The cramped interior of the high-speed mobile suit carrier was more cramped than usual. It held not the normal two pilots, but a third, a passenger. Although a pilot herself, the extra person, a woman whose midnight-blue eyes could occasionally be seen through the narrow eyeslits of the mask/helmet she wore, was commander rather than pilot on this mission.
'Sentry duty,' she sighed to herself. 'Watching and waiting for the colonies to make their move, their so-called Operation M.' She crossed her legs and picked up a pile of photographs taken by a satellite. She perused the pictures in hopes of finding something, anything, that would indicate the colonies' secret project had managed to slip past the ever-vigilant sentries and was already on earth.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary. Exhaling slowly, she dropped the photos back to the console on her right and sat back. Another quiet shift. 'I am so blessed,' she thought drily.
One of the pilots, a short blond-haired lieutenant, McCull, suddenly leaned forward. His excited voice rang through the quiet cockpit. "Lt. Noin, there's a transmission from the station!" His next words were much more subdued, his disappointment almost tangible. "Oh, it's just an old satellite."
Noin's head snapped up. It was true that the station had given them false alarms before, quite frequently really, but never had a derelict satellite caught their attention. "What's this supposed satellite doing?"
While McCull printed out the data the station had sent them, Otto, the other pilot, glanced over his shoulder at his commanding officer. "You don't think it's Operation M, do you?"
Noin nodded curtly. "I do." McCull handed her the printout, and studied it briefly. "Can we catch up with it?"
Otto nodded. "Yup. Plotting interception course now."
Several minutes later, a bright point of light plowing through the atmosphere became visible to them; as they drew closer, they saw that it was a sphere-like pod slightly smaller than the carrier.
"That, gentlemen, is no satellite. Shoot it down, " Noin ordered.
Before Otto or McCull could comply, the pod appeared to burst at its seams and continued its descent through the air in half a dozen pieces. In the midst of the junk was a streamlined object that had been hiding inside the pod. It shot up from the falling metal towards them.
McCull gasped, "It moves like a bird!"
The agile object closed the distance between itself and the carrier, flying up past it as though it was a real bird gauging the strength of a rival. Noin recognized it as a modified fighter jet, a weapon that had become obsolete with the advent of mobile suits, and she grinned. There was a reason they were no longer used. Although faster and more maneuverable, a jet could not hope to stand against the armor and multitude of weapons at a suit's disposal. Destroying the colonies' new weapon, a throwback to pre-colony Earth, with a mobile suit would be fitting.
"Is Leo ready?" Noin asked, rising to her feet.
McCull stared at her, startled. "You're not going to fight him, are you?"
Noin disappeared through the door to the cargo area, letting her actions speak for her. Once her Leo was launched, she searched for the fighter jet and found it diving towards her. She raised the Leo's beam cannon and fired, but the swift jet dodged, swooping past her and sending her Leo tumbling head over heels in its wake.
Noin cursed as she tried to control her Leo and whip it around to face her opponent. Once more in control, she spotted the jet retreating. Its manner decidedly odd, Noin tensed, fully prepared for an abrupt attack. Even so, she was caught completely off guard when the jet changed.
Pieces of the jet swiveled and changed places, some bending backwards to allow other pieces to come to the fore, still others dropping entirely off the body of the jet and tumbling down through the sky. The entire structure of the jet changed, until it was no longer a jet. In its place was the largest mobile suit Noin had ever seen.
She was given little chance to study the giant suit as it charged towards her, firing at her with its beam rifle. Noin maneuvered her Leo out of the way of the blasts, but growled at its sluggishness. They were no longer in the weightlessness of space, and Leos were certainly not designed for aerial combat. She was basically helpless.
Frantically, she tried to think up a strategy to use. Inspiration struck! She drew the Leo's beam saber and fell towards the other suit. At such close range, the beam cannon was useless, and the other pilot dropped it, grabbing the Leo's forearms with its now-free hands. Noin wrapped the Leo's legs around her opponent's, and the two suits fell unchecked, neither able to move.
There was enough room between the torsos of the suits for Noin to open the hatch and jump out, opening a parachute as soon as she was a safe distance from the entwined suits. She floated through the air, waiting to be picked up, and watched the suits plummet towards the ocean below.
Jabbering reporters swarmed around the tall man that stepped out of a recently landed shuttle, plying him with questions. "Mr. Yuy, what's the situation with the colonies?" "Vice-foreign Minister, will the colonies attack?" "Mr. Yuy... Minister Yuy... Mr. Yuy...!"
Yuy ignored the questions and headed towards the exit. The reporters, put off by his silence, turned towards a young man who had been following, quite a distance, behind them.
"Heero, you were just in the colonies with you father. What are they planning?"
"When will they attack?"
