Azumanga Strangelove
or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Anime
Author's notes:
English is not my native language, so please bear with me
Japanese words are explained in the notes at the bottom
Comments and reviews are most welcome
The obligatory disclaimer: I own neither Azumanga Daioh nor Dr. Strangelove
The time was well past midnight. In the Operations Center at Sakura Air Base the usual busy, but controlled activeness reigned. The Officers of the 843rd Bomb Wing directed the 34 bombers from the Wing on airborne alert. Colonel 'Mandrake' Nyamo sat at her console observing the big board on the wall showing the positions of the planes. The telephone rang, and she answered it immediately: "Moshi moshi (1)?"
"Colonel Nyamo, this is General Yukari" an enthusiastic voice said.
"Yukari?" Nyamo asked puzzled.
"Yukari - you recognize my voice?" the voice asked.
Nyamo stared at the device in disbelief: "Of couse I do! Why do you ask?"
"Why do you think I ask?" The voice sounded annoyed.
"How the heck should I know!" Nyamo said angrily. "We spoke on the phone just ten minutes ago!"
"You think I'd ask, unless it was pretty damned important?" the voice growled.
"All right then" Nyamo sighed. "What do you want?"
"Have the planes of the Wing reached their fail safe points?" General 'Ripper' Yukari asked smugly.
"Yes, every one of them is in position."
"Yosh (2)! Now listen up, Nyamo" Yukari said with determination. "I want the base put on Condition Red. And I mean right now!"
"Hey, great idea - keeping the troops on their toes" Nyamo said with a smile.
"Nyamo, this is not an exercise " the far too smug voice said. "The balloon has gone up!"
"Yukari, you shouldn't joke about that..." Nyamo said reproachfully.
"It's no damned joke!" was Yukari's spirited answer. "I just received orders on the secured line. The base is to shut, sealed tight - and that's what we'll do!"
"Hai (3)" Nyamo sighed.
"And then I want you to transmit to the Wing orders for Attack Plan R!"
"Kami-sama (4)!" Nyamo said appalled. "Is it that bad?"
"Yep, it looks pretty big..." Yukari chuckled. "Now, last, and possibly most important, all radios and phones on the base are to be impounded immediately. They might be used to issue instructions to spies and saboteurs..."
"Hai!" Nyamo said determinedly.
"Yosh!" Yukari said with satisfiction. "Call me when you've done that!"
Nyamo hung up, and pressed the button activating the base alarm.
XXXXXXXX
The mighty B-52 bomber slowly made it's way across the sky, high above the clouds. The plane was alone, but was part of a larger force of bombers controlled by the Strategic Air Command (a.k.a. SAC) of the Air Force. Of this force scores of airplanes, armed with nuclear weapons, were constantly airborne, and each of these planes were never more than two hours of flying away from their bomb targets, deep inside Russia.
The plane flew on autopilot, and in the pilot's seat Major 'Kong' Osaka sat and blew little bubbles from her nose, in time with her snoring. In the copilot's seat next to her sat Lieutenant Sakaki and gazed in fascination in a magazine about cats. A low but persistent beeping made her sigh and look up. She peered at the radio display and read the three letters and three ciphers indicating a coded message: FGD 135.
Quickly she looked it up in the codebook and decoded the message. Gradually her face became more serious, then worried, and finally desperate.
"Kami-sama, what should I do?" she said, and looked at the yellow cat Chiyo-dad who sat behind her.
"You should tell your superior" the cat answered in a slow, deep voice, and smiled at her inscrutably.
Sakaki nodded. "Osaka-san! Wake up!" she called to her superior.
"Hmmm... those pigtails are..." Osaka mumbled in her sleep.
"Mmm... oh... what?" she said in confusion as Sakaki shook her. "What's going on?"
"Osaka-san! We have a message from base. Ordering Attack Plan R!" Sakaki said seriously.
Osaka stared at her intensely: "Sakaki-san: Did you say Attack Plan R?"
Sakaki nodded her head.
"Sakaki-san!" Osaka said sternly. "How many times have I told you that I want no horsing around on the airplane!"
Sakaki blushed a little: "Osaka-san! I'm serious - that's how it decodes!"
She handed her superior the message and the codebook, and Osaka began staring intensely at one, then the other, seemingly expecting the letters to change.
"Maybe we'd better get a confirmation from base..." Sakaki said, and turned to the radio. "Maybe it's some kind of loyalty test..." she added with a hint of hope in her voice. "To see if we really commence the attack run when the order is given - and then a counterorder is given in a moment?"
"General Yukari would never order Attack Plan R unless something was terribly wrong..." Osaka mumbled, staring out the windshield.
Sakaki glanced at Osaka, then at Chiyo-dad whose facial expression she still couldn't interpret. She didn't look too convinced. "Osaka-san, message from base confirmed" she said a moment later.
