Silent Requiem, a fanfic by Nightmaresama, chapter 22

The massive fortress Axis loomed outside the armour-glass windows at the bridge of the Lily Marlene. It was far smaller than A Baoa Qu, but roughly the same size and shape as Solomon. It was also much more remote than either of the Duchy's other two fortifications.

'The former Duchy,' Cima thought with a dark sense of pleasure. 'Those fools in the High Command had been very eager to sign the armistice the Feddies lay before them. Perhaps that will teach them to bite off more than they can chew. "The Glorious Revolution," "Colonial Independence," what garbage! They needed a big slice of Humble Pie and now they've got it. All over their faces!'

The space around Axis was crowded with ships just like hers all seeking refuge from Federal occupation forces. Construction was being done to add a whole new block of living quarters for them all. Cima's Zanzibar waited in line for recognition and approval to enter the docking bay.

'But what are we doing here?' she asked herself again. 'If the Duchy treated us so poorly, why come back to it in search of refuge?'

She really didn't have one good answer for that. There was an opportunity to make a move in the power vacuum, certainly, but that was for big fish like the Red Comet and his cronies (though there were reports circulating that he may have died in the explosions as the fortress fell. He was fighting the Gundam after all.)

Cima also harboured a hope, deep within the iron shell she had cast around her heart, that possibly, the new regime would have pity on her and her comrades for putting them through the hell of the G3 attacks and the outright gall of converting their home colony into that damned solar ray. It wasn't that she hated the Zabi regime for what it had attempted to do; many of their goals had seemed nobel to her, once upon a time. Maybe, they would be able to reconcile. She'd repayed her debts, the Old Order had fallen, and there was a possibility that the records of the attack had been lost to the flames of war. Maybe…

A call came in from the port operator. Kosar, her adjutant identified it as the base commandant pro tempore, Maharaja Karn.

"Ms. Cima," the face that filled the Lily Marlene's main monitor looked as dour as any she'd yet come across, "am I right in understanding that your vessle is seeking quarter here at Axis?"

Cima stood at full attention. "Sir! That would be correct sir! We fought bravely throughout the war, but our home colony was the one converted into the cannon for the Zeonic Solar Ray. We have no place else to turn. Please accept us here among others who have fought for the glory of Zeon!" she felt slightly hypocritical saying that, but what the hell? They needed quarter, and if kissing up and lying were likely to help her men and herself get it…well, when in Rome…

The commandant's face scowled more harshly than it had before, leaving it a veritable grimace of disgust. "You, the pirates of the Lily Marlene, presume to ask for quarter from the civilised and honourable soldiers of Axis? The very notion is laughable! Your request is denied!"

Cima was taken aback by his bluntness, and it took several seconds for what he said to register. "I'm sorry, sir? May I ask why our request is so flatly rejected?"

"Certainly, Commander Garahau," Karn said tightly. "Surely you know how your reputation precedes you. That you and your men are the most notorious butchers of the One Week War? Your deplorable role in the G3 gas attacks has rendered you a veritable brigand among your fellow officers. Accepting you into Axis would cause mass dissent among our already factionalised inhabitants. You understand that, of course, but the other reason is that you disgust me personally, and I will not have the flag of Zeon stained by your presence here."

Cima stared at the monitor in total shock. He had blatantly insulted her and her men to her face! Not only that, but he had singled them out among the hundreds of ships that had taken part in that shameful display.

"Sir!" she said, plaintively, "surely you know that we were only following the orders given to us by the Brass! Under normal circumstances we would never do anything as horrible as that!"

"Well, in conversing with your superiors, I have yet to hear any evidence to support such a story."

"This is not my problem, Commander." Her superior shrugged with cold indifference. "You should have considered this before you murdered those innocent civilians."

"I can see that!" Cima raged. "That bastard! Who does he think he is? He sounds just like Gato, a robot programmed only to better Zeon and follow orders. Yet, the one time that I behave in such a manner, it becomes an albatross around my neck that I can never remove!"

Cima Garahau returned to her command chair and sat pensively for several moments. "We shall return to the Earth Sphere," she said at last. "From there, we shall do exactly as we please. They wish to call us pirates? Then Pirates we shall become! Someone, pull up the routes of the Jupiter Energy Fleet! The time for the hunt is upon us."

"But ma'am," one of her subordinates called out, "by giving in to the stereotypes about us, won't we only further alienate ourselves from Axis?"

Rachel Sawyer sat in her best business wear outside the closed doors of the justice centre on Konpei Island. Alex was already inside along with his CO, Karen, and Trowa. They were discussing the fate of some woman doctor who had been accused of treason. Rachel didn't know a whole lot about Court Martials, or really anything about this young woman, but it was important to Alex so she had come along.

Did Alex really see this other woman as important? Did he have feelings for her? He had told Rachel that there was something he needed to come clean with her about; was it that he had had an affair with her?

