5: Into the Blue

28 August, 0500 Hours (Greenwich Mean Time)

USS Pasadena, West Pacific Ocean

“An alarm, you say?” Captain Sailor was dubious about his ST’s report.

“Yes, sir. Bearing 1-5-8, below the thermal layer. No clear sounds of propulsion, but it’s moving... probably southeast to northwest. And quickly, at that...”

“Let’s hear it, then.” He took the man’s headset and put it to his ear. He could hear a siren blaring like a wild beast’s howl; behind it was a calm, feminine voice. It was saying something in English, but it was too soft to make it out.

“Hmm...” Captain Sailor found himself pondering. Could someone have had an accident? The noise had to be coming from some kind of submarine. He could tell that it was moving quickly, and so quietly that the siren was the only thing giving them away; there was no detectable cavitation, even to the Pasadena’s powerful sonar array. On top of that, the Pasadena was the only submarine he knew about in the area. Which meant the sound had to be coming from—

“Captain, it must be the Toy Box!” XO Takenaka said, beating him to the punch.

Sailor grimaced, hackles up. “Why do you always... No, I think I know.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it,” Sailor grumbled. “So the damned thing’s shown its ass, at last. All ahead one-third, increase depth to 180! We’re setting a trap for the Toy Box!”

“Aye, sir. All ahead one-third! Make your depth 180!” The Pasadena rose slowly to a shallower depth in order to better hide itself behind the veil of seawater.

Main Hangar, Tuatha de Danaan

An ear-splitting alarm sounded out accompanied by AI warnings. The crew, awakened by the commotion, flooded into the main hangar en masse. There was no fear in their expressions; just confusion, and a sort of weariness. They moved briskly enough as they handed out oxygen masks and life preservers, and they’d get top marks in efficiency in the transfer of all weapons and ammunition closer to the bow for safety, but there was still a lot of grumbling and complaining all the while.

That Testarossa girl has a sick sense of humor, making us run fire drills at this hour—That was the feeling that pervaded the crew.

《All crew evacuate to fore, main hangar. Repeat. There is a fire in the second engine room. This is a drill. Move to first compartment—》The announcement described a fire in the engine room at the far back end of the submarine that was producing a great deal of smoke and toxic gas, and an additional loss of reactor control that was creating dangerous neutron leakage. It was the kind of catastrophic situation that could only happen if the AI or the captain lost their minds. Preparedness was all well and good, of course, but...

It’s odd, Sousuke thought, and many of his fellow NCOs—and a handful of officers—seemed to share the sentiment. They had a crucial hostage on board, and US military ships might still be in the local waters. Who would hold a fire drill under conditions like these? Why would that brilliant girl play around with them like this?

Sousuke was running, weaving in and out among the 200 busy crew members who currently packed the main hangar. Chidori... where’s Chidori? he wondered. He couldn’t find her. He accosted various sailors to ask, but none of them had seen her. Not even Private Kasuya, the cook, could account for her whereabouts.

At last, he approached the door that would take him to the submarine’s aft. The man standing there, a first lieutenant, stopped him. “Sorry! We’re about to lock down here!” In the drill’s scenario, there was currently poison gas on the way.

“Our guest—Chidori Kaname is missing,” Sousuke told him. “You need to let me find her!”

“No! Anyone still beyond this door is dead!” The first lieutenant declared—referring to the scenario’s fiction, of course.

“But—”

“If you see her later, tell her she died,” the first lieutenant said, cutting him off. “Now stand down; that’s an order!”

“But—”

“I said, that’s an order!” The lieutenant initiated the closure of the heavy, watertight door. The power of an independent servo motor caused the 40cm slab of metal to turn, slowly. The closing of this door—which was practically unbreachable once locked—would completely seal off their half of the sub from the aft.

Sousuke had a bad feeling about this: the suspicious fire drill; the silence from Tessa; the presence of Gauron; the absence of Chidori Kaname... But his commanding officer had told him to stay put, and he couldn’t defy orders. Sousuke stood stock still, watching the door close. Kaname was on the other side.

“Chidori...” An inexplicable feeling overwhelmed him—If I don’t go, I’ll never see her again. Sousuke remembered her face, the last time they’d met. Her eyes, gray with despair and despondency.

Then, the words she had said... I’m worried about you, okay? But you just...

And yet, here I am again, with a decision to make. If I let “orders” stop me... Sousuke was through the door in an instant.

“Ah, hey!” the first lieutenant shouted. “You!”

The watertight hatch closed behind Sousuke a second later, followed by the sliding of thick cylinders within. There was a tinny buzzing and the sound of an electromagnetic lock snapping sharply into place. All at once, the noise of the hangar was gone, leaving only the alarm.

Before him stood nothing but empty passageway; red emergency lamps blinked in the dim light. Sousuke only got about ten steps before he noticed a man in battledress, standing in the doorway to one of the crew quarters. He was leaning against the frame, his arms folded. It was Kurz Weber.

“Kurz?” Sousuke ventured cautiously.

“You sure you want to go against orders?” Kurz asked, his eyes on the ground.

“If you think it’s so bad, then why are you here?”

“I’m not exactly the follow-the-herd type. Especially when it comes to that evacuation drill crap.”

“Is that all?” Sousuke wanted to know.

“Yeah, that’s all.” Kurz snorted. “But... I didn’t think you’d be the one joining me.”

“Is it strange?”

“Heh... no, maybe not. Maybe it’s totally expected.”

The two finally made eye contact, and there was no awkwardness at all.

“I think something’s wrong,” said Sousuke, after a beat.

“Yeah. I can’t find McAllen,” Kurz agreed. “And it’s not just him... I asked Auntie Peggy, and she said Mao’d gone missing from the sick bay.”

Kurz must have noticed something off about the alarm, too. Something was wrong—Sousuke felt sure of that, now.

Kurz approached Sousuke and slapped him on the back. “Ready to roll?”

“Sure,” Sousuke said shortly, and the two of them took off running. They had no weapons, no information, and a lot of ground to cover, even if they were limited to the aft. Visibility was poor, and they were completely on their own.

But, at the very least, they were the best team on the boat.

The Tuatha de Danaan was an enormous, complex structure, but it had two clearly delineated halves: the fore and the aft. The fore contained the hangar, torpedo and missile tubes, munitions room, and other “weapon”-related functions. The aft contained the control room, engine room, reactor, crew quarters, mess, and other “boat”-related functions. The two were separated by a thick, sturdy partition, so that even if one half took catastrophic damage and got flooded, the other half would remain safe.

Gauron’s evacuation order had moved everyone to the hangar in the fore, but the control room was in the aft; in other words, he’d cut them off from the crew.

Tessa’s people weren’t stupid, but they weren’t about to ignore an emergency evacuation order, either. They would do what they were told without objection. Once the evacuation was complete, they would close the door, and the mother AI, Dana, would seal the two halves off from each other. It would then be impossible to open the door from the hangar side.

“In other words, no help is coming,” Gauron concluded.

The crew in the control room—Tessa and Kaname excepted—had been handcuffed together in a chain in the corner. They couldn’t charge them now, even if the wanted to.

“So it seems I’m fully in control,” Gauron gloated. “Smart thinking, eh?”

“I don’t agree,” Tessa said, coldly. “There are ASes in the hangar, and a monomolecular cutter could tear through the partition. Then dozens of my subordinates could storm the control room, fully armed.”

“Oh, of course,” he agreed. “Which is why I was about to do this. AI-kun?”

《Yes, Captain?》

“Reverse life support to the fore, would you?”

《Aye, sir.》

Reverse life support—in other words, he was going to stop the flow of oxygen to that side of the submarine. Most of her crew—200 people—were on that side. If he did that, they would all eventually die of asphyxiation. “Don’t!” she cried.

“But I have to,” Gauron argued. “I need to put a check on those clever subordinates of yours, so they don’t go concocting some little scheme on me.”

“They’ll all die first,” Tessa pleaded. “You have to give them oxygen, at least a little bit!”

“I wouldn’t give orders, if I were you,” Gauron advised her coldly. “Try that again, and I might really overload the reactor... or I’ll send the boat into somersaults, that might be fun. Or maybe I could take it deeper and deeper until it’s crushed by the pressure...” he cackled.

The boat was currently running on full autonomous mode, meaning that it was under the complete control of Dana. That made Gauron’s threats more than just sick jokes; he had the power to make them reality. The sophisticated digitalization of the Tuatha de Danaan’s systems meant that—within limits—it could function entirely under one person’s command.

Of course, running it this way meant utilizing only the bare minimum of the vessel’s potential. A crew of a few dozen specialists was required to correctly interpret prodigious amounts of data, analyze situations, and make smart calls. Even just for moving the rudder, an experienced helm officer was better than a computer; maintenance checks, too, had to be done by human hands.

The boat’s greatest assets—the superconductive drive and electromagnetic fluid control system—also needed a proper crew to function. Full autonomous mode put all of that under the purview of one AI, which could introduce inefficiencies that specialists would avoid, cause fatal accidents, and make strategic blunders. The control mode was there for worst case scenarios, but it left them wide open to detection, even from standard battleships.

Even beyond the imminent danger to everyone in the hangar, sooner or later, the entire submarine would be at risk.

I need to do something... Tessa told herself. The weight of her crew had never felt so heavy on her shoulders before. Her people were going to die. The men and women with whom she had shared so many highs and lows. Every single one of them...

Even with all that dizzying pressure, Tessa continued to rack her brain. The vessel’s AI, Dana, currently considered Gauron the captain. There was no way to change that through normal procedures, because doing so would require Gauron’s approval. This meant she would have to take back control of Dana at the root.