Osaka leaned forward and pulled something from a bag below her seat. With caution she fixed the pair of brown pigtails to her hair. Then she straightened herself up, a resolute expression on her face: "Sakaki-san, we have a mission!"
XXXXXXXX
General 'Turgidson' Tomo guffawed at her favourite lamebrain TV show when the phone rang. She scowled at the phone, but as this didn't make it stop she grumblingly rose and answered it: "Hai - Tomo desu (5)."
"General Tomo, this is Oberst Chihiro" a thin but serious voice said.
"What do you want?" Tomo asked, annoyed.
"Eight minutes ago a transmission from Sakura Air Base was intercepted" Chihiro said. "It was directed to the bombers on airborne alert, and decoded as orders for Attack Plan R!"
Tomo jumped in excitement and knocked over the phone: "Yaaay! An attack, an attack!" she shouted with joy.
After about a minute she slowed down and picked up the phone.
"Tomo-chan! General Tomo! Are you there? Moshi moshi?" Chihiros agitated voice said.
"Yup, I'm here!" Tomo said, grinning with joy. "What's cooking on the threat board?"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing?" Tomo said in disbelief. "That can't be true... Chihiro, you'd better call the base commander, General Yukari, for a verification..."
"I already tried that, General-san, but all communications are down - radio, phone, the works..."
"Hmmm... that won't do..." Tomo said, considering for a moment. "Chihiro, you better bump up the readiness level to Condition Red, call the rest of SAC - and the President."
"Hai!"
"I'm on my way - See you in the War Room!" Tomo went on, grinning. She slammed down the receiver. "Woo hoo hoo" she yelled, and rushed out the door.
XXXXXXXX
General Yukari sat, with her feet on her desk in her large office, speaking to the base personnel through a microphone: "Your commie has no regard for human life" she said, in a cocksure, nonchalant voice - "not even his own! That's why all of you have to be on your guard! The enemy may come individually, or he may come in strength - he may even come in the uniform of our own troops..." she went on - "but no matter how, we must deny him entrance to the base!"
In the Operations Center Nyamo supervised the orders being carried out while listening absentmindedly to Yukari's peptalk.
"I have defined three simple rules which everyone on the base must follow" the loudspeaker resounded with Yukari's smug voice. "First, trust no one, unless they're known to you personally. Second, anyone who approaches within 200 yards of the base is to be fired upon. Third, if in doubt, shoot first, and ask questions afterwards! I would sooner accept a few casualties through accident than lose the entire base through carelessness! So, go get 'em, girls and boys - yay!" Yukari shouted in a hysterically joyful voice.
While picking up a message from the printer Nyamo wondered for a moment what worried her the most: That the end of the world might be coming, or that Yukari sounded so damned confident. To her surprise she discovered a small radio next to the printer. She turned on the device, and heard tones of unconcerned J-Pop. "Something's wrong..." she said and rushed out the room, with the radio in her hand.
XXXXXXXX
On the B-52, a surprisingly resolute Osaka had found the details about Attack Plan R in the safe box.
"Should we really do this?" Sakaki mumbled to herself in doubt. She glanced at Chiyo-dad.
"Don't forget that your target is red!" the smiling cat said to her, in his slow, resonant voice.
Osaka began reading the Attack Plan out loud: "To insure that no fake orders are transmitted to us, the CRM-114 discriminator is to be switched into the radio. The emergency code prefix is to be set on the dial of the CRM. This will block any transmission unless preceded by the code prefix."
Sakaki looked at her, as she listened intently.
"Set code prefix to K.I.R.I.N." Osaka said.
Sakaki set the code on the discriminator, and switched it into the radio. She glanced again at Osaka, who sat staring out the windshield.
"'Kirin'... I wonder what 'Kirin' means in Russian?" Osaka mumbled absentmindedly. "What if it means, like, 'Hi!', and the Russians send us a message... How do we know if it's a fake order?"
"Osaka-san, onegai (6), pull yourself together!" Sakaki pleaded, her desperation having returned for a moment.
"Hmm... yes!" Osaka said, her resolute expression returning. "Did you check the auto-destruct circuits?"
"Hai!" Sakaki replied.
"Primary target is the ICBM complex at Laputa." Osaka went back to read out the Attack Plan and target coordinates, while Sakaki planned the route. "30 megaton nuclear device fused for airburst at 10,000 feet - 20 megaton nuke will be used if the first's a dud" Osaka read, and Sakaki shuddered. "Otherwise, proceed to secondary target: Missile complex 7 miles east of Borshov" Osaka said, and gave Sakaki the coordinates.
