Trembling Into the Blue

by Shouji Gatou

  Dunnigan had immediately gone after Kaname; only God knew whether she could give him the slip. Tessa would just have to hope for the best.

  Kaname-san... please... Tessa thought to herself, as if in prayer. Her gun was out of bullets, but the .22-caliber peashooter had done its job beautifully. If guns had eyes, this one would probably be winking at her. Walther TPH—for the first time, Tessa felt true affection for the name of a firearm.

  Of course, she knew these might be her final thoughts. Doubled over, with a hand clasped to his neck, Gauron slowly turned to face Tessa again. Blood was oozing out between his fingers. The bullet had just clipped his neck, and it didn’t look like the wound would be fatal. A pity.

  The terrorist’s lips curled into a smile. It was an inhuman smile; his eyes had turned a reddish-brown, as if seething with some violent emotion. In his mind, he had probably already killed her, dissected her, and cut her to pieces hundreds of times. This was who he really was; he had shown his true self at last.

  “Impressive, girl,” he said in a strict monotone.

  Tessa put on the strongest front she could manage. “I could have killed you if I wanted, but I took pity on you. You could show me some gratitude.”

  “Is that so?” Gauron grabbed her braid and yanked her to him, hard.

  “Mm!” Tessa found herself crying out from the pain.

  Gauron was strong enough to break her neck if he wanted to. His blood-soaked hand seized Tessa by the jaw, and he drew so close that she could feel his breath. “You’re not fooling anyone, pig,” he snarled. The crew in the control room began to struggle as they watched, but the handcuffs and chains kept them helplessly tied.

  “Ah... ah...” Tessa choked out.

  “I was told not to kill you... but frankly, I don’t care much for those orders,” Gauron said. “Not when I could be yanking out your bowels and winding them around the room. What do you think of that?”

  Tessa struggled and whimpered. Gauron dug his nails into her skin, hard, and then—as if winning a struggle for self-restraint—he cast her to the ground.

  Wiping the blood from his neck, he said to Nguyen, “You pursue the girl, as well. It’s not as if she can leave the aft. If you catch her, feel free to break one of her legs.”

  “What about you?” Nguyen asked.

  “I can handle things here by myself,” Gauron told him. “Besides... it’s possible that other crew members might have ignored the evacuation order. Kill anyone you encounter on sight, understood?”

  “Got it,” Nguyen answered simply, and then left the control room.

  “Now... ex-Captain. You’ve made me very angry, but I’ve decided not to kill you yet. I’ll punish you instead.” Mopping at his neck with a napkin, Gauron walked up to the captain’s seat, and hit the voice command button. “AI, take us to periscope depth. Speed, five knots. Use ESM to search for nearby surface ships.”

  《Aye, sir.》

  The submarine began to rise. The swift ascent created turbulence around the usually-quiet boat. If there were any submarines in the area, this would quickly get their attention.

  “Wh-What are you—”

  “You’ll see soon enough. Soon enough...” he chuckled.

  Hiding behind a cabinet full of cleaning supplies, Kaname heard the footsteps of her pursuer down a distant corridor. It sounded like he’d gone past her. Was she safe now? She couldn’t be sure... But she also couldn’t just stay here, so she slid quietly out from behind the closet.

  Kaname’s ripped parka was barely clinging to her shoulders; it was just depressing at this point, so she threw it off. She took off her hiking boots to quiet her steps, too. She realized that if she’d been wearing sandals back in the control room, she might never have made it out—the boots that had saved her life had cost her 13,000 yen. She’d have to come back to retrieve them later.

  Now down to a tank top and shorts, Kaname felt almost naked. She began to walk again; the floor was cold against her bare feet. Then, suddenly, the boat began to make a drastic move. The floor tilted a bit; she couldn’t tell if it was to the front or the back.

  The number of locked doors she encountered made it slow going to the captain’s quarters, as did her fear of her pursuer, Dunnigan. She knew he could be hiding anywhere, waiting for her. Every corner, every half-open door she encountered... they were all sources of terror to Kaname.

