2: Long Goodbye

The Tuatha de Danaan’s resupply point was the container ship Bernie Worrell, which was waiting for them on the outer reaches of the Philippines. This was the same camouflaged commercial freighter that Sousuke’s helicopter had stopped on for resupply en route to Yamsk-11 in Siberia.

The submarine’s hiding place was in between the Bernie Worrell and one of the archipelago’s seven thousand islands, an uninhabited one known as Tagapul. The shallow water and the strong currents created by the island made it a less-than-ideal resupply point, but it was the best way to shake off the radars of both the US Navy and Amalgam. Activating ECS while resupplying would be far more likely to cause issues.

Sousuke helped take supplies to the de Danaan’s flight deck, then moved on to counting cases of the 12.7mm ammunition used in the ASes’ head-mounted machine guns.

“Sousuke,” Mao called to him after tucking her tablet under her arm. “When you’re done there, do those 76mm shells, too. You’re the one who uses ’em, right?”

“Got it,” he called back.

Sousuke’s Laevatein used a Boxer-2 shotcannon made by OTO Melara, which did indeed employ 76mm shells. It was a high-caliber ammunition even by AS standards, and while the Boxer he’d used when piloting the Arbalest (whose ammo was 57mm) was famous for being finicky, the Boxer-2 was even worse. If used correctly, though, it packed an incredible punch in close-range combat.

“Not that I think we’ll be using that much of it,” Mao added.

Sousuke hummed silently. He was indeed the only member of the team who used 76mm shells, but what they’d sent was close to double what he’d need. The logistics team had probably gotten the wrong idea about how many were necessary, as there had been another member of the crew who’d used the same shells until recently. “I think it’s because Kurz used them a lot.”

“That’s right...” Mao agreed.

“I guess getting M9 equipment really was trickier.”

The loss of Kurz Weber’s M9 at Yamsk-11 had left the de Danaan with only three ASes at present: Sousuke’s Laevatein, Mao’s E-type M9, and Clouseau’s D-type M9. Those were the only machines they had, even with all the remnants of Mithril scattered around the world.

The loss of Kurz’s machine meant they could repurpose the spare parts allotted to it, which helped them a little with their resupply issues. But head engineer Sachs had still insisted that their next sortie would be their last. The next time they fought, the last of Mithril’s AS forces would end up disabled beyond repair. Even if they made it back alive, their machines would have to be permanently benched.

The US military seemed to be quickly integrating M9s into their ranks, but Mithril’s M9s would soon disappear forever. Their role as the strongest out of all conventional machines, given only to the truly elite, was coming to an end.

That much was life, but it was probably a little bittersweet for Mao, who had been involved in their development since the days of the original prototype XM9. She let out a weak sigh and sat down on a small container next to Sousuke.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you really going?”

“Going where?”

“To Merida Island. With Tessa. It’s suicide, you know.” There was no anger in her voice now, as there had been during the briefing. She just sounded sad and uncertain. Mao was deeply worried about Tessa... And about Sousuke too, most likely. She added, “If you say you’re going to Afghanistan instead, she might give up on her plan.”

“I wonder,” said Sousuke, after finishing his checks and closing the ammunition case. “She might go by herself anyway. She has sufficient motivation.”

“Motivation, huh?” Mao scoffed. “The ‘TAROS changing history’ stuff? We’re supposed to let her go commit suicide based on that flimsy nonsense?”

“Nonsense?” he replied, but he was unable to fully dismiss her claims. Even he, who had personally witnessed so many impossible things—truly supernatural phenomena—thought Leonard’s plan sounded awfully far-fetched.

Shouldn’t they leave them to whatever weird device they were building on Merida Island, and concentrate on the missile base in Afghanistan? Newly acquired information told them that there were two lambda driver-mounted ASes awaiting them there. Not the Codarl-types, but rather the new, more powerful ASes. Mao and Clouseau were used to fighting lambda driver-mounted opponents by now, but they’d still have a hard fight of it on their own.

But if Sousuke and the Laevatein were to accompany them, their chances of success would increase. The Laevatein would be more than a match for the enemy ASes, and Sousuke’s experience would be particularly invaluable while waging guerrilla warfare in the Badafshan region of Afghanistan. He knew the area like the back of his hand; back routes, weather patterns... and he could even gain the help of the locals (if there were any left). It would be his fight to lose.

Of course, Andrey Kalinin knew all that, too. Why had Kalinin, who had fought with him in that region long ago, chosen this battlefield in particular? Was he hiding in that land that meant so much to both of them, saying, “Come to me; I’m waiting”?

Unlikely; Kalinin never allowed himself such sentiment in battle. Viewed from the practical side of things, then, it was clear that Kalinin was simply providing an “easy road” for Sousuke and the Laevatein, who represented the greatest threat to them, to take. Their main force would be on Merida Island.

Afghanistan was the easy road; Merida Island was the hard road. One was a practical operation, rooted in common-sense motivations; the other, a dangerous operation rooted in nonsensical motivations. Which would a normal soldier choose? And which was the one the enemy was more desperate to protect... the Afghanistan base, or Merida Island?

When he thought about it that way, there was only one conclusion for Sousuke to reach: Tessa was right. The enemy wanted to protect Merida Island. He knew that because Leonard was there. The fact that the Belial wasn’t in Afghanistan was proof enough of their priorities.

Still, that didn’t mean they could just ignore the nuclear base. Amalgam was clearly serious about launching the missiles. Which meant...

“Impressive,” Sousuke said with a sigh.

“What is?” Mao asked.

“Tessa,” he clarified. “We have to do it exactly as she commanded. Forget the nonsense about changing history, and remember the fact that the major is with them.”

After a moment, Mao nodded her agreement and said, “Point taken.” Those few words were enough for her to catch onto Sousuke’s train of thought. Unhappily, and as if convincing herself, she nodded again. “Well, it is what it is... Though I can’t help but feel like we’re playing into their hands.”

“We can interpret this to mean that the enemy is desperate,” Sousuke pointed out. “There’s an old saying: ‘If you’re struggling, it means the enemy is struggling.’ Mao, don’t force her to let up now.”

“But...”

He could tell from her tone that there was more Mao wanted to say. In the old days, he probably would have just dismissed her as being stubborn, but no longer. He could imagine now how hard this was for her, how scared she must feel, how she was entrusting him with her heart, hoping he’d hear her out.

But just because he could intuit what she was feeling, that didn’t mean he knew the right thing to say.

“If you’re really that worried,” he offered, “I’ll have sex with you.”

“Uh?” Mao choked out.

“A night of fiery passion should relieve all your stress and get your mind back on track,” Sousuke explained. After going through these vaguely-remembered motions of sexual harassment, he watched Mao’s reaction carefully.

She was stunned. Her eyes and mouth were wide open as if she’d come upon some strange mythological beast. “What in the world?” she gasped.

“Oh... well...” Sousuke looked down awkwardly, like a student realizing an answer he’d confidently written on the blackboard was wrong. “I thought you’d hit me.”

“Huh?”

“I thought that if I said something like that, you’d hit me and throttle me and then you’d feel better,” he clarified.

“Ohh...” Finally grasping what he was trying to do, Mao smiled ruefully. “Sousuke, you can’t replace him.”

“I see that now. I’m sorry,” Sousuke said.

“You idiot.” With that, Mao gently wrapped her arms around him. The cool of her fingertips and the warmth of her chest... It was somehow a nostalgic sensation.

Some of the crew working on deck cast glances in their direction, but Mao ignored them. She whispered to Sousuke, “Do you remember... what I said on the way back from Sicily? After we caught Bruno.”

“Hmm?”

“The stuff about thinking up a plan for your life,” she reminded him.

“Ahh, I remember.”

“I pretended like I said it for your sake, but I thought about it afterwards... I didn’t really. I think you were just getting under my skin. Always putting yourself last, prioritizing your comrades or solving issues with your missions first... to me, it just looked like you were flaunting your skill,” Mao admitted. “Overloading on impossible responsibilities, at the end of the day, means you don’t need anyone’s help. You don’t rely on anyone else. I’m a pretty average person, so that’s the only way it made sense to me.”

Sousuke said nothing.

“But I think I finally understand,” she went on. “You’re just very kind. I think you were never meant to be a soldier.”

“Me?” Sousuke asked. “You think too highly of me...”

“I don’t,” Mao told him. “You just happened to end up with the skills to fight, but you’re really not someone who should have ever learned how to fire a gun or pilot a robot. You’re not like us, here because we want to be. That’s...” her voice was trembling a little. “Listen,” she said, changing the subject. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Right...”

“When this is over, quit. Forget about us good-for-nothings and make a life for yourself,” Mao told him bluntly. “Never pick up a gun again. Become the kind of man who can be kind to people and laugh from the bottom of his heart.” He heard her sniffle, and her arms tightened around him. “I think you can do it,” she told him earnestly.

“I can’t,” he insisted.

“That’s not true. Don’t go making Kaname sad.”

“Kaname...”

“If you can love someone, and that person thinks you’re okay, you’re okay,” Mao told him. “In most things, at least.”

Sousuke fell silent again. Maybe Mao is right, he thought. If only Kaname were here, all these lonely feelings would go away. She’d make me believe that I was okay. But where was that same salvation for Mao?

Pulling away from Sousuke, Mao smiled. “I’ll be okay,” she promised him. “I’m an extremely obnoxious woman.”

When the ammunition checks were completed, Sousuke helped sort out the mail sent to the crew. Various personal effects sent to cover addresses... Letters from family, food and drink they’d asked friends for, documentation from lawyers and tax accountants, and lots of packages from online shopping services. FedEx had delivered these in just two days, but they’d had to be transferred multiple times for security and logistics reasons, which meant some had taken about six months to arrive in the end.

While sorting these out, Sousuke thought back on his conversation with Mao. He was worried about how depressed she seemed to be. Can I really let her go to Afghanistan like this? he wondered. Even if the odds against them had increased, they were still facing cutting-edge LD-mounted machines. This fight would demand more of Mao than any other in the past. She was rushing into an operation with little margin for error, where a moment’s hesitation or uncertainty meant death... Yet, he didn’t feel any bloodlust rising from her, any sense that she wanted to tear out their windpipes with her teeth. Should I go along to Afghanistan after all? Leaving her now might be like letting her die...

