by Shouji Gatou
“I’m not,” he said shortly.
“But, like... this isn’t like you.” Kaname genuinely believed that. This wasn’t like him. This wasn’t Sousuke at all. She didn’t know what had happened, but to say all these vicious things... Usually he was much more forward-driven; he never stooped to criticizing the people or things around him.
“What would you know about me?” he said in a harsh whisper, restraining a shout.
“Huh?” she blinked.
“You talk about what’s ‘like me,’ as if you knew. Do you realize what they’ve pushed on me? I’m a mercenary,” he went on. “I was doing fine on normal missions with normal equipment. But ever since that mission four months ago, all I get is criticism. Gauron, that AS, being your bodyguard... none of it’s what I’m cut out for. It’s all a nuisance.”
“You...” Kaname felt like she’d been smacked in the back of her head. A nuisance. Being her bodyguard was... She’d never realized that was how he felt about her. “You... You know...” she managed to squeeze out. “It’s not like I asked you to do that. You’re the one who forced his way into my life, so... so quit, if that’s what you want...”
“I can’t,” he said tiredly. “I’m the only one who can execute this mission.”
“Oh, please... Mission? You can’t...”
Sousuke looked up at Kaname. His eyes were exhausted, indifferent, hollow. “It sounds like you’re the one who’s tired.”
“I’m not tired,” she told him. “I’m worried about you, okay? But you just...”
“I know,” Sousuke said, cutting her off. “I get it, so go back to your room.”
Kaname didn’t say anything else; she just turned around and left. She passed Kurz and an East Asian soldier at the door, and without even a word of greeting, dragged herself listlessly into the hall.
Even after Kaname had left, Sousuke remained, blackly glaring at the floor. The fact that Gauron was alive. The fact that he was on board with them. The Arbalest, Mao, the lambda driver... His mind was seething with fear and regret, and he couldn’t see a way forward. He’d hit a wall. His head felt heavy.
“Sousuke.” He heard a voice. Kurz had come up to him at some point, with Corporal Yang trailing behind him.
Sousuke looked up curiously. “Kur—” Kurz’s fist slammed into his left cheek. With no way to stop a sucker punch, Sousuke tumbled off the electric trailer and crashed into the floor. It must have cut his cheek open, because he could taste blood. He grunted, and after some stirring, looked up. Kurz was clearly trying to hit Sousuke again, while Yang was doing everything he could to restrain him.
“Don’t do it, Kurz!” Yang pleaded.
“Shut up!” Kurz snarled back as they struggled against each other.
Sousuke wiped some blood from a corner of his mouth. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked curiously.
“Sorry for eavesdropping, but I couldn’t stand another minute of your damned hero act,” Kurz told him sarcastically. “That’s all!”
“Hero act? I—”
“Shut up,” Kurz said coldly. “You couldn’t be the big man out there, so you wanna sulk like a child and take it out on a girl. You’re like a wife-beating bastard who gets his neighbors calling the cops on him every night. You get it?!”
“I’m not taking it out on anyone!” Sousuke cried, confused.
“Yeah right, asshole! You made a nice girl cry!” Kurz yelled back. “You’re a piece of shit, and the only way you’ll learn is if I beat your face in!”
“What...” Kaname was crying? When? Why? Sousuke had been so focused on his own problems that he hadn’t given any thought to her at all. I... made her cry?
Yang managed to talk Kurz down into some semblance of calm. His shoulders heaving, Kurz turned his eyes away from Sousuke. “I get why you’re on edge, okay?” he said brusquely. “Look... I’m not mad about what happened on the mission. That Arbalest is a weird AS. We all knew it might crap out on you; that’s why me and Mao and McAllen were there. But we captured the Venom and we took back the base. That means the job went well! Am I wrong?”
“But Mao—” Sousuke started.
“Are you kidding me? She goes through that shit all the time,” Kurz objected scornfully. “You’re not some damned rookie! You know that!”
Sousuke said nothing.
“You think you’re the only one fighting out there? Get your head out of your ass...” Kurz spat, then strode out of the hangar.
