by Shouji Gatou
“Useless thing,” Gauron cursed at the broken-down machine, his eyes turned in the direction of the airfield. The Mithril helicopters and VTOL fighters were vanishing into the western sky. “Kalinin... That smug bastard.”
Gauron hadn’t expected rescuers to arrive so soon—less than twelve hours after the hijacking—let alone to dispose of the bomb on the plane. He had wondered how a special response team could come in so quickly, without warning, and without deploying a single recon team. The involvement of Kalinin explained everything; if he’d known that man was part of Mithril, he would have taken appropriate measures. Now he’d let the Whispered girl and Kashim get away... It was a horrible failure on his part.
“You’ll pay for this,” Gauron promised. “Dammit...” Just then, he got a call from one of his subordinates. Gauron answered in Japanese, “It’s me.”
“It’s me,” his subordinate responded. “One of the soldiers fighting the fires saw something strange.”
“What was it?” Gauron asked.
“He says he spotted an intruder around the airfield’s western fence. They were with a girl, and they were running toward the wilderness.”
“Was it a young man?”
“I don’t know,” the other man answered. “They went west, either way.”
Gauron chuckled to himself. He was in luck: Kashim and the girl had failed to meet up with their allies. To the west was the shore; did he expect to be recovered there? But that was about 30 kilometers away. No matter how fast they went, they wouldn’t get there on foot until morning. That was more than enough time to get the AS—the Codarl—up and running again. “I see...” he gloated. “Things aren’t over yet.”
In the dark mountains away from the airfield, Sousuke and Kaname were walking. They could no longer hear the flames, or the explosions, or the cries of the soldiers. The only sounds were the wind, and the crunch of their feet on the pine needles.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Kaname asked, supporting Sousuke’s unsteady body.
“We aren’t safe yet,” he grunted in response, “but getting away from the airfield was our only choice.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Kaname clarified, “I meant you. You don’t seem to be doing so hot...”
Sousuke’s expression was as blank as ever, but his forehead was drenched in sweat. He was covered in mud, and his uniform’s shirt was caked with blood.
“I think we should take a break. If we keep going like this, you’ll...” Kaname trailed off fearfully.
In response, Sousuke stopped and turned his eyes to the darkness behind him. After a few moments of silence, he said, “You’re right. Hang on... just a minute.”
“Huh?” Kaname was surprised that he had acquiesced so quickly.
Sousuke sat down on a tree root and removed his bloodstained shirt, revealing just a tank top underneath. She almost screamed at what she saw: there was a sharp piece of metal sticking out of his left side. It was about the size of a CD broken in half, and it glistened with fresh blood. It must have happened when the silver AS shot him earlier. Kaname could only imagine the agony he must be in.
“Is... Is that...” she began shakily.
“I got... lucky. It didn’t hit any major arteries or organs,” he explained, then moved on quickly. “There’s a case of small bottles in my jacket pocket... Give it to me.”
With a stifled groan, Sousuke yanked out the metal shard. Kaname searched the pockets of the jacket he had lent her, found the small case, and handed it to him. From it, he produced a vial of alcohol, which he used to clean the wound inside and out. It looked so painful that Kaname couldn’t look directly at it. His movements were purposeful, but his eyes stared emptily into the middle distance.
“There’s another case in the other pocket,” he told her. “I need the tape inside of that.”
She produced the tape. “This?”
Sousuke wordlessly took it and patched his wound before tearing his shirt into strips, which he then wrapped around his torso in a makeshift bandage.
Kaname continued to search through the case. “D-Does it hurt?” she asked, trepidatiously. “It looks like there’s morphine in here, if, um...”
“No.” The word was monotone, lifeless.
Kaname felt a sudden sense of wrongness. It was like she was talking to an insect, a robot—and it made her afraid. “But you’re—”
“I can’t fight the enemy if I’m asleep,” he told her flatly.
“But...”