But then, Chidori... This will be my last chance with her, Sousuke reminded himself. If I don’t get her back now, it’s all over. He felt that nebulously... No, with great certitude. He had to go to Merida Island himself, and as quickly as possible.

I wish I had two bodies, he thought regretfully. Two machines, too. If the enemy’s divide-and-conquer strategy was meant to distract and confuse him, it was proving very effective. Dammit... he cursed, then shook his head slightly. No more thinking. Keep working. You don’t have much time left...

“Sousuke,” said Michel Lemon, the former French intelligence agent he’d met in the Southeast Asian town Namsac. Lemon hadn’t been on the de Danaan for a while. Despite the injury done to his leg in Moscow, he’d been traveling all over the world, and he’d only just arrived via the Bernie Worrell.

“Lemon,” Sousuke said shortly.

“Take this.” Despite not having seen each other for about a month, Lemon just handed Sousuke an envelope without much in the way of pleasantry. “It’s from Mira. She asked me to hand it to you personally.”

“Mira,” Sousuke said thoughtfully. “Kudan Mira?” She could have emailed me, he thought. Why send a letter? He opened the envelope suspiciously and found a letter inside, as well as a small memory chip; this was the ordinary commercial kind used in digital cameras and cell phones. Unceremoniously, he put the chip in his pocket and began to read the letter. It was written in Japanese, the writing small and round:

Dear Sagara Sousuke,

How are you doing? This is Kudan Mira, whom you saved in Siberia before. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to talk when we met on the ship last time.

As I write this, I’m in a house overlooking an old garden. It’s a desolate sight in winter, but according to Hunter-san, it will bloom with anemone flowers in spring (though I don’t know if it will be ‘me’ seeing them).

I’ve been in email correspondence with your commanding officer (I think?), Teletha Testarossa. Teletha-san hasn’t written much about your operations (for security reasons, I’m sure), but she did tell me many important things. She told me about what connects her and me, and Chidori Kaname-san (sorry, I don’t know her kanji) from our birth.

I have a feeling...well, more like a sort of vague certainty, that you’re about to embark on a terrible battle. I don’t know how it will turn out. But I feel like this is a major turning point in our problem, and the world’s problem—what they call the ‘nick of time.’

Teletha-san hasn’t told me her plan. She may have realized I’d be against it.

That’s right... If I’m being honest, I think I agree more with Teletha-san’s brother than I do with her. I still have panic attacks and terrible flashbacks of my time in that Siberian laboratory. I don’t think it’s ever going to stop. But even more importantly, the world is a giant mess right now, and I think an even bigger war is about to break out and make things even worse. If he can bring things back to the way they’re supposed to be, I think maybe it’s for the best.

Still, I won’t get in Teletha-san’s way. I think it’s a dilemma for me, too. I’ll leave it up to you whether to help her or stop her. You saved my life, so my feelings belong to you. (Not in a weird way. I mean, I’d do things if you wanted them, but I think Teletha-san and Chidori-san would kill me, so no thanks. Oh, what am I writing? [sweats] I feel like my head’s on fire...)

Ahem. I haven’t used a pen in a while, so my fingers are very tired. Maybe I should have just written in English. Lemon-san just came into my room. He’s going off to join you guys soon, so I’m giving this letter to him.

This might be my last chance to communicate with you, so let me say this for the final time: thank you so much for everything. Good luck, Sagara-san.

Sincerely, Kudan Mira

P.S. Please check the contents of the enclosed chip when you have some free time. I happened to find it on the internet.

“What did she write?” Lemon asked, rudely leaning over his shoulder. He probably couldn’t read Japanese.

“It’s complicated,” Sousuke told him. “How to put it...” Various feelings and doubts, pressures and dilemmas, jumbled together in his brain, refusing to unravel.

So those are the kanji she uses to write her name... What did she talk to Tessa about? he wondered. How close is what she said to the truth? What did she mean by “the nick of time,” and why leave her fate in my hands? No, I guess that makes sense, but why won’t she tell me what’s in the chip, and how much should I tell Lemon about these sensitive matters? Is it possible he already knows what’s in the letter?

“You look like you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Lemon observed.

“I always look like this,” Sousuke told him.

“Hmm... I guess you do. So, I guess it’s not a love letter, huh? But she was sure acting like it was when she gave it to me.”

“That’s absurd,” Sousuke scoffed.

“I know you’re a pretty tough guy, but when I see how much girls go for you, it makes me wonder where I went wrong,” Lemon mused. “I mean, I’m so much better-looking...”

Ignoring the envious Lemon, Sousuke turned his mind to other things. Mira had said she was against what Tessa was trying to do, and that she agreed with Leonard, who wanted to restore the world to how it “should be.” Her reasons for feeling that way were simple but made sense.

Sousuke hadn’t quite worked out his own feelings about it. The things he’d talked about with Leonard while buried together in Yamsk-11 were still rattling around inside his brain. If he was telling the truth then, Sousuke thought, who could deny his right to do it? It wasn’t just Mira; everyone had suffered losses over the years in so many ways. There were a lot of painful, bitter memories out there.

There had to be a better alternative. Not even Sousuke could deny that. That thought, If only I could try it over again... He couldn’t deny that he found it persuasive.

“Lemon,” Sousuke asked. “Do you think Nami...”

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” he said, “forget it.” Talking about Nami wouldn’t help; whatever Lemon’s opinion turned out to be, it wouldn’t erase the hesitance inside of him. What Sousuke did know was that, whatever he decided, waiting to make that decision would just leave things ambiguous and half-complete. He couldn’t say which side was right, and neither option felt fully satisfying. There was no one who could talk him through this.

“I’m here if you want to talk,” Lemon offered.

“No, it’s all right,” Sousuke told him. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, okay. I’ll be going, then. I have a report to make to Testarossa-san,” said Lemon, seeming to realize there was something on Sousuke’s mind, but deciding not to pry any further. Instead, he just stood up and stretched lightly. “Take care, Sousuke.”

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t as if it was the last time they’d see each other, so Michel Lemon just said goodbye, waving lightly, and walked away to disappear through the door that led to the bridge.

Clouseau was heading from the bridge to the deck in the middle of the resupply when he passed by the Frenchman, Michel Lemon. He’d heard the man had to make his last report to Teletha Testarossa, so he was probably going to see her.

“Hello, Monsieur Clouseau,” Lemon said.

“Right,” was Clouseau’s only response as they passed. Though his name was French, he felt awkward being referred to as ‘Monsieur.’ Clouseau’s ancestors had been brought to Quebec as slaves, but he could trace his lineage back to a fierce warrior clan in North Africa. It was his grandfather, obsessed with their roots, who had picked up the odd name ‘Belfangan,’ which was the name of a hero spoken of in that clan’s legends. According to his grandfather, the hero Belfangan died slaying an evil demon that was tormenting humanity, then ascended to heaven on a black hawk.

The modern day Belfangan had become the warrior his grandfather had hoped for; he’d joined the army, undergone numerous trials, and grown into a fine soldier. But because “Belfangan” was hard to say, those close to him mainly just called him Ben.

“Ben,” called a lieutenant working on the deck. They were apparently overseeing the de Danaan’s resupply. “It’s taking a while to send out all the crew belongings. Could we have an extension?”

“No,” he told them. “If you don’t make it in time, just tell them to give up on it.”

Tessa had ordered the crew departing the de Danaan to take all their belongings with them. It was effectively an eviction. They’d been given that order only a few hours before, so there was still quite a lot of confusion among the men.

“Dammit,” the lieutenant grumbled. “After all we’ve been through together... What is the captain thinking?”

“She’s thinking about us,” Clouseau said, and gave the lieutenant a brisk pat on the back. “Now, act like a soldier.” In truth, he wasn’t particularly happy about the situation himself, but he wasn’t about to argue with Tessa’s decisions. Even XO Mardukas had told him to just do as he was told.

“Captain,” Sagara Sousuke called to him from the workspace a little ways away. He seemed to be finishing up the task of sorting out the mail.

“Sagara,” Clouseau said. “Shouldn’t you be working on the Laevatein?”

“Al and Sachs are on it.”

“Aha.”

“There’s a package for you, sir.” Sousuke held out a cardboard box small enough to hold in one hand. It was marked with the distributor’s logo, with stickers from various shipping companies pasted on it here and there.

Clouseau had ordered this DVD five months ago, and it had been bounced around between various fake addresses before finally finding its way here. To be honest, he’d forgotten he’d ordered it.

“Is it a movie, sir?” Sousuke asked.

“Hmm... yes,” Clouseau absently affirmed. It was, in fact, a famous anime from about ten years ago. But it was also certainly a movie.

Sousuke stared at him keenly. He was his usual expressionless self, which made it impossible to read what he was feeling. At the very least, it seemed unlikely that he cared what was on the DVD.

“What is it?” Clouseau asked.

“Well...” Sousuke hesitated, looking down. At last, Clouseau could read something like reticence in his manner. “Have you talked to Mao?”

“We’ve talked about work, at least... but I know what you’re getting at,” Clouseau admitted, knowing that Sousuke was probably worried about her. Mao had been depressed ever since Kurz Weber’s death. She was trying to hide it, of course, and at least she wasn’t drowning her sorrows in booze. Yet if you were on the job with her, it was painfully clear. “There’s nothing you can do,” he finally said. “Nothing you need to do, either. She’s not that fragile, and neither am I. At least, no more than you are.”

Clouseau meant to provoke him, but Sousuke just shrugged in response.

“Have you reverted to where you were before Hong Kong?” Clouseau asked next.

“No, of course not,” Sousuke told him.

“Then you’re tired too, right?”

“Me?”

“Tired, from the bottom of your heart. Of fighting,” Clouseau clarified. “You just won’t let yourself realize it, which is why you’re projecting onto Mao, am I right?”

Sousuke seemed to think that over silently; perhaps he’d struck a nerve. After a while, Sousuke looked up at Clouseau with deeply curious eyes. “How could you tell?”

