Treize stared at the papers in front of him. It was the right decision he told himself again as he signed his name on the orders. She had to go to space; she was the only person he trusted with this mission. He looked up from the paper and sighed.

"Be safe in space my dear Lady." He sighed and put the pen down. The Romafellar Foundation was pushing that all of Earth and her colonies come under OZ's control, but it would take time. OZ was doing everything in its power to quiet the Earth, but the colonies were another story. Using the tactics they had used before wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead, they were going to try diplomacy. Something that should have been used instead of force, Treize thought bitterly. He was but a soldier and therefore had to follow orders. Orders, in this case, came from the Romafellar Foundation. Treize had been a member of this establishment of the world's old noble families for years. He believed in what they were trying to do. Create peace that the Federation destroyed twenty years ago. Now as general of its army, Treize had the opportunity to change the course of history. One thing still stood in his way. The Gundams. So far they were quiet, but unit 05 and its shadow were still active in Asia.

Folding his hands, Treize glanced at the single rose that sat in its vase on his desk. It was a beautiful fragile thing. Just like peace. The Gundams fought for peace, he fought for peace, everyone was fighting for peace, yet there was no peace. Maybe when Lady Une went into space there would be peace.

A sudden sharp rap on his office door brought Treize out of his reverie.

"Enter." He called. The door opened just enough for the figure to enter.

"Your Excellency. Colonel Tolk, Commander and Chief of the Draco Project, has sent me." Treize lifted his gaze to the woman's face. It was oval with long dark, honey blond hair framing it. What didn't hang down in two equal width locks on either side, was pulled back into a bun. Eyes nearly the same blue as his own, peaked out from under long dark lashes.

"And you are?" He asked as the woman walked towards him.

"I am Sergeant Fjorten Hale, your Excellency. Colonel Tolk has asked me to deliver these documents to you." She held forth a sealed manila envelope with the red "classified" stamp on it. He accepted the envelope and cracked the seal.

"Where is he?" asked Veir as Sally stopped the jeep. She looked up at the Gundam pilot.

"Your friend has taken a little personal time." Veir groaned and rolled his eyes. Muttering under his breath, he quickly turned and marched back towards Hard Rock, which was hidden next to Shenlong in an indentation of the mountainside.

"He's gone out by himself. Well, this is a fine time to have a mental breakdown. There are enemy soldiers all over the woods looking for this place. If he gets shot it'll be on my head. I better go find him and haul him back. If he's going to mope, maybe I should get him to a Martian base where he can wander all over without worry of being killed." Veir mulled as he continued the climb. Once there, he ran diagnostics on Hard Rock, then Shenlong. Wufei would be mad that he'd touched his dear "Nataku", a nickname given to the mech. for reasons Veir didn't understand. After the check, he started back down to see if Sally had heard anything from his missing partner. Part of him was thoroughly annoyed with Wufei and the other part was patient, hoping that he'd work through his problems. Veir was used to working with people and was a very tolerant person, but the Chinese pilot was driving him up the wall. He'd been spoiled by the close knit workings of the other four Martian pilots. They'd been together for long enough that there was a strong friendship amongst them. It would take time for Wufei to come to trust him, like the others trusted him Veir knew. In the meantime, he would just have to put up with the solitary pilot.

Suddenly the ground beneath him shook. In front of him something exploded. Looking up quickly, Veir saw that the enemy had finally found them.

"KUSO!" He clenched his teeth together and slid back down the path to the camp. "SALLY!"

The rebel camp was being invaded. Leos and Aries class mobile suits approached, letting fly a barrage of missiles and bullets at the same time. Within a matter of minutes the camp was torn asunder. The rebels tried to fight back with what anti-mobile suit weapons they had, but Veir knew it wouldn't be enough. He halted in his tracks, turned and raced back up the hill. There was only one chance and that was if he and Hard Rock got into the fray. Breathing hard, he reached his Gundam's foot and prepared to climb into the cockpit. Helicopters and Aries circled nearby. They'd found Hard Rock and Shenlong. A spotlight was turned on them for the entire world to see. Well, they wouldn't see them for long, Veir thought. I'll make sure of that. Suddenly a second group of Aries appeared and fired upon the first.

The Aries were turning against each other. Wufei didn't know why, all he knew is he had to get back to his Nataku. He had arrived back in camp just as the fighting had broken out. That crazy woman had nearly gotten herself killed trying to save him. She had set herself between him and a Leo in order to buy him time to get to his Gundam. The action was one of stupidity and bravery. Sally had implored him to continue his fight, not because he was strong, but because he was weak. To look for his own justice in this world.

