pick who got which suit. That way no one can say the race was fixed.” Dillon and George eyed the suits for a few moments then George said, “What if I want to trade?” Duo cheerfully tossed his chip at George, who caught it one handed. “Fine by me. Just hand your chip over to me and we're good to go.” George handed Duo the chip and headed for the suit. Each pilot climbed into the suit they'd drawn and started their checks. After the checks, the crew called them back out of the suits to get into their vacuum suits. Duo had insisted that they have real vacuum suits instead of the universal suits most people were familiar with so this caused some trouble as the suits had to be refitted to make sure all the seals worked properly. Duo and Heero didn't have that problem as they'd gotten suits from WEI just for this purpose. Only really bad boys would have their own racing vacuum suits. After the crew fitted Dillon and George, they all got back in the suits which were properly warmed up by now. Duo had snickered to Heero that that was one of the reasons that they'd had such good luck against them. They were never properly warmed up when a gundam came to call. They'd laughed softly at the joke. It didn't take long for them to launch, all they had to do was open the docking bay doors. Duo had hired a navigator familiar with the colonies environs to set the course for the race. That way no one could accuse him of winning because he knew the route ahead of time. At Duo's signal, the route was sent to all the racers and they launched into space. The route used the local navigation transponders for guidance but one of the obstacles of this race was the need to switch from transponder to transponder quickly. The rest of the route was just as complicated, it twisted through an antenna array, into a new construction sight and around the axis of the station, and into the core. Duo kicked his Taurus in the ass, figuratively speaking, and shot out of the bay like someone was shooting at him. He flicked the switch to change transponders and tipped the MS over in a sideways dive into the antenna array, immediately jerking the controls over to avoid diving right into a strut. He swore softly, it was way to close for most pilots. This was proven at once when Dillon hit the strut head on, snapping it and ripping off the arm of his suit. The antenna the strut was guying shivered as if in a high wind. Heero snarled as he dodged the lash of the strut and jammed his controls into reverse, then flipped the suit into a cartwheel, leveled off and took off in pursuit of Duo. George managed to make it through the first leg by clinging to Duo and Heero’s exhaust. Duo hit the switch to change transponders again and glanced at his course readout. This leg dodged the crane, spiraled around a major support column and dodged in and out of a half completed complex of unloading equipment. Duo made it through without even scraping the paint on his suit. George just missed a real disaster as he didn't see a cable running from a crane to it's winch until the very last second. He had to brake heavily then accelerate. Heero kept up with Duo and shot out of the leg a split second ahead. Duo whooped with glee, this was getting better and better. He forgot completely about George and Dillon. The only thing he was thinking about now was keeping ahead of Heero. Heero grinned. It was like old times, training with Wing. Without the fear of being punished for any mistakes. He found himself whooping and hollering just like Duo. Heero realized that he was going to have to do something or he was going to lose to Duo. He was right on the suit’s heels but he couldn't quite overtake it. He thought quickly, as he always did, and realized that the few rules there were didn't ban what he had in mind. He reached out, hit the accelerator for one burst of speed that red lined the verniers and grabbed Duo's suit by the ankle. He jerked back on the ankle and jammed the accelerators to their stops. This produced a slingshot effect that put his suit ahead of Duo by a slim margin. Duo swore and screamed. Heero's stunt had nearly sent him into a support strut. It wouldn't have damaged the strut any, nor would it have harmed Duo, but the suit would have been out of commission. Duo managed to get back on course and chase after Heero. Forgetting that this suit was not 'Scythe, Duo jammed the throttles over until the suit screamed in an agony of overexertion. Heero knew he had enough of a lead that he could take it easy for a few seconds, long enough for the verniers to cool off. They were both a bit disappointed when Duo's suit just quit, the overheated, over stressed verniers shutting down in self-defense. Duo cursed furiously and kicked the forward console. All he could