The Original Age Part 1 - Warped Reality

Disclaimers Note - I don't own Gundam Wing, or any of the characters therein. All of the unfamiliar characters are my own, but some unfamiliar ones might become familiar, in which case they are not mine, or they may not! You'll have to read this and find out! Any correlation of this story to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental, honest. Phew!

Censor PG-13 for violence and swearing

**The Original Age Part 1- Warped Reality

<By Espion>

AC 191 - Oceasia

The early evening light shafted onto the face of a girl with long chestnut coloured hair who was standing on the balcony inside the hall of Brickwall. The girl didn't blink or move, but merely stood, and waited. Some sixth formers walked past and one stared for a second at the lonely seeming Year 7 leaning against the back wall of the balcony, but then his eyes slid away from her, and she was forgotten in an instant.

The girl's name was Emma Kentley, and she was twelve years old. She wasn't stunningly pretty, and possessed no unusual features that set her apart from others her age. At that moment, she seemed to notice the light on her face for the first time, and moved away. She glanced at her watch. 4.15pm. School had ended a quarter of an hour ago, and the sixth formers she'd seen were on their way to a Drama rehearsal. She leaned her head back against the rough brick wall and closed her eyes.

'Are we nearly there?' squealed Anya Reo, bouncing in her seat. Her sister, Hayley, who was sitting next to her, pushed her firmly back into her seat and restrapped her in. The girls' father, Senior Chancellor James Reo, looked up from the Newsdoc he was reading and smiled at his seven year old daughter's antics. He unclipped his own safety belt and stood up, stretched, then put his Newsdoc on his vacated seat. The flight from Colony C-76 was a long one, but it was nearly over.

'I'll go and ask the pilot, shall I sweetie?' he said as he walked toward the front of the civilian shuttle. The Reo family unanimously agreed that the private transport systems the Union had tried to implement for its members weren't as comfortable, in both senses of the word, as normal passenger jets, and although the Union had made protesting noises about the low level of security on the aforementioned craft, Chancellor Reo had simply told them that 9 out of 10 people who met him or his daughters in the street wouldn't recognise them, and so that was that.

Hayley watched as her father made his way down the aisle towards the cockpit. She yawned. The family was on their way to the Mauna Loa conference, to decide what was to be done over the recent brutal attacks against workers from the colonies who were working on Earth. She'd heard that an organisation that conveniently had no name was planning to take matters into its own hands. She looked out into space and smiled. She wondered if she'd ever be able to help the war effort, should a war between the colonies and the unfair organisations of Earth break out. She had never told anyone about how she'd once shot a man who, she had suspected, was stealing data. Hayley had first realised something was wrong when the man arrived. The way in which he got out of his Hovercar was...cold. Everything about him was cold, and she didn't understand. No one like this had ever visited the colonies before. She had seen the strange symbol on his jacket sleeve, a sort of O and Z close together. She'd then shadowed him into the data protection room of the local Colony Control building, seen him hacking into the computer, and laughing. Hayley remembered the feeling of rage that had swelled up inside her like an angry pufferfish at this blatant example of foul play. Hayley was incredibly loyal to her birthplace, and simply couldn't stand to see this. She had decided to do something about it. The vast majority of girls her age would have run for assistance, but Hayley's instincts, inexplicably, were very different. She reached into her pocket and drew her revolver.

A boy walked slowly down the corridor of Brickhall, looking neither left nor right. His eyes remained firmly trained on the ground. As he drew level with the balcony, he raised his eyes from the carpet of the corridor and made eye contact with Emma, who began to make her way towards him. It was 4.30pm. Emma smiled as she reached him, and he nodded, but didn't smile back. They began to walk down the corridor together. Suddenly Emma stopped walking and looked out of the window. The boy, upon realisation that she was no longer walking with him, turned back and coughed.

'Emma?'

'I was just wondering about the new pilot. I wonder what he or she'll be like.'

'Hasn't he told you?' replied the boy, moving to stand next to Emma at the window, 'it's gonna be a girl, and apparently he's been trying to trace her for months. She shot an Oz operative when she was nine, but as she's the daughter of an important politician, it was hushed up.'

'He hasn't had any contact with her at all?' asked Emma, surprised. That wasn't like him, to go for someone who'd performed just a random act of bravery.

'He's been trying to get a digilink to her laptop for three months.' said the boy quietly, 'but he hasn't managed it yet.'