  She finally reached the captain’s cabin, and used the duplicate key Tessa had lent her when she’d first come on board to get in. There was also the other key, the one she’d just been given—the key to the safe. That was even more important.

  The safe in the wall was the size of a 14-inch TV. She put the key in and turned it, then one by one, pushed the buttons for the eight-digit code from the paper Tessa had given her. 3, 1, 1, 2, 8, 7, 6, 5... there. The electronic lock released, and the safe door opened. She looked inside.

  Kaname saw a thick file folder, some documents, and a rectangular case that resembled a jewelry box. She instinctively reached for the “jewelry box,” opened it, and found a small but sturdy-looking key inside. The letters “UNV” were engraved on the shaft. This was the universal key; it had to be. If this had been an RPG, she’d have heard an “item acquired” sound effect. That was the one item in the safe that looked like a key. The only thing left was...

  Kaname looked in silence. In the back of the safe sat a picture frame; it lay there face-down, inconspicuous in the dark. It was the one she’d seen the first time she’d visited the room, after the party. Tessa had locked it in here, claiming that it contained “classified codes.” Kaname knew she shouldn’t look. It was unfair to look without permission.

  But... she thought weakly. Still, even so... She couldn’t restrain her curiosity. Biting back her feelings of guilt, Kaname reached for the frame.

  As she’d expected, it was a picture of Sousuke. He was standing with Tessa, next to a rock somewhere. Tessa was wearing a T-shirt and leggings; Sousuke was in his fatigues. Behind them, for some reason, stood an M9 covered in splattered blue paint.

  Kaname immediately regretted looking at the picture. The sight of them standing there, looking like a perfect couple, made her feel like an outsider. I don’t belong here, she thought. I’m a tourist. I’m... just a burden.

  Then why am I here, doing all of this? she wondered. Off on some errand I don’t understand, playing hide-and-seek with some psycho... Why bother? Is there some reason I can’t just lie down and die here? Who would care if I just let it all go and curled up in a corner? Those questions raced around and around in a corner of her mind, causing her spirit to waver.

  Kaname was tired of being frightened and exhausted. And yet, she kept moving. It almost happened automatically; not even she knew why she was doing it.

  She returned the picture to the safe and closed the door, then tucked the new universal key into her shorts pocket. She booted up the PC on the desk to see if it contained some useful information, but accessing it required a password. In a long-shot move, she tried the passcode to the safe—of course, it didn’t work, so she gave up and rummaged through Tessa’s furniture and papers instead. None of it yielded anything useful.

  There was nothing else for her here. She’d just have to take the key and go to some place called the “Lady Chapel.” She wouldn’t find out its significance, or what she should do there, until she arrived. But where was this “Lady Chapel” exactly? She dimly recalled the term’s real-life meaning—a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. What would she find there? Kaname couldn’t even begin to guess.

  If only someone were left in the aft of the ship, she could ask them, but... Things being as they were, she’d just have to go looking for it herself. And that mountain of a man was somewhere out there, searching for her…

  The mother AI, Dana, gave a report:《Contact with surface ship on bearing 3-2-3; designate contact number Echo-1. Knox-class frigate. Range is estimated at 20 miles.》

  Gauron smiled in satisfaction. The de Danaan
’s sensors had picked up an old-style US Navy frigate; it was probably one of the ships searching for the de Danaan.

  The submarine had begun to sway now that they were near the surface; there must be rough seas just above them. The waves caused oscillations through the de Danaan’s massive form.

  What is he planning to do? Tessa wondered as she watched. She would receive her answer immediately.

  “All right,” he ordered the AI, “ready Harpoon missiles one and two. Target, Echo-1. Firing mode, BOL. You handle the rest.”

  Tessa’s jaw dropped.

  《Aye, sir.》

  So this was her “punishment”—Gauron was going to fire anti-ship missiles at that frigate. She leaped to her feet and grabbed his arm. “No! There must be three hundred people on that ship! They’re not part of this! And they’ll also return fire!”

  “Oh, will they?” he taunted.

  “Take it out on me if you hate me so much!” Tessa pleaded. “Leave innocent people out of this!”