do was watch as Heero zipped through the last leg of the race like he was the only one in it, with George struggling just to stay on the convoluted course. He as still stewing when the tender picked him up and returned him to the docking bay. They return to the docking bay was all they could have hoped for. There were dozens of reporters and admirers, and three Preventers, one of them Wufei. They were immediately stripped out of their vacuum suits, then arrested; all four of the participants clapped in handcuffs and led away, to the jeering of the crowd. Wufei turned on them the second they were in an interview room. “All right. Who planned this little piece of idiocy?” Heero glowered, but George and Dillon both broke under the fury of Wufei's glared. They both pointed to Duo. Wufei snorted. He motioned to George and Dillon and snapped at the officers at his back, “Get those two out of here, charge them with reckless endangerment, obstructing traffic and trespass on a construction zone. Go! I'll deal with these two.” The two, now terrified, racers were hauled out of the room and taken to booking, where they were met by lawyers, parents and an entirely too irritated booking officer. They were in for a very scary few hours before they were let off with a thundering warning by a judge who was in on the whole thing. Wufei just shook his head at Duo. “What happened? I was sure you'd win.” Duo grimaced in disgust. “I forgot I wasn't in 'Scythe and overloaded the verniers. They shut down and left me floating. Stupid.” He took the bottle of water Wufei handed him and passed it to Heero, Wufei then handed over another. Duo took a long drink, emptying half the bottle in two gulps. Heero smirked at Wufei over his water, then took a drink of it. Wufei snarled at both of them, curling his lip in a familiar manner. “Ok, how's this particular stunt going to hurry things along.” Duo capped his water and explained, “Simple, you're going to make an example of us. In order to avoid a hefty fine ... and some time, we have to be off the colony in ...” Duo glanced at Heero. Heero consulted his computer. “Forty-eight hours. There's no transport out of the three unit cluster before then, and we're not allowed to stay in L4-632. We'd be in real trouble if Ameena wasn't leaving in six. She'll take us with her for the asking.” Wufei nodded his understanding. “I'll drop word in the proper places. She'll probably be in contact in a couple of hours. You can stay here until then. I'll be back in ...” He glanced at his watch. “Two hours, with some food. Thai?” Duo nodded. “Fine.” Heero added, “And some green tea?” Wufei agreed to this and left to do his name dropping. . Heero's phone rang twenty minutes after Wufei left. It was Ameena with offers of lawyers and anything else they needed. Heero declined, telling her they already had lawyers and were just coming up for trial. He also told her that they'd call her back with the results as soon as they could. Ameena said that she'd be waiting and rang off. Wufei returned with food and a very satisfied smile. “Here, jasmine rice, green tea, and I have no idea what else. The restaurant advertised it as the Imperial Dinner; four courses for four people.” He started taking containers out of a large sack, along with bowls, chopsticks, cups and napkins. He used a serving utensil to put rice in the bowls and handed them around while Heero poured tea. Duo distributed chopsticks and napkins and they all sat down to eat. While they were eating Wufei filled them in on what was going on outside their temporary sanctuary. Ameena had called a judge, who was in her pocket, and tried to get Heero and Duo off, completely ignoring George and Dillon. The judge told her he didn't have jurisdiction, which he didn't, but would see what he could do. This was where the 48 hr deportation came from. It was all he could do for Ameena. And he wound up owing his fellow judge a favor to do something he was going to do anyway. Just as they were finishing their impromptu feast, Ameena called Heero. “Ya, speak to me.” Heero had been using the same greeting for years. “Oh, Miss Ameena. Yes, we're in a bind. We have to be off this three unit colony in 48 hours but nothing's going farther than another unit for more than that.” He listened for a second. “No, they won't let us take a cargo carrier, has to be passenger transport. We're going to wind up paying a hefty fine, not that that's a problem, but jail time is just so .... tacky.” Ameena nearly cheered, she was in. Duo, listening in on his own phone, grinned at Heero. “Well, darling, it seems that I can help you after all. I'm leaving in my yacht in less than six hours. We're at ... I have no idea ... here's my aide, he'll give you all the particulars. So boring, you