Silent Requiem, a fanfic by Nightmaresama, chapter 12

Michelle Bannock stepped down from the airlock and onto the decks of the EFF Kaiser II. It seemed kind of silly to her to request a transfer to this ship, from the good work she was doing aboard the Valkyrie, but, this was a new ship, and was still slightly understaffed. There was a definite need for anyone with any degree of medical training to act as the ship's doctor, so, as soon as she had found out about the opening, she leapt at the chance to visit some fresh scenery.

All of that, and the fact that she'd received word from one of her co-workers that the 107th space assault force had been transferred here as well.

Michelle thought about going to visit the captain to inform him of her arrival, but changed her mind as she saw two pilots talking loudly in the lounge. She decided to go over and introduce herself to them instead.

As she arrived, she saw that the two--it was a young man and a young woman-- had a bottle of Bourbon between them. She'd always thought that the Federation had tried to maintain a policy of Dry ships, but who was she to be above a shot or two?

"Good afternoon!" she said as cheerfully as she could manage. "I, oh it's you! Kiyone, wasn't it?"

"Huh?" Kiyone's face was totally flushed from the booze, and she struggled to get her eyes to focus, "Who's that?"

She paused for a full minute. "Oh, yeah! I remember you now. Here, pull up a chair and take a hit. It ain't Japanese, but it's still damn good."

"Here, ya go," Kiyone passed her the bottle. "Jus' drink it straight from the bottle; we're all friends here. By the way, this is my friend, Duo Maxwell."

"I'm fine thank you, and it's nice to meet you." She took a swig from the bottle, the liquid burning on the way down. "Kiyone didn't tell me she was seeing someone."

Kiyone and Duo looked at each other and burst out laughing. "I didn't say I was seeing him because I'm not!" Kiyone gasped. "You think I'd actually date this stupid gaijin mutherfugger?" That was enough to send her giggling again.

Michelle didn't think it was so funny. She'd made a mistake and they laughed at her like that? Maybe they were more drunk than she'd first guessed; the bottle was already three quarters empty even before she'd had a taste.

"Naw, me and Kiyo-chan are both firmly single," Duo spoke up. "Well, at least Kiyo-chan is. She's so damn goofy, no guy will put up with her for more than five minutes."

"Hey, I wouldn't be talking if I was you, gaijin. You're still single too, unless of course you finally grew a pair and popped the question to Hilde while I wasn't lookin'."

Duo forced a smile, and tried to ignore the jab. He changed the subject but promised himself to chew Kiyone out later for that below the belt shit. "The other member of our team, though, Alex, he's seeing that reporter girl from ENN, Rachel Sawyer. The lucky bassard!"

"Shh! Shaddap stupid! You can't say stuff like that in front of jus' anyone! Leas' of all her!" Kiyone slurred, smacking him across his head.

"Don't mind Duo," Kiyone said turning to Michelle, "he's a terrible drunk and sometimes, he tells lies like that."

"But, c'mon Kiyo-chan, youse seen it yoursef'. An' anyway, he tol' me all about it."

"Look, dumbass, dis is the doctor from the other ship who was hitting on him! If you keep saying shit like that, she's gonna freak!"

Michelle continued to walk down the corridor, looking for the captain. What the hell were those two babbling about? Alex hadn't mentioned anything about seeing someone when she had been with him, but, then again, she'd never really hazarded to ask. She couldn't remember seeing a ring on his hand either. Perhaps those two were just making up drunken lies.

However, if that wasn't necessarily true, then what would become of her? Her rigorous studies throughout her school career had left her with no idea how to handle interpersonal relationships. She'd never had a boyfriend before, never really had very many friends at all. The ones she did have though, had always laughed at her for being so socially inept. How could she possibly compete with someone like a newscaster?

"No way," she murmured under her breath. "They had to've been telling me a lie."

Thinking so hard, she actually didn't see someone else coming down the hall until they'd already run into one another.

She squeaked in adulation. "Omigod! I was just looking for you! How have you been? Feeling better, I hope?"

"Ah, yeah. I'm all better now." He thumped his chest to show how well he felt, but had to bite his tongue to keep from wincing in agony, from his still-sore ribs. "What are you doing here? I know they don't let you make 'ouse-calls, do they?"

She laughed in her musical style. "No, silly. I transferred to this ship as the new resident MedOff!"