Heero pushed his dark bangs out of his Prussian blue eyes and glared. He had found that giving the yakking mob an evil look compelled them to leave faster than just pretending they did not exist. It worked as well as it usually did. He sighed in relief when they dispersed and hurried to catch up with his father. Heero found him talking in low tones to a nondescript man in an Alliance military uniform.
"We've arranged a second car for your son."
Heero groaned inwardly. They had arranged a car, a car undoubtedly occupied by either politicians or military personnel, both groups that ranked high (or was it low?) on Heero's List of People to Avoid.
He bent forward slightly in a poor imitation of a bow and smiled. "Thank you, but don't worry about me. I'll find my own way home."
The uniformed man grunted and opened his mouth to protest, but Mr. Yuy held up a hand, forestalling any objections. "Septum said it was urgent, didn't he?"
Uniform nodded, and they left, leaving Heero to wander home on his own. Rather than walk home directly, which was what was expected of him and naturally what he would not do, he took a slight detour down to the road running next to the ocean. Although fenced off and seated right next to the spaceport's bustle, the beach was still a calm, peaceful place.
Heero peered out towards the horizon and exhaled loudly, rounding his shoulders into a slump. "Yep, it's always like this. As soon as we get back to earth, he gets whisked away by some dumb brass with too much time on his hands." The chain-link fence rattled as he kicked it. "And now to get back home before they send the search dogs out for the disobe..." he trailed off when his eyes fell from the sky to the beach and a body lying in the surf.
Heero stared at it for a moment before his senses returned. He ran to the nearest gate in the fence and down the beach towards the body. Reaching the unmoving form, he crouched down and prodded a spacesuit-clad shoulder. The form stirred slightly; but, after a brief moment, stilled. "Well, Heero," he muttered, "time to be a good little boy and get help."
Light from a crystal chandelier reflected off the polished oak of a long table where two dozen men wearing military uniforms conversed in quiet tones. The table was set in the center of a large chamber whose walls were decorated with pictures of great leaders from throughout history. A set of double doors interrupted the rows of paintings, the only apparent exit from the room.
The doors opened on well-oiled hinges. As one, the men turned and watched a young woman stride in, heading straight to the one vacant chair in the room. Her cavalry boots were polished to a sheen greater than that of the table's, contrasting sharply with her white, skin-tight pants. Her red jacket extended to mid-thigh, acting more like a skirt than a coat, and was belted at the waist. Her brown hair was braided into two loops on the sides of her head. From head to foot, she was immaculate, not a hair out of place, no stains marring the snowy perfection of her gloves.
She took her seat, and the man to her left growled, "Your Lieutenant Noin lost a Leo in a fight with a mobile suit, Une."
Une glanced at him sideways. "A mobile suit that was a gundam. It was no wonder she lost a Leo. Septum, would you have rather had Lieutenant Noin allow the gundam to reach earth and begin attacking cities?"
Septum ignored the rhetorical question and accused, "You're wasting valuable combat resources!"
"Valuable combat resources? Are you talking about mobile suits or soldiers? If I recall, the last mission your forces were involved in led to the deaths of several soldiers and the destruction of their suits. If one Leo was lost putting down a minor rebellion, I would have to say that that record is far better than yours."
Septum's face became several shades of purple at the mention of the disaster he had commanded, and he was ready to retort with an equally scathing remark when Marshall Noventa, the elderly man in charge of the entire Alliance military, stood up.
"General Septum, Colonel Une, refrain from any further childish behavior. We came here to discuss courses of action towards the colonies, not to hear your bickering. Now..."
Une listened absently to Noventa's plans. They sounded like foolish drivel from an old man to her. 'The Alliance is growing old and lax in the security of their position. It is time for my OZ organization to step up and take the reins.'
Heero pulled the body out of the surf and, a safe distance from the rising tide, rolled it to its back. He gasped in surprise. The spacesuit clearly outlined a feminine form. He shook away his shock and pulled the woman's helmet off. As soon as he saw the youthfulness of her face, he nearly dropped the helmet.
This girl was hardly older than he was, and yet she was a soldier. A damn pretty one at that. Heero dispelled the thought. There was no way she could be what she appeared to be. Someone had to be playing a practical joke on him.
"Hey, Yoshi, Jake! One of you messing with my head?" He waited for a reply, but the only sound he heard was the gentle rolling of the waves and the faint cries of seagulls. He scanned the beach, searching for any mischievous eyes peering at him over the sand, but there was nothing except a mangy dog chasing a flock of grounded gulls.
His attention was pulled back to the girl when she scrambled to her feet. He looked curiously up at her, having to crane his neck slightly to see her face, but his effort was negated by the gloved hand that hovered over her features, hiding everything but her narrowed blue-green eyes.
"Did you see?"
