I was long out of ammunition and reduced to ramming things; trying to aim at targets smaller than myself, hoping to lengthen the time I had left in this battle. My engines were whining pathetically and I cursed the stupid, lumbering, stolen thing….why couldn’t I have managed something with a little more power? Around me, the battle swept on, pretty well oblivious to little ol’ me. The mission was to get aboard the ship that loomed ‘above’ me, blocking the Earth from my sight. After that, I had not been informed what the goal was. I’m not, apparently to be trusted with that kind of information. I paused, not having anything close at hand to ram into that wouldn’t have swatted me like a fly, and took stock of where my teammates were. The Wing Zero, as usual, was in the thick of things, cannons blazing and somehow managing to look as stoic about the whole thing as its pilot Heero Yuy. The Deathscythe was near at hand, reaping Leos like wheat with its massive blade, and just as my eyes brushed across it, I heard the maniacal laugh of its pilot Duo Maxwell. The Shinlong and Heavyarms weren’t far, guarding each others backs and creating just as much chaos as the other two, Chang Wufei and Trowa Barton piloting them each respectively. I couldn’t find Sandrock at first, but then it appeared, not far from me, Quatre probing at the ships defenses with bursts of cannon fire. Leave it to quiet Quatre to keep the mission in focus. So far, we had not managed to break through the ships shielding to get at whatever prize lay within, and since I was pretty much useless in the battle that the Gundam pilots were waging around me, I turned my attention to that quarter as well.

I could hear the banter of the other pilots over my radio but didn’t bother trying to join in. Experience had taught me that I wouldn’t be welcome. I guess it was just a guy thing.

‘Duo! What the hell! Watch your back, damn it!’

‘Yes Mama-Yuy.’ Another laugh.

‘Quatre? How’s it look?’ Trowa, sounding odd.

‘Weak spots, but no breaks yet.’ Quatre replied, and then, oddly, ‘I’m all right.’

I drifted out, looking for a weak point in the dim, almost visible shielding of the ‘Hamshire’, what I saw instead were the two mobile suits closing in on Quatre. Can you sneak in a mobile suit? I guess you can, because Quatre in his Sandrock was oblivious.

‘Quatre! Look out!’ I sent the warning, but had put my suit in motion before the impulse to yell had even hit my brain.

I heard Trowa yell at the sound of my warning.

‘Hilde?’ Quatre began to turn, but I don’t think he would have made it. Didn’t matter, my sputtering propulsion system already had me on top of the two Leos and I spread my ‘arms’ wide and as Duo says, ‘put the peddle to the metal’. My trajectory was going to take the three of us right into the side of the ‘Hamshire’ and if my luck held, through the shielding.

I wrenched the two Leos around and tried to put as much of them between me and the ‘wall’ we were heading toward as I could. I think I yelled something stupid, I might have just screamed, I’m not sure. I hate the sound of things going splat, especially me. I think somebody yelled my name. Probably Quatre, since everybody else was a little too busy to notice the girl pilot doing something stupid. Then we hit the shields and if I had any more thoughts, they were thoroughly scrambled. Remember when you were a kid and your parents put those little plastic covers over all the electrical outlets? It was to keep you from doing something extremely painful. I wished I had one now. What was left of my electrical system was fried. I was fried. I’m pretty sure the two suits I had clutched to me were fried way worse. But the shields went in a spectacular light show and I was becoming a boarding party of one. Kind of wish I’d been conscious for the landing.

I’m sure I wasn’t out for long, if I had been, I’d be dead. Maybe it was the hiss of escaping air that brought me around, but reflexes kicked in and I awoke with my shaking hands strapping an emergency oxygen mask over my face. My fingers were clumsy and everything felt…twitchy. My head was pounding and there was fire burning down my right thigh, I looked down, horrified to find blood soaking through my pants leg. And yes, I am well aware that it was damn near a miracle I was alive at all.

My suit was a wreck, would never get me back out of here, and I could only hope I wasn’t trapped in it. One panic-attack at a time Hilde-girl; first the leg. I fished the med-kit out from under the pilots seat and used the scissors to cut away the material of my pants. It was pretty nasty, gashed, as near as I could tell, by a piece of shredded Leo that had penetrated the hull of my suit. All I could do for it now was cover and bind it and hope I didn’t bleed to death before I could get it stitched up. I wrapped as tight as I dared and was rewarded by a slow down in the oozing blood. I glanced longingly at the painkillers in the box, but was afraid they’d further muddle my poor jolted brain, so settled for stowing the kit in my pack for later. My radio was dead along with the rest of my suit, and I couldn’t tell what was going on out there. What if the others thought I was dead and left me here? Surely they were taking advantage of the opening I had given them and were boarding. Would they check on me? I didn’t dare sit here and hope. The mission always came first. No doubt they’d raise a glass for a fallen comrade later, but I wasn’t going to bet my sweet ass that they would spare the two minutes it would take to actually look for me.

