Silent Requiem, a fanfic by Nightmaresama, chapter 18

"Got another live one, Ms. Miller," one of the techies called out to her through her closed door.

"Go away!" she shouted. She'd just fought her way through another tearful hour and didn't want to be bothered by anyone--least of all, anyone with anything related to her work.

Fortunately, Alice had learned enough about picking locks to be able to escape after Heero had locked her in the interrogation chamber. When she did escape, it seemed as though no one had noticed anything was amiss; much less that a POW had escaped from the detention cell. Apparently, he had slipped out unnoticed, except by one officer down in the launching bay, who told her that one small shuttle had left in the time that since his escape. The officer said that the person who had requested launch clearance was a young Lieutenant Commander, about five-seven with dark hair and brown eyes. "An Asian guy," he had assured her.

With no prior knowledge, it would be impossible to track him down. The hanger officer said that he had cleared the ship to go to Las Cruces colony in Side One, but that was all too likely misinformation designed to confuse anyone who might be tailing him.

"Captain Miller!" Damn that insistent little tech! Couldn't he see that she didn't want to be bothered? Why couldn't he leave her to sulk in peace?

Bitter anger began to creep into her voice as she responded again, "Go fuck yourself!"

"Ms. Miller, these orders were just pushed through from the front at A Baoa Qu! It's your duty as an officer of the Federated Union of Earth to go and check it out!"

That got her up. Casually, she straightened out her uniform and reached for her sidearm. As soon as she'd opened the door, the gun was out of its holster and pressed directly against the techie's Adam's Apple. It bobbed up and down in time as he swallowed hard.

"Shut up and spill it; I'm not going to kill you," she holstered the weapon again. "That was just to show you how easily I could."

"Y-yes ma'am." The tech--a kid, no older than nineteen--was sweating profusely now. "Ah, we received an anonymous tip that there's a spy on one of our ships at the frontlines."

'Damn, another spy?' "Did we get a trace? What ship is he on? What do we know about him?"

"'Her,' ma'am. The one's a woman. Intel says she's a doctor, or maybe a medic, the report was very vague." By this point some of the colour had returned to the kid's face.

"A doctor?" Alice was slightly perplexed. After her last two tough cases, a turncoat physician hardly seemed a worthy challenge.

"Yep. She was pretty careless too; we've even got a positive ID: Bannock, Michelle, twenty-six. Born UC 0053 May 2, in Bristol, Great Britain sub-prefecture, Western Europe prefecture."

"Born on Earth, huh?" Now the two of them were walking towards the main shuttle-bay. "What's her affiliation with the Zeeks?"

He glanced quickly at the clipboard that held all the known data on this Michelle Bannock person. "You're not going to believe this, ma'am: collect phone call to one of the personal numbers on a Musai-class carrier."

"Jesus! Was she trying to get herself caught? Well, no matter; if she's compromised frontline security, then I've got to bring her in. Have my quarters cleared out and make sure everything's ready to be moved to my new office on Konpei Island [formerly known as Solomon]."

"Ma'am." The officer gave her a brisk salute as he handed her the clipboard and proceeded to carry out her orders.

"Has the…" she faltered a split-second, "has the interrogation room been cleaned out yet?"

"What, you mean the Zeek that's in there? Not yet. His sorry ass is still waiting to be 'dishonourably discharged'." He laughed.

"Wait until I get back to do anything with him," she spoke without a trace of his mirth.

"Are you questioning my orders?" Alice's eyes flashed like twin blue flames. She made a move for her sidearm to make sure he got the point.

'You'd better have, you bastard,' she thought as she continued to the shuttle bay.

Kiyone was hurrying back to the MS bay aboard the EFF Anubis. She had just seen to it that Karen and Duo had been received into the care of the medical specialists aboard the ship and now she had to meet up with Alex, who had been filling out a request to take out one of the ship's standby GMs.