know.” Heero nodded to Duo who found a data pad thrust into his hand by Wufei. Heero repeated the information that the aide gave him and Duo wrote it down. Wufei took the pad and transferred the information to his computer and Heero's. Duo just headed for the door, announcing, “We better get packed and to that dock. We don't want to miss the ship, or give the impression that we're not worried about that sentence.” He was right. No one with any sense at all, not even the baddest of bad boys, would want to spend time in a colonial jail. They packed, checked out and were at the dock in three hours that left two before the ship left. It only took a moment for a fawning aide to rush up to them and lead them to their quarters, assuring them that their luggage would be taken care of. Heero flopped down in a squashy chair and sighed. Duo followed him into another. “I could really do with some more tea.” Heero stretched easily, shirt riding up over hard abs. Duo took in the view with appreciation. “I could too. Do you think it's too soon to ask for some?” “And, if we were the people we're pretending to be, would we care?” Duo allowed that they would not and pressed a button on the arm of his chair. This brought the steward to the room with a smile. “What can I do for you?” “Green tea. Hot, not iced. Rice cakes. Duo?” Heero nodded to Duo. “Same for me, along with some nattou.” Heero made a soft noise. “What?” “How can you eat that shit?” “Dunno, I just like it.” The steward waited for a moment to be sure they were done ordering, then left to get their tea and Duo's nattou. Heero couldn't understand how Duo could eat the stuff. It was sticky, smelly and really disgusting, and Heero didn't care that he was supposed to be the one who liked the soy-based Japanese food. He didn't like stinky cheeses either. The steward brought their refreshments and the information that they needed to strap in, right in the chairs they were sitting in, for launch. Duo commented, “Launch and lunch. Nice.” as he buckled the belts the steward extracted from somewhere in the chairs. They remained strapped in until a soft female voice announced, “Launch completed. You may move around freely. Do be aware that gravity will not be turned on until we clear the colonial micro-cluster to make maneuvering easier.” Duo scowled at Heero, only the worst pilots kept gravity off until the ship was in free space. Heero shook his head back. “I don't like it. What kind of inept, moron keeps the grav off until they're in clear space. Or is it just me?” “Not you.” Heero flinched visibly when the ship shuddered slightly. “This guy is a total dweeb. I really want to know where the safety pods are.” Duo grumbled inarticulately around a mouthful of nattou. Heero found himself clutching the arm rests like a newbie. They kept their belts on until gravity was restored, an uncomfortable half hour later. . They found that one of Ameena's ship rules was, every passenger had to stay in their own cabin until they were in free space, the space between the LaGrange points. Not the free space between local colonial clusters. There were two kinds of clusters; each of the LaGrange points was referred to as a cluster, but each LaGrange point consisted of clusters of colonial units. Some groups were very large, others consisted of as few as two, there were even some colonies that were only one unit. It got confusing to Earth born people but the colonials were used to it and not ashamed to ask if they didn't know. The place they were headed for was not even a colony, it was a station. It had been built by a local colonial cluster to contain dangerous scientific researches to a safe location. It had been abandoned during the Wars for independence and more or less deserted. Ameena had just walked in and taken over. The few remaining residents had greeted her with joy, she was responsible for saving their home. After finding out what she was actually doing, most of them had taken the first opportunity to jump ship and go elsewhere. The entire station was now populated by Ameena's employees and her guests. When they were finally allowed to wander, they headed directly for the main lounge. They looked around as they walked and realized that Ameena had modified the ship to some extent. The few rooms were created from the four suites Quatre had designed. Each bedroom was assigned to two people, except for the master suite, which Ameena occupied by herself. So the full compliment of guests was 20. There were 10 bedrooms, two suites had three each and the others had two. The master suite had two, one large and one smaller, not that that made them anything but huge. The lounge was in the middle of a conjunction of corridors from each suite and it was as big as you'd expect it to