by Rob Buckman
“Why do you include them, Hiro?” Scott asked.
“It is only logical that at some time you would ask yourself this question.”
“And the answer?” he asked.
“There is no answer that I can give, honorable Admiral,” he said, bowing.
“We’re back to that again are we.”
“Hiro’s right in that respect, Scott,” Pete said. “What could he say that we’d believe? If they are the authors of this attack, there’s nothing he could say that would convince us otherwise. It’s like the Greek, or Spartan and the ‘Lier’s paradox’, I can’t remember which, my history’s a bit rusty, who said to the King of Persia, ‘Because I am a Greek it is impossible for me to tell the truth’.” Hiro and Brock looked at Pete, while Scott, Kat, and Devon chuckled.
“But if he said that, that meant he was lying … but if he was lying, that meant he was telling the truth, but he just said …” Brock stopped, looking at Pete for a moment while he figured it out, then said, “Remind me not to play poker with you anymore.”
“Peter-san, you are correct, I shall have to remember that saying.”
“It’s not mine, Hiro, I wish I was that smart.”
“Please, could you tell me what the king’s reaction was?”
“Oh, yes, the king thought about it, while generals pleaded with him for permission to torture the man to get the truth. In the end, the king gave him his freedom and a horse.”
“Wise king,” Hiro commented.
“That’s the point,” Scott said. “Either we accept that no one from Japan is involved in this plot, or we don’t.”
“I don’t see any advantage for them to do it,” Kat commented.
“Pardon, Katharina-sama, but that is not true. Though isolated from the rest of this world, we had the knowledge for doing such things stored for many years, and grievances against the people of this world.” None of the group could deny history. “We could have contacted these aliens many times in the past and offered our help in destroying the rest of the people of this world.”
“What would you have gained?” Kat said.
“What any people want: a world we could rule without interference.” Hiro’s dark eyes gave little indication as to what he really thought about that statement.
“He’s got you there, Kat,” Pete said with a chuckle.
“Hiro,” Scott said. “It still comes down to the fact, do we trust you or not, and the answer is, yes we do.”
“Would the honorable Admiral enlighten me as to your reasoning?”
“Yes and no. Over the years, Japan has suffered much, from invasion by the Chinese to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. Your isolation by the United Nations, and the dumping of the plague onto your people, were only two more items in a long list. I can see where you might want to even the score, so to speak. Your people did try to conquer much of Southeast Asia in the past, yet I can’t see the Japanese people willingly helping a bunch of aliens destroy the human race. If you had been helping them, you’d be in space yourself by now. As it is, you, like us, are struggling to find a place in this new world—a place you can be proud of, and in an honorable way under the code of Bushido.”
Hiro bowed again hearing his words. “You are correct, Scott-san.”
“But, that aside, I spoke with Sensei Hira Yamaguchi, and my gut feeling is that I can trust her.” Scott met eyes with Hiro.
“Thank you honorable Scott-san. I for one will give you my pledge that I will never betray you, or that which you are trying to do for all of us. I will swear that I will kill anyone I find who is, even among my own people.” Hiro turned to reach into the net bag, and came out with some fruit and a small wood cutting board. He pulled a tanto from his sleeve and prepared to slice the fruit.
“Thank you Hiro-san. I accept your pledge,” Scott said, and turned to the others.
“Hiro, no!” Kat yelled, and they all turned in time to see the blood spurt from the end of Hiro’s little finger. The tip, up to the first knuckle, lay on the board. Quickly Hiro wrapped the bloody end in a napkin to stop the bleeding.
“Damn! Why didn’t you watch what you were doing?” Kat yelled. Without a medical kit handy, there was little else anyone could do. Hiro smiled through the pain, a look of pride on his face.
“Kat. He knew what he was doing,” Scott said with a sigh, wishing he’d seen what was coming and stopped it.
“What are you talking about? No one deliberately cuts the end of his finger off.”
“Not so, Katharina-sama. I knew what I was doing,” Hiro said through gritted teeth. He took out another cloth napkin and carefully wrapped the tip inside, holding it out to Scott as he bowed.
“You should not, and did not have to do this, my friend,” Scott said softly. “There was no need.”
“It was necessary Scott-san, for all my people.”
“You are saying that this pledge is from all of you?”
“Yes, honorable Admiral Scott Drake. My brothers and sisters and I have spoken of this many times since we left Japan. When you came, you asked for no pledge of allegiance to you, demanded no show of submission, and you have always treated us with honor and respect. So we decided, if the chance should arise, one of us would give you our pledge of allegiance.”