Yet as Rachel thought about it, it became clear that she couldn't really blame him if he had. Sure the two of them had expressed that they had feelings for one another, but he hadn't called her, and she had always been too busy to call him; maybe he had thought that she had forgotten about him?

That and, in the brief glimpse she had of the accused, Rachel could plainly see that she was attractive.

"And she wears glasses too," Rachel said to herself in hushed tones. Her finger slid involuntarily to her own wire-frames and pushed them up on the bridge of her nose.

She leaned back in the chair she was sitting in and picked up her book. It was a very interesting piece; very pshycological and deep. It was all about the End of the World and giant machines used to combat equally giant ethereal enteties called Angels. A little deeper than most books she read, and a lot more confusing, she still found it highly enjoyable.âˆ-

"So, Lieutenant Joshua, you are saying that your unit did not possess the weapons mentioned in the transcripts?" The judge seated in the farthest left seat asked.

"Of course we didn't!" Karen replied, hotly. "The mere fact that such a statement was made is ludicrous! I don't even know where the nuclear stockpile is for Chrissakes! How the hell would we have got them?"

"I'll thank you to mind your toung in the courtroom lieutenant, but your point is taken." The judge nodded.

Alice Miller shook her head. "You can't trust what she says, Your Honour! She was an associate of Shiro Amada, back in Southeast Asia. She probably is a Zeon sympathiser herself."

"Watch it, bitch!" Karen slammed her hand down of the podium where she stood. "If you have a problem with me, fine, but you sure as hell better leave my former commander outta this."

"That will be quite enough from both of you!" the judge in the centre seat said. "Try to remember that this is a courtroom not a bar!"

"So it seems that we have resolved that aspect of the charges." The left judge spoke again. "Dr. Bannock, is there anything you feel as though you need to say for yourself, in your defense?"

Michelle's eyes flicked over to where Alex sat. He looked very uncomfortable about being there. Part of her felt sorry for having dragged him into this, yet another part saw it as him getting his just desserts.

It felt like a dream, more than anything else. Was she really here? She didn't belong before a tribunal; she was a doctor! How had she come to this point?

"Sir," she began, her voice strained, "I…I want to apologise. I did something unthinkable and put the lives of others at risk. In a way, I violated my Hippocratic Oath. But please try to understand where I am coming from."

"I am not a soldier, nor do I even claim to be one in the least. I sereved the Federation to the best of my capablities, but I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. I became infatuated with Petty Officer Kincaid after I was put in charge of his recovery after the battle of Solomon. I did not know he already had someone in his life, and when I did find out, I took it very harsh. I…I didn't know what to do. I felt so trapped, so alone; the only thing I could think of was how could I exact some sort of revenge. At this point, when I let go of all logical thought and surrendered myself to my emotions, I made the call to Warrant Officer Sterling, a college friend. I believe you are already familiar with the rest of the story."

"I can't justify what I did to any degree. I put the lives of not only Officer Kincaid and Lieutenant Joshua, but also of their other two comrades. Innocent lives were put at risk because of my bitterness, and it is only fortunate that none of them were killed." She hung her head.

"Sounds like some sort of trite Greek Tragedy to me," Miller snorted. Even as she said that, though, something about the story struck a chord within her. She still needed to bid a final farewell to Heero…

Michelle looked at Alex again. "One last thing, Alex: I really loved you, and I wish you well. Thank you for at least pretending to care…for a little while anyway." She turned back towards the judges. "I am ready to accept my fate, Your Honours."

"Very well, then," the judge in the centre said. "Court is in rescess until we have reached our verdict." He seemed to have been slightly affected by Michelle's story, but would it have done enough to help her escape the firing squad?

Trowa wheeled himself down the ramp to the courtroom floor, towards Michelle. He was beaming.

"You did great, kiddo!" he smiled at her. "I doubt there was a dry eye in the place, after you got done talking!"

She nodded and gave a forced half-smile to compliment his. She really didn't care anymore, she just wanted this all to be over with.

"I'm real proud of you," Trowa continued. "I came as soon as Naomi called and filled me in. You can imagine how shocked I was to be getting a telephone call from a Zeon Lieutenant, but she wasn't anywhere near as bad as I expected. Where is she now?"

"She was not allowed to return to the proceedings," Michelle said, softly. "They didn't want a Zeon expatriot snooping around on Konpei Island."

"That's too bad," Trowa said with a shrug. "Oh well. Hey, I think you got your point across to Kincaid too. I bet he feels this big right now!" he held his thumb and index finger a few centemetres apart.

She gave another half-smile. "Thank you for coming, Trowa. I needed all the support I could get. If they put me before a firing squad-"

"Hey, don't even talk about that!" he cut her off. "You're going to get through this okay. Even if you and I have to go AWOL to get away!"

Michelle nodded. "You do know that Bonnie and Clyde were killed in a shoot-out, though, right?"