Heero was startled by her question. He would have understood "Who are you?" or "Where am I?", but "Did you see?" In response, he asked a question of his own, "See what?"
Before the girl could reply, a wailing ambulance screeched to a halt outside the fence, and an EMT squad jumped out and ran towards them. The girl swore and slapped a button attached to the arm of her suit. She was blown backwards from a small explosion centered near her chest; but, from the look on her face when she sat up, Heero guessed that the bomb had failed its job.
A second later, the girl leaped to her feet, bounded towards the EMT's, and knocked them out of her way with a few swift kicks before smashing through the ambulance's passenger-side window, pushing the driver out his door with her momentum, and driving away. Heero watched all of it, surprised by both the girl's suicide attempt and hasty exit.
After the ambulance sped out of sight, Heero rose from the kneeling position he had held since robbing the girl of her helmet. Speaking of which, he glanced down at the helmet that he still held. 'Well,' he thought with a small chuckle, 'I can give her helmet back if I ever see her again.'
Noin tapped her lips thoughtfully as she studied the latest sat pics that had been relayed to her carrier. Although grainy, each of them distinctly showed the complete destruction of military facilities and, in one case, a battleship scattered around the world.
Even though they were separated by continents, each facility had been destroyed by the same, or very similar, machines. Mobile suits that were nearly identical to the one she had fought and sunk in the Pacific Ocean.
"Gundams." The word was a hiss almost lost beneath the sound of the carrier's engines, but McCull still heard it.
"Gundams? You mean there's more than just one?"
Noin handed him the pictures, and Otto peered at them as well.
"All in all, there are five. Congratulate yourselves, gentlemen, we survived an encounter with a gundam."
Heero slowly approached the entrance to Saint Gabriel's Institute, the private school he had attended since kindergarten. The reason for his sluggishness lay not in fear of classes (he feared them as much as any other student), but in dread of being mobbed by any and all unattached girls, and even many who were. No matter how slowly he walked, it was inevitable. He would eventually reach the doors and have to enter them.
Resigned to his fate, he picked up his pace and arrived at the entrance just as the first bell rang. Since the halls were already empty, he had no trouble getting to his class. In fact, being late as he was, there were no clingy girls to contend with. He made a mental note of that advantage.
When he entered the large room that doubled as classroom and assembly hall, Heero was surprised to find the teacher was not glaring at him for being tardy. She was not anywhere in sight. Shrugging and thanking his excellent luck, he climbed up to his desk and sat, ignoring the girls that tried to gain his attention.
Several minutes passed, and Heero's thoughts began to drift from the interesting graffiti scratched into his desktop to the girl on the beach. Just as he began to wonder what she was doing, the door opened. He dragged his thoughts back to the present and focused on the teacher.
"A new student will be joining us today."
At her words, a second form slinked, there was really no other way to describe it, next to the teacher. Blue-green eyes rose to somehow meet the gaze of every person in the room, and Heero gasped in surprised recognition. 'It's the girl! It's her! I can't believe she's here! Wait... I really can't believe she's here. Why would anyone want to come to school when they could stay in their cozy, stolen ambulance?'
"My name is Relena Dorlian. It's a pleasure."
Heero snorted. Sure it was.
"Relena, you can sit by Heero."
Heero watched the girl, Relena, ascend the stairs and slip into the chair next to his. Plastering his best swoon-inducing smile on his face, he said, "Hello, Relena."
Relena did not even glance at him. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that she had not even heard him. Heero's grin faltered slightly, and then turned into a smirk. So a girl was ignoring him for a change, eh? This would be interesting.
After class, Heero searched for Relena and found her on a third-floor balcony looking out over the school grounds into the nearby forest. Of course, he had not come alone. The Heero Yuy Appreciation Society had hounded him since school let out, but he had overlooked their presence.
Relena noticed his approach and turned towards him. Heero held out an envelope with ridiculous calligraphy proclaiming, "You're invited!" inscribed on it.
Relena took the envelope; but, as she made no move to open it, Heero explained, "It's an invitation to my birthday tomorrow. I hope you can make it." So I can find out who you really are, he added silently.
Relena raised the envelope and, instead of opening it, ripped it in two. She started past him, pausing when she was close enough to murmur, "I'll kill you."
Heero's eyes widened in shock, and he studied her retreating form as she walked away. One question tumbled through his mind. What kind of person is she?
And this is the part where To Be Continued shows up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Except since I'm working on a limited budget, I can't afford it, so you have to use your imagination. ^_^ Well, that's it for episode 1, The Stolen Ambulance He Saw. Um, as always tell me what you think. Especially tell me if you're actually interested in reading this. I don't have to continue it you know. I could put it aside forever and start working on one of my other bazillions of fics. So tell me, tell me, tell me!
Lady Pyro