Yang remained behind, hands on his hips, and let out a long sigh. “Sousuke. Are you okay?”
“Yeah...” he mumbled.
“Earlier, Kurz said he wanted to tease you because you looked so depressed. I think it was his way of trying to cheer you up. But when he heard what you said to her, he just lost it...”
“I see,” Sousuke responded, and then stood up. He wiped the corner of his mouth again. The taste of blood. The pain. He knew the sensations well, yet there was something unfamiliar about them. He thought it over, and realized he’d never actually been hit like that before.
Of course, that wasn’t about to cheer him up.
28 August, 0115 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)
Central Control Room, Tuatha de Danaan
After diving to 300 meters, they set a course north-northeast at a speed of 30 knots. There was a US Navy submarine hiding beneath the thermal layer, the veil of ocean water that cut off sound waves. Of course, they knew the de Danaan—which they called the “Toy Box”—would be in the vicinity of Berildaob Island right now. On top of that, it seemed that they’d acquired data on the de Danaan’s acoustic signature. Anti-submarine patrol planes, anti-submarine helicopters, and frigates were all on the move.
Tessa used their SCD and EMFC to skillfully slip through their blockades. It was the usual game, and they won in the usual way.
She looked at the nautical chart on her screen. According to the weather team’s report, there was a low pressure system approaching from the west, and they’d have storms up above for about a day. This was a good thing for them; it would keep the American anti-submarine helicopters at bay, and they might have to give up on tracking them entirely. If everything went well, they could be back at Merida Island Base by tomorrow night.
Tessa wanted to check in on Mao and talk things over with Sousuke, but she didn’t have time for that yet. She had to stay in the control room and be on the lookout for the smallest abnormality. She was worried about their prisoner, Gauron... Not only was he alive, but he’d appeared with a new lambda driver-mounted machine in tow.
Kalinin, who had remained behind on Berildaob Island, had radioed to tell her to watch out for him. “He’s probably planning something,” he’d added. Tessa had had a bad feeling about things ever since she had first heard the island was occupied, but this had proven even worse than she’d thought. A smell of danger seemed to waft from the first briefing room, the place where the man was being held.
Still, Sousuke and the others had done well; the fact that they had taken the Venom in without a scratch was nothing short of a miracle. Or perhaps I should say, it’s everything I expect from Sagara-san... she thought. Despite her occupation with the command of the vessel, and having not yet heard the details of the Venom’s capture, she allowed herself a private moment of heart-fluttering indulgence.
“Colonel.” Second Lieutenant Lemming, an engineering officer, entered the control room. She had been ordered to do a quick examination of the Venom, which now sat in the hold.
“What is it?” Tessa responded.
“Well, I still haven’t done a full analysis yet, but its LD seems fundamentally identical to the one in the ARX-7. Though there are a few minor differences... One thing that’s for sure is that it’s from the same line as the one in the Behemoth.”
“I see...”
“But there’s something else that concerns me,” Lieutenant Lemming went on. “That AS... they said it overheated and surrendered, but...”
“What?” Tessa asked
with some alarm.
“It still seems perfectly functional. It had some armor snapped off here and there, and the ECS lenses in the shoulders took damage, but...”
Images of the AS snapping to life and running rampant in their hangar raced suddenly through Tessa’s mind. “There’s no danger of it starting up on its own, is there?” she asked.
Lemming gave her a quiet smile. “No, ma’am. We’ve unhooked its generator. No matter what its AI has been programmed to do, it can’t move without a power source. It also has a self-destruct device, but that won’t go off unless someone sets it off.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but...” In that case, why wasn’t the AS nonfunctional? More to the point... why had Gauron given up when he could have kept fighting? Did he get himself taken hostage on purpose? she wondered.
Impossible. Out of the question. The man had undergone a full body search, had been put under the strictest restraints, and was under round-the-clock surveillance from SRT staff. He’d cleared quarantine as well, so there was no chance he’d brought some virus on board. That terrorist would have no opportunities to escape or to try anything on them. And yet...
