Silent Requiem, a fanfic by Nightmaresama, chapter 10

A thick haze of cigarette smoke billowed out of the Dragon Room bar on the corner of 5th and Park on the Side 3 colony of Neo-Canton. The colony was originally Chinese in construction, but in the 75 years of its existence, many other peoples had flocked to it given its lenient trade restrictions and comfortable surroundings, which catered at once to both the aristocratic and the destitute. The bar was a gathering place for primarily bourgeois, middle-class workers, and soldiers when they stopped through.

Also, though it was within the Zeon-held territory of Side 3, Neo-Canton held no strong sympathies to the Zabi regime. The trade embargo the ruling dynasty had imposed against the Federation was doing more harm than good to its economy which, in fact, had been in a slight depression since the war began.

"Damn! This is the kind of booze I get for three bucks, Fed?" Duo asked astonished. "It's disgusting!"

"Shut up and drink it, ya stupid gaijin." Kiyone responded. She took the cigarette from her lips as she took another swig of sake. "You're the one who ordered it, remember? It's not the American beer you're used to so you automatically go around saying it's not worth the cash. Well, let me tell you, were lucky we found this Nihon-jin bar on this colony, otherwise you'd be bingeing on Chinese beer; now that shit is gross."

"Yeah, well, fuck Japanese beer and the half-blind, impotent mule that pissed it out" he said, and made a face. "This shit is nasty. Hey, though, where'd you get that cinder-stick, huh? I'd heard somewhere that you had already quit...four or five times already." Duo said.

"Nani--?" Kiyone said, taken aback. "Screw you, gaijin! I can quit any time I want." She then let out a couple of hacking coughs, and involuntarily threw the still smouldering cigarette over her shoulder as she covered her mouth.

Realising what she'd done, Kiyone dove to the floor to pick up the cigarette, but was too late. Karen had just walked in and stepped on the smouldering butt.

Karen stepped back and saw what she had stepped on. "You weren't…smoking that, were you?" she asked.

"Ah…um…um…" Kiyone faltered, not wanting to lie, but at the same time not wanting to admit to her misdeed.

The two women went to the bar with Duo and Alex. Duo was laughing at Kiyone, who made a face at him. Alex and Karen just sat in silence.

After masterfully using her chopsticks to pick apart some spider rolls for a few moments, Kiyone spoke up to break the silence. "Hey, Alex, why aren't you eating the ago I ordered for you? It's really good, and good for you!"

"Call me crazy, Kiyo-chan, but the idea of eating raw eel really doesn't appeal to me."

"Hah! You don't drink sake, you don't eat sushi; what kinda man are you?" She thought for a moment. "Oh, now I get it, you're just a little depressed `cause tomorrow, we're getting transferred off the Valkyrie and you've got to leave your little girlfriend behind!"

"Whoa, hey now, since when did Alex get a girl?" Duo asked. "I thought you were still looking for that reporter chick you told me about."

"Ah-ha! The plot thickens!" Kiyone slurred. She'd already downed three beers and was starting to look a little tipsy. "So, who's this other girl, Alex?"

"Shut up you two," Karen spoke up. "I think both of you have had enough to drink for one night anyway."

"Yeah! One more! It's Christmas, and besides, this is probably gonna be the last booze we see for a while now anyway," Duo chimed in after he'd taken another shot of vodka.

"Yay!" Kiyone shouted and hiccuped. "Hey Bar-keep! Another round of hard sake, and don't go light on me just 'cause I'm a la- <hic> a la- <hic> a lady!"

Karen merely shook her head. "Just be sure you're sober by tomorrow when we board the new carrier. Good first impressions are vital."

"Yeah, we know!" Duo groaned, "That's what you told us the last time, but in the end, it didn't really help out that much; not with the captain anyway."

"Ya know, I always got a bad vibe whenever we was talking to that guy," said Kiyone. "It was like he had a frickin' dark ass aura around him. Talkin' to his ass was scary as hell."

"Well, guys like that often have their own agenda in the war. It's usually better to stay out of their way if at all possible; but that doesn't excuse you all to act like drunken fools when we arrive tomorrow, is that clear?"

Everyone nodded, and an unnatural silence reigned among the four of them for a brief moment.