'Oh, I've heard of this girl,' said Emma, suddenly remembering, 'I came across her when I was doing research into prospective allies around a couple of months ago. It didn't even have a picture, all it had was a statement from the girl that we managed to get before she was swept away, and that was, 'Don’t hush it up, make people take notice of what's going on.''

The boy looked at Emma, who was now leaning against the windowsill and looking out across the Eoar valley.

Hayley recalled how the man had looked up from what he was doing and seen the gun in this mere child's hand. He'd snorted, and retrieved his disc from the Intranet Processor.

'Turn around.'

'Huh?' He'd turned, with a surprised look on his face, and then she'd shot him. She remembered the noise his body had made as it flopped to the floor. A sort of soft, wet bump. She walked over to him, and retrieved the disc from the dead man's pocket without any sign of revulsion, nor remorse for what she'd just done.

'There's no honour anymore for your generation.' she'd whispered to him as she pocketed the disc, 'but what does it say about me, that I still wouldn't shoot a man in the back?'

Emma Kentley followed her pre-teen comrade downwards, deeper into the school building. She didn't really need to follow him, as she could've walked this route in her sleep, but as the corridors were narrowing, following one another was more sensible.

The eleven year old boy slid his hand into a crack in the wall and winced slightly as the hidden needle extracted a blood sample and analysed it quickly to confirm his identity.

'DNA and haemoglobulous scan completed. Identity confirmed. Trensa McInrae.' pronounced the hidden device in the familiar monotone. An inconspicuous looking combination lock a few lockers away clicked quietly open, and Trensa walked over and opened it as Emma's identity was also confirmed by the machine. Her door was the locker next to Trensa's, and as she moved towards it, Trensa swung himself into his locker, which slammed and mysteriously relocked after him. Emma followed suit, and soon, there was absolutely no sign that the two had ever been there. No fingerprints. Nothing.

Hayley suddenly felt her neck and arms tingle, and was instantly alert. She noted that her father had gone to speak to the pilots over ten minutes ago, and the almost-familiar cold tendrils of fear began to wind themselves around her neck. She told her younger sister that she was going to the toilet, and unclipped her safety belt. She slid into the aisle, disturbing no one, and began to jog towards the cockpit.

As Hayley began to turn the door handle, she heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked and then another. Fear completely evaporated, and in its place was cold, hard determination. She gently released the door handle, and quickly dropped to the floor and looked under the door.

Two masked men were dragging away the limp, dead body of one of the pilots, and the other pilot was lying slumped against the far side of the room, battered and unconscious but still breathing. Suddenly a loud thump made her jump, and she realised that it must be coming from the pilots' bathroom.

Dad she thought.

Emma landed in a crouch about 50 yards from Trensa, then straightened. Trensa caught her eye, then cocked his head towards a window about halfway up the side of the huge hangar they'd arrived in, which was about 15m up. Inside the small room, a short man was beckoning and pointing to his computer excitedly.

'I wonder what he's come up with,' said Trensa, beginning to run towards the lifts. He waited as Emma jumped onto the hovering pad and then said firmly, 'Fifteen metres.' The pad shuddered, then rose until it was level with the window to the small control room. The man opened the window section and let Trensa and Emma into the room.

'What is it? Why did you send for us?' asked Emma eagerly, 'is it the new pilot? Is she here?'

'Calm down Emma,' said the man, tapping at his keyboard again for a second. 'Look at this.'

They looked at the 3D image proj. file he'd just opened. It was rotating on the screen, as all such files did, and it was quite clearly a mobile suit. Emma took a sharp intake of breath.

'Who is it?' she asked quietly. She always did that, Trensa had noticed, refer to mobile suits as if they were alive.

'This is Espion.' said the man, grinning alarmingly. Trensa looked up.

'There's something else,' he said slowly, 'because I know you wouldn't have sent for us just to show us a pretty picture.'

'Oh Trensa,' laughed the man, 'you know me too well. You'll make a fine soldier! Yes, yes, there's something else, something else...Hee hee....'

He shuffled away towards the main hangar control panel, set in the wall behind a panel. He slid the panel aside, and flicked on the main floodlights. The hangar was instantly saturated with brilliant light, which seemed to even shine around objects, leaving no shadows visible. There in the hangar stood what they'd just been looking at on the computer screen.

This time it's different, thought Hayley, because I can't just go in and kill them, they've got Dad and the other pilot as hostages.

She crouched and thought frantically. Calm down, she told herself firmly, figure out why these men are here at all. Hijackers, they must be hijackers. But hijackers generally make the pilot fly them wherever they want, and they don't usually kill anyone.