Dana’s core was located in the central computer room known as the Lady Chapel. It contained a special device that Tessa could use to merge her consciousness with the submarine; this would let her operate the submarine directly and take control back from Dana and Gauron. Her actual control would be as limited as the autonomous mode’s, of course, but if she could save the crew in the hangar, they could probably get things back to normal soon enough. Merging with the submarine was a dangerous task, and they’d never tried it on maneuvers before, but it was the only option available.

The question was, how to do it? The Lady Chapel was on deck three, one floor down from their current location. It was close, structurally speaking, but Tessa’d have to take detours to get there—She’d also need the universal key, located in her quarters, if she wanted to get inside. Could she really give Gauron and his men the slip, and then travel all that way?

She did have a gun they didn’t know about yet: a German .22-caliber pistol, hidden underneath her chair. It was small, with only seven rounds, and it barely had enough power to put down a small dog. Would it really be enough to get her past three professional combatants?

It wouldn’t. They’d catch her or kill her—one or the other—immediately. Tessa wasn’t especially good with a gun, and worse, she was slow. Her lack of athleticism was critical, and couldn’t be overcome with gumption alone.

Still, she was the only one on board who could fuse with the submarine in the Lady Chapel, take control of Dana, and temporarily act in her place. Only her, a Whispered. No one else in the crew could do it. No one else—

Wait, she thought, and turned to the person sitting right next to her…

Kaname, who had been watching things quietly up until now, felt an internal jolt of surprise. Tessa was looking at her. There was something strange in her expression, as if she were holding her at gunpoint. Her usually beautiful eyes were wide open and desperate; signs of mental strain and indecision flitted in and out them. It was as if she was commanding her to die.

She’s about to push something on me... something serious, Kaname realized, instinctively. She looked around in silence.

Gauron was sitting on a console a little ways away, eating some ham slices. The large man known as Dunnigan occasionally looked in Kaname’s direction and grinned, while the one called Nguyen leaned against one of the control room’s two entrances, smoking a cigarette.

After a moment, Tessa gently took Kaname’s hand. Her delicate fingers were soaked in sweat. When she released her, Kaname felt two things enclosed in her palm—a strip of paper, and a small key.

Hey, what are you— she began to think, and then she heard the voice.

That’s the key to my safe. It was Tessa’s voice... wasn’t it? No, nobody was speaking—not even whispering. Neither Gauron nor Dunnigan nor Nguyen nor any of the rest of the crew had said anything, nor did they notice anything being said.

There was only Tessa, her unfocused eyes gazing emptily in the direction of the front screen. ...cus. Focus... This is... resonance. Feel it...

Huh? Kaname felt the sensation of something seeping deep into her mind, something soft and pliant. A set of thoughts, unknown to her, that echoed through her skull.

Take another key from the safe... the universal key, Tessa thought at her. Find the Lady Chapel... on the third deck... and then do this... resonate... again...

Wait, Kaname thought back at her. What’s the Lady Chapel?

It’s about to begin... Tessa replied. We’ll have to... gamble...

What are you talking about? What’s the key for? Hey! Hey! Hey?! Kaname gasped when she realized she had shouted that last “Hey!” out loud.

Gauron and the others looked at her suspiciously. “‘Hey,’ what?” he asked, while chewing on a bite of ham.

“Oh... w-well...” Kaname stammered, barely managing to palm the key and the paper. Beside her, Tessa let out a sigh; deep, but not quite hopeless.

“Now I’m curious. Why would you shout out ‘hey’? Nothing happened to prompt it. I’d love for you to tell me. How about it?” Gauron came closer. His pace was relaxed. His gaze fell on Kaname’s closed fist. “What do you have there? Show me.”

Kaname said nothing.

“I said, show me,” he told her flatly. “Didn’t you hear?” Kaname just stood there, motionless, as he reached for her arm.

Then, Tessa took action. There was a small pistol in her trembling hand. She turned the gun to Gauron and, with her eyes almost closed, she pulled the trigger. A light, sharp gunshot echoed through the control room. Gauron lurched back, clutching his neck.

“Kaname-san, run!” Tessa cried, and fired repeatedly at Nguyen, who stood in the doorway. Her shots were wild and reckless, but the man instinctively threw himself to the floor—a less remarkable soldier might have stayed upright and taken a bullet for his trouble.

In a move that shocked even herself, Kaname didn’t hesitate—she went right into a full sprint. Answering the question of why Tessa had a gun, processing the fact that she’d shot someone, wondering where to actually go—she could save all that for later. Even a moment’s hesitation now would mean her death; that was one thing she knew clearly.

As she slipped past the staggering Gauron, Dunnigan flew at Kaname from behind. His hand lashed out and grabbed her parka. There was a sound of ripping cloth, and Dunnigan was left holding her sleeve, which had been torn off at the shoulder.

I can do this, she told herself. I can escape. This was the part where most people would stumble and fall, but Kaname, displaying a remarkable sense of balance, managed to right herself and continue straight for the exit. When she reached Nguyen, who was just getting up, she used a chair as a springboard, vaulted over him, and slipped out the door. On her way out, she saw a bullet spark on the wall right beside her.

“Stop!” roared Dunnigan, the one who had fired.

But Kaname refused. She left the control room behind to run low through the hallway, as fast as she could. Bullets ricocheted over her head, but she ignored them. She rounded the corner, then kept on with all her might. Heavy steps pursued from behind, followed by a ferocious roar.

“You little brat!” Dunnigan yelled. “I’ll murder you!”

The world around her blurred. It didn’t stop Kaname’s running, but she realized she was crying. The fate of Tessa whom she’d left behind, the question of what would happen to her next, the loss of her brand new parka—all of these things were fueling her tears.

“Hey,” Sousuke said, and Kurz stopped in his tracks.

Kurz, holding a sturdy metal pipe in one hand, looked up at the ceiling of the corridor with narrowed eyes. “That sounded... like a gun,” he mused. “Probably a .22-caliber seven-shot... A Walther, I think?”

“It came from the control room,” Sousuke agreed.

“Shit. I knew it.”

“Let’s hurry.”

“Yeah, got it,” Kurz grumbled. “But... it’s like a damned maze in here.”

They were on the fourth deck, where a seemingly endless series of locked watertight doors continued to confound their progress. They couldn’t just head straight to the control room; they had to continually search for routes that weren’t blocked off. Dead end after dead end steered them along an infuriatingly circuitous path.

“Most of the boat is currently under Dana’s control,” Sousuke said grimly.

“Yeah. I bet I know why, too,” Kurz agreed. “But... all this tech sure makes our lives easier, huh? Damn.”

“Anyway, we’ll just have to run.”

“You said it.”

The both of them hurried on.

Kaname’s spontaneity had surprised everyone in the control room. One minute she was just a girl trembling in Tessa’s shadow, and the next, she was sprinting for the door. Unfazed by the sound of gunshots, she’d gotten past two trained combatants, and dashed off like the wind. It seemed to have caught Gauron and his men flat-footed, as well. It was, in all honesty, a stunning display of agility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah... ah...” Tessa choked out.

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

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

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

“What about you?” Nguyen asked.

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

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

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

《Aye, sir.》

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

“Wh-What are you—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tessa’s jaw dropped.

《Aye, sir.》

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

“Oh, will they?” he taunted.

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

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

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

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

“Stop it, Dana!” Tessa yelled.

《Aye, sir. Flooding.》

“Open tubes one and two,” he went on.

“Stop it!” she begged. “Please!”

《Aye, sir. Tubes are open.》

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

“No—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surface, West Pacific Ocean

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deck 4, Aft, Tuatha de Danaan

No one was there. She was alone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Son of a bitch...” Kurz snarled.

“It came from the galley,” Sousuke said.

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

“Nguyen?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nguyen was right; he wouldn’t let them go. And Kaname was in danger...

“Sousuke, here’s the plan,” Kurz called. Nguyen would be able to hear them, so he was speaking in Japanese. “I’ll draw this bastard’s fire. Use that opening to book it down the stairs.”

“By yourself?” Sousuke questioned. “But—”

“No arguing,” Kurz said shortly. “Kaname needs help. Go.”

Sousuke hesitated. “Got it,” he conceded, at last.

“Tell her you’re sorry, okay?” Kurz grinned. Sousuke nodded and got ready to run.

“What’re you two whispering about?” Nguyen’s footsteps came closer.

From the safety of the door, Kurz threw the pipe in their direction. “Go!”

The second he called out, Sousuke dashed into the passageway.

The large man approached, grinning, knife in hand. Kaname grabbed a folding chair and threw it at him, but Dunnigan batted it aside. She managed to climb to her feet and kept backing off, realizing for the first time that she was in the mess hall.

“Go on, keep running,” Dunnigan instructed her, coming closer. There was no mercy in his eyes. Her terror just seemed to delight him.

She ran into the galley, banged her hip on a table, and stumbled. No, it’s okay. I’m not finished yet. There are knives in the galley... rolling pins... frying pans...

Heavy footsteps followed. Behind her, the man entered the galley through the door. Kaname found a can of pepper on a shelf and threw it. It hit his chest, causing the powder within to spray everywhere, but Dunnigan just grinned and inhaled deeply through his nostrils.

Kaname was shocked. But she remembered hearing Sousuke talk about how, with enough training, a person could resist certain doses of tear gas... And of course, this man was a trained soldier.

“Sousuke...” she whispered. Where is he now? There’s no way he’ll come to save me. The cold way he looked at me. He thinks I’m a burden...

“Nowhere left to run, not anymore,” Dunnigan taunted her.

