"How long- how long will it take us to get back to Earth?" Relena asked quietly in the darkened cabin. It had been nearly four hours since they'd left the silent bulk of L6 behind, the lights dimmed to allow the exhausted passengers to sleep as well as to conserve as much power for the engines as possible. Having given up on the pretense of sleeping an hour ago, Lowell turned his eyes from the emptiness of space outside the window to where she lay, a slender lump on the adjoining couch.
"The trip from L6 to Earth would normally take about forty-six hours," Trowa answered out of the darkness behind them. "But we did an extended burn when we left L6, to build more momentum. At our current rate of travel and with no more-unexpected detours-
Howard thinks he can shave nearly eight hours off the trip."
"That had to have used up quite a bit of fuel... is that going to be a problem when we get back to Earth?" Lowell asked quietly.
"Shouldn't be," Trowa sighed. "Assuming we don't have to pull the kind of maneuvers we did yesterday, we'll have plenty of fuel for re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. And if we need to...we'll refuel at one of the L1 colonies on our way in. We'll be in range of those in another eighteen hours."
"It's so empty out here." Relena shivered.
"Right now... that might be a good thing," Lowell frowned as he looked out the window again. Off the stubby wing and to their rear was the reassuring bulk of the second shuttle, whose continued presence he found himself verifying every few minutes.
"I'll still be happier when we reach more populated space."
"More populated doesn't mean much in space," Trowa sighed. "I'll be happier when this shuttle and you are both safely on the ground."
"You don't really think this whole thing was directed at me?" She shook her head. "It just doesn't make sense that someone would go to this much trouble to set a trap for me."
"Whether it was directed at you or just coincidence- it doesn't change the fact that you are in danger or that the Earth Sphere cannot afford to lose you now," Heero growled out of the darkness.
"I am just a person- like anyone else."
"Relena - in a million years of trying, you could never just be like anyone else."
Tuning out the conversation behind him, Lowell frowned as something dark rolled past the window. An indistinct shape was silhouetted briefly against the hull of Ahmed's shuttle, before it slid out of sight behind them.
"That's ridiculous..." Relena's protest was cut off as proximity alarms began blaring through the shuttle. A moment later, the shuttle lurched, then banked sharply. There were a few screams as the sleeping passengers woke in a panic, followed by cursing before the shuttle began slowing noticeably. "What's happening? Are we under attack?"
"Stay put!" Heero snapped as he and Trowa both unsnapped safety harnesses and ran for the cockpit.
"Lowell? What's happening? Is there-is there something out there?"
Unable to tear his eyes away from the window, he barely heard her question and it was a long moment before he could bring himself to answer it. "Yes. I-think there's something out there." Two more shapes, this time all too recognizable, tumbled between the Sandstorm's wing and the second shuttle. "A- lot of somethings."
"Yuy, report!" Une tried to keep her voice calm, though her hands were shaking as she set down the cup of coffee she'd been about to take a sip of. "What's going on out there?"
/"We seem to have encountered a debris field."/ She heard someone else swearing softly across the vast distance of space, before Yuy spoke again. /"They were scanning for other ships, not organics. We flew into the edge of it before the proximity alarms went off."/
"Organics? Oh, God. You found the bodies?"
/"We found the bodies."/ Howard's voice came over the com then, sounding almost as shaken as she felt. /"You'd better call Zechs, Commander. And Dorothy."/
/"What do you mean, 'We found the bodies'?"/ Quatre snapped. /"You were expecting to find corpses floating in the middle of fucking nowhere?"/
/"Not really,"/ Howard growled. /"All indications were that the bodies would be us. Now shut up and fly this bird. Barton, how many are you picking up on the scans?"/
Une reached for her phone to page Dorothy, only to see the younger woman appear in her door with a panicked look.
"Are they-? Did the shuttle-?" Panting for breath from the dash up the stairs, Dorothy dumped her laptop on the table and leaned over the edge of Une's desk.
"The shuttle is intact. But they found the bodies. It may be the missing colonists from L6."
"Are there children among the dead?"
/"Yes,"/ Howard answered grimly. /"Not many, but some of those bodies look too small to be anything but..."/
"Then they aren't from L6," Dorothy groaned. "Any chance they could be from the destroyed colony?"