  Tessa’s outward panic seemed to have mollified Gauron at last, because he smiled in delight, and said with a chuckle, “Sorry, but I can’t do that. You’re the kind of person who suffers more when the harm is done to others, aren’t you? I know about that. All about it.”

  Just then, the AI spoke:《Target, Echo-1. BOL mode. Data input complete. One, ready. Two, ready.》

  “Okay! Proceed to flood tubes one and two,” Gauron ordered.

  “Stop it, Dana!” Tessa yelled.

  《Aye, sir. Flooding.》

  “Open tubes one and two,” he went on.

  “Stop it!” she begged. “Please!”

  《Aye, sir. Tubes are open.》

  Tessa grabbed at his arm, but Gauron threw her to the floor. “I told you to watch.” He cleared his throat. “Now, one, two...”

  “No—”

  “Fire!” The Tuatha de Danaan fired its improved Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

  The crew in the hangar could hear the launch, as well. Lieutenant Colonel Mardukas had felt that they were in trouble somehow, but this told him that the danger was even worse than he’d imagined.

  The mother AI had determined that it should fire part of the de Danaan’s arsenal, the submerged-launch anti-ship missiles. Impossible. Unthinkable. It couldn’t possibly... he worried. No, why would it be unthinkable? What’s wrong with me...

  “XO, the Harpoons...!” one of his subordinates shouted.

  “I’m aware,” Marduka replied briefly. “Forget it for now; we need to break through the door... get to the control room...”

  They’d tried contacting the control room several times and received no response. The AI’s voice had simply responded, “Please stand by.” They’d been too conservative. They’d been cut off for thirty minutes now, and they had no more time to lose. They needed to send people to the aft, find out what was going on, and—

  “Get... to the control room...” Mardukas’s head hurt. It was hard to breathe, and his thoughts were sluggish. At first he assumed that it was just him, but he quickly noticed that everyone around him seemed to be feeling the same way.

  The oxygen... he realized. The oxygen distribution system had broken down—or it had been shut off. “Put on... your masks,” he choked out. “Your OBA masks...”

  Some had already fallen and lay incapacitated on the floor. Some remained limp, even after their comrades put the masks on them. Some managed to stand up and work the unresponsive manual oxygen transmission panel...

  “Use M9s... to breach the barrier...” Mardukas tried to shout as he clung to the wall, but he weakly fell to his knees. The floor was rising. No, he was falling...

  “Cap... tain...” he gasped. Your instructions were exactly right. You always... do... surprise me...

  Surface, West Pacific Ocean

  The two Harpoon anti-ship missiles engaged their turbojets as they burst out of the ocean, flying at low altitude and high speed. The all-weather missiles activated their active radar seekers within just twenty seconds of flight and found their target.

  The sudden attack had the bridge of the old-style frigate in a panic. It only had a primitive ECS, so it couldn’t hide from a cutting-edge homing radar. They attempted an intercept, but they didn’t have much time. Nevertheless, the ship’s CIWS—20mm Vulcans—managed to shoot down one of the two incoming missiles.

  But they couldn’t avoid the other. The de Danaan’s second anti-ship missile slammed into the frigate’s port side, significantly above the water line. It tore through the hull, flew into the helicopter hangar, and blasted the tail off an unmanned anti-submarine helicopter. Inertia then carried it out the hull on the starboard side, where it broke apart and fell into the sea in burning chunks. It didn’t explode as it should have; the missiles had had their warheads removed in advance.

  Miraculously, there were no injuries among the crew, although the maintenance man (who had just finished up working on that helicopter) stamped his feet in rage. It never would have occurred to him that his life had been saved by the caution of a 16-year-old girl.

  Deep below, eighteen kilometers away, another American vessel was in an uproar: the USS Pasadena had detected the Toy Box missile’s attack on their ally. Their quick-to-temper captain flew into a rage and began shouting, ordering his crew to battle positions and demanding the preparation of live ADCAP torpedoes.

  The Toy Box was an enemy, and a rabid one at that. They had to sink it as quickly as possible. The Pasadena became an angel of death, closing in on the nearly-helpless de Danaan.

