It was the first rosy lights of dawn that woke Quatre from his deep sleep. His forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, absorbing the hum of the carrier's engines, the sun's rays invaded his eyes through their lids. They reflected off the entwining fingers of the Mamers River that ran like ribbons of gold north through the ancient, eroded purple hills toward the distant sea, a welcome sight. Tiny, monochrome blocks of town and threads of paved road weaved around great, organized blocks of cultivated lands in various tones of green that cuddled up to the river's banks. Quatre did not recognize the particular bends in the river, or the shapes of the islands, but did remember what to expect as they got nearer the sea: the sparkling glass windows of skyscrapers and white minarets of New Mecca.

He sat up in the cabin seat, stretching his legs, and was instantly aware of the soreness in his neck and back. The events of last night, including the meeting at the checkpoint at which he had parted from Sandrock and boarded this aircraft, were vague now and felt like a dream that may or may not have actually happened. Across from him, Abdul slumbered on, his open mouth giving him away where the dark glasses covering his eyes did not, while in the seat behind, his fellow explosives expert Faraj's scarred chin rested on his chest.

Quatre unbuckled his safety belt and rose silently from his seat. He made his way toward the cabin, where Rashid and Ahmad sat at the ship's controls. He entered just as his captain said something into the radio about requesting immediate landing. "We have been circling in compliance with the prince's orders, but some of our transports are low on fuel." It was the tone of his voice, just barely hiding his frustration behind a thin veneer of professional calm, that troubled Quatre. Had he missed something while he was sleeping? Why should this visit to the city be any different from those that came before?

"Copy that," the man on the other end of the line said after a moment's hesitation. "You have clearance for landing on the third runway. You will be escorted by security personnel to the proper location, where you will wait until you receive further instructions before disembarking your aircraft. Please confirm these orders meet with your satisfaction."

Rashid let out a sigh. It gave no sound, only a rise and fall of his shoulders to indicate its occurrence. "They are satisfactory," he said.

"Please stand by."

Quatre waited until the connection was terminated to voice his surprise. "Why are we being told to wait?" He felt like a child, asking questions he felt he should have known the answers to.

"You're awake," Rashid said over his shoulder. "Ahmad, get Quatre some breakfast."

Ahmad got up to comply but Quatre stayed put in the doorway. He didn't like being treated like a child, either.

"Why do we have to wait?" he said again. "What's happened in New Mecca?"

"Nothing," Rashid answered after a second. "They are reluctant to allow us to land within the city."

"They've never had a problem with the Maguanacs before."

"No, but now that the Maguanac Corps have been branded rebel fugitives, it would not look good for a neutral state to be caught harboring them. And I can't say I blame Faris. OZ has agents everywhere, waiting for one good reason to bring New Mecca under its cloak."

The radio crackled back to life as it hailed their plane, cutting him off. A brief exchange, and landing procedure was initiated.

Ahmad made to help Quatre as per his captain's orders, but it was clear he was eager to return to his duty. "I can handle myself," Quatre told him and slipped out of the cockpit.

There was a small pantry off the cockpit that had been stocked with packaged foods and drinks. Not hungry but knowing he had to replenish his reserves, he took the first protein bar his fingers closed around and pulled a bottle of water out from amid its brethren. With those two things in tow, he went back to his seat, laying a hand on Abdul's shoulder before dropping heavily into it.

"Rise and shine," he told Abdul. Faraj did not stir, though Quatre made no particular attempts to keep his voice down.

Abdul stretched, sat up in his seat, and automatically pushed his dark glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "What time is it?" he asked groggily.

"Almost seven."

"Are we there yet?"

"Just about." Quatre ripped open the foil packaging disinterestedly. As he did so, Abdul glanced out the window before concentrating his attention on the boy. "Rashid's finally bringing us down for a landing. We've been circling in the air for a while. Faris's orders."

"Heh." Abdul snorted. "That old war horse. Doesn't want our reputation rubbing off on his, is that it?"

Quatre took an awkwardly large bite of his breakfast as an excuse to say nothing. Abdul preferred to take his silence as a yes.

Upon landing, their aircraft were guided to hangars on the edge of the field. An armed escort marked with the prince's seal accompanied them. It must have appeared strange to anyone watching from a distance to see the caravan of behemoths that were OZ mobile suit carriers being led across the tarmac, they even stood out among the freighters and passenger jets like dinosaurs. It was only natural the prince would want them out of civilians' sight as quickly as possible.

The passengers of Quatre's carrier crowded into the cockpit to watch, filling up the seats, leaning forward in anxiety. All except Rashid, who leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his chest as he stared deep in thought and contemplated their next move.

When they arrived, large black cars with black tinted window glass awaited them. A heavyset but well-built man in wool slacks and a dark shirt, missing his tie and jacket but looking incongruous enough in his well-pressed attire as it was, stepped out of the passenger side of one and put a hand to his hip as he leaned the door closed. With a full, gray beard that was easily longer than his short-cropped hair, his gaze remained steady on Rashid and the rest as they departed the carrier, the faint scar beneath his left cheekbone only magnifying his intimidating air. There was an attitude about the man that made the guards who held their rifles at the ready at their sides seem insignificant in comparison.

"Good God, Rashid," the man called to the Maguanac captain, his voice gruff, "what mess have you gotten these fine, upstanding men into this time?"

But as soon as he had said so, a lopsided smile appeared on the man's lips. A cool smile.

"Good to see you again, as well, Ashman," Rashid returned with just the slightest hint of sarcasm, but if he took the same pleasure in their meeting, he did not show it as clearly. "I take it the news from Medina has reached Prince Faris by now."

"It has," the man called Ashman said matter-of-factly. "And he is deeply disturbed by the whole affair. Namely that you should bring your corps into New Mecca before the ink on the warrants for your arrests is even dry." For the first time, he glanced around and seemed to notice his own guards. "I apologize for the cavalry—"

"Faris doesn't trust us."

"It's more for show than anything. We want to make sure everyone knows Prince Faris is taking the necessary precautions to guarantee this city's safety. You understand."

"I understand this is how he treats his loyal servants when they are in need," Rashid said, but he did not seem to disagree with the other either.

Ashman sobered. "What do you want me to say, Rashid? With OZ breathing down our neck every day, eager to see us make one mistake, give one sign that we might have the resources to oppose them, you should be thankful he doesn't turn you around as soon as he hears you want to land on his airstrips. Or turn you in, and get the Order off his back once and for all."

However, both men knew the absurdity of that without needing to say it.

"His excellency wishes to discuss the matter with you further at his offices," Ashman continued, opening the back door of the cab near which he stood. "He asked especially that the pilot of the Sandrock gundam that has made the Order so hot and bothered accompany you.

"Alone," he emphasized to Abdul, who looked disappointed to have his train of thought read so clearly.

"He and I agree," Ashman continued in a lower tone, "we would rather not make a big fuss in front of all these prying eyes and ears."

"And what will happen to our suits?" Quatre asked, reluctant to get into the cab without some reassurance in that regard.

"Prince Faris will be keeping a security detail on them. His finest team."

"He doesn't trust the Maguanacs anymore?"

Ashman turned his gaze in the boy's direction. "On the contrary. It's for the Maguanac Corps' protection, Master Quatre."

Though the other's tone did not indicate it, Quatre knew the title was uttered as it had been since he was an inquisitive child with sarcasm, and it made his ears burn briefly in embarrassment.

Standing patiently by the black car, his hand on the door, the prince's man waited. "Shall we?" he said to Rashid, who in turn turned to Abdul.

"I'm trusting you and Ahmad with Sandrock," Rashid said before folding his large frame into the car.

"What about you, Quatre?" Abdul said, as though by way of protest.

"I'll be fine," Quatre reassured him and obediently climbed into the backseat, whereupon Ashman closed the door gently behind him, sealing them within the still, rich interior of the cab.

"I know I can't expect you to believe me," the man said to him over his shoulder as he sat down in the passenger seat, regardless of Rashid's presence, "after being raised on this man's suspicious world view, but I am sincere when I say neither Prince Faris nor I would let anything ill befall that gundam of yours while it remains within the borders of New Mecca."

"Thank you," was all Quatre said in return.

The ride into the heart of the city was a pleasant one, the driver's pace quick and smooth through the old, wide streets. The tan stone facades of the closely-packed buildings showed a mixture of old world architecture both eastern and western, reflecting the backgrounds of the various generations who had made it what it was. Through the dark windows they watched shop owners preparing for the day in the chill of the morning—saw groups of chatting women in black pass young university-age men and women in western fashions pass donkeys laden with someone's morning shopping. Greenery overflowed from the median in the road as though in a pointed celebration of life, and the main avenues themselves pointed faithfully downtown to the great mosque around which New Mecca had been plotted, radiating outward from the sun's reflection off the gold-tiled dome. Its pinnacle and the tops of the four minarets stood tall against the green morning sky, visible even over the roofs of the buildings that came between their car and the mosque.

What natural relic the mosque and its city had come to rest on was not a meteorite but something much rarer: a stromatolite uncovered in the days of the Pioneers. To the casual observer, it was a massive pillow-like fossil rock that had once been a colony of tiny, filament-like blue-green algae, each organism lined up vertically against the others in the shallow, salty waters of an ancient shore. Its diameter was only as long as a medium-sized dog, and no taller than the average man's knee, by no means an impressive size.

But what it had represented to the Pioneers, especially to those Arab founders of the city, the great-grandsons of Beduin nomads, was much more. It was evidence of life, even if long, long gone. Something had led them to find it, to assure them that if it had been possible to eke out a living on this world once before, it could be possible again.

If God had been in this world before, he could be in it again.

Now, with the Pioneers long turned to dust in their graves, life was in no short supply in this the accepted head of the Arab States. One could not turn his head without seeing some kind of green, or just how well life flourished in the packed markets at midday.

They stopped before a gate, which led off the street into an inner courtyard of the city's palace. With Ashman to lead the way, the two were taken to Faris's office. It was a spacious room with walls dressed in rich fabrics, and the tall windows opening up to the town dwarfed the one significant piece of furniture in it, a faux-cherry desk that stood before them facing the door. A large landscape of a fantastical, ancient Islamic port-town was mounted on the wall beside the door, something that perhaps one of the Pioneers themselves must have found sentimental enough to bring all the long way here.

The gazes of the threesome who entered through the double doors were concentrated on the form of the man who stood behind the desk, and turned away from the window when he noticed their presence. He was perhaps in his late forties, tall and cool in manner, his physique of the type that had once been strictly disciplined—a fine juxtaposition to Sadaul. He wore a three-piece suit of impeccable tailoring, and the golden seal of his office was worn about his neck on a ribbon, pillowed by his silk tie.

"Prince Faris," Ashman said woodenly, "Captain Rashid Qurama and Quatre, Sandrock's pilot, are here to see you."

The two gave small bows, but Faris did not seem to pay the gesture any mind.

"Let's make this meeting brief, gentlemen," he said. "It has been difficult for me to spare even this short time to speak with you in private. I have been ignoring the calls from the Arab Bureau's Supreme Commander since this morning so that I might have an opportunity to hear your side of the story before I deny any and all involvement in the affair. I should return them before he starts to suspect. More than he no doubt does already, that is."

"I understand, your excellency," Rashid said solemnly, "and I take full responsibility for what happened at Medina."

Faris raised his brows. "Really?" An edge of irritation crept into his voice. "Then perhaps I should have you give the Supreme Commander the details yourself, Rashid. Or explain what happened to our friends in Gehon, and Moab, and the rest of the free States who are worried about what will happen to them now that the Maguanacs have been flushed out of their headquarters. Or better yet, maybe they should hear it from the gundam pilot himself."

"I beg your pardon, but Quatre is still only a child—"

"And that Sandrock machine? He operates it far better than anyone else could ever dream, and you still call him a child?"

"We can't reveal Sandrock's identity at this time, your excellency. With his identity known, OZ would hunt him down relentlessly, and the resistance would be forced underground again."

"What identity?" Ashman butted in behind them with a snide half-smile. "You don't even know what he really is."

"Underground, you say, Rashid?" Faris said over him. "I was under the impression that was part of the problem. It didn't seem to do Medina any good in the end."

"It kept OZ from locating the Corps for four years!" Quatre said.

The other three fell silent, perhaps at his brashness. Perhaps to see where he would take this train of argument next. "Quatre," Rashid started firmly.

"Sadaul said to put blame were blame is due," Quatre continued, glancing at his captain for support out of the corner of his eye. "Yes, he ordered us out of Medina, and Rashid led us here, and perhaps none of that would have been necessary if I had not begun to pilot Sandrock in the first place. But Treize and OZ are the ones who want to control us, sir, just like the Alliance you helped them remove."

Faris regarded him for a long moment, during which his man was silent beside them.

At last the prince drew his chair away from his desk and sat down in it. "Very well, then," he said, his attention focusing solely on the young man. With equal parts umbrage and curiosity, he nodded slightly. "Since you seem to have all the answers, you tell me what happened, Quatre."

For a short time Quatre explained the situation as he knew it. From the battle in the sandstorm only the morning before to their flight out of Medina, he told the prince everything that was of some significance, from the OZ colonel's motives and agendas, to Sadaul's weighing of the grave dilemma in which he had been left. Faris nodded slowly to himself, listening rapt to everything, occasionally asking for clarification.

Again, Quatre left out the encounter with the other gundam. And again, he was not sure why some budding sympathy for the pilot of that machine caused him to do it, even though he knew nothing about the stranger to whom he had spoken for a brief second. But Faris seemed to have confidence enough in the solidity of his story not to notice. And when he asked Rashid if there was anything he wished to add, Quatre was at once surprised and relieved that Rashid chose not to mention it either.

When they had finished, Faris sat quietly for a few minutes with his fingers tented before him, digesting all he had been told. "I see your dilemma," he said slowly. "With your connection to Medina severed, so is your access to easy money, supplies . . . not to mention a place to hide your suits from the Order's agents. These things will shrivel up without a patron, and take the Maguanac Corps' survival along with it."

"And the resistance's survival as well," Rashid said.

"And that is why you thought of coming to me."

"New Mecca is the wealthiest of the Arab States. Everyone looks to Prince Faris for guidance when it comes to working with OZ—the man who once assisted them to victory against the likes of Septem and Onegel. I won't pretend we don't covet your sponsorship, your excellency. But our problem is much deeper than that."

"I agree," Faris said, for once with some enthusiasm. "It is a problem of reputation. Who will hire you to fight for them now that they have seen Medina fall?"

"With all due respect," Quatre said, "nothing has been decided yet with regards to Medina."

"But you were found out," said Ashman. "There will be quite a price on Sandrock's head after this mess, and rest assured Sadaul will not get out of it with just a slap on the wrist. The other nations will know, if it can happen once, it can happen again. Besides, in these desperate times, it would be so easy for one man to trade in Sandrock's whereabouts for the Order's bounty. If OZ has been successful in one thing it is spreading fear. Who can really trust anyone these days?"

Faris glanced up at him, before turning his deep-set eyes again on the two MS pilots. "New Mecca cannot be the patron you are looking for, Captain. At this stage in the game it is wisest, for our safety, that we remain neutral."

"Then where should my men go?" said Rashid.

"That is not my concern." The prince rose from his chair, prompting the others to do the same. "I will allow them access to the resources they need to go anywhere in Arabia they want. But I cannot allow insurgent mobile suits to exist undetained within my borders without directing a fair amount of suspicion toward myself. Especially if one of them is a gundam. I trust your party will be on its way by nightfall, Captain?"

"Believe me, I do regret we can't be of more help to you and your men, Rashid," Ashman said when they had returned to the hangar. Despite what one might have expected from his brusque appearance, the prince's man did possess a refined subtlety and intelligence that inspired deep respect. They stepped around carts as they talked, over hoses snaking across the floor, avoiding those who busied themselves with the task of refueling carriers and transports. "But Faris is right. The risk is too great for us to do much else at this point. If we had the support of the other free States, he would be more willing to strike a bargain more favorable to both our parties. But as long as they are afraid to make a move. . . ."

Rashid grumbled his assent.

"With any luck," said Ashman, "time will eventually change that."