/"That blast wouldn't have left bodies. And even if they were from one of the quadrants that vented, they wouldn't have ended up this far out, this quickly. Especially not in a mass like this."/
/"They had to come from a ship, but I sure as hell can't find any debris,"/ Trowa muttered. /"And it looks like about fifty bodies total. None of them in suits."/
Une rubbed her eyes wearily then looked up at Dorothy's pale face. The other woman looked haunted, but still determined. "It's your call...what do you suggest?"
"My call?" Dorothy threw her a startled look. "But..."
/"Her call?"/ It sounded like Quatre was having to choke the words out. /"No offense, Commander, but Catalonia has nothing to do with this and no say in how we handle this situation."/
"If there's no indication of a ship breach...then we have a bunch of bodies that most likely went out of the airlock. At someone's hand. Which makes it homicide," Une sighed. "You are not investigating this matter, you're getting those shuttles and the Senator back on this planet before anything else happens. The Homicide department will be handling this matter from here on out." She met Dorothy's stunned eyes. "With Merquise still in the field... you're in charge. You and Lowell are the only two Homicide agents I have immediately at hand."
"I..." Dorothy swallowed hard, then nodded. Taking a deep breath, she dropped into the chair across from Une and pulled her laptop open in front of her. "All right. Give me a minute. Howard, is Lowell there with you?"
/"I'll get him."/
/"Commander, what the hell is going on here? You can't put her in charge of this-"/
/"Winner, stop arguing or get the fuck out of this cockpit,"/ Howard growled. /"I'm backing Une on this one. Catalonia and Lowell are calling the shots from here on out."/
/"You've all lost your freaking minds..."/
/"Gorman, Chang, get him out of this cockpit..."/
/"You don't have the authority to make that decision, old man."/
/"Shut up!"/ Trowa's voice rang through the comlink, and Une could imagine it cutting straight through the argument in the shuttle. /"Everybody... just shut up. Commander, are you sure about this?"/
"That's an order, Captain Barton."
/"Fine. Quatre, get out of here. Howard, take the shuttle controls."/
/"Heero..."/
/"Do as he says, Winner."/ There was no arguing with the grim finality in Heero's voice.
/"I don't fucking believe this-"/
/"Quat, now is not the time to argue. If whoever dumped these people is still around, then the longer we argue, the more danger we're in."/
/"And putting a psychopath and a rookie in charge of the situation is going to help?"/
/"We have our orders,"/ Heero argued, and Une let herself release a sigh of relief at the training that assured he would follow orders under most circumstances, regardless of how he felt about them.
/"Quat, come on. Calm down. It's not worth it,"/ Chang urged, and the sound of Quatre's angry grumbling grew softer as he left the cockpit.
/"So-what are our orders?"/ Trowa asked after a moment. /"Commander?"/
Une glanced at Dorothy, hoping that her gambit wasn't going to backfire and the woman would freeze under pressure. To her relief, Dorothy looked steady and in control of the situation.
"I'll need someone to gather several of the bodies to bring back. We'll have a forensic team standing by when you land to bring them in for examination and autopsy."
/"I think I can tell you right now how they died,"/ Trowa muttered.
"How they died isn't the question." Dorothy closed her eyes. "Once the bodies are on board, I'll need them isolated. No one is to touch them, and I need as few people to be around them as possible."
/"You think they might be carrying a form of plague? Some bacteria?"/ Heero sounded dubious. /"I doubt anything biologically dangerous could survive exposure to deep space."/
"It's not contamination from them I'm worried about. Lowell?"
/"I'm here."/
"Good... you were in the infirmary after the last mission. I need you and Howard to take the same precautions out there."
/"What?"/ After a moment, the confusion in his voice changed to horrified understanding. /"You... are you sure?"/
"Trust me."
/"Okay- I think I have a pretty good idea what precautions you're talking about, and Lowell can fill me in on specifics later. Any preferences for recovery?"/ Howard interrupted, taking the focus back to himself, much to Une's relief. The Pilots were used to following his orders, and far less likely to balk at any suggestion if he backed it.
"No children," Dorothy's voice shook slightly. "They can't provide the answers we need. There- there should be a Preventer among the dead. Try to recover that body if you can. Otherwise, find bodies wearing jewelry, or some kind of personal objects."
/"How many will they need? There isn't a lot of spare room on board, and people are going to be upset at the presence of corpses as it is,"/ Lowell asked softly, still sounding stunned and shocky.
"Two, maybe three. We'll just have to hope that one of them will be carrying the evidence we need."
/"Understood."/ There was a moment of hesitation. /"But I'm not sure... I've never done a spacewalk before, under any circumstances."/
"Yuy can recover the bodies. I just need you and Howard to try and prevent any contamination of evidence on the trip back."