“Because I’m tired, too,” Clouseau said, then laughed. Yes, he was tired: he’d been serving as Andrey Kalinin’s replacement for close to a year now, so how could he be anything else? And if someone as tough as Belfangan Clouseau could end up this way, then of course everyone else would be the same. “Once this is over, I plan to take a nice vacation,” he said. “I’ll go home and laze around all day. After that, I might do some sightseeing. Japan sounds nice; Akihabara and such.”

“That does sound nice,” Sousuke agreed. “But why Akihabara?”

“I’ve already been to Mecca,” Clouseau said dryly, “so Akihabara is next.”

“Ahh,” said Sousuke, who apparently didn’t get the joke.

“Anyway, worry about yourself first. I’ll handle Mao,” Clouseau advised him. Then he patted Sousuke on the back and left.

Afterwards, Clouseau called to Private Falkowski, who was overseeing the sorting of the disembarking crew’s personal effects. The poor man had been stationed in the logistics department of the Merida Island Base one year ago, shortly before Amalgam had mounted its fierce attack, and been forced to live on the de Danaan since then. He was a timid but well-organized man, and he’d lately been showing more backbone, saying no whenever a department made an impossible request.

“Sorry,” Clouseau told him. “There’s something I’d like to add to the things I’m taking off.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Clouseau began to hand him the cardboard box containing the DVD. With all he had to do, there was no way he’d be able to watch it before the operation... It would be better for him to send it off with his other belongings, to watch at his leisure later.

No, wait... Wouldn’t he have time to watch it on his laptop en route to Afghanistan? The version of the movie released in North America over ten years ago had been a severely edited version, and that incomplete film was what most of the world had seen. Embarrassingly, he’d still only ever seen the North American cut himself...

“Um, Captain...?”

Clouseau snapped back to reality, where Falkowski was confused about the fact that he hadn’t released the package. It was as if he were holding on for dear life.

“Ah...” Clouseau couldn’t dismiss it as a mere fanboy attachment. He felt a resistance to give up that box in a way he couldn’t fully explain. Something inside him was saying, Don’t let go. Watch it now.

“Sorry,” Clouseau said. Then, pushing back against the mysterious premonition, he released the box from his grasp and let the other man have it.

“Are you all right?” Falkowski asked.

“Yes,” Clouseau told him. “Anyway, good luck.” Then he turned around and swiftly left the deck behind.

Executive Officer Richard Mardukas also received a letter from the communications officer. It was from his ex-wife, postmarked two months ago. He was sure they’d resolved all of their financial and legal issues, so he couldn’t imagine why she was contacting him... His initial response was to feel anxious, wondering if there was some kind of trouble.

“What is it, Mardukas-san?” Tessa asked as she saw him take the letter. The two of them had been standing on either side of the control room’s nautical chart table, discussing various details of the operation when it arrived.

“Ah... A personal letter,” Mardukas told her.

“I see.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. Let’s continue.” He handed her a sheaf of documents full of points to go over as he tried to resume their discussion.

“Let’s take a little break first.” Tessa stretched lightly, and folded up the nautical chart before sitting down. They were alone in the control room now. The rest of the usual crew were off helping with the resupply.

Mardukas and the rest of the submarine’s crew couldn’t really be of help in the Afghani operation. Once they’d left the submarine, they would take care of any final business and then disperse. It was an anticlimactic end, but they’d just be a burden to the ground unit if they went along.

Mardukas hadn’t yet voiced his own opinions about Tessa going alone to Merida Island. He hadn’t fully worked out his own feelings, for one thing, and wouldn’t have known how to bring the subject up if he had. Even now that they were alone together, Tessa remained quiet, and Mardukas didn’t feel it was his place to bring it up. Yet, even a boring man like him found it hard to keep his silence.

“It’s from my ex-wife.”

“What?”

“The letter,” he explained. “You know I’m divorced, don’t you?”

“I do,” Tessa told him. “I read your personnel file back at the start.” But since he hardly ever talked about his personal life, she seemed a little surprised to hear him bring it up.

“We haven’t seen each other in over five years, you see...” He’d divorced his wife, Paula, during his Royal Navy days, back before he’d joined up with Mithril, and he hadn’t seen her since their last mediation. He’d left all the processes to his solicitor, and they had no children, so there was nothing for them to talk about.

“You’re not going to read it?” Tessa asked.

“I will...later. I’m sure it’s nothing especially important.”

“I see... What kind of person is your ex-wife?”

“An ordinary woman,” he told her. “She was a waitress at a pub near the base in Plymouth... very popular with the regulars. Their poster girl, one might say.”

“She was pretty, then?” Tessa wanted to know.

“I believe so,” Mardukas answered. “I threw out all her pictures, so all I remember is that she was solicitous and very talkative.” While fiddling with the unopened letter, he tried to remember what Paula had looked like when she was young, but failed to do so.

“Most of the officers would come to the pub in groups,” he went on, “but I’d come all by myself, silent and reading my technical manuals. She must have found it intriguing, because she’d talk to me, and I’d reply vaguely... I suppose it was about a year later that we ended up married.”

“‘Ended up married’?” Tessa questioned. “You mean you didn’t fall in love?”

“It’s hard to say... Ah, and I’m not trying to be circumspect,” Mardukas added, noting Tessa’s dubious gaze. “Forgive me for saying so, but you are still young. There are many couples who simply fall together naturally, without any particularly strong passionate or romantic feelings.”

“Really?” she wondered. “That feels disappointing.”

“That’s why romance movies are so popular,” Mardukas observed. “But I didn’t mind being part of a perfectly mundane couple. It was my job that caused issues.”

“Ahh...” Tessa nodded with a frown. She could probably imagine exactly how things had gone south. Being a military wife was a challenge to begin with, and it was even worse when your husband was a submariner. Constant work transfers, your spouse away from home running missions for months at a time... and the missions were always top secret, so they couldn’t even talk about where they were going, what they were doing, or when they’d be home.

“Paula was your standard ‘landlubber.’ Our breakup was inevitable.” Mardukas thought about adding, Your parents got along, and I envied that, but decided against it. Envying Tessa’s parents was imprudent; their lives had been torn apart in a way far more gruesome than divorce.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tessa told him.

“Ah, it was for the best,” Mardukas said. “Trying to preserve the marriage would have merely exhausted us both.”

“Maybe so, but it’s still a shame.” A sad smile appeared on Tessa’s face, and she made a show of returning to work, moving her eyes back to the remaining checklists as she added a few marks to them. “Well, I think it’s time to—”

“Captain,” Mardukas said abruptly.

“What?”

He probed Tessa’s gaze cautiously and realized that she was completely exhausted—a woman at the end of her rope. She didn’t look like an eighteen-year-old girl at all. “If you use the TAROS in the Lady Chapel, you will be able to control the vessel by yourself, true. But ‘able to’ is the limit of it,” he reminded her. “You alone are no substitute for experienced sonar technicians, navigators, and fire control officers. And you need an annoying man like me; someone who can consider situations, offer judgments, and see things from different angles.”

“Perhaps,” she agreed. “But—”

“In addition, it will be over twenty-four hours until the battle on Merida Island begins,” he went on, cutting her off. “And you won’t be able to rest, eat, or sleep during that time. Your proposal is unrealistic, and you can’t simply ‘tough it out,’ no matter how much you might like to.” Then, having vented his spleen, Mardukas watched for Tessa’s reaction.

She said nothing. Tessa didn’t seem to know how to respond, and her many internal conflicts showed on her face. Of course, she would already have been aware of the things Mardukas was pointing out. She’d chosen this method in spite of it all, and had explained the reason it was necessary during the briefing.

“All these concepts of time hazards and parallel worlds still sound dubious to me,” Mardukas admitted. “And I have no confidence that your subordinates will ever accept them either.”

“Exactly. That’s why I—”

“Does playing at democracy satisfy you?”

Tessa hesitated. “What?”

“Being a commander means that if you feel it’s necessary, you drag your subordinates to hell with you, even for an utterly unreasonable plan,” Mardukas told her. “These things you’ve been saying... ‘I can’t make myself the center of everything, so I’ll do it all by myself’... It’s no wonder Mao is so furious with you.”

“Do you feel the same way she does?” Tessa wondered.

“Yes,” he told her simply. What her subordinates wanted, himself included, was not this absurd play at equality. It didn’t matter if the mission was unreasonable; all she had to say was ‘Do it,’ and they wouldn’t hesitate to act.

Yet, she couldn’t do that. Tessa was too innocent. Too idealistic.

“Captain,” he tried again patiently. “What would you do if I relieved you of duty, right here and now? I could do it with the approval of three other officers.”

“That isn’t funny,” Tessa told him coldly.

“If I did, could you shoot me to death?” Mardukas asked. “Would you kill me to hold on to command?”

“I...” After a long silence, she admitted it, painfully. “I don’t think I could.”

“That’s your limitation showing. I’ve served you for three years, but here at the end, I must tell you: you lack what it takes to be a commander.” Mardukas genuinely believed that. His words were harsh, but he didn’t feel harshly toward her. It felt more like a deep appreciation for a student who’d fought the good fight.

“What else...” Tessa placed her hands on the table containing the nautical chart, eyes down. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“You already know,” he told her. “Give me the order to pass on to your crew.” Join me at the center. Come along on my reckless plan.

It would be simple enough to say something kindhearted, like, ‘I can’t let you and Sagara go alone.’ But Mardukas knew that he mustn’t do that. This one time, he had to make her choose, even knowing it was cruel to do so.

“You’re basically asking me to shoot you,” Tessa told him.

“I think you might even find shooting me easier,” Mardukas observed.

“Give me some room,” she pleaded. “I need... a little time.”

“Very well,” Mardukas agreed, and left Tessa behind in the control room.

As Mardukas stood in the dim corridor waiting to be called back, he thought about what Carl—Tessa’s father—would have thought about how he was treating her. Would Carl have criticized me, Mardukas wondered, saying I should have hidden her away somewhere to let her live a normal life?

But there was nowhere in the world that would be completely safe for Tessa. The safest possible place was here, in the belly of this beast she had designed. There, in the control room of the Tuatha de Danaan, she was beyond the enemy’s reach. It would be healthier for Tessa to take control of the de Danaan’s raging power than it would be for her to spend her days hidden in the shadows and trembling... That’s why he’d decided to become her XO. Mardukas had allowed it, even knowing what a hard road it would be.