Leaving the two leaders in the group behind was terribly disheartining for her, especially Duo. She shuddered. No, he couldn't be blind, he couldn't be! Not Duo. While Karen was their leader in combat, Duo had been their emotional leader; the fact that she had to view him as mortal…it hurt in a way she couldn't completely understand.

And Karen too! Karen, the only person aside from Hilde that she'd ever told the story of her childhood to. Karen, the force of nature, whose very words were enough to make grown men tremble. She was out of commission too!

'No, Karen, you can't be hurt that bad; you've still got to beat my smoking habit out of me!' Kiyone thought as she continued down the corridor to the launch bay.

Alex was waiting for her there. "They restocked your suit with ammo and propellant," he said when she arrived. "I should be okay in the spare standard GM they had."

"Are you okay Kiyone?" Alex asked. Her anxiousness about the battle must've shown more than she'd realised.

"I'll be okay. We've just got to do this by the book, right? Go out, blast a few Zakus and cover the capital ships as they advance. Be extra careful, though. Some of the crew members were whispering that the Nightmare of Solomon is out there."

"That, and we've got that elite team out for our heads," Alex added as he strapped himself into his own MS cockpit. "Or at least, after your head. You're the only one still in one of our blue-and-gold specials."

As she engaged her MS, she heard something scrambled in with the radio static. 'The hell is that?' she thought as she tuned the speakers. She gleefully clapped her hands together when she realised what it was, "Hey, Alex! Switch to radio frequency one-hundred-and-seven."

"Why?" he asked even as he did so. "What's on that frequenc--hey! How are we picking up music on a military frequency?"

"Damned if I know, but this is the best song ever! Have you heard it before? It's called 'Love and Peace' and it was written by a soldier just like us!"

They listened in silence as the bay doors slowly creaked open, both of them transfixed by the melody. The last bars faded as the Anubis was prepped for their to launch.

"See? I told you that song was the shit!" Kiyone said, trying to sound cheerful but brushing a tear from her eye nonetheless. That song always reminded her of her sister and nephew, and she couldn't help but get teary-eyed, every time she heard it.

"You're right," he nodded and smiled at her. "I know we can make it through this Kiyo-chan. It might be tough, but I'll watch your back if you watch mine."

"I've got ya, partner," She called back to Alex, whose GM had just launched too. "Let's kick some Zeek ass, baby!"

The Val Varo continued to apply pressure to its crushing grip on Trowa's GM. Kelley knew he had to finish off these fools fairly quickly and get back to destroying the main section of the Federal armada, but it was difficult to resist toying with such weak opponents.

The limb shattered with a satisfying crunch, and he aimed all of the Mobile Armour's standard beam cannons to converge fire on the helpless GM as it began to float away. The signal flashed, indicating a lock, and he pulled the trigger. Seven blasts of coloured energy hit the hapless fed simultaneously, disintegrating both arms, the head, and much of the torso. A series of small explosions followed.

The EMP field had begun to dissipate, and he had been able to force open his cockpit to try and see out. As a result of the Zeek's dirty trick, every system aboard the GM that was in anyway related to electrical components was shot to shit. Life-support, radios, visuals…the suit was for all practical purposes, "dead in the water".

Sam had been fortunate to have been wearing his helmet and normal suit; without them, he surely would have died from asphyxiation or the other effects of the vacuum. He was also able to use the helmet's radio system, which was thoroughly insulated. He hoped his commander had had the foresight to do likewise. Among some hotshots, it was considered en vogue not to wear a helmet during combat.

Fortunately, Sanders wasn't the kind to go for style over pragmatism. He was quick to respond, "Shit, not Amy and Trowa! I thought I had beat that fucking jinx!"

"Now what, sir?" Sam asked tentatively. The Val Varo was still circling the area like a shark waiting hungrily for its prey.

"We wait him out." His commander sounded infinitely tired. "It's about all we can do. Hopefully he'll just go away. Maybe he'll think the shock got us, or shrapnel. If we're not so lucky, he'll try and finish us both off with that mega-particle beam. Either way he won't wait around much longer. A craft like that probably has more important stuff to deal with besides some insignificant GMs."