/"We'll manage something to secure them,"/ Howard answered, /"though I'm not sure that this is a good idea at all."/
"You know why I'm asking this, Howard. You have to trust us."
/"I do- or I wouldn't be out here right now. But that doesn't mean I don't still think you're all out of your collective minds."/
"Thanks, Howard."
/"Hey... I don't suppose...um... you guys can send a little... backup out here?"/ Lowell almost sounded like he was joking, but Une could hear the strain in his voice. /"Just in case?"/
"I'll call Zechs. See if we can't send... someone your way," Dorothy said quietly. "I don't know how long it would take them to get there though. May not be in time to help much, and you won't see them even if they are."
/"Yeah...well. It's the thought that counts, right?"/
In the end, Heero and two of the Sweepers suited up and stepped out of the airlock, carrying makeshift body bags. Lowell watched them from the cockpit with Howard, and wondered when his life had gotten fucked up to the point that he considered ghosts backup- and hoped like hell that there was one in the shuttle already. Probably, he mused a little hysterically, about the time he'd accepted that the only reason he was still breathing at the moment was due to those same ghosts.
"Just what kind of precautions was Dorothy talking about?" Howard finally broke the tense silence, though he spoke softly. Both of them were aware of Trowa silently leaning against the bulkhead behind them, his eyes locked onto the monitors. "Exactly how careful with these bodies do we need to be?"
Lowell considered the question, and found himself wishing that Duo had explained more about what had happened in the alley, and later in the infirmary. "I think she was mostly worried about skin to skin contact. If we isolate the bodies, and no one touches any part of them-or anything they're wearing-with bare skin, there shouldn't be any contamination. The forensic team will still be able to pick up whatever this thing is."
"Is it the bodies themselves that are important?"
"That part... I'm not sure. I know inanimate objects are probably the best source of information. At least... I think. If I'm understanding this whole thing right," Lowell grimaced, and shrugged. "But hell- you seem to know more about what we're up against than I do."
Howard laughed shortly. "No, I'm just used to deciphering Duo's cryptic answers, and I've had slightly longer to get used to Zechs' ideas of backup than you have." His voice raised just slightly. "Trowa, status?"
Trowa didn't bother to glance away from the screen. "No ships, and so far, their scanners haven't picked up any trace of biological or chemical contamination."
"There likely won't be. That's not the kind of contamination we're worried about."
"What are you worried about?" Trowa glanced back for the first time, and Lowell didn't miss the grim warning in his eyes. "What exactly do you expect them to be bringing back onto this shuttle?"
"Just bodies, Barton. The danger is that we'll contaminate any evidence, not that it will contaminate us."
"Evidence of what?"
"Whoever the hell killed fifty innocent people," Howard muttered. "Whoever killed those children out there."
"Quat modified this particular shuttle, during the war," Trowa pointed out quietly, still watching both of them with a quiet intensity that worried Lowell. "The secondary cargo bay can be opened by remote from the cockpit, without compromising pressurization in the cabin. It wasn't designed to be big enough for a Gundam...but it would hold a Taurus. That should be more than enough room to store your bodies, and will be a hell of a lot less likely to freak the other passengers. And there will be no chance of- contamination."
"Cold storage?"
"Very cold. They won't thaw during re-entry, if that's what you're worried about."
"It'll do, then."
"I'll let Heero know." Trowa threw them both a last searching look, before turning back the monitors. "They've just reached the largest cluster of...bodies. And I think we need to be far away from this part of space, as soon as possible."
"No arguments here," Howard nodded. "I'll let Ahmed know as well. Once they're back on board... we're going to be hauling ass for Earth."
Heero slipped towards the mass of floating bodies, maneuvering easily through the vast darkness that was space. He'd taken his first spacewalk at the age of seven, linked to Odin Lowe by strong tethers. Even as a child, he'd felt the massive emptiness around them, though it hadn't occurred to him to be frightened of that until years later, watching Trowa's body float into the distance above a dead colony.
Now, staring at the bodies frozen in silent struggles around him, he found himself remembering all too clearly how it felt to watch the body of someone he loved tumble helplessly into the black.
/"Heero?"/ As if summoned by his thoughts, Trowa's voice cut through the silence. /"Bring them back to the secondary cargo bay...the one Quat modified to hold Rashid's Taurus."/
"Understood." Heero hesitated, hearing the strain in Trowa's voice. "How are you holding up?"