"I gotsa pee," Kiyone announced, breaking the spell of seriousness that had befallen the soldiers.

"Go, for Christ's sakes, go!" Karen sounded equally exasperated as she made dismissive shoo-ing motions with her hand.

Kiyone giggled, pleased to have disrupted their serious moment. "'Kay," she said and promenaded to the ladies room.

The Dragon Room bar was full of soldiers just like them, partying hard before what could possibly be their last sortie alive. No one but the highest ranking Federation officials knew when or where the next assault would take place, and so, everyone was busy seizing the day while they were still alive.

It was at the point when the crowd seemed the rowdiest when, the curtains in the back slowly rose and a single, sexy-looking young woman clad in a red silk dress with a white trim, stepped onto the stage and approached the microphone.

"Good evening everybody, I'm Rachel Sawyer and I'll be your entertainment this evening."

The male half of the crowd whistled loudly and made an assortment of obscene comments.

"I'll be sure and tell Hilde you said so," Kiyone snickered as she rejoined her cohorts at the bar.

Kiyone's giggles were punctuated a hiccup. "C'mon, Karen, less leave dese guys to their perverted little fantasies or whatever." She stood to leave but was so inebriated, she slipped and fell to the floor.

"Whoopsies! I think I gots a boo-boo!" she said in Japanese and started laughing hysterically on the floor.

"Christ! You'd think you kids had never had alcohol before," Karen said as she pulled Kiyone to her feet. "Look at yourself! Get up before you catch a cold. Duo, you better come too; you've had even more than she has."

"Aww, come on, Karen! Can't I stay and watcha show? I been a good boy all day, and 'sides, I ain't near as drunk as dat broad," he pointed to Kiyone. "I wanna see tha show!"

"No, dammit! Now come on before I break both your legs and shove that shot glass down your trachea!" she exploded, grabbing him by his collar. She turned to Alex, and said in a slightly more reserved tone, "We'll be at the base when you're done. Be back at 2330 at the latest-but, ah, have fun…" she winked at him.

He nodded stupidly; he was totally transfixed and had not noticed the entire scene that had just taken place behind him.

Rachel continued on the stage, "You all might know me from the news, but I moonlight as a jazz singer in little bars like this. It, ah, helps to pay the bills," she laughed, high and melodious. "Anyway," she continued, "I guess I'll sing my song for you now: It's dedicated to a soldier I met when I first went to Earth to film the battle at Odessa. He was very kind and polite to me; a real gentleman." She pulled the microphone from its stand as music began in the background.

Trowa was walking through the docking tube that connected the Colony and the medical ship, Valkyrie. He didn't really want to join Duo and his team Bar-hopping; that was more of a unit-centred thing, he'd feel out of place if he went even if he did know all of the others.

It was too bad that Hilde had been injured, he knew, but he also knew that they were lucky that that was the only major injury they'd suffered. People died in war. The fact that they were all still alive was blessing enough for him.

He had left Sam with Hilde and the Commander had already gone ashore to the military base.

Lost in thought, he almost walked into a young woman who had been carrying a large pile of papers.

"Thanks very much," she said in a nasal British accent as they continued to pick the papers up.

She nodded quickly. "I guess so. You probably should have been watching the walkway"

"Alas and alack! M' lady pierces mine heart with naught sharper than a word!" he smiled, feigning a stab to the heart.

He laughed. "You seem really stressed. My name's Trowa Barton. Might I inquire to thine own, miss?"

"Oh, I'm Michelle Bannock. I'm on staff here, but right now, they've got me running errands."

"Well, not really," she brushed a strand of brown hair out of her eyes. "It's kind of a personal matter."

"I see. Family?" He knew he shouldn't press her, but he was bored and she seemed to be enjoying their conversation enough that he felt confident in moving forward.

"Um, no thanks. I'm actually not going to my office; I'm taking these from the military base to drop them at my boss'. But I'll keep you in mind. Prithee to remindest me of thine name again, good sir knight?" she played on his bid at romanticism.

"Oh, you're one of the soldiers stationed here?" she asked, her face lighting up. "Wow! Hey, have you seen an Alex Kincaid around recently?"

Trowa tried to rally. "Don't worry though, I'll be sure to tell him you said hi."