"Well, yeah," Michelle blushed a deep shade of crimson, "This ship is not fully staffed yet. They needed onboard medical personnel, and I happened to be available for a transfer."

"And out of the dozens of newly christened Federation Battleships, this one in particular struck you as the best choice?" His voice had grown accusing. He wasn't intending on sounding so cold to her, but it was obvious even to him that she had followed his unit from the Valkyrie.

She nodded, but some of the shimmer faded from her face. "I…I thought that you'd be glad to see me," she began.

"It's not a question of whether or not I wanted to see you, Doctor-" she winced at the cold informality he loaded the word with-"It's a question of your motivations for following me here!"

He held up a hand to stop her. "I appreciate your intrest in me, God know's I do, but I…there's someone else. I should 'ave told you this sooner, but I am already involved with someone, and I can't return your overtures."

Those simple words may well have been a rending maelstrom of shells from what they did to Michelle's heart. Still, she had practice in dealing with emotional facades; she simply had to prove that she wasn't interseted in him either-that, of course, was a hell of a lot easier said than done.

"Now just a second! I'm failing to see what the problem is here, Alex." She lied through her teeth, "I came to work on this ship and that is what I intend to do-work. If you are insinuating that I followed you personally from the other ship, you're being more than conceited," 'you're being right' she mentally finished the statement.

Her facade was breaking apart and she knew it. God, why had she wanted him so much? Why had she allowed her better judgement to be run roughshod by her emotions? That wasn't the way a good student, a good doctor was supposed to behave!

'But I don't want to be a good doctor anymore,' her heart screamed within her, 'I want to be with him!'

The stranger she once knew as Alex Kincaid pressed on with his unrelenting assault on her emotions. "I'm sorry, but I don't have time for this, Doctor. This is a war we're in here, not a theatre on which personal dramas can unfold. I-"

Michelle couldn't stand it any further; she cracked. "You have the audacity to say I don't know that?" she interrupted, outraged. "I may not be a soldier, but I sure as hell know what war is, and I know it is not a game! Do you think you can talk to me like I'm a child, just because you're on the front in a GM and I stay behind the lines? Hah!" she laughed bitterly at the irony. "My home was destroyed in the first months of the invasion; my neighbours were gunned down in the streets for refusing allegiance to the Zeons; my parents, the last I heard, are still in one of the prison camps!"

By this point, her eyes were brimming with tears, yet she still managed to speak with bitter effect. "But you still stand there and tell me that this isn't a drama? Why don't you tell that to your reporter girlfriend? I'm sure she's experienced the war first-hand!" she spat.

Very, very rarely in mobile suit combat could an opponent pull off a maneuver that could catch Alex totally off guard. Rarer still, was the enemy that could execute the stunning blow and, at the same time, totally disarm any countermeasures that he had planned to employ. Unfortunately this young woman had pulled off both; Alex was speechless.

"No, don't say anything to me! Not a damned thing! I thought that you were an understanding person! I thought that you cared! All I wanted was to be with you; I just wanted some semblance of happiness in the midst of this horrible war, but you just took all of the feelings I had for you and threw them back in my face. I loathe you, you…you cowardly bastard!" Michelle bolted before he could say anything further.

Alarm klaxons warbled loudly in the pilots' lounge of the Musai-class carrier Doroai, disrupting one of the few breaks the Dark Phoenix squad had had since their operation at Neo-Canton.

"Aw shit!" Jim groaned as he climbed from the couch he'd been resting on. "Back to the fucking rat-race again. What's the word commander?"

Gato pulled up the data from one of the computer terminals mounted in the wall. "Looks like two light carriers and a Capital ship are closing on our present location. If they maintain present course and speed, they'll be entering attack range in approximately 1700 seconds."

Naomi then asked a more pragmatic question as the group started down towards the hangars. "What's they're battle strength? Are they carrying fighters or MS?"

Gato looked again at the briefing printout. "Both, it would seem. Expect few MS though; remember these are only light carriers."

"The closest ship is a Zanzibar, the Lily Marlene, about eighty kilometres off our starboard bow," Gato replied. "However, if we were to wait for them, the Feddies would be all over us; it's imperative that we scramble now. That's what the orders say at least."

"Lily Marlene, huh?" Naomi thought out loud, as the four of them rode the elevator to the locker room. "I think I've heard that name somewhere before."

"You should have," Gato replied nonchalantly. "They're some of the worst thugs in the entire Zeon military. The lot of them are only a few steps above being pirates, the mercenary bastards."