Kaname threw a bowl. It bounced off of him. She threw a spoon. It did nothing. She found a chef’s knife, and threw it with all her might. But despite what movies had taught her, it didn’t stick—it hit him handle-first and fell onto the floor.

“Stay back!” she yelled.

“No chance of that,” he chucked at her. “No chance.”

She looked into the mess through the galley window; no one was there. No help was coming.

Dunnigan charged, and it was like a tsunami bearing down on her. He drove her helplessly to the end of the long, narrow galley, then thrust her back and pinned her against the wall. She could feel the power of the man’s arm, the steel of his trained muscles, the stifling smell of his sweat.

She couldn’t breathe. She struggled. It hurt, and she fought to speak.

“You listen to me, now,” Dunnigan instructed. “I can’t stand Orientals. You Chinese, especially... you killed Nick. My Nick! You know how humiliating it was... having to salute someone like you?!”

The man was frothing with rage. Nick... who’s that? she wondered. An old battle comrade? Kaname didn’t have time to consider it any further. The man continued to grip her by the neck while he brandished his knife in his other hand. His eyes danced with madness and glee. How could an expression like that exist in this world?

“Chidori!” came a voice from the entrance to the mess. It was Sousuke.

Oh... he came, she realized. But he was so far away. Dunnigan’s knife was thirty centimeters from her face, while Sousuke was over ten meters away, with a wall separating them. It was too late. He wouldn’t make it in time.

Dunnigan seemed to share that sentiment. He showed a momentary reaction to Sousuke’s voice, but then returned his focus to her, pressing the knife to Kaname’s neck. He seemed to want to finish her off first. His arm tensed. He was about to pull. He was—

She didn’t give up hope. Even in a nosedive, a pilot would keep working the control stick and throttle to the end, and right now, Kaname was that pilot. Her hand scrambled desperately in the sink to her right—and caught hold of something. It wasn’t a knife. It wasn’t a rolling pin. It was a board—rectangular, slender, and made out of plastic. But she didn’t care what it was; she needed something, anything.

“Mmm...!” She slammed the board against his head with all the strength she had. Most men would consider it a pathetic strike, but for some reason, it caused the man’s face to freeze up in shock and surprise, and his hand to stop right on the verge of slicing her throat.

The left side of his face had completely caved in. The skin had peeled away from his temple to his jaw, exposing yellow fat and pink cheekbone. Blood began to ooze out, as if to hide the cruel wound from sight. The man’s already contorted face began to warp further as the agony reached him. Dunnigan began to roar; he released Kaname and drew back, cradling his face with his left hand and howling like a beast.

Kaname coughed, leaned against the wall, and looked over questioningly at the board she had grabbed. It was an ABS resin vegetable grater, used for cooking; its surface was sticky with what it had just sliced. She let out a shriek and tossed it away.

Dunnigan fixed a glare on her again, his blue eyes burning with fury. “W... Woman!!” The rage in his voice could have split heaven and earth.

But, powered by adrenaline, Kaname shouted back at him. “The name’s not ‘woman’! Y-You want me to fillet you next? Bring it on!”

“Dunnigan!!” Just then, Sousuke leaped into the galley.

Dunnigan reacted quickly. He drew a pistol from the holster on his hip, turned around, and fired. Sousuke rolled along the floor, scooped up the knife she’d thrown earlier, and took cover behind the refrigerator. Kaname guessed that he didn’t have a gun of his own. Past experience told her that if he did, he would have fired it into Dunnigan without hesitation.

“Dunnigan,” Sousuke said. “So you’re in on this, too?”

“You bet I am!” Dunnigan retorted.

“You killed Liang?”

“Yeah, and he deserved it!”

Sousuke made his move. He opened the refrigerator door, using it as a makeshift shield. Dunnigan fired regardless. There was a flash and a gunshot sound—at the same time, Sousuke threw the knife from the safety of the door. He’d been aiming for the enemy’s chest, but the man ducked, causing it to hit him in the shoulder instead.

Nevertheless, Dunnigan held his aim and kept shooting. “You can’t hide from me, not from me!” Catching on that Sousuke was unarmed, Dunnigan charged forward. He could finish him more easily from up close.

I have to stop him, Kaname thought, and dove out impulsively. She flew at the arm holding the gun. The wild-eyed man let out a roar and threw her against the oven, sending a crack through its heat-resistant glass.

But she’d created an opening. By the time Dunnigan had turned back around, Sousuke had abandoned his cover and begun his charge. Dunnigan cried in shock, and threw the knife in his left hand. Sousuke dodged it, but now a gun was in his face. Just before it fired, he jerked his head away from the muzzle. There was a ricochet sound; Dunnigan’s shot had missed its mark.

Sousuke grabbed his opponent’s arms and jumped; his powerful flying knee-strike caught the man in the jaw. This got a grunt out of Dunnigan as the large man reeled back and dropped his gun. But he continued to swing his knife wildly, and the blade caught Sousuke’s hair.

Sousuke rolled along the ground and picked up the dropped gun, then aimed it at the man’s head from a near impossible position. He fired—two, three, four times. He emptied the chamber.

“Gh... Chine...” Despite taking multiple .45-caliber shots to the torso, Dunnigan didn’t fall. Like the legendary Benkei, he remained standing, then took one step back, two...

“Go down.” Sousuke stood up, and unceremoniously kicked the man in the chest. The measuring cups rattled in the sink from the force with which the giant hit the ground, back-first. It was over. Eyes wide and glaring at the ceiling, Dunnigan breathed his last.

Silently, Sousuke helped Kaname up from where she had fallen beside the oven. They were both covered in sweat. Kaname was particularly bad off; she was covered in bruises and scrapes, her hair was a mess, and her ripped tank top was covered in Dunnigan’s blood.

“Chidori?” Sousuke asked, his shoulders heaving, but Kaname just gazed at him, glassy-eyed. “Were you injured?” he tried again. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere,” she answered at last, weakly. But her pride had taken a worse beating than her body. Once again, she’d been saved, and it filled her in equal measure with relief and shame. The two contradictory emotions merged together into one powerful feeling, and everything she’d been holding back all this time surged up inside her at once.

“I...” The questions she’d asked herself at that safe—Why was she still here, running around, hunting for clues instead of escaping? What was she trying to prove by putting herself in this much danger?—she finally knew the answer to.

“I’m just a burden, right?” she asked, voice trembling. “I’m just a burden on you, right? You’d be fine, just fine, on your own. Even now... even now... you weren’t afraid... even a little... not at all...” She couldn’t say anything more. She hung her head, trembling, as sobs squeezed up from her throat. Tears fell onto her thighs, thick and hot.

“Chidori...” Sousuke crouched down and touched her shoulder. After a silence that felt like forever, he spoke awkwardly, and with hesitance. “I... I’m sorry. You’re not... a burden. Not at all.”

She said nothing.

“Don’t you remember?” he asked helplessly. “You’ve helped me countless times before. I would have been dead a long time ago, if it weren’t for you. Just now, too... Dunnigan had a gun. I’m not sure if I could have beaten him by myself... I’m sure I couldn’t have, in fact. It’s because of you that I...” Sousuke hesitated a moment. “It’s because of you that I’m here right now. So don’t tell me I’d be fine on my own... please.”

Kaname looked up at him, tearfully. Their eyes met for just a second, but Sousuke immediately turned away, scratching at his temple with a finger. His expression was nervous and dejected.

“Okay,” she said at last, sniffling. “I got it. Anyway...” Just then, she realized that his leg and shoulder were stained with blood. “Sousuke, you’re hurt...”

“I’m okay,” he told her. “They’re minor injuries. I’ll tend to them later.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure; don’t worry. What about you? Can you stand?”

“Yeah...” Kaname took Sousuke’s proffered hand tightly. It was warm, and gentle, and very strong.

Just then, a high-pitched noise rang out through the submarine. It was a sound she’d never heard before, like something metal hitting the hull.

“That’s an active sonar sound...” Sousuke whispered, eyes turned to the ceiling.

“What’s going on?” Kaname asked anxiously.

“A submarine is trying to fire a torpedo at us.”

USS Pasadena

The Pasadena picked up the sound of the Toy Box diving again. It was setting a northward course, accelerating to about 30 knots, at about four miles away.

The Toy Box didn’t usually run this loud. During their close call the other day, it had moved smoothly, almost elegantly. Now, it was making a racket like a drowning whale.

Captain Sailor directed their vessel through the water, setting up an ideal attack position. Their active sonar told them the exact location of the “enemy sub.” Their SSN’s torpedoes were the latest MK 48s, also known as ADCAPs, and they could easily reach speeds in excess of 60 knots. They each carried a 300-kilogram payload, and one hit could sink any vessel with ease. They were just waiting for the right moment to fire two of them off.

“Tubes three and four are open. We’re ready to fire at any time!” said XO Takenaka. His words were brisk, but his voice remained tense with nerves. He looked at Captain Sailor, whose eyes were gleaming dangerously, and sought confirmation. “Um... are you serious about this?”

“Of course I am! If we let it get away now, it’ll be our heads on the block!” Sailor responded authoritatively, and then gave the order. “No mercy. Fire three!”

“Aye aye, sir! Fire three!” The ADCAP fired in a rush of pressured air. It sang through the water, trailing a line of tiny bubbles.

Sailor’s merciless plan was to fire just one ADCAP at first, then a second a few minutes later. The enemy sub would be forced to take evasive maneuvers to dodge the first one. Then, even if they succeeded, even if they avoided a fatal injury—the second, coming a few minutes later, would be there to finish them off.

To finish them off—that was all the Pasadena wanted. According to their calculations, the first torpedo would hit the Toy Box in six minutes.

