by Shouji Gatou
“Though Lieutenant, I have to say, it’s fun to get to play the terrorists for once. Great way to relieve stress,” one of the PRT sergeants said happily, his submachine gun pointed at the navigator.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Clouseau said with a disgruntled expression. “And call me by my call sign in front of the hostages.” It was then that he got a report in from Mao, who’d been sent to secure the grand ballroom and surrounding area. “Uruz-1 here,” he began.
“Uruz-2, reporting in,” Mao told him. “First hall secured. We have 324 hostages including students and teachers, as well as 28 kitchen staff, including the cooks. Zero casualties. I decided to let them eat their dinner for now. We’ve also taken the captain into custody.”
“Roger,” Clouseau replied. “How is Ansuz doing?” ‘Ansuz’ was the call sign for the commander-in-chief of the Tuatha de Danaan battle group, Colonel Teletha Testarossa. It was only used during maneuvers in which she was outside of the submarine.
“She left the ballroom after Uruz-7 and Angel,” Mao told him.
Hearing that, Clouseau scowled. “Angel left the hall? I thought she was going to lay low with the other students.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call them back soon,” Mao said reassuringly. “How are the other teams doing?”
“They’re about 80% finished,” Clouseau told her. “Zero casualties. We took the machinery room earlier and hijacked their communications systems. Some of the crew were apparently armed, and we did meet some minor resistance from them.”
No ordinary cruise ship would have armed security on board; those people must be soldiers in cahoots with the enemy, which meant they really were guarding something important.
“I see,” Mao observed. “So, should we continue as planned with the captain?”
“Yes, take him in,” Clouseau decided. “And... be gentle.”
Kaname walked swiftly, away from the ballroom full of students triumphantly tearing into their feast. When she finally reached an unoccupied smoking area, she gave Sousuke a hard kick in the rear.
“What are you doing?” he complained.
“Shut the hell up!!” she screamed at him. “It’s fine if you didn’t want to come on the trip! I don’t care if you have a party at your base, either! And I won’t ask what kind of dirty business you people get up to all day... But now you’re attacking our school? Seriously?!”
“Well, we’re not exactly attacking your school—”
“Like hell! And take off that mask, you...!”
“Ah... don’t pull it so hard,” he begged. “It hurts...”
Kaname yanked the balaclava off of the struggling Sousuke. “What the hell were you thinking?! Explain yourself!”
“Wait a minute, Chidori. Didn’t you read the emails I sent you?”
“Uh... well, actually...” Kaname hesitated. Things between her and Sousuke had been so strained lately that she’d deleted everything he’d sent her without a second glance.
“I wanted to tell you what was about to happen. But you wouldn’t let me speak to you, so—”
“F-Forget the emails!” One of Kaname’s deepest character flaws was her inability to just admit fault and apologize at times like these. “Th-There’s nothing you could say that could make seajacking okay! I thought you were the guys who fought terrorists! This makes no sense!”
That was when she heard a new voice just behind her. “Untrue. It makes perfect sense.” Rushing towards her now was the masked, ash blonde, submachine gun-wielding maid. In a way, her appearance was far more disturbing than that of a normal terrorist.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Kaname asked, slumping over.
In response, the masked maid—Tessa—smiled confidently. “Heh heh heh... I’m the brilliant leader of the Highly Discriminating Liberation Front, AKA, the HDLF.”
“That’s not what he called it before,” Kaname pointed out.
“Never mind that! The point is, I am the very evil leader of a highly-experienced terrorist cell. We spare neither women nor children!” With that, Tessa made a ‘pow-pow’ shooting motion with her gun.
“You’re the child here. See?” Kaname snatched the sunglasses off the other girl’s face.
“Ah! P-Please give those back...” With her face now uncovered, Tessa’s saucer-like eyes filled with tears, and she started flailing in panic. Feeling she’d proved her point, Kaname returned the sunglasses, and the other girl breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. These tough-guy glasses are the only thing keeping me from breaking under my guilty conscience...”