“Let’s go,” Sousuke said, cutting her off. “The enemy will pursue.” With great effort, he stood up, and set off again into the dark forest.
What in the world? Kaname felt a sudden sense of disorientation. Who is this person? How can he just act this way? He treated his body like it was a machine. He didn’t feel any pain. Every other word out of his mouth was “enemy, enemy, enemy...” Wasn’t he just like that humanoid weapon—that AS? What was it that drove him to such lengths? She couldn’t understand it at all.
That indescribable fear of Sousuke that Kaname had first felt during the battle in the hangar began surging up inside of her again. She was in the presence of a completely alien being—some unknowable thing that only looked human. He frightened her more than any of the terrorists pursuing them.
“What’s wrong, Chidori?” When he noticed that Kaname wasn’t moving, Sousuke turned back to face her again. “Hurry up. The enemy is coming.”
Still, she hesitated.
“Are you not feeling well?” he asked.
“S-Stay back.” As Sousuke came toward her, Kaname took a step back. “Stay away from me.”
Sousuke froze.
Silence.
Is he angry? Kaname wondered. Annoyed? Will he scream at me? Hit me? Or more likely... will he just drag me off into this cold darkness, saying nothing? The urge to turn and run shot through her. But just then, she realized it; Sousuke’s expression, across that vast gulf of darkness—it was like someone who’d just been slapped by the person they least expected it from.
For a moment, it looked like Sousuke was about to say something, but he reconsidered, turning his eyes to the ground. Then, at last, he spoke: “You’re... afraid of me?”
Kaname couldn’t answer.
“I suppose that’s a natural reaction,” he said slowly. “From your point of view, I must be...” A shadow of inconsolable loneliness flicked across his bloodstained profile.
What? Kaname was shocked. Why does he have that expression? That all-too-common human expression... Rejected by someone he longed for, understanding why, and sighing in loneliness. The expression of a person in pain, not from injuries to the body, but to something else. An expression of sorrow, tempered by the strength to endure it.
Sousuke slumped over to hold his injured side. “Regardless, I’d like you to bear with me, for now,” he said wearily. “My priority is to get you back safely to Japan. I can’t guarantee we’ll make it, but... I was hoping you’d trust me.” His eyes were averted, and his voice was somehow frail. His face was no longer that of an inanimate fighting machine. “If we make it through this... I’ll leave you alone forever. I promise. So...”
“I can’t believe it...” Kaname whispered. This young man, wounded and battered from battle, but still trying desperately to save her... She felt seized by a powerful guilt over her initial rejection of him. He’s been trying so hard to save me, she realized. Enduring all the pain he’s in, staying on alert for “the enemy”... Trying to think logically, like a machine, about everything... All to save me. Because that’s the only way he can...
The way he tailed me since his first day at school, Kaname thought. All the trouble he kept causing, even when people yelled at him... Because he knew the danger that enemy posed. “So that’s what it was...” she whispered. A choking mix of sorrow and affection hit her with the force of a tidal wave. A warmth blurred into being at her core, spreading into a full-body flush. Her heart began racing, pumping blood into her face. She had never felt
anything like it before.
It was a swirl of new, turbulent, illogical emotions. But without knowing how to express them... in the end, she just responded, “Okay.”
“Thanks. Let’s go, then.” But despite his words, Sousuke’s expression remained grave.
His steps were more certain now than before. When the shrapnel was still in his side, every step he’d taken must have been a jolt of pain, but that, at least, seemed to have eased. After about ten more minutes of walking, Sousuke stopped, without explanation.
“What...”
“Quiet,” he ordered. With his right hand, Sousuke readied his machine gun. He pointed the barrel toward the brush ahead, then carefully inched forward. Kaname also sensed a presence in the darkness—there was the sound of hushed breathing, the rustling of clothes. Our pursuers? she wondered.