At that moment, the craft gave a sickening lurch downwards. Hayley grabbed at nearest object she could brace herself on, the door handle, and fell into the cockpit.

Oh shit.

The men suddenly looked up, and realised they were on view to every single passenger on the ship.

Several passengers were now screaming. Initially this had been because of the dip of the shuttle, but now, on top of this, they now knew there were murderers on their vehicle....and no one was actually flying the shuttle anymore.

One of the men aimed his automatic weapon at Hayley, but she swung her leg around and knocked his legs out from under him. The shot peppered the ceiling. More passengers began to scream. Hayley snatched the weapon from the fallen hijacker and aimed it at his partner. Her hands didn't shake as she levelled the gun at him. The hijacker laughed weakly.

'Okay, I surrender...' he said, putting his own weapon on the floor and kicking it towards her across the floor. Hayley was about to reach for it when she noticed his face under his mask twist into an ugly grin. She instantly spun around and hit the hijacker whose gun she'd stolen with the butt of his own weapon on the back of the neck as he lunged towards her. There was a terrible crack, and he fell to the floor, never to get up again. She turned back to the terrorist who'd tried to trick her and shot him before he could spew any more crap. Having done this, she turned back towards the door, which, to her immense relief, had swung shut, hiding her from view. She swiftly dragged the two dead hijackers into a small storage cupboard, so the passengers wouldn't have to see them.

At that moment, she was alerted by a blinking light on the shuttle dashboard. The emergency autopilot had come on when the terrorists had originally attacked the pilots, but now it was about to cut out. To be more precise, it was going to cut out in thirty seconds.

Emma raced to the window and opened it, and without waiting for the Hoverpad lift, jumped. Just as Trensa was about to follow, he heard the Doctor mutter, 'I don't know where you two get your energy from...'

Emma landed, quiet and catlike. Trensa made slightly more noise as he landed.

'You should make your contact time with the ground longer,' Emma told him as they made their way towards the huge mecha, 'because you'll never be able to drop down behind someone unnoticed if you make that much noise.' Trensa rolled his eyes, but took note of the tip. Emma had been training for almost a year longer than he had, since she was five, and he had a deep respect for her.

Emma put her hand on the cold Gundanium bodywork of Espion, and felt its power. Trensa envied her being able to do that, as the Doctor had told him that it was a skill that could never be learnt. He himself admired the magnitude of the four-legged mecha.

Espion was around 18 metres tall, and quite obviously modelled on a horse or a dog. Most likely a horse, thought Trensa, as the head was most definitely that of a horse, only lacking ears. It had no tail. This made sense, Trensa realised, as it would serve no useful purpose, and only make the suit heavier and less agile. There was one very prominent thing missing 'though...

Trensa turned as the Doctor joined them.

'It has no weapons,' he said. The Doctor nodded.

'That is almost correct, Trensa,' he replied, 'more than any other suit I've built, this one relies on the capabilities of the pilot to fight using the limbs of their suit. Do you understand?'

Trensa shook his head.

'No Doctor, I don't. A mobile suit with no fighting capabilities is of no use to us.'

'Ah, I didn't say it had no fighting capabilities,' said the Doctor. 'Have you ever seen a dogfight, Trensa, or two wild stallions fighting for dominance? Those animals have no weapons except those they were born with.'

Emma took her hand away from Espion and grinned.

'Trensa was born with an M16 in his hand,' she quipped. Trensa growled, but Emma just laughed. She had known Trensa since they were toddlers, even before they had begun their training, even before there had been need for anyone to be trained.

As she turned back to Espion, she remembered how it had all begun. The Doctor, the man who'd brought up Emma and Trensa as brother and sister, even though they weren't, since finding them about to be put to sleep at the orphanage when they were toddlers, had come to them both one morning, and told them in no unsure terms that he and several others colony-dwellers like him, were tired and angry with being tyrannically ruled by the Earthsphere Alliance and its cancerous daughter Organisation, the fledgling Oz organisation, and had decided to send arsenals to Earth to settle the score. The year had been AC 184. Emma had begun her training immediately, but the Doctor had to convince a jealous Trensa that he couldn't start until he was at least five as well. The training was basically shortening their reaction times, and making sure they stayed fit, at first. He hadn’t spotted the baby that Trensa had tried to bring along as well. She’d been left on the orphanage floor.