Control Room, Tuatha de Danaan

《Contact with high-speed screw on bearing 2-9-2. Assumed to be a torpedo of some kind. It is likely approaching this vessel,》reported the infuriatingly calm voice of Dana. An experienced sonar technician would be able to name the classification, number, speed, and depth of the torpedoes, but this was another one of Dana’s limitations.

The control room’s front screen displayed a magnified view of their local area, where the mark that represented the torpedo could be seen closing in on the de Danaan. Just five minutes left—without the use of their superconductive drive, there would be no way to shake it off. It was unavoidable, and one hit would sink even something as massive as the de Danaan. The catastrophic water pressure would crush them, demolish everything on board, and leave their twisted wreckage strewn across the ocean floor for kilometers.

“You monster,” Tessa whispered, glaring at Gauron. “Give me control back at once. And untie our pilots and the sonar technician. I promise, they won’t fight you!”

“No,” Gauron said carelessly.

“They’re about to sink us!” Tessa insisted. “I’m not sure if even I can dodge that thing... but I know for a fact that you can’t!”

“We won’t know that until I try, will we?” he retorted.

“You’ll die too!” she yelled. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Kill myself?” A smile appeared on Gauron’s face. It was a darkly humorous smile, like he’d just heard a particularly wicked joke. “Kill myself, eh? That would be the world’s most extravagant suicide, wouldn’t it? Taking a hundred million dollar piece of hardware with me... Not the worst thought in the world, is it?” he chuckled.

A death wish... Tessa realized it in that moment: Gauron had no attachment to life at all. This explained everything. Why he’d engaged in such reckless terrorism just to lure them there, why he’d gotten himself taken hostage despite the danger it put him in, why he’d attacked a US Navy ship unprovoked... Nobody would ever act this way if they cared about going home alive. We’ve been misreading him from the start, Tessa thought. What have I done?

“Then how about a game of chicken?” Gauron mused. “Take us to a depth of 1500.”

《Warning. This order exceeds tested depth limit.》

“So? Let’s just try it out.”

《Aye, sir.》The boat tilted further, carrying the de Danaan toward the abyss.

While the vessel around him careened toward its doom, Kurz continued to face a more personal danger. Nguyen was just down the hallway with a gun, while Kurz had no weapons. He’d have loved to have bravely faced him down, but keeping out of the line of fire was taking everything he had.

The second he left the shelter of the door, he’d be hit with a bullet, no question. He was dealing with the marksmanship of a member of the SRT, after all—There was no way to move fast enough to dodge a hit from someone like him, in a hallway with an unimpeded sight line.

Plus, they’d just gotten a ping from an active sonar. It was probably a torpedo from a US submarine; if they couldn’t stop it, they’d all end up dead. It was the worst situation imaginable—simultaneous threats from within and without.

“It’s gonna turn us all to sea scrap, you know. Are you okay with that?” Kurz shouted.

Nguyen just laughed. “We’ll be fine. This thing can outrun a torpedo, can’t it?”

“You idiot,” Kurz screamed back. “Modern torpedoes are insanely fast. And this is the US Navy we’re dealing with!”

“So what, we’re supposed to join together for our common good? I’m not falling for that bluff,” Nguyen said. He seemed assured of his dominance in the situation. “But, actually... that’s an idea. Come out with your hands up and I’ll spare you, Kurz. I don’t have anything against you personally.”

“Go to hell,” Kurz spat back.

Nguyen laughed from across the hall. “I’m serious. Come with me to the control room. Talk to Gauron, maybe kill a member of the crew to prove you’re with us... Then he’ll cut you in, too. The pay’s good, I promise.”

“Ugh, lame.” It was Kurz’s turn to laugh now. He had just imagined getting out of this scrape by putting his hands up, walking out, and saying, “Okay, I’ll join you.” It was pathetic; so pathetic that he couldn’t help but laugh, even in a dire situation like this. “Who could ever shoot his mouth off to his girl after that? Nguyen, you’re an embarrassment.”

“Shut up.” The other man’s voice turned dangerous as he recognized the mocking tone. “Do you know how much Gauron’s organization is paying me? Five million dollars.”

“Five...” Kurz trailed off. That was close to 600 million Japanese yen; enough money to keep a man in comfort to the end of his days.

“They put two million into my bank account up front,” Nguyen said flatly. “Guess they figure it’s a small price to pay to get their hands on a billion-dollar submarine. You’re gonna laugh off five million because it’s ‘embarrassing’ and ‘lame’? Sounds like a spoiled rich-ass who’s never lived hand-to-mouth...”

With a payout like that, Kurz would never have to worry about money again. He’d be set for life. He could live in the lap of luxury on a tropical island somewhere. He could wash his hands of this whole bloody business... and transfer her to a better hospital, too.

“Listen to me, Kurz. Like I said before, Mithril is a squad of mercenaries,” Nguyen insisted. “We’re not superheroes. We’re a gang of killers who get paid to do what we do. Why shouldn’t we side with whoever’s signing the bigger check?”

Kurz said nothing.

“What do you expect to get out of this whole ‘loyal soldier’ act, huh? Just come out already.”

Kurz looked around the cabin he was in. It was just a standard sailor’s berth; bunk beds and personal effects. There was a picture of Tessa in her uniform tacked to the wall, but nothing that could be used as a weapon. No, wait... His eyes fell on a fire extinguisher next to the door.

“You’ve convinced me, Nguyen,” he admitted.

“Oh?”

“After I get rid of you, I’m gonna hit up Tessa for a bonus. I’ll get her to let me take sexy swimsuit shots of her, and then I’ll sell them to the ship’s crew for twenty dollars a pop,” Kurz went on. “If a hundred guys buy them, that’s two thousand dollars. Sounds good, right?”

Nguyen fell silent for a moment. “I thought you were smarter than this.” He sounded genuinely disappointed, but Kurz’s nose could pick up the scent of rising hostility drifting down the hall.

“It’s not about being smart,” Kurz retorted. “I’m a realist, that’s all.” He picked up the fire extinguisher and steadied himself.

Sousuke had an idea of where the “Lady Chapel” Kaname was talking about might be found. There was one place on the maps used by the ground forces and crew that was always blacked out and unlabeled: a classified bay. He’d never given it much thought, but he’d always kept it tucked away in the back of his mind, near the rear of the third deck, and directly below the control room.

The crew of the de Danaan was diverse, ethnically and religiously—the captain’s policy was that those who wished to pray could do so in their own way—so the vessel contained no particular places of worship. Could the “Lady Chapel,” then, refer to this secret room?

“We’re almost there,” Sousuke told her. “Try to hang on.” He sped to the location on the third deck, dragging along the unsteady Kaname. He was worried about Kurz, but right now, their priority was taking back control of the submarine from Gauron. The only way to do that was to follow the hints that Tessa had given her.

On top of the vibrations that had been running through the boat for a while, suddenly, the floor tilted. It was like a passenger plane going into a descent. They could hear a commotion all around them as small objects toppled from desks and shelves.

Half-tumbling, they turned a corner and saw a door at the end of a long, narrow hallway. They ran to it. The door was labeled “LC” and contained a warning label: “Entry forbidden without permission from Captain or Executive Officer.”

“Do you have the key, Chidori?”

“Yes, here. Ah, it went in...” Kaname inserted the key she’d found in the captain’s room, and the thick door opened with an electronic sound.

The Lady Chapel was a very small room. It was a dimly-lit, domed space, about four meters in diameter; Kaname felt like she was coming into one of those snow huts that northern Japan was famous for. The walls were embedded with lines of blocky modules, with labels like A01 and X16, and covered in switches and levers.

A large machine sat at the center of the dome. It looked a little like a bed and a little like a chair; it also vaguely resembled an open coffin. It was shaped to fit one person, in a seated posture, on their back—if the cover was slid shut, that person would be completely enveloped. It was similar to an AS’s cockpit block.

On the part of the cover that would go right over the head, the following was engraved in elegant typeface:

Transfer And Response “Omni-Sphere” / System103 / Mod-1997c Ver1.01

Sousuke recognized the acronym—TAROS, the device inside the Arbalest that the engineer, Lieutenant Lemming, had mentioned. But what was one doing here, in the depths of the Tuatha de Danaan? He cast a glance at Kaname.

Gazing down at the TAROS, she said quietly, “This is an older model than the TAROS in the Arbalest. It’s not hooked up to a lambda driver... but to the submarine’s control system.”

“What?” he questioned.

“I think I understand. Yes, I... I see.” Kaname was like a different person, both in her voice and her expression. She muttered to herself, nodded, and then... she turned gentle eyes to Sousuke.

“Chidori?” He was taken aback, but she simply smiled at him.

“Thank you, Sagara-san. Your job here is done,” she told him. “Now... could you come and save me?”

Kurz sprayed the fire extinguisher out the door. It was a makeshift smokescreen; the cloud of white powder reduced visibility to near zero. He immediately flew out into the hall and ran at Nguyen, full tilt.

His enemy fired. The bullet grazed his arm, but the shot told him exactly where Nguyen was—he charged, and while the other man dodged, he managed to grab hold of the wrist of the hand with the gun.

Nguyen grunted, and there was a flash from his left hand. Kurz ducked instinctively, but the knife tore a shallow cut across his neck. It swept past him again in a backhand swipe; Kurz pulled at his opponent’s seized wrist, and the slight imbalance forced Nguyen’s strike just clear of a critical hit.

Dammit! Kurz mentally cursed. He’d thought that he would stand a better chance in close combat, but he’d been a fool—the man was a master with knives and had no blind spots to exploit. In a cramped space like this, a pistol and a knife in experienced hands was an ideal combination. Kurz might be a master with a rifle, but his close-combat instincts were basically average as specialists went. He could hold his own, but he wasn’t exactly a natural—which left him no match for Nguyen.