She gave another embarrassed smile. "D-don't worry about it. How rude of me to ask of someone else in front of you. Thank you for your help with the papers."

"No problem at all. Say, before I let you get back to your work, how about we exchange phone numbers? I mean, just in case there's ever anything you want to talk about and you need a sympathetic ear."

Michelle considered the proposal thoughtfully for several seconds. It was the first time a guy had ever asked her for her number and she wasn't sure how to respond. Trowa seemed like a nice enough guy, but she already had her heart set on Alex.

In the end she tore a small piece from one of the unimportant files she was carrying and scribbled her personal number down on it along with her name.

Trowa smiled broadly as she handed it to him and was quick to give her a copy of his own in return. "Nice to meet you Michelle," he said as the exchange was completed, "and you have a Merry Christmas. By my troth I am off!"

Michelle walked off in the opposite direction, her heels clicking down the metal floor. Trowa watched her backside for a few minutes more, and then continued down towards the base.

'Damn I'm good!' he thought, only half kidding. 'Now if only I could get Alex out of the way…'

The spotlights dimmed as she finally finished her piece and the music slowly died away. Rachel returned the mic to its stand and thanked the pianist behind her as she hopped down from the stage.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Alex was off the stool and walking over towards her. However, everyone else in the bar was making for the exit; it was almost closing time and he had to fight every step of the way over to her.

"Rachel!" he called out, but over the din of the scraping chairs and toppling barstools, his voice was barely audible even to his own ears.

Eventually, he fought his way through and was standing out side her dressing room. It was at this time that he began to get really nervous; though he'd survived two major battles and traversed well over fifteen hundred kilometres of empty space, he had never been as afraid as he was right now. Still he forced himself to knock on the door.

There was a loud crash, as if something had just smashed into a mirror or a glass had broken. "Ow! Fuck!" she swore. "Actually, maybe you'd better come back tomorrow. I'm not really up to doing autographs to-night."

"But…" he began. `Remember how far you had to come!' he thought, `you'd better not give up now!'

"But, it's me…Alex Kincaid…" he tried, already preparing himself to leave if she didn't remember him. She had just dedicated her song to a soldier-that didn't necessarily mean it was him.

"Alex? Alex Kincaid? Oh my God! Is that really you?" there was a scrambling as she hurried over the shards of glass.

"Hiya!" as she stood in the doorway, her change from formal to casual was clearly apparent; rather than the silky red dress she had been wearing, she now stood before him in an oversized T-shirt and flip-flop sandals. "It really is you! Wow!" she gushed, "I thought it might've been you in the crowd when I was performing, but I wasn't sure. C'mon in and make yourself comfortable. I already did," she said, smiling sheepishly as she gesturing to the mess all around her.

"It's great to see you again." He crossed the threshold and took a seat on a stool in the centre of the room.

She took a seat opposite him in a metal folding chair. "Same to you," she beamed. "What've you been up to lately? Last time I saw you, you were heading to the North American front, right?"

He told her everything: about how he had escaped the falling New England fortress; about how he had struggled through basic training; and about his team's escapades during the fighting at Solomon. However, he conveniently left out the part about the MedOff who had been trying to take care of him after the fighting was over.

"Wow! You have been busy. I was covering the events in California up until yesterday. The real push is going to be made in a few days and the news network wanted to send in a more experienced correspondent. I mean, I'm just interning with them to try and boost my popularity as a singer."

"As good as you did out there to-night, I'm surprised you're not already doing big shows." He commented.

"Aw, that's the sweetest thing I've heard all day," she smiled at him. "Hey, can I get you something? You want some tea or coffee? A cigarette?"

"No thanks. I actually need to be going soon or else my CO will kill me. It was really great seeing you again."

"Aww, he's got cold feet after all this time," she giggled and shoved him playfully. "Don't go yet, though. I want to get your number or address this time. That way we can stay in touch and I won't have to spend any more nights wondering whether or not you're alive." She reached in the cabinet and grabbed a pencil, but it slipped from her hand and rolled under the desk.

She knelt to pick it up, but banged her head as she stood again. "Ow! Crap-ass-shit-fuck!" she strung the oaths together as she sat on the floor with her legs crossed and rubbed the spot she'd hit.

