Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Deadly Beautiful ❯ Mission Accepted ( Chapter 26 )

Disclaimer: picks up pen I own this pen. tries to pick up Gundam Wing, but discovers that you can't pick up an idea Well, that was a useless effort at show-and-tell. But anyways, my point was, I don't own Gundam Wing.

Deadly Beautiful - Chapter 26

By danse

Noin leaned back in her chair and stretched like a cat, relishing the feeling as her tense muscles relaxed a bit. Her eyes felt dry after staring at a computer screen for the past three hours, not to mention the past three weeks.

It all felt like one long, monotonous day to her. Upon her rescue from the smoking remains of the South African Taurus training base, she'd been brought back to the OZ headquarters in France (a place she'd been to only twice before), and had spent nearly a month filling in a vacant secretary's position while she waited for some kind of verdict regarding her actions before, during, and after the explosion. She still hadn't heard a word from the people in charge of her case.

She took a sip of coffee. The one good thing about being mired here with files and computers, she thought, is that I see Zechs almost every day. She smiled with pleasure; that made the boredom of a desk job worthwhile. But the case.... She'd spent a whole month in an almost constant state of worry over what would happen to her. Would she be court-martialled, suspected of collaborating with the terrorist? Would this damned desk become her home? Would she be stripped of her title and honours, and sent back home in shame to explain things to her family? She'd eaten little and slept even less since her rescue, and it was showing. Her clothes hung from her, she had no energy, and there were bags under her eyes. She jumped at shadows, and was really beginning to feel like she might break down and cry at any moment. I'm so pathetic, she thought. I don't belong in the military. Should have stayed a teacher....

She sat up in her chair and glared at her computer screen, the colours and shapes blurring into invisibility in her vision as her mind did a downward spiral. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, and she ground her teeth as the world turned red. "THAT'S IT!" she suddenly yelled, rocketing to her feet. The chair shot backwards on its wheels and nearly tipped over, unnoticed. She turned on her heel and marched out of her little office, grabbing her officer's jacket from a hook behind the door and putting it on as she stomped down the corridor, startling other people and drawing stares. She noticed nothing except the end of the hallway.

In the otherwise-empty elevator, Noin paced in circles with her hands behind her back as she glared alternately at the floor and the little illuminated floor numbers over the door. When they read, '04', the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. She burst through them and walked down the upstairs corridor with steely determination. Officers and secretaries got out of her way, watching her retreating back as she made her way toward the office door at the end of the hall.

When she reached the heavy, wooden door, she paused only for an instant before shoving it open and marching into the office. "Commander Treize!" she barked. The man behind the desk jumped and stared at her in amazement. He'd been typing on his computer when she'd walked in. To his credit, though, he recovered quickly, and smiled warmly as he gestured to a chair in front of his desk.

"Lt. Noin," he said genially. "How nice of you to drop in. Please shut the door and make yourself comfortable."

Noin hesitated, slowly shutting the door behind her and watching his outstretched hand hesitantly. Treize had held her rank when she'd graduated from military school, and had risen quickly since then. She'd met him previously, but had never really gotten to know him. She'd expected (and had been hoping for) a good shouting match, and possibly threats of punishment for insubordination, and had prepared herself accordingly. The gentlemanly, civilized gestures he was giving her were throwing her for a complete loop. She sat.

"What did you need from me, Lieutenant?" he asked, leaning back in his seat. His blue uniform jacket was spread across the back of his chair, and the sleeves of his white dress shirt were rolled up to the elbows.

Noin stared at her hands, trying to hide the awkwardness she felt. "Um, well, sir...." She groped for different words than she'd planned to say. "It's been a month since... well, you know... and I was wondering...." She looked up, feeling like a little girl, and was startled by his intensely blue eyes. "Have you come to a decision about my case yet?" she asked.

"Ah, yes," he mused, staring thoughtfully into space. "The Taurus base.... I must be truthful, Noin--may I call you Noin? Yes, I must admit a bit of unintended deception on my part. You see, I never actually filed your case. As far as my superiors know, you're not supposed to be in any kind of trouble at all. Which is how things should be." He must have immediately noticed the amazed look on her face, because he chuckled. "No one who knows about it believes that you are to blame, Noin. The terrorist was a worthy adversary, to escape from you. Zechs told me about how you got that nasty bruise that was on your shoulder, and I believe that you certainly weren't lying in your report, when you said that you 'gave chase'. I'm sure you gave that boy one hell of a chase." He grinned.