Another Aries fell from the sky, he didn't watch it. There must be some hidden political reason for the two different sets of Aries to be fighting each other. As long as they were doing so, he could get to Nataku.

"Hurry up Wufei!" Veir called from inside Hard Rock. "We need to do something before they capture us." Wufei understood and climbed into Shenlong's cockpit. Together, the Gundams ripped off the netting that had camouflaged them and turned towards the enemy.

"Peekaboo!" Veir said. An evil gleam in his gray eyes as he ignited his thermal trident.

"I will have my justice." growled Wufei as his thermal naginata blazed to life. As one they sprang forward and attacked.

With time on his hands and a stain on his conscience, Heero walked in silence. He and Trowa had been searching for the relatives of General Noventa, the peaceful "dove" of the Federation that Heero had assassinated accidentally a couple months earlier. Now Heero wanted Noventa's family to take their retribution, even if it meant his life. Yet none of them had. Even his widow wouldn't take the pilot's life. Instead she had turned him away, like all the others. There were no more names on his list for this area, time to try again elsewhere.

They walked through the small port town in silence. They had been traveling together ever since Trowa's attempt at self-destruction. Heero for some reason was almost glad Trowa had failed. He wasn't sure why, but somewhere buried deep he was relieved. Used to completing missions, this failure troubled him. Now someone else had failed. Someone once said misery loves company. Not that Heero Yuy was miserable; there was no room for feelings when there was a mission to complete.

"We're being followed." Trowa muttered. Heero didn't need to look up to know it was true. "I'll deal with them." Heero nodded and Trowa sprung into action. They ducked behind a passing truck, Heero leapt in and Trowa grabbed the nearest accessible vehicle. A motorcycle that had obviously been well kept and hopefully had a lot of fuel. The truck continued on with Heero in the back, hidden amongst baskets of apples.

Trowa faced the black car that had been following them, gunned the motorcycle's engine and raced towards it, taking a left just before he hit it. The car tires squealed as the tried to make the turn. They managed and soon were hot on his heels. Glancing behind him, Trowa judged the distance of the car and the added it to the rapidly diminishing alley way in front of him. Suddenly he sprang onto the seat and vaulted off of it in one smooth motion. The motorcycle kept going straight for another few yards before flying off the road into the bay. The car couldn't stop and quickly followed the motorcycle. From his vantagepoint on a clothesline suspended between two buildings, Trowa witnessed the final sputtering of the car. Calmly he walked the line to the nearest window, climbed in, walked to the door and let himself out.

Hurrying back to Heero as discretely as possible, Trowa found him munching on an apple.

"Took care of them?" He asked. Trowa nodded as he handed and apple to him.

"You should be more careful." An unfamiliar voice commented. Heero reached for his gun, as did Trowa. The woman before them held up both of her hands showing that she was unarmed. "Please, I come to you with a proposition." Trowa and Heero exchanged glances, but didn't lower their weapons immediately. "You have been exposing yourselves by going about to all of Noventa's relatives. Those men in the car are just the first. The Romafellar Foundation wants you dead."

"Who are you?" Trowa asked. The woman with dark purple hair smiled briefly.

"I am Lucrezia Noin. And as I said, I have proposition."

"You know, all those nature shows I used to watch as a kid where people would eat insects. I always thought that was pretty gross." Jeden said as he stoked the fire with a stick.

"You'll burn your caterpillar if you stoke the fire anymore." San muttered as he watched Jeden. For once there weren't Aries flying about that night on patrol.

"I still can't believe we're out of MRE's." Jeden growled picking up his now cooked caterpillar. "Doesn't it bother you that we have to eat insect larva?" He asked dangling it in front of San. San shook his head.

"I've eaten les escargot." San said calmly, his voice taking on a slight French accent. He picked up one himself and tossed it into his mouth. Jeden grimaced.

"This feels wrong."

"Just don't think about it." San advised probing another caterpillar. Jeden pulled his off the stick and gingerly touched it to his tongue. San watched with vague amusement as his friend squirmed while he ate.

"It does not taste like chicken." Jeden stated firmly. "That's it we're getting off this island, OZ or no OZ. I don't care if they have ships in the area! I don't care if we blow our cover. I want some decent food that doesn't takes like rubber!"

"Very well." San said. "It is too bad we don't have any butter and garlic, these would taste better with them."

