by Lee Stephen
Smiling in a way that was only slightly subdued from her bubbly norm, Tiffany rose from her chair and walked up to Scott, claiming the clicker and laser pointer from his hand. Scott stepped aside to observe as the blonde began. “So I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and even with the satellite hole Hami Station left in Krasnoyarsk Krai, it’s just not realistic to expect to outrun Superwolves all the way across Russia and back to the base. Once we’re busted, we’re busted. In our case, busted means dead.”
Folding his arms across his chest, Scott chewed on his knuckle.
“The approach isn’t what’s gonna get us. We can make it to the train from literally any direction without being picked up, so long as we stay low with the lights off. I mean, we just did that all over China. The question is, how are we gonna escape?” She paused. “I think I might have an answer.”
By all means, Tiffany, please share it with us.
“I’m gonna fly somewhere else.”
At that, Scott angled his head curiously.
Tiffany lowered her chin and pointed with the laser. The dot appeared at the bottom edge of the map. “So you can sorta see the outline of Australia down here. While you guys are flying to the train, I’ll make my way down there. Basically, I’ll make myself visible just as you guys are about to land.”
“Whoa, whoa.” Scott saw where this was headed, and he didn’t like it.
“Nagoya will scramble, they’ll think I’m doing something between them and Sydney, and they’ll send everyone after me while you guys get the device. I’ll make ’em chase me while the operation unfolds, then I’ll lose ’em and get back to base. A V2 can’t outrun them over Russia, but I totally can in my ’wolf.”
Javon spoke up immediately. “Ain’t no way we goin’ for that. Change the plan, come up with something else, ’cause leaving you on your own isn’t an option.”
“I’m going to vehemently agree with Javon,” said Scott, though vehemently was putting it nicely. “You trying to survive on your own isn’t going to work with us.”
Cocking her hands on her hips, Tiffany said, “You guys don’t understand. A transport is an anchor.”
An anchor? Scott listened on.
“If I’m with you guys, that means I can’t just fly. I have to always stay close to you, I have to be careful not to stray too far off, which will take away from my dogfighting ability. You guys will basically, like, hold me back.” She pointed back to the screen. “But if I’m down here, I can do whatever I need to do without worrying about whether you guys are protected. Everyone’s gonna be flocking over to me, so you guys will totally be on your own. You won’t have anyone in immediate pursuit, which will give you a big time head-start through Russia when it’s time for you to bug out.”
“Okay, I get that,” Scott said, “but—”
The blonde shook her head. “No ‘buts.’ This is a must-do. I can outfly these guys, guys.”
This time, it was Natalie who chimed in. “I don’t think it’s your flying ability that anyone doubts. We just…”
When Natalie failed to follow through, Tiffany asked, “You just what?”
The Caracal captain sighed and settled back. “It’s just a very risky plan. For you, for us, for everyone involved.”
“I totally mean this in the most shiny-happy way, but this is like, already a very risky plan.”
To that end, she had a point.
“I’m telling you guys, I’ve gone over all our options. If we stick together, we get stuck together. I’ll be stuck trying to waste the guys coming after me while you guys are stuck trying to outrun supersonic fighters—not happening!” Running her hands through her hair, she sighed. “Look, I know you guys are used to sticking together, and I’m totally all about that, but this is one instance where I’m best on my own. I can keep them preoccupied enough for you guys to finish the mission—and this is all about finishing the mission, right? Trust me, I got this.” She put the laser pointer back on the screen. “So you guys come in from the west, low and slow, all the way through these mountain ranges to the train. The only people at risk to spot you are people who are out at night, and with these mountains and all, that’s not gonna be a lot of people. I checked the weather, and it’s also gonna be cloudy and raining, so that works in your favor.”
It was hard to think of rain as a good thing, but the point was valid. Just the same, this cold and wet business was getting old. “Tiffany…” How did Scott want to word this? “If you tell us this is the only way, then—”
She didn’t even let him finish. “It’s the only way. I’m being serious.” From his seat, Javon muttered in disgust, earning a sharp eye from the pilot. “C’mon, J, don’t make this hard for me!”
