That echoing sound of people slapping their foreheads is the KGB realizing, "So that's how you do it!"
This is, I guess, why I'm never likely to get a laptop, regardless of the convenience factor. They tend to develop legs, and, although I'm unlikely to be carrying vital state secrets around on one, they tend to be rather bloody expensive. Of course, if you can afford to leave the things lying around, you can probably afford a new one anyway...
Down on Earth, Major Sally and some minions from the former Alliance's undersea commando team set to work recovering Heero's Gundam, which was abandoned in the ocean (Why does Gundam 01 seem to spend most of its time underwater?). They're interrupted, however, when an OZ underwater mobile suit carrier shows up looking for the same thing. The OZ carrier deploys its Cancer suits, while the Alliance minions head out in their Pisces suits, ambush the OZ troops, and obliterate them all without suffering any casualties. One assumes they then recover Gundam 01, but you never can tell. Maybe they just left it there.
Meanwhile, Zechs meets with some colony administators, wondering why they're joining OZ. The colonists calmly reply that it's simple, they can choose between joining the strong OZ organization... or Major Sally's pathetic band of rebels. Those rebel scum - will they never learn? Zechs is shown a little slide show of the colonies' orbital camera footage of Sally's operations, and then shown the door.
On the moon, wossname the OZ guru is overseeing production, cheerfully exclaiming that resources are unlimited in space - build all you like. The Five Doctors surl about this, how OZ are treating the space colonies like real colonies to be exploited. They make snide comments to the guru about how they've brought him the Gundam parts so he can steal their technology, but he's clearly already bored by the thought and orders them to take the bits off to be destroyed. Suuuure. Yup, destroyed. Trying not to snicker, they drive off with the bits of Wu Fei's Gundam.
Trowa, meanwhile, looks up information on OZ, an easy task now that he's in OZ and all, but is still baffled by their plans. Why are they being so... nice?
Duo, at his school, listens to a news broadcast and surls about OZ, only to be interrupted by a perky girl in an OZ uniform who chastises him for his surl. It seems her name is Hilde, and she's one of the colonists who's signed up for OZ's little militarization campaign in the colonies. And, despite being in the giant robot ROTC, she's quite happy about it. As Duo sort of boggles a bit, she tells him to put up or shut up, instead of hanging about, maybe he should come take a look. Duo, enthused by the thought of girls in uniform, takes the offered application.
Elsewhere, Heero and Wu Fei are being hauled to the moon in a shuttle, and wondering if they're going to be used to test the new mobile suits, or as target practice. Heero suspects the latter, as even OZ admits the Gundam pilots are pretty lively.
Back at the colony, Hilde and assorted OZ types are hanging about and watching new recruits get loaded onto a shuttle, when suddenly Hilde notices Duo, who's faked his application and acceptance and is trying to sneak aboard. Duo, busted, makes a break for it, steals an OZ space Leo and flees out of the colony. Hilde, highly annoyed, takes another one and follows.
Duo and Hilde shoot at each other a bit, but since Leo suits pretty much suck, nothing comes of it. Duo peers at the moon, which was what he was trying to get to, but it's an awful long way off. Hilde comes closer... closer... finally yelling "For the peace of the colonies!" as she shoots uselessly at Duo some more. Duo realizes that, hey, that's his cause and starts trying to talk Hilde around. They give up on shooting and grapple a bit, which might be kinky if they weren't inside giant robots at the time, but this is interrupted when the OZ shuttle starts shooting at them. Duo chucks Hilde's suit out of the way, and is blasted into submission by the OZ cannons, and then captured.
On board the shuttle, Hilde interrogates Duo a bit, but he just tells her that they're really on the same side, both fighting for the colonies. And, after all, he did save her. A bit boggled, she wanders up to the cockpit and gets a bit snippy with the OZ officer there about how she could have been killed, what with him blazing away at both suits with the shuttle's guns. And, meanwhile, Duo cheerfully escapes, blowing up a few bits of the shuttle. Hilde rushes back to see what's going on, and he waves cheerily as he steals his battered Leo and escapes. Uh... Duo... next time, steal the INTACT Leo, not the damaged one. Sheesh.
Duo, again, heads for the moon, but this time the moon's defensive Mobile Dolls are launched. He manages to work his way through them and crash onto the moon, but that's about as far as he can go. But before the Mobile Dolls can destroy him, he's saved by... Hilde, who's had a change of heart. She blows up one of the Mobile Dolls, and the rest scatter to evaluate this new threat. Hilde blows open a hatch in the moon base for Duo to get in through, then stands there like an idiot getting shot at. Oh, she goes on about how she's decided which side to be on and can't even pretend to be with OZ any longer, but really. Duo even points out that she could just give the IFF signal and they'd stop shooting at her, but nooo. Finally, exasperated, he just limps his suit through the hatch to continue his mission. Unexpectedly, Hilde doesn't get killed by the Mobile Dolls. No, that'd be too easy. Instead, she gets picked up by the rest of her former allies and bitched out by her commander.
Duo runs around through the OZ base, with the apparent goal of destroying the production facility for the Mobile Dolls, but is symied when he runs into the Five Doctors. He notices their little operation, which clearly can't be that well hidden if he can stumble into it by accident, where they're quietly rebuilding his and Wu Fei's Gundams. To make them better. Faster. Stronger. But it'll take a month, so won't he come back later? To keep from being discovered, the Five Doctors beat the snot out of Duo and turn him over to the OZ troops before they can start exploring that section of the moon base.
Duo gets chucked in with Heero and Wu Fei, where Heero gets all snarky with him for having failed - again. Duo, of course, just points out that there'll be fresh Gundams available in a month or so, so just chill out. And now, he's going to have a nice lie down... "I'll be the God of Death once again! ... right after I get some sleep..."
Zechs, meanwhile, heads out, his mission an apparent failure. Lady Une muses with both personalities that he'll surely return, and then they'll see where his loyalties lie... in the meantime, she'll continue working to make this world conform to Treys' ideals.
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
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