Mes of the world... unite!


In an effort to better understand the strange, cruel world we live in, I did a search on my own name on google to see what I could come up with. I heartily recommend you do this yourself. No, no, with your own name. Weirdos. I mean, it turns up the most interesting things... For example, of the 600 odd pages returned, about 530 of them were about an alternative type musician with my name, various gigs he'd had, various people who were enthused by him, et cetera. Those were the normal ones. There was also...

And not one reference to me that's more recent than '95. Way to go, World Wide Web!


Gundam Wing #19 - "Assault on Barge"

Zechs wakes up in a strange place, watching a ceiling fan slowly turning overhead. At first, we might think that Noin's come and spirited him away to the love shack, but no, it's another crusty old man. Old guy number whatever shows Zechs around his ship, saying he noticed the crashed Talgese and picked it and Zechs up. Conveniently, he's yet another one of the old men who worked on the design. He says he can fix up the Talgese, and rig it to launch into space. After all, there are Important Things going on up there, and Talgese should be a part of it.

Oookay. This is starting to get to the point where either it's not a coincidence that the Doctors tend to be one step ahead of OZ, or the writers are just sloppy.

Meanwhile, up in space, the narrator helpfully explains that OZ is continuing their build-up, and continuing to remove Alliance garrisons. OZ's main space fortress, Barge, is a symbol of their increasing strength. Meanwhile, Une, with her hair down again, is wandering about making nice with assorted colony officials. And... seeming to really get into it. In fact, when one of her minions comes up and starts quietly hinting at things, "Um, Lady Une, we've acquired the, er, item..." she's completely clueless, like she's in a perky, drug-induced haze. Mention of Treys seems to snap her out of it, though, and her expression visibly changes, hardening. Oh, great. She's got multiple personalities. Either that or she's method acting ("I've got an idea... for a change, I think I'll play someone nice!")

She shows up on the bridge of something shortly later, with her hair up in buns again, and back to her normal surly self. It seems they've spotted one of the Gundam launch vehicles, which is just sort of drifting, not having the fuel to reach a colony. Une muses that they should try and capture the Gundam, it would be useful later. But the pilot, they should kill, unless he's ugly, in which case the colonists won't be able to sympathize with him. One of her minions wonders "Only capture him if he's ugly...?" but no, she's just kidding. Ha, ha! Villain humor.

Several space Leos wander up to the launch vehicle, saying they detect no energy from inside, which is revealed to be an oops as Duo promptly pops out and lays waste to them. Now, if they didn't detect him, why he didn't wait for them to tow him closer to a colony is a good question. But no, he's out and about now, and they send in the Mobile Dolls. Duo's mistake is revealed for the oops it was, as we see that... the DeathScythe Gundam really can't fly, which is a bit of a liability in space. With no notable ranged weapons and no way to catch up to the Mobile Dolls, Duo just has to sit there and get a whuppin'. The human Taurus pilot running the Dolls, however, spares Duo, merely blowing off the DeathScythe's right arm and, literally and figuratively, dis-arming it. Duo tries to self-detonate, but even that fails, and he's captured by the Taurus suits. That'll teach them to use cheap, imported self destruction devices.

Meanwhile, Heero is in a library, poking around, and discovers that all references to the death of his namesake, Heero Yui the colony leader, have been removed. The colonies are self-censoring themselves to get in good with OZ. He surls quietly about this, then notices a news broadcast about Duo's capture. The other Gundam pilots have noticed this, as well, but Trowa is too far away, and figures Heero will just have to deal with it himself.

Duo's Gundam is paraded through the streets as the colonists jeer at it, while Duo himself is snarked at by the OZ pilot that shot him down - it seems he'll be executed to rally the colonists against the Gundams. Or something. Duo surls, then gets worked over by the OZ guards.

Heero, meanwhile, sneaks aboard the OZ base, distracting an OZ goon with a cabbage and then knocking him out, allowing him to sneak in. Er, or something. Sheesh. Secret agent boy strikes again.

Duo has a nice lie down in his cell, managing to prop himself up just in time for Heero to waste the guard and come wandering in. Duo stands up, commenting that if he's got to die, it's probably appropriate that Heero kill him. Heero points a gun at Duo, then hesitates, as Duo remarks, a bit surprised, "You really /are/ going to shoot me, aren't you." Those terrorist death pacts can be a pain. But no, Heero decides against it, and drags Duo on out. "So, what's the escape plan?" Duo wonders. "I hadn't actually thought that far ahead," Heero replies. Heero even left his Gundam back on Earth (real smooth, it's the only one that's truly flight-capable!) since it'd stick out too much and be too hard to hide.

However, he did set lots of explosives. He likes explosives. "Why is it always the quiet guys who make the flashiest exits?" Duo wonders, as Heero starts setting off remote detonators hither and yon, distracting the OZ defenses. The base commander, however, is quick to realize this for what it is, and assumes, when he's informed of Duo's escape, that the two will head for the Gundam and try to launch it. About this time, Wu Fei shows up, too, and starts attacking from outside. The Space Leos are launched after Wu Fei, while the Mobile Dolls are sent to stymie the escape of Duo and Heero.

Meanwhile, Lady Une decides to go out for a jaunt in her shuttle. She's got so much more love to give the colonies! Yup, she's in airheaded, perky, drug-addled cheerful personality again. Everything is sent after Wu Fei to get him out of the way before Une's shuttle gets in the area. They even fire the Barge station's beam cannon at Wu Fei (who was stupid enough to fly in front of this big, gaping opening) - it blows off his Gundam's right arm, and annihilates several of the suits he was fighting. This pisses him off a bit, but everyone is interrupted by Une showing up, broadcasting a message about how they should stop fighting, there should be peace, et cetera. Everyone waits for her to finish, then resumes fighting. Wu Fei, finally outmatched, overloads his suit's thrusters to zip away to safety. The Taurus pilot lets him go, wondering what the heck is up with Une as he heads back inside.

And he's just in time to see Heero and Duo's trick. They launch a space buggy style shuttle with two Space Leos on board, which is promptly obliterated by the Mobile Dolls for trying to flee. Except... now their little expert systems have added 'space leo with friendly iff signal' to their list of valid targets. Oops! The Mobile Dolls begin cheerfully obliterating the rest of the deployed OZ suits, then head inside Barge to start laying waste to the ones inside. The Taurus leader tries to shut things down, but is stymied when Heero takes a few pot-shots at a Mobile Doll and then runs for it, leaving the Doll with an added target designation... 'guy in space suit'. Oops! The Taurus leader gets killed by his own Mobile Dolls as he tries to shut them down. Meanwhile, Heero and Duo sneak off in another shuttle. Man, this'll teach OZ to deploy any system that's still in beta testing...

In the shuttle, Duo remarks that he left his Gundam back there, and he ought to go back and destroy it. Heero replies that this is irrelevant - OZ has captured the Five Doctors and can make all the Gundams they want. So their first objective is to eliminate the Five Doctors...


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