A bell sounded as they reached the correct floor. Moments later, the squad was prepped and strapping into their suits.

The soldiers of the 99th autonomous attack unit, using the Zanzibar-class carrier, the Lily Marlene, as their Base of Operations, are some of the most notorious thugs of the One Year War era. Forcibly conscripted thugs made up the backbone of her forces, but were highly undisciplined and unorganised. Thus, to see to it that there was some degree of order among the ranks, top Zeon brass installed a promising young officer, Captain Cima Garahau, in direct command of the unit. Ruthless and calculating, Cima turned the pirates into a decent fighting group.

"Dammit! I said I wanted high explosive rounds! What the hell are these?" Jim shouted at the technicians working on his assault rifle.

"We're running low on high-explosive!" One mechanic yelled back at him. "Armour-piercing is the best we got!"

"Man, fuck armour-piercing! We're running low on everything these days!" Jim was complaining. "No high-explosive, no cracker grenades, no replacement shields…how the hell are we supposed to fight a war like this?"

All the maintenance crews began to evacuate as the airlocks slowly opened. The clamps released on the four MS and the squad leapt into the void.

"Piss poor logistics, is what I call it," Naomi said over the radio, "I've heard other units complaining about the shortages too. The only people who aren't complaining, it seems, are the ones guarding A Baoa Qu. They're getting everything they want."

"It means that our lines are being pushed back" Gato replied sourly. "After the fall of Solomon, A Baoa Qu stands as our last stronghold in space. If the Feds can take that, it's all over."

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Jim shouted, angrily. "That's a load of horse-shit if I ever heard one. What about Granada and the rest of our forces on Luna?"

"If A Baoa Qu falls, it's a straight shot to the capitol, dumb-ass!" Naomi retorted. "It won't matter what other forces we have. Besides which, the forces at Granada are also pulling towards A Baoa Qu. As a matter of fact, I've even heard that Lady Kicyria herself is on route-"

Machine gun fire from several core fighters cut her off in mid-sentence. As they swooped in for another pass, the KÃ¤mpfer fired a salvo from one of its bazookas to take out all three of them in one blow.

"Prepare to engage the enemy!" Gato ordered. "Carrier twenty kilometers starboard, and the other is fifteen behind the first."

"What about the Capital ship?" Jim shouted as he cleaved a fighter with his axe.

Gato's eyes flew across the instruments of the Gelgoog's cockpit trying to find the massive ship. "Ah, shit, I can't pick it up!"

Suddenly, an enormous saffron energy blast ripped through the void right next to them.

It took a second and almost being cut down by another blast for things to click in Gato's mind. "Those were mega particle beams, the Capital ship is firing from somewhere below us!"

"Thirty km directly below. The damn sensors can only sweep a limited area in front and behind the MS. All the Feds had to do was hide in our blind spot and take us out." Naomi reported. "What a dirty way to fight."

"Don't worry about that now. It could've been any number of things, including Minovsky interference." The commander pointed out. "Let's just worry about finishing them off!"

At that point the Fed MS teams had just been launched and two squads of GMs approached at impossible speed. Each squad had a cannon type and three standard issue types they were all painted in a gold and red colour scheme. The enemy suits slammed into the fray, bombarding the Zeon team with shells of all types.

"I--I can't take this!" Linna was screaming from her Zaku, which had been singled out by three of the enemy MS.

"Shut up, Yamazaki!" Naomi shouted over the din of the explosions hammering her own suit. "Pull yourself together and fight back!"

"I can't! There's just too many all at once!" A cannon shell tore an arm off the Zaku while bullets rendered the head and upper chest.

"Can't somebody help her?" Gato managed to say after smashing the other cannon-type in the face with his spiked buckler and filling it with holes. "She's going to pieces like a total rookie!"

"We're both pinned down out here!" Jim shouted back. "There's too much shit going on at once! Fighters, MS, and that damn battleship right below us that's probably ready to open up with those MP cannons real soon--what can we do?"

"Damn," Gato said, partially because another gold-and-red GM along with an escort of fighters had engaged him, and partially because his subordinate was right. They really were pinned down and totally unable to help themselves, much less poor Linna.

And why wasn't the Doroai providing cover fire? Surely they had to be within range of the ship's cannons by now, unless, of course, the ship was already under attack. That would make sense, especially when taken into account that the Fed Capital ship hadn't fired on them in so long.