"Then why'd he waste so much time killing Trowa?" Sam demanded, infuriated. "No sir! I will not sit here and let myself be killed! I won't let my friend's death go unavenged either. I'm going to kill that son of a bitch!"

There was a violent whoosh as the air escaped from the cockpit of Sam's GM. He had climbed out of the GMs hatch and had crawled out onto its arm. As he reached the hand where the machine gun was held, he leapt towards the massive trigger.

Since the GM's weapon was basically an oversized version of its human counterpart and therefore, had no computer or electrical systems in it, it should still be capable of firing if there were only some way to operate the trigger.

"You stupid kid!" his commander yelled. "Throwing your own life away isn't going to bring Trowa back, and if you go through with what you're planning, you run the risk of getting the two of us killed also!"

"I don't care anymore!" Sam shouted back. "I've had it with this fucking war, and if I go down in a blaze of glory, then…then…" he hugged the trigger towards his chest.

The recoil was like being kicked in the gut by a very pissed mule, and it was only because the mobile suit's hand had spastically opened due to the EMP that Sam wasn't crushed into it's fist.

But his efforts were not in vain; a stream of bullets spat forth in the general direction of the Zeek, several even causing small explosions on its metallic hide. However, all that succeeded in doing was causing the glowing eye to swivvel in the direction of the assault.

"Not dead yet, huh?" Kelley thought to himself as he caught sight of the GM that had fired on him. "Persistent little bastard, got to give 'im that much."

He slowed the Val Varo to a stop and used his manoeuvring thrusters to centre the two targets on his viewscreen.

"Time to say good night," he said, and the particles began to dance before the maw of the mega-particle cannon.

"Schist! Where is everybody?" Hilde thought to herself. She'd managed to get by the Azure Wind's security and down to the hangar where her battered Guncannon was being stored by using one of the oldest tricks in the book: she'd said she had to go to the bathroom.

Granted, it wasn't quite that simple. She had to be escorted there by an armed guard, but he was fairly easily dispatched of. A swift kick in the balls and a knee to the face had taken care of that member of the Federation's Finest. After that it was only a matter of convincing the hangar bay officer to open the gates for her so that she could join the battle and support the Blue Destiny team. The tech crew had even been so kind as to reload and refuel her suit, and do some small repairs. It still wasn't much to look at, but it could pack a punch, by God.

Yet, once she had got clear of the ship, her radio had been bombarded by data on the enemy's final stand. They had really pulled out all the stops this time, unleashing every MS at their disposal and even some of their new mobile armours as well. Propaganda filled the broadband about some Zeek guy who fancied himself the "Nightmare of Solomon" or something like that.

But Hilde was most interested in joining the fight against one specific mobile armour. A real badass so it seemed, and not far from her present location. It was reported to be equipped with a high intensity mega-particle cannon and a new system of pods that could form an electromagnetic "web" around a small number of mobile suits.

A Zaku appeared before her and began riddling her suit with rounds from its assault rifle.

"Bastard!" she growled, "You'd pick on a cripple? How dare you!" She targeted the enemy with one of the machineguns the techs aboard the ship had been kind enough to furnish her with, and began blasting away.

The enemy was shocked that her suit could still fight in its present, shoddy state, and tried to escape.

"Oh, no it is way too late for that!" her left shoulder cannon fired off one of its massive shells and struck the fleeing Zeek right in its propulsion system. The explosion was truly spectacular.

But the thrill of victory was short lived, a sharp pain shot through Hilde's prosthetic leg where her real leg should have been. 'Phantom limb pain' she grimaced. It had happened several times before and was never a pleasant experience.

In spite of it all, she willed herself foreward. She still had to find that MA and help her comrades take it down.

"Attention, pilot of that busted piece of crap there," a familiar voice came over her radio, "that was some damn good shooting!"

Hilde turned to see who had made the comment and was surprised to see two of the three Blue Destiny units and a GM flying by.

