Chapter 1: The Suspect Report

The lights glowed even brighter in the new free air that had been fort for so hard and for so long. No longer stood armed soldiers at every corner. No more was the mobile suit barracks that would loom terrifyingly dormant n the shadows of the colony, like some feared creature in the back of a child’s cupboard.

            This was a new and brilliant civilization.

            “That’ll be Three Fifty” The old stall man handed over the Cheese dog to his customer and collected the money.

            Walking away from the street stall, a tall brunet boy took a bite out of his cheese dog. He would have been in his late teens. His eyes were innocent and hazel and his hair went in a long chestnut plait that he refused to have cut more than a trim since he was six.

            He pulled a newspaper out from under his arm and after taking another bite, unfolded it to the first page.

            It appeared that some unidentified space vessel had decided to crash itself into the moon, or so the paper explained. The authorities stated that it was either an abandoned station that had gone off course and found the moon. That was absurd. He knew a situation when he saw one. This was sabotage; he could only imagine the amount of lives and equipment that went down with that craft.

            Why does this have to happen? After fighting so long peace finally has a chance. Why would someone do this now? He thought to himself, taking another bite he folded the paper away and determined his plans for the day.

***

“And now, it is my honour to introduce to you the beautiful, the deadly, Miss Catherine Barton!”

            Far away, a cheer arose as the plump ringleader introduced the next act. A young brunet girl with curly hair in a red tutu stepped into the ring, the powerful circle of light pin pointing her to the crowd. She waved her arms dramatically and posed with one arm to the air and the other against her hip. She flared open her raised hand three times, and from nowhere blades magically appeared in her hand. She moved her fingers so her thumb pressed against her index and middle, holding half a dozen throwing blades like a fan.

            A second light appeared about 15 feet from Catherine. Propped up from the ground was a red and white target bored, completely solitary except for one thing. A clown was tied to the centre of it.

            The crowed gasped in anticipation.

            Light glared down on him revealing his features. By the half of his face that was visible, it could be seen that he was a young man with hazel eyes and dark brown hair. The other half of his face was covered by a white clown mask that he had worn in every act. His pants hoped roundly  at the waist nearly a foot from his body and puffed around his thighs, then squeezed tightly from his knees down. Shoes he wore were huge and red.

            Catherine took a step back, picking a knife with her free hand before aiming it comically at her target board.

            The boy remained emotionless, helplessly tied. He watched the girl.

            She aimed her weapon.

            Then it came.

            Speeding through the air, spinning in constant fearful revolutions as it neared its target.

            He stayed emotionlessly still, unflinching, unmoving.

            It struck the board, not half an inch from his exposed cheek.

            The crowd cried with applause. And so the act continued, and aimed and threw the small blades. When the board began to rotate, the girl drew her throwing arm back and waved it about comically, as if trying to determine how to throw it, but the act did not change.

Finally, when the knives had been depleted, the crowed applauded and the girl bowed deeply. The lights turned back to the ringleader as he introduced his next act.

And so the show went on.

***

It was after Ten-Thirty at night. The crowd had all gone home and the circus had retired for the day after another successful event.

The door of a dirty white caravan opened and the previously monotonous clown stepped out in a brown ribbed sweatshirt and dark jeans. Just finished changing, the brunet boy stepped down the 3-step extension onto the bear earth.

Catherine was sitting on a cheep fold-up chair with a mug in her hands. She was wearing a red jumper; light woollen pants and white sneakers.

She looked up as the man approached and smiled at him.

“Hey, Trowa” She greeted.

“Hey” Hey replied, taking a seat next to his honorary sister. She sipped her mug and steam rolled across her face. They were sitting in a circle of half a dozen chairs, near a table that had ingredients for any hot beverage.

Staring ahead, the boy fixed his attention in front of him. For the first time in hours, he showed strong emotion. It was curiosity, nearly fear.

“Trowa, what is it?” Catherine asked.

Across from them sat a man reading a newspaper. The front page had a story that Trowa couldn’t pull his eyes from. Not after what he had been though.

A space station had been crashed. That was all the true data that was in the paper. The only fact. The rest was bogus explanations and reasons not to panic.

Something big was happening.

Was a rebel station being shot down? No, that would be an explosion. Maybe a military base was being destroyed. No, that would be in the paper. That kind of preventive war crap is great for gaining public support. People liked to hear that “peace” was being protected.

Was this the start of a new war? No! He wouldn’t allow that to happen. He had worked to hard and seen too much. He wanted live free with his new family, the only one he’d ever had.

He growled quietly, deep in his throat and closed his eyes for a moment.

Smiling sympathetically, Catherine passed her beverage to him.

“Don’t worry, Trowa.” She soothed, “The war is over, those things aren’t your problem any more.”

Trowa looked up at her face and gave her a rare smile, before taking the offered drink.

But it is my problem, he thought, because I know. With that he took a mouthful of the steaming hot chocolate, hoping it would warm the chill of his fears.

***

 “Come on you guys, move!” Gun shots fired around them. Aiming, a young Chinese shot who terrorists ganging up on his partner.

            “Thanks” She cried over the noise, but he didn’t answer.

            The weak woman, she’d be dead by now if it this was –

            “Lookout!” Cried the woman. Wufei ducked as a knife flew over his head. He turned. Behind him the assassin fell with a knife protruding from the gap in his helmet.

            He could just feel her smiling at him. He went to stand, but before he could get back into the fight, a bodiless voice entered the scene.

            “Ok you guys, Time-Out”.

            Chang Wufei lifted his virtual reality visor. He was standing in an empty white room, alone with is partner, Sally Po.

            Opening the solitary door, a scrawny black white haired man in a black suit walked in and looked from the boy to the woman.

            “We have a job for you two. You will be briefed next door. Come.” We walked out quickly, being careful to avoid Sally’s eyes. His ego was still recovering.

The skinny man walked first into the briefing room and sat at a white table. Chang and Sally sat opposite him. On the table lay a black leather folder.

The black man began to explain he current event of the moon site crash as he opened the folder and laid images and newspaper clippings on the table. It was all about the lunar crash. He pointed to several satellite images in the middle of the table.

“Do you see here, the ship changed course abruptly approximately half an hour before the crash. We don’t have any data on what it was being used for, or who was aboard, but we need this investigated to prevent a situation”

“Hmmn” Sally murmured “Is there any data on the purchase of the ship?”

“No solid leads as far as we know, it was made from scratch, though there was a private company involved that dealt with the ship a wile ago in the retail of certain parts. Err - Winner Industrial collonies, their details are in the file, they said it was purchased from the Arc Seraph, for private industrial development”

“Sounds like a goddamn cult to me,” muttered sally.

“But that would take a huge and powerful company to finance and create that, without anyone noticing” Said Wufei.

“Exactly” Replied the man the suit.

“Has there been anything useful pulled from the rubble yet” Asked sally.

“No, everything was disintegrated.”

“Well, it was something big and important. Someone wanted it destroyed fast to have destroy an expensive vessel like that.”

“Over to you two.” The black man finalized the discussion. “Any questions?”

Sally looked over the gather data with a look of worry mixed with interest. She looked up at him “None, Sir. Mission accepted.”