But what could he do for Linna? He was confident that the ship could hold its own against the Feds, especially in a broadside shoot out, but for his soldier over there being pasted by Feddies at close range, there was only one option.

"Y-yes," she stammered. She sounded dazed, but it was good that she was still conscious.

"Can you handle everything over there?" he tried to keep his voice calm as he struggled against the gold-and-red.

"No, I don't think so…" her voice trailed off, and she sounded impossibly tired and defeated, even though shells continued to pound the hull of her suit.

"Then you have a final option," he had to gather himself up to say this, "you can use the self-destruct device on your suit and try and take them out with you." It was the hardest order he'd ever had to give.

"Okay," she said with a tone of total resignation. "good-bye commander, it was--" she paused for a moment, explosions still rocking her Zaku, "--fun."

"Linna, wait!" Jim's voice. "What the hell are you talking about commander? You're telling this girl to commit suicide? What's wrong with you?" He tried to disengage the enemy he was fighting and rush to save his comrade, but the Fed sped up and cut him off, riddling his suit with bullets.

"Get outta my way you gutless bastard!" as he stuggled though, two of the suits that had been pummeling the wreck of Linna's suit turned their weapons on him.

Naomi, while still fighting her own battle was able to launch a panzer faust into the group assailing Jim, but the Feddies were able to scatter before the blast did any damage.

'This is really bad,' Gato was thinking. 'I don't think we'll survive this one.'

"What the hell was that?" Gato wondered as both he and the Fed he was fighting stopped and looked around for the source of the beams.

"Whoa! Chief, we've got a big problem over here," said Naomi, cutting into his thoughts. "Jim's saying that he's got an electrical fire inside his Zaku. He's saying that the fire-retardants didn't come online and all his higher systems are shot. I'm going to go ahead and tow him and Linna back to the ship."

"Right; good luck." He turned his focus back to finishing off the remaining gold-and-red, but before he even had a chance, another Gelgoog sped forward and sliced it neatly in half. The resulting explosion sent shards of it's outer armour clanging against the hull of his own unit.

He looked around and spotted a massive Zanzibar-class ship approaching slowly, its MP cannons still sizzling from the last discharge.

"Saved by the pirates of the Lily Marlene," Gato cursed. "Perhaps we would've done better to die."

The MS that was a mirror image of his own began hailing him. He thought seriously about turning and leaving right then and there; instead, he switched his radio over to the correct frequency. "Maj. Anavel Gato reporting, you have our thanks Lily Marlene."

"This is the legendary Nightmare of Solomon?" a sultry female voice on the other end "Surely you jest! Why, the real ace of that battle would've had no difficulty at all taking out two squads of GMs. What happened?"

"Sorry about that Major, I just get so excited about meeting a real live ace in person. My name is Cima Garahau, commander of the 99th autonomous space division, and I must say that I truly admire your work, and it is an honour to have had the privilege of lending my forces to fight alongside you." Every word she said was saturated with cynic irony.

"'Fight along side'?--Commander Garahau, if your forces had been any later, we wouldn't be around for you to…what is your problem with me, anyway?" he exploded.

"What is my problem with you? What is my problem with you? I'll tell you what my problem is you little piece of shit! My problem is that you are exactly the same kind of naive super-patriotic ass-hole who prolongs and purveys wars like this in the first place! You don't get it, do you? Of course you don't, but let me spell it out for you: you are nothing, nothing! In the grand scheme of things, it matters not how many people you have killed, or how many battles you have fought. You were, are, and always will be expendable, just like everyone else! Your battle just now must have made that clear to you."

"This kind of talk from a woman who leads a bunch of damn pirates," he spat. "You should be thankful your division even has a place in this war."

"'Thankful,' he says," Cima let out a long and bitter laugh. "You'd do well not to look down your nose at matters you don't understand. You think I like this job? Hah! You think I'll die for the cause? I'll laugh at that too. We're two different people, Nightmare-san, always keep that in mind." Sparks flashed as her jets began to ignite.

"Hey! I'm not finished with you yet! I've got two critically wounded because you all didn't get here soon enough."

"Don't worry, Nightmare-san, we'll meet again…count on it." She tore off after the battleship, leaving Gato's blood to boil.

Tensions were running high on board the EFF Kaiser II. It had been almost a full day and neither Alex nor the new doctor had said a word. Right now they had both locked themselves in their rooms.

