Gundam Crux Crucis - Trial
A Gundam Wing fanfic by Stella Quetzacotl
First created: Apr 17, 2002
Last modified: Apr 25, 2002

~~~~~Legal Stuff~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a work of fiction written for entertainment purposes only.  All
Gundams, political entities, and suchlike are the sole properties of 
the creators of Gundam Wing, whose names frankly I can't find.  All 
characters appearing in this fic (unless otherwise noted) are the sole
property of the author.  Reading = good, suing = bad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~Text Conventions~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[This is a character thought]
*This is emphasized text*
/This is a statement over a communication device/

Chapter 1
New Night Dawning

After the Final War in After Colony 195-196, the Earth enjoyed a period
of unprecedented peace and stability.  Unmolested by international 
conflict, the people of the Earth Sphere Unified Nation grew prosperous
as they expanded their territory farther out into space.  However, the 
complacency of humankind bore insidious consequences, as the struggling
Preventers lost power in the government and were replaced by the 
autocratic Peacekeepers.  Committed to squelching dissent and rebellion
by any means necessary, the Peacekeepers resorted to dictatorial 
tactics in their quest for total peace.  In reaction, some citizens 
have resorted to terrorism, destruction and outright rebellion in 
defense of their rights.  The Unified Nation government is beginning to
fracture under the allegations of scandal, brutality, and oppression 
practiced by its members.

	"Rey! *Rey!*"
	Ariel's shouts were lost in the banshee's wail of laserfire.  
The vast majority of the weaponry in this conflict was against her 
side, of course - there wasn't much human guerrilla soldiers could do 
against the might of three land-moving mobile suits, Orions, so nobody 
was wasting their time attempting.  Ariel ran blindly, seeking that 
place of animal safety that her mind had found with her squad leader.
	Nicolas Rey was shouting orders as Ariel reached his side, 
calm and competent as if the man-shaped, three-story Orions with their 
chrome skin like beetle shells and warpaint-red markings were nothing 
but another training exercise.  "Benson, run back to the game trail and
secure the way out.  Pierre, James, go with him and proceed to the 
caverns.  Cut the straightest path you can.  Harold, Ines, you and I 
will play rear guard and see to the wounded."  He paused as a salvo of 
laserfire came perilously close to the overhang of unharvested 
limestone he and his squad had taken shelter under.  "The rest of you, 
scale the quarry walls as best you can and follow in groups of two or 
three.  Don't get too close to one another."
	Ariel nodded at the wisdom of this.  The old limestone quarry, 
where the Earth Sphere Unified Nation, ESUN, had set up a big, fat 
target in the form of a communications satellite, had seemed a choice 
spot for an ambush - but the ambushers, members of the commando 
resistance movement El Redencion, had quickly become the ambushees. 
When the Orions showed up, in spectacularly thunderous style, the 
rather close quarters of the quarry became a death trap.  Whether the 
El Redencion soldiers had been betrayed or simply stupid was a question
for later.
	"Where's Yvette and Hazel?" Rey was demanding.
	Ariel winced - this question she could answer.  "Gone, sir.  
They were hit by National snipers while everyone was busy running from 
the Orions."
	Rey cursed blisteringly in Russian.  "Those undisciplined - "  
He sighed.  "But I can't blame them.  Nothing could have possibly 
prepared us for the Orions.  Man wasn't meant to fight those things."  
He made a sour face.  "All right.  Move out, everyone."
	They moved out.  And under the acidic rain of the Orion's laser
weaponry, even when three of their number fell, Rey's group managed to 
keep some semblance of discipline as they scaled the quarry walls and 
began to disappear into the forest.
	That ended when Ariel was grazed.  The two women she'd been 
sticking beside, older members of the resistance group, were vaporized 
when one of the Orions cast a stray blast their way, but Ariel was far 
enough away from ground zero that she didn't lose any limbs.  All she 
felt was a hot breeze, then a savage, fiery pain in her left forearm.  
She dropped to her knees with a guttural cry, as her companions' ashes 
coated her skin.
	That scream broke the resolve of her squadmates.  Echoing her 
cry, taking it up like a battle dirge, they fled for the bushes, or 
dove for cover in the debris that had once been the comm station, or 
simply collapsed where they fell.  As Ariel got to her feet, gritting 
her teeth against more screams, Rey's voice screamed out like a lash, 
beating his troops onward.
