Midii Une
pounded on the door of the second room loudly.
“Alex, Jason,
you’d better get up and get ready for school! I mean it this time, if you keep
sleeping you’re going to be late. And I need your help with the chores later
today so don’t go anywhere,” she ordered.
“Michael!” she
called pounding on the third door. “Michael, come on you have to get up too.
Let’s go, up and at ‘em, or do I have to get out the bucket!”
Her threat was
met with a series of groans emanating from the other side of the door. She
nodded to herself in satisfaction. Boys would be boys, she went through the
same routine every morning she was able to stay at home. She found it oddly
comforting in a way, too bad she couldn’t stay there all the time.
She made a
polite knock on the door at the end of the hall.
“Father?”
“I’m awake
Midii,” came the voice from the other side. Hoarse and raspy but Midii held out
the fragile hope that today there was a slight difference. Was he perhaps
feeling a little stronger? Was that an extra note of vigor she heard in his
voice?
“May I come
in?” she requested. She was always careful to request. Her father, a proud and
independent man who had once been so strong and provided well for his wife and
children, was sensitive about his condition. He was an invalid now, a withering
husk of the great man he had been. She always waited until he was fully ready
to greet her or anyone else before she entered his private chambers.
“Yes,
daughter,” he said. Her father sat there in his wicker chair, with his flaxen
hair neatly combed and tied away out of his face. He had large expressive blue
eyes the color of the sky on a clear winter day. She had inherited her eyes and
her hair from him, but her features were purely her mothers, a stubborn jaw and
full lips that were more often than not pulled into an expression of proud
willfulness. Her fair facial appearance, once rounded by a child’s baby-fat,
had melted into fine graceful features; high cheekbones, slim waist, willowy limbs.
Her body retained a look of fragility about it, being slight and feminine, but
the young woman herself was about as fragile as tempered steel. She’d have to
be tough to survive, nay prosper, in her profession. If indeed one could call
barely being able to keep the bills paid and her family fed as well as make the
payments on the enormous debt she owed prospering.
“Hello father,
I trust you are well today?” she said as she began making up his bed and
collecting his laundry.
“Yes, I’m
feeling much improved,” he said. They went through this routine every morning
she was able to be home and running the household. Her father was an optimist;
he truly believed that he was going to get better. Midii hoped it was true in a
vague sense but she couldn’t really bring herself to believe it. She had lived
with her father in the condition he was in for too long to really picture him
any other way. He was frail looking, thin and bony, with pale skin like fragile
white parchment. When he coughed the coughs wracked his body and left him
shaking with fatigue for minutes afterward. There were days when he was too
weak to leave his bed. On those days he’d be “just resting, just gathering his
strength for the final push.”
While father
continued to wait for his final push into recovery, Midii went out and found
ways to make money so the family could keep eating as well as pay off the huge
debt she owed the Consortium. It was an enormous debt too. When her mother had
first fallen ill and they had taken her to the hospital, father had had enough
money to make ends meet from his small fishing business off the coasts of their
village, but as her condition worsened the hospital bills began to rise. Her
father had suffered a bad season and lost one of his boats (captained by his
brother) in a storm, with the effectiveness of his business halved and the bulk
of his savings going to cover medical expenses, Tory Une was hard pressed to
keep his family afloat.
That was when
Sharry Une’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. Midii had been eight at
the time but she could still remember visiting her mother in the hospital and
how she had looked to thin and delicate lounging back against the pillows. The
Consortium, the local equivalent of the Yakuza, had come to her father offering
to loan him some money to cover the suddenly increased hospital bills, saying
he could pay it all back in another year. Her father had taken them up out of
desperation, his wife was getting sicker by the day and the hospital could ill
afford to keep her when there were so many wounded drifting in from the
fighting going on in their small country. He had ben afraid they would turn her
out to die, so he’d taken the Cosortium’s loan hoping that he could make a good
haul that year and be able to pay them back in full so they couldn’t collect
interest. It had been another bad year. They had not only not been able to pay
off the debt to the Consortium, they hadn’t even been able to make the payment
on their house, a large ancestral abode that her mother’s family had lived in
for generations. Father had thought he might have to take out a lien on the
house in order to cover the rising medical costs (Midii remembered being
awfully damned sick of eating fish that year) on top of that he had broken his
leg taking through a storm that year and had been laid up, but the Consortium
had generously offered to extend the time on the debt in exchange for a minor
service, an act of good faith really.