be. There were several clusters of seating, everything from two chairs with foot rests and a table up to several couches and chairs with accompanying tables. There were several vid screens on the walls with game stations and such in comfortable arrangements around them. Duo whistled softly in approval while Heero vowed to get Quatre's toy back for him before Ameena ruined it completely. There were 16 other people in the lounge which made Duo wonder to Heero why they were all there. Heero shrugged, “Probably because they've been here before or got some sort of introductory package. You'll have to admit that we're really last minute additions.” “True. Well, let's see if we can't stir up something.” Duo started toward a group seated in a smaller seating. He was stopped by a steward who led the two young men to a different seating, explaining as he did so, “We do have assigned seating in the lounge and the dining room. It wouldn't do for us to allow ... um ... customers who don't get along ... to annoy each other. See? Now, we've assigned you to this area so that you can play games without annoying the other guests. Have a nice flight.” Duo rolled his eyes at Heero, they were going to have to wait until they got to the station to find anything out. It would be too suspicious for them to try to question the other passengers, who all seemed to be Ameena's age or near it. How would it look if a couple of bad boys started socializing with people like the other passengers. People who were older, richer, and snootier. Two words, not good. Duo reached out and turned on the game console, handed Heero a controller and challenged him to a game. They played until dinner was announced. Duo scrunched up his nose and said, “Isn't it lunch?” A woman standing near him proved it was wise for them to avoid the rest of the passengers by saying, “It's always dinner right after launch.” in a haughty tone of voice. She eyed them as if they were some sort of odd life form and cleared her throat in a pointed manner, designed to get them into the dining room and out of her way. Heero moved into the dining room then stepped aside to allow the woman to enter. Duo slipped behind him so he could look the room over without being too obvious. Heero glanced around, his bored expression making it plain that he wanted to be seated. Heero's faint expression of annoyance brought a server scurrying to take them to their assigned seating. The dining room was small but well appointed with small tables scattered around a larger central one. Each table seemed to be assigned to a set of rooms and the central table, of course, belonged to the master cabin and Ameena. They sat down and were told that they had their choice of Curry Chicken on rice or Sherried Beef tips on noodles; mixed steamed veg or baked potato (Duo wondered how any one could eat two starches in the same meal); tossed salad or tomato salad; and apple pie or frozen custard. The just ordered one of each except for the potato and coffee. Duo leaned back and sighed. “This is going to be a really boring three days. I wonder how they're reconciling their trajectory. Wanna try and figure it out later?” Heero nodded. “We can put our computers inline and combine their power. I think I can even hack the ships computers without getting caught.” Duo tapped his fingers on the table, restless and unhappy. He hated waiting, really hated it. Heero never seemed to mind, just sitting until what ever was supposed to happen did. “How can you be so calm. I'm about to jump out of my skin. You know I hate waiting.” Heero did know; Duo, in a car, doing surveillance was a trial not to be sneezed at. He'd done it several times now and always brought along a handheld game of some sort. “I meditate.” “On what?” “You.” Duo choked on his sip of water. “Me?” He blinked at Heero, completely baffled “Yes. On what I want to do to you the next time I get you in bed. Or on any available flat surface. Against a wall. Whatever.” Heero smirked at Duo in a way that was guaranteed to raise Duo's temperature. “Oh, un ... I see. Um ...” Heero took pity. “When this is over, I'm going to radish you.” Duo snickered. Heero remembered, with considerable fondness, how that particular bit of silliness had come about. They'd been in a mall full of children and Duo had said something about ravishing and one sharp eared kid had asked about it. Duo had just said the child had misunderstood, they were talking about radishes. The child had given them a contemptuous 'I'm not stupid' look and run off. They didn't have any inclination to break their no sex on jobs rule but sometimes it was really hard. Heero leaned back a bit to allow the server to put his plate in front of him. He examined the curry with interest. Only the finest for