  Deck 4, Aft, Tuatha de Danaan

  No one was there. She was alone.

  Kaname ran down the dim passageway, panting. She would slam into a closed door, struggle to open it... then give up, and began searching for another path. Dead end after dead end.

  She didn’t know anything about the Lady Chapel Tessa had “told” her about before. Where was it? What did it look like?

  Kaname struggled for breath. The interweaving, door-lined corridors felt like a dungeon in a video game. Where was that huge man? He could be right on her heels, and yet here she was, wandering around, hopelessly lost in the dark.

  “Ah...” She tripped over a bucket that had been left out. It made such a racket as it fell that she jumped in surprise.

  She heard footsteps. Actually... they sounded like footsteps, but she wasn’t really sure. She couldn’t even tell if they were close by. The suspicious sound disappeared immediately.

  What... what’s going on? Her fear grew even stronger. Her gaze turned behind her, she started to walk, but immediately bumped into something.

  That huge man, Dunnigan, was standing in front of her. Kaname started in shock. “I found you,” he leered.

  She tried to run away, but he had her arm in a vise-like grip. She kept struggling to turn around. Dunnigan yanked her toward him, then with just one arm, threw her roughly through the air.

  Her 49-kilogram body flew like an aluminum can. She slammed back-first into a door, which opened as she hit it, letting her roll into the room beyond. She toppled over a chair and then fell into a heap on the floor; the force of the fall knocked the wind out of her. She gasped and struggled for breath.

  Dunnigan strode toward her. Kaname crawled along the floor, trying to get away. He was holding something—not a gun, but a knife. A knife. Why did he have that? Why was this man not satisfied with just catching her?

  Her mind went blank, except for one phrase: He’ll kill me. He was toying with her. If he’d just wanted to catch her, he wouldn’t have thrown her aside like this.

  In the dim red lighting, she could make out Dunnigan’s expression. He was smiling like a child, like a boy about to play an especially naughty prank. A little boy about to pull the wings off a fly...

  “That’s right. Try to run, Chinese,” Dunnigan said. “Try to run.”

  They could hear the sound and the screams in the distance. Down the starboard corridor, below them, on the fourth deck.

  Sousuke a
nd Kurz had just discovered the body of Private Liang in the first briefing room. With it, they’d found the molted husk of a straitjacket, handcuffs, and ropes. Gauron was gone, as was the submachine gun Liang should have been carrying.

  “Son of a bitch...” Kurz snarled.

  “It came from the galley,” Sousuke said.

  The two dropped their search of the room and ran back into the passageway. The boat was tilting and rocking; the movements themselves weren’t anything too serious, but they had never felt the de Danaan move like this before. They ran through the empty corridor and passed through several doors; as they approached the stairway to deck four, they sensed someone behind them. It was Nguyen, standing at the corner they’d just come around.

  “Nguyen?”

  “Hey, you two. Good to see you’re safe. I just—” Nguyen came closer, waving to them with one hand. The other held a 9mm automatic pistol.

  They weren’t about to stand there and wait to see what he was doing; Sousuke and Kurz dashed to opposite sides of the hall, on instinct. A bullet from Nguyen tore through the place where they’d been. A ricochet sparked against a nearby wall as the ear-splitting gunshot echoed through the confined space.

  “Heh. Not bad!” Nguyen let out a whistle. “Sagara. I think that girlfriend of yours is one deck down. But...”

  Sousuke tried to poke his head out, but another bullet hit nearby. A fragment of metal cut across his cheek, and he was forced to pull back.

  “I can’t let you get to her,” Nguyen finished regretfully. “Nothing personal.”

  They still couldn’t entirely believe it. How could Nguyen, a member of the SRT, betray them? Whoever was with her on the deck below was probably one of theirs, too—It probably wasn’t McAllen, a member of the old guard; it was more likely Dunnigan, the newcomer.

  Kurz and Sousuke were pinned in place behind a pipe and a cabin door on either side of the corridor. The stairway was close, but they had to get rid of their opponent before they could get to it. Neither of them had a gun or a knife; their only weapon was the steel pipe Kurz had picked up on the way.