“You’re making it hard for yourself!” he said.
Scott didn’t like the sound of this any more than anyone else, but there came a point where he simply had to trust the girl who’d twice saved them from the clutches of death in the air. Scott sighed. “If you tell me this is a must…”
“Must,” she said. “Must, must, must.” She held up four fingers. “That’s four musts. And I think I even had a must from earlier.”
“All right.” What more could Scott say? That he knew better than she did? Not in the sky, he didn’t. “We don’t like it, but if you say we have to do it, then we’ll trust you and do it. But Tiffany…”
Javon said it before Scott could. “Be careful. You’re our little flygirl.”
“Totally got this,” she said to him, winking and giving him a thumbs-up. “Totally.”
From his seat of relative silence, Lilan cleared his throat. “Feathers. If I can say something?”
“Fer sure, sir!”
“You’re the ballsiest young woman I’ve ever met.”
The Valley Girl blinked, her expression morphing into an uncertain combination of bewilderment and gratitude. “Umm.” She tried to smile. “Thank you, sir?”
Clearing his throat, Scott said, “Now something to keep in mind is the fact that we’re going radio dark for this thing—that means no communication between parties, not on the train, not from wherever you’re flying that Superwolf to us in Japan. If things go south, and by that I mean go bad, we have no way of letting you know.”
For the first time, a look of hesitation formed on Tiffany’s face, though it lasted merely a moment. “We could time everything. Make sure you guys and I are in sync throughout the whole thing.”
“Understand what that means, Tiffany. That means you make yourself visible at a certain minute, that means you abandon the effort and fly back home at a certain minute, regardless of whether we’re finished or not. Most importantly, it means if you find yourself in trouble, you can’t bug out early. You’re going to be in there for the long haul.” Then, the hardest part. “It means you find out whether we failed or succeeded when those hangar doors open for you.”
“I understand, sir.”
Scott nodded. “Then it’s settled. We’ll have our V2 pilot take us low and slow to the train, while you divert EDEN to the Pacific. But do not get shot down, Feathers. That is the highest of orders.”
She made a clicking sound and shot him the A-OK sign.
“Who is our V2 pilot?” Natalie asked, casting Scott an uncertain look.
“Jakob Reinhardt,” Scott answered. “He’ll be taking us to and from the site. From the little I got to chat with him, he seems like an all right guy.” Scott had spoken with the German pilot earlier in the weekend, prepared to give a passionate argument as to why this mission was critical. Much to Scott’s pleasure, no argument was needed. Jakob accepted the assignment without hesitation. A professional through-and-through. Scott was somewhat excited to get to fly with him.
Upon seeing that Natalie was satisfied, Scott said, “Moving on, then.” Tiffany returned to her seat as Scott took back control of the presentation, advancing it to the next slide. It was a zoomed-in map of Japan’s eastern coast. In the middle of the topographical display, the train’s route wa
s highlighted. “This is the Izu Peninsula, located in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture. It’s right here,” he pointed with the laser, “just before this nineteen-kilometer, narrow span between the cities of Atami and Tagata, where we’ll intercept the train. This will give us about twenty-two minutes before we reach Tokyo, which needs to be enough time to find the device.”
He advanced the slide again, the map replaced by the picture of the train car. From their seats, Natalie and Javon sat more erect. “The car containing the device will look like this. This is an exact image, so there shouldn’t be any surprises.” There’d better not be. “As you guys may or may not know, a vast majority of bullet trains are passenger only. It’s actually somewhat of a rare thing to get a car like this moving, so it shouldn’t be hard to locate. We were able to take a look at the train schedule, and there aren’t many cars to this thing—four, to be exact, none of which are passenger trains at all. This all works in our favor.”