Ameena and her party, but it was running oil. “Take it back.” The server started at Heero's flat voiced instruction. “Excuse me?” “Take it back. Tell the cook that I don't need a slick of oil all across the top of my food.” Duo scowled at his plate too. Beef tips should never be cooked past medium rare, but his was not only well done, but dried out. Quatre surely didn't hire whoever was cooking, he was much too particular. “This is dried out. Take it back too. Tell cook if he can't manage to prepare our food properly, I'll be glad to come in and show him how.” The server took their plates back with a scowl. Duo grumbled, “I'm not sure I want to eat anything that ass fixes now. He'll probably spit in it.” Heero shook his head. “He won't. We'll just go check right now.” They both got up and headed for the kitchen. Someone got in their way but moved quickly as Heero snarled in his face. Ameena noticed but didn't do anything about it. If her guests wanted to do something, they did it. As long as they didn't interfere with the bridge crew, she ignored it. So, Duo entered the kitchens to find that their cook was a 20 something ex-server. “Excuse me. Where the hell did you learn how to cook?” Duo was ready for battle. He loved to cook and had been taught by Quatre. He was actually an accomplished chef. “Um ... I'm just the chef du jour. We're taking turns as the man that Mr. Winner hired quit.” Duo nodded. “I see. Well, the whole meal is inedible as far as I'm concerned. I'll cook my own, and Heero’s. Don't worry, I'll just work around you.” So the poor man struggled on while Duo darted from one side of the kitchen to the other. Making new rice and noodles. Searing the beef, grilling chicken, sautéing onions, steaming veg and mixing sauces. All without breaking a sweat. He plated up in twenty minutes and carried the food out of the kitchen himself. Heero settled to his food with a smirk. “Have fun?” “Actually, yeah, I did. I'm cooking our food from now on.” “OK. I think it'd be a good idea to eat in the kitchens too. I don't like the atmosphere.” “Fine with me. Not too comfortable myself.” So they ate, then returned to their quarters. Duo, bored, decided to debug their quarters, more for something to do than anything else. He found two in the sitting room, one in each bedroom and one in each bathroom. They didn't touch them, that would raise suspicions way too much, but they were very annoyed at the intrusion into their privacy. This caused them to sleep in separate rooms for the first time since Heero had found Duo again. Neither one of them wanted to pander to Ameena's voyeurism. It was a very unhappy couple that spent the next hour hacking into the ships computers to see what they could find and to try to pinpoint the location of the station. The old location was on file, of course; but due to drift and lack of maintenance, it wasn't where it should be. The actual coordinates were the first thing Heero found. Just for the fun of it Duo calculated their trajectory from the colony to the station and found that the filed destination was on the other side of the colony. He nodded to the screen and said, “Well, I wonder who figured that one out. Ameena sure didn't.” Heero checked to see who the captain was. “I think it was this guy. We'll turn names and such over to Wufei but I think he used to be a captain in White-fang, but I'm not sure.” Duo sighed then asked, “Well, if he's such a good pilot, why the delay in restoring gravity?” Heero just shrugged. “Who the hell knows? And, ask me if I really care.” Duo just snorted, “I don't care either. You collecting a package?” “Yes, I'll hide it in an email to my 'girlfriend' Merian. Wufei will know to check that particular email box.” “Good.” Duo went back to hacking around in the passenger manifests of the ship while Heero spent the next half hour poking around in the flight plans. They compiled quite a bit of evidence against the flight crew and Ameena. They also got enough evidence to allow Preventers to board the station for a general search. This search would be held off until either Heero or Duo called so that they would have an opportunity to obtain a sale offer. This would put the whole station out of business and make Preventers very happy as well as saving uncounted lives. Heero was a bit startled to find cargo manifests. He started examining them and felt a cold chill scamper down his spine. “Fuck! Duo, look at this!” Heero then threw the biggest fit Duo had ever seen from the normally stoic man. It included a stream of swear words that made even the verbose L2 brat blink. “Heero, man, don't blow a gasket! Calm down.” Duo looked at the data Heero had sent to him and managed not to break something by the merest hair. “Jesus Christ on a cracker. There's