When they'd been seven and eight, the Doctor had taken them out of their school, and tutored them himself from then on, and intensified their training. They hadn't been children brainwashed by adults, they understood their cause perfectly, and were eager to complete their training, which had now diversified to include combat training. Things such as martial arts, and how to handle the different types of weaponry. Emma reflected how, she had enjoyed the martial arts section more, whereas Trensa had been very eager to get to grips with weapons. However, in spite of their differing preferences, they had both excelled at each section.

The Doctor had told them from the very beginning, that when they were old enough, they would be given their own mobile suit each, and sent on carefully planned missions against Oz. The Doctor had predicted that Oz would grow to overthrow the Alliance at some point, and so there would be no need to attack the Alliance. Emma and Trensa, despite their high levels of intelligence, had less of a grasp on the political situation as the adults did, and believed the majority of what the adults told them about this side of the fight.

And now the training's nearly done, thought Emma.

Hayley darted over to the bathroom door, and opened it with a powerful kick to the lock. Her father stumbled out, clutching at a gash on his forehead.

'Hayley-Bear?' he muttered. It was his pet name for her. Hayley checked his pulse.

'Yes Dad, its me. Sit here and rest, you've got a nasty head wound.' She propped the Senior Chancellor up against the far wall, next to the surviving pilot. He showed no signs of regaining consciousness. Hayley suddenly realised what she was going to have to do. She lowered herself into the pilot's empty chair and pulled the radio headpiece over her head. She had ten seconds left before the autopilot disengaged, and she would be left alone to land the shuttle as best she could. Strangely, she felt little fear, as she had a basic understanding of the controls of the craft, because she had taken lessons in flying, and her teachers had assured her that she was a natural. However, she hadn't had the lives of fifty people riding on her abilities before.

I'm not going to let anyone get hurt, she told herself firmly. Then the autopilot flashed one last time and then died.

'Work has already begun on Eron, which will be your suit, Emma.' said the Doctor, 'but work has yet to be begun on your suit, Trensa, called Felflowne. This suit, Espion, will go to our new arrival. These suits are incredibly complicated, and nothing like them will have ever been seen by Oz or the Alliance before. This will give you the cutting edge you will need. The system in the cockpit has the capability to bond with its pilot, so that, in effect, the pilot will then become the only one who can control that suit.'

He paused, and looked at the two young pilots-to-be, just to make sure nothing was lost on them, as this information was very important.

'As for weapons, Espion has only one real weapon, to speak of, and that's its beam sabre, located here.' He tapped the nose of the mecha, which was touching the ground. The sharp sound of metal against metal seemed to echo around the hangar. A small round hole about a metre wide slid open, and the Doctor continued, 'When the sabre is activated, it will be around four metres long. Do you understand why I am telling you all of this?'

They both nodded.

'Why?' he asked.

'It's important we know as much about our comrades' suits as we know about our own,' said Trensa, in his slight drawl, 'to give us as much chance of fighting effectively together as possible.'

'Did you eat the 'Book of Answers to the Doctor's Questions' for breakfast?' gasped Emma. Trensa made a despairing motion with his hands, and the Doctor smiled.

'Come on, you two. Don't fight. We are hoping to get a positive connection in some way with the new pilot tomorrow.'

'Doctor,' said Emma, 'what if she doesn't want to join us?'

Hayley felt the strain as the weight of the civilian shuttle was suddenly attached to her young arms. Liquid fire seemed to lick over the viewscreen as the craft began its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Hayley kept the nose at as gentle an angle as she could, as a dive at such high speeds would be catastrophic. As the vehicle cleared the initial strata of the Earth's many-layered atmosphere, Hayley turned on the equilibriators, which would help her steady the shuttle. After a surprisingly short time, she could make out individual cities. She suddenly realised that she didn't really know how to land the shuttle. She made a quick decision. Sure, it wasn't very polite, but...

'HEY! HEY! WAKE UP!!!!' she yelled unceremoniously at the pilot.

'Wha...What?' muttered the pilot.

'I need you to tell me where the emergency brakes are.' said Hayley, in as polite and calm a voice as she could muster.

'Br..Bra...second from left....Top...' he promptly slumped again.

Hayley looked at the viewscreen again. She spotted a field that was very long and thin. That had to be it, there was no time to find anywhere more appropriate. She pulled the nose as level as she could and began the landing procedure. Then, to her infinite relief, a mechanical voice from somewhere within the depths of the ship's computer intoned, 'Landing procedure initiated,' and switches began to move of their own accord. She sank back into the pilot's chair, and flipped the emergency brakes switch. The shuttle, now guided by its own computer, bounced lightly as it hit the field, and began to taxi to a standstill. Hayley jumped out of her seat, even though she felt completely drained, and crouched down beside her father.