The two of them and Karen were getting R&R in the pilot's lounge after fighting a quick skirmish with a team of Zakus. It hadn't been anything major, but almost hourly battles had been the norm since they had departed Neo-Canton.

"Screw you!" Duo shot back. "You were the one who'd got plastered off that smuggled bootleg in the first place."

"For God's sake will the two of you just shut up?" Karen erupted. "This is ridiculous! I feel like every time I talk with you all, I'm getting dragged back to High School. Have you all forgotten about the war we're supposed to be fighting?"

Duo flushed a deep shade of vermilion and stood to confront her. "Dammit! You know what, commander? Morale is an important part of warfare. If Alex and Michelle stay acting the way they are, neither of them will be able to perform at their optimum because they will have their attentions diverted elsewhere. It may seem petulant, but we have to resolve this issue and do it soon. Or do you want Alex to continue fighting the way he did today?"

Then it was Karen's turn to become enraged. She stood up and started shouting in Duo's face, "Don't you ever try and lecture me on the nature of team mechanics you ignorant piece of shit! You think I don't know what morale is all about? You think I haven't seen this kind of thing happen before? Allowing himself to be hung up on a member of the opposite sex is the worst possible thing a soldier can do in the middle of a war, because it always ends badly!"

"Yeah, so why don't you just start shooting at him now too?" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he'd hit a nerve.

"You cocky sonofabitch," Karen said through clenched teeth as she pulled back and punched him in the gut.

Duo folded like a book, and fell to the ground wheezing. Karen was certainly as strong as she looked.

"Duo!" Kiyone rushed to his side. "The hell did you do that for, commander?" she obviously had not grasped the significance of his last comment.

Before Karen could speak, Duo attempted to fill her in. "I-my cousin…" he gasped, as he struggled upright, "my cousin was in the same unit as Karen earlier in the war. He told me about how their commander had fallen for this enemy test pilot, and how that relationship had set all of the troops on edge. So, much, so--" he let out a wet cough, "--so much so that in their final battle together, as this commander was leaving to finish the matter, our loving Karen decided to take a few pot-shots at him. Ain't that right, Chief?"

Karen pushed Kiyone aside and yanked Duo up by his collar. She slammed him against the lockers and looked him dead in the eye. "You may think your pretty smart, Maxwell," she said in a low dangerous voice, "but you know nothing about that so best to keep your big-ass mouth shut. You ever mention that shit again and I'll fucking kill you, I swear to God." She threw him back to the carpeted floor and stormed off.

Gato stepped into the medical bay aboard the Doroai. "Status," he said brusquely to the orderly.

"It doesn't look too good sir," The MedOff behind the desk replied, looking up from the reports. "Sterling, Naomi checks out okay with nothing but minor bruises and cuts, but the other two…well, Hacker, Jim is in intensive care suffering from third degree burns to his upper torso, arms and face, and Yamazaki, Linna," his voice trailed off, "you'd better have a look for yourself."

"Ah, let's see," the orderly flipped through the report, "room 2617, way in the back."

"Thank you." Gato wondered what had become of her as he made the long walk down the corridor. She didn't suffer any major injuries that he'd been aware of; her suit had taken a pounding but that was all he'd been able to make out.

He stopped in front of room 2617 only to find a guard stationed at the door. "State your name and business," the guard demanded.

"I'm with the MS team here, and I want to see my subordinate," Gato replied suspiciously. "Is something the matter with her?"

"Just precautions, sir. MedOff's orders. I guess you can enter." He stood aside and opened the door.

It was totally dark in the room save the light of the stars beyond a small armour-glass window. In the time it took for his eyes to adjust, Gato saw Linna's small form huddled in the corner in an almost foetal position.

"Hey, calm down. Everything's okay!" he put a hand on her shoulder but she reeled away at his touch and pushed herself further back into the corner.

"Please!" She shouted, suddenly. "I don't want to die! I'm sorry! Make it stop! Make it stop!"

"Linna Yamazaki, shut up and listen to me!" Gato shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders.

"What you are suffering from is called, 'shell-shock'" he said, his voice returning to its normal pitch. "War can be very scary sometimes, and sometimes, it's more than we soldiers can handle, do you understand?"

"Sometimes, war can be so scary that we don't think we can handle it anymore. We think that, because it's too scary, we have to block it out--we have to run away from it and ourselves, you got that?"

