Some time before dawn, Sayuri finished meditating and was in a somber mood as though under her own private Shroud. She wasn’t ignoring them, but when Thomas asked her something, she replied in one-word answers. To the news that they would be in Éstfýr by early afternoon she gave only a grunt.
Milly floated around the boat and was nice in the way she was usually nice. The lack of change rattled Thomas. Even her being more standoffish would’ve made him feel better.
Shuu initially seemed no different than usual, but Thomas detected something subtly different. The way he stared at the river, the way he worked his jaw, the way he kept flexing his knuckles over the steering wheel. Thomas stood next to the man, gripping the bridge railing and rocking back and forth with the shifting of the boat.
“Something up?” Thomas asked.
Shuu curved the boat around a collapsed bridge. They were passing through what Thomas had thought was an abandoned town until he caught sight of women walking with their children between partially-collapsed houses.
“Got a bad feeling about the approach,” Shuu replied.
“About pirates or Kintoki?”
“Kintoki,” Shuu replied. “They’ve got us tagged by now. It’s the when, where, and how that’s got me worried. Not sure invisibility will do us much good with their radars. Could be rough.”
Not long after they neared an old factory town occupying one shore of the river with a watermill jutting from its quay. Pine trees hemmed it in like the borders of a giant industrial snowglobe. But the town wasn’t abandoned.
Lining the quay were anti-aircraft railguns on trailers hooked up to five-foot tall cylindrical hatsuden batteries. He’d seen them used once or twice in the war. They consisted of a tightly-spaced box of 36 barrels, each primed to fire off 100 silver-tipped pellets, peppering entire hemispheres of the sky in aircraft-shredding metal. The cannon’s range of motion was wide enough it could swivel down towards the river and do something similar to any approaching boats.
Further ashore, several old temples had been crowned with giant white balls, repurposing the sacred sites as radar towers. Six river monitors of a different design than Genji’s were docked at a portable plastic harbor Kintoki installed. Sticking out of the curved dock beside the monitors were another twenty or so patrol boats.
The shoreline was full of soldiers and infantry fighting vehicles with auto cannons moving around with the unmistakable urgency of a front line.
“Can we turn invisible!?” Milly asked.
Shuu slowed the boat down. “Wouldn’t be a good idea. They’ve got us on radar, and we can either come easily, or light up the whole river.”
“What about… Sayuri, could you teleport us?”
Sayuri shook her head. “Four people and the boat would tax my body beyond its limits.”
“Shit. Shit, this is really bad!” Milly said. “Is there anything else you can do?”
“I do not know.”
A couple Kintoki patrol boats peeled off from the plastic harbor to intercept them.
“Shit…” Shuu said, pulling up on the throttle.
Shuu’s comment was the first thing that scared Thomas. Without realizing it, he’d been hoping the prestige of an Imperial bureaucrat would take them all the way to Éstfýr unscathed. It had worked to keep Genji from seizing their boat in Burnehithe, so he could only hope it would work here too.
Shuu stood and turned to Thomas, grasping him by the shoulder, and whispered, “if things go bad, lift the panel on the bottom of the steering console. You’ll find a gun there.”
“You had another gun the entire time?” Thomas asked in a low voice.
“Would’ve given the game away early if I told you.”
Once the Daisagi-Maru slowed to a floating stop, Shuu came around the bridge and waited for the Kintoki boats to pull up. Sayuri wandered to his side. Thomas gestured for Milly to move towards the bridge.
“Do you still have bullets for your pistol?” Thomas asked her.
“Just two more I found rolling around the bottom of my pack,” Milly replied. She looked over at the company of soldiers manning the anti-air battery. “Not sure it’ll do much.”
“Have your gun ready and hidden anyway. I wouldn’t have guessed it’d be much good against Genji either.”
The memory made her face darken but she pulled the little revolver out and tucked it into an inside pocket of her cloak.
Thomas stuck his fingers under the aluminum panel and jerked it out of its frame to find a state-of-the-art polymer pistol. As he picked it up, electronics switched on automatically and a display in the grip showed 30 rounds and the Kaihongo word for “safety” highlighted in the bottom corner. A tiny hologram of a cross-sight sprouted from the top. Embossed in the polymer handle was the clan crest of Tsukiyama Technical Instruments.
As he slipped the gun into his jacket pocket, he heard Kaihongo at the bow.