The rebel army
and the
It had been
the start of a long and difficult road for her (her mother had died somewhere
along the way). The Consortium had taught her the way of the spy, how to use
her looks and innocent appeal to charm her way into a group by looking lost and
frightened so they’d take her in. Her missions were clear and her objectives
simple; locate a rebel camp infiltrate and transmit the coordinates with her
handheld, and pin a transmitter on one of the soldiers so that the
Bounty Hunter.
It paid a lot better, provided that she could catch and behead the little
buggers before someone else beat her to it, There her work as a spy came in
handy. She could infiltrate traveling-databases and security networks to locate
the last known sighting of her prey, she could also keep tabs on the movements
of her rivals. She grew proficient at the job over the years; her young body
had been honed and perfected into wiry whipcord toughness by daily practice of
the martial arts, her reflexes were faster than thought itself. Shrewd,
cunning, she worked alone. Using her portable palm-top (a must for any Bounty
Hunter) she constantly checked the Lists, looking for ant new or old hits worth
her time to hunt down. She chose based solely on the amount of money offered
and once her target had been selected she hunted it down with ruthless
efficiency. Once she found it (and she had never once failed to find the
target) she struck swiftly and with deadly accuracy, the head of the target was
usually stored safely in a cryo-box within an hour.
She could kill
as easily as some could draw breath now and she rarely ever came back from a
hunt empty handed. She had trained herself at a young age to push aside her
guilt, it was necessary as a spy. If she’d allowed herself the luxury of
feeling the immense remorse for every life that was ended as a result of her
actions she’d drive herself mad. So she’s taken the practical approach, they
were soldiers and knew they would die because everyone died; she needed to
money from the job to feed her family. It was a war people died. They killed
others for their beliefs, for their country… she killed them for money. These
were facts. Maybe they weren’t pleasant but in a war only the strongest made it
through alive. In her life as a bounty hunter, she still didn’t feel any
regrets about the men she killed. Her early training and philosophy still
stood; never to regret a kill. Those people were scum, she was doing the world
a favor. Evil had no rights. They were criminals and murderers, the money she
made from their deaths would enable her family to go on living. On occasion she
took on other work, infiltraitor, information dealer, professional assassin,
thief of artifacts, but only if they paid her well enough. The occasional
contracts she took from the Preventors made her feel oddly good inside but she
couldn’t afford to work for them regularly, they didn’t pay nearly enough.
Still, she was all for augmenting her usual bounties with some salt from the
Preventors when prices and good hits got lean. All in all, things were just
barely squeezing by. She had been back at her home for a week to recuperate
from a long stint of hunts out in space but she really should get started
looking for more work. The bills and debts wouldn’t pay themselves.
“You are…
leaving so soon?” he father questioned delicately. He hated to see his only
daughter forced to go out and kill in order to support their family. As the
father and head of the household Tory Une felt it was his responsibility to
support the family, but there was no way he could in his present condition.
Some days it was all he could do to get out of bed and they both knew it. Midii
was strong like her mother, but Tory hated seeing his daughter grow colder year
after year as she lost more and more of her heart with every person she killed.
“Yes. I should
be back soon with more money,” she offered hopefully. “The last run was only
enough to cover this semesters share of the debt, I still need to get money for
food and to pay for this house. Those don’t cost nearly as much so I should be
back soon.”
“I hope so
Midii, we all miss you when you’re gone,” her father said quietly.
“And I miss
you all when I am gone. Try to make sure the boys don’t burn down the kitchen
or get into trouble with old Oji while I’m gone,” she said with a little smile.
<I never
feel regret, even though I must carry this family on my shoulders. I never
regret any of it because I love them all so much. I don’t care what happens to
me, just as long as my family is safe,> she thought with a final kiss on her
fathers cheek she went to double check her gear before she went back to her other
life.
She was quite
famous in the dark seamy underworld that collected thieves, murderers,
whoremongers, druggists, crime syndicates, mercenaries, spies and yes, the
Bounty Hunters who preyed on them all. A lot of the same rules that had been
taught to her when she was a spy still applied to her life as a bounty hunter.