"Don't say things like that," he said and sat down next to her. "It 'appens to the best of us."

"I bet you say that to all the girls you ``appen' upon," she smiled as she lay recumbent on the carpeted floor. "It's been a long while…"

She rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin up on her palms. "So ya really liked my song?"

"Oh 'ell yeah! That was always one of my favorite Christmas carols when I was growing up."

"It really wasn't what I was supposed to sing tonight," she blushed. "I thought I saw you in the back of the room, and it just, sort of came to me. I just remembered how sweet you were, and how…ah, forget it. The way I'm talking to you now, makes it seem like we knew each other for months, instead of only three days."

"Nothing, nothing!" he was embarrassed. "Guess I'll see ya around," he said as he stood to leave.

"You do have cold feet! You didn't act this nervous the last time we were together. Little different being alone with me, eh? Hold on a sec." She pulled out the paper and pencil and wrote her name and electronic mail address on it. She decorated the words with a few flowers. "Here. Now we can stay in touch! Write me soon; I've got to do some reporting at A Baoa Qu in a few days, but I'll be performing at Libot in Side 6 for New Year's. Maybe you'll be able to see it?"

The star-light filtered in through the small window in the medical ward of the Valkyrie. The medical ship had been docked on the outer wall of the colony at the military installation junction. Sanders and Trowa had left to stay on shore, but Sam had opted to stay behind. He sat silently keeping a patient vigil of Hilde while she snored peacefully. As he reclined in chair next to the bed, he began to think about how fortunate Duo was to have her affections. She was a helluva girl all right.

She stirred in her sleep and sat up, yawning. As she wiped the sleep from her eyes, she saw him sitting there and jumped in alarm.

He smiled wryly, "About an hour. We've been keepin' vigil on you for most of the evening." He paused. "Were you dreaming?"

"Jeez!" she sighed as she lay back with her face to the ceiling. She watched the fan twirling silently.

"You know…me and everybody else are all getting transferred tomorrow afternoon. I don't know if you're coming or not."

"Uh-huh, are they shipping out with you all?" Hilde remained unfazed at the mention of his name.

"'Fraid so. They got leave this evening and just got back a few minutes ago-but yeah, they're outta here too."

A silence hung between them for several seconds as they sat in the dark. Sam had almost suspected that she had gone back to sleep, when she questioned him again.

"What? That? Yeah, of course I was! I didn't want you to die on us, and you screaming bloody murder like that wasn't helping my nerves any."

"How did you figure out what to do so fast, though? If it'd been me, I would've panicked. You seemed like you were in control the whole way through."

"Well, actually, I was kind of panicked. But it was weird-even though I was freaking out, the answer just seemed to come to me."

"Ha, not me. I just did what I had to do. That's why I get so embarrassed when you talk about me like I'm your-a hero."

Hilde yawned loudly. "To each his own, I guess. But you really were great out there. I just thought I'd let you know. G'night Sam."

All seemed quiet around Neo-Canton as the first rays of sunlight struck the outer windows. However, hidden by the glare of the sun, four dark silhouettes emerged.

"Okay troops, this is it." Lieutenant Commander Anavel Gato called over the radio from the cockpit of his newly issued Gelgoog. "This is the colony where the Feddies have been known to frequent. You all know the details of the mission, but it must be conducted in total radio silence so as not to give away our position. Can you rookies handle that?"

Flames erupted inside the colony as the Zeon suits burst in from the main colony shaft. Alarms blared loudly warning citizens to get to the shelters, lest a stray bullet or explosion rupture the outer wall. There were four suits total; two Zakus, the upgraded Gelgoog, and a new model prototype MS-18E, Kämpfer. The prototype was laden with two assault shoulder-mounted bazookas, two shotguns, and leg mounted panzer fausts.

Following the defeat of the Blood Drake squadron at the defense of Solomon and coinciding with Gato's promotion to the rank of Major, a new task force was created under his direct command. This new tactical assault force was christened the Dark Phoenix as it would symbolise the rebirth of the glory of Zeon, even after Solomon's fall. It consisted of the major and three other low ranking recruits, Ensign Jim Höcker and Leading Seaman Linna Yamazaki who piloted the unit's two MS-06Fz Zaku Kai suits, and Warrant Officer Naomi Sterling, who, as the next senior officer after Major Gato, was the pilot of the prototype.