	Then his voice became a real scream - Ariel dared to look back.
Nicolas Rey, her bravery and her tower, was on his hands and knees, 
smoke rising from his back.  His body heaved and he coughed something 
dark and liquid.  He'd been shot.
	"Sir!" Her own pain forgotten for the moment, Ariel ran to him.
"Sir, are you - can you - "  Hazel and Yvette had died in the same way.
Shot down by national snipers, while everyone else was too busy saving 
their own skins to shout a warning.
	"R-run, Ariel," the man choked.  "Get - away."
	It took only a moment before Ariel obeyed.  Surely Rey knew 
best.  Surely he would be all right - he was a hero of ancient legend, 
like Hercules.  And she knew her duty.

	"Yes, sir," Ariel said, voice betraying no emotion.  "That's 
what happened."
	"I see."  Lieutenant Goya, a lean strong tree of a man with a 
rust-colored mustache and goatee, mercifully broke his eye contact with
the girl to pace back and forth.  Ariel used the silence to size the 
man up - she'd been too afraid to do anything but stare straight ahead 
when he was talking to her.  Goya had been Rey's superior officer, and
a leader in the division of El Redencion based in the Pyrenees of 
northern Spain.  And until Ariel was reassigned, he was the man who 
held her fate in his hands.
	After all, Rey could no longer protect her.  He was dead, his 
body probably crushed by an Orion's footstep.
	Goya didn't like his post or most of his subordinates - that 
much he made no secret of - but he was painfully fair.  Here at El 
Redencion's largest base and headquarters, where might equaled right 
and the most respected were those who could shout the loudest, Goya's 
quiet menace and his silent-iron demeanor had earned him an impressive 
amount of respect as well as the nickname 'Old Brickwall' from his 
subordinates.  As much as Goya threatened any who used the nickname 
with a month's latrine duty, Ariel suspected he actually liked it.  
That's what Rey had said, at least, although he'd never called Goya 
anything but 'Lieutenant' to his face.  Rey had some sort of charm, or 
luck - he could say and do things that would get you shot in a second,
and get away with it - but even he had treaded lightly around Goya.
	As Ariel was sizing up Goya, Goya was also sizing up Ariel.  To
be sure, all members of El Redencion were dangerous - there were no 
useless or burdensome people to be found in the ranks, by edict of the 
handful of rebels in charge - but this girl was teetering at the edge 
of becoming a liability.  Her left arm had suffered respectable burns 
and now rested limply in a sling.  Goya could tell by the movement of 
the muscles in her arms that the injury still pained her.  She was 
petite, skinny as all the young members and hangers-on were, with wiry 
dark red hair and ruddy southern-Spain skin.  Her dark eyes were 
already hard and piercing as obsidian blades, the mark of a child 
forced to grow up too soon.  Ariel was one of the many orphans picked 
up by the rebel group after attacks or raids on one side or the other -
it didn't matter which side had done the attacking.  She had no 
parents, no connections.  As a political pawn she was useless.  The 
only thing left for her was to fight.
	Now she couldn't even do that.  Her injury forbade it for
months to come, months her fostering organization could not afford to 
spare her.  Her training made her unsuited for any other kind of work. 
She was a casualty - walking around dead already.
	Ariel stiffened when Goya cleared his throat.  "Until your 
injury heals," he barked, "you'll be transferred to the recon unit 
under Captain Salawac.  Understood?"
	"Yes sir."  Ariel managed to keep the disappointment from her 
voice.
	"Report to section 2B in the recon hall immediately.  
Dismissed."
	Ariel turned on her heel smartly and quicktime-marched away.  
As soon as she was out of earshot, Goya lifted his comm unit from his 
lapel and gave a quick order.
	Then he pushed the entire matter from his mind.  Ariel, the 
crippled soldier, the dead warrior, was no longer his problem.

	The recon planning room, Recon Hall 2B, was bustling with 
activity when Ariel slipped through the door.  Most of the unit - 
exclusively male, built like a unit of dump trucks, and guzzling coffee
like it was water from the river of Paradise - paid her no mind, but 
one or two looked at her curiously.  She glared at them, her best 
don't-mess-with-me scowl, and they left her alone.