XXXXXXXX
Nyamo hurried through the narrow corridors in the headquarters of the 843rd Bomb Wing, carefree music coming from the radio in her hand. She found the door to the office of the Wing's commander. Without knocking she burst through the door, and found General Yukari sitting chuckling behind her desk. Yukari looked up at her in surprise. The desk was filled with heaps of paper, ring-binders and books in foot-high piles, and as Nyamo came closer, she could see Yukari pouring beer into a tall glass.
"Listen to this, Yukari" Nyamo said, smiling, as she held up the radio in front of Yukari.
Yukari's grin had vanished, and she eyed her with a mix of surprise and suspicion.
"It's pop music!" Nyamo stated the obvious. "Civilian broadcasting."
Yukari glared at the radio.
"It looks like SAC wanted to test out readiness with a small exercise" Nyamo said with a smile. "Personally, I think they've taken it a bit too far - our girls will be inside Russian radar coverage in 20 minutes..."
"Nyamo!" Yukari snarled. "I thought I issued instructions for all radios on this base to be impounded!"
"You certainly did" was Nyamo's unfazed reply. "And I was in the proces of impounding this one when I happened to switch it on."
Yukari stood up, with firm steps walked to the door and locked it, and put the key in her pocket.
"I thought" Nyamo went on, "that since our planes will be detected by the Russians in 20 minutes, I'd better tell you right away - 'cause if that happens, hell might break loose!"
"Nyamo!" Yukari growled, as she sat down behind her desk. "Even though we're friends, that doesn't give you any prerogatives to question my orders!"
Nyamo looked at her in surprise. "I know that, Yukari, but I thought you'd be pleased to hear the news... After all, we don't want to start a nuclear war, do we?"
"Shut that thing up" Yukari demanded, obviously annoyed, and pointed at the radio.
Nyamo turned it off, and looked earnestly at Yukari. "What about the planes? We have to transmit the recall code immediately! "
"Nyamo, the planes are not gonna be recalled" Yukari said firmly, taking a draught from the glass. "My attack orders have been issued, and the orders stand!"
"Yukari, listen to me" Nyamo entreated. "If there really was a Russian attack in progress, the radio certainly wouldn't be playing pop music!"
"Are you certain of that, Nyamo?" Yukari asked, not really seeming interested in the answer.
"Hai!" Nyamo replied firmly.
"Then what if it's true?"
"What are you saying?" Nyamo said in disbelief. "I mean, if a Russian attack were not in progress, then your use of Plan R..." - she hesitated for a second - "then there's something terribly wrong somewhere..."
Yukari leaned back and gestured nonchalantly. "Nyamo, you just take it easy now. Get me another beer, from the cabinet over there, and help yourself to whatever you like..." she said, smiling smugly.
For a long moment Nyamo stared at her in disbelief. Then she put the radio down on one of the paper piles on the desk, stood at attention, and saluted. "General Yukari: As an officer of the Air Force" she said in a firm and reproachful tone, "it is my clear duty to issue the recall code on my own authority, and bring back the Wing!" She turned around and strode resolutely towards the door.
Nyamo found that the door was locked. The other door in the room was locked too, and the third one merely led to the bathroom. "Yukari, I need the key and the recall code" she said to the woman behind the desk. "Where is it?"
"I told you to take it easy" Yukari said, unconcerned, and again took a draught of beer. "There's nothing anybody can do about this thing now... I'm the only person who knows the recall code..."
"Then give them to me, dammit!" Nyamo shouted angrily, and strode towards the desk.
The General removed a piece of paper from the top of one of the piles, revealing a pistol.
"Yukari, are you threatening me, your best friend?" Nyamo said, more in disbelief than in anger.
"Nyamo" Yukari said in a strangely composed tone. "I suppose it never occured to you, that while we're chatting here so enjoyably, a decisicion is being made by the President and the joint chiefs, in the War Room at the Ministry of Defence."
Nyamo glanced at the pistol, but said nothing.
"And when they realize there's no possibility of recalling the Wing" Yukari went on, a manic grin appearing on her face, "there'll be only one course of action open: Total commitment!"
"Nyamo, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?" Yukari asked, somewhat more composed.
Nyamo stood dumbfounded, and slowly shook her head.
"He said war was too important to be left to the generals" Yukari went on, and emptied her glass. "When he said that, during World War I, he might have been right... But today, war is too important to be left to politicians! They have neither the time, the training, or the inclination for strategic thought..."
Nyamo swallowed hard, and stood motionless.
Yukari took a deep breath, and looked her in the eyes: "I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious beer and sake!"
XXXXXXXX
(1) Moshi moshi: Hello
(2) Yosh: All right/Good
(3) Hai: Yes/Yes sir/Okay
(4) Kami-sama: God
(5) Hai - Tomo desu: Tomo speaking
(6) Onegai: Please