Since the group had been hastily thrown together in only three days, there was still some underlying friction between the members. Jim, unfortunately, was as excellently talented a pilot as he was brash and arrogant. This rubbed off on Naomi who was equally talented but had an equally short temper. Finally, Linna, the promising young rookie, was noted as being too cautious and too uncertain about her own abilities. Needless to say, their practice skirmishes had been anything but productive.

Yet the Brass still figured they were good enough to be sent out on a mission at this point. Under the guidance of one of Zeon's leading aces, how could they fail? so the reasoning went. Gato only hoped that they would somehow or other be able to come together and pull it off. Not that theirs was a very difficult task to complete; they had only to break into the Fed Sympathising colony and take down a few buildings to show the traitors that the Zeon were still in control of all of Side 3. But should they face any resistance…

During the final days of the War, Zeonic engineers began to shift their focus away from cheap, easily mass-produced mobile suits, and began a massive inundation of prototypes. This was due to the fact that, although both sides had lost a great percentage of their respective populations in the One Week War, the colony based Zeon had fewer citizens to begin with. Thus, as the war effort dragged on, and more and more of their able-bodied pilots were being killed in the ubiquitous weak Zaku models, new, heavily armoured assault model suits were issued.

To outfit entire MS regiments with such suits would prove to be not economically viable, and so, they were only issued to a select number of pilots in small detachments (like the Dark Phoenix) who seemed to have the best combat record.

By issuing such powerful mobile suits, the Zeon sought a quality over quantity approach.

Karen awoke with a start at the sound of the explosions. She had just crawled into bed after bolting the doors to both Duo and Kiyone's rooms, and was laying down for some much-needed rest. Suddenly there came a pounding on her door.

"I know! I know!" she shouted as she grabbed a shirt and pair of jeans. "Can't those damn Zeeks plan an attack that's not in the middle of my shore leave, for God's sake?"

"Good, you're up," Sanders commented. "The base commander wants us to get to the MS hangar and try to fight these guys off."

"Great!" she shouted sarcastically as she followed the other two. "Fucking spectacular! Now we don't get to die in some big space battle, but in a fight against some damn Zeek terrorists! It's wonderful!"

Ignoring her flurry of sardonic remarks, Trowa asked, "Where's the rest of your team? Aren't Duo, Kiyone, and Alex going to scramble?"

"No," she growled. "Alex is unavailable, and Duo and Kiyone are way too smashed to pilot anything more complicated than a bicycle. It's just me."

"This is not good." Sanders remarked. "At this rate it's only going to be the three of us against their four. And from the looks of that new prototype they have with them, I'd say the odds are stacked even further against us."

"They're both still on board the ship," Sanders answered, "Even if we could scramble Sam, it'd be way too late by the time he got to the field."

`This just keeps getting better and better!' Karen was thinking as the three pilots raced in silence the rest of the way to the hangar.

The hangar housed ten space GMs. Each of the pilots raced for one and did a quick, emergency preflight and prepared to launch.

"Oh, God, Jim, it's unbelievable!" she cried, momentarily forgetting how much she disliked him. "It's so much faster and stronger than anything else I've ever been in." As if to demonstrate, she fired two volleys at a nearby stand of office buildings from the shoulder bazookas.

"Careful, soldier," Gato warned. "If you miss and hit the wall on the colony, thousands of people could be sucked into space."

Jim pulled out his heat hawk, and destroyed another building. "But, commander, if our objective is to waste the colony anyway, what difference does it make if we kill the inhabitants?"

Anger was evident in Gato's voice as he replied. "We are not butchers! Only Feddie soldiers would mercilessly slaughtering civilians." Like most other Zeon officers, Gato refused to see through the propaganda about the gas attacks the Zeon had made against Side 2. Like the other soldiers, he believed that it had been the Federation who had done those deplorable misdeeds.

He continued to reprimand his subordinate. "And, soldier, if you recall, our objective is simply to make an example of this colony by razing a few buildings. We were never deigned executioners."

"But why not take out the ship that's docked outside?" Linna asked as she demolished an apartment building. "It's clearly not civilian class."