~~~
Mamoru pulled himself back up from a deep bow.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Mamoru called out, doing his best to keep a calm tone despite the rotary machine gun facing him.
“You are speaking to 1st Junior Battery Officer Kudo,” said a uniformed man standing on a Kintoki patrol boat.
Mamoru couldn’t make heads or tails of the uniform. All the conglomerate uniforms looked like theater costumes to Mamoru’s eyes. He couldn’t see 1st Junior Battery Officer Kudo as anything other than a spoiled brat playing dress-up.
“I have direct orders from Kintoki Arms Services Chief Product Officer Tsuyoshi Kintoki to detain any boats suspected of harboring the terrorist Thomas Chester and his hostage, Sayuri Ueichi.”
The officer’s eyes flicked to Sayuri who, despite being in fresh make-up Milly had reapplied a few hours prior and her blue-and-orange cloak, had the unmistakable bearing of aristocracy. Mamoru didn’t care what they called themselves, the conglomerates were nothing but aristocracy who refused to take on the responsibility of caring for their subjects.
Sayuri cleared her throat. “I am she, though I am not a hostage. I am here of my own free will and you may not violate my inalienable right to the Property of my body and person. You will allow us to pass. Consider this an order possessing the full weight and legitimacy of a member of the first house of clan Ueichi.”
The officer frowned. “Unfortunately, Lady Ueichi, we have been advised by your clan that you may be suffering from psychological trauma due to your time in captivity, and furthermore that you may be brainwashed into sympathizing with your captor. I am afraid we must take you into custody for your own safety and well-being until you have undergone psychiatric evaluation.”
“No,” she replied.
“Lady Ueichi, we can guarantee the safety of your captors if you cooperate. We cannot make any such guarantee should you resist.”
Mamoru did not like being at the mercy of Sayuri’s whims, but his input meant nothing unless he outed himself as a special investigator for Public Safety. And even then, access to the knowledge of full-body kinkawa might be tempting enough for a clan-conglomerate to directly rebel against the emperor.
“Let us dispense with the circumlocution and come directly to the matter, Officer Kudo. You will allow us to pass unmolested, or I will sink your fleet,” Sayuri said.
The officer burst out laughing. From the man’s perspective, she was a little girl threatening to sink 10,000 tons of steel and 400 men into the river. From Mamoru’s perspective, she could probably do this. He had to intervene. As he waited for something to happen, the young woman froze before saying words that chilled Mamoru.
“That… is odd.”
“What’s odd?”
“My hatsuden… it hurts more than usual. I can’t seem to use it against other people.”
“Holy shit, she really has gone loony!” Officer Kudo said. His men were laughing with him.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
This was bad. Mamoru reached into the inside of his blue jumpsuit and produced a brass badge in a black leather booklet bearing the Imperial emblem.
“I am undercover Special Investigator Mamoru Hoshi with the IPSA. Sayuri Ueichi is in my custody and thus under the direct protection of His Augustness the Thalassic Emperor. Your guardianship will not be required at this time,” Mamoru said, reverting to his noble dialect.
A gasp from his side. “What!? Mr. Fuku…”
Officer Kudo raised his eyebrows. “Now this is very interesting. However, I’ve also been given orders to secure Sayuri Ueichi no matter what. In fact, these orders covered the potentiality of the Emperor sticking His nose in things.”
The sacrilege against His Augustness made Mamoru’s jaw tighten.
“And what were these orders?”
“That I am authorized to use force, even against representatives of the Emperor. Of course, only if he decides to make my life difficult…”
Cold sweat pricked Mamoru’s entire body. There was nothing else. The conglomerates would have their way. First denying him his family’s airplane business, then his dream of going to the moon, and now they would make either a corpse or a traitor of him. What fantastic irony, he thought, that it was the heiress of the conglomerate to end all conglomerates that he was being asked to turn over and betray.
“Fine. But permit me the formality of having this taken down in record so that the Emperor’s face is saved,” Mamoru said.
The young officer smirked. “Certainly, Spaceman Ojii-chan.”
Of course the boy knew who he was. Unlike Shuuichiro Fukuzawa, Mamoru Hoshi was a household name. The first man in space. Sayuri’s dumbfounded expression followed him all the way to the bridge where an extremely confused Thomas and Milly were standing.
Once Mamoru was standing over the pilot console, he said, “Sayuri?”
“H-Hai?”
“Run and hide on the port side.”
He flipped on the engine and pulled the throttle back.