“Or you could just not commit terrorism?!” Kaname demanded irritably.
Tessa looked crestfallen. “You’re right... But this seemed like the safest and most reliable option. I truly am sorry for the fear and inconvenience we’ve caused the passengers. Putting on these sunglasses and comporting myself like a gang leader is the only way that I can maintain psychological balance...”
Kaname watched her skeptically for a moment, then said, “Gimme,” and snatched away her sunglasses again.
“Ahh... G-Give those back! Without those, I... I...” Tessa looked like she might cry.
“This is really hard on you, huh?”
“That’s what I’m telling you!”
“Chidori, stop,” Sousuke ordered. “Give them back to her.”
Sousuke’s chiding caused Kaname’s temper to flare anew. “Ngh... What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Give them back!”
“No way. Hmph!”
“You’re distressing the colonel! And I’ve been trying to explain things to you.”
“Explain better, then!”
Sousuke shook his head, exhausted by her continued hostility. “Enough, Chidori. Your hard-headedness has exceeded rational limits this time.”
“Well, excuse me!” she retorted. “I am an annoying brat who never listens, after all!”
“That isn’t what I said,” he told her placatingly. “I just don’t understand why you always—”
“Give them back!” Tessa tried again.
“Oh, you shut up, too!” Kaname snarled.
“Just give them back to her and listen to me!” Sousuke said.
“Don’t order me around! This is such typical you!”
“Because you’re always so stubborn!”
“So are you!” Kaname replied. “You always act like you’re the one in charge! Who do you think you are? I think—”
“Just give them back to her!”
Kaname was unmovable, Sousuke was annoyed, and Tessa was panicking. Nothing was being achieved at all. That’s when a new voice joined in over the din.
“Enough already!!” It was Mao. She was heading toward them, prodding along the captured Captain Harris with the muzzle of her submachine gun. This scolding from a fourth party brought all three to silence.
“Yeesh... What’s all this damned yelling about?” Mao demanded to know. “Also, Sousuke! Why is Kaname mad at you? You told her what the deal was, right?”
“Er... affirmative,” he hedged.
“This is such a big mess. I managed to feed an excuse to the other students, but it’s probably going to make her look really bad! This was your idea, remember? So it was up to you to get it done right,” Mao lectured. “Take responsibility and see your mission through, Sergeant!”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to write this up in my report,” Mao sighed.
“Acceptable. It was my mistake,” Sousuke admitted freely, without saying one negative word about Kaname. His behavior now was entirely noble, in a total reversal from his earlier bickering.
It inspired a pang of conscience in Kaname. Really, if he were the kind of man who would have blamed this on her, she wouldn’t get so stubborn and bothered about it at all. Ironically, it was his straight-shooting nature that made it harder for her to be forthright.
“Well, it’s fine,” Mao decided. “But I’d better get you an
explanation. Follow me, Kaname.”
“Huh? Where to?”
“The vault. Isn’t that right, Captain?” Mao said with a grin to Captain Harris, who was standing in front of them. The man kept his eyes pointed down, his face pale and drawn.
“Um, Captain?” Kaname asked. As the captain of a seajacked ship, she would have thought he’d want to say something to a passenger like herself—reassure her, maybe. But instead, he just glared silently at her, without a single sympathetic word.
Just before the seajacking occurred...
Commander Killy B. Sailor of the nuclear submarine Pasadena—part of the United States Navy’s SUBPAC—was standing in the cruise ship’s telephone area. Most of the passengers had already moved to the dining halls, which meant he was alone.
Sailor, who had come to Japan for Christmas break, was locked in an argument with his wife, who had just gone home to California.