"That, as you would know if you had studied your manual more thoroughly, is one of the enemy's hospital ships. How would we look to kill their injured and wounded? Besides which, doing so is a violation of the Antarctic Treaty." Her commander responded.

"Whatever, sir," Jim decided it was not a very wise idea to try and fight with the commander; not now anyway.

A trio of Federation GMs stood before the unit. They only appeared on the thermal sensors, and just barely there. The GMs were all painted iron grey to blend in with the coloration of the steel and concrete buildings, and the Minovsky jamming inside the colony combined with their immobility had rendered them effectively invisible to visual, radar, and sonar detection.

"Drop your weapons!" Sanders shouted over the broadband radio. "We have you outflanked and colonial self-defense tanks will be arriving shortly. We do not wish to see this colony turned into a battlefield."

"Sir!" Trowa spoke over the private line. "Do we really have tanks on the way? I just thought these Colonists were a little bit dissatisfied; I didn't know they were full fledged Quislings."

"Shut up!" Karen hissed at him. "Get ready to draw your sword if they don't fall for it. Be sure to aim for the head or the cockpit-we can't risk one of those things exploding in here."

"Now what?" Naomi cried. "We can't fight them in here, and if they have tanks on the way…" her voice trailed off.

"Commander, we should pull out if we can; take the battle out into space where we can dispatch of them by any means necessary and not worry about destroying your precious colony," Jim remarked.

"I'll ignore your insubordination there, private, and decline your advice too. Tanks are not dangerous if handled correctly, and they are at a numerical disadvantage in terms of mobile suits anyway. Execute Attack Pattern Omega, on my mark. Five…"

"Is he serious?" Linna demanded. "This is my first time in actual suit based combat!"

"So what, we can take these stupid Feds easily. They're only GMs," Jim snorted with a little more confidence than necessary.

"Naomi, get ready to rush them, and don't be afraid to use all of your weapons if necessary. Just make sure you have a positive lock before firing." He continued.

"If we had waited any longer," he strained as he parried a blow from the Zaku's superheated tomahawk, "they would've done something really big! I had to go right then!"

"What the hell makes you think that?" Sanders asked as he and Karen proceeded to apply cover fire against the other Zeeks.

Suddenly, the enemy unit broke off the engagement and swung the axe-like weapon again aiming at the neck. Trowa stepped back to avoid the blow, but slammed into another high-rise in so doing.

"Trowa!" Karen dove forward and tackled the Zaku to the ground. She then unleashed a fury of blows directed right at the head.

Linna screamed in fear as the GM continued to pummel her Zaku's head. "Oh my God! Oh my God! Naomi, Jim, commander! Somebody get me out of this thing!"

"Shit! Get clear, everybody." Naomi prepared to fire one of the panzer fausts. "Hang on Linna, I'm going to blow that fucker to hell and gone!"

"Don't do it, Naomi!" Gato shouted. "If you fire that, it could destroy the entire colony."

"Are you serious?" Jim asked taken aback. "You're going to put the lives of these traitorous civilians over one of your own soldiers? Do it, Naomi!"

"Stand down, soldier," Gato said, his tone low and dangerous. He raised his assault rifle and trained it on his subordinate. Then, to Naomi, "I repeat, do not fire."

"Too good to be true!" Trowa whooped over the radio as his suit staggered to its feet. "Commander, we need to hurry and capitalise on this situation."

Gato fired a warning stream of shells just to the left of the Zaku's shoulder armour.

"Guys!" Naomi shouted at them. "Cut the pissing contest, and help me save Linna!"

The other Zaku lay crumpled on the ground, wrecked from the repeated blows from the feral beating so devastatingly applied by the GM's fists. Linna had noticed massive cracks forming in the airtight plating; now, even if she did manage to escape alive, she would not manage to get far in the vacuum. Fortunately, though, she was wearing a space suit, and its life support would probably be enough to get her back to the Doroai-barely.

Gato took a knee and released a hailstorm of slugs from his rifle. The barrage, apparently caught the GM off guard, as it stumbled and collapsed to the pavement on its side.

`I can't take too many more risks like that,' he thought, `I need only to incapacitate it-not destroy it and risk the explosion.'