"If OZ's grip on Arabia doesn't become tighter yet."

"Yes. Although even that can have its advantages, if you know how to use them. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Who can predict the future?"

"Do you ever think of coming back?" Rashid asked him after a pause.

"You mean to the Corps?" Ashman nodded a little in thought. "I can't say the notion hasn't crossed my mind. From time to time."

"We could use a good man like you. A veteran. We had to leave quite a few back at Medina, many who gave their lives so we could escape."

"Are you, of all characters, saying the invitation is still open?" Ashman put a hand on a hip and let out a long sigh. "No, Rashid, I made up my mind long ago. You Maguanacs may not have found your place in the world yet, old friend, but I have, and that is beside Faris, protecting Arabia's legacy. The legacy of our forebears. The legal way."

"We have found our place."

"If you say so. Whatever it is, it's not mine."

For a brief moment, Rashid digested what he had been told. Then he said, "That may be true, but once you become family, you remain family until the day you die. Otherwise, if I had had my way, your name would have been scratched from the Corps' memory a decade ago."

Even though the captain did not, Ashman allowed himself a faint smile.

In the meantime, a group of young officers had gathered around the ramp of one of the carriers, vying for a good look at what was inside. "Is that Sandrock?" they said amongst themselves, not bothering to keep their voices down. "That thing is freakin' huge!"

"Check out the feet on that thing. Sure don't look regulation to me."

"Hey, can we come in?" one of them called inside. "Just for a quick peek?"

"No one's allowed in here!" Abdul shouted back over the noise from where he was hunched over a computer and its masses of wires. "I don't care if you do answer to Faris, I know a few kung fu moves and I will use them if pressed."

Finishing his check of the diagnostics from the ground, Quatre hopped up onto the chest of the prone gundam. Inside the cockpit, he brought Sandrock to life, checking as per routine to make sure the OS and each part of the body was running smoothly for their departure. Once again, it looked like there would be no time to tend to superficial wounds—meaning the damage his suit had sustained from the blue gundam would remain as it was for the time being.

When he sat the suit up, the young officers started to see the charred craters in its chest plates. "What the hell did that? I thought gundams were indestructible."

"Don't you fellas have something else you're supposed to be doing?" Auda asked them as he approached, arms crossed over his chest.

It was Rashid's presence that dispersed them in the end, however. "I suppose you've heard already," he said to Auda as he stepped inside the plane.

"Quatre's already filled us in on the gist," the other said nonchalantly as Abdul left his place to join them. "So, Prince Faris is turning the Maguanacs away. It's a sad day."

"You don't seem surprised."

"Yeah, well, frankly, sir, after the last twenty-four hours I'm a little hard to surprise."

"What's next, Boss?" said Abdul.

"I've been thinking, we might have the best chance if we split the Maguanacs up into five groups, six suits or so in each," Rashid told them. "We'll spread out, try to find someplace we might be able to use for a safe base of operations. Another city-state ideally, but that is a bridge we'll cross if and when we come to it. This mission is not going to be short, or easy." He glanced between them, saying in a lighter tone, "I take it you two ruffians have already decided which group you're going in."

Abdul grinned. "There's no way I'm letting Sandrock out of my sight."

"Are we that transparent?" put in Auda, his eyebrows rising in the center.

"Yes," Rashid said dryly. But there was something about his manner that seemed lighter than before. "We'll discuss the finer details once we can get the entire Corps together."

With that he dismissed them and went further into the carrier, toward where Sandrock sat upright on its transport. Seeing his captain approaching, Quatre leaped down from the suit. "How's Sandrock?" Rashid called up to him as he did so.

"The damage to the chest area looks a lot worse than it really is. Hasn't affected the integrity of the cockpit or anything. And the rest of him checks out fine. He's ready for transport."

"Good. I'm putting you in charge of one of the teams," Rashid said. And he was not surprised to see a smile instantly bloom on Quatre's face as he did so. "There are some cities I remember down to the south and east of here, back in the desert country, that had been fairly loud in voicing their disapproval of our helping OZ in the Alliance days. It's a long shot, but an 'I told you so' is a small price to pay if it turns out they can help us."

"Thank you, sir," Quatre said, beaming. By the look on his face, there was nothing more he needed to say.

"It's going to be risky nonetheless, traveling with a gundam in tow—"

"Absolutely. I understand completely. And I promise, I won't let you down, Rashid. I will find a safe harbor for us."

Rashid allowed himself a small smile then at the boy's enthusiasm, but it faded quickly, taking Quatre's with it. "You have a very trustworthy character, Quatre," Rashid said to him. "I know better than to doubt you. You have a strong sense of confidence within you that people notice and cling to. They believe what you have to say without feeling the need to question. Faris was impressed. The Maguanacs have all been impressed by it. Sometimes I think that alone is what keeps them from giving up when faced with such seemingly hopeless situations as this."

Not knowing quite what to say, Quatre breathed a second, simple, "Thank you, sir."

"But if you are not careful," the other continued in a lower tone, "people will believe what you say is true even when you're dead wrong. As they have me. And that is a very dangerous position to be in, Quatre."

For what seemed like a long moment, Quatre found he could say nothing. His initial uncertainty evaporated into an acute sense of shame at Rashid's displeasure as he remembered the blue gundam, and how he had not told Faris of its existence when it was his responsibility to do so. But was it really wrong to leave out some information? Skirting a subject was not the same as lying about it. Was it?

He nodded, but did not look at Rashid. "I understand."

—= o =—

It was just past one in the afternoon a couple days later when Walker arrived back at the Peacecraft estate. In the Sanq Kingdom colors, his uniform cleaned of Arabian dust the night before, and goggles resting on his forehead, he pulled up in his bike before the stairs that led up to the administration building's grand entrance. True to its founders' pacifist nature, there was no gate at the entrance to the circular drive, no intimidating mobile suits guarding the way to the door as they did at OZ government offices, or as they had under the tyrannical rule of the Alliance's brigadier general Daigo Onegel.

Upon entering, he arrived in a baroque rotunda, the roof of which was far over his head, the floor under his boots vermilion Syrian granite. At the moment, the building was fairly empty. A few of his fellow guards came and went, and a graying man dusted the moldings and reliefs that decorated the walls. For a moment Walker tried again to imagine what it would have looked like over a decade ago, in its heyday under the Peacecrafts—with royalty and servants and dignitaries coming and going, and, what one never saw in these halls nowadays, children. She might have even chased a dog or a playmate over these tiles, long before she could remember.

During the days of the Alliance the estate had housed generals and bureaucrats eager to become politicians. Walker knew all too well how desperately Romefeller desired to gain control of the Sanq Kingdom, and with it the entire region of Cydonia, but they were not so foolish as to make the same mistakes the Alliance did years before, and risk becoming a villain in the public eye. It was a difficult thing to justify to the public, attacking a state that practiced total pacifism, and it was for that reason alone that for the time being, at Treize's insistence, they allowed Sanq its independence.

However, it also meant Relena, as daughter of the late king, and Walker, as captain of the guard, had to be perfect. So far she had lived up to everything he had expected of her, despite her own criticism, and her strength and vision gave him confidence, and renewed his faith in his decision. Over these past dozen or so months it became increasingly difficult to believe he had left anything of great importance behind, let alone to regret it. In the green hills and rocky islands of Cydonia he had found the peace so many longed for and thought impossible. Therefore it was his duty, practically a sacred one, to protect that peace at all costs.

It was with that mission at heart that he went to Relena's office now.

When he reached that room on the second level, he found the door open, and Relena sharing a midday tea with her mother. Or rather, with her foster mother, Walker remembered, but to Relena the woman was all the mother she could remember having. He could not hear their conversation, but was reluctant to disturb the untroubled peace on Relena's face as she laughed lightly at something that was said.

When he rapped his knuckles softly on the door, her mother turned, and it was impossible to find the resemblance between the two uncanny. The dark blond hair they both shared, as they did those gentle blue eyes, which relaxed when they recognized him. "I'll leave you now," the elder of the two women said to her daughter, unfolding herself gracefully from the davenport on which they sat. "No doubt you have important business to discuss."

"Thank you, Mother," Relena said, and rose herself.

As her mother passed Walker she said nothing, but an appreciative look came into her eyes that she directed at him. He returned the gesture with a short bow of his head.

"Please, come in," Relena called to him as she went to the large wooden desk before the windows.

"Sorry to interrupt, Miss Relena," he said quickly, removing his cap and closing the doors behind him.

She smiled. "Don't apologize, Walker. I was looking forward to talking with you ever since I received your call this morning. I was starting to get a little anxious when you were gone so long without word."

"About that . . ." He ran a free hand through his thick, straight hair. "Some other things turned up that I thought it would be best to pursue further. That's the only reason I was gone longer than expected."

Relena's curiosity was clearly piqued. "What other things? Trouble?"

"Not for me," he said slowly. "For the subject. But first things first."

He pulled the portfolio he had been carrying from under his left arm and extended it to Relena.

"So you do have information for me," she said, reaching for it and settling back in the seat. He remained standing.

"Right," he said as she began to examine the glossies inside. "I was finally able to track him down, and now I have pictures to prove it. It does exist. The gundam. Sandrock, to be exact. The one I'd been hearing a lot of in Meridiani's chatter."

"So it isn't the one I saw in Alexandretta," Relena said. But there was no criticism in her tone of voice, only the slightest hint she had expected to be disappointed and was. She continued to glance through the photos.

Walker raised his eyebrows and looked down briefly.

"No. It looks as though that guy hasn't surfaced on this side of the water yet."

"Did you figure out where this, ah . . . Sandrock came from?"

"That's where it gets tricky," Walker told her. "According to Order transcripts, based on patterns in the locations of skirmishes, the Maguanacs' base of operations had been more or less narrowed down to Medina. It's a relatively small city, and there hasn't been any concrete proof yet, but the authorities are banking on a connection with the irrigation tunnels the Pioneers supposedly excavated under the city. I was also able to find out that some in the Arab Bureau believe the gundam to be a relatively recent acquisition by the mercenaries, and that their captain is the pilot, one Rashid Qurama. He was a hero in the revolt against the Alliance four years ago. That must be how they come to that conclusion."

Some note of skepticism in his voice led Relena to look up from the reports and ask, "And you don't believe that to be true."

"No, I don't."

Walker came over to stand beside her chair, explaining as he did so, "My observations prove the pilot isn't their captain, unless their leadership has changed. In any case, it isn't Rashid. It's that boy in those photographs. May I?" With precise movements, he turned the photographs over until he came to the ones he wanted, extracting one so that she could see it better in the light. Relena examined the pictures with deep interest as he did so. "I don't know who he is, but his skills are amazing. I saw him again in the street in Medina. He doesn't exactly blend in there. That must be proof the mercenaries were nearby, if not directly connected."

He recalled the way the gundam pilot had looked at him, as though he knew Walker had discovered his secret. And perhaps, in hindsight, Walker should not have drawn attention to himself by staring so openly. But that could no longer be helped.

"He's just a teenager, though," Relena said, then raised her face to look at him. "He can't be any older than I am. What is he doing with the mercenaries?"

"That's exactly what I've been wondering."

"Were you able to make contact with any of them?"

"I wouldn't have been able to without blowing my cover. An OZ convoy en route to Cassini arrived before I could even get there. Fortunately I had thought to bring my old uniform and was able to blend in."

"Cassini is occupied by OZ, now, isn't it?"

"Right. I wasn't able to get close enough to their colonel, but I still learned a lot from eavesdropping. They set up explosives around the city, meanwhile pretending to be in desperate need of supplies, hoping to use the opportunity to snoop around for the mercenaries' base. Needless to say, OZ got them out of their hole, but the mercenaries' took off with the gundam. Though not before they took a sizable chunk out of the Arab Bureau's Aries unit."

"And you don't know where they took the gundam?"

"The carriers were headed south, but there's nothing south that I can imagine would be hospitable to them. And OZ controls much of Arabia's eastern territory; I doubt they would take the risk so soon after battle. I would venture a guess they turned around and headed north. The Deuteronilus Coast is still independent. They might have found a warm reception in Jiddah or New Mecca."

Relena hummed in response to the new information, processing it all without a word as she studied the photographs with a serious face, her chin in her hand.

"There was another one," Walker ventured after a minute, "I was only able to get a couple partial pictures of, and I regret they aren't very clear."

Relena looked up hopefully. "The winged gundam?"

"I have some guys working on that, but as far as I know it's not one the higher-ups knows about. A blue gundam, designed primarily for bombardment. He could be working for OZ—he came in behind a division of Leos and Tragos—and even though it doesn't seem likely, if it were one of theirs, it sure is something they would try to keep hush-hush. Which might explain why we haven't heard anything."

"So, what do we do if it turns out OZ has a gundam?"

Walker looked down at the top of the desk for a moment, and that expression told Relena everything that she already knew but was hesitant to say aloud.

"I don't know," he told her, meeting her gaze. "But it's safe to say Sanq would never stand a chance against a machine like that with the defenses it has now."

—= o =—

The days passed slowly and the nights too quick on the road, and it had already been some days since Quatre and his team parted from Rashid and the other Maguanacs.

True to the captain's word, they had split into five parties, one of which decided to venture east, nearer OZ-controlled territory, hoping against hope to find those there who might harbor more hostility toward the Order than fear and support the mercenaries' cause. One went west, following the chain of wealthy city-states that hugged the Deuteronilus Coast. The three other teams followed the Mamers River upstream and branched outward from there, Rashid's team among them heading southwest for the low desert, where such once-friendly townships as Gehon and Moab still coasted beneath the Order's radar.

As the caravan of transports carrying Quatre and his comrades—Auda and Abdul among them—journeyed west as well, they could not help lamenting how strategic Medina's location had truly been. Though the town stood almost directly between Meridiani and OZ's bases in Cassini, if one were to draw a straight line between the two territories, Medina's proximity to the plateau and the neutral Foundation beyond, whose autonomy even the old Alliance had reluctantly respected with an almost religious prudence, had been nothing short of a blessing for so long.

Now even the townships who had supported the Maguanacs in the past were reluctant to give them aid beyond what they needed to get them through the night and on to the next settlement. It seemed to many of the mercenaries like the end of an era. Word spread quickly ahead of them about the takeover of Medina, and it took no great stretch of the imagination to understand that if a town like that could fall, any could. These people who listened patiently to Quatre and his companions' proposal nevertheless enjoyed their freedom too much to risk falling under the Order's sphere of influence, and incurring Treize's wrath in the process. No, they said, it was better for all if the Maguanacs simply moved on. Which was not to say the ordinary person wanted the mercenaries and all they stood for to go away; he simply did not want to be responsible for their actions, and have the consequences of those actions fall upon his own head.

"Don't they understand," Quatre found himself saying to his comrades more and more each day—as their reluctant guests cleared the table after supper, as he and Maguanacs turned in for the night, as they rolled out of town—"that if everyone said the same thing, if everyone was afraid to stand up to the Order like this, then they might as well surrender now? Who do they think is going to fight for them? Do they sincerely believe their continued freedom here is something that can just be handed to them?"

He hesitated to say it aloud, but sometimes their stubbornness frustrated Quatre so much he did not think they deserved that freedom. Though God forbid he should ever abandon anyone to OZ without a fight; he still had a sacred duty to fulfill, as Sandrock's chosen pilot.

And even as his comrades, no less frustrated than he, shook their heads at him, the same old arguments rising to the tips of their tongues in the civilians' defense, even despite his own frustrated words, Quatre could not actually blame the settlements that one after another refused them aid. Though a part of him deep inside was incensed by what seemed like irrational cowardice, he understood all too well at the same time that the reason he had taken on the great mantle that was Sandrock was so that people such as these did not need to fight such battles themselves.

And yet, how are we supposed to protect you? With stones and harsh words?

That was the question he kept coming back to, that stuck in his mind like a bad dream and would not leave his thoughts in peace even after the last township had disappeared out of sight.

Still, they pressed on.