Scott could only sit there and wonder. He treated all men how he found them. If they gave him respect, he returned it. If they were honorable men he treated them with honor. To the Japanese this meant more than it did in the West, and from his time in Japan as a young man, he knew this went way beyond any pledge of allegiance to a flag, or country. Hiro and his brothers and sisters had pledged themselves to him personally as their lord and master, and if necessary would die rather than dishonor it. Finally, he took the folded napkin and bowed.
“I thank you Hiro-san, you have honored me.”
“Well, that puts that question to bed, what’s next?” was Pete’s comment. Kat looked at him in amazement, as if she couldn’t believe how casually he’d said that. Before she could say anything else, Scott took her by the arm and sat her down next to him, her bottom hitting the rock with a thump.
“Ouch!” she yelled, glaring at him.
“So who does that leave?” he asked.
“The bloody World Council, or this Ayatollah, whatever his name is, that’s who,” Brock snarled.
“Right, but whom, all of them?” Pete asked.
“Maybe,” Scott said.
“The question is, how do we prove it, and what do we do, when we do?”
“That answer is simple,” Hiro said. “We kill them.”
“That might not be the best idea,” Scott said. “We would then have to contend with those who take their place. There’s always someone waiting in the wings to take over where their predecessor left off.”
“Whatever we do, we have to do it soon, and fast,” Pete observed, looking at each of them. “Otherwise the next attempt might succeed.”
“Pete’s right, the longer we wait the more advantage they have.”
“The dirty bastards won’t fight for this world, but they’re willing to let the aliens kill anyone who is,” Brock said. Brock’s comment gave Scott an idea, but he shook his head, trying to drive the thought away.
“Scott-san, you have an idea, yes?”
“No, just a thought, and a bad one at that.”
“Well! Tell us,” Pete said. “Maybe we can improve on it.”
“No, I told you, it’s a bad idea.”
“Come on, my love, your life and our future is at stake here,” Kat said, trying to get him to talk.
“Kat, please. It was just a passing thought, forget it.”
Brock looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Scott. You and I have known each other a long time. Few if any of your ideas were bad, so give.” Brock knew he had something. That something was good, but Scott was having a problem with it, a personal problem.
“All right!” he snapped. “Just don’t a
sk me my reasoning for it, it just came to me.”
“We won’t, give!” Pete said.
“The Grand Ayatollah or the World Council, it doesn’t matter,” Scott said, and stood up. “If they won’t fight themselves, and they’re trying to kill anyone who is, let’s get their kids to fight for them.” He left the others and thought about it as he walked down the beach. It made sense, yes, but he hated the idea of using kids. The other four sat there, looking at his retreating back.
“Shit!” Brock exclaimed. “Excuse me Kat, didn’t mean to swear, but it’s a hell of an idea, and I can see why he’s having trouble with it. It scares me as well.”
“Yes, but it would kill more than one bird, wouldn’t it?” Pete said.
“I feel like Scott,” Kat said, “it’s a great idea but has moral overtones I just don’t like. Do the ends justify the means after all?” Kat’s eyes were bright and angry. “How many times have we heard someone shout that?”
“Kat’s right,” Pete said, rubbing his chin. “Are we going to walk down the same road again?”
“So, they can do what they want to destroy us, but we have to play by some old rule book?” Brock snapped. “Shit. Listen, people. Our survival is at stake here! We have the perfect weapon to keep these people in line, and give us a fighting chance against these alien assholes.” He jumped to his feet and strode back and forth for a minute before sitting back down. “And what about our children, huh? How do we protect them and make sure they aren’t carted off by these suckers?”
“Gunny’s right, Kat,” Pete said. “If we don’t stop these aliens, eventually they will take our children. What then? Don’t we have a moral obligation to them first?”
“I for one feel that all the children are important, ours as well as the rest of the world’s.” Hiro’s normally placid expression became sad. “Yet I must see it from Katharina-sama’s point of view. We do this thing now, what will it be the next time? If it was a question of killing these people, as an acceptable act of war, I would not hesitate to act, yet I must weigh all my actions against the code of Bushido.”
“And what does the code tell you in this case?” Kat asked.
“That I must act honorably in all things,” he said with a slight bow.
“So it comes down to the question of whether using their children is honorable,” Pete said.
“In that case, it isn’t,” Brock muttered.
“That’s true,” Kat mused. “Yet throughout history we have incidents where it was honorable for the ruler of one country to send his or her children to the court of another ruler as a guest, aka, hostage.”
“I thought you were against this idea!” Brock said.
“I am if it means putting them in harm’s way, such as on the deck of a warship in combat.” Brock nodded in understanding.
“So we don’t take them, but strongly suggest the children be sent to New Zealand, or Japan, for their own protection,” Devon said thoughtfully.