He moved the laser pointer to the top of the train, where a circular hatch could be seen. “This hatch will allow us to enter the car from above. These are all two-story cars, so when we come through here, we’ll be on the top floor. The hatch is manually-operated, so all we’ll need is a little bit of muscle to crack it open. If we land here,” he moved the pointer ahead of the hatch, “we should theoretically be able to open the rear bay door away from the wind, then use the V2 as a wind shield of sorts while we get that hatch open.
“If this looks easy, it’s because it should be. Though there are a lot of moving parts to this operation, the actual infiltration of the train car is fairly linear. Land here, open this hatch, then we’re inside. At this point, though, things threaten to get difficult.” He advanced the slide again. The color image of the train car was replaced by a photograph of a small, cylindrical, black device. At the device’s far end was a trapezoid-shaped block, its surface aligned with various inputs and buttons. On the verge of an impact statement, Scott held his breath. “This…is the device.”
Immediately, the five observers’ ears perked.
“With Ju`bajai’s assistance, we were able to get a concrete look at the device we’re searching for. This is straight from Centurion’s mind, as siphoned by her. We allowed Ju`bajai to connect with Artur, the forge master here, to relay to him exactly what the device looked like.” Scott was actually quite proud of this part. “What you’re looking at is an actual photograph. Once he had the device in his mind, Artur was able to create a replica out of materials he had here at the forge. It’s in his office, and we’ll actually pass it around to everyone going on the mission before we disembark.”
“Well, hot dog,” said Lilan quietly.
Hot dog, indeed. “This is the device we’ll be looking for. Finding it, however, is easier said than done. Though we know exactly what the device looks like based on Ju`bajai’s siphon, we don’t know where it is in the train car. It could be in a container all its own, it could be in a box full of other things…these are all unknowns.” At the most critical juncture of the mission, no less. “Unfortunately, we are going to have to search through both levels of this train car to try and locate this thing. That’s going to take time, and so for this, we need all hands on deck.
“What I had intended to do was break the group into four teams: two for each level. Those teams start at both ends of both floors and literally tear the place apart trying to find the device.” This was the only part of the operation that truly concerned Scott—at least, on the ground side of things. “This has the potential to really bog us down.”
Rashid raised his hand, drawing Scott’s attention. When Scott nodded in his direction, he began. “Are all of the train cars connected from the inside?”
So far as Scott knew, they were. “Yes, why?”
“It might be wise to send a team forward, through the cars, to the front of the train. If things go too slowly, we may need to isolate the driver and force him to stop the train before it goes into Tokyo.”
Scott hoped things wouldn’t take that long, but it wasn’t a bad idea. “I think we should be able to do that. With that said, if it’s taking us that long to find this thing, we’re going to have some other problems—namely, Tiffany’s friends altering their course and heading our way.” That would effectively erase whatever head start Tiffany was supposed to be buying them. “I like that idea, though. There’s no reason we can’t do that.”
“I got that,” said Javon, the black soldier dipping his head in Scott’s direction. “Me and King can take care of the driver.”
Not a fan of that particular wording, Scott asked, “Now, by ‘take care,’ do you mean…?”
The soldier chuckled faintly. “Take his train. That’s all I mean. We not into killin’.”
That was what Scott figured. “All right. I like it. We’ll do it.” His focus returned to the others. “Which leaves the rest of us to try and locate the device.”
“What about security?” Lilan asked. “Is this thing gonna have a security detail?”
Natalie answered, “Yes. Or at least, we assume. I was going to touch on that after Scott finished up.”
“By all means,” Scott said, indicating for her to do so.
Rising from her seat, Natalie walked to the front of the presentation area then looked at the colonel. “Despite the non-passenger nature of this train, we expect security to be heavy. The moment we land, two things will happen: we’ll be engaged, and the security detail will contact EDEN.” She half frowned. “There’s nothing we can do to avoid that. But what we can and must avoid are more civilian casualties.”
Scott had discussed this part with Natalie earlier in the week. That aspect of the operation—the sparing of the innocent—meant as much to the Caracal captain as obtaining the device itself. He had no qualms in turning control of that side of the operation to her.