At Focas, their team cut south to Maggini, then continued west toward the coast. Always the rapid ascent of the nearer moon ahead of them made them wish their own progress could come faster. Bit by bit, the weathered landscape of Arabia's deserts, with their scraggly vegetation and dry pinnacles of crater rims, gave way to sage-covered hills where patches of irrigated farmland nestled between the stony shelves; and eventually the rusty earth was hidden completely by green downs whose lakes of rainwater supported vast orchards while dark strands of olive and cypress lined the hillsides. Each day's journey brought with it a new soreness from the road, and a new set of sights, until they realized with a sense of nostalgia that the marketplaces in the towns along the road and the people's dress had stopped being familiar long ago. Though there was no line to cross over, the difference between the Arabia they left behind and the region of Cydonia they had entered could be seen no clearer than in these scenes of daily life too often taken for granted.

Traffic increased on the increasingly cleaner highways, and on the roadside people stared at their caravan of mammoth trucks, their extra-wide beds heavy with loads that bulged strangely under their dusty tarps, with furrowed brows.

Quatre pulled his arm back inside the truck and turned to face the front as he said to Abdul, not without a bit of lament, "So, this is it, is it? The Maguanacs have been kicked out of Arabia. By a process of elimination."

To his surprise, Abdul gave a sly smile as he stared at the road ahead. "Nothing is final yet. Rashid and the other teams might be having better luck where they are. Just because none of the townships we passed through would offer their support, doesn't mean you can give up hope entirely."

But Quatre was not so optimistic. His group had had Sandrock with them, the hero of the Arabian States, and they had still failed to convince anyone. The contrast between his reception in the last few days and that last night in Medina could not have been clearer. Even a gundam like his was no match against the Order's brand of fear.

"Uh oh," Abdul said suddenly. He winced and Quatre turned to look at him. "There's a checkpoint up ahead."

A quick check of his handheld GPS brought Quatre no particular cause for alarm.

"We must be entering the territory of the Sanq Kingdom. It's a neutral state. The Order doesn't touch them. Besides, they have a policy of total pacifism. Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, but . . . Maybe I should turn around anyway." Abdul's eyes were unreadable behind his dark glasses, but the tightness of his grin broadcast to Quatre how tense he actually was. "They'll search the trucks," he said as though to himself. "They'll find the suits and that will be it. OZ will know where we are, what we're up to—"

"No, they won't," Quatre assured him, though he could not deny that he was somewhat anxious himself. "They'll have no reason to believe our cargo manifests are anything other than what they say they are. Just drive casual."

That failed to relieve any of the tension in Abdul's posture, however—he sat in the driver's seat as stiff as a scarecrow—and as if reading their minds, that was the moment Auda chose to call them over the radio.

"What do you think?" he asked the two of them. "Are we going through this one?"

"What choice do we have?" Quatre answered, going quickly for the handset. "If we turn around now, with all the trouble that will be, we'll only look suspicious." Besides, the Sanq guards would have no reason to doubt that they worked for anyone other than the construction company based in New Mecca that was their cover. Prince Faris had made sure of that, in the last extension of his good will he was willing to give the Maguanacs.

"I understand that," came Auda's uncertain voice, "but . . . We've been driving around Cydonian territory for the last two days, now, and all that's got me thinking, just where in God's good name do we expect to end up? We've always been the defenders of the Arab States. There's nothing for us here. And when we reach the coast. . . . What then? We just turn around and do this all over?"

Quatre's silence was the closest he would come at the moment to acquiescing his comrade had a good point. He had given little thought himself as to what they would do when faced with that reality; and now it seemed the coastline Auda spoke of, always such a distant thought back in the desert highlands they considered home, was not so far away after all. In light of that, there was little he could do for the moment but place his faith in destiny—which, unfortunately, he was not entirely sure he believed even existed.

In the end, Abdul had had little to be nervous about. Their trucks were waived through the checkpoint without much delay.

Though perhaps the officer who had opened the gate had stared a little too long in Quatre's direction. It was all Sandrock's pilot could do not to pull his cap down farther over his eyes and fair hair. But what were the chances, he reassured himself, of anyone from Sanq even hearing of Arabia's gundam? Cydonia had enough concerns of her own to be worried about the Arab States' affairs as well.

They were a nation with a proud history of neutrality, though not as old as the Foundations who traced their heritages back to the early days of the Pioneers. One river in the south was all that separated free Cydonia from the full brunt of the Order's naval might, and her people were well aware of it. They seemed a humble and generous people upon first glance, Quatre thought as he strolled the city streets with Abdul and Auda after securing their transports; but scratch the surface, and their fiercely independent spirit showed through in spades.

Such as when the jovial atmosphere on the patio of the outdoor cafe at which Quatre and his companions had taken lunch suddenly turned chilly, and the ensuing silence made the three look up to see what had caused the commotion.

A group of four OZ soldiers in uniform had wandered by the establishment looking for a place to sit down for lunch, but, under the icy stares of the locals, quickly decided to try their luck elsewhere. Though they wore standard issue pistols at their sides, the soldiers' wary glances made them seem every bit as young as they looked—perhaps as little as a year older than Quatre—and it seemed as though their number was more for protection than any sense of camaraderie between them.

Feeling safe beneath the awning, Quatre and his companions watched them openly. When the soldiers had gone, a few of the diners turned and spat onto the pavement, at which Abdul grinned as he said over his shoulder, "I guess we have one thing in common with these people. Seems OZ's no more welcome here than back home."

"Does the Order have some sort of deal with the Sanq Kingdom?" Quatre said. "I mean, I can understand how we can get away with treating them this way back home, but you'd think a nation so close to the Order's warships would be a little more . . ."

"Subtle in its criticism?" Abdul laughed.

"OZ wouldn't risk the rest of the world's disdain," Auda said to Quatre's dark look. "How would it look, attacking a country with no military to speak of, that practices a policy of total pacifism? Not only that, but a country they helped restore after the fall of the Alliance. It must be one hell of a bind. I remember back in the days under the Alliance, the Order had already been saying for years how strategic it would be to have the whole region of Cydonia under their command. Then they would control both sides of the sea."

But a new thought had occurred to Quatre as he stared down at the remnants of his after-meal coffee.

"Maybe they would support us."

He said this so quietly, Auda had to wonder if he imagined those words, and Abdul blinked behind his glasses as he turned back to his companions.

"Quatre, maybe you didn't hear him right," he said. "This nation follows the ideals of the Peacecraft dynasty to a tee. Total pacifism means no army, no navy," Abdul counted on his fingers, "and no military quarrels with other nations."

"So they would just allow themselves to be attacked and do nothing?"

"But the Order won't attack—"

"And you said all that's keeping them from doing that is the fear of public disdain?" Quatre looked from Abdul to Auda. "And what if they decide that's no longer sufficient as a deterrent? It hasn't stopped them before."

"You're missing the point." Auda kept his voice low. The news from Medina had made the papers and broadcasts this far west; none of them wanted to draw more attention to themselves than necessary at this point. "They're not about to risk what independence they've got by hiring a bunch of mercenaries, let alone a bunch of mercenaries who have been kicked out of their home turf and are on the run from the Order."

"But isn't it worth a try?"

Abdul and Auda's uneasy looks made Quatre tighten his lips in determination.

"All I'm saying," he rephrased, "is that we should test the waters. If there's a sign that we might be welcomed here, even by a private party, I don't see why we shouldn't try and take advantage of it. You guys must agree, we have very little to lose at this point."

The other two would have argued that they still had plenty to lose—their suits and their lives, among other things—but each day on the road with no luck and no contact from Rashid or the other teams did not seem to bode well for the future of the Maguanacs.

They put those thoughts momentarily behind them, however, as they left the cafe to peruse the city's markets. Sanq benefited doubly from its fair climate and proximity to the sea, with a greater array of produce than the Maguanacs were used to back home, most of it fresh from the fields, as well as fish—a luxury in Medina. They bought mussels for a stew, in addition to everything else that soon weighed each of them down with a considerable load.

It was only when Abdul and Auda wandered off to look at one shop, claiming it was for a gift for Fatima and leaving Quatre alone, that Quatre had the distinct feeling that their passage through Sanq had not gone entirely unnoticed. In fact, it felt like they were being followed.

He had not managed to catch any sign that the Sanq guard who occasionally passed by were watching them, until he stopped by the booth of a woman selling wares of colorful, blown glass. It was a reflection glimpsed in a displayed platter that made him lean forward in curiosity.

As he pretended to study the piece, he noticed one of the khaki-uniformed Sanq guards stationed in a doorway on the other side of the street speaking into an earpiece. Come to think of it, he had spotted a lot more of them in the last hour than he had in all that morning.

The man's gaze did not seem turned his way, but it was enough to set Quatre on edge. When he rejoined Abdul and Auda to tell them of his suspicions, whatever petty debate they had been engaged in was dropped instantly. Auda reached for his communicator.

"Rigel," he spoke into it, but there seemed to be no answer.

With a dismissive shake of his head, he tried again.

"Rigel, this is Auda. Do you read me? We might have a situation here— Rigel!" He cursed. "He's not picking up. Probably just wandered away for a moment."

"Maybe it is nothing," Quatre agreed, more to reassure himself than anything, "but we'd better get back to the transports in any case."

"You three, stop where you are! Put your parcels down and your hands in the air!"

Quatre and his companions started as Sanq guards suddenly sprang from out of the crowd to surround them. They raised their rifles in the trio's direction, causing more than a few onlookers to shout out and shrink back in surprise. Not wanting to cause trouble for any of them let alone for himself, Quatre quickly did as he was told, placing the bags of groceries on the ground. Abdul and Auda followed suit a second later.

"Hey!" the latter grunted as one of his raised arms was abruptly twisted behind his back.

Quatre had hardly a second to glance over his shoulder before someone else was roughly turning him around and leading him none too gently toward the wall. It didn't even cross his mind not to obey; he could hear more than see the rifle clutched in the guard's other hand.

"You are under arrest," said the officer who had first spoken, silencing their protests as they were searched and their sidearms and identification taken from them, "for violating Sanq Kingdom constitutional law, as well as protocols covered under the one-nine-five treaty, by smuggling unlicensed mobile suits inside Sanq territory."

"Shit," Quatre heard Abdul mutter beside him, before Quatre himself was cuffed and pulled brusquely away from the wall.

But it was the anxious mutters of onlookers that shamed him more than being discovered by the Cydonian authorities. He could see any hope of gaining these people's trust vanishing before his eyes as they repeated those words among themselves like something foul—"mobile suits"—shaking their heads at best. At worst, gritting their teeth from shouting back, their eyes hard with a sudden revulsion and hatred toward Quatre and his companions.

The only thing he dreaded more was being outed as the same rebels who had escaped the Order in Medina. But if he was more than willing to advertise the existence of their suits, why was the officer not mentioning their identity among their crimes?

"Under orders of Princess Relena Peacecraft, you are to be taken into custody and your suits and transports confiscated," the officer said, and Quatre's hopes sank even further. "Will you cooperate peaceably?"

The three didn't see what choice they had, as they were driven away by the armed guard, their hands cuffed behind their backs and only means of fighting back taken from their persons. Quatre tried not to look at the faces of the townsfolk they passed, instead willing his thoughts to focus on the predicament that lay ahead. Though the thought terrified Quatre, he would have to be prepared in the event that the great and neutral Sanq Kingdom might be all too willing to turn him and his comrades over to the Order for political gain, and with them Sandrock.

Not that it would have been a stretch for them to do so. What better way for the Sanq Kingdom to cement themselves in OZ's good graces once and for all than to hand them one of their greatest opposers on a silver platter?

When Quatre and his companions arrived at the guards' station, they were placed in a plain room, the doors closed heavily behind them. Whether they were locked in or not, Quatre did not know, but he dared not risk trying to outmatch the guards that no doubt waited on the other side either, let alone unarmed as he was. He had never particularly liked carrying a pistol, but now that it had been taken from him, he was startled to find how naked he felt without its weight.

The room around them was drab, but windows high on the wall showed a blue coastal sky. A fan mounted on the ceiling threw a flickering shadow on the table around which they stood each time the blade passed in front of the light. It was quiet. None of the three spoke, or sat, though it must have passed through each of their minds to come up with a plan of action. Quatre knew his companions were preoccupied worrying about the fate of their suits and the rest of their comrades who had been left with them, same as Quatre. A look passed between Auda and Abdul, between them and Quatre, and between Quatre and the door.

Presently, it opened, and a young man in Sanq uniform entered, different from the officer who had arrested them on the streets, and flanked by two guards easily ten years older than him.

"You can call me Walker," the young man said.

He was a man of no extraordinary stature, no extraordinary features except for a stray-dog scruffiness about him that could not be pinned down to any one trait; but, if nothing else, the way he was regarded by the two men accompanying him indicated he was the one in charge. His thick, straight, drab brown hair lay back like the feathers on a predatory bird's neck. He wore the uniform like it was not his own—like something borrowed and temporary, neither the colors nor the buttoned-up shirt sleeves quite fitting his person. His eyes were at once wide and sharp and vibrant and tired, overshadowed by thick brows, his tapered face as difficult to put a place to as his faintly curling accent:

"I'm the captain of the Sanq Kingdom guard and special advisor to the reigning princess Relena Peacecraft. And, because under the Sanq Kingdom constitution the entry of unauthorized weapons and mobile suit technology into the borders is strictly forbidden, I think you will agree our actions in placing you under arrest were well-warranted."

To his audience's stony silence, Walker withdrew from a folder under his arm their confiscated passports and placed them on the metal table before him. "Your mobile suits have not been tampered with in any way and are being held in a secure location for if and when you are allowed to depart from our country. If you want them back, then I suggest you cooperate—and the sooner you do, the easier you will make your situation for all of us."

"What kind of cooperation did you have in mind," said Abdul, arms folded over his chest.

Walker sat, tenting his hands on the table before him as he gazed up at them. "Just some simple information. That's all I ask."

"What kind of information?" Auda said uncertainly.

"Well, for starters what a bunch of insurgent mobile suit pilots impersonating movers for an Arabian construction company were doing in Cydonia. We checked your alibi," Walker said, indicating the company uniforms they wore, "and, with the exception of the suits on your trucks' beds, it's rock solid. I'm impressed. Whoever set it up is extremely well-connected. But that doesn't change the fact that it is all a complete sham. Now. We all know what you really are, and what you're really carrying. I'm deeply interested in learning what exactly your motives in our country are. But, please, have a seat."

No one moved despite his welcoming gesture.

"You don't have to tell him anything," Quatre said.

Walker's gaze turned to him.

"He's a Special," Sandrock's pilot continued. "This is only a cover. No doubt he only wants to use our sympathy for Sanq to weedle secrets out of us—secrets he'll only turn around and sell to OZ. That's who he's really working for."

Quatre met Walker's eyes, openly inviting him with that stare to challenge his accusation. It was as though the feelings of that night when they saw one another in passing for the first time, the frustration and regret and ire of that night the Maguanacs were chased from Medina, all came flooding back at that simple look.

And now they had a target. "I saw him that night, in Medina, among Colonel Waltfeld's men."

"I don't deny that," Walker said calmly.

"Then what's an Ozzie dog doing in Sanq? I was under the impression it was still a neutral country."

"It is. However, I haven't been in Order uniform in almost a year. With the exception of last week in Medina, of course. That was a cover."

"And what evidence of that do we have to believe you, Captain Walker, other than your word?"

"None," Walker told him point-blank. If he took any offense to Quatre's tone of voice he did not show it. "I have to take it on faith that you will trust what I tell you is true. You're wanted men. If I wanted to turn you in to the Order, I would have plenty of information to do so with already. You could bet on that. Whether you choose to believe me or not, I don't see that any of you have much of a choice but to cooperate, Quatre Raberba. Or should I call you Sandrock?"

Quatre smiled and leaned back, standing up straight. "What makes you think I'm Sandrock?" he said.

"Aside from the gundam in my hangar?"

"The pilot could be any of us." He did not appreciate Walker's sarcasm. "Why me?"

"You're different from all the others," Walker said. "Like it not, you stand out. So does a gundam. Of course, these helped my men identify you on the street."

As he said so, he removed from his documents a few enlarged photographs of Sandrock from the battlefield at Wadi Saffra, and of Quatre emerging from it.