My abrupt entrance had left a gaping hole in the side of the ‘Hamshire’ that guaranteed there was no air out there, so I began to struggle into my suit, trying to keep my breathing calm. Don’t panic, Hilde-girl, it’ll take them time. Time; I could practically hear the clock ticking in my ear, timetimetime, all out of time. Things were awkward with the mobile suit lying flat on its back, but I eventually managed to get the damn vacuum suit on and sealed. It felt like bloody ever before I was finally able to hit the emergency hatch release, and then I thought I’d fall over with relief when the lock blew and I was able to crawl free.

Dragging my pack behind me, I climbed down to the deck and had to activate the suits magnetic cleats to keep my footing. At least the ships auto-seals had kicked in, and I wasn’t fighting against a decompression hurricane. I headed for the most likely boarding area and damned near got my head blown off for my trouble. The Gundams had landed.

‘Whoa! It’s Hilde!’ I was a little ashamed how my voice squeaked, but hey; sue me…I was having a bad day.

It was Quatre and Chang, suited and walking with magnetics like I was. The minute I had moved into their line of sight, two barrels were leveled at me, and I swear for a second, I thought they were going to shoot me anyway.

‘Hilde? Are you all right?’ This from Quatre, who always was the polite one. But the barrels never wavered.

‘Yeah,’ I lied, and don’t ask me why I did, but looking in Chang’s cold, calculating eyes, all I could think was ‘they shoot horses, don’t they?’

God forbid I slow them down and jeopardize the mission. It may seem I was over-reacting, but I cannot describe to you the look I was getting from Chang Wufei, like he was sizing me up and finding me lacking. I vowed in that moment not to limp. The blood wouldn’t come through the suit even if I bled out. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me.

‘What are you waiting for, boys?’ pleased to find my voice a little more under control, ‘We’re on the clock, let’s get going.’

The flippant words seemed to break the spell and we finally moved out, or rather, they moved out and I followed along like a little lost puppy. They didn’t even spare me a damn gun. I had to salvage a rifle from the enemy after the first skirmish left the deck littered with spares.

It was a long, scary haul through that ship. The boys obviously knew right where they were going and what they were after. I kept up, by God, shooting when shot at and doing my best to keep those two in one piece. I wasn’t getting out of here without them, after all. My leg was throbbing like a mother, and I was starting to feel a whole lot of other bruises and sore spots, but I just could not shake the feeling that as soon as Wufei cataloged me as a weak spot, I was just so much excess baggage left on the docks. If I were lucky, he’d shoot me first to keep me out of enemy hands.

Data is what we turned out to be after; I stood watch at the door with Wufei while Quatre did his download thing. We didn’t speak much, and when Wufei did feel compelled to address me, I was referred to as ‘woman’. I started calling him ‘man’. It severely pissed him off, but it helped take my mind off the really wet feeling I had in my right boot.

Then it was the part where we ran like hell and I thought I would die. I think I accounted for my fair share of the bodies we left in our wake, and I kept up, and yes, thank you very much, I’m damned proud of that. I kept the pace they set and didn’t so much as cuss about the pain. The limp started to show towards the end though, and I noted Wufei noting it, but it wasn’t affecting my aim so he let it slide.

We made a detour, right at the end, to set some explosives. I guess it was to mask what we really came for. I wouldn’t know, being the ‘little woman’, nobody bothered to explain anything. But now, with a timer ticking away on our back-trail, we really started to move and I had my first serious doubts about making it out of there alive.

Coming into my little self-made docking bay, I could have crowed with glee. Made it! Made it! Made it! But we had to slow the pace and switch back to the magnetic cleats as we left air and gravity behind. Through the rent hull, I could see the battle outside was slowing down; Heero and Duo mopping up, while Trowa guarded the two empty Gundams that waited for us. Waited for the three of us. Could you cram two people in a Gundam? This was a hell of a time to find out. I gravitated a little closer to Quatre, not really relishing the idea of riding home on Chang Wufei’s lap. I decided that the best defense was a really ballsy offense and grinned over at Quatre as we worked our way across the deck,

‘So; want me to drive?’

The look he cast at me, even through the face plate of his helmet told me he hadn’t thought about it before now either.