He ran forward and kicked the GM where it lay, his toe lifting it bodily off the ground. As it hung momentarily, he clasped the Gelgoog's hands and smashed the Feddie back to the ground with a sickening crack as the fists connected with its back.

As he took another step closer and prepared to finish it off by crushing its head, his suit was suddenly grabbed from behind. One of the other GMs had him!

As Sanders wrestled with the Zeek he was suddenly struck by how familiar the whole scene was. It was almost a déjà-vu of the battle with the Black Lotus. Whether because of that battle and its outcome, or in spite of them, he held on tenaciously to the enemy unit.

Trowa was handling his task well; the enemy prototype was completely outmatched. Even though it wielded a beam sabre, it was as if the pilot had no control of the weapon at all, swinging it in wide arcs that his subordinate easily deflected.

Just then, Karen's battered mobile suit stood once more. She paused for a moment, as if surveying the scene lain out before her, and then charged the last unchallenged Zaku.

Jim heard the thundering footsteps before he knew where the enemy was. He had seen both Naomi and Gato fall victim to the Feds and he was doing his best to aid them undetected. However, he had been careless in his search and failed to check his instruments until the GM was practically on top of him.

As it leapt forward, its shoulder striking and mangling a nearby building in the process, he reacted instinctively and raised his buckler shield and caught it in the chest. The enemy suit bent double as a result of the impact, which was also great enough to send the Zaku sliding backwards and over several small buildings.

Seconds later, Jim grabbed the GM as it lay over his shoulder, and, in one smooth motion slammed it bodily to the asphalt. He then pulled out his gun and fired repeatedly into its chest plate. After expending half a clip in such fashion, he rushed off to help his comrades, leaving the smouldering wreckage of the enemy suit behind him.

Trowa had the Zeon prototype in a death-grip by its neck in one hand and was preparing to slice it in half with the beam sabre he brandished in the other. Granted, taking it out hadn't been easy by a long shot, but he had expected more from the pilot of such an advanced suit.

As he prepared to deal the final blow, he shot off a few rounds of the head- mounted vulcans which dented the cranial armour and rendered the eye-camera totally FUBAR.

The explosion caught him from behind, sending his and the enemy's units flying forward. His GM collapsed on top of the Zeon suit, yet with incredible propulsion power, the enemy fought its way out and returned to a standing position, slamming its foot down on his back, pinning him to the street.

As he watched in stunned amazement, the other Zaku stepped forth and pulled out its heat hawk. The prototype stepped back to give the Zaku room as it raised the massive axe at a point which seemed to be right above Trowa's head.

He closed his eyes and braced for the impact; but the thunderous blast hit somewhere above the cockpit. After several seconds, once he realised that he was not dead, he opened his left eye a crack. As he surveyed the damage, he opened both of his eyes and swore loudly.

Naomi heard Jim laughing hysterically to himself over the radio. "That was so awesome! Boom! I straight executed that dude! That stupid Fed is probably still back there wondering what the hell happened!"

"Thanks for saving me," she mumbled as she raced to keep up with him. She didn't really like antics like the one he'd just pulled all that much. Wars aren't games to be played so boldly-what if the other Fed had shown up while Jim was goofing around and killed them both?

Jim's loud voice interrupted her thoughts, "Okay, Naomi, you go and help the commander, and I'll go rescue Linna. When I'm done, I'll bring her and we'll help you finish off the GM-if there's any need, that is."

As Naomi continued down the streets, she caught a glimpse at the spectacular battle going on between the commander and the Fed GM. "Amazing," she breathed.

The blades sparked explosively as they met again and again. Gato swung madly at the GM's left arm, but Sanders was too fast and knocked the blow away. On the rebound, the Gelgoog turned and fired a devastating volley of high-explosive shells from its rifle, forcing The GM to hold up its shield for defense. At this point, Gato did a short jump with his thrusters and split the shield in two with a well placed verticle blow from his sabre.

Thinking fast, Sanders dove for the body of Karen's GM and unsheathed her beam sword as well. He hoped she was still okay, but in the heat of the battle, he didn't have time to check.

The Zeon suit leapt forward again, blazing away with its gun in one hand and preparing to deal a blow with the sword in the other. The GM charged too, and met the enemy halfway. There, he swung the sword in his left hand upwards and sliced the gun in two, while, at the same time, spinning around to Gato's back and stabbing his suit at the shoulder with the sword in his right.