“We will be going into this operation with nonlethal rounds,” Natalie said, prompting an immediate raising of the eyebrows from Rashid. The others simply listened. “Though confrontation is unavoidable, deaths aren’t. We need to do this cleanly.”
“I wholeheartedly object,” said Rashid.
Raising his hand, Scott said bluntly, “She’s not finished.”
Natalie went on. “What we have to keep in mind is that these won’t be security details in EDEN or Nightman armor. Nonlethal rounds should work well.”
“Now, by nonlethal rounds,” Lilan said, “we’re talking about what? Rubber bullets?”
“That, flashbangs, stun grenades…there are a few things we’ll be able to use, all of which are here at the forge. Fortunately, not all of the forge’s customers are interested in killing.”
That went along with what Scott had already heard, that in addition to serving the Nightmen, Northern Forge also served Norilsk law enforcement—among others.
“Our first task,” Natalie said, “before we even start the search, will be to isolate the security team that’s in place. I will be in charge of that particular effort. Once we have them down, we’ll begin clearing the car.” She glanced up at the projection screen. “One area of uncertainty is where exactly in the train our target car is. There are four cars total here, not counting the engine. If our car is between two others, we need to be prepared for security personnel to move in on us from the adjacent cars.” She looked at Javon. “This might make your moving up to the engine more difficult, so I’d advise you make your team bigger. You guys might be fighting through a stronghold to get to the train driver. Depending on the strength of the opposition, it may not even be worth trying to make a run for the engine,” she gave Rashid an acknowledging nod, “though I admit, it’s a good idea if possible.”
“We could try asking one of those guys on the train if they’ve seen that device,” said Lilan, pointing. “We’re planning on bringing that model of it with us, right?”
Scott shook his head. “No, actually. As silly as it may sound, I don’t want anyone accidentally mistaking the model for the real thing an
d having us leave with nothing. But we will have some photographs with us.”
Lifting her chin, Natalie resumed. “I do agree that talking to the security guards is the right way to go, once we have them isolated. They may not be very inclined to cooperate, but if we can get one to talk, and they know where the device is, it could save us a whole lot of time.”
From his spot on the presenting floor, Scott smirked. “Also, they’ll probably only speak Japanese.”
“Well, yeah,” said Natalie, giving him a look. “Then there’s that.”
“Good overall plan of action, though.” Lilan leaned back in his chair. “I like it.”
It was good to hear the colonel say that. The more Scott thought about it, the more he wished he’d have thought about inviting Lilan to the planning meeting himself, without the colonel having to show up unannounced. “There’s actually not much more to the plan than that. This isn’t rocket science—it’s a smash and grab.”
“Preferably without a lot of smashing,” said Natalie.
“Well, yeah.” Point taken, Natalie. “But that’s it. We hold off security while we find the device, then we get out of Dodge. It’s not hard, there are just a lot of moving parts.” Moving parts that had to work together seamlessly. But this could be done. For a second time, Rashid silently raised his hand, garnering Scott’s attention. “Go ahead, Faraj.”
Clearing his throat, the Turkish fulcrum leaned forward. “The alien you are bringing on this mission—the Ithini.”
Scott nodded.
“I understand the advantages of having her involved, particularly with the avoidance of radio traffic, as you mentioned earlier. But are you certain there are not alternatives?”
He was talking about Ju`bajai, whose help—and freedom—Esther had adamantly bartered for. “I know having an Ithini work with us is a tough sell for some, but look at things from her point of view. She was a captive with EDEN, and now she’s free with us. Even if she was malevolent, I think it’s simply more a personal advantage for her to stay on our side.” It was just the smart decision. “We’ve had people connecting with her all week, and so far every experience has come back positive. Or at the very least, not negative.” There was a not-so-subtle difference, there. “Using her wasn’t my first choice, but considering all she did for us in Cairo, she makes sense. Without her help, there wouldn’t have been a team there for you to extract.”