enough stuff here to make every illegal drug on the market and some designers that haven't hit it yet. And lot's of it. Tons of the stuff. They can't possibly be using it all on station. They've got to be exporting most of it. But where? How? Heero, stop sputtering and get back to work.” Heero pulled himself together and went back to work. They investigated every single file on the ship and found plenty of evidence that there was much more going on than the surface indicated, Duo muttered something about 'still waters' and hacked the ships communications system so they could send unauthorized, untraceable and unnoticed emails. He then compiled all their information into three emails and sent a copy to Wufei, Une and Quatre. Then the two, working in unison, copied the main drive of the computer, then made it impossible to erase anything on the ships computers. Preservation of unadulterated evidence, or so Duo said. Heero thought it was just general prissiness on Duo's part but didn't argue. He thought the copy was enough. They spent the rest of the three days, alternating between their quarters, where they played video games and slept, the main lounge where they played loud video games, arguing loudly over them and the kitchen where Duo cooked for both of them and they ate at a chopping block in one corner. Everyone on board was relieved when the captain announced that they were docking in an hour. Chapter eight The docking was as unprofessional as the launch, with gravity off for forty-five minutes and a definite 'clunk' when the onboard tube connected. Duo shook his head and announced, “I am not flying with this dweeb again. No way. I'll swim home, thankyouverymuch.” Heero just nodded grimly and stood up. They both noticed at once that the gravity was wonky, something very wrong with it. The generators weren't fluctuating but there was a definite vibration on the station that didn't belong. It was being transferred to the ship by the debarkation tube. Duo gave Heero a wide-eyed, rather panicky look. Heero returned one of reassurance. “We'll be ok. Remember, we're bounty hunters, not Preventers, and definitely not heroes. We don't have to rescue anyone but ourselves. The second we reach quarters, we'll report this to Wufei and he'll hand it on. Relax.” Duo managed to do as Heero told him but he reserved the right to head for an escape pod at a seconds notice. Unknown to Duo, Heero did the same. They made it from their suite to the main passenger airlock without incident. At the airlock they were given keys to their rooms on station and a small USB chip with which to claim their luggage. They accepted the items, tucked them away, shouldered their backpacks and left the ship with silent sighs of relief. No one commented on the fact that they'd shown up with those packs and refused to allow any one near them. The tube was an adventure that both of them would have preferred to avoid. It wasn't hooked up properly, the whole tube was kinked. The collar that connected it to the station wasn't attached properly either. Heero shuddered, one wrong move and the whole thing would disconnect and send them drifting into space without suits. Duo just grimly opened a locker and handed Heero a vacuum suit. One of the nearby crew started to object but Duo glared him into silence with a look; backed by Heero it was pretty impressive. They put on the suits, left the ship and shot through the tube as fast as they could manage without creating tremors that might cause the disaster they were trying to avoid. They touched foot onto the station and entered the small passenger airlock, cycled through and accepted a small package from a smiling woman by the entrance to the main station. Heero thanked her while Duo shook it near his ear. It rattled in a rather alarming manner so he stuck it into his pack. As they walked to their quarters they noticed that everything on the station was designed to catch the eye of passers by. Signs were colorful, blinking or moving. Doors were also colorful and set in inviting alcoves. The elevator they took up three levels featured ads for everything under the sun and reminded them to check their package for details as not all packages featured the same entertainments. They got off the elevator and started toward their lodgings. Duo poked Heero who turned his head just in time to catch an obvious drug deal. A woman handed a man a package that obviously contained pills, easy to see because the bag was clear. The man handed her an envelope and a debit card. All of this went on out in the open so Duo managed to get a clear series of pictures. They had evidence that dealing was going on on the station. Duo cheered up considerably. “Heero, I really want to get Ameena on more than the piracy