Thomas was the first to react, yanking Milly and himself to the deck. Automatic rifle fire skittered against the Daisagi-Maru. Mamoru heard a few return shots from the machine pistol in Thomas’ hand and watched 1st Junior Battery Officer Kudo take several to the face.
The Daisagi-Maru launched forward. Fortunately, the machine guns from the patrol boats were poorly aimed and ended up firing into the water or in the boat’s hull. Off starboard, Mamoru saw a couple anti-aircraft railguns swiveling towards the river.
Surely they weren’t that stupid. Even if the soldiers on shore were men fresh out of secondary school, they couldn’t possibly be dumb enough to fire an anti-aircraft cannon on a boat bearing the target they were supposed to take alive. But then again, the Junior Officer who knew that was now a corpse, and there was no guarantee he shared his orders.
From the shore came the hum of generators flooding magnetic rails with electricity. Then the world flashed with sensation.
First, a gigantic wall of water rocked the Daisagi-Maru as the momentum of thousands of silver-tipped pellets were forced down into the river. Then the booming crack of these projectiles being fired at eight times the speed of sound. Finally, as he looked down at his stomach, fiery, burning pain.
Mamoru had stopped the majority of the pellets with his hatsuden. The effort sent burning shocks up his arm. A few pellets had made it through, most splashing harmlessly into the river, but one found his stomach and left a messy hole behind. Blood forced itself up through his esophagus and painted the Imperial-white pilot console crimson.
“Sayuri!”
The girl rushed from her hiding spot. “You’re bleeding!”
He staggered out of the pilot’s seat, leaving the boat moving. Milly rushed to catch him before he crumpled. “Drive!”
“W-Wha—”
“Drive the boat!” Mamoru screamed, blood flinging from his lips.
Sayuri rushed to the console. The world spun and bobbed and lurched in a nauseating haze as the Daisagi-Maru fired its pumpjets while still wobbling. Blood from Mamoru’s stomach joined the water sloshing across the deck. More sharp pain burst through the haze as hands pressed a bunched up gown to the wound.
“You’re gonna be fine, Shuu, keep the pressure on. It’s not that big, I promise,” Milly said. Mamoru pushed down hard as she ran for water.
Underneath him he felt the Daisagi-Maru guided by an unfamiliar touch. The little things were off. Maybe she knew it too, the old girl. He placed his palm against the deck as though to reassure her it would be alright.
Milly pressed the kettle to his mouth and pulled away once it was out of water.
“It was just the one pellet, Shuu— Mamoru. Just one pellet. It’s a real small hole,” she said.
Mamoru could feel his muscles contracting in his abdomen. It was one small hole on the outside, but he knew what railgun pellets did. He knew that inside his stomach was a much bigger hole full of scrambled organ meat.
“Yeah,” he groaned, grasping Milly’s arm. “I’m sorry…”
“Sorry for what?”
“For—hmng!” A wave of pain and dread racked his body. “—lying.”
Milly laughed grimly. “It doesn’t matter.”
Two pursuing boats came up behind them. A machine gun on the bow fired and Sayuri cut the Daisagi-Maru towards the harbor, putting the Kintoki fleet in the line of fire. The machine guns stopped. Mamoru had never gone over maneuvers like that with her. He was proud.
As Sayuri pulled parallel to the Kintoki boats, Thomas popped over the top of the gun mount and fired a burst into one of the pursuing boats.
In the shadow of the Kintoki river monitors they were safe from the railguns, but they eventually had to turn back downriver, leaving them in a clear line of fire before the river bent around the treeline. Even then, Kintoki was sure to have gunships nearby. And if they got to Éstfýr, they’d have to find a way to the Public Safety Agency building through a city occupied by Kintoki.
Why had Sayuri picked then, of all times, to no longer want to use her hatsuden?
Mamoru gazed into Fleothe’s river where it rushed inches from his face. “Shou ga nai…neh.”
“Mr. Hoshi!”
He hadn’t realized he’d been fading out. Not unconscious, but out. Somewhere else. Being torn from it filled him with a flash of anger. Him and his loony moon dreams, couldn’t the world just leave him to them?
“What!?”
“W-Where do I go!?”
Mamoru tried to speak but his throat made a gurgling sound as it flushed more blood. He hacked it up, spasming muscles pushing back against Milly’s pressure.
“Gun it…” Mamoru sputtered, coughing between words. “Downriver… but wait…cough…for me…”
He waved Milly to help him up.