Tessa was exhausted and nearing the end of her rope. But at least she’d been able to chart her own course through the raging waves of destiny. Which means that here, he reflected, at the end, she should continue to do so.

Things were quiet in the control room beyond the door. Tessa didn’t seem about to call him in any time soon, so he decided to open his ex-wife’s letter.

It was a short update on Paula’s life: the business she’d started after the divorce, a housekeeping service, was doing well. Recently, the owner of the pub where they’d met had fallen sick. He’d recovered, but would have to close shop. She went to the last day party and saw a lot of old familiar faces.

Of course, their conversation over drinks naturally turned to Richard Mardukas, and those who knew about his dismissal from the Royal Navy expressed their sympathies. One of them, a classmate who’d butted heads with him over this and that during officer school days, had told Paula this:

Mardukas is an essentially honest man. That’s why he can’t help but share unpleasant truths with those around him. The bureaucrats in the military couldn’t stand it. I found it insufferable in my early days, as well. So did you, Paula. But we’re all older now, and you should talk to him again if you can.

Those words had motivated her to write this letter. It wasn’t as if they hated each other, after all. They could meet up for a meal now and then. Wouldn’t he call her if he got the time?

She’d included a picture of the pub. She was with two other couples, smiling in a garden somewhere. She looked about the same as she had back then. No, he felt like she was prettier now than when they’d divorced...

A bit late, isn’t it? part of him felt. But at the same time, Mardukas was surprised to realize he might like to see her again. Ah, well, he thought. If I get through this alive, I’ll drop by Plymouth. He’d been meaning to take it easy, anyway. While he was mentally composing his reply, he heard a heavy sound, and then the control room door behind him opened.

“Mardukas-san,” said Tessa, looking even more haggard than before. Her bloodshot eyes reflected the hardships she was working through.

“Yes, Captain?” said Mardukas.

Tessa thrust a piece of paper at him; it was a list of about twenty-five crew names. “This is the absolute minimum we’ll need,” she told him. “Bring them to the briefing room at once.”

She didn’t require any more conversation; no expressions of comfort or gratitude or apology, either. All he had to do was repeat the words he’d said thousands of times before, meaning, I will obey. “Aye, aye, ma’am.” Then Mardukas left to execute the order.

The resupply was almost complete, but the work on the Laevatein wasn’t anywhere near being finished.

“Dammit!” cursed Ed Sachs, head of the maintenance team, casting his wrench onto the floor of the flight deck. The machine itself was fine; he’d managed to get it into fighting shape. The problem was the emergency deployment booster attached to it. The Laevatein was functionally an M9 model and could use most equipment designed for the M9, but the XL-2 emergency deployment booster was an exception.

The XL-2 was a disposable flight unit that launched an M9 from the deck catapult. Propelled by a single shot of liquid rocket fuel, the XL-2 sped an M9 into the area of operations. But the lambda driver-neutralizing fairy eye, the 165-millimeter demolition gun, and its otherwise full complement of weapons made the Laevatein too heavy to carry. The XL-2 didn’t have enough thrust, and its wings would warp from the strain. He also couldn’t guarantee clearance for the shoulders and the back, and the Laevatein didn’t have the sensors it needed for in-flight tactical maneuvering.

In other words, even if the de Danaan got close enough to Merida Island, the Laevatein had no way to make landfall quickly. That’s why they’d had to use the XL-3.

The XL-3, which hadn’t undergone an official development process, was basically two XL-2s slapped together to make something that could carry the Laevatein. Sachs had anticipated they’d need it for an operation like this, so he’d been working on it for two months, and just barely made it in time.

Rather, he hadn’t made it in time. He’d completed the rig itself, but the processes of attachment and adjustment were presenting difficulties; conflicts kept popping up between the XL-3’s flight control system and the Laevatein’s motion manager that he just couldn’t solve. There were a few other areas giving him trouble, too. It wasn’t something he could fix in just a few hours.

Al, apparently sympathetic, spoke up. 《Lieutenant. All you need to do is finish attaching the unit. I can handle the rest of the fine-tuning myself.》

“No,” Sachs protested, “it’s not just a software issue. Depending on what’s causing the problem, we may need to swap out circuit boards and parts, and bypass wires and piping. Can you handle that?”

《Certainly not.》

“Then be a good machine and shut up.”

《Did you say ‘machine’?》

“What, got a problem with that?”

《It isn’t that... May I ask you a question?》

“Go ahead,” Sachs told him.

《Can you imagine what it would feel like to have wings?》

It was a strange question. “What do you mean by that?”

《Can you?》

“Hmm... Well, I might have done, when I was a kid.”

《Do you feel it’s a rite of passage in human development?》

“Maybe not that specific fantasy, but more or less, yeah.”

《I have a theory that the cause of the problem lies not with the XL-3, but with me.》

“What do you mean by that?” Sachs asked.

《The bodily sensation. The motion manager, system-wise, is considered subordinate to the core unit in which ‘I’ am contained, but the data bus that connects the two of us is transferring far more information than before.》

The motion manager was the composite unit that controlled the movements of an AS. If Al was the machine’s cerebrum, the motion manager was like the cerebellum.

“I noticed that, too.” Sachs said while checking the data log. The amount of data flow far exceeded that of a normal M9, so much so that he almost had to assume a lot of it was junk data. “It means you’ve gotten used to the Laevatein as your body, right?”

《This is merely a theory, but if we assume I am acquiring ‘bodily sensation,’ what would happen if I suddenly grew wings?》

“Well... yeah, it might throw you off.”

《In terms of standard settings alone, the attachment of the XL-3 should be within what the current data bus can handle. But if you account for this more abstract ‘bodily sensation’ concept, it is possible that the data bus is too restrictive.》

“Hmm...”

《Would it be possible to expand the data bus capacity in the current maintenance environment?》

“Not impossible,” Sachs told him, “but our tests suggest the current bus width is acceptable. I don’t think it’ll help solve the issue.”

《If I were a machine, perhaps it wouldn’t.》

Sachs thought for a moment. “Right,” he said. “I think I see what you’re getting at.” He should be thinking of Al as more than just a machine. After all, the liquid metal particles that made up Al and the lambda driver system that connected to him far exceeded anything Sachs could imagine. The thought of increasing the bus width seemed like nonsense at a glance, but it might just solve the problem. Al had plenty of transfer capacity right now, but if Sachs could increase it, it would be very similar to a human brain, right? The work wouldn’t be simple, though, and he’d have to fully shut Al down to do it...

“Let’s try it... is what I’d like to say,” Sachs said slowly, “but we don’t have time.”

《Right.》

“Just give it up. I’ll remove the XL-3. You’ll have to walk or use the aquatic unit to make landfall.”

《A shame.》

This would be a massive blow to the mission’s chance of success, as Al would be making landfall on a beach surely loaded with enemy ambushes and mines. Even with the lambda driver on his side, he was unlikely to be able to withstand everything they’d throw at him.

But... A nasty thought entered Sachs’s mind. No, stop it, Ed. You were gonna get off the ship and go back to Florida with Nora, weren’t you? The kids are waiting. You haven’t eaten mama’s meat pies in a while, either.

But if I can just work things out here...

“Sachs!” Just then, someone called him from across the hangar deck. It was Mardukas, beckoning him over.

“What is it?” Sachs asked.

“You’re staying here,” Mardukas told him. “Captain’s orders.”

Sachs hated that he was relieved to hear it. Okay, he thought next. We’ll leave the thing on. Let’s do this!

All processes on her tablet now read “complete,” and the heads of each department were sending in their reports. The resupply was finished.

“Good.” Tessa nodded and ordered all disembarking crew to gather in the hangar. All the maintenance personnel, logistics officers, and ground units heading for Afghanistan... She had to give them some parting words. It would be their last briefing, and she headed to the hangar with heavy steps.

As Tessa passed through the narrow corridor, she saw small nicks and dents in the walls. The pipes, which used to be cream-colored, were now dingy and brown. It had only been two and a half years since they’d left port, but the vessel looked to have aged significantly in that time.

It’s been a very dense two and a half years, she acknowledged to herself. The day of their maiden voyage, when she’d sat in the captain’s chair in the control room and ordered all systems active, seemed so long ago now. At age fifteen, she had been so full of ambition and confidence. She’d believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter what the difficulty, no matter how strong the enemy, she would overcome.

But... look at her now. They’d overcome much indeed, but she’d wound up battered and exhausted for her troubles, gnawed to the bone by insecurities and self-destructive impulses. “Any more of this and I...” she muttered to herself, and then quickly thought, No, stop that. You have to get a grip.

Tessa entered the hangar and found close to two hundred of her subordinates standing there in neat rows. She knew each of them on sight, and she could see Mao and Clouseau in the front line, as well. Their faces were drawn and stern, but they were unable to hide their nervousness about what was coming.

“Atten-SHUN!” Mardukas commanded. They all immediately snapped to attention as Tessa walked before them briskly. In front of her was a small shipping container that would serve as a stage and a ramp that led up to it. She had to climb up and then face them undaunted.

Look alive, she ordered herself sternly. Show them a picture of confidence: back straight; chin up; eyes forward. Make them think you know just what you’re doing; that everything will go well; that victory is nigh. Show them a commander brimming with wisdom and strength. The witch of Mithril, who has overcome every danger and tormented our enemies.

Don’t show weakness, she reminded herself. Don’t flatter them. Just smoothly ascend to that stage and look down at them. Make it clear to them who you are, what you can do...

Then her foot caught on the ramp.

“Ah...?” Tessa asked in surprise, as she felt her balance slipping away. Everything she did to try to right herself made things worse, and she ended up leaping onto the stage, arms high in the air like a gymnast, before falling flat on her face.

Using the onomatopoeia that Chidori Kaname was once so fond of, this is when she’d say, ‘Vroom, splat!’

The silence after the sound of her fall... It was quiet. Painfully quiet. The crew must have been terribly rattled; they’d been ordered to attention, so they couldn’t actually move. How many seconds did she spend just lying there on the floor?

