Treize Khushranada, leader of OZ and one of the most powerful men in the world, sat quietly at his desk, staring at a large square divided up into sixty-four smaller ones of alternating black and white. Across the board and desk from him sat his long-time friend and subordinate, the man who wore a silver mask and called himself Zechs Merquise.
“Your move, Treize. Planning on staring at the board all day?” Zechs asked, a smile showing under the rim of the mask to take the sting out of the words.
“I was thinking. Knight to F2.” He moved a white knight to said space: Zechs saw the danger, and also realized that it was lose a rook or lose a bishop. The loss of the rook would place him within two moves of checkmate, and the blond man had no doubts that that was exactly why Treize had made that move.
“You can have the bishop,” he said. “His role is over, anyway.”
“Strange, how a game of chess seems to reflect the times, ne?” Treize mused, watching Zechs save the rook and thwart a checkmate. “You play your greatest weapons and hope to come out with enough of a skin to heal, but you know that you will take heavy losses, may have to sacrifice your greatest assets.
“There are only five pieces of any worth, you know. The king, all but useless. A figurehead, and nothing more, his influence stretching only to the squares directly around him. Yet on him the entire game rests. The queen: by far the most powerful, yet vulnerable in her own right. She requires help to finish the game. Bishops and rooks can combine with one another to act in concert as a queen, but the plans behind their moves can be foreseen. Knights, the only pieces that can pose any risk to a queen, yet are relatively ineffective when used by themselves. And then the pawns, the most numerous and underestimated pieces of the game of chess. Advance them far enough and they can become exactly what you need. Even a queen.” He moved again, blocking a move that Zechs had seen beforehand that would have checkmated the game in one more move and knowing quite well that behind those calm blue eyes and the glittering silver-white mask Zechs was swearing fit to peel the paint off the walls.
“I see what you mean, Treize. Check.” Treize cursed softly, in German, and was rewarded with Zechs’ rich chuckle. “Five queens running around the board would do a lot of damage by themselves. If they teamed up, they would do much more.”
“Soon to be six.” Zechs looked at him in surprise, though whether that was from the neat block on the check or from the statement was uncertain. “Chess is like, and yet unlike, the game of life. Knights like yourself do not get promoted to queens in chess.” He chuckled, regarding the taller man’s move. “Don’t try to tell me the thought never crossed your mind. You’ll find a way to do it, I’m sure.”
“War… that’s another game of strategy.”
“I honestly don’t know what is going through Tubarov’s mind, building machines to take the place of men. I did not order them specifically, but I am rather appalled at the level of chaos those five queens can create. All I asked for was to find a way to reduce our casualties against them.”
Zechs snorted. “I think he got those orders confused with the ones to find pilots who could compete at the level of the Gundam pilots themselves and would stand a chance of living through an encounter.”
“I never said that. Check.”
“It amounted to it.”
“What is your opinion of those young men, Zechs?”
Zechs was silent and motionless a moment, one hand supporting his chin, considering. “They are what soldiers should be, ready to die without question for what they believe in if it is necessary, but trained to survive in all cases. I have a long way to go to equal them.”
“That one that self-detonated in Siberia: did he survive?”
“Check. Yes, he did.”
“Were you able to find out his name?”
“Are you curious for the sake of curiosity, or as my commanding officer?”
“Touché. If I was interested as your commanding officer, I would be curious as to exactly how you discovered his name, although I do know. I have been receiving a great deal of pressure from my own superiors as to my greatest asset.”
“A precarious political situation, then. His name is Heero Yuy. I know nothing more about him that OZ does not already know. His companion calls himself Trowa Barton, but I am fairly certain it is an alibi. Heero, I know does not go by his true name. Both appear to be about fourteen or fifteen.”
“We have one clear picture of the pilot of 04, who has been identified as Quatre Raberba Winner of L4. He is also fifteen. They’re children, then. Little more than children, and they must fight for their lives.” Treize fell silent in reflection. “Why did you reconstruct Gundam 01?” Seeing Zechs’ hesitation, he smiled. “Don’t answer that: I am fairly certain I know, anyway.”
“The Gundams are laying low, but the have not lain down yet. They will not give up, and given their pattern of behavior I assume you are their primary target.”
“I have a feeling that assumption is correct: remember the day of New Edwards and Operation Daybreak?” Zechs nodded, at last moving a piece. His face was hidden by the mask, but one blue eye was visible and clearly sarcastic in silently asking “How could I forget?” “Well, two of the Gundams followed me. 03 and 05. 05 turned out to be Chang Wufei, a Chinese boy with whom I… We could have been friends, did you know that? If not for this war and us so different in age, we could have been friends.” Treize looked up from his contemplation of the nearly-empty board and at the man he had known for so long. Now, he realized that he did not truly know this man at all, and he looked down. “Emperor Tiberius of the Roman was right. ‘Holding on to power is like holding on to a wolf by its ears.’ No matter how uncertain you are that you want to hold on, you damn sure don’t want to let go and the presence of the wolf itself ensures that your position is quite dangerous and very lonely.”
“By that last remark, I can’t tell if you are referring to power or dear Colonel Une,” Zechs said, knowing full well it would earn him a chuckle and a wry glance of warning. /Well, why not?/ he thought. /Not a lot of people in the world can make such remarks about the most formidable woman in OZ: after all, I may not be as close to Treize as she, but I am still her equal by rank. And she certainly can be a bitch when she wants to be./
“How do you think the future will turn out, Zechs?” There it was: Treize had finally made the fatal mistake and guessed his move wrong. He smiled softly.
“Five known wildcards thrown into the deck, not counting Relena and myself and other unknown variables, make for a rather unpredictable game, wouldn’t you say? Checkmate.”
~ Owari ~