Quatre stared at his tiny figure in the glossies, and at his own squinting profile.

"What's the meaning of . . ."

"At the princess's request, I've been following Sandrock's exploits for a while," Walker told him, fixing him with his hawk-like gaze, "and I must admit, you haven't made it easy. When the Maguanac Corp was forced to leave Medina with Sandrock in tow, I had my men alert me if you should ever try to enter our nation's borders. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting you so soon. But as fortune would have it, you drove right into our borders, where the princess's men identified you immediately. Then, as per my orders, they allowed you to pass into Sanq territory with your cargo intact—"

"This is entrapment!" Abdul said.

Walker merely turned to him with a patient look as though to ask if that were all. "I wanted to see what you would do," he said to Quatre.

"Then does the princess have any idea we're even here?"

"I've informed her I've taken you into custody." Here Walker smiled again; but it was with some delay, as though he were surprised to have been caught out in a ruse. "She's very eager to meet you three. But especially you, Quatre."

"Why is Sanq so interested in me?" Quatre said.

"Because!" The young man nearly laughed, startling the other guards behind him. "You're Sandrock. For years now everyone's been talking about these advanced MS called gundams, ever since they suddenly reappeared on OZ's radar, but I know of no one in this part of the world who has done battle with one and lived. So, naturally, that suit of yours fascinates me. Its sheer superiority fascinates me—in speed, strength, agility, defense. . . . It must have an OS like . . . like nothing OZ has ever seen. To say nothing of the kind of person it must take to pilot one of those monsters remotely well."

Walker's glance dropped to the photograph of Quatre on his cockpit's hatch. He tapped it absently with the tip of his finger before looking up again.

"And you not only pilot it well, you've mastered it. The Order speaks of you and that machine like you were one entity—mind and mobile technology blended into some kind of mechanized monster; and to hear the Arabs talk, it's like they've found some long-awaited messiah. At least, that was until Sandrock was chased out of Medina."

Something in the way Walker said that last part seemed almost meant to bait Quatre. There was a truth to it, however, that made Sandrock's pilot lower his eyes and clench his jaw in memory of that night, and the low blows OZ had used to achieve their victory—if it could even be called a victory.

"I wouldn't say we were chased out, sir," Quatre said in a low voice.

Walker's gaze softened somewhat at that. He pushed the chair opposite himself away from the table with the tip of his shoe. "Then, by all means." All traces of sarcasm vanished from his voice and demeanor. "I would be honored to hear your side of the events of that night."

Quatre took the back of the chair in hand and slowly sat down, but there was still a glimmer of distrust in his eyes when they met Walker's across the table.

"If you were there," he began, "then you must have known about the bombs they planted around the city, where they could have maimed or killed any civilian." Remembering the personal fears some of the townsfolk had brought to him in the underground hangar just made it that much more difficult for Quatre to recall the events objectively. If anything, the time that had passed only solidified his feelings. "It was an honorable sacrifice we made, to leave rather than put the people we had sworn to protect at greater risk. We had no other choice, after what happened in the Hiddekel—well, you know. You were there, apparently, taking those pictures of us. We didn't run with our tails between our legs. It was OZ that should be ashamed of themselves! It was a rotten trick, what they pulled, the lowest of the low—to think how many could have been killed if we hadn't found the bombs—"

"But the only casualties of that night were among OZ's Specials and your Maguanac comrades. It seems to me the Colonel made sure of that from the beginning."

Quatre paused at the interruption. "You think that makes it all right?"

"No." Walker shook his head slightly. "If I did, would I be fit to call myself an officer of Sanq? OZ's tactics have changed considerably since I was a Special. Or, perhaps it's better to say they haven't changed with the times. Back then, there was a tyranny to fight, and we were revolutionaries. The lengths we went to were appropriate considering the foe we were up against."

"Now OZ has become the tyrant," Abdul said icily over Quatre's shoulder.

Nor could Quatre say that those words, or something to the same effect, had not been on the tip of his tongue as well. It garnered a wary glance from Walker, however, before he returned his gaze to Quatre, the only one of the three in whom he seemed truly interested.

Then again, perhaps it had not been as wary a look as Quatre was led to believe; but he hated that this Walker character was so difficult to read.

"So," he said, "you left the people under your protection to fend for itself because it was safer than endangering them further with your presence, panicked, and, as far as I've been able to gather, hightailed it to the Deuteronilus Coast, hoping to hide behind its money. Did Jiddah turn you out, or was it New Mecca—"

"I think we've said enough," Quatre said. "Anything else, I would feel much more comfortable saying to Princess Relena herself."

Walker smiled at that. "I understand."

He pushed himself away from the table, gathering up the documents he had spread out before them. If he was disappointed he would not get anything else from Quatre at that time, he hid it extremely well. "You've been on the road for days, and my men and I have not been the most hospitable. We'll see if you're any more willing to trust us once you've had some time to settle in. In the meantime, please rest assured I will have the best detail kept on your suits."

Walker turned his back on them to leave, leaving Quatre and his companions as mystified as to his intentions as before. They seemed contradictory: on the one hand, he threatened them with the prospect of being turned over to OZ, while in the next breath he spoke of them "settling in," as though they were honored guests. Likewise, Quatre could not tell for the life of him whether the man was being utterly sincere or mocking him.

Case in point, Walker paused in the doorway to turn to them and say, "I'm looking forward to our next chance to talk, Quatre Raberba."

—= o =—

Some hours later found that young officer at the open doors to the palace's dining room. A fire crackled from within, and beneath that, the gentle, murmured conversation of the room's occupants could just be heard.

The long table had been set for three. Relena sat at the center of one side. Pagan, her elderly chauffeur, sat two chairs down, and her mother, at the end on her other side. Rarely did Walker find himself a part of this arrangement, and it was not for lack of trying on Relena's part. Perhaps it was her yearning for the company of someone nearer her age that was behind Relena's frequent invitations. Yet she understood, if reluctantly, that even now he felt more comfortable eating with his men—or else alone, like he had this evening, though he barely remembered to do even that.

His thoughts had been too preoccupied with Sandrock's pilot, even after the boy had been secured in his quarters. It was the problem of what to do with him and his suit now that weighed so heavily upon Walker, for the solution he sought was in no way easy for either of them, and yet he could find no other solution suitable to their particular problem.

Walker took a breath and rapped his knuckles softly on the open door. "Sorry to intrude, Miss Relena."

From her place at the long table, the young woman in question looked up. Her eyes filled with a hundred questions waiting to be asked as they met his.

"Ah, Captain Walker." It was Pagan who spoke, rising to his feet to welcome the newcomer, and Walker was secretly thankful for an excuse to look somewhere else. "We've been wondering if you would join us this evening."

Walker managed a smile. "Thank you, but I've already eaten. I'm sorry that I did not get word back to you sooner, but it took a while to move the detainees' mobile suits safely—"

"Then they're secured?" Relena said. She put down her knife and fork and ignored the half-eaten meal in front of her. "Somewhere where civilians and the Order cannot find them?"

"As are the rebel mercenaries who brought them into the country. I've arranged rooms for them in the north wing. They're under heavy guard, and probably receiving their dinners as we speak. I thought you would approve, Miss Relena, that as long as it appears to the Order that we are taking all necessary precautions, there really is no reason to treat these men as criminals if we are to uphold our record of neutrality. After all, we do have a common enemy—"

"And that warrants treating fugitives like diplomats," Relena said softly to herself.

Walker could not tell whether she disapproved of his decision, or of herself for agreeing with it.

"Ma'am," he said with a suddenness that startled the others at the table. "I request permission to speak with you further on this matter in private."

"Of course." Relena exchanged glances with her mother. "I was finished anyway. . . ."

Dabbing the corner of her mouth a final time, the young woman excused herself from the table. She led Walker to a sitting room off of the same hall, where their voices could be muffled by the long shelves of books in addition to the heavy wooden doors. There were several chairs arranged before the empty fireplace, but she chose not to sit, too eager was she to hear what the captain of her guard had to tell her about the gundam that had made its way into her nation's borders.

Walker took her through his afternoon with the gundam's pilot, how the boy and his comrades had been arrested on the street, and what he was able to gather from their current situation before the boy insisted on any other questions being directed to him by Relena herself. He sensed she already knew what had been at the fore of his mind since then, that her interest in the gundam and its pilot was not nearly as great as Walker continued to propound, and not nearly as great as his own.

Yet she weighed all he had to say with a quiet contemplation that seemed somewhat incongruous with her sixteen-year-old frame. Her fair face was still rounded with that inescapable plumpness of youth, and the honey-blond hair that fell over her shoulders and the clarity of her dark blue eyes still possessed something of a young girl's innocence even in conversations of such gravity as this. Fewer than two years had passed since her father was assassinated—only little more than a year since she had learned of her birth parents and the singular place they had held in the earlier days of the Alliance-dominated world-sphere—but she was already assuming the role of the politician in his absence, not only in her words but in the carriage she adopted and this more grown-up style of dress. It saddened Walker in a distant sort of way to see in how short a time she had been reshaped by the tragedy around her, and yet—though he had not known her for very long—if anything he only admired the changes more.

Even if that meant it was harder to keep secrets from his charge. Then again, perhaps Relena had always been skilled at catching people out in their dishonesty.

He must have made it obvious enough he was holding something back as he spoke, because when he had finished with this narrative, Relena asked him, "Is there something else on your mind, Mr Walker?"

"As a matter of fact, it concerns Sandrock's pilot personally," Walker told her after a pause. There was no easy way to say what he wished to, so he dove right in. "I've decided to make him a deal."

Relena narrowed her eyes. "What kind of deal?"

"I've left him with the impression that we could turn him and his suit over to the Order if he doesn't comply—"

"But we would never do such a thing," she said quickly. "I mean, yes, they've put us in quite a bind. I'm half expecting the Order to accuse us of harboring terrorists if word of their treatment here gets out. But handing them over—that goes against the ideals of this nation—"

"But they don't know that." It was Walker's turn to interrupt. "The Maguanacs are wanted men, to say nothing of that Sandrock. They know just what a catch they would be for the Order, and as long as they believe that we wouldn't hesitate to turn them over—for the safety of our own nation, shall we say—they have no choice but to listen carefully to our demands."

Relena lowered her eyes, and Walker could not keep the words from slipping out.

"I would like your permission to propose to Sandrock's pilot that he work for us. For the Sanq Kingdom."

Just as he expected, Relena's eyes flew open at that, and it was not without some irritation. "Are you mad? I just told you that handing them over to OZ would violate this nation's ideals. You don't think hiring the lot would somehow be better, do you? My father—both of my fathers, Walker, gave their lives for the cause of total pacifism—"

"And I understand," he was quick to say in his own defense, having anticipated just such a reaction, "that you feel if we aided these mercenaries now, let alone if we had them fight for our side, they will have died in vain. Believe me, I share the same concerns you do. And I know how it would look to the Order, that they would doubtless see such an action as hypocrisy—"

"And grounds for invasion?"

Walker let out a brief sigh. "Of course. That is always a possibility no matter what course of action we choose. But we must face the facts. The Order's navy is just on the other side of our borders. We've already had to put up with their so-called targeting and maneuvering exercises on the edges of Sanq territory, doing and saying nothing in retaliation while they flaunt their might in our citizens' faces. Romefeller speaks of their disapproval, but for all their talk do they ever lift a finger to punish OZ for their behavior? They've already shown plenty disregard for our perimeters—with impunity, I might add. How long will it be before they decide they can risk taking this country back under their wing? I tell you one thing, it won't be much longer if they think we're half as weak as we really are."

"But we can't do anything," Relena said, and he noticed the edge of desperation in her voice, aware then that he had been raising his own. "We have no army, no navy of our own. We have to stand by our treaties: what good are promises, Mr Walker, if everyone is so quick to break them? And after all, it was the Order that was responsible for this country's liberation."

"Don't defend them on my account."

"I'm not. But I am saying that this peace we have is very delicate. I hate to think what would happen if we were to do the slightest thing that might tip that delicate balance too far in the wrong direction. We must not give the Order any grounds to think we are a danger that must be put down."

"But if the Order does attack, Miss Relena. . . . That's all I'm asking. What does the Sanq Kingdom do then? You said it yourself: we have no way to defend ourselves against an attack. And just because we abide by our ideals and our promises, doesn't mean they will. Instead, it makes us that much weaker a target. So, do we just let ourselves be over-run?"

He turned his eyes momentarily, willing himself to cool his temper. This was Relena Darlian, heir to the Peacecraft dynasty, after all, and not the enemy. Her concerns were legitimate. In fact, they mirrored his own. Perhaps that was what got him so riled; neither of them could ignore the gaping holes in the arguments they so desperately wanted to believe.

"I know how the Specials think," Walker said in a lower voice. "They see the Sanq Kingdom as indebted to the Order for her freedom."

"And you seem to think the gundams are our ticket out of that supposed debt."

"Don't you?" He looked up. "You were the one who first suggested they might be on the side of right—that the world needed voices like theirs."

"Yes," Relena said with a shake of her head, "but I never meant we should fight beside them."

Walker mulled that over for a long moment before, realizing he was getting nowhere, he said instead: "Well, maybe things won't come to that. I'm going to challenge Sandrock's pilot to a duel."

The blood seemed to drain from Relena's face at those deadly words. "What?"

"I want to see what he can do. The only way I can do that is to face him myself on a level playing field, one-on-one. No distractions, no other factors. I have no reason to suspect the pilot will refuse, if he is the kind of man I believe him to be. Don't worry," Walker said quickly to her opening mouth, "I don't intend for him to take Sandrock into this battle. I already know what that suit is capable of. What I want to know now is whether the pilot is half as amazing as it is."

"Whatever would make you come up with such a silly thing?"

Despite her dismissive words, however, Walker could see that his idea had upset Relena by the way she hurriedly crossed the room, refusing to meet his eyes and grasping for some position among the furnishings more stable than that which she had occupied near the fireplace—as though being on his right rather than his left might make him change his mind. He put his elbow on the mantel, watching her. But could he really say that her reaction came as a surprise?

"It isn't silly," he said. "It's the only way I'll be satisfied. And it is the only way he will regain his freedom if I have anything to say about it, to say nothing of his honor—"

"I just hope you're not planning on dying," Relena said.

Her eyes flickered up to Walker's momentarily, and he read a veiled threat in it: if you get yourself killed out there, I'll murder you. It would have been almost comical, if the stakes were not so high.

"Not planning," he said. "But it's a possibility I must be prepared to face. Don't forget, I am first and foremost a soldier."

"I don't like this version of 'honor' you men have," said Relena. "I don't like the idea that two people who do such good should have to fight each other." A shiver ran through her anyone else would miss. But it made Walker uneasy. "Why can't you just let him go?"

"It's not that simple—" Walker started, then stopped himself. No matter how much logic he used to try and explain his reasons, ultimately he knew they were selfish. He shifted to a more comfortable position, though he was still uncomfortable.

"I don't like it either, but there is a higher system of rules at play here that neither of us can just ignore." He tried to be rational. He saw the fairness and the honor in what he had set his mind to, and the scientific worthiness of the struggle; but trying to convey that to a person like Relena, who—perhaps naively, but he did believe her heart was in the right place—saw all combat as a needless, barbaric waste of all that was precious, proved difficult to the point that even Walker was not too calmed by his own words.

"You never know what might happen," he tried, suddenly nonchalant. "I have a hunch about this guy, Miss Relena. You must trust me, that even though I'm putting my life on the line for this, it is a worthy cause, our struggle. You might not see it right away, but you will when this is all over. That is what I truly believe. Although, if I'm wrong . . ."

"Don't even say such—"

"He is very talented," Walker insisted, "and I want you to give him a chance if anything should happen to me out there—a chance to do right by you like I've tried to these past months. No matter what happens, I'm comforted by the fact that at least I will have done my job, and you should be, too. I'm going into that fight one way or another for the soldiers of the future—"

"Don't say that!" Relena shouted then, surprising both of them. Then she looked down and away from him, no doubt embarrassed of her outburst. "My father used to say things like that," she began again in a softer voice, though not much softer, "and a lot of good it did him. Please, don't repeat to me OZ's lies, Walker."