Again, she nodded, but this time, her pupils had dilated somewhat. 'She might be coming around…a little,' he thought.

He continued talking to her as if she was a very small child. "But, the thing is, you can't run away from this Linna, it's too important. You have to try and stay with us for just a little bit longer. If it's at all possible, I'll see about getting you discharged and back to the Capitol. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"You have to keep it together until then, though, okay? You won't have to fight anymore once you get back to the Capitol; no more hurting, no more explosions, no more space. That'll be nice, right?"

"That'a girl!" He smiled at her. "Now you get some rest and I'll see about getting you transferred back to your own dormitory, all right?"

'One more victim for the cause of Independence' he thought shaking his head as he left. 'We've got a long road to go'.

"Commander!" Naomi hobbled over to him, bearing half her slight weight on a crutch under her left arm. "Oh, you were seeing Linna,"

She had a bandage across her forehead but besides that and the crutch, nothing much appeared to be wrong with her. "Jim," she started, "I'm not sure he's going to make it."

"I'm afraid not…If I could've only gotten him back here sooner!" she slammed down the crutch in futile protest. "I…I could've…"

"It's okay, Naomi, it's not your fault. Believe me, it's not. I had an unofficial meeting with the commander of the Lily Marlene after the battle was over and found out that those…those arrogant pricks had already scrambled to deal with the Feds."

"What do you mean?" Naomi asked, though she had already begun to put the pieces together.

"I mean that they set us up to be hit!" he said through clenched teeth. "The whole time they were waiting and watching us get destroyed. Now, Linna's had a nervous breakdown and Jim…"

"All because that bitch and her flunkies just sat on their hands and watched rather than help." Naomi finished.

Gato paused as he thought. "I'm not sure, Naomi. I'm really not sure. I guess I'll get on the horn to the Brass and see about our next assignments. Hopefully they will just assign two new people to the Phoenix. If not, you and I may even be separated."

Naomi shook her head. "I'd hate that, sir. Of all the units I'd been a part of, I liked this one the best. Sure Jim was a little overbearing sometimes, and Linna did get in trouble a lot, but you guys were like a family to me."

He nodded. "I know the feeling. I just feel too helpless to change anything, though, and I don't understand why. My other commander, back in my Solomon days, she always seemed to have a handle on things. I hoped that if I ever took charge of a unit, I'd automatically know all the answers like she seemed to."

"I…I really like you, sir." Naomi looked around but avoided his eyes. "I really hope we don't get separated. Even if you didn't know everything, you had a good grasp on a lot of things, and I respect you for that."

"You'd better take advantage of this chance for a breather, Naomi," he pointed out, supporting her on his shoulder and helping her back to her quarters. "I'll take care of the red tape, you catch some shuteye, understood?"

"Will do, commander Gato," she said as she hobbled through the doorway to her quarters, "will do."

"What's wrong with me?" Alex Kincaid asked the ceiling of his quarters aboard the Kaiser II. He lay on his cot with his fingers interlaced behind his head, watching the fan revolve lazily while deep in thought.

"Perhaps I was a little 'ard on Michelle," he continued to think aloud, "but 'ow else was I supposed to react? It's not like I 'ave feelings for 'er…right?"

"Well, she was the one who was following me." He started to get defensive. "I thought I 'ad made it plain to 'er that I wasn't interested, so why did she-is it possible that she is really…in love with me?

"That wouldn't be so bad, not really-but, I want to be with Rachel! I know at least that much. After that encounter at Neo Canton…but has she made any move to contact me since then? Has she called? Has she written?"

But then, why did she act so happy to see him when the two of them conversed after the show? Was that just a facade? A farce? A lie? What reason did she have to lie to him? And to go through such lengths to make it believable? No she wouldn't waste time like that; if she had had something she wanted to say, she would have. That's the kind of person she was.

Perhaps she had merely been too busy to call. She was a reporter after all, and a singer too; she would be running around all over the place doing interviews and shows. It was selfish of him to want her to do otherwise and he knew it. But knowing it and really meaning it were two totally separate feelings.

He might ultimately just have to cut his losses and move on. If her career meant more to her than he did, then he was just spinning his wheels. There were other fish in the sea…

"But I let a perfectly good 'other fish' get away!" he said in dismay. "All because I was so blinded by feelings that were not even being reciprocated at full value."