The knife’s tip thrust at him. He knocked the hand away, but too late; it stabbed him in a shoulder. Kurz hissed and screamed as a burning pain shot through him.

Grabbing the arm with the knife, Kurz yanked his opponent toward him again, and this time, rolled back onto the ground. From there, he executed an odd sort of tomoe-nage—propelling Nguyen up with a kick and, with a grunt of effort, casting him back and away. This gave him some distance from the other man, which freed him from the knife’s threat, only to put him back in danger from the gun. Kurz jumped to his feet and tried to flee around a corner, but the next second, he felt a dull impact in his right leg, followed by a shooting pain.

Kurz winced; the knife Nguyen had thrown was sticking into the back of his thigh. He tried to put weight on it, but the leg gave out beneath him, causing him to fall to his knees. Clinging to a pipe in the wall for support, he looked back. Nguyen was pointing his gun at him, only three meters away; there was no escaping now.

Nguyen’s swarthy face stood out against the white mist, the expressionless mask of a master killer. Cold ruthlessness had eclipsed his last vestiges of reticence or friendship; his eyes were now those of a murderous machine.

I’m dead, Kurz thought. But the next second, something strange happened: Nguyen’s head underwent a slight spasm, like he’d been hit with an electric shock. There was a medical scalpel sticking out of the man’s neck.

“Ah...” Nguyen’s eyes opened in surprise, and he turned his gaze toward the starboard corridor. That must be where the scalpel came from, Kurz reckoned, but from his current position, he couldn’t make out the source.

Another silver flash pierced the corridor’s darkness. Another scalpel stuck into Nguyen’s chest. The man looked down at it, and as if remembering something, he turned his gun toward the unseen someone.

In that moment, Kurz summoned all the strength he had left and launched himself at Nguyen. He pulled the knife out of his leg, readied it at his hip, and ran. He felt like he was in a yakuza movie. In his heart, he was shouting, Your ass is mine, punk!

The charge—simple on the face of it, yet difficult to actually dodge—took Kurz straight into Nguyen, where with an unsettling crunch, he jammed the knife into his opponent’s stomach. Nguyen fired at the floor as a groan spilled from his lips. Kurz stabbed him again. Then, in the same movement, he knocked the gun out of his hand.

“You really suck, Nguyen,” Kurz said, breathing heavily. “You ask me, that five million isn’t worth the paper it was printed on. I wouldn’t use it to wipe my ass... it’d give me hemorrhoids, not to mention clogging up the shitter!”

Nguyen’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell still. He was dead. Kurz felt a little bad that the last words he had to hear included “wipe my ass,” “hemorrhoids,” and “shitter”... but, he decided, he had brought it on himself. As Kurz pulled away from the body, the former Uruz-10 slumped to the floor.

“Whew...” He crouched down, shoulder-to-shoulder with the corpse. The stab wounds in his shoulder and leg throbbed with pain. A silhouette was approaching, walking through the extinguisher’s leftover mist. It was the person who had thrown the scalpels at Nguyen from his blind spot.

It was Mao. She was dressed in her underwear—an olive green sports bra and bikini panties—just how she’d been left in the sick bay. Her smooth skin had worked up a thin sheen of sweat. Her ample bosom, slender legs, taut waist, and toned rear were all on display, giving her the beauty of a leopardess.

While Kurz stared in awe, Mao ran a languid hand through her hair. “Kurz... You are the worst close-range combatant I’ve ever seen. Charging in, then pulling away... You looked like a small-time hood. I couldn’t even watch it...” Her voice was listless. There was something strange about her manner; she seemed unsteady on her feet. “Who is that, anyway? Oh... Nguyen. What the hell, what was his beef with you? Huh?” She looked down at the corpse, muttering incomprehensibly.

Kurz tilted his head. “Big Sis, what are you doing here?”

“Huh? Me? I was in the sick bay, I think... when I woke up, they were sounding the evacuation drill alarm. I didn’t want to go to the... to the hangar looking like this, so I hid,” she said. “I think. That’s when I heard shots...”

“Hey, now...” he began.

“Peggy... I think she drugged me up or something. I don’t know what’s going on,” Mao admitted. “What happened to the Venom? Where’s Sousuke? And... ugh, I’m so dizzy...” she let out a shallow breath and slumped against the wall. Apparently, walking was taking everything she had. To wield scalpels with such skill in her condition...

“You’re one scary chick...” Kurz said in tones of great admiration. Just then, he heard another sonar ping. They’d been getting them consistently for some time, and the space between them was growing shorter and shorter. There was a torpedo close by, searching for them. Even if he hurried to the control room now, he wouldn’t make it in time; de Danaan would already be sunk by then. There was no way to stop it. Nguyen had delayed him for too long.

Even as he wallowed in despair, he found himself gazing at Mao’s supple legs. “Damn. No camera,” he whispered.

The torpedo was hot on their heels. Ping......... ping...... ping... ping... came the sound of its searching, louder and louder—a prelude to their destruction. The terrifying rhythm taunted the de Danaan as it sank to greater depths. Those new ADCAPs were tough; even at this depth, this one held firmly on course.

Very soon, they’d reach 1,500 feet. The water pressure was 50 atmospheres. Their titanium alloy hull was starting to buckle under the pressure, which had already shrunk the boat by several meters stem to stern. The contraction caused warping in various parts of the internal structure. Pipes shot out steam, water, and compressed air; twisted cables released sparks.

Dana’s oblivious “warnings” kept coming.《Warning, explosion in B-corridor, third deck. Warning, damage to 16th water pipe, line C. Warning, suspicious noise in H7 pressure bulkhead on first deck. Warning—》That commotion, the creaking of the hull, and the sound of the sonar all echoed through the control room.

Gauron, lounging in the captain’s chair, let out a cackle. “Yes, here it comes! Here it comes!” Desperate, terrifying—those words couldn’t adequately describe his laughter, which was like that of Death itself. But there was one thing you could say for sure: this man was enjoying himself from the bottom of his heart. The situation made him feel alive.

He’s utterly mad. OOD Goddard felt a chill up his spine. He was bound and basically powerless... Was he just going to die, without doing anything to resist? Without using their vessel’s incredible abilities? Without showing his brilliant navigational skills?

The Tuatha de Danaan was designed to execute raids at shallow depths; it wasn’t designed for these kinds of deep sea maneuvers. Its maximum depth for full functionality was listed at 1,200 feet, and its terminal pressure limit was 1,600. The depth where the pressure would crush them like an egg, the depth at which they’d be pulverized—it was only 100 feet away. A mere 32 meters. All this, with a high-speed torpedo nipping at their heels...

And yet, Captain Teletha Testarossa remained perfectly calm. She was squatting down next to Gauron, holding very still; her gaze was lowered, half-lidded eyes staring emptily at the floor. Her lips moved like a person in a fevered daze, and she reacted neither to the AI’s warnings nor to Gauron’s words.

Perhaps she’d withdrawn into herself, unable to face this cruel reality ahead of her. No matter how competent she might be, she was still just a 16-year-old girl. Goddard felt both deep sympathy for her and a small amount of disappointment. The control room had two entrances, but Dana had currently locked both of them from the inside. No one was coming to save them.

Once the torpedoes were within 500 meters, Gauron shouted out, “AI! Right full rudder! And fire off the decoy!”

《Aye, sir.》

Goddard knew immediately that it wouldn’t work—They couldn’t dodge it this way. The firing was too soon, and the turn wasn’t the right direction. Damned amateur... he cursed to himself.

“Okay, it’s dodging time! Can I do it? What do you think?!” Gauron guffawed. Then, just as the torpedo’s pinging reached its peak—

The control room’s front screen blacked out. It lasted for just for a moment, as long as the slow blink of an eye.

Goddard looked up, confused. Just as he and the rest of the crew were wondering what had happened, Teletha Testarossa snapped her head up. There was no despair in her gaze, only iron will and quiet confidence—and a little something extra, as she spoke up, resonantly, “Dana. On my signal, launch countermeasures one and two. Deep sea mode.”

《Aye, ma’am,》Dana responded.

Aye, ma’am, it had said. Gauron, Goddard and the others looked at Tessa, their eyes wide in shock. Seeming oblivious to their attention, she raised her perfect index finger to trace out a rhythm like an orchestra’s conductor. The elegant motions suggested a complicated melody.

“Yes... not yet...” she murmured. With superhuman endurance, she let the torpedo continue to tail them. The pings sounded like an alarm clock’s buzzing, now. Almost there. Take aim. Now—Tessa made a clipped declaration. “Launch.”

《Launching countermeasure.》The de Danaan obediently launched its countermeasure—a dummy sound source.

“Emergency blow, now,” Tessa instructed.

《Aye. Emergency blow!》

Alarms sounded. Emergency pumps activated. An explosive sound filled the ship as the sudden rise in pressure forced the water from the ballast tanks, and the ship immediately gained buoyancy.

Trailing bubbles, the Tuatha de Danaan streaked upward. The incredible noise and unexpected motion caused the torpedo to completely lose sight of its target. The only thing left in its detection range was Tessa’s brilliantly timed countermeasure. The torpedo plowed into the decoy and activated its payload, bursting just below the de Danaan.

The roar and shockwave hit the belly of the boat, causing its massive form to buck. Various crew members and nonstabilized objects were knocked to the floor and rolling around. Tessa’s body slammed against the control room’s back wall, and even Gauron was sent tumbling out of the captain’s chair. The vessel shuddered and shrieked like the massive beast it was, and yet it continued to ascend. Like a balloon. Like a rocket.

