SHIN KIDOU SENKI GUNDAM WING

SAINAN NO KEKKA

MEMORANDUM FOR RECORD
LAKE VICTORIA MILITARY ACADEMY
SUBJECT: Wing Commander Private Log, AC 188-189 Semester, Cadet Colonel Lucrezia Noin
PAGE 1

The blue of the afternoon sky was fading rapidly to evening purple and gold when the last phone call was made, the final report signed, the last talking paper filed away. There were still plans to be made for this week's wing stand up and the formal retreat plans had to be crossed off the suspense board, but she was tired and she needed a nap.

Besides, there was another engineering test tomorrow.

Change of command had been last week, when she had been passed the reins of office, and she was already up to her neck in paperwork. The former wing commander hadn't even bothered to clean up his desk, and she was left with the pigsty that it was. Some commander he had been. She would be surprised if he ever made it to the mid levels of OZ command after graduation.

A creak as the door opened, but she didn't even look up.

"Noin? You're still here?"

Zechs Merquise, his face sweaty beneath the mask, poked his head in through the door. "Am I interrupting you?"

"What are you doing here?" she said quietly. The pen she was trying to sign with had suddenly run out of ink. Just her luck.

"We were playing basketball…what are you doing here?"

"Paperwork," she said. "With the IG inspection next week, there's more than usual."

He started. "Oh. Great. I forgot about that. Anything I have to do?"

She shrugged. "Not unless I gave orders to the Operations Group Commander to give to your squadron commander to give to you, and I don't remember that I gave anything like that. The Ops Group commander should be able to take care of things by himself."

"Oh." She saw him relax. "That's all right, then."

Youthful muscles were coated with a light sheen of sweat under his jersey and she wrinkled her nose. "I can smell you from here. Go take a shower or something."

"I will." He stepped into the room, bending over one of the computers in the corner. "I just want to check my mail."

She didn't respond, digging in a drawer for another pen, not finding one that worked. She was commander of nearly four hundred cadets at the most prestigious military academy in the world, and she didn't have a working pen.

Somehow that struck her as incredibly funny.

"Noin? Are you all right?"

She stopped laughing. "I'm fine. Just tired."

His blond hair sparkled in the equally golden light of the setting sun. "OK." Straightening. "I'm going now. Is there anything you want me to do?"

"No." She felt his eyes on her. "Actually…" Rummaging around in her drawers, she pulled out a stack of papers. "Can you give this to Cadet Carter? I forgot to tell him about these. They need to be in to me before close of business on Friday."

"I bet he'll be happy," he murmured, taking them. His eyes never left hers. "But I'll tell him."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he said with a brief bow. For a moment, she wondered if he had been raised royalty. But...no. His family was common folk, from the hills of France. He had told her himself. And it was in his record in the database. She had checked.

She considered asking him, just on a passing whim, then decided against it. The discussion would probably turn to a topic such as why in the world she had been researching his records on a private database, and that would lead to no good.

"Oh, and by the way, we received some new mobile suit shipments today," he said. "Some new Leos and the latest model of the Aries. I thought you'd like to know."

She almost smiled then, at the boy with the eager voice and the masked face, who sounded so joyful at the news. In a way it was almost sad.

"You've never been in a real engagement," she said. "Have you?"

The eyes watched her closely. "Well…no. A couple, but minor ones. Nothing like yours." He emphasized the word, knowing that yours referred to the incident on L3 X18999. She hadn't known it had been captured on holo until her return to the Academy a few days later, when cadets with awe-filled voices had pounced on her, demanding that she show them this move and that spin, exclaiming how "cool" the explosions had looked on vid.

She'd snuck into the vidroom that night and destroyed the tape.

Mequise's voice had none of the awe in it, just longing. She wanted to tell him that it was all false glory, that it was better for him to stay out of the arena instead of having his hands wet with blood. Because that was the only new experience he could hope to gain from that; if the rumors were correct, he'd already been under Treize Khushrenada's wing for most of his life.

"It's all right," she said. "Nothing. Never mind. Was that what you'd come to tell me?"

He shrugged. "Something like that. I thought the cadet commander would like to know first. They came in during our game, and I know you've been wanting to develop some exercises, but we didn't have near enough mobile suits."

"Well then. Thank you."

"You're most welcome, ma'am," he said, turning to leave. "Maybe you can place some of those second-year-cadets in MS training officer positions. They'd like that."

That was what she had wanted to talk to him about. "Merquise?"

"Yes?"

"Speaking of positions…how would you like to be physical training officer?"

She watched his silent back as he stood, considering. "I was going to make you assistant Director of Evaluations, but you'd make a much better PT officer. It's more in your league, and you wouldn't be assistant to anyone. In fact, you'd have your own assistant."

"That's fine," he said. His voice was carefully neutral.

"If you don't like it-"

"I said that's fine," he repeated. "I don't mind."

Apparently that wasn't what he wanted. She had a pretty good idea in mind of what he wanted, and that was a position consisting of the words "wing," "staff," and "officer," but the top-level wing staff positions she had already filled. She had vowed not to place any of the cadets she knew too well in wing staff, the cadet commander's "inner circle," if she wasn't sure they would do a better job than someone else she did not know so well. The former cadet commander had played favorites, and she was determined not to repeat his mistakes.

Not that she and Merquise were friends, but she thought she knew him fairly well. And part of that was realizing that he was itching for a command position…but she just couldn't give him one. Not yet. Not when she had narrowly beaten him out for wing commander during the interviews because of her strong platform of non-favoritism and giving all cadets a fair chance.

"Merquise, I-"

"You are the commander," he said, turning to face her. The sweat had dried on his face, leaving smudges of dirt across his chin and cheeks, making him look younger than his thirteen years. "You make the decisions."

She said nothing, and he turned, began walking towards the door. She could feel the tension in the room. The sun had almost set and cool evening air was blowing through the window.

And she still had an engineering test.

"Merquise?"

He didn't even deign to answer this time, just stopped and waited.

"Could you…you're in my engineering class. Could I stop by your room later tonight and ask you about a few problems on the review sheet?"

A flock of birds flew past the window and the breeze picked up, ruffling his long hair.

"Of course," he said. "I'd be glad to help."

She could almost hear the smile in his voice, and when he finally disappeared out the door, she allowed herself a slight slumping of the shoulders, a slight relaxing of the tension.

Maybe things would be all right after all.

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