Duo Maxwell stared out the window of a very small plane as it descended towards San Francisco. There was only one thing that Duo noticed about the city so far: there was a lot of water around it. The tiny propeller driven machine the five pilots were flying in was losing hundreds of feet of altitude a minute and no land was turning up with which to ground the plane. The blue waves below were getting larger and larger, and there was no runway in sight. "Hey Heero?"

"What?" Heero Yuy never looked away when he was piloting something, a break in one’s concentration was death for a gundam pilot, it was instinctive reflex to pay attention. "I hope you’re not thinking of asking if we’re there yet."

"No, I’m done annoying you for this trip," Duo smirked, "and besides, at the rate we’re falling we have to get there soon, unless you’d like to drown us. That’d accomplish the mission very well."

"There’s a runway around here somewhere if I remember correctly. See the land out there?"

"Yeah, I see it. I also see that we’re not gonna make it. Not at all, buddy."

Trowa Barton looked ahead of the two boys. "We’ll make that. No problem."

Duo sat back and shrugged. "All right then."

As the Silver Rooster descended on the San Francisco Inter-Continental Airport there were several very annoyed messages radioed to the five boys. On one of them an angry air traffic controller even went so far as to tell the pilots to find another airport. Duo angrily inquired as to why.

"A bunch of government colony shuttles are due to land in a few minutes. They’re all the way from L3," the air traffic controller hurriedly explained. "A news crew is on the runway ready to take pictures of all the diplomats, for some of them it will be their first time to Earth. Can you clear the runway before they land?"

Duo looked to the others, who shrugged. He clicked the radio on. "Sure, we’ll be gone."

"Fine, use runway 3 just in case," the radio clicked off.

Suddenly a runway appeared out of nowhere and Heero skillfully steered the plane towards it. As they landed they saw a dozen tiny trucks sitting on top of a runway labeled "1", that certainly wasn’t usable. As the old beat up landing gear scraped against the road of runway 3, Duo realized with a shake of his head what an embarrassment they were flying in. Some of the shuttles parked in the airport were the technology level that their gundams had been at. Duo was the first to jump out of the plane as soon as the engine was powered down.

Quatre glanced over at the activity on the other runway. "If it’s a government official from the colonies it might have something to do with us. Want to go have a look?"

"Absolutely," Duo nodded and started strolling casually towards the crowd. Stealth really was his specialty; he decided to see if he could keep the lead long enough for his companions to follow the example. The braided teen pushed past the reporters, civilians, policemen, military officials. His roving gaze paused a moment at the military officials. They were obviously high up in the non-existent military of the time period, decked out in the fancy uniforms that no one wore anymore. As Heero caught up to Duo he noticed this as well.

"They’re out of place."

"Shhh!" Duo walked further into the crowd, towards the edge of the runway, which had now been cleared for the shuttle to land. "Being inconspicuous is being quiet, genius."

"I know that," Heero snapped softly, "why would there be military officials here? Does the Earth still have a military?"

"Yes," Quatre came up behind the two of them. "Though it’s very small and there are no weapons left for them to have. Sort of an honorary thing I think…hmmm. If they’re here than these diplomats must be very highly regarded."

"I don’t see what the big deal is," Wufei commented, not bothering to hide his voice at all. "A politician is a politician no matter where they’re from."

Trowa elected to something that none of the other pilots would have conceded to. He asked a reporter. "Who are we expecting here?"

The young woman stared at Trowa for a minute, but decided he wasn’t going to steal her story and shared it with him. "The leader of a new political group, they’ve got some great new ideas for maintaining peace between the Earth and colonies-"

Trowa didn’t bother to explain that he’d heard this phrase before. "What’s the group’s name?"

"The most original thing," the young woman was smiling like she was about to say something clever. "They’re called Armistice."

"Armistice?"

"Yes, Armistice. Now there’s a dead give away of a group that really wants to maintain peace," the reporter said her sales pitch and promptly lost interest in Trowa.

The tall boy turned to the other pilots. "This should be interesting…"

The shuttle that landed to all of the media attention was a very high tech one indeed. It made the Silver Rooster look like a Lego toy; in fact it wasn’t any make or model that any of the boys recognized. A lot of pictures were snapped; the plane obviously hadn’t been around for that long at all. As a set of stairs were wheeled to it the crowd flooded the runway, and Duo, his curiosity very much intrigued, had to run to stay in front of the general mass. Several people stepped out of the shuttle but no photos or interest was taken of them, they were politicians that just smiled and shook hands with a few of the reporters.

The last person to step out of the shuttle was a young girl about the pilots’ age. She was obviously the center of attention, for as soon as she stepped out into the light of the California afternoon the flashbulbs were off left and right. She was short but built very gracefully to make up for it, and she had long orange hair that was tied into a braid that fell down her back. Her eyes were cerulean blue and she wore a seemingly innocent but deeply smug smile that Duo found ominously familiar.

Heero had recognized the features far earlier than anyone else. He said the name far too loud to be inconspicuous. "Mariemaia?"

"No," one of the reporters responded, "but you’re close. Her name is Alexia Barton. She’s Mariemaia’s cousin, even though they look like twins.

Duo blinked. "She runs Armistice?"

"Yes, she founded the group right after the war ended."

The pilots watched the smiling face of the girl in silence for a while. Trowa shrugged. "Zechs said to look out for political groups trying ‘to break the armistice.’ I know a clue when I hear one. I think suspect number one is standing right in front of us."