Chapter 4

Both Shinn and Lunamaria had black hoods thrown over them as soon as they were out of sight of people in Edinburgh and shoved into a car, Shinn struggled a little bit as Lunamaria yelped in surprise but was promptly silenced by a pistol whip to the side of his head. About an hour later, the car stopped and the two of them were dragged out, the sounds of music, cigarettes and booze could be detected in the air, and it was a strong smell.

"Christ Seamus, take the bags off their heads. You're gonna make it seem like we're kidnapping people!" a female voice snapped at one of the men that dragged them off. The man named Seamus responded a moment later.

"Sorry ma'am." Promptly the bags were removed and in front of the two ZAFT fugitives was a woman in her mid-forties, red hair with a Shag hairstyle lighting up a cigarette before inspecting the two of them. There was a sharp look in her eye, looking of Shinn specifically.

"So, you're the one who jacked one of my people's vehicle. You know I've heard through a lot of people that ZAFT lost a couple of Red Coats, elite special forces pilots, but it must be my lucky day if I snagged a couple right now." The woman grinned, it almost resembled a shark toothed grin, looking at the two of them as if they were her next meal.

"We were gonna leave the car intact, not scuttling it." Shinn began "Look we don't want- "

"SHUT IT!" Seamus snapped about ready to raise his hand, but the woman promptly stopped that with a sharp bark of her own

"Seamus, touch him again and I will cut that hand off and feed it to the dogs!" she snarled

"Sorry Hilda…" Seamus recoiled back to place. The woman named Hilda stared daggers at her subordinate before returning the sharp gaze back to the two of them before clapping once.

"Fetch some glasses, these two must be thirsty," Hilda grinned "Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Hilda Munro, I run the underground of illicit activities here in Edinburgh, and you two, Shinn Asuka and Lunamaria Hawke should consider yourself lucky for finding your way into my care."

"Lucky?" Lunamaria questioned as Hilda poured out her a glass and handed it to her then one to Shinn.

"Oh yes, word has it you two pissed off someone very high in the ZAFT chain, a catch or kill order. So, consider yourselves lucky."

"Lucky. Luck has nothing to do with this. Why do I get the feeling you got something up your sleeve? A catch?" Shinn rolled his eyes not even accepting the drink. Hilda laughed.

"Check out the big brain on the Coordinator here!" she spoke, laughing to her subordinates "You're a smart one Asuka I'll give you that. For you two to enjoy the full benefits of my hospitality I got a little job for you." Shinn closed his eyes as he sighed in mild annoyance towards the situation, but Hilda didn't care, she just continued with her little job details to the two of them. "No doubt since Seamus found you by the observation deck, you've seen the Earth Alliance controlling the docks. There is someone down there in that occupied area I want you to free."

"Who's the person?" reluctantly, Shinn asked for more details on who was the person they were to extract out of the docks.

"My nephew, Kieran." She spoke "The Alliance has got my nephew locked up tightly there and frankly I got my sister in my ear panicking, I'm pissed because well the reason they have him locked up is a bunch of bullshit."

"Do I look like I care?" Shinn looked at her with a halfhearted shrug

"No, not really. But you do this, you've got our protection and maybe…maybe we might throw our hat into the ring of whatever you've got cooking up. Because I will tell you Shinn Asuka, I'm very curious to know how you pissed off someone high up in the PLANTs." Lunamaria looked to Shinn for a moment, and Shinn glanced to her before contemplating talking about their situation.

"Chairman Durandal. That's who I pissed off." He finally said "He has someone, someone I cared about. She died not too long ago, but she was part of the Earth Alliance's Child Soldier Program." Hilda's expression changed from a shark toothed smile, to one of study, listening in.

"I heard about the leak from the news about that Program."

"The Chairman has the body, he wanted to do tests and experiments to reverse engineer what was done to her. For what, I don't know." Shinn continued "Long story short, I want to kill him." Hilda let out a low whistle

"You're insane." Hilda chuckled "But, we hold no love to ZAFT or the Alliance here. The War screwed with everyone here, so…I think we might be able to work something out. Get Kieran first, then we'll work out the finer details."