“I don’t think you should—”
“Get me on my feet!”
Milly grasped him by one arm and pulled him up. A fresh spurt of blood belched from the hole. With one arm around Milly’s shoulder, he staggered towards the stern beside Thomas.
“Dear Fleothe… it’s… hot out,” he said, shrugging off his jumpsuit and unbuttoning his green jacket with trembling hands. Glittering kinkawa ran up his forearm and curled over his shoulder to his upper back.
This would be his fifth time deflecting a railgun shot and the anxiousness never went away. Really, there was no way to time it. Not once the projectiles left the magnetic rail. The trick was to empathize with whoever was shooting at you, because then you could guess when they’d fire.
So who was the gunner at the other end?
A young man from the Kaihonjin working class, too poor to go to a good secondary school and university. Plenty of job opportunities for “unskilled” workers in the home islands, so the gunner had a bit of wanderlust to sign up with Kintoki Arms Services. But he had no chance of advancement without pedigree or university education and no clan loyalty to Kintoki. He’d be sloppy and impatient, without fear of damaging Kintoki property.
In trying to be both a corporate conglomerate and an army simultaneously, Kintoki’s discipline was weakened, their NCO pool shallow, their chain of command brittle. They wouldn’t have a new commanding officer in charge yet. Without discipline, the boy would fire a few seconds after the Daisagi-Maru became visible.
Mamoru motioned for Sayuri to come out from cover.
Sayuri cut away from the last river monitor. Soundlessly, thousands of lead pellets appeared in the air, then exploded into craters where they were shunted by Mamoru’s hatsuden. The air over the water exploded with the deafening crack of thousands of simultaneous sonic booms, trembling the kilometer-wide river like so much gelatin.
It must have felt like a light tickle to the goddess Fleothe.
At a speed of 40 knots, the Daisagi-Maru closed the distance towards the bend in the river that would take them out of sight of the battery. Sayuri’s turning was jerky, and her starboard side was halfway in the water, but Mamoru’s magnificent, oil-guzzling beauty kept faithful.
Kintoki would come after them. By boat and by plane. But they were now out of sight of those gods-damned railguns. Even better, they had bested a clan-conglomerate, one that specialized in military operations. Mamoru laughed through the pain. He would’ve preferred to go to the moon, but this wasn’t a bad final act.
Milly laid him down next to the bridge and put pressure back on the wound, but there were other things wrong inside him. He could feel it. The pain kept getting worse, but it also mattered less.
“Mizu… Water…” he said, tapping Milly’s arm.
“Thomas get him water!”
Thomas ran to the edge of the deck and started filling the kettle from the river, no time to get clean water.
“Mr. Hoshi… this is all strange. Please explain yourself,” Sayuri said.
Milly and Thomas had the gist of what was going on, so Mamoru considered letting it be, but he supposed he owed the girl something from his own lips. His head rolled sideways to look up at her in the pilot’s seat and he flashed a bloody grin. “You… you’re… a smart girl… Sayuri. I think… you already know.”
“No! I do not! Please—”
“We weren’t… taking you back… to the Ueichi clan. The second house— they’ll… kill you… not safe… any conglomerate. They all…”
Again, he dipped into the dark for a moment. He came back to Milly slapping his face and Thomas tilting river water into his mouth. Fleothe’s holy water, with its algae, bacteria, heavy metals, and effluence, tasted sickly, chemically sweet. But it was nice. Static crackled in his ear and the November afternoon felt so indescribably chilly after being so hot a moment ago.
“—His Augustness want with me?” Sayuri asked.
Mamoru grabbed her leg and squeezed.
“Everyone… cough… wants something… cough… with you… His August… we… I was sent to…” Gods, he needed water, but he couldn’t stop. “Get to the Imperial Court, they’ll…”
Protect her? Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they, too, would flay her alive for the secrets her father’s scientists had grafted into her nervous system, no different than the conglomerates. Were they any better, or was he blinded by the fact that only the Emperor could have fulfilled his dream?
He swore in the crackling TV static that filled his ears he heard a woman’s laughter like tinkling bells. Maybe it was the river water.
“You’ve been cursed…”
The girl said something back to him. Thomas and Milly said other things. But it all seemed unimportant. The gravity that tethered him to the earth began to loosen its grip and everything felt so light and natural and still and quiet. All the little problems were so distant. It was exactly like how he imagined walking on the moon would be.