“Well, thank you for all your hard work,” Tessa finally said. “We’ll give the Venom a more thorough analysis back at base.”
“Yes, Colonel.” Lieutenant Lemming saluted her, then left the control room.
“Mardukas-san.” Tessa addressed her XO once she was gone.
“Yes, Captain?”
“I want to talk to you about something...”
28 August, 0110 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)
US Navy Submarine Pasadena, West Pacific Ocean
It had been a while since they’d received orders from fleet command, but they came in as follows: Some time in the next twelve hours, the Toy Box might pass through your area. Run quiet; if you find it, tail it, and take in as much data as you can.
Commander Killy B. Sailor, captain of the USS Pasadena, crushed the paper they were printed on into a ball, and groaned in displeasure. “And how the hell are we supposed to find it? Dammit...” They had to search for a machine they’d lost sight of at point blank range in an area with a radius of 100 kilometers. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
“I’m sure command isn’t expecting that much from us,” offered his XO, Lieutenant Takenaka. Other ships of the Pacific Fleet were apparently further south, hunting for the Toy Box. The Pasadena was somewhat isolated by comparison.
“Probably not,” Commander Sailor agreed. “You know, missions like these always make me think of Nobby.”
“Who?” Lieutenant Takenaka blinked.
“Ah, when I was a kid, I led this peewee baseball team, see?”
“Oh?”
“We called ourselves the Oklahoma Sailors,” the commander reminisced. “One of the kids was this loser named Nobby. I put him in right field, batting eighth, and otherwise hung him out to dry. Any time he made an error, I pulled his pants down in front of Kathy.”
“Who’s Kathy?” Lieutenant Takenaka asked.
Sailor didn’t answer, but his gaze turned distant. “Times like these, I think about how Nobby must have felt, stuck out there in the cold of right field...”
“Did the story need to be that long?”
“What? Are you mocking my beautiful boyhood memories?”
“You mean that blathering on about your days as a bumpkinville bully?” Takenaka retorted.
“Why, you...!”
For the next three minutes, Sailor and Takenaka laid into each other. The officer of the deck finally said “that’s enough” and separated them, and the two panted for breath. After a minute of rest and five minutes of arguing, they decided to lay the sub low just under the thermal layer and wait for the Toy Box—the untrackable Toy Box—to pass.
In other words, they had a dull twelve hours of picking their noses and waiting ahead. Or so he thought...
28 August, 0431 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)
Galley, Tuatha de Danaan
Tucked in between the new microwave and the oven, there was a space. It was dark, no more than shoulder-width wide; the perfect place for someone to crawl into her shell when she was feeling low.
Kaname was curled up in that space, wallowing in her depression. She hugged her knees, gazed gloomily at the floor, and radiated isolation. All she could think about was Sousuke. She’d feel angry, then disappointed, then sad, and then pitiful. Whenever her thoughts reached a standstill, her eyes would fill with tears. Then she’d realize how pathetic she was being and go back to anger.
Tomorrow, she thought, I’ll ask Tessa to take him off my bodyguard duty. Maybe they could get someone else to take over, or remove the requirement altogether. Whichever; it didn’t matter. He hated being around her and thought of her as a nuisance. She didn’t want to be a burden anymore; that’s all it was.
The cook, Private First Class Kasuya Hiroshi, let her have her space. Sousuke had come to the mess a few hours before to ask Kasuya if he’d seen Chidori Kaname, but he’d covered for her and said no. There was something strange about watching two Japanese men speak to each other in English.
When Kaname got tired, she dozed off. Then she woke up from her shallow dream and went back to her circling thoughts. Eventually, she got tired and fell asleep again. The cycle repeated over and over.
Finally, as if unable to watch her self-torment any longer, Kasuya spoke up. He bookmarked the book about oceanography that he’d been reading and walked up to her. “Um, hey... Kaname-chan,” he tried cautiously. “You can stay here if you want, but you should probably eat something.”
After a long pause, she croaked out, “No thanks.”
“And if you’re going to sleep, you should probably go back to the captain’s quarters,” he advised.