"It's a realistic perspective to have—"

"It's a lie! I already lost one father to lies like that. I don't want to lose you as well."

She twisted the bow on her suit's waist nervously, before realizing the childishness of what she was doing and dropping her hands resolutely to her sides.

"I refuse to allow you to fight this man tomorrow," she said with the authoritative tone she almost never used with him. "Send him on his way. Tell him to leave Cydonia altogether and go back to the Arab States where he belongs. That's an order, Walker."

They stood in silence for a long moment after that, Relena waiting for him to say something—anything—Walker not wanting to say what he was most tempted to. At last he managed to whisper: "I can't. . . ."

"Why not? It can't be that difficult."

"But I just can't do that. I'm sorry."

"Then I shall just have to do it for you. I want you to arrange for me to speak with the gundam pilot first thing in the morning."

She made as if to hurry to the door, and, seeing his chance evaporating, Walker pushed himself away from the mantel to intercept her. On instinct it seemed, his arms moved of themselves as though to grab hold of Relena's arms, make her understand his point through osmosis if need be, but he stopped short of actually touching her. "Look, I can't . . ."

She stopped of her own accord, waiting for him to finish that thought.

Which was easier said than done, in Walker's opinion. "I can't explain it to you right now, but it is very important that I do this. All I can really do at this point is ask you to trust me. But I promise you, Relena, if I die, it will never be in vain."

It was a moment before he realized he had slipped and called her by her given name—just Relena; no title, no family name. If she caught the slip as well, she did not show any reaction one way or another. It was simply that in his sincerity, in his need to get his point across, the vow that he had made came back to him as strong and as fresh as the day he had made it, and in doing so forsaken his career as an OZ Special. He would protect Relena Darlian, the Peacecraft heir to the Sanq throne, with his life if need be; he would not hesitate to lay it down in her service.

But never in vain. Indeed, for her sake, he had every interest in staying alive.

Yet who could say what tomorrow may bring? And now he had given them both something else to worry about with its arrival. Relena was staring at him imploringly, a question forming on her lips that she couldn't seem to shape into words.

Walker broke eye contact and was begging her to excuse him before she could protest again. It would be a long night as things stood already, and he intended to spend the better half of it in lockdown with that magnificent suit.

—= o =—

Quatre awoke the next morning feeling better rested than he had in over a week, between the battle at Medina and the long nights on the road. For a moment, he had half a mind to believe he was still in his humble apartment in Medina and the past week and a half, nothing more than a dream, but for the call that woke him: a video message from Walker politely informing him that breakfast was being sent to his room and that he expected to see Quatre in an hour's time.

If that failed to convince him he had not been dreaming, his surroundings fairly sealed the deal. The room to which Quatre had been confined all night was in fact a spacious and richly-appointed suite, better suited to a visiting diplomat than an outlaw and prisoner such as himself. He found his own clothes, left bundled and wrinkled in his bag in Sandrock's transport, clean and pressed and laid out for him. The construction company's uniform in which he had been arrested the afternoon before was no exception; he could find no trace of the dust and grit of the road that had been building up in its fibers all week.

Which just meant Walker's men had gone through his personal effects. Quatre was not sure how he should feel about that. On the one hand, like his pistol and identification being stripped from him, it felt like a violation of his very person; on the other . . . he did not understand why he should receive such luxurious treatment, or why so much effort should be expended for his sake by his captors.

It was more than enough to make him suspicious of their motives.

Not that the Sanq guard were clandestine about their presence. In addition to the locked doors, the view of the sea from his suite's french doors was marred every now and then by the passing of the officers stationed just outside on the balcony. In the silence of the room, he could hear their easy banter as they enjoyed their cups of morning coffee—and could almost forget the rifles that were omnipresent at their sides.

Quatre washed his face after he had dressed in the adjoining powder room, straightening his hair with his fingers. As he fixed his appearance in the mirror, he wondered if Abdul and Auda had been given the same treatment as he; and he looked over his shoulder to the phone, wishing he knew where they were and that he could speak with them. Despite the richness of his surroundings, there was something about this room that nonetheless accomplished the same effect as a prison cell.

Presently a maid came with silver tray and bidding him good morning. If not for the pair of armed guards who accompanied her, Quatre might have felt like a prince. He took his breakfast and tea in solitude, hardly tasting the food at all; and when he had finished, the officers stationed outside accompanied him through the palace, taking him by motorcar to where Walker would be waiting for him.

The structure at which they arrived resembled nothing Quatre had expected. They stopped at a rocky stretch of land near the ocean, some distance from the city proper, where pale gray concrete buildings of massive scale sat clustered together in a military complex not only more modern than Sanq's government offices, but of much less traditional design as well. The building before their car in particular was a monstrosity with tall, slightly sloping sides that looked like something out of a textbook of ancient human history: like a ziggurat or a mastaba, solid, with slender reveals in the otherwise almost featureless walls. One could tell just by outward appearances they were thick: the walls of a fortress. But what a fortress was doing in the pacifist Sanq Kingdom was a question Quatre would have liked answered.

"It sort of makes a person feel small, doesn't it?"

Quatre recognized the voice as Walker's, and looking away from the massive walls, saw the young man walking toward them. He pulled gloves off his hands as he did so, and Sandrock's pilot could see faint smudges of grease on his clothing as he neared.

As though reading Quatre's thoughts on the structure, he continued, "Daigo Onegel constructed this complex after the Alliance took control of the Sanq Kingdom and placed him in charge, I guess in his attempt to seriously beef up the nation's defenses, make it into a leading military power. He had some, let's just say, eccentric ideas about how to go about doing that. Maybe he just wanted to rub his victory in the face of the late King Peacecraft. . . ." Walker shrugged slightly. "Well. Unfortunately the same operation that freed Sanq obliterated much of its defensive weaponry, and it's still something of an eyesore—not to mention a sore spot—for the people of this country; but we couldn't bring ourselves to tear it down. A lot of Sanq's own capital went into it. Plus, crippled though this base may be, it still serves its purpose."

"What purpose is that?" Quatre asked, climbing down from the car to take Walker's proffered hand. Even given his place in this nation as a captive and criminal, Quatre's manners were too ingrained for him to ignore the custom.

Walker smiled at him as they shook. "What other purpose could there be for a structure like this? Follow me."

He took the boy into the structure unaccompanied, his fellow officers following far behind and engaged in their own conversation—into the now nearly empty hallways through which every footstep echoed, and up an elevator the inside of which was polished like silver. Along the way, he made small talk, asking Quatre, "How do you feel this morning? I hope you're well-rested."

"Yes, thanks to the Sanq Kingdom's hospitality." Quatre's brows furrowed. "To be honest, I was surprised. Is this how the princess treats everyone who bring mobile suits into her city?"

"No. But, then, nobody's ever brought a gundam. I would have thought that a person who was capable enough of piloting a machine like that would consider it too great a risk, bringing an outlawed suit like that into a nation with policies like ours, with such a tenuous peace with the Order as ours, unless he was truly desperate."

"I guess one would just have to call his situation desperate, then," Quatre said, ignoring the slight if it was intended as such.

"Which I suppose is why Miss Relena saw fit to treat you like a guest. She doesn't feel any hostility toward someone who's able to pilot a gundam, because she knew you would not pose a significant threat. At least not to us."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because we are both oppressed by the Order, Sanq and your Maguanacs. And because, I suspect, our respective ideals are more similar than our pride will allow us to admit."

"What about Abdul and Auda?" Quatre said, eager to get off a subject he felt was cutting too close to the truth for his comfort. "Does she feel hostility toward them?"

Walker looked up toward the ceiling for a moment before answering ambiguously. "Your friends are well taken care of. The ones we found with your suits were taken into custody, but I've given orders for them not to be treated as criminals. For the time being, that is." He looked at Quatre. "That all depends on what you do."

"When do I get to see them again?"

"When you've fulfilled your part of the conditions of your release. I don't want them to interfere. If their feelings about you are like I think, they won't settle for this easily and might cause trouble."

The elevator stopped, and Walker stepped out first, Quatre calling behind him, "Wait a minute. Since when did we start negotiating the conditions of our release? What exactly are those supposed to entail—"

His words trailed off as his eyes focused on the scene in front of them. They were inside the inner ring of the mastaba-like structure, which he now saw contained an incredibly wide field, open to the elements. Its construction brought to mind a sports stadium, but there was no sport that needed as much room as this. Dozens of individual mobile suits could fit inside it, whole squadrons of Leos and Aries. The outlines of lifts that brought suits to and from some underground hangar could be seen in the level floor, only the small patches of grass that dotted the concrete seams giving any indication that the site had not been used to its full potential in many years. There were tiers in the walls above where officers could stand and address the assembled troops, or observe training exercises among pilots.

Presently on the field there were only two Leos surrounded by work crews, their skins a worn olive brown and scarred with silver scratches and the pockmarks of bullet wounds, but just their presence there was enough cause for alarm.

"Those . . . those are Leos!" Quatre exclaimed, starting.

"Yes. Isn't that obvious?" said Walker.

"But they shouldn't even be here! Sanq is a pacifist country. You said yourself you don't allow MS. . . ."

Then he shut his mouth. From little he knew of her, Quatre doubted that Relena Peacecraft would approve of this—if in fact she knew about it. He dared not voice that opinion, however, lest it open a whole new set of concerns he did not need weighing him down. He simply hoped there was a rational explanation.

"Sanq is a pacifist country," Walker said soon enough, putting his hands on his hips. "There's no mistake about that."

"Then why does it have an army?"

"It doesn't. Although I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be perfectly within its rights to defend itself from attackers, do you?" An irritated expression briefly crossed his features, but it did not reach his calm voice. "These Leos were confiscated from the Alliance when the base was liberated by OZ. They haven't been used since. Miss Relena wouldn't allow it. In fact, she barely allows them to exist as is. She wishes we'd dismantle them."

"Even if the Order attacked?"

"I don't know." Walker let out a small sigh. "She sticks to her principles, and even though I don't always agree with them, I admire that about her. That's why I must protect her."

"Still, it's a foolish mindset for a leader of her country to have."

Walker turned to him. "How do you mean?"

"Well," Quatre began, unable to tear his eyes away from the suits as he did so, "if a nation were attacked, and found its very existence in peril, it would have a sovereign right to resist the enemy and protect its existence. For the sake of the people who call that nation home. They have a right to expect their government will protect them."

Walker said nothing in response, waiting for Quatre to continue.

"But on the other hand, it would look hypocritical if a nation claiming to practice total pacifism were to be found to be hiding something as destructive as mobile suits. That nation would be harder to trust thereafter. And its inability to be trusted might make other nations feel a need to protect themselves against a state with such volatile potential. What would result is an arms race, and where there are arms, there is the mentality that they exist to be used. So, in that sense, I can understand why she would disapprove. If I were in her position, it's the suits' potential to be used I would have a problem with, rather than the suits themselves."

"Huh." Walker studied the boy's face for a moment, turning his words over in his head. "I guess that's the response I should have expected from Sandrock's pilot."

He looked away again, raising his voice as though he hadn't said those last words. "Well, I guess we'd be in trouble then, if the Order ever did attack Sanq. These Leos are over thirty years old. Mind, I hear the gundams might be upwards of twenty, but gundams these are not. And it doesn't matter how good a shape Onegel kept them in; the Order gave up using this model a long time ago." Walker smiled wryly. "It would be suicide to take these suits into battle against a modern military. Even Treize, for all his renowned prowess with the Leo, wouldn't take the risk."

"Then why are those two out there?" Quatre said as he nodded toward the Leos.

He heard Walker hum beside him, and saw him shift out of the corner of his eye.

"They may be outdated, and they might not be my suit of choice on the battlefield, but I have a great deal of respect for the Leo. It's a great equalizer. No matter how skilled a pilot may be, no matter how quick his reaction time or how precise his control, he cannot exceed the limits placed upon him by the suit. Thus even a gundam pilot can be brought down to the level of an ordinary Leo pilot.

"In fact," Walker said on second thought, with a curious tone that made Quatre turn to him again, "in some ways the ordinary Leo pilot might have the advantage in a situation like that. Someone who has mastered the Leo's controls and knows just how long it takes for the suit to react to his commands might even be better matched against a gundam pilot, who's used to his own suit's high level of precision."

All in a rush it came to Quatre, where he was going with this line of talk. "You want me to fight in the Leo?"

Walker's expression sobered as he met the younger man's gaze. "I want you to fight me," he said, "in a duel. Leo against Leo. No live ammunition; just sabres and the suits themselves. Miss Relena would like to test your skills in a more objective setting, and beside that it will be interesting to see how well you adapt to a foreign suit."

Quatre backed up a step. "And why should I want to do that? I thought I was under arrest for mobile suit trafficking, and now you want to stick me in one? I'm not some guinea pig, you know."

That brought a renewed smile to Walker's lips. "Then consider it the ticket to you and your companions' freedom."

"But you said yourself fighting an actual battle in these suits would be suicide. Are you sure that's a risk you want to take with someone who's been branded by OZ a criminal?"

"Back at the Specials Academy," Walker simply said, "we had a way of settling disputes and grievances between two recruits. It involved a sword, and if you weren't serious in your conviction you ended up in the infirmary, or worse. I have made something of a wager about you, and I cannot afford to back out of it. Humor me, lose, and you and your friends might walk out of here free men—with your suits."

Quatre swore he must have heard wrong. "Lose and I gain my freedom?"

"That's correct."

A freedom which would mean nothing if Quatre were dead. "But if that's the case, what's to stop me from losing intentionally? What if I surrendered right now?"

Walker seemed to hold himself a little straighter before he answered. "Somehow I doubt it's in your character to do so."

Quatre was beginning to hate the other man's audacity—as well as his perceptiveness. He could not believe he was really as open a book as Walker made him seem. "What do I get if I win?"

"If you win, I can offer you an opportunity like no other. But it's a difficult road, that one—which is all the more reason why this exercise is so crucial. I have to know you're strong enough for it, that it's not just the suit that's made Sandrock so legendary."

He seemed reluctant to say more than that, which only made Quatre more wary. "And what if I choose not to humor you? What if I choose not to fight at all?"

"Sanq doesn't have the facilities for holding an MS of Sandrock's caliber. I'd hate to think we might have to dispose of it into the hands of a power more capable. . . ." For such a thinly veiled threat, Walker as though he were simply thinking aloud. "But neither of us wants that to happen. The fact of the matter is, you've done a very audacious thing, bringing that suit of yours into this country. If you have half the honor I think you do—half the honor someone who pilots that suit ought to—then you'll see this as the only righteous thing to do. The stakes are your freedom, versus my nation's honor."

And we are the cards to be played, Quatre thought. Walker did not give him time to consider. It seemed he knew how Quatre would decide before Quatre did.

And that irritated Sandrock's pilot to no end.

"I want to give you time to familiarize yourself with the Leo," Walker said, as though they were already agreed. "You won't be able to move it, of course, for purposes of security, but you can at least get yourself accustomed to its controls. It's only the gentlemanly thing for me to offer."

"I already have plenty of experience with these models," Quatre told him, but he did not refuse the offer either. "What do you think I trained in? No one could learn to pilot a gundam without any mobile suit experience. No one who's human, anyway."

"Of course not," Walker agreed. "It makes perfect sense to me that they would have started you out that way, considering that the Maguanac suit is based roughly on the Leo anyway."

He ignored Quatre's ensuing look of distrust. The man should have been an engineer rather than a Special, Quatre decided. Then perhaps his urge to examine strangers' mobile suits without their consent would simply be rude and not cause for actual alarm.

"But, again," Walker added as though as an after-thought, "I doubt your fellows had you taking decades'-old Leos into actual battle."

Whether his words were meant to goad Quatre, or were simply a statement of the facts, Quatre could not be sure. He already knew how he would decide, because it was in his nature—just as Walker had said. He would climb into the suit, undaunted by the antiquity of the Leo's cockpit. He would learn its ins and outs in no time; he had had to learn how to pilot Sandrock without any instruction, and he had taken to the gundam as though it had been made for him. He would not allow some Order suit to get the better of him.