'Dad. Dad!' she shook him lightly, and he opened his eyes.

'Are we safe, Hayley-Bear?' he asked fearfully.

'For now, Dad.'

Hayley walked over to the co-pilot and helped him to his feet. She suddenly realised how lucky she'd been. No one had seen her pilot the shuttle, and, unless she said otherwise, the passengers of the shuttle would assume that the co-pilot had fought off the armed terrorists and saved the Senior Chancellor and his daughter. His lack of recollection would be attributed to his head wound. She took a deep breath, and opened the cockpit door. In the instant before she could be seen by the passengers, she wondered where her longing to remain anonymous had sprung from, and concluded that although she didn't know now, someday the fact that she guarded her identity here would be helpful to her.

Emma stood in the darkness of the hangar, appreciating the fine shapes the moonlight made as it reflected off Espion's handsome curves. She felt a sudden pang of regret that, if she were to explain what she was doing to Trensa, he'd give her a funny look and walk away. Emma was no Seer, but even with her limited abilities, she could see that Trensa's future was rocky, and he would emerge from early troubles a changed boy. As even the most talented of Seers cannot see their own future, Emma had no idea about the troubles lying in wait for her.

She turned around at spotted the Doctor still at work on his latest endeavour, to try to get a message to the daughter of Senior Chancellor Reo. She suddenly felt sorry for the girl. Unlike Trensa and herself, this girl had a family, and how easy would it be for her to get away, if she really wanted to, from the Public Eye? Emma bit her lip. How would they initiate her? How would they check she was trustworthy, loyal, clever, and all the other things she had to be? Emma wasn't being egotistical, she knew all too well what was required of the new girl, and despite everything she'd learned, she was still only twelve years old.

Trensa stood on the balcony next to the Doctor. In his mind, his entire life had been building up to getting his own mobile suit, and righting the wrongs done to his fellow colony-dwellers. Without realising it, he was becoming ruthless and cold-hearted. Had Emma not been around, this change would have been taking place at a far greater rate. Emma was the one person he actually cared about. The Doctor looked after them both, but he wasn't Emma. Emma had been his adoptive big sister for as far back as he could remember, when she'd put her arm around him at the orphanage because he was shivering in a draught. Even though the difference in their ages was only slight, they could never be interested in each other in the romantic sense of the word, because of their respect for each other. Trensa sighed and brushed his unkempt dark hair out of his eyes. At the slight noise, the Doctor paused and looked up at him, then smiled and turned back to his hacking. He suddenly had a brainwave.

'Trensa, come here a moment.' he said. Trensa was at his side instantly.

'Yes, good, good. Now, Trensa, you see what I'm doing here?'

'Hacking.' Minimalist, as always.

'That's right. I'm going to teach you how to do it. Listen closely...'

Half an hour later, Trensa had mastered the basics, and the Doctor was pleased.

'Good, good. It is a useful skill, but sadly one that the others don't seem to think you'll need. That's why I'm only going to teach you. If it turns out you need more help at any hacking problem, then you can tutor Hayley and Emma.'

'Hayley?' This was the first time Trensa had heard that name.

The Doctor nodded. 'Yes. Hayley. Hayley Reo. Eldest daughter of Senior Chancellor James Reo.'

Trensa typed the surname into a search engine. He suddenly spotted a 'Breaking News' link, and connected to it. A couple of seconds later he said, 'Doctor, I think you'd better have a look at this.'

'Yes, thankyou, I'm fine.' Hayley shut the hotel door on the maid, then felt bad because she'd only been trying to help her. She collapsed into a chair by the window, and put her hand to her brow.

Jeez, I'm getting old before my time, she thought miserably.

She spied a courtesy laptop on the table, and decided to relax for about half an hour, surfing the Outernet. It had been renamed when Colony dwellers had begun to connect. She looked around as she carried the cordless computer to the window and set it on her lap. Her family was on L-23/9 for a press conference, covering last week's shuttle near-disaster. Luckily, she'd managed to convince her father that she felt very tired, and should therefore be left at the hotel. She logged in, and checked her e-mails. Nothing. She had no e-mail contacts. She didn't feel sorry for herself 'though, and suddenly on impulse, typed in the letters OZ. The screen flickered, and a security protocol came up, asking her to enter a valid password. Hayley thought for a second. She put down the computer and picked up that day's Newsdoc. There was a large picture on the third or fourth frame of one of the terrorists that she'd shot. She was about to scroll down to the next frame when something on the sleeve of the man's jacket caught her eye, then nearly made her choke. On his arm was the same symbol the man who'd been trying to steal data from Colony T-5's Intranet Processor, an O and a Z.