"I... so... what...." Noin was too amazed for words. She'd spent three weeks worrying about a court-martial that would never come. "What have I been doing here for nearly a month, then?" she blurted out.

"Recuperating, I hope," the Commander answered. "Why, where have you been keeping yourself?"

"They've got me doing filing," she said.

"Oh? How is that going for you, then?"

She shrugged. "With all due respect, sir, I'm not a secretary. I'd rather be back in the field."

"I thought you might say that. I actually have an assignment for you, if you think you can do it." He reached for a small pile of papers on the side of his desk, and handed one of them to her.

"Liechtenstein?" she muttered. "What the hell's in Liechtenstein that's of any use to us? The whole country's probably smaller than this damn compound!"

"A bit of an exaggeration, but you're close," he said. "To answer your question about what the hell's in Liechtenstein, OZ has some interests there that need checking up on. Lieutenant Zechs is also going; you would be accompanying him."

Noin looked up from her paper sharply. "He is? I would? But," she looked back at her paper and mumbled the rest of her sentence, "I doubt he'd want me along, after South Africa."

"As a matter of fact, he wanted you to go. He explicitly told me that he wished you were back on field duty, since he needs someone else to accompany him."

Noin's heart thumped in her ears. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"I'll go," she said abruptly, tossing the paper on the desk. "He must think I'm worth something, if he actually asked to have me there. Someone of that high calibre... it'll boost my reputation again." She stood up and turned to leave.

"Lieutenant Noin...." Treize said, causing her to turn around again to face him. "I wouldn't sell yourself so short," he said seriously. "You graduated from Romefeller Academy with the second-highest grades in their history. That's nothing to sneeze at."

Noin stood straight and proud, looking Treize in the eyes. "Zechs had the highest."

Treize gave her an appraising look. "Yes... yes, he did, didn't he." It wasn't a question, and something lingered behind it, hidden in his tone. "Anyways, you are dismissed, Noin. Go have a nap; you two leave first thing tomorrow. I'll inform Zechs of the new circumstances."

Noin saluted him and left the room.

At the Maganac headquarters in Saudi Arabia, Quatre had just gotten up for the evening. He sat in the moderately-busy cafeteria, picking at a bowl of fruit salad and contemplating some tea to wake him up a little more. He glanced up briefly when H rolled up to the table and stole a piece of strawberry from his bowl, but merely grunted a 'Hi'.

"Good evening, Quatre," H said, much more eloquently. "May I ask how your new quest is going?"

"You mean to find an army? I don't even know how to start. It's useless. I've been thinking about it from the moment you mentioned it, and I can't think up a viable plan. It sucks," he grumped, stabbing his spoon into a piece of cantaloupe to punctuate his sentence.

H leaned back a little in his chair, staring at Quatre thoughtfully. "In all of the many years that I've known you, Quatre, I have never once heard the same degree of abject self-pity that you are displaying now. I can't say that it inspires me, either, so I can only imagine what it does for you." He tapped a nail on the arm of his chair. "Now, I know you have something cooking in that brain of yours, whether it's related to your non-existent army or not. Tell me; it will take your mind off of your problem."

Quatre gave H a sidelong look, and then sighed. "I'm planning to attack an OZ base in Algeria. Rashid told me that he'd give me a few men."

H nodded. "Good idea. When do you plan to do it?"

"I want to leave in four days," Quatre answered. "Just enough time to prepare, and then leave."

"I'll leave you to your business, then," H said, wheeling away. "Let the problem rest; things may solve themselves, right?"

Quatre nodded. H left the cafeteria and went back to the War Room, heading for the big desk. He looked around the room to make sure he was alone, and then opened a desk drawer to reveal stacks of paper--hard copies of the data that had been obtained from OZ. He put the stack on his lap and flipped quickly through it, looking for a particular chart. He found it and made a triumphant noise, grabbing a pen from his pocket. After copying the co-ordinates and other details of the base that Quatre planned to attack onto a blank piece of paper, H replaced the data and left the room quietly, heading for his own quarters and the computer there, ready to initiate his new plan.

He had some very important information to leak to four other people.