"Of all the people in this Godforsaken sector of the Earth sphere, I'd have to run into you!" she shouted finally. "I'd sure as hell love to know what I did to deserve this!"

"A simple 'thanks' would've sufficed!" he shot back. "I offer you a fucking complement and the first thing you do is turn around and try to bite my head off! If you hadn't known it was me you wouldn't have been so rude."

She was stunned. He'd never stood up to her verbal abuse before; God, she thought it was sexy, though wild horses couldn't have dragged such an admission out of her.

"Not to break up such a tearful reunion," Leon's voice; only he would be so sardonic, "but we've got to warn someone about those bombs remember?"

"Crap!" Gene said, embarrassed that he'd forgotten so quickly. "Hilde, you're welcome to join us. We're heading back to the Azure Wind to alert the captain that the enemy possibly has gotten a hold of some old neutron bombs. Those are-"

"Back to the Azure Wind?" She interrupted, fear evident in her voice. "No, I can't go back there!"

"Because…" she didn't want to admit to her crime, lest they report her (plus, what would Gene think if he knew that she'd gone AWOL?-No, dammit! Why did she care what he thought?). "Because…we have more pressing matters to attend to! There's a mobile armour attacking our troops not far from here, and we've got to help them out!"

Hilde didn't know what the hell neutron bombs were, but she did know that nothing was going to get her back on that ship. She did a quick mental review of the conversation to see if something in the context could be used to dissuade them.

"Wait a second, you said that there was only a possibility that they were neutron bombs, right?"

"Yeah," Gene acknowledged carefully. "But it's a pretty good chance that they really are. The guy who's got them isn't very likely to bluff."

"Still…" she was running out of ideas, and so went with the emotional approach, "You'd put a possibility over the lives of your comrades who are in real danger? I know those Blue Destiny suits can be a big help in defeating that MA, so let's go do it already! And anyway, what if you turn out to be wrong about those bombs? You'd have the entire fleet up in arms over a false alarm! Diverting effort like that might actually cost us the battle!"

Who the hell was Amy, and why was she associating with Gene? No! That's not important at present!

"We could probably be of more direct help to the Federation's cause by taking down the MA," an unfamiliar blonde's face appeared on the monitor.

'Her ass had better not be involved with you Gene…' Hilde thought, and nearly overlooked the fact that this woman had agreed with her. "See?" she said, coming back to reality. "Now let's go!"

The Xero and Blue dueled back and forth across the void, neither seeming to take the upper hand. Yu charged, vulcans stuttering and hacking away with his sabre, but Nimbus deflected every attack with one bayonet, and returned fire with the gatling on his other hand.

Yu paused and held up his shield to deflect the hail of slugs, but the maelstrom was too much. The shield was torn apart and several shells hit Blue directly in the torsoe. That prompted Yu to fire his rockets, stored in pods on the outer edges on either side the chest. These did connect, and blew appart one of Nimbus' gatlings.

Nimbus used his thrusters and flipped over Kajima. He then planted one of the Xero's feet firmly into the small of Yu's back and sent him sprawling foreward.

Without thinking he lowered one of the neutron bomb containing bazookas and locked onto Yu's limp form.

Nimbus flinched. "Good point. I was not thinking." He disconnected both of the bazookas and flung both of them in the direction of the sun with as much force as his suit could manage. He knew they wouldn't make it; they wouldn't escape Earth's gravity well, but Yu got the message. It was unlikely they or the secret they contained would be found anyway.

"Hey Karen," Duo called from his bed in the infirmary aboard the Anubis, "You dead yet?"

He couldn't see to be sure, but he knew she was making a sour expression at him. "No I ain't dead yet. It'll take more than a few puncture wounds to kill me."

Duo sat up. The MedOffs had told him not to, because he was getting ready to go under the knife for an ocular surgery, but he didn't care. "Wait a minute, I thought you only had one shrapnel wound."

"Only one major one." She corrected. "I've got a bunch of smaller ones all up and down my arms, and a slight gash here." She pointed, but that did him little good as he was unable to follow her.