Or, more poetically... like a bird, flapping its wings to reach the sky.

USS Pasadena

“They dodged it?!” Sailor demanded.

“Yes,” Takenaka admitted. “They seem to have used an emergency blow. They’re currently rising at high speed to the surface.”

“At that range?! I don’t believe it... Shit,” Sailor said. The torpedo’s search radius was conical, meaning that to escape it, you had to let it get as close as possible before abruptly changing course. But to hang in there that long, in a boat of that size... “That captain is incredible. What’s he got, balls of steel?”

“I admit... it’s impressive. He must have considerable nerve,” Takenaka agreed, dumbfounded.

But the other torpedo they’d fired was still pursuing the Toy Box. Impact was expected in three minutes.

Tuatha de Danaan

The sub was shooting straight for the surface as the floor rocked back and forth. Tessa, clinging to the wall of the control room, picked herself up. Everyone was looking at her; Goddard’s gaze, in particular, was that of a lovestruck young man.

“What kind of magic trick did you just pull?” Gauron asked.

“You don’t know?” Tessa asked curiously. “I suppose ‘he’ didn’t trust you as much as you thought.”

Gauron said nothing.

“This vessel is mine, now,” she went on. “You won’t have your way any longer!” The front screen zoomed in on the status board.

Even absent Tessa’s orders, all on-board functions were returning to normal. The doors separating the fore from the aft were opening one after another; the flow of oxygen was being returned to the hangar. The engine room’s output stabilized, and began undergoing self-diagnostics. Damaged channels were severed and backups were activated. The boat’s various gauges, which had been in the red zone, quickly began to change back to green. This wasn’t Dana. Someone, somewhere, was doing all of this directly.

“That girl...?!” Gauron gritted his teeth, but Tessa just smiled.

“Incredible, isn’t she? Even if you kill me, she will protect this vessel,” Tessa told him. “And, in addition...” Just then, the locks on the control room doors released.

The port side entrance slid open, and a soldier carrying a pistol—Sousuke—burst in like a whirlwind. He didn’t say a single word. In almost the same moment, Gauron fired his submachine gun in a broad sweep, but Sousuke rolled to the floor and returned fire with his pistol.

Gauron yelped as he took a bullet in the left shoulder. Then he took a stumbling step back, leaped at Tessa, and grabbed her as a hostage. Sousuke, uninjured in the crossfire, quickly took shelter behind a console.

“Is that you, Kashim?!” Gauron asked.

“There’s nowhere for you to run. Surrender,” Sousuke demanded.

Gauron smiled and pointed the submachine gun at Tessa’s chin. “You really believe I’d do that? Think again, honey.”

“I thought not.” Sousuke’s gun was trained on Gauron. He wanted to shoot him right in the head, but Gauron moved Tessa’s body back and forth, skillfully using her as a shield.

“Sagara-san! Don’t worry about me,” Tessa yelled. “Just do it!”

Dragging the screaming Tessa with him, Gauron moved back. His plan seemed to be to leave through the other door—the control room entrance on the starboard side. Silently, Sousuke mustered up all his concentration and pointed his gun at Gauron’s forehead—at the scar he himself had left there three years ago.

The same moment he pulled the trigger, a violent jolt ran through the control room. Everyone present was thrown, cast against the floor, walls, and even the ceiling.

Completing its rapid rise, the de Danaan burst into the open air. Unleashed from the stormy ocean surface, its skyscraper-sized hull towered against the raging, empty sky, its flood ports gushing like waterfalls.

As it reached its summit, its momentum slowed, then reversed, and when it finally hit the water, it did so like the hammer of the gods. There was a sound like a thunderclap as tens of thousands of tons of submarine slammed against the ocean’s surface.

The hull was sturdy enough to endure this unleashed force. Its bow sawed up and down, releasing new surges of seaspray, but still remained afloat in the middle of the storm. The sky was gray all around. The waves were raging, and wind and rain pelted the boat from the side. It was impossible to steer in such ongoing tumult, but at least, the Tuatha de Danaan was still in one piece.

The submarine was rocking. Kaname let out a whimper; she could feel its pain. “Ah...” Her backbone ached, and her skin was burning in places. No, this pain wasn’t coming from her body—it just felt like it. She was ensconced in the deepest recesses of the Tuatha de Danaan. She was one with it.

The TAROS—this mysterious platform that enveloped her—read her brainwaves and her body’s action potential and matched them to the boat’s control system. There were some—like Sousuke and Gauron—who could momentarily link up with a TAROS. But continuous mental communication with it, and the ability to freely navigate the omni-sphere, were limited to Whispered like her and Tessa. Omni-sphere—that which lay beyond substance. There were many ways to draw out its power using a TAROS as a mediator—her synchronizing with the sub was one option of many, she knew, and the lambda driver was another.

The reactor was her heart; the ballast tanks, her lungs; the pipes running through it, her veins and arteries; the hydroplanes, her wings. They all served and obeyed her, even more loyally than her own body did. Even the Mother AI, Dana, showed her fealty; if she said “die,” it would shut down; if she said “restore the captain,” it would erase the erroneous transfer record.

Kaname heard a sound; it came from deep below the chaotic sea. Another torpedo is coming, she realized. It’s coming at me. Straight at me. But she knew there was no reason to worry. Tessa had said so.

The jolt from their swift rise had been greater than expected. It caused Sousuke to drop his gun and hit the back of his head on a console panel. A normal person might have been knocked out cold, but Sousuke just shook his head, gritted his teeth, and managed to sit himself up. He looked around the control room. The chained-together crew had ended up in a pile, groaning and cursing. Tessa lay limply by the starboard side entrance.

Gauron was nowhere to be seen; he must have escaped in the chaos. Dammit! Sousuke thought. He still had the devil’s own luck—it was as if Death itself were on the man’s side. Sousuke picked up his gun and moved to pursue him.

“Sergeant!” Captain Goddard called. “Untie us first. There’s another torpedo coming; we need to take control back at once.”

Sousuke gritted his teeth. “Understood.” That was right; he had to look after Tessa, too. Sousuke ran up to the crew and blasted the handcuff chains away with his gun.

The crew, finally freed, rushed to their seats. But the approaching torpedo was too close, and their emergency rise meant they couldn’t dive again immediately. It was also hard to move properly in the storm; there was no dodging this one.

“One ADCAP on bearing 2-7-8! Range 60... 50! We’re done for!” shouted Sergeant Dejirani, who had flown into the sonar room.

The pings were getting closer and closer, and the front screen display showed the torpedo mark overlapping with the de Danaan. The crew tensed up, preparing for the explosion, and Sousuke crouched down on the floor to cover the unconscious Tessa.

They all braced for impact, but the impact never came. The torpedo passed straight under the de Danaan and began circling in confusion. It came for them several times, but never ascended past a certain depth; it just kept circling around them like a lost child.

“What’s going on?” Sousuke asked, gazing at the screen.

“Of course... the torpedo’s safety,” Goddard whispered, releasing the chair he was clinging to. “There are US ships nearby, so the other submarine programmed its torpedoes not to go higher than a certain depth, to avoid mistakenly hitting their allies.” Tessa’s use of the emergency blow must have been in anticipation of this second shot; she had even taken their depth safety into account.

“She’s incredible, I tell you...” Goddard sighed. They were safe. The crew exchanged awkward smiles as that fact sank in.

“Captain, sir. Please look after the Colonel. I’m going after that man,” Sousuke said, looking down on the limp, faintly-breathing girl.

“Right, got it,” Goddard agreed. “Take care, Sergeant.”

Sousuke ran off. Gauron... A premonition washed over him. Something in the back of his mind told him that it was finally time for their reckoning.

USS Pasadena

“It missed again?! Dammit!” Captain Sailor shouted and stamped.

“They seem to have anticipated the torpedo’s safety setting,” XO Takenaka noted. “Or it could be a coincidence...”

“Shut up,” Sailor snarled. “Remove the depth safety and fire again. Flood tubes one and two!”

The Pasadena hadn’t given up. It had begun its rise to fire another round of torpedoes.

Tuatha de Danaan

The main hangar was in chaos.

After being given an oxygen mask by a subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Mardukas had regained consciousness, only for the shockwave to hit them shortly after. He’d recognized the procedure for the emergency blow, and through his hazy consciousness, he’ managed to give the order, “grab on to something!” Most of the crew shakily did as they were told. But because the hangar was in the fore, the amplitude of its motion during the rise was especially severe. The crew were slammed hard against the floor and ended up with injuries both large and small. Some of them might take months to heal.

Mardukas himself had sprained his left elbow and taken a scrape along his temple. His head was shooting with pain. The frame of his glasses had bent, and one cracked lens remained only tenuously in place.

They’d managed to avoid calamity thanks to various helicopters, ASes, carts, and ammo crates remaining secured in place on their hooks; even one of those large machines coming loose and crashing through the hangar could have killed dozens. It was a valuable lesson in the importance of keeping the hangar locked down. He’d continue to be rigorous about these guidelines in the future, Mardukas decided.

At some point, the tightly sealed doors cutting them off from the rest of the sub had come unlocked, and the life support system had resumed normal functions, as had all other locks and machinery. Mardukas didn’t even have to give the order for any uninjured crew to fly out of the hangar and run to their stations. Those who didn’t have other pressing duties helped get the seriously wounded to the sick bay.

While shouts flew back and forth, he picked up the receiver for the internal phone line. “Control room here.” It was Goddard.

“It’s me,” Mardukas said tersely. “What’s happening? Explain.”