“...Darn it! I call in to check on you, and this is what I get?! Well, I... you idiot, I keep telling you! I had a mission! But I worked hard to get home the night before the trip to Japan, and... shut up! Huh? Then what was I supposed to do?! Are you saying I should go up to the subordinates and engineers working up all night to fix a problem in the machinery room and say, ‘My wife’s mad at me, so I’m leaving’?! You think I can— what was that?! You mean you and that kid Smith... aha! I see! Well, I’m having a nice time, too! With a real hot little number! ...Shut up, Takenaka’s in Hawaii!” Commander Sailor shouted into the receiver.
The man had black hair in a crew cut and blue eyes, prominent features, high eyebrows, and a square forehead; in other words, he was the quintessential bodybuilder-type. He had the physique to match, too, with a body like some macho man Hollywood star. He was feeling distinctly out of shape lately, but for some reason, he’d developed no extra flab around his waist. It was probably a genetic thing, just the way his body was made. Most people meeting him for the first time, when they heard he was in the military, assumed he was Army, and he hated it.
Commander Sailor went on shouting at his wife, who was nattering on hysterically on the other end of the satellite line. “Oh, shut up! Stop shouting about everything! The Navy is my life! If you don’t like that... Fine, sounds great! Go suck that asshole off! It’s not like you’re— hello? Are you listening?!” Sailor tapped the receiver as her voice cut off. “Hey, Eliza! If that’s the way you want it...” He scowled suddenly, questioning. There was no sound from the phone at all, not even static. She’d hung up on him.
“Well, screw her!” He slammed the receiver down and was about to curse again... but instead, he just sighed. There was nothing to be done, then. His marriage was over. This trip had been a last-ditch effort to salvage things, but even that had blown up in his face.
Ah, well. He’d paid a lot of money to come here, so he might as well enjoy it. After composing himself, Sailor decided to return to his table where a delicious banquet awaited him.
That’s when something strange happened: a gunshot rang out from the ballroom. It was followed immediately by screams from passengers, and other sounds of commotion—dishes falling from tables, overturned carts, the barking of commands...
There was no question—that was a gunshot. A submachine gun? An assault rifle, maybe...
Commander Sailor looked around, panicked. Could it be... a seajacking? He could hear swift footsteps approaching from just ahead, on the other side of the double doors. The terrorists were coming his way. He was the only one in the corridor; beside him was the women’s bathroom. He burst through the door, and heard the terrorists’ footsteps fly into the hall a second later, right where he had been. They’d be checking the bathroom soon, too. He had to find somewhere to hide!
There was a maintenance door at the end of the row of stalls, probably for maintaining the pipes that ran up and down the ship. The mechanical workings that would have been exposed on a submarine were hidden behind wooden walls on this cruise ship. Sailor opened the door, stepped into the wall, and hid behind the thick pipes within. It was a close call; the men came barging in an instant later. They were checking the stalls one by one, their movements swift and sharp.
Sailor held his breath.
After making sure the stalls were empty, they finally opened the maintenance door to Sailor’s hiding place. A flashlight’s beam searched here and there around him. His breathing and heartbeat sounded deafening to his ears. But while he stood there, trying to hold his silence behind the complex network of pipes, the terrorist spoke up, reporting to someone on the radio: “Kaun-23. E10 secured. No one here. Zero casualties. Moving on to E12.”
The maintenance door slammed shut, and the footsteps departed just as quickly as they’d come. There was no idle chatter; as far as Sailor could tell, these men were very well trained.
Silence returned. After savoring a moment’s relief, Sailor came back out into the bathroom. Shoulders heaving, he put his hands on the sink and stared into the mirror. “Think!” he chided his reflection. “Think, goddamn you!”
The only reason he hadn’t fallen to pieces or started weeping from fear was because he’d been through tight scrapes before, even if they had been in a totally different setting. He’d spent half of his life in a submarine, and he’d had a few near-death experiences. And even if most of it had come about accidentally, he had combat experience, too. It wasn’t commonly known, but very few serving submarine captains had actually fired torpedoes at an enemy; maybe only ten in the whole world. Captain Sailor of the Pasadena was one of those few.