'Oz....Oz,' she muttered, and quickly read the picture's caption. The caption said nothing about any organisation calling themselves Oz. Hayley suddenly understood that that was because the symbol in the picture was on the very verge of being visible to the naked eye.

'The unidentified terrorists were believed to be trying to capture the daughter of Senior Chancellor James Reo.' she read. 'Reo....Reo.' She put down the Newsdoc, swallowed, and typed three letters into the password box. R......E......O. She closed her eyes and hit <VERIFY>.

'Yes Trensa?' The Doctor shuffled to Trensa's side, and read over his shoulder.

'"Three days ago, Chancellor Reo and his family had a lucky escape when their shuttle was overcome by armed terrorists. Luckily, control was regained by the co-pilot of the craft since his colleague had been killed, despite him being in agony due to atrocious injuries, and no one else on the shuttle was harmed." Hmmmmm...what does it say happened to the terrorists?' asked the Doctor. Trensa scrolled down.

'Both found dead.' said Trensa shortly.

'Hmmmm.....interesting....does this man look capable of killing both those armed men, in his condition?' said the Doctor, leering.

Trensa turned to face the Doctor and stared at him. 'Hayley?'

'I do believe so.'

Hayley forced herself to open her eyes.

'"You have level 3 security clearance."' she read. Now she was scared, Why would her family's name be an Oz password, and on top of that, one with such a high security rating? Security ratings only went up to five. She clicked "OK" and a menu came up. She could either select, "Past successes", "About our organisation", "Most Wanted by Us". She selected the latter. A quick scan of the document told her that there were three hundred and twenty-seven names on the list. She read some of them to herself.

'Name, Doctor Judas Olivier. Crime, Failure to report activities proceeding in his area to local Oz executive. Believed to have been responsible for the deaths of two agents sent to arrest him. Danger to Oz, Level 9.' She scanned down. The names were in order, ranging from most to least wanted. The person whose information she'd just accessed was three down from the top. Those names above him obviously belonged to general terrorists, whose crimes were nearly identical. Multiple homicide. She scrolled down slightly further, to a patch of Danger level Sevens, and nearly passed out. There, under the name of a man who'd "Driven with intent to harm Oz agents" was her name. There was no doubt about it. She knew her name was unusual, and had never met or heard of another Reo family. She read the information breathlessly.

'Name, Hayley Reo. Crime, deliberately causing the deaths of an Oz intelligence officer and two Oz commandos, Danger to Oz, Level Seven.' She then read the slight footnote - 'This member of Oz's wanted list has been given this relatively low Danger level because of her age.' For some reason, this really ticked Hayley off. She decided to log out of the site she'd just hacked, and look up something different, something that had absolutely nothing to do with the life-threatening situation she'd just found out she was in. She surfed for about another fifteen minutes, but her heart just wasn't in it. She was about to terminate the connection when a message flashed onto the screen.

'You've got mail...' she read, then paused. Her server didn't automatically notify her when she had new e-mails. She clicked the "Read Mail" button. The computer hummed for a second, as if what it was doing was taking up a lot of its power, then a small box appeared on the screen. Hayley looked at it. Nothing was in it.

Oh no, she thought frantically, I've got a virus!

She clicked the close button, but then writing began to fill the box, and Hayley read it, fascinated.

"GREETINGS TO YOU, MISS REO. YOU DO NOT KNOW ME, BUT I AM VERY INTERESTED IN YOU AND YOUR RECENT ESCAPADES...."

Hayley's heart was in her throat. Was this the work of an Oz agent? To her surprise, she found that she could write back to the sender instantly, like a chat room.

"DON'T THINK YOU CAN FRIGHTEN ME WITH YOUR COMPUTER TRICKS, OZ AGENT, I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU."

"VERY GOOD, MISS REO, OR, MAY I CALL YOU HAYLEY? BUT NO.. I'M NOT AN OZ AGENT."

"WHO ARE YOU? AN ALLY OF THE COLONIES?"