“XO, you’re safe!” Goddard exclaimed with relief. “It’s that terrorist... he took over the AI. The bastard was making the boat his plaything, but the captain managed to stop him. Dana is restored. I’m telling you, that girl is really—”

“Where is the terrorist now?” Mardukas asked, inferring from his words that the captain was safe.

“He escaped. He must still be hiding somewhere. I was about to make an announcement to warn—”

“Hurry up, you great fool! Don’t forget to include his build and appearance!” Mardukas knew that Goddard was busy with his checks, but he found himself losing his temper anyway. “Ah, pardon me. Once you’ve done it, send security to the reactor, the engine room, and the Lady Chapel. We need four armed soldiers to—” Mardukas got that far before he stopped.

His eyes had fallen on a soldier running along the other side of the hangar. He was East Asian, dressed in fatigues and bleeding from one shoulder. He was also holding a submachine gun. Mardukas couldn’t quite make out the man’s face; he was too far away, on top of his glasses being broken.

“XO...?” prompted Goddard.

Most of the men here were injured, and there were plenty of East Asian crewmen on board. Still, it was strange... Why was the soldier running toward the red AS they had captured in Perio? Why was he hooking up the generator’s power cables with such practiced motions?

“Goddard. Is the terrorist... injured?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Sagara shot him—”

“In the left shoulder?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, no...” Mardukas dropped the receiver and broke into a run. “Someone! Anyone, stop him! The red AS...!” he shouted, and those attending to the wounded nearby turned back to look. Several of the young soldiers broke out in a run, passing Mardukas.

But the hangar was too large, and the red AS too far way. The sailors closest to the AS realized it a moment later and likewise ran for the machine, but the terrorist turned to them and released a full auto burst from his submachine gun. Caught off guard, the sailors jumped aside and retreated behind the mini-trailers and ammo containers.

Unfortunately, that red AS, the Venom, had been fixed to the floor face-down with its cockpit hatch left open. It took the terrorist less than a second to jump in, and the Venom’s cockpit hatch slid closed with him inside. It was over; their human-scale pistols and rifles wouldn’t even leave a dent in its hide.

“Take the injured and evacuate the hangar! I don’t care where you go, just run!” Mardukas stood there, pale and stock still, shouting at the soldiers around him. Then, he heard a dull fwish: the Venom had activated its generator and unlocked its joints. The red machine began to tremble as power flowed through it. First its fingers, then its arms, then its legs began to move, and one after another, it snapped off the wires that were holding it down. The wires wriggled like snakes as they came free, then sparked as they struck the floor.

“It’s not over... It’s not over yet,” the man’s voice said over the external speakers. The Venom stood, the top of its head almost touching the ceiling, as it released a muffled laugh. It reached for a nearby weapons container and tore it open with incredible power.

There were about fifty soldiers left in the hangar. Most of them recognized the danger and began to run, helping the injured to flee as well.

They knew that if left to run free, that thing would destroy the boat. But they still couldn’t afford to use infantry anti-tank rockets or anti-AS mines to attack it. The munitions storage and the torpedo room were right next to the hangar; so were the VLS missile tubes, and their onboard aircraft’s jet fuel stocks. If set off, the explosive power of all combined would blow open the sub a hundred times over.

“XO, you need to get to safety, too!”

“I will,” Mardukas promised. “But—”

A sound came from another direction. One of the de Danaan’s ASes, parked and secured a ways away from the Venom, sparked up its generator and released its own joint locks. The AS’s keen eyes flashed red for a split second. It gathered power, raised a knee, and snapped the wires holding it down, one after another.

Sergeant Sagara? Mardukas wondered.

The ARX-7 Arbalest rose to its feet heavily, as somewhere outside, a high wave caused the vessel to pitch to the right. Sousuke’s cockpit screens relayed the images picked up by the Arbalest’s dual sensors. The red AS was directly ahead of him, in the direction of the bow. Sousuke and Gauron faced off from opposite ends of the oblong hangar.

Showdown. Sousuke remembered that word. This man had had his way with them time and again. No one had ever given their battle group, the Tuatha de Danaan, so much trouble.

It’s time to admit it, Sousuke thought. I’m terrified of you, Gauron. Three years ago, you stole everyone from me: Hamdollah, with his electronics shop; the valiant Muhammad; the cynical Halili; so many of my allies. Even that old warrior who taught me the ABCs of battle—Yaqub. You killed them all. That was the first time in my life I’d ever felt a sense of loss.

When I stand in front of you, I can feel my legs shaking. I start thinking I can’t take anymore. I start wanting to run away. That’s right... And now, you’re trying to take everyone from me again: Kurz, Mao, Yang, Tessa; so many of my allies. And... Kaname. You’re trying to kill them all. But that’s one thing I won’t let you do. Do you hear me? That’s one thing I can’t allow. And that’s why—

“I’m going to kill you,” Sousuke whispered, and his machine fluidly obeyed his will. Its underarm weapons rack screeched open, and he drew his monomolecular cutter. As if fueled by a will of iron, the Arbalest held the knife forward.

Gauron just chuckled. “I’m so happy, Kashim.” The Venom pulled a monomolecular cutter from the weapons container and crouched down, ready.

Both machines activated their cutters in the same instant. Their internal motors sent their micro chainsaw edges into a high-speed whir, causing an ear-shattering whine to echo throughout the hangar.

Both took a half-step forward, then another half-step. The ASes were an extension of the trained soldiers’ bodies. If two machines had about the same specs, combat would be decided by the operators’ skill—their ability to smell death, and their cool-headed killer instinct. The two eight-meter-tall machines inched closer and closer to each other, neither offering a moment’s opening. Though their bodies seemed tense from top to bottom, their movements were smooth and relaxed. Then, the instant they were within range, both knives lashed out into arcs.

There was a flash, and a cut appeared in the Venom’s armor. The left arm—it was shallow. The Arbalest drew back again.

“Oh?” Gauron breathed in surprise.

Sousuke didn’t respond. He wasn’t going to give him a moment to rest. He dipped his machine low and stepped in, sweeping his knife in a wide stroke. The Venom drew its right leg back and, barely dodging the flash, swung the knife down diagonally from its shoulder. The Arbalest knocked its arm away and tried to grab the Venom to throw it off balance. But, the opponent remained just out of its grasp. The Venom tried to grab the Arbalest’s arm instead, but Sousuke cut at it. On and on the knives collided; they feinted, stabbed, dodged, moved, slashed, sliced...

The back-and-forth was visibly accelerating. Attacks that had come once per breath now came two or three times. They lashed out, cunning and calculated, fast enough to leave afterimages. And every single one of them—every single move—was infused with the desire to kill.

Metal crashed against metal. Sparks flew. “Yes, yes, yes! Move! Faster!” Gauron screamed joyously.

He’s playing with me! Sousuke’s eyes went wide. He drove his concentration past its limits, letting the moment stretch out to eternity. The Arbalest grabbed the wrist of the Venom’s knife hand. Relying solely on his machine’s power, Sousuke pulled the arm in, and thrust a knee into the enemy’s side.

“Guh?!” Gauron grunted, as the Venom flew back into a hangar wall. It crushed a steel framework, smashed through some pipes, and caused a lighting fixture to fall from the ceiling, raining glass fragments down.

Sousuke jumped his machine in pursuit and struck out with its knife. No mercy—the Arbalest’s monomolecular cutter stuck into the Venom’s left shoulder, and the enemy’s armor came with it as he pulled it back. Before he could thrust again, though, the Venom’s left hand pointed its index finger at the Arbalest’s abdomen.

Sousuke gasped. He felt an impact. This time, it was the Arbalest that was slammed into the wall. It was that “finger gun” that had taken Mao out—a directed shockwave, produced by the lambda driver. Even though he’d taken it head-on, the Arbalest had suffered no internal damage; was it the lambda driver’s counter-field, activating now? Actually... had the device been active much longer, since the moment his first strike damaged the Venom? Sousuke decided not to give it any more thought.

Destroy the enemy in front of me, he reminded himself. That’s all that matters right now. The force of hitting the wall had knocked the wind out of him, and he felt a sharp pain run down his ribs, but Sousuke ignored it and charged the Venom. He’d kicked aside a small trailer in the process, but he didn’t care. He could hear a feral growling—it was his own voice.

He kicked, and the Venom dodged. He spun around and lashed out with an elbow; the Venom dodged. He grabbed it by the nape of the neck and brought the knife down; the Venom couldn’t dodge that, and the Arbalest’s monomolecular cutter tore a vertical slash down its face. It destroyed the lone red eye that acted as the Venom’s sensor, causing it to shoot sparks like a spurt of blood, and Gauron howled.

Sousuke wasn’t satisfied. He stabbed the knife into the abdomen of the now-blinded machine. With superhuman instinct, Gauron anticipated the knife’s course, and he brought his left arm up to block. The knife met his machine just below the elbow, and tore apart its drive system.

But Sousuke wasn’t done yet; he pulled out and stabbed the Venom again. Repeated use had caused his monomolecular cutter to overheat, and its edge let out a high-pitched scream as it tore itself apart. But Sousuke didn’t give up; still holding the handle of the broken knife, he struck it again and again into the Venom’s chest. The enemy machine was backed into the rear hangar until it hit the wall right next to the elevators.

“Urgh... ahh...”

Realizing that the Venom was slowing down, Sousuke finally stopped hitting it. The enemy machine trembled and latched onto the Arbalest like a boxer in a clinch. Shoulders heaving with breath, Sousuke looked at his machine’s hand; striking the enemy’s armor at full power had left the Arbalest’s manipulators broken and worthless.

