Heero Yuy always had fun climbing fences. Somehow it was a comfort that he had never gotten rid of: he could see the enemy’s defenses, then run, jump and boom, he was through the enemy’s defenses. It was the simplest part of getting into some sort of base; jumping a fence always worked not only to get you into a base, but also to heighten your senses. There was always that haywire adrenaline rush right at the moment you knew you were gonna fall and crack your head open. After the war was over there wasn’t anymore need to jump fences, so privately Heero relished the moment.

And then Quatre landed on top of him and the serene feeling was immediately lost. Heero lightly tossed Quatre off and stood up. Landing from a triple back flip Trowa appeared, and then from a high kick came Wufei, and with a loud yelp lastly Duo. The five of them stood facing the Texan airport wondering what to do next.

Heero stared at a pair of keys in his hand. "How are we supposed to know which plane these belong to?"

"Well what’s the key look like?" Duo asked as he snatched the keys from Heero and examined them curiously.

Quatre, who was still a little bit embarrassed by his less than graceful landing, looked over Duo’s shoulder. "Well…it says there that the plane is called ‘The Silver Rooster’…"

"Where’s it say that?"

"There, on the top of the key."

"Oh. Man, looks like a high tech ride to me."

"Maxwell," Wufei grumbled at the braided teen, "sarcasm is the sign of a weak mind. We have no idea, this is Texas, remember?"

All of the sudden the boys’ argument was interrupted as airport personal in a golf cart drove up to them. The guy behind the wheel looked like a security guard. "Hello. May I help you boys?" he said in a tone of voice where it was very obvious he had no interest in helping anyone.

Duo held out the keys. "We’re looking for the Silver Rooster."

The guard laughed. "Ha, so you must be the idiots who bought that old junk heap. Hop in the cart, I’ll drive you over so I can see your faces when you realize what you got for your money."

Very discouraged by the guard’s unfriendly words, the pilots hopped into the golf cart and arrived shortly arrived in front of the aircraft they’d been looking for. Duo swallowed a smirk, seeing how he might have been killed if he had dared smiled with the comment. "Whoa, looks like Noin grew a sense of humor all of the sudden."

"Even she wouldn’t play this cruel a joke."

"You sure about that? She’s going out with Zechs after all."

"Well…"

The Silver Rooster was a beat up crop duster that must have been at least three or four decades old. It had a rusted door leading to a cockpit that seated five, but not comfortably. The silver paint was peeling and chipping off in several places, revealing a rusted interior. The engines and propellers propped on either sides of the wings looked usable enough, but the three halfway deflated tires that served as landing gear had left marks on the runway from when they’d last been used. Heero went over and put the keys in the door, foolishly hoping that they wouldn’t fit and that this was the wrong plane. He was instantly disappointed as the keys clicked right in.

Duo swung the door open, recoiled at the smell but climbed inside anyway. "It’s comfy enough. Where we heading again?"

"California," Heero answered as he hopped up into the pilot seat. "We might not get there though at this rate."

"Why does Yuy get to fly this wreck?" Wufei commented sourly. His shoes, which were stained a brownish red color, immediately picked up a three inch layer of dust on the floor.

"Because I don’t trust anyone else with it."

"What makes you think we trust you with it?"

"Because…" Heero struggled for a valid reason. "I’m a better pilot than all of you."

"That’s very debatable," Trowa cautioned as he and Quatre got in the plane.

"Not to me it isn’t," Heero countered, "and I’m the one you’ll have to haul out of this pilot’s seat to fly. So I fly."

"Fair enough," Trowa shrugged.

Heero started the plane. A low coughing sound rumbled from the engines as they worked to get the dust out of themselves. After a minute the propellers started and the plane was filled with a sharp humming noise. The control panel blinked on announcing all of the various things any pilot would need to know: altitude, fuel gage, airspeed, etc. Heero flipped the radio on and requested permission for take off.

"So, would someone fill the rest of us in on this unjust mission?" Wufei leaned back in the musty seat and looked out the window.

"We have to find a organization that wants to break the armistice," Heero summed it up into a single sentence.

"That’s it? Any organization?"

"This particular organization has something up on the Preventers," Duo explained as the plane started moving. "No one wants to tell us anything about them. That means that this has got to be big."

"Hmm…" Trowa seemed just the slightest bit disturbed by this. "Well there’s only one thing the Preventers have to hide so…"

"What’s that?"

"You guys don’t know?" Trowa blinked. "I thought they told all of us."

"Just spill it," Duo muttered in an irritated way as Heero positioned the plane on the runway.

"Well," Trowa paused. "We store the last remaining intact mobile suits."

"Yeah, so? We’ve got two ground Aries and a space Leo missing an engine sitting at the base. Collecting dust by the way," Duo smirked. "Everyone knows about those."

"Yes," Trowa continued. "But they’re the only mobile suits left intact in the world."

"So if someone wanted to steal them they would," Wufei pointed out. "That’s no reason for secrecy."

"Yes, but that’s not all we have sitting back at the base and collecting dust. One of the very first missions of the Preventers was to collect all of the blueprints for making any sort of mobile suit. This was a very successful mission, we have all of the blueprints to every mobile suit, gundams included."

"So, like the Wu-man said, someone might certainly want to steal them but that is no reason to leave us out of the loop," Duo concluded.

"No one knows about it."

"What do you mean?"

"The government doesn’t know we have the blueprints. They thought all of them were destroyed along with the mobile suits. We just…forgot…to mention the fact that they weren’t."

"Oh."

"Yeah. ‘Oh’ describes it well."

Heero revved the engine and the plane started rumbling down the runway. The vibrations shook everything in the cockpit; any piece of equipment that wasn’t attached flew in the boys’ faces. For a moment it was very iffy whether it was going to get off the ground at all, but soon Heero pulled the controls back and the nose pointed skyward. They were officially out of Texas.

Quatre, who had had a little bit of experience with politics, turned back to continue the conversation with Trowa. "But the government funds us, they’d get real mad real quickly if they knew we were keeping a secret from them. Even if it was for security reasons."

"Exactly."

"So whoever we’re looking for knows about the blueprints?"

"Probably."

Duo laughed so loud that the other four boys stared at him. "What kind of organization is this? If you want to break an armistice, why in all hell would you know about a big stack of weapons blueprints and not want to steal it?"

"I don’t know."

"Yeah, neither do I."