charge. She's responsible for the situation on this station and I really, really want her.” Heero smiled at Duo, patted his shoulder and said softly, “Then you shall have her. On a plate. Calm down.” “Why? I'm supposed to look excited, right?” Heero laughed out loud and said, “Yes, we are. Come on, I'll race you.” No one paid much attention to them as they ran through the wide corridors that passed for streets, people ran through them day and night. They reached their accommodation, checked in and found their rooms. They explored them quickly and found that there was a menu on the table in the small sitting room. Duo nearly choked when he realized that it contained not only food but a list of liquor and drugs as well as prostitutes both male and female. “Heero, I think I'm gonna be sick. This is ... just ...” “Bad. Very, very bad. I wonder how many of the prostitutes are addicted and taking their pay in drugs and booze. Room and board. I don't like this place at all.” “Me neither. We need to bust this mess as soon as we can. I don't know how long I can take this.” Heero just hugged Duo, caressing his hair with one hand and holding him around the waist with the other. Duo sighed, “How did we wind up in this mess? I didn't join Preventers just because I didn't want this kind of assignment. No more sneaking around, no more hacking into hostile computer systems. Simple piloting jobs. That's all. When you found me, I liked what you were doing. Go out bring in the bad guy. No guns, no getting shot at. Now, how the hell did we wind up here?” “Doing a favor for Quatre. But I agree with you. This is not what we signed up for. So ... now what?” Duo thought for a moment. “Do we have a secure connection to Wufei?” Heero hooked up his computer, typed for a moment then said, “We do. And an email from Wufei.” He opened the mail and read. Duo couldn't handle the wait and demanded, “What's he say? Come on, man.” Heero smirked. “He says to send him the pictures we just took, see if we can't get a few more, then we're to bale. Leave any way we can.” Duo grinned in a fashion that made Heero laugh. “I need to check to see how much of the crew is still aboard.” Heero just got out of Duo's way. Duo spent an hour doing things with his computer that Heero really didn't bother to keep track of. Instead, he was ordering food, drinks and some clothing, just to see what might happen. The food arrived on a cart, along with a selection of drugs and bottles. Duo offered the man payment but he refused saying that even his tip was figured into the package deal. After he left, Duo handed Heero his plate with a sigh. “Well, that went well, not! Fuck!” Heero just picked at his tuna salad absently as he hacked into the station computers with the other hand. His soft crow of success brought Duo from the bathroom, towel still in his hand, to see what was happening. “What?” “I've really hit the jackpot. There's a whole list, in the station commander's files, of sales, addresses and names. Yes!” Heero pumped one fist in celebration. Duo did a little jig then settled beside Heero to offer back up as he hacked the communications and sent the whole mess and all the other stuff they'd collected to Preventers. Then they locked their door. It was a lucky thing they did as the next thing that happened was a knock on the door with an immediate demand to be let it. Heero answered with, “Who the fuck is it?” and was informed that it didn't make any difference who they were they wanted in. Duo snorted, “Fat chance.” he closed up their computers and stuffed them into their backpacks. Heero took his and armed himself for a fire fight of epic proportions. Duo followed suit and they quickly made their escape through an access hatch at the back of the bathroom closet. Duo closed the bathroom door and the closet door, locking both to slow down their pursuers. Duo led the way while Heero kept a close eye on their backs. “Here, we can hole up here for a few minutes. Give me my computer.” Heero got Duo's computer out and gave it to him. Duo booted it up and opened several programs including his email. He let out a soft groan making Heero exclaim, “What?” “Chang Wufei is not happy. He says that our invasion set off a silent alarm. Damn, we're slipping badly. I never found it. He says to stay in our quarters until they come for us.” Heero shook his head. “No! I'm not inclined to take a chance on that. We'll go repo, what the hell did Quatre name that ship? Anyway, we'll grab Q's toy and head for his place. Come on.” Duo did a few things with his computer and nodded. “I got a blueprint of the area. Here, take a look. And ... we're off.” Heero took a few moments to memorize the blue print then they headed for the docking bay and Quatre's ship. Heero drew his side arm