At least Michelle's feelings had been genuine. She had, on more than one occasion, forgone the responsibilities of her own career to sit and make conversation with him. She just wasn't there for him when it was convenient for her.

And he had cast her feelings aside like they were nothing to him! He had Rachel, and that was all that mattered. If there were others who may have felt the same way about him, they were inconsequential. He had been selfish, he had been cold, and he had hurt someone in the process.

Michelle hated his guts and Rachel was thousands of kilometres away, both physically and emotionally.

Was it any reason he had fought so poorly in the skirmish an hour ago? Did he even care if he lived or died now? Was life worth living if happiness was so far away?

The best he could do was to try and apologise to Michelle and hope that maybe they could at least get back on semi-friendly terms. But, then again, she hadn't been interested in hearing any sort of apology during their last altercation (those words still rang in his head, "I loathe you!"), and when he had passed her on the way to his quarters after the battle, she had ignored him completely, even disregarding his half-hearted wave. No, clearly she was not interested in any sort of apology.

In his tactical training at Basic, he had been required to learn situational analyses, and this was a no-win situation if he'd ever seen one.

Best just to retreat farther, and try as best as he could to continue to fight the war to the best of his abilities. Like he had told her, this was no place for personal dramas. He had a job to do and he intended to do it; or at least to try.

"Damn, it's hot out!" Gene bawled as he tried to fan himself with an old magazine. "Right now I almost wish we were back in fuckin' Canada again."

"Ooh, good comeback, champ." He replied, sarcastic as usual. He returned to writing his letter. "Anyway, I'd rather be hot and alive than cold and dead, if you know what I mean."

After departing Canada earlier in the month, the two misplaced soldiers had joined up in the attack on the Zeon-held California base. The fighting had been intense, and many of their comrades had been KIA. Fortunately, for them, though, they had been able to link up with the Blue Destiny task force in the midst of the battle, and had helped their new Commander, Yu Kajima, take down many enemies.

"Who'd've ever thought that I'd be an ace?" Gene wondered aloud as he returned to the hammock he'd hung between two palm trees. "Did I tell you how many I'd scratched, Squall?"

"'Six units: four Zakus, a Dom, and a Gouf.' For the love of God, Gene, you've told me that every hour on the hour since the fighting stopped!" Leon said, exasperated.

"What're you writing there?" Gene asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. "You've been at that card table for the better part of an hour now."

"Probably because your stupid ass keeps talking to me and making me lose my concentration," Leon grumbled under his breath. "I'm writing a letter back home," he said aloud, "not that it's any of your business."

"Fuck off, dip-shit." Leon growled and threw a beer can at him. "When you start talking about somebody being whipped, it's a real bad sign."

Gene deflected the can, grinning and pantomimed cracking a whip "Whatever you say, Squall."

Not long after that, their commander walked over to the barracks where their division was stationed. "How's it going, fellas?" Lieutenant Yu Kajima asked. He had a few bandages, but in light of the massive battle he'd undertaken against a Zeon prototype mere days before, he seemed to have got off lucky.

His two subordinates quickly stood and saluted. "Very well, sir!" they said in unison.

"Not at all, sir," Leon replied. "I was just writing my wife back home, and Gene was…telling me about his glorious accomplishments in the battlefield."

'That bastard has the dead-est fucking pan I've ever seen in my life!' Gene was thinking about his comrade. However, he nodded in agreement.

"I didn't know you were married, Leon," Yu said as he took a seat at the foldable card table his second-in-command was writing on. "I guess I should've read your profiles more thoroughly. Do you have a picture?"

"Pretty hot, huh?" Leon was beaming. "She's a police officer in New-Melbourne, Side Seven. She's got a damn fine voice too. You should hear her rip it up in Karaoke!"

"I'll take your word for it" his commander said, nodding. "How 'bout you Gene? Do you have someone waiting for you back home?"

Gene could feel his face getting even hotter than the surrounding Californian desert air. "Nobody…outside my sister, sir."

Gene had to save face. Quickly, he began again, "but there is this one chick who'd been serving with me back in New England, that I was about to…"

"You weren't about to do any-damn-thing with Hilde, you lying bastard, and you know it!" Leon poked at him.

"Chill out fellas," Yu was making defensive gestures with his arms, as if warding of some physical attack in an MS. "If I'd known the topic was so touchy, I wouldn't've asked!"