At that time, the judges returned. And took their seats again. Trowa had to return to the witness box.

"Doctor Michelle Elizabeth Bannock, please rise," the judge in the centre of the tribunal commanded.

"By order of the power vested in this tibunal, we find you guilty on one count of treason."

Her heart sank like a stone. She could feel the blood receding from her face as it went ghostly white. 'This is it,' she thought. 'I am going to die.'

"However," the judge on the right finally spoke up. "Because no one was killed as a result of your actions, and because the information you distributed was false to begin with, we are reducing your sentence from death by a firing squad to ten years encarceration, with the possibility of parole."

Michelle's legs quaked benethe her, and she thought that she would fall. Compared to death, ten years seemed like nothing. And a possibility for parole? She couldn't have asked for a better ruling.

"What?" Alice Miller gaped in shock. "You aren't going to do any more than that? She's a spy for God's sake! She went to the Zeeks and tried to have Federation soldiers killed! You can't just let her go!"

"Ms. Miller, I think you ought to retire for the remainder of the day," the judge to the left said. "You are too tired to perform well."

She gave him a withering glare, but conceded. "Very well, Your Honour, but I still do not believe that justice was served here."

"That's not really, your call to make, Ms. Miller." The judge returned. He then rapped his gavel on the table. "Court is adjourned."

"So what do you think about all this, Kincaid?" Karen asked as the two of them rose to leave along with the other witnesses and audience members.

Alex thought about it for a moment as the two of them headed for the door, swept along by the flow of the crowd. "I…I'm glad for her." He said at last, with a self-assuring nod. "Yeah. She may have been overly-possesive and emotional, but you can tell that her heart is in the right place. I hope that she finds happiness one day."

"I suppose so," Karen shrugged. "I never really got to know her on the level that you did, but I am a little pissed that she'd let her emotions for you put the rest of our lives at risk, but what the hell? We're all alive now, and that's what counts."

Michelle was talking to Trowa again when Alex approached her. Perhaps that was a sign that maybe she would find happiness after all?

"Oh, Alex." Michelle cast her eyes to the floor. Trowa bristled, but said nothing.

She smiled, but would still not meet her gaze. "Thank you. I meant what I said up there, too: I really do apologise. For that, and for everything else."

"No, I'm the one who needs to apologise, Michelle," Alex said. "I'm the one who should've said something about Rachel in the first place. It's just that…it was really complicated back then."

"Well, I wish you the best, Alex. I hope you and she are happy together." Finally she was able to meet his eyes.

The parted ways, each feeling a separate sense of closure and feeling happy about it.

"Knock, knock!" Squall McDaniels called out as he opened the door to the small brick house he shared with Priss. "Guess who's home!"

"Dammit, Priss!" he shouted to the empty house, "At work again? Do you have any idea just how long I've had to go without? I'm dying here!"

"Oh really?" her voice floated in from the kitchen. Apparently she had been home after all.

He gave a nervous laugh as he rounded the corner and saw her at the table. "Sorry 'bout that, Sweetie. Didn't hear you in here."

She gave a malicious grin. Priss was the only person who could match him in terms of sardonic wit; that was one of the reasons he'd married her after all.

"Hot damn!" he said as he sat down across from her at their small wooden table. "No more military rations! God it's good to be home!" Her cooking was one of the other reasons he'd married her (whenever she was home from work long enough to cook).

"Sex and food, is that all I am for you?" she asked, pointedly. She read him like a book.

"Those letters?" she pointed to a stack of unopened envelopes on the kitchen counter.

"I was busy at work," she shrugged. "That and the guy next door kept trying to come on to me."

Leon grumbled but did return to eating. "Where should I begin?" he asked when he had finished his bowl of noodles. "There's so much to tell. Like the time I got lost in the Canadian tundra. Or the battle of California base (I'm an Ace, I'll have you know). Or the Blue Destiny suits, but those are sort of classified. Or even the final battle of A Baoa Qu. That's where my buddy was killed."

"What? That was, Gene, right? He was killed? How terrible!" she sounded really concerned.

"Yeah, tell me about it. He was my best friend out there, but he sacrificed his life for the woman he loved. Nobel way to go." Leon said solemly.

"But, I thought you said he was in love with that German girl? The one who was always so terrible to him."

He nodded. "That's the one. But she sorta started coming around in the end. I heard that she was totally crushed afterwards."

"At least the war is over though." Leon said at last. "Thank the Most High for that."

"Uh-huh. I'm glad you made it back safely, Dear. You were already my hero, but now your one of the Federation's champions too."

"No," Leon emphatically shook his head. "The real heroes are the ones who sacrificed much more than I did. People like Gene who lay down there lives for the cause. Now we need only make sure that their sacrifice does not go in vain. We've got to preserve the peace we fought so hard for."

Silent Requiem This fanfic is complete.

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Silent Requiem

Chapter 22: Conclusion