Gauron let out a slow chuckle; it seemed his external speakers were still working. “I guess... you got me,” he whispered. The Venom had been almost completely reduced to scrap. Its head was destroyed, its left arm was barely functional, and its chest armor was warped and hanging off its frame. “You’ve won... Kashim. Or... have you?”

Sousuke waited, questioningly.

“I really am glad that you’ll be with me in the end...” Gauron snickered again.

Sousuke was a bit thrown, unsure of what he was getting at. He shouldn’t be able to fight back any longer. No, wait... Is he going to self-destruct?! That was what his instincts told him.

Gauron was currently clinging to the Arbalest with all his might. He had wrapped his machine’s arms and legs around it, channeling all remaining energy into its electromagnetic muscles. His was the more powerful of the pair, from the start, after all, and now, he was spurred by desperation. The Arbalest lost its balance, and tumbled back-first into the elevator.

“Why don’t we go out together?” Gauron mused. “Hmm?” It was clear, now. That was his intent. How much was the payload? Enough to just take out his own machine? Or enough to blow a hole in the submarine’s hull?

Sousuke startled as, just then, the floor below them jerked into motion. The elevator holding the two machines had begun to ascend. It was a square platform about twenty by twenty meters, and it was used to carry ASes and helicopters to the flight deck that lay directly above the hangar.

The control room was in pandemonium. One issue was that the fight in the hangar had severed a number of pipes and cables, large and small. Another was that they hadn’t yet refilled the compressed air needed to get the submarine moving again. Another more serious issue was the firing of more torpedoes from the US submarine. But what shocked them more than anything was the fact that the flight hatch—that nearly 70-meter-long stretch of hull in the fore of the vessel—had begun to open of its own accord. The flight hatch was designed to open when helicopters or ASes needed to take off from the flight deck; doing so meant sliding the top of the submarine open over a massive scale. To open it in this storm was pure madness.

Mardukas burst into the control room and shouted, “What are you doing?!”

All Goddard and the others could say was, “we have no idea.” Displayed on the front screen was a set of words written in slightly odd English; they were in a strangely feminine hand.

Don’t worry, everything is gonna happy

Don’t worry, it urged them. This will all go just fine.

The elevator continued its rise.

“Well? Sixty seconds left! By the way, I’m loaded up with 300 kilos of explosives,” Gauron shouted. “More than enough to blow up this sub! Well, what now? What will you do?!” It sounded like the Venom’s self-destruct was on a timer.

Sousuke tried to shake the enemy off him, but the Venom clung on tightly and refused to let him go. Its hands scrambled around the Arbalest and resisted any attempts to be moved. The fact that he’d broken the fingers of one machine had made it even harder to pry his opponent off. The way the two ASes clung to each other made them look like two judo fighters, competing for a pin.

Gauron laughed. “What’s the matter with you? This is just pathetic!” It was the laugh of a good-humored devil. “Why can’t you finish me off in one strike, like a proper hero? Look at you, struggling! Let’s go out with a bang; make it fun and interesting! C’mon, Kashim!!”

“What’s wrong with him?!” Sousuke questioned through gritted teeth. It’s like he’s gone mad. No... he’s always been this way. This man was always rotten to the core. He’d do anything just to spite someone.

The elevator’s ascent stopped as the two ASes reached the abandoned flight deck. The massive hatch was already open, allowing a view of the dark sky above. The rain poured on the Arbalest and Venom in a torrent, and the waves lashed them with spray. Below them, the sub shook with roars and vibrations. They were in the middle of a storm, literally—any unprotected human up here would be tossed around like a ragdoll.

If only I could drag the Venom to the bow of the flight deck, Sousuke thought, I could throw it into the ocean before the explosion. Even if he couldn’t shake him off, he could at least drag him into the sea and save the de Danaan. Who had started up the elevator? Who had opened the flight hatch? He didn’t know, but whoever it was, they had heard Gauron’s voice and knew what he was planning.

Still, it was over fifty meters from the elevator to the ocean. It was hard for Sousuke to move with another machine clinging to him, so he had to crawl to make progress. It would take about a minute to get from his current location to the place where the prow smashed through the massive waves; he wouldn’t make it in time.

Whether aware of that or not, Gauron shouted, “Thirty seconds left! What now, honey?!”

“Ngh...” Sousuke reeled his machine back, had it punch at the Venom, kick at the Venom. He struggled in any way he could think of, but it wasn’t working. He couldn’t shake him off.

Sousuke tried crawling, but it was slow going. The end of the flight deck was too far away. If only it were free, the Arbalest could cover 100 meters in a second! he thought in desperate frustration.

“Twenty seconds left!” Gauron cackled. “Just kidding! It’s really fifteen! Hahaha, hahahahaha!” He was the most twisted person in existence. Sousuke gritted his teeth and looked around him.

And then... he saw it: the metal rigging built into the flight deck, just within reach. They were protrusions, several meters long, that resembled the starter blocks for sprinters at a track meet.

“Ten seconds!” Gauron crowed.

White steam wafted up from below, seeming to urge Sousuke, “hurry, hurry!” He used all the strength the Arbalest’s back muscles had, propelled it from the deck, and stretched its hands toward the device. The left hand made contact. He released the wire gun mounted in the Arbalest’s arm—a device like the reel on a fishing pole—and wound it around the rigging’s hook. Then, Sousuke wrapped the wire around the Venom’s torso.

“Five seconds left!” Gauron sang out. “I love you, Kashim!!”

Ignoring his words, Sousuke shouted out over all radio bands, “Let ’er rip!” The next instant, the device—the shuttle blocks for the steam catapult—activated. Its purpose was to get multi-ton ASes and jet fighters to liftoff speed in seconds. The power backing it was incredible.

Gauron was taken aback as the Venom, now tangled up in the wires, was dragged along the flight deck with the Arbalest, propelled by the catapult’s explosive force. Both machines bounced along the deck, heading straight for the boat’s front edge. “Wh-What?!” he yelled in surprise.

The two machines crossed the fifty meters in an instant, then were cast off the end of the flight deck toward the ocean, far beyond. But, just before it fell, the Arbalest used the wire gun in its other arm to latch onto the flight deck. The jolt as the line went taut almost caused the hook to lose its grip, but it managed to keep hold of the deck, giving the Arbalest a tentative lifeline.

The Venom, on the other hand, had no wire guns. The red AS howled through empty space and exploded, just before plunging into the waves of the violent sea. Gauron hadn’t been lying about the 300-kilogram payload.

The red fireball swelled against the raging winds and rain. It had tracked a little to the right as it hurtled ahead of the de Danaan, and as it hit the surface of the ocean, the impact spread shrapnel and caused the large vessel to pitch to the left. After taking the brunt of the shockwave, the Arbalest began to plummet toward the sea... but it just managed to grab the edge of the deck with its free hand.

The Tuatha de Danaan cut straight through the fire and fragments left in the Venom’s wake. Sousuke’s machine teetered on the brink of plummeting, but he manipulated it carefully and just managed to crawl it back up onto the flight deck. Pieces of the detonated Venom were scattering down around him here and there, still crackling with fire, but the flames were quickly quenched by the rain. The Arbalest collapsed next to the catapult, shoulders heaving.

Gauron... was dead. This time, he was sure of it. This time, it wasn’t just wishful thinking. Even if he’d managed to live through the explosion—somehow—the ocean and the storm would make quick work of him. He couldn’t possibly survive out here.

His mortal enemy was dead. He’d slain the man who slaughtered all his old comrades, yet Sousuke couldn’t muster any sentiment about it. The man was too petty to inspire that kind of feeling. Through and through, right to the end, to a degree you could almost call art...

“Stupid...” Sousuke muttered to himself, covered in sweat and breathing rapidly. “‘Kashim, Kashim’... Don’t act like we’re friends, you piece of shit...”

Since his voice was on an open channel, Kaname accidentally overheard it. Sousuke had cursed. There was something charming about it, though: it gave him a sense of humanity and hinted at a more complicated past. Maybe his attitude to her right after the mission, too, had had something to do with Gauron—with that past.

I’m sorry for being so insensitive, Kaname thought and meant it. Now that I think about it, I really don’t know anything about you yet, do I? That was right. Even though they were the same age, he was a veteran mercenary; a top-class soldier, who served on board this submarine. Plus, she’d just seen him knock that gross jerk’s block off. He was amazing, genuinely spectacular... and she was quietly pleased by the thought that someone like her could fluster someone like him.

She could feel the ship breathing. The Arbalest was back inside, and the flight hatch was closing. They’d soon have their compressed air stores refilled, too. The torpedoes that the Pasadena had fired off were approaching, but re-engaging the superconductive drive would let them shake those off easily.

Everything was fine, now. With that thought, Kaname found herself drifting away from the sphere, and she opened her eyes to find herself sitting inside that medium between mind and matter, the TAROS. The cover above her was open. She could see the roof of the de Danaan’s Lady Chapel. So many things she’d assumed she would forget—the submarine’s layout, the things she’d done, the power she’d felt, the knowledge of how to influence the Sphere—she still understood almost all of them.

USS Pasadena

The sonar technician reported, “Um... the Toy Box is moving away. Depth 500, incredible speed... probably over 50 knots... I don’t think our torpedoes can catch it. What in the world...?”

Then XO Takenaka chimed in. “It gave us the slip, eh? What an amazing vessel...”

Captain Sailor slumped over and glared at Takenaka. “Then what are we? We fired four ADCAPs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know. I look like a total fool.”

“What’s wrong with that?” the XO asked scornfully. “You are a total fool.”

Sailor grabbed Takenaka by the collar, and the others had to rush to stop him.