"Aw, it's alright, Chief." Leon laughed. "No harm done. Gene's used to getting ribbed about his unrequited love by now. How 'bout you though? Is there a Mrs. Yu Kajima waiting for you back home?"

"Nah," Yu cast down his eyes. "Almost, once, but that was aeons ago. She's moved on, and so have I."

It was Yu who finally broke the silence. "Anyway, I meant to come by and tell you all about the new MS shipments coming in tomorrow. Straight from Jabrow, we've got a pair of Blue Destiny Gundams coming our way, that you two are going to pilot."

"Wait a second, sir," Leon, being much more practical, cut in. "I thought the Gundam units were supposed to be much more powerful than the GM, even a highly modified Blue Destiny GM. Why aren't you going to take one of these new models yourself?"

"Well, it's difficult to explain. See, the EXAM system is based on collected data from the essence of a Newtype. From their spirit, if you will. These spirit/data modules configure precisely to their chosen pilot. In my case, the name of the Newtype who had been used for the Blue Destiny mark I, was Marion Welch. Her…the GM and I have sort of bonded. That's about as in-depth as I can be for you--like I said, it's hard to explain."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. You mean to tell me that there's a human spirit trapped inside an EXAM unit?" Leon asked in disbelief.

"Like I said, not exactly. Their--her--essence was copied and digitised. I guess that's more-or-less how it works."

"So, even you don't know what the hell this is that we're going to be strapping ourselves into, do you?" Gene asked suspiciously.

"I've already told you everything I know about it! I swear!" Yu responded. "Just trust me; either it'll all work out okay, or you'll be too dead to know the difference.

"See you at 0625 tomorrow morning! I've got to finish saying good-bye to my old teammates; we're departing for the space theatre within the week."

Leon grabbed another beer from the cooler under the table. "Still, everybody won't stop talking about how good a pilot he is. I mean, you saw the Blue Destiny in action the other day; he made your record look like nothing."

"I'll ignore the jibe, but you're right. That thing was unbelievable." He lay supine in the hammock with his fingers interlaced behind his head. "I saw his dossier briefly while we were first being processed: Yu's been out here in the desert since mid-November and was on assignment in Mexico as a test-pilot before then. All of his ratings were above par, and his unit survived live combat with not only a squad of Hy-Goggs and carried out a raid against a Zeek base that was heavily guarded by Zakus, but they took out an elite team of Doms."

Leon took a pull at his beer, but swore when a few drops of condensation fell onto his letter. At that point their conversation ground to a halt as he attempted to dry the paper and Gene excused himself to the Barrack's payphone.

The cost of the call was high, but not as exorbitant as it would have been to call someone in the colonies. The phone rang twice before an operator's voice came through.

Seconds ticked by and jazz ambiance was played in the background as his call was connected.

"Gene!" his sister Talia's face appeared on the phone's small monitor through the static. She waved to him.

Talia's expression lagged. She had her brother's revealing blue-green eyes that quickly betrayed any emotion; "Bad. I'm feeling better, but the doctor won't let me play video games or watch TV! He says I need more rest and I can't get too excited. Gene, won't you tell him that I'm fine?"

"'Fraid not, Talia," he said, though it hurt him to have say `no' to her face, "he's the doctor, and he knows what's best for you. You want to get better soon, right?"

"No `buts' about it, Half-Pint. If he says you need rest, it's probably because you really do."

"No can do! But hey, I'll tell you what: if you're really good, and do exactly what the doctor and the nurses tell you (which I know you were planning on doing anyway), I'll bring you back a moon rock!"

"Yep. But I won't bring you back anything if the people at the hospital say that you're being bad."

"I'm never bad!" The sheer indignation in her voice was enough to make him smile again.

"Watch your mouth, Half-Pint, and no, she's not. I haven't seen her for a while now."

"Good." Talia said. "You shouldn't keep spinning your wheels with her Gene; it's not good for you. Why don't you just find somebody who likes you for you? Somebody you don't have to pretend for? Either that or just beat up her boyfriend and get it over with."

"Maybe it's good that they don't let you watch TV for a bit, Talia; seems to me like you've been watching too many soap operas in your free time."

"'I didn't warn you though, Gene'." He stuck his tongue out at the monitor. "See ya later Talia."

He hung up, and brushed a tear from his eye. Good thing these phones had such poor reception due to Minovsky fields.

Silent Requiem This fanfic is complete.

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Silent Requiem

Chapter 12: The Ballad of Lili Marene