That’s right, he reminded himself. I’m a veteran. I’m an old sea dog, ready to do what needs to be done. The radio call the terrorist had put in earlier... Kaun-23, he’d called himself. He didn’t know exactly what the call sign meant, but it was worth assuming they were dealing with a large enemy force. However...!!
“Like hell I’m dying here!” he whispered to the bathroom mirror. Now, think. Remember your Hollywood movies. People who do hijackings and things on Christmas always end up stopped by some hero who happens to be there.
That’s right. A hero. Couldn’t the hero, in this case, be storied submarine captain Killy B. Sailor, coming here on a break to deal with his marital problems?! “Yeah, that’s right,” Commander Sailor told himself. “That’s what it’s gotta be!!” He could feel himself regaining his spirit.
That’s just what this is, he realized. Tonight is my night! A great adventure, full of thrilling fights to get the blood flowing! A romance with a beautiful leading lady! A showdown with a despicable enemy! My problems with my wife, Eliza, will seem trivial! This was getting better all the time, really. The big boss will probably be cold, emotionless, and handsome, probably someone out of the Navy, just like me. The girl will be a passenger on the ship, an exotic dark-haired 20-something. And XO Takenaka, who came on board with me... well, he’s probably the guy who gets shot by the terrorists in the action.
“Takenaka. Poor guy...” Commander Sailor let out a pained sigh. After convincing himself that his subordinate was as good as dead, Sailor moved into action. “But don’t worry, Takenaka. I will avenge you! I’ll let my rage over your death fuel me into a table-turning counterattack about sixty minutes in!”
First, he had to find a weapon. He’d start with a mop, clear out some weak enemies, then get a pistol, he decided. Next on the docket would be a machine gun. Sailor could almost see the medal of honor he’d get for all this. Get ready to die, you damned terrorists!
2021 Hours
In front of the vault, Pacific Chrysalis
“So? What’s so special about the vault?” Kaname asked Sousuke and the others.
They were in the bowels of the ship now, a corridor tucked away in a section near the machinery room. The vault was at the end of a hallway, and Kaname and the others had stopped in front of the door, which was made of a thick special alloy. Cruise ships similar to this one were frequently home to large storage areas like this, designed to safely hold precious jewelry, valuab
les, and works of art that the passengers had brought on board. In a ship of this size, it was almost the size of a bank vault.
“Don’t tell me you came here to rob the place...” she muttered.
“That’s exactly what we did,” Mao said casually, then beckoned behind her. “All right, Captain. Step right up.” Sousuke prodded him in the back, and Captain Harris moved in front of the safe door. His expression was tortured. “Open it for us?”
“No,” Captain Harris protested. “There’s nothing for you terrorists here in our vault. You think you can get away with this? Touch one hair on my precious passengers’ heads and you’ll pay!”
“Uh-huh,” Mao said with a smirk, and brandished her gun. “Cut the act already.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Last October, this ship underwent a refitting at the Shin-Kurusu shipyards,” Mao said. “There’s nothing about it in the documentation, but it seems like they messed around with some things around the vault, here: adding more to the area by cutting into the space reserved for fuel tanks, making the bulkheads more durable... way beyond what a normal passenger ship could possibly need.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Captain Harris denied.
“And even though it hurt efficiency, you swapped out the workers daily,” Mao went on. “Was it so they wouldn’t realize what they were doing?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The upgrades we ran last year were just about modernizing our fire prevention systems,” Captain Harris insisted staunchly. “Besides, I’m just an employee of the cruise company. I don’t have any control over ship alterations.”
“Not in any public capacity, no,” Mao agreed. “But there’s no way that you, as Captain, didn’t know about the armed guards, or about this section of the ship, right?”
The man remained silent.
“And we know that your company’s bigwigs got a big payoff from someone. There’s no paper trail connecting you to the foundation in question, but money can always be traced.”