Sousuke turned on his Maglite. Through the shrubs deeper in the grove, a man was walking toward them. He looked like he was struggling to breathe. His entire body was soaked, and he wore a black jumpsuit. No, it wasn’t a jumpsuit... it was an AS operator’s uniform. His long blond hair was disheveled, and his pale face was caked in blood and dirt.
“Kurz,” said Sousuke.
“Hey... Took you guys long enough.” The corners of Kurz Weber’s mouth quirked upward. And then, he collapsed.
5: Black Technology
28 April, 2332 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)
Tuatha de Danaan, Surface, West Korea Bay, Yellow Sea
The second his helicopter hit the flight deck, Kalinin was on his way to the control room. Muffled sounds of machinery roared around him as the vessel’s double hull began its closure. As he strode down the second deck passage, Melissa Mao caught up to him, still in her operator’s uniform. “Sergeant Mao. You’re supposed to be on standby in the hangar,” Kalinin said, not slowing his pace.
Ignoring his comment, Mao fumed, “Are we just going to pull out now?”
“Yes.”
“Abandoning Sousuke the way you did Kurz?”
“This was in their contract.”
Nevertheless, Mao persisted. “They’re my subordinates. My responsibility. Let me go. I only need two... no, just one hour. I’ll find them and bring them back. Please.”
“Do you think I’d expose a five billion dollar sub and its crew of 250 to danger for an hour over ‘please’?” Kalinin scoffed.
“I know it’s reckless,” Mao pleaded. “But the ECS’s invisibility mode...”
“The weather team’s report says it’s going to rain soon,” he answered, “and that it will last for two days.”
Although it was an incredible stealth device in many ways, the ECS still had a few weak points. One was that it emitted a faint smell of ozone. Another was that exposure to large amounts of water—rain, for instance—caused it to spark, taking it from “invisible” to “lit up like a Christmas tree.” It was one reason why Kalinin had wanted to hurry the rescue operation along.
“It’s just a forecast, isn’t it?” Mao insisted. “Those things are never right.”
As they reached a sturdy watertight door, Kalinin stopped and turned back. “This compartment is for control room authorized personnel only.”
“You’re always like this,” she accused him. “How can you be so calm?”
“Because I need to be.” Kalinin turned away from Mao. He passed through several doors before arriving at the control room, where Teletha Testarossa, in the captain’s chair, had just finished issuing their course.
Without a glance to Kalinin, she said, as if it were obvious, “You’ve come to ask how long we can wait?”
She really is good, Kalinin thought, and meant it. “We don’t even have a minute to wait, right now. The enemy has three armed patrol boats loaded with mines heading our way, and we’re in a shallow area with nowhere to hide. We need to get over 50 kilometers away as quickly as possible.”
“Of course,” Tessa answered. She gripped the braid on her left shoulder and pressed it to her mouth. The tip of it tickled her nose as she glared at the screen in front of her. It was a bad habit of hers in times of stress, similar to chewing on one’s nails. “But I do want to save the girl and Sagara-san.”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s possible that Sergeant Weber is still alive, as well.” If Kurz were the kind of man to die that easily, Kalinin wouldn’t have put him on the SRT.
“If I can buy us a few minutes before dawn, on the surface near the coast... can you think of something?” Tessa brought a sea chart up on her personal display. Her plan was to get far enough away, brush up against the Chinese navy in their territorial waters, then change course and return here at top speed.
Kalinin was a novice when it came to submarine tactics, but even he could see that this was an outrageous plan. “Is it possible?” he questioned.
“Not for a normal submarine,” she replied. She was smiling confidently, like a mother bragging about her son.
It was possible, then. He decided to trust his captain. “I’m concerned about the fact that Weber’s M9 was disabled,” Kalinin added. “If my thinking is right, we might have to use that.”
“‘That’?” Tessa asked politely. “To what do you refer?”
“The ARX-7. The Arbalest.” The moment the word left Kalinin’s mouth, he thought he heard the mad beast tied down deep in the vessel release a cry of joy.