"THAT IS CORRECT. WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET HOLD OF YOU FOR SOME TIME NOW, HAYLEY, BUT YOU'VE PROVED YOURSELF TO BE QUITE ELUSIVE. NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING, NO...'

"WE?"

"THAT'S RIGHT. WE."

"HOW DO I KNOW WHETHER OR NOT TO TRUST YOU?"

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET US?"

"NICE TRY, BUT I'M NOT FALLING FOR THAT ONE."

"GOOD, GOOD. LISTEN HAYLEY. YOUR STAYING NEAR TO YOUR FAMILY IS ENDANGERING THEIR LIVES. I KNOW YOU HACKED INTO THE OZ NETWORK TODAY."

Hayley swallowed. Could this be true? Could she be endangering the lives of her father and sister? She paused, then made the big decision.

"WHERE CAN I MEET YOU?"

The Doctor leant away from the screen, a satisfied look on his wizened face. Trensa and Emma re-read the correspondence that had just taken place.

'So that's it?' said Trensa suspiciously.

'That's it, Trensa. We'll meet her at the arranged place tomorrow.'

'Doctor,' said Emma earnestly, 'I must know. How are we gonna test this girl? She hasn't had any of our training...'

'Ah, Emma, that is where you are mistaken!' said the Doctor, grinning again. 'How could someone who has never had any training kill three men and land a shuttle unaided, when they were only eleven? Oh, she's had training, but she never realised it. The teacher, the man who taught her to fly, fight, and survive, is a friend of mine.'

'The other colony dwellers,' said Trensa slowly, 'they trained her?'

'Correct. Now, tomorrow is an important day, and I will need both of you on peak form, so I think this warrants an early night.' the Doctor grinned. Trensa and Emma groaned. 'Oh yes, you may be the hope of the colonies, but you're not thirteen yet, either of you.'

He laughed again, and the two young soldiers shrugged and made their way towards the lifts. This time, Emma instructed the pad to rise forty metres, and this left them level with a small cellar window, through which Emma, then Trensa, crawled. The Doctor was staying at the hangar tonight, to run tests on Espion. Emma and Trensa walked out of the cellar of their home and went to their respective rooms. Before she went to sleep, Emma checked on Trensa. She always did this, and he had never once seen her. She smiled as she looked around the door. Trensa was lying on his bed, but had neglected to pull the covers over himself. She laughed quietly and shook her head. Typical Trensa. She walked into her own room, and laid down in her own bed. The clock on the wall read 10.08pm. Not really late, but the Doctor was right. Tonight, of all nights, they needed their rest. She turned over and was soon asleep.

Hayley felt strange, as if she'd just been speaking with an old friend she hadn't heard from since nursery. She knew this wasn't possible, but what was, anyway? She'd arranged to meet these people the next day, in the Green. You had to say in, and not on, because the Green of L-23/9 was enormous. She decided, as her old friend Otashki had always advised her, to go early and lie in wait. She suddenly thought about Otashki. He'd been her mentor since she was about seven. He was a very tall man, but very gentle. She'd always thought it rude to refer to an adult by their first name, but Otashki had insisted, saying that he hated being called, 'Mr. Otashki' and that he wanted them to be friends, not for her to be in awe of him. Her father had been disapproving of her spending so much time with Otashki, and had forbidden her to see him anymore, but, she reflected, if it hadn't been for Otashki, she wouldn't be who she was.

She thought about what was going to happen tomorrow, and wished she could speak to Otashki one last time, to ask his advice, to see what he made of it all. But she hadn't seen or heard from Otashki since her father had forbidden him access to Hayley. On the last day, he'd come to say goodbye, and had hugged Hayley tightly. Hayley had been very sad, but Otashki had told her that great warriors kept their feelings inside, an unleashed them only on the battlefield. She hadn't known then how she was to become a warrior, but she had known that she would become one. It wasn't a question of if, but when. She sighed, and closed the laptop. Her father was due home soon.