	The unit commander, Salawac, was a portly blonde man given to 
excesses of every kind.  Gambling - he was in on it.  Drinking - he 
could guzzle it like a fish.  Women... well, with women he had much 
less success, but he kept trying.  The very same instincts that made 
Salawac a good gambler made him a better recon planner, and he would 
probably outrank Goya if he hadn't fudged his career with so many minor
crimes of indiscretion.  But it was just as well - Salawac was happy 
where he was.
	"Ariel, wasn't it?" he said jovially as the girl approached, 
looking up from a pile of maps spread on a table.
	"Yes, sir."
	Salawac glanced at Ariel's injured left arm, as did the men 
surrounding him.  "Can you use a firearm?"
	Ariel glared.  "Yes, sir.  I'm right-handed."
	"You need two hands to load."
	Ariel drew her arm from its sling, unwrapped its bandages, and 
flexed her ravaged hand - ignoring the increased bite of pain, the 
horrified stares of the men, and the doctor's ultimatum that she was 
not to mess with the arm under any circumstances.  "I'm not helpless."
	"Good."  Salawac tapped the map in front of him.  "You're 
familiar with the Helena Valley?"
	"Two miles from here, as the crow flies.  One settlement, 
population three thousand.  Minimal value."  Ariel nodded.  "I know 
it."  That information she'd memorized, from stealing glimpses at Rey's
report files.  But Ariel had spent a lot of time in Helena Valley when 
she was younger, with Rey - she knew the area very well indeed, but she
wouldn't reveal that to *this* bozo under slow torture.
	"Good.  There's some suspected Sphere activities in that valley
I need you to scout.  Come back with a full report in twelve hours."  
He reached into his desk, then paused.  "You have your own weapon?"
	"A Viper .33."
	Salawac made a face.  "A little popgun.  That'll barely make 
the Peaceniks jump."  He gestured to a small door in the back of the 
room.  "Grab a .45 from the unit armory before you go."
	"Yes sir."  Ariel remained where she was, stock-still.
	Salawac looked expectantly at her, then blinked.  "Oh.  
Dismissed."
	Thus released, Ariel escaped into the armory.  Moments later, 
an old Jennings .45 holstered at her left side, she was out the door.

	"Hey, girl!  Get me some water, wouldja?"
	June Riley muttered something distinctly unprintable.  "Yes 
sir."  The young laborer, bereft of his shirt and aglow with 
perspiration, held the visage and proportion of a Greek god, the kind 
of classically handsome man most girls would have killed to have the 
chance to wait on hand and foot.  And June detested him.
	To be sure, June found him attractive.  But the nameless young 
man was working for ESUN - more specifically, the Peacekeepers.  That 
fact, more than his arrogance, thoughtlessness, or sheer stupidity, 
superceded any godlike qualities he might have found in her eyes.
	June kept up her running commentary on the laborer's mental and
physical facilities, as well as those of his parent organization, as 
she stomped into the largish tent that served as a base of operations. 
The other member of their survey team was there, an old scientist and 
seismologist by the name of Harper.  He was half-bald, pale as fear, 
and given to lewd comments that made June's blood boil - but for all 
that, June rather liked him.
	All of which was probably an indication of June's poor taste in
people.  June muttered her hellos, grabbed a canteen of water, briefly 
considered adding rat poison to it, then shook her head and stomped to 
the tent flap leading to the outside.
	"Hey, girlie.  C'mere."  Harper's voice made her pause.  
Sighing, she turned back to stand at his shoulder.
	"What is it, Harper?" June asked, trying to project more 
enthusiasm than she really felt into her voice.  No one used her name 
anymore - it was always 'girl' or 'girlie.'
	Harper was beaming like a little kid on his way up to Joe's
Video Games.  "Lookit this," he crowed, jabbing a finger excitedly at 
the spiffy-looking console he sat in front of.  "Jest lookit."
	June craned her head politely.  The console was covered in 
dials and buttons and readouts, the functions of which June could have 
probably figured out could she be bothered to try.  Since she couldn't,
the setup had about as much meaning for her as Egyptian hieroglyphics. 
"Very nice," June said noncommittally.  "What am I looking at?"