/"How do you think?"/ Trowa laughed a little. /"At least I had a suit on, right? A better chance than these poor bastards did."/
"Tro..."
/"Just get this over with and get back on this ship, Yuy. And shift your suit camera to the left, okay? All I'm picking up from it is a nice view of your helmet."/
Heero smiled sadly, hearing the change of subject for what it was, but obediently adjusted the shoulder mounted camera. "Better?"
/"Thanks,"/ Trowa sighed. /"And not really better so much as a wider angle of view."/
"Let Chang and Howard watch, Trowa..."
/"I'm doing this."/ There was steel beneath the strain in his voice. /"I have to, Heero. I'm okay."/
"I know." He wanted to say something more, though he could barely bring himself to say 'I love you' in private, much less over an open comlink; but he'd reached the nearest of the tumbling bodies by then and it was time to focus on the task at hand.
He stared at the crystallized blood and ice on lips parted to scream, frozen vapor from escaped air clinging to pale skin. Eyes, open and sightless, begged for mercy. Heero grimaced, as the body rotated in the void, revealing a second smaller body snugged tight to the woman's side, tiny arms forever bonded around her thigh. There was more blood here, an indication that survival instinct had not served the child well with the attempt to hold their breath against the hard vacuum.
Technical specs, drilled into him as a child, told him it had been a relatively quick death, with unconsciousness coming within the first twelve seconds. The terror he could see etched deep into frozen tissue had come not from the exposure to space-but the terror of knowing it was coming. Anticipation of something humans were not designed to face, or cope with.
He'd seen death before, far too often during the long years of training with Lowe and then later with J; so it wasn't that he'd never seen a corpse, or even one that had been spaced before. But the sight of the child brought back memories of a park, where a girl and a dog had played with him in ignorance of the darkness of war.
/"Heero,"/ Trowa's voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he found himself instinctively turning towards the shuttle. /"Above you to your right-ahead about two o'clock."/
Heero tilted his head, searching for what had caught Trowa's attention, and saw the brown and green piping of a Preventers' uniform. "I see him-on my way."
Forcing himself to focus on the task at hand, he shoved the memories and emotions that welled up at the sight of the bodies deep into himself and concentrated on reaching the corpse Trowa had identified. Brushing past others, he forced himself not to look and not to care as his passage sent them rocking against each other, until he had arrived at his target and begun wrapping the improvised body bag around the Preventers' corpse.
/"Yuy?"/ Something about the sweeper's tone disturbed the calm he'd forced over himself, and it was with unaccustomed reluctance that he turned to see the man hovering nearby.
"What is it?"
/"The-kids. I, uh... there's something weird..."/
/"Weird?"/ Howard's voice broke into the pause before Heero could echo the question. /"What do you see, Biggs?"/
/"I-could be wrong. I mean- we've only seen a few of them and it's not like we have any way to identify them-"/
"What?" Heero growled, impatient at the man's stumbling report. He'd only looked at the one child- had avoided looking at the others to keep memories he couldn't afford at bay.
/"It's just- you know. Most of them are in an adult's arms."/
"So?"
/"So- I don't think any of them are actually-in their parent's arms."/
Heero stared at the man blankly, nearly forgetting the body in his hands as he frowned. "What? How could you...?"
The sweeper raised an arm, illuminating the nearest body to them, one that Heero had brushed past with only the faintest glance at the tiny face pressed tight to a Miner's coverall.
/"No family resemblance,"/ Trowa whispered over the com, his voice chilled with horror. /"Biggs is right- they're not even from the same colony."/
Heero blinked, then took a closer look around at the bodies around them and immediately saw what the man meant. The corpses were dressed in a variety of uniforms and clothes, differences in style and cut indicating both rank and function-but also which colony cluster they came from. Trowa had tried to explain, one night when they were actually drunk enough to talk about the ways they were trained, how to blend and adjust clothes and style to whichever colony they were on.
Looking around with that discussion in mind, he could pick out men and women from L3 and L2, as well as a few ragged uniforms from the farther out mining satellites. The Preventer he had just tagged was wearing a shoulder patch from L4.
It took only a moment to pick up what the Sweeper had seen. For every child held by an adult, not one was held by an adult from the same ethnicity, or colony.
/"They knew what was coming- that they were going to be executed,"/ Howard growled. /"They were trying to comfort the children."/
/"God..."/
/"Finish it and get back here, Yuy. We're running out of time."/