Mardukas was the first to speak. “Captain?”

“I... I’m fine,” she responded at last. Her mind continued to work at top speed, searching for a way to navigate the situation. She’d completely lost her cool.

What to do? I’ve ruined everything, and at the worst possible time... This was supposed to be my final briefing, Tessa thought hysterically. I’ve never tripped during one of these before, have I? I’m usually so careful... but I let my guard down. It was that unsteady ramp. Yes, it’s the ramp’s fault... I should execute it immediately. Wait, what am I thinking? Calm down. Steady. Regain your dignity. Don’t show them you’re shaken. Be calm; act like you meant to do that... Oh, but who means to fall?! It’s hopeless! There’s no way to excuse it! Ah, it’s all ruined. Hurry, hurry... Do something!

A way to restore my dignity. A way to restore my dignity. A way to restore my dignity—

There was nothing she could do. It was time to just accept it. Tessa picked herself up despondently, and turned back to face her subordinates with slumped shoulders. They were all still at attention, their faces expressionless. They’re probably disgusted, she thought, staring blankly into thin air...

No... When she looked at the people in the front row, she saw a few shoulders trembling. Others’ neck muscles were pulsing rapidly. Their lips were drawn into sharp lines and their nostrils were flaring. Soldiers, when told to stand at attention, absolutely couldn’t move. Yet it was clear to her, now, that they were all trying desperately not to laugh.

What in the world? I’m standing in front of a group of perfectly mature adults lined up like mannequins, trying desperately not to laugh, waiting politely for words from a little girl who can’t even walk without tripping. And they all believe that doing that is absolutely righteous and praiseworthy.

They’re all so stupid. And so am I.

The grim show of pride and grand speech she’d been prepared to put on just moments ago from that platform suddenly seemed utterly absurd.

How absurd am I? Did I think I was a saint? What’s a clumsy person like me acting so high and mighty for?

I just need to tell them the truth.

“Um...” Tessa cleared her throat and looked around. “You’re all officially fired. Thank you for your service.” With that, she walked back down off of the makeshift stage.

Mardukas’s eyes widened, but he snapped back to attention and raised his voice to say, “Dismissed!”

A ripple shot through the crowd. There were a few stifled laughs, a few murmurs of confusion, and a few knowing chuckles. Mysteriously, she heard no sounds of censure. Not that it mattered now.

Ah, of course... I’ve been so afraid all this time of disappointing them. That battle is over now, too. I can just do whatever I want. Whatever I want...

Tessa caught sight of Mao, who was standing in the crowd of chatting soldiers. Their eyes met for just a second. Tessa shrugged and smiled at her, but Mao just looked very sad.

Then, without a word exchanged with anyone, Tessa left the flight deck.

The five Pave Mare transport helicopters left the flight deck and retreated into the western sky with Mao, Clouseau, and the rest of the ground forces on board. The Bernie Worrell’s engines roared out as it pulled away from the de Danaan. Having received their notice from Tessa, most of the departing crew were lined up on the deck, shouting and waving their hats.

Sousuke, who remained on the de Danaan, just raised his fist in response. Beside him, Ed Sachs was much more emotional, and made a bigger show of waving his burly arms. He was the only member of the maintenance team remaining on board. Technical officer Nora Lemming had boarded the supply ship with the rest of his crew, and she was leaning listlessly on the railing, staring back at him.

The Bernie Worrell eventually left their sight and the flight deck began to close. Alarms rang out as the massive hatch slid into its closed position, and the patch of sunset sky above them grew thinner and thinner.

“Why did you stay?” Sousuke asked.

Sachs stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I had a little unfinished work to do.”

Sousuke watched him quietly.

Sachs shrugged. “Okay, right, I’m just trying to sound cool. The truth is, Tessa ordered me to stay. Pretty cruel of her; I’ve got two kids and a potential new mother for them.” Despite his complaints, though, Sachs didn’t seem especially upset about it. He actually seemed a little relieved, in a self-deprecating kind of way. “I might have stayed even if she hadn’t ordered me, though. So, you know... I’m grateful for the excuse to gripe about it. Anyway, let’s get back to work.”

Sachs headed for the stairs that led to the hangar deck below. It was around that moment that the large hatch above closed with a clang. Locking mechanisms slid into place to ensure the hatch remained watertight, and the hum of motors came over the deck here and there.

“I’ll help, too,” Sousuke offered.

“Don’t be stupid. We don’t need you poking around, do we, Al?” Sachs asked into the headset hanging on his neck.

《The lieutenant is correct, Sarge. Please focus on your psychological preparation.》 Sousuke heard Al’s voice in his own headset.

The work of attaching the emergency deployment booster to the Laevatein on the hangar deck below them still wasn’t done. The rest of the maintenance crew had disembarked, so Sachs would have to do it all by himself.

“You heard him,” said Sachs. “Now, quit nagging like an old lady and do as you’re told.”

“All right, then,” Sousuke said after a pause, leaving Sachs behind and heading for the living quarters in the rear. None of the regulars passed him on the way. With the place running on a skeleton crew, the de Danaan was almost like a ghost ship.

Sousuke decided to stop by the galley in the mess hall. Kasuya, the regular cook, had disembarked with the rest, so he thought he might cook something for those who’d remained aboard.

This turned out not to be necessary, either. Sousuke wasn’t sure when he’d had the time to prepare it, but Kasuya had left plenty of food in the galley to keep them fed for at least a few days. There was a giant pot of curry, portions of frozen white rice, and a variety of breads, salads, vegetable soups and pasta sauces. He’d left a note on the wall politely explaining how to heat it all up and serve it, and where the plates and cooking tools could be found. The last words on the note were, “Good luck.”

That’s right, Sousuke remembered. I fought that traitor Dunnigan here in the galley. Kaname was huddled up next to that refrigerator, crying, while I apologized to her again and again...

“It’s ironic,” Sousuke muttered. It was always in situations like those when Kaname and I could share our real feelings with each other. Danger, emergencies, crises... It was always at the times you’d say, “Now’s not the time,” that we’ve been able to speak most openly.

In a sense, we always hoped for danger. If we ever get another chance to speak, will it have to be in another such situation?

He had no idea.

She’s not in her right mind now, anyway, he reminded himself. She seems to believe she’s acting rationally, but she’s actually being controlled by some other consciousness. Not even Tessa knows how to bring her back. Is it possible that it’s too late? Will the girl I knew never return? Is all of this utterly futile?

“This isn’t good...” Sousuke took a deep breath and began to massage his temples. He was about to enter a difficult battle, yet he couldn’t concentrate at all. The way ahead felt so murky that he had no confidence in his footing, and he felt like he couldn’t take one step forward.

Do I really agree with what Tessa is doing? he questioned suddenly. Why won’t she even ask me? Hasn’t she considered that I might sympathize with our enemy? Mira’s letter hung in the back of his mind. Why not simply do nothing and let Leonard and the others have their way?

Sousuke left the mess hall and headed for the SRT duty room. Once there, he retrieved his faithful Glock 19 from his weapons locker and loaded it with 9mm bullets. He didn’t use a holster, but just hid it behind his back, under his battledress shirt, so no one would know it was there unless they touched him.

With his gun hidden away, Sousuke headed for the control room. He reached the area that only authorized personnel were supposed to enter while the submarine was on maneuvers. As a sergeant with the ground forces, Sousuke didn’t have that clearance, and it was forbidden to carry guns there unless it was an emergency.

Who cares? he told himself defiantly, and then entered the control room.

Tessa, Mardukas, and the other control room staff turned to look at him questioningly. “Sagara-san...?”

Sousuke didn’t respond immediately. With his usual sullen expression, he looked around the room, and tried to envision it—Pulling out his gun, walking up to Mardukas, pushing him into the officer of the deck... then pressing the gun to Tessa’s temple and telling her, “Don’t move.” It seemed easy enough.

“Sergeant Sagara. Who authorized you to be here?” Mardukas asked. His voice wasn’t critical, but it was cautious. The man wasn’t stupid. He was probably considering the possibility of what Sousuke was about to do.

No... Sousuke knew that his plan for taking over the control room was a foolish daydream. Forcing them to call off the raid and just sit here at the bottom of the ocean until the time came—he wasn’t that kind of man.

“The highest-ranking ground forces NCO,” he responded boldly.

“And who is that?” Mardukas asked politely.

“Me. I’m the only member of the ground forces on board. Therefore...” He pointed to the space to the left of the captain’s chair, the place where Kalinin used to stand. “I want to stand there. Is that all right?”

He hadn’t just come up with that on the fly. It’s what he’d planned to do if he decided not to go through with the mutiny.

“Hm... well, I suppose it makes sense,” Mardukas admitted, “but...”

“Why not?” Tessa said. “But we’re a little while yet from our area of operations. You may get rather bored.”

“I don’t mind,” Sousuke told her.

“Go ahead, then. Feel free to leave if you get tired of it.” Her tone was not malicious, but it was overly casual. Normally she would have at least said, “Permission granted,” first.

Sousuke had seen Tessa’s final briefing of the crew, and her manner had changed a bit since then. The sense of grim tragedy was gone, though the emaciated atmosphere remained.

She was neither cheerful nor completely free of her demons, but there was a sort of impudence, a carefree sense about her now. If he had to liken Tessa’s new demeanor to something, it was closest to her manner when gossiping with Mao off-duty: pouting, unhappy, listless... If he asked her about the operation now, she’d probably say, “Do whatever you like” in a dismissive fashion.

For some reason, though, Sousuke couldn’t bring himself to worry, and Mardukas and the rest of the crew seemed to feel the same way. He met the eyes of the navigation officer sitting nearby, and the man just raised an eyebrow slightly before shrugging. It was like he was just saying, Weird, huh?

Sousuke shook his head as if to say, I wouldn’t know, then faced front again in an at-rest posture. He checked Tessa’s current manner out of the corners of his eyes.

“I’m fine,” she whispered, as if reading his intent. “I’m fine now, but what about you?”

“Ah,” he managed at great length. That one word from her hit him harder than anything Mao and Clouseau had said to him that day. A woman far stronger than him had seen through his masculine veneer.