In the end, I have to admit, they didn’t seem to seriously consider leaving me behind, but I did notice that Chang wasted no time in divorcing himself from the issue all together by boarding Shinlong as fast as his little cleats would let him and sealing the hatch while Quatre and I tried to figure out how to cram us both in Sandrock’s cockpit.

We managed it, it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t comfortable, and I don’t recommend it. We made it out a full two minutes before the explosion. I didn’t have much in the way of safety straps and re-entry completely sucked. If I hadn’t already been beat to hell and back from my trip through a ships shielding, I might have called it the highlight of my day. I gritted my teeth, tried to maintain an attitude Duo would have been proud of, and hung on. There was a whole lot of evasive maneuvers and some fancy flying that I was in no shape to appreciate and eventually, there was good old solid ground and I found myself in the back of a panel truck on my way to a safe house listening to the guys tease Quatre about having a girl in his Gundam. I suppose I should have said something then about being hurt, but to be honest I was getting a little miffed that no body bothered to ask why good ol’ Hilde was limping and grinding her teeth, shaking like the proverbial leaf. The leg kind of felt better now that I wasn’t running on it anyway, so I just figured I’d tough it out a little longer.

The house wasn’t much, on old two story out in the country, a couple miles outside town. Long driveway up from the single lane road that ran past it, some big oak trees in the yard. Had the kind of front porch that would be real nice in the summer time with some lemonade and a rocking chair. The kind of house your grandparents might have lived in, or somebody’s grandparents from some old movie. But it was cold out, and late, so tonight it didn’t look all that inviting. I almost asked if they would go on past and take me on into town where I could get back to the base tonight instead of waiting until morning. But they were all talking at once about what they were going to do first, arguing about showers and who would get which room, smacking each others shoulders and slapping each others backs, and I just kept my mouth shut.

The truck pulled up in the front yard, and everybody baled out, while I climbed laboriously down. They were yelling and laughing back and forth, still on a high from the mission, I guess. I was having a little trouble relating. After sitting still for so long, I had to stand in the driveway, hanging on the side of the truck for several minutes before I trusted my leg to hold my weight enough to start the walk to the house.

By the time I got through the front door, flight suits had been dumped and drinks had been handed around. Duo was running up the stairs, slopping soda on the way, and Heero was already in the side room at his laptop. Can’t forget those mission reports, now can we? Chang had vanished into the bowels of the house somewhere and I could hear Quatre and Trowa’s quiet voices coming from the kitchen.

I stood in the middle of the entry room with my sad, bedraggled pack over my shoulder and didn’t know what the hell to do. I hurt from top to bottom, felt light-headed and weak. I was still in the bottom half of my stupid vacuum suit and nobody had thought to ask why. The voices all around me were calling and jeering and so terribly comfortable with each other. I felt like a cocker spaniel puppy that had just wandered into a wolf den. Can you say, out of place? All right, I can admit it; I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and stupid, really stupid. How the heck was I supposed to speak up now, hours after the fact and mention the eight-inch laceration in my leg? Oh, I can just see me trying to tell them I thought Chang was going to shoot me. Somehow, standing here in the middle of the living room, the whole idea seemed kind of absurd. Well, mostly absurd.

Duo went thundering down the hall over-head, ‘Dibs on the shower!’ I think I heard Chang curse. Quatre popped out of the kitchen, an indignant frown on his face.

‘Duo! Ladies first!’

I thought I would die. Suddenly, the hustle and bustle of busy young men all around went silent. Even the tack-tack sound of Heero at the keyboard stopped. Duo poked his head over the rail at the top of the stairs and glared at me.

‘Uhmmm…Quatre, no, please; I’ll wait my turn.’ I tried.

‘Quatre!’ Duo hollered down, ‘She’s a girl; she’ll take forever!’

‘Duo! Don’t be rude!’ Quatre snapped, and then in a lighter tone turned back to me, ‘Hilde, I insist.’

There was grumbling from upstairs, but Duo disappeared from view and I could hear his footsteps recede back towards his room. Quatre ushered me up the stairs, the perfect gentleman, and showed me where the towels were. He didn’t even seem to notice me practically dragging myself up the stairs with the railing.

Despite the pressure of knowing there were five sweaty guys out there waiting for the shower, it was an immense relief when I finally had the bathroom door shut and was alone. I dumped my pack and went straight for the pain-meds, gulping two of them down with water cupped in my hands. Then I got down to the business of stripping out of the rest of my vacuum suit. The pants were a total loss, stained with blood from crotch to cuff and I marveled that I was still standing up. Off came the bandages and everything else and into the shower I went. The hot water ran rusty for a time, but I finally got the dried blood cleaned off and was able to get a good look at the wound. It was still oozing when I stepped into the shower, and after cleaning and further aggravating it, was bleeding rather freely again. It was definitely going to have to be stitched up. I kept the shower short, well aware of people waiting on me, and got out and toweled off, trying to keep the blood from getting all over the bathroom. I pulled a clean pair of underwear and an undershirt out of my pack and put them on, and then fished out the med-kit. I heard footsteps in the hall.