and prepared for combat. Duo did the same thing but also made a few small bombs. He was going to make sure that they weren't interrupted during their recovery attempt. It didn't take them long to make it to the docking bay as it was only a few floors away. They made it in fifteen minutes. Heero peered through the vent cover, wondering idly why it was always vents and ductwork. There didn't seem to be anyone in the docking bay so he signaled Duo who'd opened his computer again and was industriously locking every door to the bay except the air lock to the ship. “Ready!' Duo closed the computer, tucked it away and waited for Heero to push the vent cover off. Heero lowered the cover carefully so as not to make a noise, just because he hadn't seen anyone didn't mean there was no one there. He dropped silently onto the deck. He wished for some bit of cover but there wasn't much, no piles of cargo or extraneous parts, just a few containers of supplies for the yacht. They were all piled near the single tube attached to the station. Duo grimaced in disgust, the crew hadn't even attached the more difficult to control cargo tube. All the cargo had to pass through the passenger tube. But it was going to make it easier for them to repo the ship. All they had to do was go through the tube, detach it and leave. Heero went to detach the inner ring of the tube. Duo fiddled with the outer door for a moment then went to do something to some controls. He snatched two universal suits out of a locker and hurried to Heero with them slung over one shoulder. “Let's go! Now! Go! Now!” Duo jittered from foot to foot, clenching and unclenching his hand on the grips of his pistol. Heero didn't ask any questions, you didn't question Shinigami. He just finished what he was doing and grabbed the suit Duo thrust at him and scrambled into it. Duo put his pistol down on the control board by the airlock and got into his. Heero headed into the ship, sealing his helmet to the neck ring as he went. Then he realized that Duo wasn't right behind him. He started to turn but Duo shot into the tube with a howl of “Gogogogo!” echoing through the radio. Heero went. They made it to the bridge in seconds and slipped into the pilot and co-pilot seats, snatching at belts before they were even properly settled. Duo started retracting the tube before Heero started the checks. “Don't bother with the checks, we don't have time. Just fire up the engines and let's get out of here.” Heero obeyed, asking, “Duo? What the hell did you do?” “I left a few presents for anyone following us and sealed the doors. The tube controls on their side are fubar too.” He grinned maniacally and pulled something from his pocket. He watched it, counting down, “four ... three ... two ... one. And there she blows!” And blow something did. Heero couldn't feel anything from the station as the tube was already detached and retracting. But he could see the cloud of 'smoke', comprised of water vapor and explosive gasses and he couldn't tell what, that puffed into space behind their rapidly retreating ship. He snickered. “Well, that's that and 'Fei is going to have a litter.” Heero shrugged, “I don't care. We're space worthy and that's all that counts. Down load coordinates for our pickup and let’s get under weigh.” “Got ya. Downloading now.” Duo punched a few buttons and keyed in a command that activated the auto pilot. He grinned, they were on their way. Heero checked the communications and laughed, “The station is demanding that we return to station at once. Preventers is demanding that we file a proper flight plan and Wufei is having a fit. What do you want to do?” Duo cracked his knuckles. “Tell the station to go fuck themselves, file a flight plan and ignore Wufei.” “Ok.” Heero did as his captain ordered with a pleased smirk firmly plastered on his face. It took him a bit more time than Duo thought it should so he asked, “Heero, what's the hang up?” “Got in touch with Q too. We're waiting on an answer and I had to have him forward a copy of the repo order to the battle ship. We're good to go.” “Q gonna send a coordinate for pickup?” Heero started to answer but got a ping from the com station before he could do so. He opened the message and smiled. “Quatre says to bring the ship to his station for refitting.” Heero grinned, let Duo handle all the piloting, sitting back and watching Duo as his quick fingers tapped in the commands and reset the auto pilot. “You done?” Duo nodded. “Repo accomplished, sir.” . Authors notes: Colonies are identified by the L point they are at L1, L2 etc. Then the order they were constructed in, 100, 200, etc. L5-Chang being the exception. They can also have a name i.e. Minna Hurr, Eden and so on. |
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