Sousuke was still in at-rest posture and couldn’t move. His hands behind his back brushed against the pistol hidden in his waistband. For the first time in his life, he felt ashamed for carrying a gun.

Large letters were displayed on the screen. Time to area of operations: 21 hours, 12 minutes.

If I lose focus now, he reminded himself, I won’t stand a chance.

21 hours, 11 minutes.

Mao and the others were at an airfield in western Nepal, some eighteen hours after leaving the de Danaan. Time was of the essence, yet they’d already wasted two hours here in this small river valley.

The region was mountainous. The airfield, on the edge of a town called Dipayal, consisted of nothing but a short runway and some small buildings. The airstrip wasn’t even paved. It was accustomed only to receiving small aircraft, so it wasn’t hard to imagine the surprise of the locals when their massive C-17 transport came diving down with an explosive roar.

They had taken their helicopters from the de Danaan to Brunei, then transferred to an allied C-17 transport and sped west, crossing illegally over Cambodia, Myanmar, and Bangladesh with their ECS on full blast.

It was still twelve hundred kilometers from here to the missile base in northeast Afghanistan. They planned to do their last refueling here, as well as taking on a drop unit. The enemy would probably take control of the nuclear missile launch functions within four hours. But none of that felt real here in the hushed, quiet scene that surrounded them, where the air was clear and cold.

The mountains around them were covered with snow, and Mao’s breath came out white. The temperature was a degree or two below freezing, but she was grateful that there wasn’t any wind. Thanks to the field jacket she wore over her AS operator’s uniform, the only part of her that felt the cold was her face.

She was doing equipment checks with the rest of her team next to a run-down prefab warehouse. The local farmers watched them from afar, looking understandably unsettled. “I know I asked you to get us a final restock point... but why here?” she whispered to Lemon, who was with her.

“Sorry, it was the only place I could find,” said Lemon. Normally he might have said something like, “Don’t complain, I only had twelve hours to rig this up,” but he’d been a little bit muted around Mao lately. Lemon had been there when Kurz Weber had died, after all. From what Sousuke had said, it wasn’t his fault by any means, but perhaps he’d still felt like there was something he could have done.

He wouldn’t have known the specific relationship Mao had with Kurz, so the guilt was probably nothing more than “I let your subordinate die,” but...

“It’s okay,” she shrugged while she ran through her submachine gun checklist. “I’m just worried about the rubberneckers. Are the local police cool?”

“They’re on our side... I think,” said Lemon.

“What do you mean, you think?”

“There’s a Chinese man who owes a favor to Mr. Hunter, and that man’s brother owns a trading company with an office here in Nepal, which has a Nepalese government official on the take, and that official’s brother is vice chief of the local police...”

“Right,” said Mao, cutting him off. “Not very reliable, then.”

“It’ll be fine,” Lemon told her. “The closest police station is two hours away by car. We’ll be long gone by the time some hard-nosed detective makes his way here.”

“Assuming it arrives before then,” Mao grumbled. She was talking about the drop unit for her M9.

Mao and Clouseau were both set to drop in the upcoming operation, but the understocked de Danaan had only one drop unit. It hadn’t made it in time for the ocean resupply before they parted ways with Tessa and the others, so a member of an allied logistics unit was going to bring it directly to the airfield. That resupply was running late, which meant they were stuck here. She couldn’t help being upset, but realized she was losing too much of her cool.

Perhaps realizing how unhappy she was, Lemon spoke up hesitantly. “I heard the drop unit was coming from western Bengal, but why would they have M9 equipment there?”

“The Indian Ocean Battle Group was destroyed a year ago, but their warehouse is still around,” she told him. “The survivors from there prepared it.”

“Hmm. Ah... is it here?”

Ten meters from where Mao and Lemon were standing sat Clouseau, who was seated on a rusty metal barrel and using a handheld radio to receive some kind of communique. After a brief exchange, he shouted to the soldiers in the area, “The helicopter will be here in five minutes! Prepare to refuel and load up!”

As his people quickly began making preparations to take in the new stock, Mao got her own equipment together and jogged toward the C-17 transport currently housing her M9. She had to take the M9 out to attach the drop unit to its back.

She boarded the M9 and moved it outside the transport, then knelt it down a little ways away from the runway and waited. The farmers watching from the outskirts of the airfield stared up at her in awe. It’s probably their first time seeing an AS, Mao realized. She zoomed in on the farmers and saw that one of them had a cheap digital camera which he was using to take pictures of her.

“Ah, no pictures. Sorry.” Mao activated her machine’s head-mounted radar. While adjusting the beam’s effect radius and wavelength, she shot out a brief pulse at maximum power. The wavelength was harmless to people, but it would be fatal to consumer electronics. The young man who’d been taking the pictures began messing with the suddenly broken camera in a panic.

“Here it comes,” Clouseau said over the radio.

A transport helicopter arrived over the southern mountains: a CH-53 derivative frequently used in Western nations. It was painted flashily with orange bands over a white background, and the words “HUNTER AIR LINE” were written on the side. It was probably disguised as a civilian airline company cargo carrier.

The turboshaft engine roared out over the previously silent airport. Mao kept the M9 waiting in standby posture and dropped back out of it.

The helicopter circled as it descended slowly, kicking up clouds of sand around them. Before the rotors could even stop spinning, a passenger came out of the machine’s hatch.

It was a slender East Asian woman wearing a beige pantsuit. Mao knew her.

“Wraith?”

Wraith was the intelligence division agent who’d served as backup for Sousuke when he was guarding Chidori Kaname in Tokyo. She was also the one who had recovered the Arbalest’s core unit and delivered the Laevatein, built by Gavin Hunter and the research division, to Sousuke... So while Mao hadn’t had many chances to interact with her, she knew that, like Hunter, Wraith and Sousuke were on the same team. Lemon had said he’d lost track of her during an attack by Leonard on an operation in Moscow, but...

“Wraith!” Lemon called out, running up to the new arrival. He was beaming so brightly at her that Mao thought he might hug her. “Thank goodness you’re safe!” he declared. “How’d you get here?”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” said Wraith, who seemed far less happy about the reunion than he was. She turned the question back on him without a hint of a smile. “How exactly are you still alive?”

This took the wind right out of Lemon’s sails. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Well, it’s a long story...”

“I’m kidding,” Wraith said. “I’ve been briefed.”

“Oh, I see...”

When Mao approached, Wraith nodded to her as well. “Lieutenant Mao.”

“Glad to see you’re alive and well,” Mao told her.

“Thanks. You seem well also.” Wraith smiled at her, spurring a grumble from Lemon about unfair treatment. “I was arrested by the Moscow police after the attack, but fortunately they handed me over to the GRU. An instructor from my student days is a high-ranking officer there, so he let me go in exchange for information. If they’d turned me over to the KGB, I’d be freezing to death in a cell right now.”

The KGB and the GRU were the two foremost intelligence organizations in the Soviet Union. The KGB was mainly an extension of the Communist Party, but the GRU was a military organization, and conducted themselves accordingly. Put loosely, the KGB were politicians and the GRU were soldiers, and the GRU had actually been relatively—relatively—cooperative with Mithril in the past.

Still, it was impossible for Mao not to be alarmed at the thought of Wraith giving information to another organization. “What did you tell the GRU?”

“My reasons for looking into Yamsk-11, that kind of thing. Nothing that should make any trouble for you,” Wraith said reassuringly.

“Hmm...”

“I know you can’t trust my word on that, but the GRU just wanted a point of contact for Mithril,” Wraith said. “Their leader has considered Amalgam a threat for a while and wants to be rid of them as much as you do.”

“That’s nice and all, but then shouldn’t you be visiting Tessa right now?” Mao pointed out. “Of course, she’s currently at the bottom of the ocean, which does put a damper on things...”

“That’s actually not why I’m here,” Wraith told them. “I have two pieces of news... Do you have a table somewhere?”

“Of course we don’t. Let’s go over there.” Lemon walked briskly to the nearest container crate, while Mao and Wraith followed behind him.

Wraith unrolled a flexible electronic screen on top of the crate, before turning it on and tapping at it a few times to bring up a detailed map of the missile base that they were heading towards. “This is the latest info from the GRU,” she told them. “There’s information about the electronic locks and security systems inside the facility, as well as the firing system.”

The 3D blueprint provided even had handwritten English notes, assuredly written in by someone who knew the base well. It was far more detailed than the map that Mao and the others had used for planning.

“It’s amazing,” said Mao, playing with the information on the screen in fascination.

“Is it useful?” Wraith asked.

“Yes,” Mao told her. “If we’d charged in there with just the info we had before, we might’ve been in real trouble.”

“Glad to hear it. It felt dangerous to send the information online, so I got your location from Hunter and came running...”

“Why did the GRU give us this?” Mao wondered.

“Why else? They can’t handle the forces occupying the missile base by themselves,” Lemon put in.

“He’s right,” Wraith agreed. “They already tried a counterinsurgency, but it was totally annihilated by the enemy ASes.”

Mao groaned. “Typical. When the fire burns out of control, that’s where we come in. Always sticking us with the tough jobs.”

“But as they say, ‘Who Dares, Wins,’” said Clouseau, who had abruptly appeared behind them to peer at the map. “This will make our jobs a lot easier. Thank you, Wraith.”

“It’s nothing. Now, it’s not as important, but my other bit of news—” she began to say, but was interrupted by Clouseau shouting at the soldiers around him.

“Get over here! There’ll be a few changes in the plan!”

“Ah—”

“Sorry,” Clouseau said apologetically. “But if it’s not important, it can wait. I want to get our plan down first.” The members of the infantry units and their team leaders, Yang Jun-kyu and Roger Sandraptor, gathered around, as Clouseau began giving swift directives about changes in team composition, entry routes, and equipment. The team leaders repeated the changes and inquired about the details.

“...That is all,” he concluded at last. “Any other questions?”

Mao raised her hand. She didn’t have a question, but she’d decided this was probably the end of the briefing, and she had a few words for her comrades. “May I? It’s not a question, but...” She met Clouseau’s gaze. While he had come more recently to the West Pacific Battle Group, Mao was a true member of the old guard.