He only prayed that he was making the right decision by accepting Walker's challenge, and not because he doubted his own skill. Rather, he feared the repercussions should the choice he made turn out to be the wrong one.

—= o =—

As the sun passed higher into the sky, and the nearer moon came and disappeared again behind the eastern wall of the stadium, the stands high on the walls began to fill. It did not surprise Quatre to see on the cockpit screen the tiny figures of soldiers in Sanq colors walking above, but the sight of civilians come from the city further inland did take him aback, even more so as their numbers increased.

Just what did Walker have in mind for this challenge he had issued, Quatre wondered. Did he really deem it necessary to risk civilians' lives by inviting them to witness this bout between the two of them? Come and see a real-live gundam pilot in action?

Either he was a more callous man than he appeared, or—and Quatre was firmly convinced of the latter—he knew the presence of innocent townspeople would only serve as another handicap against the Sandrock pilot. Suddenly his insistence on no live ammunition made much better sense. The open desert this was not, where there were only hoodoos and twisted, dried-out vegetation standing in harm's way. It was not just the risk of damage wide-flying live rounds would pose here, but the very real and present risk to human life.

Clever, Quatre thought with a curse under his breath. I might have to pull my punches—which must be exactly what he's counting on. And yet he has the gall to still say Leos are the great equalizer. . . .

A similar thought occurred to Relena as she stepped into the general's box and took in the sight before her: the two clunky, battle-scarred Leos on opposite ends of the field down below, and above them, around the rim of the complex, the stands filling up with her own people like bleachers at a ball game.

She could feel the tension in her mother's frame beside her, and Pagan's small cough seemed to possess a note of uncertainty. "Connect me to Captain Walker's suit," Relena told one of the guard who attended them.

The man depressed a button on the control panel before them, said, "Captain? Princess Relena to speak with you, sir," and a second later the face of the young man in question appeared on the monitor.

Walker saluted. He was not yet harnessed in—no doubt she had caught him in the middle of final preparations—but his goggles sat on his forehead and gloves were on his hands. For all appearances, he seemed ready for battle.

And for something else, Relena thought, but she dared not voice that thought.

She did not wait for him to speak. "Walker, you cannot tell me you're still serious about fighting that man. I beg you not to go through with this," she said, leaning over the control panel. "Please reconsider. I'm afraid this is going to turn into a public execution—"

"I intend to keep my blows away from Mr Raberba's cockpit."

"But I can't trust he'll do the same!"

In response, Walker's eyes only narrowed in thought, and it was enough to make Relena clench her jaw hard enough to make it ache. "If I must say it like this, then so be it. You're too valuable to me and to this nation to throw away your life in what, by your words, amounts to little more than a scientific experiment. And I don't want that gundam pilot to die either. I don't want him here, but nor can I have it on my hands if this duel puts an end to one of the few people who can stand up to the Order's might. Can't we just let him be on his way and pretend he was never in Sanq to begin with?"

"You don't understand, Miss Relena—"

"Oh, I understand you two feel you have something to prove, something about honor, and for the life of me I can never understand why some more peaceful solution cannot be reached."

This went against everything her father stood for—her birth father, the late King Peacecraft, of whom she had only learned in the past couple of years since returning to the newly liberated Sanq Kingdom; and her adopted father, Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, whose daughter she still felt most like in her heart. Both had been assassinated for their beliefs in pacifism, one by the Alliance and the other by OZ, and it was in their memory that she had sworn she would not allow their deaths to have been in vain. She had made it her life's mission to uphold their ideals, and she had thought Walker shared that dream since the day he came to her.

And now he threatened to bring it all down in one fell swoop by these actions, everything her fathers had given their lives to build. And for what? Some masculine delusion of honor? As a test of skill and willpower—a test that put her fellow citizens' lives at risk?

"What if he turns on our people? Why are they even here in the first place?"

"The people have a right to see justice meted out when it concerns their nation's well-being—"

"You speak of their well-being and put them in the line of fire? They should not be here for this, Walker!"

A small smile touched the officer's lips then that to Relena seemed to fly in the face of the concerns she was trying so hard to impress upon him, as if he were taunting her to try and tear her people away from a good show. She knew in her heart, however, that he meant no disrespect to her by it; if anything, he meant the opposite.

"He won't do any such thing," he told her gently. "It isn't in his nature."

"How would you know?" When everything in her person told her this was a terrible idea? "Suddenly you're an expert on his character? The gundams are ruthless."

"Against OZ's forces. I can't speak for all of them, but this gundam's pilot plays by a higher set of standards than even the Specials' top officials. He fights for a sense of righteousness. That is what I've taken away from our discussions, that he believes he has a sacred duty as that Sandrock's pilot to protect human life, and to fight for those who are unable or unwilling to fight for themselves. Even if he hasn't said so in so many words, it's evident in everything he does. There is no doubt in my mind he would even lay down his own life if the people gathered here were threatened. No." Walter slowly shook his head. "He won't allow any of them to come to harm if he can help it."

"And if he tries to kill you?"

Relena could not phrase it any other way. She refused to believe that Walker could lose his life in his duel, even if he—in that strange way of his she could not for the life of her understand—seemed already to accept that as a possibility. Perhaps it was his defense mechanism, she thought, that smile when he spoke of the prospect of his own demise, just the same way her stubbornness not to believe it could happen was hers.

Still, she wanted to yell at him until he finally saw enough logic to stop this duel before it started.

"If it helps to put your mind at ease, I've rigged it so Mr Raberba's suit can be incapacitated remotely," Walker told her, as he flipped a few switches above his head out of frame. "Just in case I've been wrong about him this whole time and he does mean us harm, and in which case I'm putting a weapon of mass destruction into his hand. You'll see the device on the panel just to your right."

He met her eyes through the screen. "But I must ask you to use it only if it appears he intends to hurt yourself or the civilians," Walker emphasized. "I don't know what could happen with suits as old as these; the damage to structural integrity that would result might be enough to cause a collapse that could end up killing him. In any event, I leave that decision in your hands in case I don't make it through this, but—please, Miss Relena, I can't emphasize this enough—don't use it to avenge me. Vengeance only breeds more vengeance. If everyone took a life for a life, who would be left?"

A chill ran through the young woman's bones at those words. Her father the vice foreign minister had said those very words before. She wondered if Walker had borrowed them from that man—or, for that matter, if her father had borrowed them from someone who had inspired him to take the path that ultimately led to his death.

When she hesitated to respond, Walker saluted again. "I trust you'll make the right call, Princess."

And with that, he cut the picture transmission.

"Wait—" Relena snapped out of her indecision, but too late. "Walker!" She depressed the button she had seen the other officer using, and called for him again; but if her voice got through, he was ignoring her call.

Instead, it was Quatre who was alerted by the beep of an incoming transmission. He raised his eyes from the ancient controls to see Walker's face in the upper corner of his monitor. The young officer asked him, "Are you ready to do this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," Quatre said calmly. His heart beat a little faster, and his naked hands felt warm and a little slippery on the controls; but the clarity of battle was already taking over his vision, making the seconds seem to pass like minutes, bringing every detail into sharp relief.

"At my signal," Walker continued, "my men will release the remote hold they have on your suit. You will power up and assume a battle-ready position. Your unit is wired for remote-activated emergency shut-down, and I've given Miss Relena authority to use it if she feels your behavior here poses a threat to either herself or our audience, so I must emphasize the importance of being aware of your surroundings at all times. As for myself—don't hold anything back. I want this to be a fair judge of your abilities, just as if it were live, mortal combat."

Strangely, his warnings did not faze Quatre's concentration in the least. He was not sure how he should feel knowing that, among other things, his life rested in the hands of this ex-Special and an adolescent princess. And the stakes were not just Quatre and his companions' freedom; it was Sandrock's reputation in the whole northeastern hemisphere that hung in the balance if he lost.

It was into those thoughts that Walker slipped a strangely amiable, "Do you feel comfortable with the controls?"

As if a negative reply might yet call this whole thing off.

Not wanting to give his opponent an advantage one way or another, Quatre replied an ambiguous, "I'll manage. If I were you, I'd just worry about myself, Mr Walker."

"Good advice," the other admitted. Then, over the structure's loudspeakers, he gave the command to his men: "All personnel, clear the field."

The order was repeated until word came back to Walker that he and the gundam pilot had the all-clear; there was no one on the ground but they two and their suits.

"Release remote lock of the Leos' power source."

Quatre did not see his fellows as they were led into a box similar to Relena's on the other side of the stadium. Abdul and Auda and the rest of their team stared mouths agape as their team leader's situation quickly became apparent to them without need of explanation. Auda shouted at the Sanq officers to stop the operation, and Abdul pounded on the bulletproof glass window for Quatre's attention, but it was all in vain.

Sandrock's pilot was focused on the machine that surrounded him, and on an officer's disembodied voice alerting him: "Leos released. You now have the all-clear to power up your suits."

Quatre's fingers obeyed with a life of their own, with the instinctual precision that had been hammered into him by his few but intense years in combat with Sandrock. His training at a Leo's controls came back to him as fresh as if it had taken place yesterday. The old reactor rumbled to life, the hum of electronics charging to full capacity filling his ears and resonating in his blood as the Leo came on-line. His hands slid comfortably around the twin sticks, his feet finding their place in the pedals. Like a man stretching after years of slumber, he felt the suit respond to his first, tentative movements: the flex of a mechanized hand, the hiss of an ankle piston as a heel lifted off the concrete.

Before him, Walker's suit unsheathed its beam sabre, the blade springing into existence with a flash of golden energy. He took a step toward the center of the field, assuming an en garde stance.

Quatre wasted no time pulling his own suit's sabre from its power dock. He could not afford to wait for the other to make a first move. Despite his skill with Sandrock, in these older model Leos with which he had had no practical experience, he was at a severe disadvantage. His best hope was to catch his opponent off his guard and gain an early offensive position.

He dashed forward, lunging with the sabre in hopes of landing an incapacitating stab.

However, the suit was considerably more sluggish than he had anticipated. Its run was more comparable to a trot, and Walker saw his move coming long before Quatre ever reached his suit. The gundam pilot was too slow in correcting his course, accustomed as he was to his own suit's rapid reaction time; and Walker sidestepped the brunt of his attack, guiding the sabre past his suit and out of harm's way with his own, and taking the brunt of the impact with Quatre's Leo on his shoulder.

Quatre was thrown against his harness as his suit came to a sudden and jarring stop. No doubt his opponent had suffered the same. The crunch of metal against metal echoed loudly even inside the cockpit. Quatre gritted his teeth at the effort it took just to keep his balance in the antiquated suit—and was ill-prepared when Walker shoved him away a second later.

The Leo stumbled backwards and braced itself upon the concrete, just milliseconds before Walker's blow caught it on what might have been the collarbone on a human. Quatre could feel the impact on the ceiling of his cockpit. The lights overhead and the images on his screen flickered but held. Yet somehow he managed to keep his footing. Walker forced him back with a slash of his beam sabre, and with a loud groan of steel and wire, Quatre lost ninety-percent of his control of the Leo's left arm.

And he had been in this game for less than a full minute.

He gritted his teeth, cheeks burning in shame and panic, lacking even the capacity to curse. This was not like him at all. The person piloting his Leo was like a stranger to him, clumsy and stupid, far removed from the Sandrock who tore through the ranks of Specials like a force of nature. He had been cocky, yes, but even still Quatre could hardly believe his poor performance. At this rate, he would be lucky if he just managed not to get himself killed.

He knew precisely where the problem lay: he and his Leo were not matching up. They were not fighting as one streamlined unit, and all because—just as Walker had warned—the Leo's reaction time was significantly slower than Quatre's. It did not respond like he expected it to—like he was used to. It lagged behind his maneuvers, ignoring what he wanted it to do, or else simply unable to comply. It did not bend and twist like Sandrock did in battle, like an organic thing, an extension of his body. It moved forward and back; it pivoted; it swayed on its feet and fought for every inch of ground Quatre gained. He knew then, if he did not change his own fighting style, he was lost.

Walker swung down again with the sabre, and this time Quatre's was there to meet it. In a crackle of ions, the opposing Leo's glowing blade stopped short of his own's armor. The elbow groaned its difficulty, and the shoulder joint protested, but with aching slowness Quatre managed to turn the tables. His left arm hung practically useless at his side, but he counterattacked with his right, and forced Walker on the defensive for the first time in this battle—just, Quatre thought as he chastised himself, as he should have done from the start.

He did not hear Walker's short laugh of surprise at the change, nor would he have believed that his opponent was actually pleased after a sorts to have the tables turned against him.

However, his precise blows that Walker considered himself almost lucky to parry came to the young officer with a queer sense of satisfaction. Whatever happened, he knew he was no longer to be disappointed. Nor was there any more need to pull his punches.

It meant Walker had been right all along—that, though the other's progress was gradual, Sandrock's pilot possessed the talent to adapt well to unfamiliar conditions just as he had predicted—and that meant he had not been mistaken in challenging Quatre to this duel.

However, it also meant that he would have to up the ante if he wanted to see just what the boy was capable of. He only hoped both of them would survive his doing so.

All around them, the civilians who had turned out to watch were shouting their encouragement to Walker over the din of battle, but neither pilot could hear them. Nor did they see those in the stands for anything but a mass that was to be avoided at all costs.

Rather than force his will onto his suit, which was not working, Quatre let himself become the Leo. It was like dancing in rhythm, however an awkward one, learning just when to make his move, just how fast and to what length he could take it. His movements were far from fluid, but they accomplished what they were meant to.

Nor could Quatre concern himself with style when Walker's attacks were becoming more frequent, and packing more force behind them. He dodged Quatre's high stab, dropping down and swinging a cut to the side right toward the cockpit of Quatre's Leo.

Sandrock's pilot blanched, before instinct kicked in and intercepted Walker's beam sabre with the Leo's left arm just in time.

This time it sheered off and fell to the ground with an awful crash. Had he been outside, Quatre would have heard their audience gasp and shout. Of course, had he been outside, he would not have been in this mortal peril. He growled inside his cockpit. It meant, then, that Walker intended to use every means at his disposal, and was not about to avoid targeting Quatre's cockpit in the process.

He only had one arm with which to fight now, but that knowledge only strengthened Quatre's resolve. Lose, Walker had said, and he would have his freedom; but it would be freedom in shame, if he survived it, knowing Sandrock's pilot had been defeated by a former Special on equal terms, in front of hundreds. Pressing on might endanger his life, but to Quatre that was a risk he was prepared to take. In any case, while he still had one arm to fight with, surrender was not an option. He would not give in until either the Leo or he had been completely incapacitated.

He thrust and parried with his remaining sword hand, pushing the old Leo to the limits of its capacity. He knew he was at a disadvantage when Walker, their sabres locked together, grabbed Quatre's arm with his free hand.

But even that could be used in Quatre's favor. He saw an opening, and did not hesitate to use it.

With Walker's suit virtually supporting his, Quatre leaned in closer and brought his suit's knee up as quick and with as much torque as he could. It slammed into the side of Walker's cockpit hatch, and his hold on Quatre's arm slackened. The boy followed it up with a kick outward, hitting Walker's Leo in its shin, and both their suits lost their balance as they were pushed away from one another.

Walker was able to recover from it, though his hands had slipped momentarily from his controls; but not as quickly as Quatre.

The boy's raised sword arm finally fell, and with its descent went Walker's right hand and beam rifle.

Within seconds, his left leg buckled beneath him as well from a severed joint; and as he fell backwards onto the other leg, he just witnessed Quatre's golden blade slicing the horizon before his screens went dead.

But he was still alive. And he would take blindness over death any day. "Suit's cameras are out," Walker shouted to his officers on the ground. "I can't see anything. Get me an outside feed!"

His suit's heads-up display flickered back to life a moment later, this time providing him with a view not from the Leo's perspective, but from the general's box where Relena sat watching. Then Walker could see where his problem lay. His Leo's head had been almost completely taken off. His suit sat folded back upon itself on the concrete, its weight supported by its remaining hand while its busted leg stretched outward at an odd angle. Smoke rose from its split skull, where the golden glass that was the suit's face had dulled and shattered and become a lifeless hole.