‘Hilde? Aren’t you done yet?’ It was Duo’s voice.

‘Almost. I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.’ I hadn’t been in here twenty minutes yet, damn it!

I heard the footsteps retreat again. I sat on the toilet and pulled out the kits needle and sutures. I really hate getting stitches, but hey, I have had training. I wished I had a shot of whiskey though. Hell, I wished I had a damn doctor. I sacrificed one of the white washcloths to the cause and started stitching. Dab and stitch, dab and stitch, curse under breath, dab and stitch. I guess I developed my own sort of rhythm. I was about half way done and feeling kinda proud of myself despite the unshed tears burning the backs of my eyes, when the bathroom door burst open with Duo hollering, ‘Hilde! What the hell is taking….’

Must have been a really interesting sight, me sitting on the toilet in my underwear, in the midst of the blood-soaked wreckage of my discarded clothes and bandages. My wet hair still dripping from the shower, frozen in mid stitch. Duo just stood and stared and the day just sort of caught up with me.

‘I. Said. In. A. Minute.’ I grated, and gave him my absolute best Heero Yuy type glare. Then, with my uninvolved foot, I reached out and kicked the door shut in his face.

I continued my job and listened idly to the sudden flurry of hushed voices out in the hall. When I finished, I rewrapped it in fresh bandages and got dressed in clean clothes. I cleaned up as best I could, stuffing my ruined clothes and used bandages in the little bathroom trashcan until it over flowed. I crammed everything else back in my pack and then had to sit for a minute.

Nobody came yelling, ‘Hilde! Oh my God!’ Nobody came and even knocked on the door. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I couldn’t believe how self-involved these guys were. Nobody cared enough to question the limp or the vacuum suit. On the ride back when they were all patting each other on the back and checking each other’s condition, not one of them had thought to check on good ol’ Hilde. Damn it, I was the one who had gotten them on that ship. I did my part, I carried my weight, I didn’t slow anything down. Why wasn’t I afforded the same concern as everyone else? Just because I was a girl?

Have I mentioned I hate self-pity? It quickly turned to anger and I hoisted my pack and marched out, resisting the urge to sling the door back against the wall. Duo and Chang were in the hall, heads together and talking in whispers that abruptly cut off as the door opened. I marched past them without a word and headed down the stairs. Yes, marched; you think I was going to bloody well limp down that stairway? I don’t think so.

Quatre was at the bottom of the stairs looking flustered and upset. Heero was leaning in the archway leading off to the side room, arms crossed over his chest regarding me as I came down the stairs. Trowa stood in the kitchen door, watching Quatre. I was flaming pissed.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and spared Quatre a tiny incline of my head. ‘Thank you Quatre, you’ve been a perfect host.’ And I walked past him and right out the front door.

Stupid? Yeah, extremely so. And I knew it even as the door clicked softy closed behind me. But I shifted my pack and continued my march down the steps off the porch and down the driveway into the night. I didn’t let the limp come back until I was sure I was lost from sight. I didn’t start cursing until I got down to the road, and I didn’t cool off enough to regret it until I was half a mile down the road and too damn late to turn back. My stitches were pulling, my head and leg were aching, and it was freaking cold! My damn hair was still wet!

The lesson in this little tale, my children? Angst and stupid pride are not just a guy thing.

And nope, since you asked, nobody came after me. When I think about it too hard, I like to tell myself that nobody believed Duo’s story about what he saw in the bathroom, I mean, come on, I’m just a girl, right? But I can’t think too hard about the mess I left in there, or that little fable just falls all apart.

It was two stinking miles to town and after the first one, I had to stop and cut a walking staff from the trees lining the road. At about a mile and a half, I cried a little. I wanted to stop so very badly, but I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to get started again. By the time I reached the edge of town, all I had left were the embers of my anger. I found a cab and had myself delivered back to the base, and went straight to the Med-lab. They took one look and admitted me for blood loss and near hypothermia. I got a nifty little lecture about doing my own stitching, but thankfully nobody questioned my story about getting separated from the group and I didn’t have to admit what an idiot I am.

And, you know? I really don’t like to think about what went on in that house after I left.

_End_

 

 

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