"Oh my Gawd! You mean to say that I'm actually worth apologising to?" he mimed wiping a tear from his eye. "Shucks, commander, I'm honoured."

"Shut up." Karen crossed herself. "It was just a slip of the tounge you arrogant bastard, and don't take it for more than that. You're still the same dumbass funny guy from Luna II in my book, so don't go getting a big head on me."

But Duo was enjoying this far too much to just let it go. "I'll always remember the Battle of A Baoa Qu now, because it was the first day my commander ever thought I was worth being apologised to."

"If you weren't in such bad shape over there, I'd gladly kill you myself." She glowered.

Duo laughed at her anger. "I don't think you mean that, chief. Deep down you like us, don't try and deny it now."

He slumped back into the bed and closed his eyes, wondering how Alex and Kiyone would do without his and Karen's leadership. 'They're both quick of mind,' he tried to reassure himself, 'they'll be okay.'

Still, with all that chaos out there, loosing a veteran commanding officer might be a big hurt for them, quick or not. The Zeeks weren't pulling any punches anymore; they were willing to fight to the last out here.

He had to admire dedication like that. These guys were real patriots, not like himself or Alex, or practically any other Fed soldier he'd ever come across. The Feds were just fighting to regain something that was lost; it was the principle of the thing. But the Zeeks, they were fighting with the fervour that burns within all revolutionaries-a staunch belief that theirs was the just cause in this battle and that therefore they would prevail.

Shit, when you looked at it that way, they were the ones with the right to win this war. Yet, in war, as with life, the ones with the natural right to something very often did not get what they sought. The ones with the natural might superseeded them and took the prize for themselves. It wasn't morally right, but, being a soldier of the mighty Federation himself, he could hardly call it wrong. That's just the way the world worked.

But he, like so many others on both sides, was just too tired to continue this war for much longer. He wanted to go home and to never have to think about mobile suits, or beam weapons, or guns, again. At least not until he had kids old enough to ask him if he'd ever killed anyone in the War.

"Kids," he mumbled. That was a laugh. Him, a father? He didn't even have the balls to propose to the woman who mattered most to him! What right did he have to be a "dad"?

As soon as his surgery was done, and the battle had died down some, he would go out and look for her. If everything he remembered was true, she should still be on that hospital ship. He would find her and propose right at her bedside.

Anavel Gato despised himself for having left Naomi at the asteroid fortress. He despised himself even more for allowing what had transpired to do so. He should have provided better cover for her, or given Kelley the cease-fire order much sooner; hell he shouldn't have wasted time fighting thos GMs anyway. They were much too far away to have posed any serious threat, and their mission was to take down battleships not waste time with the enemy's MS.

"This is almost as great a military blunder as Solomon was," he said to himself.

But then, at Solomon, and before, he had had Lt. Col. O'Rielly Cirrus to guide him. While it was true that he'd been separated from her and the rest of the Drakes during the heat of the battle, she'd at least been out there on the field with him, sharing in the thrill of the hunt.

Now, though, she was on the Other Side, leaving him to find his own path among the wreckage of the war. She'd cheated him; deserted him! She'd taken the easy way out and left him to struggle behind!

Gato felt the rage and helplessness welling up inside of him, and lashed out with his sabre at a passing GM, shredding it messily. He turned and fired upon another incoming bandit, obliterating it with little effort.

It was then that he recalled the conversation with Max all those weeks ago--weeks that may well have been aeons--about Cirrus' reasons for fighting in the first place. Hadn't she sworn revenge on a certain Fed pilot or captain? Because he had killed her husband? Could that have been the reason she died that day? A brush with the "Divine Wind" to be reunited with him?

But what did that make Gato and the other Drakes? Were they not important enough for her? After they had each given her so much--even their lives in Heero, Rei, and Sean's cases--they still weren't important enough to be worth living for?