“Don’t want to,” she managed again. She couldn’t stand to see or talk to anyone right now.
“Don’t be like that,” Kasuya said soothingly. “A shower and a nice rest might help you feel better.”
Kaname looked up at him, emptily. “Am I a nuisance to you?”
“What? No, I wouldn’t say that...” he said with a strained smile.
She’d become a burden here, too, it seemed. With a sense of resignation, Kaname stood up and dragged herself out of the galley.
Same Timeframe, 1st Briefing Room, Tuatha de Danaan
Guard over the terrorist was being handled in snappy one-hour shifts. The de Danaan had no brig facilities, as they were rarely needed, and space was at a premium on a submarine. Therefore, on the rare occasion they ended up with a prisoner on board, they just used a currently unoccupied room. In this case, it was the first briefing room.
Private Liang of the PRT was taking his second turn on watch. He and the SRT’s Sergeant Dunnigan sat near the room’s entrance, watching over the terrorist. Watching was all the job consisted of; the terrorist in question—Liang didn’t know his name—had been placed in a straitjacket, gagged, handcuffed and chained to the chair. His prosthetic leg had been removed and was being stored in another room with his other equipment. There was no way he could possibly free himself from restraints like that.
Liang was bored, even though he was only ten minutes into a shift. His attempt at smothering a yawn earned him a glare from Sergeant Dunnigan. “Sorry.”
“You’d never make it as a sniper,” Dunnigan told him acerbically. A sniper needed discipline to hold a single position for hours at a time... Basically, he was telling Liang he lacked that discipline. Dunnigan was a big, burly man, with a round, shaved head and a thick scar over his right eye. His eyes were a pale blue. They hadn’t talked much before, but as far as Liang had seen, the man was always in a bad mood.
Liang sniffed. “Maybe not, but not even a Shanghai acrobat could slip out of those restraints. So...”
“Part of our job is to be prepared for any danger that might come,” Dunnigan told him. “Don’t forget that.”
“Danger?” Liang scoffed. “What kind of dan
ger could there be?”
Dunnigan’s brow furrowed, and he assumed a posture of careful deliberation. He checked his watch, then responded, gazing at the terrorist. “Let’s see... How about this?” Dunnigan took a silencer out of his pocket and screwed it into the muzzle of his pistol.
Liang watched him in confusion.
“Let’s say, just for an example... What if I did this?” Dunnigan turned the gun toward Liang.
The man’s jaw dropped. “Wh-What are you doing? That’s not fair...”
“Sure, it’s fair. This is one possible danger. That’s why you can’t let your guard down.” His blue eyes stared right into Liang’s. They were serious, like a teacher offering a grave life lesson.
The gun remained trained on him. The private gulped, and nodded. “I... I’m very... sorry. Sergeant, sir.”
“Glad you get the point.” Dunnigan smiled broadly. As Liang relaxed, the sergeant, still grinning, added this. “But you learned it too late.” He pulled the trigger. Private Liang died instantly from a bullet to the brain. The shot was extremely quiet.
The chains, handcuffs, straitjacket and gag were removed, and Gauron could finally find a measure of comfort. He rubbed at his joints, stiff from their long confinement, and rolled out his neck. As his prosthetic leg was still missing, he remained seated in the chair.
“Hmm... I thought for a minute you were going to leave me out to dry,” Gauron said. He was all smiles, but Dunnigan was stone-faced.
“I can’t say I didn’t think about it, but that last mission made up my mind for me,” Dunnigan admitted. “I can’t stay here. They’re all a bunch of spoiled babies.”
“Are they?” In fact, Gauron was meeting this man for the first time. It was only recently that Mr. Zinc, their spy in the upper echelons of Mithril, had begun to take action. The man who was freeing Gauron now was one who had been won over by Mr. Zinc. Most people at Mithril were extremely content with their lot there, so finding potential traitors was a job that apparently came with great difficulty and danger. Of course, that was none of Gauron’s concern. His job was to take their submarine in unharmed—or to destroy it. “Anyway, welcome to Amalgam. Mister, ah...”