As he watched from this out-of-body viewpoint, Walker could see that nor was he out of this yet. Quatre's Leo, though in only somewhat better shape than his suit, stepped foward to claim its victory. As Walker watched, it came to a stop with his sabre lined up to run through his own Leo's cockpit; from his awkward perspective, it was difficult to believe, but the point of the beam was hovering just outside Walker's cockpit hatch.

A collective gasp echoed through the complex as bystanders waited with dread for Sandrock's pilot to finish their princess's man off. Only the Maguanacs in their box whooped in relief that it was not Quatre in his position, but it was not without an ounce of dread as to what might happen to them, as well as to Quatre, depending on what he now did.

Relena felt her heart skip inside her chest in fearful disbelief. She had barely managed to follow the gundam pilot's winning moves, and now the fate of the captain of her guard, and her dearest companion these past lonely months in Sanq, rested in the hands of that teenage boy. The button Walker had told her of rushed back to the fore of her mind. It sat on the console unguarded by any of her soldiers, tempting her. What did she care, she thought, if it did kill that gundam pilot in the process of disarming his suit? If it saved Walker, was that not worth it?

Was it worth the price of that young man's blood on her hands?

It was only that which stayed her in indecision. If she hesitated now, she might lose Walker to that gundam pilot. And if she pressed it . . . then there was a good chance she herself would become a murderer.

Unknown to her, the same thought was racing through Walker's mind as he held his breath, waiting for Sandrock's pilot to make his decision, unable to do anything else. Whatever happened now, he had lost fair and square to a superior opponent. He only prayed if anyone had to lose his life today, it not be that boy.

Quatre fought for each breath as he held his ground, and willed his racing heartbeat in vain to slow. His chest would be bruised from his repeatedly being thrown against the Leo's harness; he could already feel a tightness forming, though he doubted anything was broken. His palms felt as though they were veritably glued to the suit's controls, and the sweat stung his eyes as it dripped into them from his dampened hair. He had survived, and emerged victorious. That was the only thought running through his mind now—echoing in his mind with the pounding of his blood in his eardrums. He was vaguely aware of someone hailing him—Walker perhaps; he could not be certain—but he could hardly comprehend the words.

When he first climbed into the Leo's cockpit, a part of Quatre had wondered if even his grudging acceptance of the challenge was a decision that would change his and Sandrock's destiny for good. Perhaps it was written all along in Medina's fall and the Maguanacs' exodus from the Arab States: that what they needed they would no longer find among the scattered city-states of the Arabian continent.

And whether Quatre liked whatever path God had set them down was beside the point. He was here now, at that journey's end, at the start of another, for better or worse. He could no longer rely on some assumed cover to keep him from facing that reality. He was here now as Sandrock's pilot and nothing else, exposed before the people of a kingdom who should not have seen him as an enemy given their situations, and yet did. He stood before them as though naked, and humbled.

Quatre ignored whatever the soldier's voice in his radio was trying to tell him with greater urgency, and turned his suit to face the general's box where the princess of Sanq sat watching him. He shut off his sabre's beam and took a step in her direction—and saw her companions recoil in shock as he did so.

But Relena did not move. Her eyes widened against her will, the muscles tightening in her jaw, but she willed herself to remain just where she was. She was not afraid of Sandrock and his pilot. Sanq was not afraid of him.

Quatre planted both feet of the Leo firmly on the ground when he stood before her and opened the cockpit hatch. He threw off his harness and grabbed up the radio's handset, and stepped out into the noonday sunlight. For a moment it blinded him, having been exposed to nothing but the artificial light of the cockpit for much of the morning; and when his vision cleared he finally saw the people gathered around the rim of the complex, and heard for the first time their apprehensive chatter, their confused mix of jeers and applause. The acrid scent of burnt ozone assaulted his nostrils.

It would have been too easy to get caught up in the roar of the crowd, but it was Relena who demanded his attention. It was a strange feeling, to find the young woman he had until now only seen on television staring back at him with only empty space and a sheet of glass to separate them. Quatre marveled briefly at how she could appear so young and yet so completely in-command at the same time—unaware that she and the rest of the onlookers were thinking the same about him.

"Princess Relena Peacecraft of the Sanq Kingdom of Cydonia," Quatre began into his radio handset. The words simply came, from exactly where he neither knew nor cared. "As pilot of the gundam Sandrock, and victor in this duel, I have a couple of requests to ask of you."

The crowd around them was bustling again with anxious whispers. He could not make out any single words among the noise, but knew it was his identity as Sandrock's pilot that was the topic of it.

Relena shook herself out of her stare at his words, and leaned forward over the booth's controls. A moment later, her voice was broadcast throughout the entire stadium: "If it's your release, it's granted—as per the conditions of your duel."

"There are a few more as well, ma'am. I request an opportunity to speak with you properly, face to face."

"Granted. Of course." She was eager to speak with him as well.

Walker stretched his neck up to watch the tiny figure of the young man on the Leo cockpit hatch high over his head, as he climbed up out of his own Leo. Soldiers rushed out onto the tarmac below him, surrounding Quatre and his suit with their rifles ready at their sides; but they stood back when they caught sight of Walker above him, signaling them to hold their fire. After all, if his hunches were correct, they could not miss nor tamper with whatever happened next.

"There is one other thing I'd like to ask of you, ma'am."

It was a mad impulse that seized Quatre then, but he allowed himself to be carried away by it. It felt almost as though he were submitting to a higher will power as he dropped to one knee upon the cockpit hatch and lowered his head. His hand went to his heart, which he could feel hammering wildly beneath his fingers.

"I wish to pledge my services to your highness as Sandrock's pilot," he heard himself say. Somehow his voice rang strong, without a tremor. "I would like the opportunity, if Princess Relena would allow it, of defending the Sanq Kingdom from any force that would attack its sovereignty."

His humble request reminded Relena of a knight of eons ago, pledging himself to the lady for whom he had won the glory of victory.

And yet she found herself shrinking back in a sort of horror at his offer, because it seemed like one of Walker's outlandish prophecies come true before her eyes. Quatre's was the kind of request that should have been greeted with applause, but, hero though he was in the Arab States, few among the roaring crowd were showing any support. Most were wondering, as she was, from whence this proposal had come; others, disgusted at the mere idea of their nation supporting a gundam. It was, in a word, surreal.

Yet she wondered, could she, and her nation, afford not to take this young man up on his offer?

—= o =—

"I suppose there's no harm now in returning this."

The joyful reunion between Quatre and his Maguanac companions was nearing its end, the last congratulatory mussing of his hair petering away into relieved laughter as Walker spoke those words.

With something akin almost to reverence, he laid Quatre's confiscated sidearm on the reception room table, inviting the young man to pick it up. "I would have expected the pilot of a gundam to carry something with a little more style," he remarked with a slight, wry smile.

As Quatre returned his pistol to its place, he could not help noticing the other's own where it sat at his hip, a worn, wooden handle visible above the holster. "What do you carry?"

"Smith and Wesson forty-four Russian sixgun. From before even the Pioneers' time."

"And it still works?"

Walker's amused smile was all the answer Quatre needed.

He knit his brows in thought, not wanting to sound ungrateful. However, "Well, it wouldn't be my choice. It's not as precise as a laser pistol. Besides, the ammunition is barbaric and more expensive than it's worth."

"I happen to disagree," Walker said. "It just means every shot has to count."

Quatre hummed. He agreed with the last point, but did not see what the weapon itself had to do with it. "Then again, this is coming from a man who thought it wise to fight a gundam pilot in a thirty-year-old Leo."

"And held his own, I might add. Up until I was down a leg."

There, Quatre had to admit, he had a point. He extended his hand, and was not disappointed when Walker took it heartily in both of his. "I can joke about it now, perhaps out of gratitude for the fact that I'm still standing here, but it really was an immense honor doing battle with you, Quatre—a chance that not many would be able to boast they had, to duel with a gundam pilot and see, with one's own eyes, what kind of man lies behind the name and the suit. Nor was I disappointed. Now I can see why your friends here are so protective of you."

Again Quatre found that intense, hawk-like gaze trained upon him, and, combined this time with the adoring looks of his Maguanac companions, again it made him feel uncomfortable. His cheeks colored faintly. Not knowing what to say in response, feeling that even the most humble response would nevertheless sound pompous, Quatre chose to say nothing.

Nor did he have to, for the door opened then and Relena Peacecraft stepped into the room.

Abdul and the other Maguanacs, startled by her arrival and not sure how best to act in the Sanq princess's presence, snapped to attention.

Perhaps it was against custom, Quatre could not be sure, but he let his gratitude carry him forward with hand extended. "Miss Peacecraft, ma'am, it's a great honor to finally be able to speak with you."

Relena grasped his hand, and he remarked to himself how firm her grip was. In slight heels, she stood at almost the same height as he; and Quatre was so used to meeting officials years his elder that for a moment he was taken aback by how young she truly was despite her air of maturity and wisdom.

"Please, I prefer to go by Darlian in private," she said. "Or Relena, to my friends."

"Should I be so bold as to presume that you and I are on friendly terms now?"

To Quatre's skeptical look, Relena only held herself straighter. "I believe I'm right in saying you and I have no wish to be enemies. I think my captain said it best when he asked me to remember that we are both oppressed by the Order, the Sanq Kingdom and your Maguanacs. If I wished ill will against one who was fighting for the same rights as I was, well, then I would truly be a fool."

Quatre found himself bowing his head in gratitude. He would have felt presumptuous saying the same, and was secretly glad Relena had said it before he could.

"However," he began slowly, "that does not necessarily mean you would outwardly support such a person."

"It does not. While there's no law to keep you here or make us hand you over to OZ, wanted men though you may be, I'm sure you can understand that Sandrock and the Maguanacs are not exactly welcome here either." Quatre remembered the audience's reaction to his victory, to which she seemed to be referring in this round-about way. "It's not even that some of us fear your presence in our nation might invite unwanted attention from the Order. People here have had their fill of mobile suits, Mr Raberba."

"Please. Quatre."

Relena's smile warmed a touch at that, but she did not take his invitation just yet.

"Yes," he said quickly. "During Alliance control of this nation, I'm sure they must have. I'm not so young I can't remember it. But I disagree with the notion that mobile suits are the crux of the problem. Yes, they are an effective way of controlling a people. But they are and always will be just machines, when one gets down to things—mere tools wielded by those in charge whom people should really fear and oppose. We Maguanacs choose to fight in mobile suits because it's the only way we can see that stands a chance of combating the common enemy who wants to seize our freedoms out from under us."

"But isn't that simply fighting fire with fire? It gets us nowhere. It does nothing to put an end to the problem, and the increased demand in which it results only guarantees the machines of war continue to be in production."

"And with any hope, someday that will end. But in the meantime, don't we have a duty to our people to use the best tools available to us? Isn't there some honor in our piloting MS because we use our suits for good?"

"What's good for the Arabian continent is not necessarily good for Cydonia, Mr Raberba."

"You'll find that matters little when you're under attack."

"Excuse me, ma'am. Captain."

A new voice made them all turn their attention to the door, where a Sanq officer stood in salute. Quatre and Relena forgot the argument in which they had been so embroiled as Walker asked the man what he had come for.

"We're getting word from Oxus that the Order is preparing to enter our borders with mobile suits."

In an instant, Relena was all business. She forgot Quatre and strode to meet the officer. "An invasion?"

Walker seemed to know the answer to that before the other could answer.

"No, ma'am. They're claiming to have tracked the gundam Sandrock's position to our territory. They're bringing a small army to take him by force." The man sobered, as if the reality of their situation had just sunk in at those words. "They claim it's in our own interest they be able to apprehend him as soon as possible, and beg our cooperation. But, ma'am, it doesn't appear that they know we already have him here."

"This is just like the Order," Walker said under his breath. "I should have expected something like this . . ."

"I'll have to issue a statement," Relena said, and Quatre could hear the tremor lying just beneath her carefully composed voice—a tremor not of fear but of rage. "How dare they do this. . . . To a sovereign nation, no less. Do their own treaties mean nothing to them. . . ."

Guilt racked him all over again then. It was just like Medina. Once again the Order had followed him inside an independent power that meant it no harm and was existing peacefully, yet, like Medina, it was the people of that nation who would suffer as long as he remained there among them. In light of that, the timing of his arguments with Relena could not have been less appropriate.

"This is my fault." The words more or less slipped from him. "We'll have to flee, us Maguanacs. We can't expose your people to any more danger on our accounts. That is, if we're still free to leave with our suits."

"Of course." Relena seemed more upset that he would suggest they were not. "They have no right to demand your apprehension, and I certainly don't have any intention of turning you over after this stunt."

"Even if it means you'll be demonized as a harborer of insurgents?"

Relena's chest heaved while she searched for the appropriate words, and it took her aback when Walker forced a laugh.

"I thought you would have understood by now," he said to Quatre and his companions, "how stubborn the princess is about her ideals. It's them she's really protecting, not you. Therefore, there are no contradiction in her policies."

"I didn't think there were. I would feel the same way, if I hadn't already made my decision to fight long ago."

If Relena was displeased with the way they discussed her like she were not in the room, she did not show it. "Don't take the southern route," she told Quatre. "It will take you too close to Order territory. They might see it as a threat—issued by Sandrock or Sanq, I doubt they'll care to make the distinction."

"I'll accompany you in my suit," Walker said.

"Not a chance," said Quatre. It might have seemed strange to an outsider, but he felt an overwhelming urge to protect Walker's life, despite—and perhaps because of—their nearly killing one another less than an hour before. "You'd hardly last two minutes in one of those antiquated Leos."

The other smiled. "Who said anything about a Leo? I'll be flying out ahead of you, in my Aries."

"I'll remain here where you can keep me abreast of the latest developments," Relena said to her captain.

And minutes later, it seemed, they were back on the road, the trucks carrying their mobile suits speeding from the old Alliance base toward Sanq's eastern borders.

True to his word, Walker flew overhead in his Aries, surveying the land ahead of them for sign of the Order's troops. It was one of the few things he had kept from his life as a Special, he explained to Quatre's curiosity—albeit against Relena's best wishes. Its body was green like the hills of this country, not the black that had become the Order's airborne troops' trademark since the fall of the Alliance.

And it was a necessity, he said in his own defense, in such volatile times as these when even a country that practiced total pacifism was not immune from outside attack.

"They've set up a roadblock up ahead," he radioed back to Quatre and his companions. "Complete with Tragos—they came prepared. There's an alternate route up ahead that runs north into open country. If you correct your course now, you could still slip under their radar undetected, but it would be a long shot."

Even before those last words, Quatre had made up his mind. "In that case, we're going through. That is, if everyone is up for it—"

"Do you even need to ask?" Abdul's voice cut through before he could finish.

"After Medina, we need to show them the Maguanacs don't run with their tails between their legs," Auda joined in. "That and it seems like the Order needs to be taught a lesson in diplomacy. We're going through."

Quatre smiled to himself hearing the determination in his comrades' words.

"Mr Walker, we appreciate the escort, but—"

"Say no more. I'm right there with you."

"All right," Quatre told them all, "but we ought to spare the enemy pilots wherever we can. Merely disable their suits if you can, without getting yourself killed in the process. We might be fighting for our own freedom in his battle, but Sanq can't afford the message it will send if OZ takes too many casualties. We're not in Arabia any more. We have to show them we're not monsters. We only want to live in peace."

Walker refrained from voicing the comment on the tip of his tongue, but he admired Sandrock's pilot more than he could say for making such a decision. With their six suits and his Aries against a legion of OZ's finest, that particular order was a very tall one to fill.

The transports pulled to the side of the road, and Quatre and his companions climbed inside of their respective suits, hurriedly bringing them to life. The few civilians who remained in the area, sticking their heads out of their vehicles to stare, puzzled, at the Order's troops on the road, cried out in alarm to see these rebel mobile suits rising in their midst, and among them a gundam. Walker warned them to evacuate, but they were just another factor that weighed heavily on Quatre's mind, that they might be risking more than their own lives with this endeavor. To add one more worry to that load, he only remembered as he climbed inside Sandrock's cockpit that he had not yet had time to repair the damage done by the blue gundam more than a week before.