Clouseau probably realized that as well as she did, because he nodded to her as if to say, Do as you like.

Mao looked around at the people with whom she’d shared so much joy and pain. She knew all their faces well. They seemed relaxed on the surface, but they couldn’t hide it from Mao—they were all nervous as hell.

There were thirty-two of them there in total. There had been more once, but most had transferred away or dropped out, so that these were the only ones left to complete the mission. Of course, many had died or retired due to injury, as well.

“This will probably be our last operation,” said Mao, “so I want to say this to you all. Um...” she started, but couldn’t figure out what to say next. She felt she suddenly understood why Tessa had failed to come up with a good speech during her last ‘briefing.’ Still, her position wasn’t nearly as lofty, and so, like the unremarkable person she was, she could just make do with whatever came to mind.

Yes, she thought. How about this...

“This is a rough situation,” she continued out loud. “This upcoming mission will be difficult, and dangerous, and we probably don’t have the time to see it through. But there’s something that makes it all even worse. You know what it is?”

The men looked at her questioningly.

Mao said, “You assholes are gonna save the world.”

They all burst out laughing. Some slapped their knees, others held their stomachs. Some reeled back, clutching their foreheads. Some hung on the shoulders of their neighbors and guffawed. Clouseau smiled broadly and shook his head as well. But Lemon and Wraith, who were outsiders, didn’t seem to get the joke at all.

Mao grinned and continued speaking. “No seriously, what are we doing? Shouldn’t this be a job for a team that doesn’t suck?”

“Seriously... ha ha,” one man gasped. “Ah, seriously...”

“This is nuts... ha ha...”

“What are they thinking... ha ha...”

These were just a group of good-for-nothing mercenaries. Their natural role was to die on pointless missions, unknown and unsung. So, what the hell was happening here? On the verge of World War III, with billions of lives on the line, they were going to stop a nuclear missile launch? The whole thing was like a joke, and not even a particularly funny one.

“But...” Mao said, after letting the laughter die down. “Our lives leading up to this haven’t been for nothing. All your training, your operations, your sacrifices...they’ve all had meaning.”

Our sacrifices...

The whole group nodded, with some murmuring their agreement.

“The dead are probably smiling at us from the afterlife,” one of the soldiers said.

“I bet Kurz has got a few choice words,” someone else agreed. “He’ll be wishing for us to fail without him, I bet.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, there’s no way he’s rooting for us.”

The troops still laughed to each other, but it was a sad kind of laughter now.

“So, let’s make this thing a roaring success and disappoint the hell out of Kurz!” Mao proclaimed.

“Yeah,” someone cheered. “Let’s disappoint Kurz!”

“Disappoint Kurz!”

“Don’t give that bastard what he wants!” the soldiers all echoed.

“I’m done, Ben,” Mao said.

“Good work,” he told her. “Now, let’s get ready to move out!”

The whole team went back to work. But now they were overflowing with vim and vigor. Their footsteps became steadier, their tones more forceful, and they seemed to be ready for the task before them.

“Disappoint Kurz” is a good rallying cry, Mao thought. They all knew he wouldn’t have really wished for them to fail, but grown adults would feel embarrassed saying, “let’s do it for Kurz.” And it probably wasn’t only Kurz they were thinking of; he was just the most recent of the dead, a stand-in for all those who had come before.

“Disappoint Kurz, huh?” she whispered again, and then laughed quietly to herself. Kurz, she thought. You were an amazing sniper, but you were useful now and then in other areas, too... I should thank you. I hope you watch us from the afterlife, beer in hand, with all the other guys, getting more annoyed by the minute...

“Oh, by the way, Wraith,” Mao said to the nearby woman as she snapped out of her reverie. “You said there was something else you had to tell us. What was it?”

Wraith didn’t answer. She just stood there awkwardly, sweat beading on her forehead, as if struggling with something difficult to say. She’d been listening calmly the entire time otherwise, but for some reason towards the end, she’d begun looking nervous.

“Wraith?” Mao asked again.

“Huh? Ah... right. What is it?”

“You said you had something else to tell us. What was it?”

“Um, t-tell you?” Wraith hedged. “Er...”

“What is it? You’re not looking well...”

“I’m not? It’s... it’s probably the weather. The air’s so thin here...”

“Yeah, true,” Mao agreed. “So, what’s the thing? Ben’s probably busy, but you can tell me.”

“Ah... er. It’s... It’s not important. Forget about it.”

“What? Why?”

“I mean it,” Wraith said in a rush. “You’re all so fired up; I don’t want to do anything to ruin that.”

“How would you ruin it?”

“Just forget it; I was wrong! It’s not important,” Wraith said dismissively. “I hope the GRU’s information is useful. Goodbye.”

“Um, wait a—”

Ignoring Mao’s attempts to stop her, Wraith swiftly walked away.

Once all the equipment and troops were on board, the transport took off from the small Tibetan airport. Because it was such a short-distance liftoff, it had to use a strapped-on disposable rocket booster, which added to the roar of takeoff.

Lemon watched the plane carrying Mao and the others go, then went to help the resupply team with clean-up. While they worked, he spotted Wraith, who had also stayed behind. She was standing at the edge of the airfield, talking to someone on a satellite phone.

He didn’t know who she was talking to, but she seemed to be desperately trying to pacify them.

“... and that’s what happened… No, I didn’t tell them. Why? I didn’t have a choice! No, it’s not that... The team was just so hyped up, it would have ruined everything! Ah, so... it’s okay, just don’t do anything. Actually, put a bullet through your own head and die,” she suggested. “That might be the best possible outcome. I’ll talk to Colonel Kiryenko about it. ...What? Like I care. ...Anyway, you understand? ...Oh, shut up. I’m hanging up!” she said, then did so. “Heaven’s sake... These people are nothing but trouble,” Wraith muttered while pocketing the phone.

The curious Lemon spoke up from behind her. “Hey.”

“Nn?!” Wraith cringed, apparently not having noticed him behind her until now. “Oh... Lemon. What is it?”

“You were acting weird in front of Mao-san and the others,” he observed. “Who were you talking to just now?”

“Ah...” Wraith hesitated. “Well, you won’t be able to talk to them until the operation’s over, so I suppose I can tell you.”

“Uh-huh...”

“The truth is... there was another bit of information I was supposed to pass on,” said Wraith, explaining the situation.

Lemon listened, nodding along as she went on. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that really would’ve ruined everything...”

“I couldn’t tell them. It’s just too damned awkward,” she muttered, and manipulated her satellite phone to procure a line to someone else.

“Who’re you calling?” Lemon wanted to know.

“Hunter,” she told him shortly. Wraith had a short exchange with Hunter, during which her expression gradually began to darken.

“Some kind of problem?” Lemon asked after she finished the call.

“He’s got an ETA for when the nuclear launch codes will be deciphered,” she said. “Three hours.”

“Sooner than expected.”

They’d have to input a highly secure launch code in order to fire the nuclear missiles, but the system had a safety mechanism designed to resist outside electronic input, and infinite combinations weren’t allowed either. An attempt to activate the firing mechanism independently would cause the missile launch circuit to fry itself, and if that happened, another launch couldn’t be attempted without getting a replacement from a highly regulated facility two thousand kilometers away.

The information the GRU provided had probably clarified the number of digits used in the firing code and the makeup of the safety device. Hunter’s team would have used that to speculate how long it would take for Amalgam to acquire the launch code, given the code-cracking skills they’d displayed in the past. It was just an estimate, of course, but...

Three hours, Lemon thought. Then he asked, “Is that an optimistic scenario?”

“I’m afraid so,” Wraith admitted. “It could also happen sooner.”

It would take a little under two hours for the force that just left to arrive at their destination. If the estimated time was exactly accurate, Mao and the others would still have little time to act. An hour or less to storm that mountain fortress...

“I hope they can do it,” he said.

Wraith didn’t say anything. She wasn’t one for platitudes, and this was no time for them.

“I wonder if being this far out in the country will let us escape nuclear war, too,” Lemon mumbled.

“Hey,” she objected.

“Just kidding,” said Lemon. “Let’s go.”

The preparations to withdraw were proceeding smoothly around them. The machinery had all been loaded onto the transport helicopter, whose engine was now roaring as the resupply crew carried out their checklists and began to board.

“We’d better get things ready in case they pull it off,” he concluded.

●

They were down to the finishing touches. Kaname had been holed up in the TARTAROS’s external control room since yesterday, immersed in the final rewrites of the control code. The work of constructing the TARTAROS was almost completely finished, and the only people still on-site were those needed for the final checks. It would take the geothermal generator a few hours yet to finish building up the power they needed, but these last touches to the control code should be finished by then.

Kaname hadn’t slept much these past two days. She sometimes took a nap on the bench set outside the control room, or ate a sandwich one of her underlings brought her, but otherwise she was going entirely without sleep and sustenance. Nobody was forcing her to do it that way; this was what she wanted to do. She enjoyed readying the device to perfection so much that she didn’t even miss sleep.

The TARTAROS was revolutionary. It would free humanity from the ties of time and history that had held it captive for so long and give her control of destiny itself. She was proud to make it a reality, to take on the role of the world’s guiding force. They can just leave it all to me, she thought. I’ll make sure everyone is happy.

She’d been riding a warm cloud of elation since their return from Yamsk-11, always bustling with activity and untroubled by regret. But her physical body was less enthused. She found herself hit by periodic waves of lethargy and occasional gaps in her raging torrents of ideas.

Kaname suddenly realized that she was staring blankly at the ceiling. She’d stopped typing. “Ah... that’s no good,” she said, blinking rapidly, and then slapped her cheeks to reinvigorate herself. This has happened a few times now, she thought. A little nap now might be better for my efficiency as a whole.

That was when she noticed a strange set of words had appeared at the end of the iota wave virtual lens alignment script she’d been working on. It read:

anta ha atasi jya nai

It’s Japanese, she realized. This PC didn’t have Japanese language input, so it was in Latin script. It meant, “You are not me,” which made no sense... Who would do something like this? Kaname wondered. She hadn’t written it herself. Still, she was the only one working with that script...

I must have written them in a sleep-deprived daze, then, she decided. But it still made no sense. The TARTAROS was all she thought about, asleep or awake. So where had these words come from?