"How could you be that selfish?" he howled in agony. At that instant, he no longer cared if he lived or died either, and that made him infinitely more dangerous than any of the Feddie legends about the "Nightmare of Solomon" could ever portend.

He was no longer thinking about Naomi or Kelley or Delaz. All he cared about was destroying as many Federal ships and mobile suits as possible, as if that would somehow bring Cirrus back. But no; he would not be like her, willing to sacrifice it all for another person. He would fight for the Cause, as a true warrior should. He would do what Cirrus could not: succeed in this game of war. The Independence of the Colonies was far greater than any one person, no matter how much they mattered to any specific Revolutionary.

Cirrus O'Reilly had been unable to see that, and that was why Cirrus O'Reilly failed.

Again and again, he swung his blade, and scores of Federal soldiers fell before him, yet he knew deep inside that the true Nightmare was only beginning.

Trowa Barton floated silently in the void. He felt as though every bone in his body had been shattered after he was flung from the wreckage of his GM after it had exploded due to the Zeek's bombardment, and just breathing hurt beyond any prior comparison.

"Shit," he grimaced as he turned his head to look back at the battle before him.

Both Sam's and his CO's GMs were dead in the water. He'd been conscious long enough to see the EMP web that had bound them and destroyed their interior circuitry, but had only been able to hope that they hadn't been killed.

Now he saw Sam climbing out onto his suit's arm and manually pull the trigger of the machine gun. He saw the tracer rounds whizz toward the circling Mobile Armour and hit it just hard enough to get its attention, but not hard enough to even dent its metallic carapace.

"No Sam, don't!" he tried to cry out over the radio in his helmet, but the impact after the explosion must've knocked the circuitry around, because he couldn't get through.

He could only watch as the metal titan prepared to fire its main battery at his helpless comrades.

'I guess this is it for me' Sam thought as he stared down his oncoming death in the form of a Zeon Mobile Armour. The mega-particles played before the cannon's gaping maw as the weapon powered up. 'I'm going to die here,' the realisation was finally starting to sink in.

"Good-bye, sir," he said, in a small voice to his commander. "I'm sorry about this."

"It ain't your fault, Sam," Sanders replied, sounding resigned to his fate as well. "He was probably going to come around and finish us off anyway, even if you didn't start shooting."

"Besides," he added, with a small chuckle, "it was a hot-headed act that would've done Trowa proud."

"Boom!" Hilde laughed. "Right up your oversized red ass ya stupid Zeek sonofabitch!"

The shell screamed toward the Val Varo from behind at maximum velocity, striking it in the aft section where the EMP pods were held. The I-field didn't even slow it down as it exploded violently on contact.

The force of the impact was enough to jar the MA's aim and send the blinding death beam sparkling off into the void, missing the helpless GMs by over ten metres.

The two Blue Destiny suits and GM began laying down covering fire to ward off the attack they all knew was coming. The MA turned on an axis and charged them, conventional beam cannons blazing.

"Shit!" Amy cried, "He's got some kind of deflector field! The shots from my beam gun aren't even touching him!" She flung her suit out of the way just as the Armour flew through the spot where she had been.

"Dammit; it's an I-field." Leon's voice. "Okay, everyone, we've got to get in close and hammer away with either machine guns or beam sabres. Hilde, if you'd bee so kind as to loan us those two guns you've got there, and lay down some mid-range cover with your cannons. Amy, you break for the downed suits and get their pilots to the nearest--whoa!'

The Val Varo made another close pass, nearly rending his suit to shreds with one of its massive pincer claws. He was able to dodge just in time.

"I think I follow you, Leon." Amy said as she dived forward towards the downed suits.

"Okay, guys, she's going for it so let's lay down a covering barrage on my mark," Leon would almost say that he was enjoying giving orders, but he was totally focused on bringing down the behemoth before him, and he didn't dare let his thoughts stray. "Now!"

Kelley had seen the GM make a rush towards its downed comrades, and had just turned the Val Varo around to destroy it with several energy blasts, when all of a sudden the other suits began to assail him from the rear. He had, in his drive to finish off the one GM, forgotten the first rule of space combat: never turn your back on an undefeated enemy.