As he and the Maguanacs marched toward the Order's mobile suits, Leos and grounded Aries raised chain rifles in their direction; Tragos, beam rifles. "Stop where you are and come out of your suits," the commanding officer hailed them.

Walker shot right back: "You have not been authorized to bring mobile suits into this sovereign nation. By order of Princess Relena Peacecraft, you are to turn around and leave in peace, and we will forget about this infraction on the treaty of one-nine-five—"

"Our orders are to apprehend the gundam Sandrock. We will not leave until that has been accomplished. Nor will we hesitate to destroy the rest of you if you resist arrest." The OZ officer said slightly softer to Walker, "Do not stand in our way, sir. Our quarrel is not with Sanq."

"Like hell, it isn't," Walker said under his breath. At least, not yet. However, he could not delude himself into believing the Order would behave any differently toward the country he now served, whether he backed down or not. He had been a proud part of that organization once; he knew its motives well.

"Quatre," he said to Sandrock's pilot alone, "leave the Leos and Aries to the rest of us. Concentrate on—"

"The Tragos. I know," the young man filled in for him. Just like in the Hiddekel, he thought to himself, where that man and I first met, even if I was not aware of it.

He increased his speed, easing Sandrock into as swift a run as he dared; and when the OZ pilots saw he showed no intention of stopping, they predictably opened fire. Bullets ricocheted all but harmlessly off Sandrock's gundanium plating, but the Tragos' beam rifles were another matter. Each impact felt to Quatre like it were singing his own flesh. Still he persisted, drawing his shotels as he came within range of the enemy suits.

The Leos standing in the way of his goal fell in a few slashes, their limbs severed or dangling from their sockets, frayed wires and beam cartridges sparking to flame, but the explosions were controlled. The massive claws of Auda's suit punched through face plates and shattered circuitry, and Abdul's shoulders shielded him from the brunt of the blasts as he moved in close for his nonlethal kills.

It was all Quatre could do to make sure his comrades did not get taken out by a Tragos while they wrestled with the Leos, but it seemed that the bombardment suits were more interested in him—that was, in doing whatever was in their power to stop the gundam he piloted. But it was the landscape that suffered when their shots went wide, and their solid bodies made them sluggish as they tried to back away from his faster, more agile gundam.

"Blue Team, Blue Team," the Order's commander hailed his troops, "fall in and engage the target. Concentrate on that gundam. We need to take him down at all costs!"

Almost as soon as he had spoken, the air was split by the crack and roar of black Aries overhead. Their first pass made Quatre crouch beneath the impact of their missiles, but it was the Tragos with which he was engaged that suffered the brunt of its fellow's attack. The young man gritted his teeth. Ground troops he could handle—Sandrock excelled in hand-to-hand combat—but with these suits he was like a cat leaping at flies: it took too much of his valuable energy, for too little reward. "Mr Walker, I could use your help."

"I'm on it," came the swift reply, even as the green Aries could be seen diving into their numbers.

"Don't write us off, either," said Rigel, aiming another volley at an OZ Aries coming in for the shot.

"Thanks." Walker sounded breathless from the effort of the dogfight. "Just watch which Aries you're aiming at."

Despite their best efforts, however, the going only got tougher. There were not a lot of OZ suits, nothing like Quatre had faced in full battle, but there were enough for him and his comrades to be overwhelmed by three-to-one odds—or worse in Walker's case. One suit after another fell to Quatre's shotels, but it seemed the end of them was still out of sight, and he did not know how much more of the Aries troops' barrage his suit could take, to say nothing of his fellows. Their gallant plan to spare OZ's pilots was beginning to feel more like a self-imposed death sentence, as a few of the Maguanacs left their suits' hands lying in the trampled brush; others had been forced to throw away their now useless weapons, or use them as bludgeoning tools.

Had they made the right decision after all, Quatre wondered, or damned Sanq to invasion and their own cause to extinction with their actions? Perhaps surrender would have been a better path, if only because it would have meant Sandrock would survive, if only in captivity.

It was just as that sinking thought was running through Quatre's mind that he turned to see an Aries touchdown out of the corner of his eye, out of the range of his shotels and its rifle aimed right at Sandrock. Before he could calculate his next move or dodge its fire, it shuttered from the impact of a rival beam, and burst into flame.

In the glow, Quatre caught the glint of a uraeus-plumed helm. "Rashid!"

"Quatre," came his captain's gruff voice, tinted with a somber amusement. "I put you in charge of a team, and you lead them straight into battle?"

Quatre shrugged off his shame as he recognized more familiar MS among the trees, glowing with the colors of the desert. "How many are with you?"

"All teams but one. They're coming to join us, but it will be another day at least before they reach Cydonia. But it looks like we arrived just in time."

"That you did." Quatre finally allowed himself a sigh of relief. "We're trying to spare as many of their pilots as we can, for the Sanq Kingdom's sake."

"And the green Aries is a friend, Captain," Abdul added.

Quatre never saw the Order's MS as particularly expressive, but it almost did seem as though the suits themselves were thrown into a panic by this sudden reversal of odds. They seemed to twitch their surprise before turning to engage the new enemy.

Then, from behind the mobile suits that sat smoking to their south, Quatre spotted it again: the blue gundam. At first it seemed like a mirage, its outline wavering in the heat; but there was no mistaking its larger frame, its streamlined build—and its massive array of artillery. Quatre's heart beat faster at the recognition, but he could not be sure if it was in excitement or apprehension.

"Mr Walker," he heralded the Aries pilot over his radio, "we've got another gundam on this battlefield, pilot and affiliation unidentified." He relayed to Walker the suit's location.

Although it hardly seemed necessary. "I see him," Walker was saying even before he finished. "So, that one's back, is he?"

"Do not engage him!" Quatre said quickly. Already more than a week had passed since the blue gundam had been responsible for the death of one of his own teammates, but now, belatedly, he felt all his outrage at that tragedy hit. It warred within him with the desire that was only natural to join forces with another suit that was like his own. However, "He's too dangerous at this point. We don't know where he stands."

"Surely he's not with the Order."

"I don't think so, but that suit's much too much to handle with just an Aries—"

"Holy shi—" Walker caught himself, and his suit, as the blue gundam shot a pair of missiles into the air his way. Thankfully he prided himself on his quick reflexes and was able to dodge in time, returning fire with his Aries's chain rifle.

His shots were right on the mark, but the gundam hardly flinched as the bullets bounced off its heavily armored hide. Walker chose that moment to get clear of the gundam's line of fire, before it recovered to fire at him again.

And Quatre saw that as his opportunity to close the distance between that suit and his own. Rather than risk the lives of more of his comrades, he chose to risk his own. His suit alone could stand up to the power of that one, and his alone had the power to take it out—if the pilot had in fact aligned himself with the Order. Even if he had not, he still posed a threat, one which Quatre could not trust anyone else to deal with.

The blue gundam saw him coming and swung the gun mounted in his right hand to bear. He fired round after steady round in Quatre's direction, and a charging Sandrock could not very well dodge them all. The heavy, mobile suit bullets pushed him back with each impact, and Quatre could feel a few penetrate those patches of his gundanium shell still weakened from his last bout with the blue gundam. But Sandrock did not complain; it held together, as though moved forward by a determination to match that which Quatre felt. Better that pilot is firing at me, he told himself, while the ionic edges of his shotels charged to their full capacity. When he was within range, he swung with them—up with the right, then the left—forcing the gundam to backstep in order to maintain its balance. But the blades, better prepared than last time, still made little more than a scratch on the blue gundam's surface.

Unable to get a shot off at such close range—or launch a missile without risking damage to his own suit—the pilot of the blue gundam attacked back in kind, gripping his massive guns in both hands and swinging them hard. The impact rocked Quatre in his cockpit, the harness pressing into the same fresh bruises he had gained just a short time ago in his duel with Walker.

He grimaced in pain, his hands threatening to slip from the controls; but he shouldered through it, not a moment to spare on self-pity, and corrected his balance immediately.

However, one more strike to the blue gundam's shoulder and one of his shotels, its structural integrity no doubt compromised in their last fight, shattered halfway down its length. Quatre cursed through his teeth, but struck on the opportunity it provided him. Too close for guns or longswords, the broken shotel with its razor sharp edge was the perfect size for jamming into the blue gundam's left shoulder joint.

It sank in with a hiss of pressurized air and fried wires, and Quatre almost let slip a cry of victory.

It would have been short-lived, however, as the blue gundam dropped its useless gun and flipped the MS-sized bowie knife from its sheath inside the right forearm. With its point aiming straight at Sandrock's cockpit door, Quatre had no choice but to release his hold on the busted shotel and shield himself; and the screech of the blade against Sandrock's arms rang painfully in his ears even behind the cockpit hatch.

At last he managed to grab hold of the blue gundam's right arm and stop the blade's descent. With one hand he slowly bent its hinge back, and in response the blue gundam turned on Sandrock with its own empty fist. Joints groaned with the strain of two gundams' strength, both with pilots behind them who refused to let up. Quatre caught the other gundam's fist in Sandrock's palm; the blue gundam was straining its damaged arm to dangerous capacity trying to shake off Sandrock's other hand. Neither suit would give an inch.

This is mad, was the thought that struck Quatre with such force it was like a physical blow to his gut. We shouldn't be fighting each other. Our power is equally matched. Neither of us is a friend of OZ—

And I don't want to see that suit's pilot get himself killed.

"You and I shouldn't be fighting." The words rushed from Quatre's lips as he opened a channel to the blue gundam. He didn't think, didn't waste precious time on caution or pleasantries. "I want to call a truce between us."

There was no response. And Quatre wondered, as he held his breath, whether he should have expected one.

He locked Sandrock's foot behind that of the other's gundam. He would make that suit's pilot speak to him, he determined, even if he had to put his life on the line in the process.

"Neither of us is going anywhere fast," he tried again. "I'll say it again: at this point, I don't wish you any harm. I think you and I have something in common, and because of that I don't wish to fight you. I certainly don't want you to be destroyed." He hoped his words might be taken not only as a warning to the blue gundam's pilot, but also as a plea of patience to his comrades, who would have leaped at the first opportunity to take the other gundam out if it were up to them. "Is there any chance there can be a peace between us?"

"If I agree to a stalemate, will you let me go?"

Quatre's heart skipped a beat in gratitude just to hear the other's voice again—just to hear any human voice behind the blue gundam's plates. "Yes," he said automatically. Anything just to know who in God's name you are. "I'm opening my hatch."

His radio was a buzz with the Maguanacs' pleas against it, but Quatre paid them no heed as he unbuckled his harness. He needed to do this. That knowledge kept him calm and confident as he stepped out onto Sandrock's hatch, and found himself a stone's throw away from the mighty chest plates that concealed an armory of missiles. He stared down that suit fearlessly for what seemed like forever until, almost against hope, the blue gundam's cockpit hatch also opened.

The pilot inside climbed out to face him, his empty hands raised momentarily to show Quatre he held no gun. It only made Sandrock's pilot that much more aware of the pistol that rested at his hip, but he dared not reach for it, even to comfort himself, knowing he would be looking down the muzzle of the other's sidearm as soon as he could make a move to do so.

"I'm Quatre," he said instinctively across the space that separated them, feeling a smile spread on his lips, "pilot of Sandrock. I'm fighting OZ for the freedom of the Arab States. What about you?"

The blue gundam's pilot did not answer right away. Indeed, Quatre felt incredibly self-conscious under the other's scrutinizing gaze. His expression was as readable as a Leo's, his thin yet adolescent face half hidden behind a veil of brown hair; but there was something in his olive green eyes at once clear and penetrating, like a beacon shining through the darkness of night, yet without the same glimmer of hope. In his old Alliance trousers, the jacket of one of the many mercenary groups that had ceased to be after the Order's so-called liberation of the world-sphere, a threadbare scarf wrapped loosely around his neck—Quatre was not sure what to make of this young man who seemed nothing like any part of the amalgamation his outward appearance claimed. Something was missing, something which he preferred to conceal deep down behind his veneer of silence.

"Well," Quatre persisted in absence of an answer, "at least tell me what I should call you."

The blue gundam's pilot was silent in thought for another long moment, and Quatre wondered if he was to get an answer at all.

Then, "Heavyarms. If you have to call me anything."

"That's the name of that gundam? But what's your name?"

"I don't have one."

"Nonsense. Everyone has a name," Quatre began to say, but he cut himself off before he could finish. Something in the other's manner warned not to press the issue. "If you're fighting against OZ as well, perhaps we could join—"

"I prefer to work alone," Heavyarms's pilot told him quickly, a sharp edge to his words. "And I warn you not to get in my way again. I said before I don't usually allow those who have seen me to live, especially those who have seen my face."

Those words irritated Quatre, as though mocking his overtures of peace; and yet he could not help feeling a strange attraction toward the other—a young man certainly not much older than himself, like himself in so many ways, and yet different, more aware of the precariousness of his existence, like a lone cougar cornered by their pack of wolves.

"You said you would let me go," Heavyarms's pilot prompted.

"And I'll keep my word. But if we're on the same side, why would it be so difficult—"

"Don't get in my way again," the other warned him, retreating back into his cockpit. "Unless you have a death wish. I can't guarantee I'll be this forgiving next time."

Quatre climbed back into his own suit and released the blue gundam. The pilot's unblinking eyes seemed to see straight through Sandrock's cockpit door, until he was satisfied and closed his own hatch, picked up his weapons where he had dropped them, and—with a blast of Vernier engines that made the surrounding foliage sway violently— disappeared.

At least this time Quatre had something to call him, even if it was not a proper name. Heavyarms. It was a name that had not yet become infamous like Sandrock's had; perhaps, like Sandrock, in time the pilot would bear that as his own name as well.

"Quatre! Quatre, what happened? Are you all right?"

He shook himself when he finally recognized Auda's voice coming through his radio. "Yeah," he said belatedly. "I'm fine."

The fighting was over, the Order's suits either incapacitated or held at gunpoint by the rest of the Maguanacs. The Specials who had already emerged from their suits were being rounded up by the first Sanq officers to arrive; and it did seem to Quatre like just another part of the surrealism of the scene, that it would be OZ officers with their hands in the air rather than his own comrades.

But we are in Cydonia, he had to remind himself—hard to believe though it was that he had only just arrived in that country the day before.

"What happened?" Auda asked him. "What did that pilot say to you?"

"Never mind that," Walker said, sparing Quatre from having to answer. "I'm sure he'll bring us all up to speed later. Quatre," he said pointedly to the boy. "These are the rest of your friends?"

Quatre smiled at that, thinking of how Rashid would respond to hearing Walker refer to them in that way, as though the young gundam pilot were in command of all of them. "They are. Almost all the Maguanac troops who escaped with us from Medina."

He was not sure what to expect of Walker, but it was not what the ex-Special said next.

"And does your offer still stand, of you and your Maguanacs fighting for the Sanq Kingdom? Now that the Order has shown it has no qualms about sending its mobile suits into our nation's territory to root out the likes of yourselves, who can say what they will do next. Would you leave our country defenseless against a second attack?"

When Quatre did not respond right away, he added, "That is, now that the Arab territories have become too dangerous for you—"

"Does this mean you accept my offer?"

"On Princess Relena's behalf."

That Quatre would take. He did not yet know how the rest of his comrades would respond, but he knew as well as they did that they could not afford to refuse the safe harbor they had been searching for when it was offered them. They had come all this way to find it, and more than proved their mettle on the once peaceful hills of Cydonia. The complications of accepting such an offer could be ironed out in time, the repercussions dealt with when they arose.

In good conscience, however, he could not leave the Sanq Kingdom open to another attack—on his account or despite it. If nothing else, it was out of duty that he had no choice but to accept—a duty he was only beginning to understand the full depth of as the one and only pilot thus far capable of manning the gundam Sandrock. Fate or circumstance had driven him from his home in Arabia so that, until his return, he might protect this nation and the dream of peace for which it stood like a lone watchfire in the darkness of this oppressed world.

—= o =—