	Harper pointed to a seismograph readout, its needle jumping 
periodically.  "Jest hooked this up this mornin'," he grinned, showing 
off his less-than-perfect dental hygiene.  "Uses sound waves to test 
the integrity of bedrock at preset levels."
	"Uh-huh," June said doubtfully.  "So what's it say about the 
bedrock now?"
	Harper used his finger to follow the readout needle.  "Here's 
the sound, girlie.  Goes down, down, bounces, hits the ceiling, bounces
again, and goes up, up, back up to the seismo-gizmo.  See what I mean?"
	"Not really."
	"It's *hollow*!" Harper crowed, letting out an explosive laugh 
that was half cough.  "Right underneath us is a great big cavern!" He 
stomped on the dirt floor for emphasis.
	June swallowed, opened her mouth, swallowed again and managed 
to croak out, "That's exciting."
	Either Harper didn't notice the distress in her voice, or chose
to ignore it.  "Hee hee.  We been searchin' all over these mountains 
an' not a thing to show for it - but ain't no one thought t' check 
*under* th' mountain!"  He beat out a drumroll with his palms on the 
console.  "Betcha we find that thing after five minutes o' lookin' 
*down* 'stead of *up*."
	"Uh-huh."
	"'Course, I can't tell ya what it is we're lookin' for," Harper
added, a sly look stealing over his wrinkled features.  "Operational
 security 'n all that."
	"Right."  June nodded, tugging at her collarbone-length blonde 
hair.  It was an explanation she'd heard before - Harper seemed to 
delight in having a secret to keep from his young draftee.
	"Yo, girl!" came a shout from outside.  "Where's my water?"
	"Lout," June murmured, eliciting a chuckle from Harper.  
"Coming!"

	June tossed the canteen of water into the young laborer's hands
with a snort.  "If you don't need me for anything else," she informed 
him, "I'm going to go for a walk."
	"But - " the Grecian goofus began.
	"Thanks." June turned on her heel and started down the crest of
the mountain.  "I knew you'd understand."
	June didn't wait until she was out of  her supervisor's line of
sight before she broke into a run.  [No, no, NO!] she screamed in her 
head, beginning to gasp a little as gravity and the slope of the 
mountain attempted to pitch her onto her face.  [They weren't supposed 
to *know* about the cave!  This was *not* supposed to happen!]
	The thing was, June had a vague idea of what the Peacekeepers 
were looking for.  She'd seen it with her own eyes, deep under the 
earth.  And the only reason she'd agreed to help them in the first 
place was to keep them from finding it.
	Actually, that wasn't strictly accurate.  A number of factors 
had gone into June's ending up working there.  Pressure from the 
members of her little hamlet, Helena Village, was one of them.  "It'll 
be good for you," her uncle Sean had said gratingly, just a month ago.
 "Some responsibility might steady you a bit."  "Put some muscle on 
that skinny frame of yours," the town busybody had berated her.  "I'd 
give anything for an opportunity like that," a classmate had purred, 
eyeing the dumb demigod June would find herself attached to. 
	Everyone had carefully avoided references to the fact that the 
geological survey was funded by the Peacekeepers.  Everyone had also 
avoided references to her parents.
	Panting, June slowed to a trot.  [In other times,] June 
reflected, [they would have been called heroes.  They died for what 
they believed in.]  The fact remained, however, that her parents' 
beliefs had directly opposed the beliefs of the Peacekeepers - although
no one knew or would say what exactly those beliefs entailed.  Her 
uncle had called what had happened to Will and Martha Riley 
'dishonorable discharge from life.'  Everyone else called it execution.
But only when they thought June was out of earshot.
	Now June was a traitor's orphan, a ward of the state for as 
long as she could remember.  She supposed that this summer job was a 
kind of penance, redemption from the bad blood she'd inherited.  June 
made a gesture at the sky that plainly illustrated what she thought of 
*that*.
	"Maybe my folks were wrong," June said aloud, "to go up against
the Peacekeepers.  But maybe they were right."  She took a deep breath 
and shouted, "THEY WERE RIGHT!"
	And now June's last sanctuary was about to be taken over.  The 
caverns.  One cavern in particular.  June picked up a rock, tossed it 
angrily, and then turned into the underbrush.  There was a cave mouth 
here, an opening in the mountain that led to the vast network of 
caverns that had been her childhood fortress.