She flicked the TV onto the news channel. Instantly her eyes were attacked by the image of a reporter dressed in dayglow orange conversing with a firefighter dressed in similar dayglow colours. Behind them a fire raged. She recognised the Television Studio as the building in flames, and her mind went blank. She sat down, and let phrases such as "No reported survivors", and "terrible example of arson" wash over her. Her father and little Anya, gone, as well as all those press members, and the staff of the Television Centre. Suddenly a terrible revelation hit her. This was the work of Oz. She remembered in History Class learning about how the assassination of Colony Governor Yuy had been received by the colonies, with great scepticism, and few believing the press release issued by the Earthsphere Alliance, that the culprit had been a rogue agent from a Colonial based organisation, and the vast majority believing that it had been an undercover agent of the Alliance, who were becoming fearful of Yuy's style of leadership. Her head suddenly felt heavy as she began to pick through the implications of what had just happened. Incredibly, no tears fell, as she had taken Otashki's teachings to heart. This had been no accident, even the television reporters knew that, so it had been a deliberate attempt on the part of a terrorist group to motivelessly murder three hundred and eighty innocent people. She could feel the anger beginning to brew, but suppressed it easily. It would come in useful later. She noticed that her hands were shaking, and let them.

The Doctor heard the urgent beep of his Newsdoc and put down his Biquatrior*, muttering. He reproached himself for ever downloading the extra 'Breaking News' module onto his Newsdoc.

The twice daily update is quite enough, he reasoned, as he made his way towards the table upon which the Newdoc lay, and that doesn't beep at all.

He was still muttering as he picked up the Newsdoc and pressed "Open". Instantly the headline flashed up. "Four hundred die in Television Studio Inferno" He read on.

Earlier today, an unidentified terrorist group set alight to the L23/9 Colony Television Studios, which was packed due to a press conference attended by Senior Chancellor Reo and his daughters. The death toll stands presently at three hundred and forty two, but many bodies are believed to be buried under the rubble of the razed building. Senior Chancellor Reo's body has been found, and, with those of his daughters', will be flown to Colony L-78 for a private service, to be attended only by family members.

Also among the dead is the Studio's chief executive, David Iubet, who has been the Duty Manager of TV L23/9 for the past twenty years...

The Doctor stopped reading. He couldn't believe it. Hayley was dead. He looked up at Espion. What was he going to do with it? Only Hayley could now pilot it, as he had spent the entire night programming in her data, whatever he could find out about her from the Outernet. He shook his head sadly, and was about to close down the window, when on impulse he scrolled down to the bottom of the document to find out who had written it. Incredibly, his face twisted into a smile.

'Well, well, well, it seems we still have operatives inside the press, yes, yes. Well done, well done indeed.'

*Pronounced Bye-cwot-riore

The next morning, Hayley awoke and rose noiselessly. Yesterday's terrible event hadn't dimmed her resolve to meet with those people. If anything, it had strengthened it. Hayley didn't realise how incredible her strength of mind was, because she'd never had any contact with weak-minded people, but if she had, she'd have realised just how pronounced the difference was. Not many eleven year old girls would be able to carry on living life almost as normal, had their family just been killed. With remarkable presence of mind, she had made this sad event into motivation for herself. She had read the same late night Newsdoc that the Doctor had been reading, and had initially been confused as to why the reporter had said that she had died as well. She wondered if false information had been leaked, then as the Doctor had done, she scrolled down to the bottom of the report, and read the name of the reporter.

Otashkin Wakenoi

'Otashkin? Otashki?' Hayley had put down the Newsdoc and let the light dawn on her. If this man was actually Otashki, then the public needed to believe that she was dead. She remembered her efforts to not be revealed as the saviour of her shuttle, and realised that it had been Otashki's own words that had prompted her to do this.

'It bodes no good going around letting too many people knowing your name 'Ley.' he'd said. 'You can never be sure of a stranger's intentions....unless...' at this point, he'd leant close to her and whispered in her ear, '...unless he's carrying a violet handkerchief.' Then he'd winked at her as if he'd let her in on some great secret. He always carried a purple handkerchief himself, usually just poking out of the top pocket of any shirt he ever wore, Hayley noted. She'd wondered if this was a roundabout way of telling her that he was trustworthy, but she'd already known that. So the last comment he'd made had been lost on her, but she'd remembered it nonetheless.

She knew that she had to disappear. She gathered a few clothes into an inconspicuous bundle, and ate everything she could find in the bedroom. She didn't know when she'd get to eat again. With that, she opened the window and looked out. If she jumped, she ran the risk of being seen by bystanders. She needed to clear the area, but how? Luckily she didn't need to figure that one out, because at that moment, an Alliance trooper squadron began their daily march around the colony. The colony people scrambled to get out of their way, and wouldn't come back in a hurry. As soon as the soldiers were a safe distance away, Hayley lowered herself out of the window until she was dangling by her fingertips, to minimalise the distance she had to fall, then dropped.

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