Trust no one, never reveal your weaknesses, love no one for they can be used
against you, be ready to turn against your own best friend in order to survive,
be ready for when they do the same thing to you, always have an escape route
handy, never reveal all of your weapons, sleep in your armor, treat your own
wounds, never take anything for granted, watch out for shadows, work alone,
never turn your back to the entrance… the list went on and on. But Midii lived
by three main ones; trust no one, never reveal your weaknesses, and work alone.
Her family was one hell of a large weakness, a chink in her otherwise perfect
armor that someone could drive and entire fleet of mobile dolls through. Hence,
Midii Une was not Midii Une when she was a bounty hunter, she became
Shadowblade. Shadowblade was a legend; a ruthless man-slayer who could melt
into the night itself and the only sound his victim would hear would be the
sound of a blade biting through the flesh of their neck. Shadowblade was death
in the darkness. It was said his sword had taken the lives of hundreds of men
in the still shadowy darkness and introduced them all to everlasting night. He
was silent, deadly, and once he had someone targeted he never rested nor slept
until that person was dead by his blade. He was as inevitable as the night
itself. He was never heard coming nor leaving, but left behind only a headless
corpse and blood pooling on the floor.
Midii Une hid
behind the mask of Shadowblade to protect her family. If anyone had ever gotten
wind that Shadowblade had people he cared about, she had no doubt in her mind
that she would come home to find them all slain. She couldn’t allow her
lifetime full of hard work, bargains, betrayals and slayings to come to naught.
Besides, there were still places in the underworld she lived and hunted in that
was too dangerous for a known woman to enter. Midii had no desire to wake up
imprisoned in a cell in a bonkshop being sold to the highest bidder. She had
heard that those who ran those houses for illicit pleasures had ways of making
even the most fierce compliant and she didn’t want to know what those ways
were. She’d also knew that there were men, and sometimes, women out there who
had very peculiar and unusual tastes; a warrior with a high pain threshold
would last longer than most and so probably fetch a good price. No, Shadowblade
was a man; a very dangerous and heartless killer of a man. Fortunately for
Midii, she’d never be busty so she could fit the part well if she hid her
curvature behind her protective body armor. No one would ever suspect the
masked bounty hunter Shadowblade and the delicate-looking Midii Une were one
and the same.
<It’s
almost time to get to work,> she thought, scrolling down the list of likely
targets she had selected previously. Ten names, each of them worth at least a
thousand Uni-Sphere Credits. That would be enough to feed her household and
cover the bills while she was out hunting for more to pay the next debt payment.
* * *
The man who
was called Trowa Barton in the year After Colony 199 was not quite the same
young man who had helped put down the Barton Army in After Colony 196, nor was
he quite the same young man who had fought so skillfully for the colonies in after
colony 195. He certainly wasn’t the same boy who had been called merely No-name
by the mercenaries he had fought with for as long as he could remember. For one
thing, he had family now; a nagging, overprotective but affectionate older
sister named Catherine who on occasion liked to throw knives at him, but only
while there were people watching, who was always happy to haul out her soup
kettle and whip up a fresh batch of stew whenever Trowa might find himself
hungry (or more likely pour the stuff down his throat at the merest hint of a
sniffle) or always look displeased and worried when his old comrades from the
wars showed up. For another thing, he had friends. Real fiends; that was
something No-name had always been too empty for and the Gundam Pilot Trowa
Barton had been too distracted to appreciate. Heero Yuy, the pilot he was
probably closest to understanding was usually willing to listen to what he had
to say, he even offered sage advice on occasion. Duo Maxwell, easy-going and
friendly but death incarnate when roused to battle, was an unbreakable tie as
he seemed to see himself and the other pilots as another version of the
close-knit street gangs he’d grown up with. Quatre Raberba Winner, kind-hearted
and gentle with the soul of an artist and the steel will of a warrior, was
probably his closest friend of all the pilots the first he’d met they shared a
strange common understanding of the way the universe worked. Then Wufei Chang,
with his inflexible sense of honor and his black and white way of looking at
the world, they were both accustomed to fighting singularly and found working
as a team unsettling (all of them except Quatre and Duo that is) but Wufei
often cut out all that chatter nonsense and got straight to the heart of
things, Trowa liked that about him. Friends and family… if he was able to go
back in time and tell his former self No-name about how full and wonderful his
life now was, he very much doubted that they young boy with the empty eyes
would believe him. No name never felt anything, pain anger, sadness joy love
regret all were closed books to the apathetic young soldier.