"SAN." Jeden was getting exasperated with his comrade. As much as he enjoyed San's company, right now he felt the urge to throttle him. How could he remain so calm? Well, he hadn't been nicknamed the Stoic for nothing. Nearly two weeks of sitting on the same island with OZ flying about and having little to do but watch them had finally worn down Jeden's nerves. Whenever his nerves were shot, he'd gotten very little sleep, was riddled with muscle aches from sleeping in his Gundam or on the hard ground, Jeden lost his patients. He'd never liked camping before and he certainly didn't like it now. His father had been an etymologist and a great traveler, part of the reason his mother had divorced the man; he'd never been home. Jeden remembered when he was younger and his father would send him musical interments, dolls, cups, plates, books, and jewelry from all over the world. One of the times his father had taken him on a trip, they'd gone to someplace in the Caribbean and had camped out in little more than a cloth tent and mosquito netting. Not that the mosquito netting had done much to keep the insects away, Jeden remembered. The whole experience had been miserable. Rain, a flash flood and poisonous snakes had been the high point of the trip. It had also reaffirmed Jeden's belief that camping should be done from inside a RV or better yet a motel.

"Do you wish to leave tonight or wait for morning?" San asked chewing on his dinner. Jeden thought about it for a while.

"Tonight. We'll have better cover and we can spot the lights of their ships."

"Maybe we should stowaway underneath one of the carriers." San suggested.

"No, we don't know when they'll dock next and we need to get back and refuel somewhere soon. I think we've used up our vacation time as it is. Time to get back to work."

"Yes sir."

"We'll leave in about an hour. Pass me another caterpillar." Jeden said, tentatively accepting the insect from San. "Wipe that smile off your face. I don't like them, I just don't want to blow up ships on an empty stomach."

"Hai."

Zechs waited patiently. Noin had called to say that she and two of the Gundam pilots were on their way. He glanced up at the reconstructed unit 01, a smile threatening to curl his lips. The Lightning Count shouldn't be anticipating an upcoming duel with excitement. Nor was he supposed to have rebuilt the destroyed Gundam. Not to mention hunt down its supposedly dead pilot. Yet he had done both. Now he awaited the arrival of unit 01's pilot at OZ's Antarctica base. It was the only base that Romafellar didn't have one of its spies at. Zechs hated having them around. At least he'd fooled them with the fake unit 01 that he'd blown up to pacify them and make them believe that he'd given up his goal. He wondered how long it would take them to notice that he'd shipped down from the colonies enough Gundamium to build two Gundams. In the mean time, he wished to fight with the young man he'd met that day in Siberia. He was a brave person and Zechs couldn't wait to finish what they had started. Something inside drove him to this. Maybe he was searching for something. That something that the Gundam pilots had already found. If he defeated one, then maybe he could attain it too.

Noin told him that he was looking for a way to protect his sister. Relena Peacecraft had no idea that Zechs Merquise had once been Millard Peacecraft, her doting older brother. No, his sister had been two when the Sanq Kingdom had collapsed under the weight of the Federation. From the day they murdered his mother and father, demolished the pacifist kingdom and scattered its people to the wind, Zechs had vowed that someday he would reclaim it. He had done that and had handed its future over to Relena. His hands were too bloody to carry out his father's pacifist beliefs. Now it was up to Relena and he must remain Zechs Merquise to protect her.

Slowly he unclenched his fists, which had balled up without his notice, as he slowly remembered every event that had brought him to this moment. The flight from the burning wreckage of his home to befriending Treize and Noin and finally to OZ and the Gundam before him. He'd accomplished much in his short life. Freeing his homeland from the Federation had been one of the highlights. Yet the victory was bittersweet. He didn't know what his father would think of him if he were alive today, but Zechs knew he would be disappointed. Hadn't I taught you better than to fight, the ghost of his father whispered. Yes, but I have no choice. This will be the last time I shed blood on my hands. After this, there will be peace, he told himself. The Earth and the colonies will stop fighting each other in the name of peace.

Trying to shake himself out of his sudden melancholic reverie, Zechs began to walk about the base of the Gundam. As he moved he tried to think about what he'd say to the pilot once he met him. Dozens of lines ran through his head, ranging from sappy to arrogant. None of them seemed right.

"Sir." A young man dressed in normal OZ uniform ran over. "Message from Lt. Noin."

"Yes?"

"She ran into some problems with the Romafellar spies. They know you're in Antarctica." He said.

"Are she and the Gundam pilots all right?"

"Yes sir." The man said. Zechs let out a sigh of relief. "She and a Gundam pilot took out the spies. They've rendezvoused with the plane and are on their way here."

"Good. Notify me when they arrive." Zechs stated. "I'll be in my quarters."

"Yes sir." The young officer saluted and left. Bolting out of the hanger and into the frigid Antarctic day, he vanished from view. Crossing his arms, Zechs took one last look at unit 01.

"Hopefully Romafellar won't come before I have my duel. I want to finish this."