"I'd just as soon die than surrender to the likes of you!" Gato retorted defiantly.

"Fine then!" Sanders wrenched the sword from the Gelgoog's arm, and prepared to cut in half.

Then, all of a sudden, the Kämpfer prototype deployed two rounds from its bazookas and sent the GM sprawling, its back a fiery crater.

"Good job, Naomi," her commander commented nonchalantly. "Now, rally the others. We're going to escape."

"Forget it. I believe our victory over these Feds has shown these traitors where the real power lies in space. They'll be crawling back with their tails between their legs in short order." His suit fired its thrusters and made for the colony shaft.

The artificial sunlight was just waxing as the Dark Phoenix strike force pulled out of Neo-Canton.

"What the fuck was that?" Karen raged, slamming her fist against the debriefing table. Two hours had passed since their failed sortie and fortunately she, Trowa, and Sanders had all been extricated from their MS with only slight bodily wounds. Wounds to their pride however…

"Cool down commander Joshua," Trowa tried to assuage her. "That was a tough unit, and besides which, they all had very powerful MS. What about the prototype?"

"What about the prototype, you snot-nosed little sonofabitch? You were the one who fought it, you saw for yourself that the pilot had no control over it. If we had just been more careful in watching our backs, we could've easily taken the day."

Sanders sat and listened to the two of the bicker, but his mind was elsewhere. This had been his first engagement with the enemy after his duel with the Black Lotus. That was important somehow, but the more he thought about it, the more confusing it made his present situation. True the enemy was not just as generic a group of evil-doers as propaganda made them out to be, but they still tried to kill him. What did that amount to? What did it say about them? What did it say about him?

As Karen and Trowa continued shouting at one another, Sanders began to realise just what had to have been going through Shiro's mind during his last week with the 08th. Before coming up to space, he had requested to see the footage from the tribunal hearing and, since Shiro was KIA anyway, Kojima had let him. What he had seen hadn't meant much to him at the time--it seemed like one of those damned sappy pacifist's anti-war entreaties--but now…That woman he'd killed himself with (for?), Aina, was a Zeon Officer, just like Cirrus. She was human, wasn't she? They had obviously been emotionally attached, which had to account for something. But, then, didn't that mean that anyone, no matter which side they were on, had at least some humanity in them?

And that still didn't answer the question about how just human could they be if they were all out to kill him, Karen, and anyone else in the Federation that stood in their way. Perhaps that was the point the tribunal had tried to use against Shiro.

Then he had another thought: wasn't he out to kill as many of them as he could? How did that make him any better than they were?

They were all just soldiers doing the best to stay alive in a miserable battlefield that was prolonged by the stupidity and stubbornness of their commanders. No one could possibly claim to be the "good guys", because in war, good is relative.

"Yeah? Well fuck you and fuck your 'combat capabilities' too!" Karen shouted at Trowa.

They were clearly finishing up. This was pretty important, though (now he understood why Shiro had difficulty killing that downed Zaku I pilot back in that Village), and he'd mull over it some more later. Perhaps he'd ask Karen what she thought. It was only too bad the Commander was no longer with them, like he always did, he would've had an answer for this.

"Okay you two, that's about enough." He said aloud, finally standing. "Trowa, we've got to get back to the ship. Were reporting to the docking bay at 0830 to depart for our new carrier assignment."

After making sure his order was followed, Sanders then turned back to face his former comrade. "Dammit, Karen, why are you so willing to fight with everyone all the time?" he asked.

"Because it was a piss poor combat engagement, and it was mostly that kid's fault!" She shouted stabbing a finger in the direction Trowa had departed.

"Look," he started, but then cut himself off by shaking his head. It wasn't worth arguing over.

"So are we." After realising he didn't want to fight anymore, she relaxed slightly.

"Yeah, sure. Of course. But don't expect me to drop whatever I'm doing to write you a letter like Michel did."

"Okay, I guess I'll be seeing you." Karen said with a mock salute. "I've got to go and see how hung-over my team is this morning."

Silent Requiem This fanfic is complete.

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Silent Requiem

Chapter 10: Shore Leave