He managed to get off two shots at the fleeing GM before his scanners picked up two incoming shells from the Guncannon. When those registered, he dove and banked hard, trying to come around behind it. He assumed that the MA could take its fire until he was too close for it to fire the shells, and then he would manhandle it with the claws.

The joke was on him though because now, the two Gundams had somehow picked up the Guncannons machine guns and were now able to pepper him with rounds that could actually get through the I-field.

The Val Varo's armour groaned in response to the heavy beating it was taking, but still didn't give. Soon he was indeed within range of the Guncannon, and fortunately for him, it was already mangled and unable to escape quick enough.

He seized the hapless suit with one of the claws and held it right before the mouth of the mega-particle cannon. The next move was on the Feddies, but he doubted the would fire while he had a hostage.

"Let me go! Let me go!" Hilde wrestled with the controls of the Guncannon, but the MA's hold was far too strong. "Dammit!"

She tried to manoeuvre one of her cannons around to face it, but she was held at such an angle as to make that impossible.

Gene on the other hand, sat silently, his gun trained steadily on the Mobile Armour.

Just as the silence seemed like it would stretch forever, an unfamiliar voice came over the com system. It was the pilot of the Mobile Armour. "Attention pathetic Feddie mobile suit force: if you all do not want the pilot of this suit to be killed, you will pull back immediately and allow me to escape."

"Like hell we will," Leon snarled. "You'll put her down right now or we'll open fire on you. It'd be a shame if we were able to get a round down that cannon of yours and blow your high horse right out from under your ass, wouldn't it?"

Suddenly a distinct rumbling sound began emanating from far behind her. It sounded almost like faraway thunder, but she knew that couldn't be the case--not in space anyway.

And then she saw the tiny particles beginning to glow and dance like fireflies before her viewscreen.

"Gene we've got to do something now!" Leon was sweating bullets. "If we don't, Hilde will…I'm all out of ideas! I can't take the shot now, the explosion would still kill her!"

"Come on Gene!" Leon pleaded. "Are you listening? Hilde is going to die! You've got to help me think of something!"

From inside the cockpit, Gene was glaring intently across the void at the monstrous weapon that held the only woman he'd ever loved in a vise-like grip. The Val Varo returned his look of hatred, an angry, blood red god of thunder preparing to smite the presumptuous mortals who had dared desecrate its silent palace.

"If Hilde means anything to you, anything at all, you'll help me try to find a way to save her! But Gene, for the love of all things Right and Holy, just do something!" Leon was yelling as the rumbling sound in the cannon reached its highest octave.

"Okay," Gene said simply and gunned his engines way past red-line, charging straight for the Zeek titan and its hostage.

"Gene, what the hell are you doing?" Hilde screamed. "Get back; he'll kill you!"

"Hilde, I don't have much time left, so I'm only going to be able to say this once." Gene was talking in a tone of voice she'd never heard before. He sounded totally serious and composed.

'But then,' she realised, 'perhaps this is how he always spoke, and I'm just now really starting to listen.'

"Don't, Gene! I know what you want to do, but you can't; No, not for me. Not after the horrible way I treated you."

He gave a wry smile. "It's okay, Angel. I always knew you'd come around in the end. Now, I want you to take care of Duo and you two have a good life together. Tell Alex I said good-bye too."

The Zeek in the Mobile Armour was only just now beginning to understand what was going on, but it was far too late to do anything except maybe dodge the worst of the oncoming explosion.

"I've got one last favour to ask of you, Angel," Gene began. He was only fifty metres from his target now, and closing fast.

"I've got a little sister at St. Mary's in Buenos Aires. I'd really appreciate it if you'd look after her for me. Her name's Natalia D'ark. She's a great kid; just like you in fact."

Silent Requiem This fanfic is complete.

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Silent Requiem

Chapter 18: A Baoa Qu: Blood and Iron