‘You are not me’...

“Hm...” A rising fit of irritation and rage caused her to click her tongue. She didn’t quite know where it came from, but she suddenly felt an urge to grab the monitor and throw it on the floor. It’s stupid, she thought next. Just ridiculous. Where did those words come from? I am me! Don’t say things that make no sense, you... you...

Who? Who am I... angry at?

“Ah... what’s going on?” She covered her face in her hands and let out a long groan.

This feeling... This unpleasant feeling, like someone, somewhere, is screaming at me, trying to hold me back at every turn...

That’s right, she realized. This has happened before. The first time was on the plane from Yamsk-11 to Merida Island. That strange feeling washed over me, and I suddenly began crying... those very unpleasant tears... The second, more striking time was when she’d tried to accept Leonard’s proposition.

One month ago, Leonard had paid her a visit while she was relaxing in her room. He’d come by to discuss technical matters, but she had invited him to the sofa and poured him a cup of black tea. He’d been extremely gentlemanly with her since they’d returned from Yamsk-11, not overstepping his bounds even once.

But that night was different. He’d taken her hand, and she hadn’t tried to stop him. It had been the middle of the night.

Perhaps it’s time to reward his devotion, she’d thought. The old me always rejected him without a second thought. But the poor man... I can’t just leave this world behind without giving him something.

“Just one night,” she’d told him, and for some reason his smile had turned sad. But that didn’t mean he’d backed away or hesitated. As he’d surely done to many women before her, he gently embraced her, and put his lips to hers...

Then the feeling had hit her.

It wasn’t self-loathing, or disgust with Leonard. It was more like a sense of... wrongness. A highly unpleasant feeling, like someone was hanging over her shoulder, angry—righteously angry.

She’d averted her eyes from Leonard and, while hiding her confusion, could only say, “I’m sorry, let’s not after all.”

He’d just said, “All right,” and left the room... And that had been that. He’d never tried to lay a hand on her again.

Why do I feel this way? Kaname wondered. I am me. I think for myself and make my own decisions. I’m following my heart. Yet for some reason, a doubt—a feeling of, “No, you aren’t”—kept rising up out of nowhere and needling her.

Forget it, she told herself. I’m just tired. After all, she hadn’t pulled all-nighters like this since the preparations for the school festival. Maybe it was time she got some proper sleep already.

“All right, let’s take that nap,” she decided, then stood up. It feels good to make decisions like that. That’s what it means to be me. There are no issues here at all. I’ll lie down for just an hour or so. It’s probably going to be my last sleep in this world, after all. I should really enjoy it.

She told the security guards outside the control room that she was going to take a nap, and then lay down on the bench.

There were fifty nautical miles left, and the US Navy stood between the Tuatha de Danaan and Merida Island.

The sonar room reported a submarine: bearing 0-8-6; distance eighteen nautical miles; course 2-6-5; speed ten knots. Designation Mike-5. It was so far away that they couldn’t tell the ship name yet, but it was definitely one of the new Los Angeles-classes.

“It’s like they were waiting for us,” Mardukas said.

“Yes,” said Tessa, whispering her agreement. “I expect there to be another three nearby.”

Four West Pacific Fleet submarines, she thought bleakly. There were probably other surface ships waiting nearby as well, and they had all been ordered to sink the Tuatha de Danaan—what they called the ‘Toy Box.’ Tessa had gotten that information from Rear Admiral Thomas Ross, one of the now-retired older officers that had joined them at the banquet a year ago in Guam. He used to command the Pacific Submarine Fleet, and had various connections in Hawaii control.

Through an encrypted channel, Admiral Ross had told Tessa that the office of the current Secretary of Defense had forced through the order to attack the Toy Box. The secretary was believed to be an Amalgam sympathizer, and had apparently used the chaos of the last few weeks of the US—Soviet conflict to push the president to give it the green light.

Command had quietly continued to harbor doubts about this order. They didn’t like having their precious forces diverted to a strategically meaningless area of operations to hunt the Toy Box while the Soviet Navy was mobilizing their Far East Fleet. Still, orders were orders. They wouldn’t be allowed to question them, let alone ignore them.

And so, they’d come to hunt the de Danaan. Despite everything, they’d take the order seriously. Tessa couldn’t expect a hint of mercy from them.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” Admiral Ross had said at the time. “They found out that Roy made off with an M6 and put him on house arrest, and John evaded a military police investigation and is currently AWOL. If Jerry were still alive, he might be able to help you, but...”

Jerry was his nickname for Admiral Jerome Borda, former head of the Mithril operations division. He was thought to have died in the attack on the Sydney headquarters, though the blast had been so powerful that his body had never been found.

After feeling the pain of losing her own father one year ago, Tessa had also had to suffer the loss of Admiral Borda, who had been like a second father to her. Ah, stop it... she told herself. Forget those old officers and focus on the enemy ships.

Tessa turned back to the information displayed on her front screen. The Los Angeles-class had its back to them right now, while patrolling the region in an S-formation. It was probably using a towed array sonar, so while it hadn’t spotted them yet, if the de Danaan kept moving on their current trajectory, they’d be detected sooner or later. Not even they could avoid making any noise at all when cruising along at such a high speed—fifty knots was as fast as a torpedo. To avoid enemy detection, they’d have to slow down and dive lower, which would be like going from a jog to a crawl.

With sufficient caution, they could reach Merida Island unnoticed and avoid a shootout with the US Navy. But that would also severely delay their arrival time. One hour, fifty minutes was her rough estimate, and that was the absolute minimum amount of time that diving would add to their ETA.

One hour and fifty minutes, Tessa pondered. Is that an acceptable delay?

They had a rough estimate of the Afghanistan time limit, but no information on how long it would take to activate the TAROS on Merida Island. They could only speculate based on recon satellite data, and Tessa was the only one who might even be able to hazard a guess. She wasn’t certain herself, but knew that they couldn’t have much time left. Leonard and Kalinin would have seen to that. They had to hurry.

Besides, she thought next, are the US Navy really the only ones protecting the island? Not possible; Amalgam had its own navy. The data Kaname had left them in Mexico had included information on those aquatic ASes, the Leviathans. They’d probably see some of those soon, too. This meant that the US Navy submarines were more like the dogs on a fox hunt: avoiding them would probably send the de Danaan right into the thick of an ambush.

In that case... Tessa made up her mind. “Battle stations,” she commanded succinctly.

“Aye, aye, ma’am. Battle stations!” Mardukas repeated. The sub’s AI, Dana, blared the warning throughout the vessels. The control room screens all went red and the words ‘BATTLE STATIONS’ began to scroll across them. Of course, given how few people there were on board, most of them were already where they needed to be.

Tessa gave the order. “Come left to 0-3-0. Full ahead.” She’d decided that they wouldn’t run or hide. Instead, she had ordered them to accelerate and plow right into the side of the enemy ship.

“Come left to 0-3-0,” Mardukas echoed. “Full ahead, aye.”

Sousuke, standing beside her, looked quietly stunned by the order. That was understandable, but Mardukas didn’t look surprised at all.

“Hmm?” said Tessa. “You don’t object?”

“No, ma’am,” he answered. “In chess terms, this is what we call a gambit.” A gambit was an aggressive play style that threw your pieces at the opponent with no concern for defense. “It’s my specialty, in fact. So no, I do not object,” he said, stone-faced. Tessa had thought that after all this time spent with him, she’d understood what kind of person Mardukas was, but it seemed he could still surprise her. “So, Captain,” he said. “What comes next?”

“They’ll notice us soon, I expect,” Tessa told him. “Let’s proceed on course until they do.”

Their current speed was sixty knots, which was double the standard submarine speed. They were an incredible mass moving at incredible speed: a 4400-ton submarine, barreling through the ocean at about 108 kilometers per hour. The fluid control system of the EMFC couldn’t completely cancel out the turbulence around them, and the faster the giant vessel moved, the more powerful the shaking around them became.

One of them against ten or more enemy vessels. Realizing it would likely be a difficult battle, Tessa addressed Sousuke. “Sagara-san.”

“Yes?”

“You’re dismissed,” she told him. “Stand by with Al in Elevator Zero.” She was referring to the large elevator in the hangar, which they used to convey ASes to the flight deck. Tessa was telling him to board the Laevatein and be ready to leave at any time.

“Ah...” Sousuke didn’t say ‘yes, ma’am,’ immediately. She could sense an uncertainty within him from that moment’s hesitation, as if he was asking if it was all right for him to leave so abruptly.

Tessa felt the same way, knowing that this might be his last deployment. She might never see him again. In light of all that, was her blunt order enough? Wasn’t there something else she wanted to say to him?

The enemy submarine hasn’t reacted yet, Tessa realized. I have a little time. But what to say? What do I want to say to him? After a period of silence, she finally gave him a quiet smile and said, “Give my regards to Kaname-san.”

Various complicated emotions surfaced briefly on Sousuke’s face: Gratitude, respect, caution, fear, and also guilt—they all blended together in that momentary expression, then vanished. “All right, then,” he managed to say. He added, “Goodbye,” and then left the control room.

With the rest of the crew looking, Tessa couldn’t even turn to watch him go. It would be a lie to say she didn’t feel a little heartbroken. She couldn’t say she had no regrets. They had never even been so close that she could properly say, I loved him once, yet she was sure her yearning for him had been real.

Why, then, Tessa wondered, don’t I feel any true sorrow in this moment? Well, it’s only natural, she finally told herself. It’ll come once things calm down.

Thanks to Sousuke, I was able to enjoy feeling like a real girl my age for a while, Tessa briefly reflected. Just a few years ago, she’d thought she would go her entire life never feeling this way. Thank you. Give my best to Kaname-san. That was all that she’d been able to say to him.

Less than a minute after he was gone, she received a report from her sonar technician. “Con, sonar. Mike-5 has changed course to 3-0-5 and increased speed to fifteen knots.”

For now, she reminded herself, it’s time for battle. Driving thoughts of Sousuke from her mind, Tessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She focused, then opened her eyes.

Information began to stream across her front screen.

Teletha Testarossa was about to begin the greatest unrecorded underwater battle in history.