	[Once more,] June thought.  [For old times' sake.]  She ducked 
into the rocky opening.

	Ariel had followed the map Salawac had unknowingly given her 
(it was sitting on his desk, in plain view - what else was she supposed
to do?), but once she was over the crest that marked the edge of Helena
Valley, she folded the paper and stuffed it in her shirt.  She could 
navigate her own way from here.
	Spring in Helena Valley had always come gently, stealing over 
the mountains like an assassin.  Helena natives never failed to be 
taken by surprise when they opened their front doors in mid-April to 
find spring aiming at their vitals.  Ariel, although not a native, was 
no less affected.  Trotting down the mountainside, moving between the 
pools of sunlight that managed to filter through the canopy of red pine
trees, the young warrior felt almost - light.  Happy, for the first 
time since Rey's death.
	[Rey always said he fought so that everyone could enjoy spring 
in Helena Valley, without having to worry about the Peaceniks,] Ariel 
remembered.  [And I fought for - ] Her thought cut off abruptly.  [I 
fought because it was my job.  Rey just made fighting easier for me.]  
She nodded slowly, sadly.  [He gave me reasons to try to stay alive.]
	That was literal.  In addition to being a stellar leader - in 
Ariel's estimation - Rey was also an excellent cook.  After every 
mission - successful or not - Rey would commandeer one of the kitchens 
on the lower level and cook whatever he could find for his troops.  
Sometimes - very rarely - there were sugar cookies, the best cookies 
Ariel had ever had.  Mostly there was things like baked apples, a 
mayonaisse-cabbage thing Rey called coleslaw, or tortillas with salsa.
Always there was the same starfruit tea, iced or hot depending on the 
season, toasting a successful mission or a fallen comrade or whatever 
was good or bad in the troop's life at the moment.
	[All of which,] Ariel reflected, [was on strict rationing.  
Sometimes we would stint ourselves, to give Rey the ingredients he 
needed, but only when he asked us to.  He didn't ask often, though.  
Mostly he'd just steal it from the locals or -more often - from our 
food stores.]
	Of course, Rey never got in trouble for it.  He was a charmer, 
for sure.  If Ariel had attempted the same thing, stealing, she 
probably would have been given kitchen duty for a week.
	Ariel sighed, pulled a hand through her tangled mop of red 
hair, and quickened her pace.  The sooner she arrived at her recon 
target, the sooner she could find things that would distract her from 
thoughts of Rey.  She moved from tree to tree deftly - her training as 
an El Redencion soldier had given her ample experience as a woodsman.  
Her feet made virtually no noise on the dead leaf-carpeted forest 
floor.  To human ears, in any case; the animal denizens could no doubt 
hear her coming a mile away.  On the other hand, they couldn't betray 
her to the Peaceniks, so they were of little consequence.  Ariel 
mounted a rocky rise on hands and knees, scanned the achingly green 
expanse of clearing revealed behind it, then immediately dropped to the
ground with a gasp.
	There were people in the bowl-shaped clearing, close enough 
that Ariel could make out facial features.  Ariel stayed frozen for a 
long minute, then slowly lifted her head.  There was a young man, 
pleasingly endowed with bulging muscles and the marked absence of a 
shirt, speaking with an excited-looking older man waving a palm pad.  
They were both wearing Peacekeeper insignia, a stone-blue armband with 
a red and white patch like blood on snow.  The old-timer pointed with 
the pad off to the south, in a direction directly in line with a small 
settlement Ariel knew of, and the younger guy shook his head 
vehemently.  Their voices carried on the wind, but Ariel couldn't make 
out their words.
	Then Ariel spotted a third figure.  This one was probably 
female, substantially shorter than the young man and perhaps of a 
height with the old-timer, sporting butternut-blonde hair and a shirt 
dyed the kind of red that hinted at pink.  She was making her way down 
the mountain roughly southeastward, moving quickly.
	Ariel's instincts told her that this purposeful person was the 
one to follow.  Reassuring herself that her gun was still firmly 
strapped under her arm, she slipped back down the ridge and trotted 
southeast.

Next chapter...
June and Ariel meet for the first time, under rather trying 
circumstances, and together they race against the clock to thwart the
Peacekeepers.