So perhaps
being a clown was a rather ironic career choice given his quiet personality and
general lack of clownishness but he found that life at the circus suited him.
He was part of something. They were a group of people who had no allegiance to
any land or country and no ties but to each other; no home but the road. They
were modern day gypsies who brought laughter and life to otherwise boring out
of the way places, who treated the hearts of young children to wonder and
amazement. Even Trowa felt special when he looked out at the audience and saw
the smiling faces of young boys and girls who had never known a day of battle
or the threat of war. And that was what he’d fought for. He’d fought to protect
the colonies, he’d fought to end the war so no other children would grow up
alone and empty, nameless and holdless like he had been.
To that end,
he still took the occasional job for the Preventors (over his elder sister’s
very loud and vocal protestations) usually when all the other reserve agents
were already otherwise engaged. He had a special com channel in his trailer
with a line that went directly to the office of Lady Une, the head of the
Preventors. If he was needed, she would call. Trowa hadn’t answered a summons
since A.C. 199, that had been two years ago. He and his old comrades still kept
in touch, due mainly to the concentrated efforts of Duo and Quatre (the most
sociable of the group) but they hadn’t all been together on a mission since the
tiny little dust up in A.C. 197 ((A.N. the terrorist attack left unfinished in
Episode Zero, anyone reading a Trowa and Midii fic has probably read or at
least heard of it anyway right?)).
That was why
it came as such a surprise when one morning, out of the blue and completely
unexpectedly, the com unit started bleeking at him. Puzzled, Trowa answered it
promptly to see a tired and harried looking Lady Une staring back at him. When
he had first met the good Lady she had been the heartless and cold Colonel Une,
a woman who would use any means necessary to further the ideals of her
commanding officer Trieze Kushrenada and underhanded tactics were not a problem
for her. The woman who sat on the other end of the line was vastly different;
kind yet firm, gentle yet with a core of unyielding strength… she was still
willing to do whatever necessary to ensure peace but her shall we say
enthusiasm was tempered by restraint and caring. She saw her agents as not just
soldiers, but as being part of those whose lives she would have to protect. The
grief brought on by Trieze’s death still lingered around her eyes, but the Lady
had strengths of her own. All in all Trowa respected her now in a way he never
had when he had been her little golden boy pilot under her in OZ, infiltrating
and spying on the organization. She opened without preamble
“Agent Smoke,
I need you down in HQ immediately. I’ll brief you when you get here,” she said.
“I’ll find
someone to cover for me. I’m on my way,” he said shortly, cutting off the link.
He had already finished his chores for the day and Cathy could throw knives at
anyone who could stay still long enough. He went to find the manager.
A scant few
hours later (most of that time was spent in calming down and reassuring his
older sister) Trowa found himself with a carisak over his shoulder standing at
the gate to Preventors HQ. It had once been a military headquarters but it had
been refitted into the main base for the Preventors. The complex was roughly
triangular in shape, the right point on the triangle held the main
administrative center, it held the offices where the Preventors filed their
reports and kept their files and were briefed for missions as well as several
rooms for conferences (which would be converted into “war rooms” should the
need arise) as well as the main communications center and the offices for the
liaisons to civilian security. The left point of the triangle held the
auxiliary and supportive services… the vehicle garage, the airstrip, the main
armory, the back up systems generator, maintenance and such. The third arm was
the “civilian arm.” That was where housing and barracks, the PreEx (store), the
commissary, on-base theatre, gym and other niceties and perks were contained.
Trowa headed straight to the brain of the HQ. Une would undoubtedly be
expecting him.
He’d been
right, as soon as he walked down the hall he was waved on into the office by
her administrative assistant.
“Three hours
and fifteen minutes mister Barton,” she said in her cold I-expect-better-of-you
‘colonel voice,’ but there was an underlying tone of humor in it. “Your sister
must have been particularly reluctant to part with you this time… did her last
assistant lose his nerve?”