29 April, 0226 Hours (Japan/North Korea Standard Time)
Mountains of Taedong County, South Pyongan Province, People’s Democratic Republic of Korea
An attack helicopter roared across the skies above. A blinding light brushed by Sousuke’s head. The pilot didn’t seem to have noticed him, though, because the craft kept going, clearing the summit and disappearing into the southern sky.
The silence returned. A gentle rain had begun to fall, and wind rustled the branches around them.
“Is it gone?” Kaname asked. They were hiding in a hollow at the base of a low tree.
“I think so.” Sousuke responded, then pulled Kurz out of the hollow.
Kurz had passed out from a morphine injection. His right arm was broken, and there were deep lacerations along his femur and left arm. Most people wouldn’t have made it even this far, with wounds like that. The bleeding had stopped, but the treatment alone seemed to have exhausted him.
“Chidori, can you still walk?” Sousuke asked.
“We won’t get anywhere if I can’t, right?” Her response was determined, but she looked exhausted as well.
Sousuke and Kaname were on either side of Kurz, practically dragging him along the mountain road.
“Could you guys walk a little more carefully? You’ve got an injured man, here...” Kurz whispered through a wince, apparently having woken up at some point.
“I’m impressed you managed to walk as far as you did,” Sousuke told him.
“The river carried me. It also erased my scent,” Kurz replied. “Guh... The major’s such a bastard. If I’d gotten out of my machine just thirty seconds later, I’d have been blown to bits.” Kurz smiled a masochistic smile. “Well, I guess that would’ve been easier than this.”
“Did the silver AS take you out?” Sousuke asked.
“Yeah.” Kurz let out a frustrated noise. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“What happened?”
“I lured it into close range, then slammed it with a 57mm. I felt sure I’d gotten it, but... next thing I knew, I was the one in pieces.”
“A directional mine?” Sousuke wondered.
“No... I don’t think so. It felt more like... an invisible hammer.” Kurz whimpered again in pain.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to talk.”
Eventually, they made it over the ridge. Beneath a tree that could have easily been a thousand years old, Sousuke spoke up. “I think that’s the last of our climbing.”
At the bottom of the slope before them was all open space: a farm settlement, beyond which were rice paddies. Beneath the starless sky, here and th
ere, they could see the headlights of military trucks as they drove between the fields.
Kaname narrowed her eyes. “It’s wide open. If we walk out into that...”
“Yes,” Sousuke confirmed. “It’s very likely that the enemy will spot us.”
As Sousuke eased Kurz’s body to the ground, the man let out a moan and a barely audible stream of curses. Kaname crouched beside them with a stifled cough; she hadn’t complained, but she didn’t seem to be feeling well at all. Kurz’s breathing slowed to the rhythms of sleep as the morphine seemed to take effect again.
They’d spent three hours walking down awful roads in the middle of the night. To be sure, it was an impressive effort, but... There’s no way we’ll make it to the shoreline like this, Sousuke concluded.
Even trained soldiers in perfect condition would be hard-pressed to cross that open field unsighted. For the three of them, in their present condition, it was impossible. Even if the de Danaan was trying to save them, there was no way to contact them from here; the range of Kurz’s mini-transmitter topped out at a few kilometers, and they were still twenty from the coast.
Also, Sousuke was tired. His mind was cloudy and the pain from his wounds was getting worse. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t contact anyone. The enemy was closing in. No way out, I guess... He felt the familiar hand of death tapping him on the shoulder. “Chidori,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Listen to me.” Sousuke explained their situation: how they couldn’t contact their allies, how the enemy was drawing near, the weather, Kurz’s condition, his own condition...
She listened quietly through it all. “I see...”
“So... here’s what I propose,” he told her. “Kurz and I will stay here, make a lot of noise, and draw the enemy’s attention. We’ll buy you as much time as we can while you run west.”