“Even better,” Pete interjected, smiling again. “We could say we’ve learned from prisoners there is an impending raid to take the children of the government because of our actions. We could say, that as they’re not able to protect them, they should be sent to New Zealand and placed under our direct protection.”
“Pete Mitchell! That’s downright sneaky!” Kat exclaimed. “I like it.”
“We would then not have to kidnap these children, and would ensure the safety of Alpha base,” Hiro said. “A most honorable suggestion, Katharina-sama.”
“I’m going to tell Scott,” she announced, jumping up, and ran off down the beach toward the distant solitary figure.
“I thought only the Japanese were that devious,” Hiro commented.
“Hiro my son, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Brock said. “Wait until Scott really starts cooking.”
“He has a specialty he likes to cook?” Hiro asked, innocent-eyed.
“Oh yes, indeed he does. It’s called mayhem and destruction, with a side order of butt kicking for flavor.” Brock chuckled.
“I look forward to tasting this dish with anticipation Brock-san.”
“Speaking of food. Let’s eat, I’m hungry,” Brock announced.
Kat caught up with Scott and took his arm as she walked along beside him. Slowly and carefully, she told him of the new plan, but he still wasn’t happy. He didn’t object to it, which was one thing she was glad of, and for a while, they talked about where to put the children. At last, they returned and sat with the others to eat, talking about this and that for a while.
“Devon, we need a better ship,” Scott said at length, “a different ship, one that can be turned out fast, and take a minimum of crew to operate.”
“Tall order on short notice, Scott.”
“I don’t know, I think we’ve been going about it in the wrong way. So far we’ve been trying to recreate an updated version of the surface navy,” he held his hand up before Devon could speak, “and a very good job you’ve been doing, I might add. But after the battle, I asked the officer to come up with a better idea for a ship, and a way to eliminate their jobs.” He stopped and munched his sandwich.
“And, what did you get?” Devon asked.
“Much the same as we have now, but one suggestion stuck out. We’re not using all the available technology at our disposal. Right now, we don’t really know what is available.”
“I don’t follow, Scott,” Pete said. “We looked at what was available.”
“Did we? I was watching an old black-and-white movie a while ago, one I dug out of that mass of information we got from our friend here,” he said, indicating Hiro. “You’d sorted it out and placed it in your war-file archive for possible viewing. Anyway, it was an old British film, more a documentary than anything, about a raid on three dams in the heart of Germany during WWII. I won’t get into the whole story, suffice to say that this bomber group had a problem. They had to drop the special bouncing bombs at no more than three hundred feet. At the time, no altimeter went that low.”
“Damn, I’ve done some low flying in my time, but that was with ‘nap of the Earth’ technology,” Pete said. “With the aircraft they had then, that must have been hairy.”
“It was. None of the scientists of the day could come up with a way to ensure they were at the correct height, until one night, so the story goes, the squadron leader went to the theater. He noticed the spotlight, and from that came up with a perfect altimeter.”
“How’s that again?” Pete asked.
“He placed a spotlight on the nose and tail of each aircraft, that shone down at an angle toward the ground, or water in this case. When the two cones of light overlapped, you were exactly three hundred feet above the water.”
“Holy s… , and they did this going in on a bombing raid at night in enemy air space?” Brock said, and saw Scott nod. “Christ, I bet they got shot to hell.”
“They did, but they also destroyed the target. If that wasn’t enough, the boffins came up with a coat hanger-looking device that the bombardier used to tell him at what exact distance from the dams to drop his bombs.”
“So, your point is, go and look, see, and think, right?” Pete asked.
Scott, smiling, pointed a finger at him. “Right, give the man a cigar. The answers we’re looking for are out there, we just have to find them.”
“What I want to know is, what is the question?” Brock asked, looking puzzled.
“That is part of the puzzle, Brock-san. You will know both the answer and the question at the same time,” Hiro said with a smile.
“Sounds like oriental mumbo-jumbo to me,” Brock snorted.
“Brock-san, please tell me what this mumbo-jumbo is. I have never heard of it,” Hiro said.
“Gunny! Don’t you dare,” Kat said quickly when she saw the look on Brock’s face.
“What!” he complained. “I was only going to explain it to him—”
“Hiro-san, don’t believe a word of it, he was about to give you a line
of BS.”
“BS, this is something I understand, thank you for the warning, Katharina-sama. I will do as you say.” He bowed his head slightly and gave Brock a suspicious look. Brock bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. Like a shark before it bites.
“So what are you thinking about this ship, Scott?” Devon asked.
“I don’t know for sure. I know the drive units have to be bigger, powerful enough to push the ship up close to light speed if possible. I have to have more speed to get in and out of trouble, and that goes for every ship in the fleet. I need stronger shields that will stop everything that comes at them, and weapons that will punch through any known shield or armor.”