Trowa chuckled
quietly. His older sister’s protectiveness of him was a running joke among the
Preventor Elites(which consisted of the five Gundam pilots, Zechs, Noin, and
Sally). Quatre had found himself on the bad side of it a time or two and kept
inquiring whether she had actually meant it when she said he was welcome to
stand in for Trowa any time but not to expect to come out of the experience a
whole man (but he had twenty nine sisters of his own so he couldn’t throw any
stones). Wufei had said that the threat of death by souping still made him wake
in a cold sweat some nights, yes, even Wufei had a sense of humor, however dry.
Heero, the smart one, usually passed messenger duty onto someone else so he’d
never had the chance to encounter Trowa’s famed elder sister.
“You summoned
me here for a reason?” he inquired, getting down to business now that the
greeting chit chat had been observed.
“Yes. I have
my usual agents out in the field right now and can’t remove them and most of
the Elites who would normally take the job are already out on assignment.”
“Oh?” he
queired, his expression inviting further comment. It wasn’t like Une at all to
stretch her forces to thin, especially in these apparently peaceful times.
“Duo and Hilde
are keeping an eye for space pirates along the usual trade routes from their
sweeper vessel. Wufei and Sally are investigating rumors of a secret weapons
bunker in the Peruvian Rainforests. Quatre is keeping en eye out in the upper
echelons of society for trouble there, Dorothy may or may not be helping him
out… it’s always so hard to tell with her. And Heero seems to be desperately
trying to keep pace with Relena Darlian, who, as we both know gets bounced
around between Earth and Space like a human pinball.”
Trowa made a small
noise that could have been taken for a laugh. Out of the five of them, he and
Heero were the most alike; both soldiers who had been fighting for as long as
they could remember both quiet and effective (although Trowa liked to think he
was better at infiltration than Heero). Both of them, apparently, preferred
difficult and challenging women. Relena’d had a career and an entire life built
purely on her own merits with no help from anyone for roughly five years she
had a doctoral degree (earned between all of her other duties) a high ranking
government position, and a sense of purpose without any mere man to give her
one; then his comrade abruptly showed up out of the blue and appointed himself
her personal guard. According to Lady Une (who had gotten the complaining phone
call of his incredible high-handedness) he hadn’t been received very well by
his headstrong and independent love interest. She had tossed him out on his
proverbial rear after giving him a verbal upbraiding that had left Une in tears
of mirth. Relena was certainly not some pretty fool to be swept off her feet
while Heero played Prince Charming. And Heero was having to work hard for every
inch he got with the willful, self-sufficient, and proud young minister. The
entire Preventors office was following the story like housewives follow their
favorite soap operas.
Trowa got
straight to the point.
“What is the
assignment then?”
“I need you to
track down and apprehend someone for me,” Une said briskly. “This person was
heavily involved in the formation of the original Operation Meteor, as well as
the gathering of White Fang under Quinze, and the gathering of the Barton Army
under Dekim. It is rumored that he manufactured a great many of the parts for
the mobile suits and had a large hand in the lunar base factories for mobile
dolls and that was how he made his fortune. Heero has been able to ascertain
that his money went to a large number of different banks and accounts and that
even though he is now a fugitive from justice, with his contacts in the
underground he has been able to make a clean escape. If anyone would know where
any further hidden weapons bunkers might be it would be this man.
Unfortunately, he is a very crafty person. I need him brought in for
questioning.”
“I see. Is
there anything further that I should be aware of?”
“Yes. You’re
going to have a little competition on this particular hunt. You see, Jeric
Kaneda incurred the wrath of a man even more rich and powerful than he (no, it
isn’t Quatre) and as a result there is a sizable bounty on his head. Every
bounty hunter in the area is going to be looking for him, and if they find him
before you do they’ll kill him and we won’t get the chance to question him for
what he knows.”
“Understood.
I’ll begin my search immediately.”
“Your file
contains all the information we were able to gather on the elusive Mister
Kaneda including his known fighting style, be careful he is known to use
poison-tipped darts and blades. We’ve already narrowed the search parameters
down to three likely prospects. One on Earth and three in space. There’s a
shuttle standing by, you can hit the spot on Earth first and if you don’t find
any leads, refuel and head up into space. Good luck and god speed.”
“Thank you.”
With that
Trowa headed out to the nearby airstrip and was swiftly on his way to Hanjok,
on the south eastern end of what had once been
* * *