Chapter 12
Finally, I had defeated the soldiers surrounding me, and I stopped, my chest heaving with my recent exertions. Blood dripped down off my wings and onto the pile of green-suited bodies at my feet. Ken and Ryu were taking care of the few remaining goons, so I quickly ran over to where the Swan lay, her head gently cradled in the Swallow's lap.
"How bad is it?" I asked Jinpei, my voice nearly cracking. I did my best to keep my worry from my face, but the Swallow somehow understood the depths of my concern.
Jinpei looked at me, tears running down his cheeks.
"I can't get her to wake up!" he sobbed.
My heart nearly stopped at his words, but I forced myself to calm down. I had medical training, and it was up to me to do what I could for Jun. I reached for her wrist, only to find that my hand was shaking. I took a few deep breaths as I felt for her pulse.
After what seemed like an eternity, I found it. It was weak, fluttering, erratic… but she was alive.
"She has a pulse." I informed the Swallow. "She's alive."
"That's good, isn't it?' Jinpei asked hopefully.
"It's a hell of a lot better than no pulse." I muttered. Just because there was a pulse didn't mean that Jun was out of the woods. Those energy weapons were nasty. The outer skin burned, but the true damage was inside. It was this characteristic that made energy blasters a weapon of choice for Galactor: they could force their way through almost any kind of armor or protective clothing, to wreck havoc with a person's insides.
Without medical equipment, I had no way of knowing what had been done to Jun's internal organs, or what kind of internal bleeding she was suffering from.
"She needs to get back to the Medical Bay, on the New God Phoenix." I told Jinpei.
"Is it safe to move her?" he asked nervously.
"If we don't move her, she could die." I said bluntly. I didn't see any point in sugar-coating it for the kid. He needed to know what was happening.
Tears rolled silently down Jinpei's cheeks, as he bowed his head over the one in his lap.
"Why did you do that, Onechan?" he sobbed, "Why did you have to push me out of the way? I would have been all right. You didn't have to do it…"
He looked up at me, and I could see the fear etched on his face.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, desperately hoping to impart some calm into his body. But how could I do that, when my own emotions were in turmoil?
I looked down at Jun's face. She seemed so peaceful… almost as if she were merely asleep. I thought of how close we had become, over the last few days, and how if she didn't pull through, we might never truly understand what was growing between us.
I reached out, lightly touching her cheek with my fingertips.
"Just this morning, Jun, you told me that either one of us could die, at any time." I whispered. "But… I can't deal with that. I'm…"
I was weak. I couldn't bear the thought of being without the one person who understood me… who could see inside to the person I was, past the cold exterior created by circumstance and Dr. Rafael.
I took a deep breath. The reality of a life without Jun whirled through my head. I forgot where we were, ignoring Jinpei, and the piles of green-uniformed bodies surrounding us.
All that mattered was Jun.
"You can't leave me, Jun." I insisted, a tear falling from my eye, only to splash onto my wings. "You've got to hold on."
Everything else had been pushed aside. At that moment, Jun had become my entire world.
The world was shattered when the Swallow spoke.
"You really do care for her, Joe." he said, in an awed voice.
I couldn't look at him. I could hardly believe that I had just laid myself bare, like that. These were the kinds of feelings and thoughts I rarely admitted to myself, much less to anyone else. And yet, I had been compelled to show them to Jun… at that moment I would have done anything to ensure that she would be all right.
I turned away, only to come face to face with Ken and Ryu. I hadn't even realized that they had stopped fighting. The expression on Ken's face told me that he had heard my words as well, and for a moment, I knew he saw how I was feeling as well.
"What's important, right now, is Jun." I said, collecting myself.
"You're going to be just fine." I said, more to myself, than to Jun.
"Joe?"
The voice was soft, and fragile, but it had definitely come from the Swan.
Relief flooded through my body like a crashing tidal wave.
"I'm here, Jun."
"Did you need me for something?" she smiled weakly.
"Yes." I smiled back. "I need to you to hold on for me. We'll be getting you some medical attention as soon as we can."
"Onechan, you're awake!" Jinpei grinned.
"Of course I am." Jun chided him gently. "It would take a lot more than one Galactor to bring me down." Her attempt at bravado was ruined as she gasped in pain, her body jerking slightly.
"You need to take it easy, Jun." I reminded her, concerned. "The energy blast has likely caused a lot of internal damage."
"I can keep going." Jun insisted, struggling to sit up.
"You shouldn't do that…" I began.
"Yes, she should." Ken interrupted me.
I turned to look at the Eagle, noting the grim expression on his face.
"We can't get her out of here, now." Ken said resolutely. "We have to keep going."
"What?" Jinpei yelled at Ken.
I merely sat there, my fists clenching in anger.
"We need to find that device." Ken replied calmly. "We can't go back now."
"Fine." the Swallow huffed. "I'll stay here with her, then."
"I'd rather not leave anyone behind." Ken pointed out. "We all need to keep going."
"I can do it, Ken." Jun said quietly, holding her head in her hands.
"I know you can, Jun." the Eagle encouraged her.
I was ready to smack my fist into his face. I couldn't believe that Ken was being so callous about Jun's welfare.
I held out my hand to the Swan, and she gave me a grateful smile as she took it. I could see the tightening at the edges of her eyes as she rose, but she managed to stand, then stared straight at Ken.
"I'm ready, Commander." she said, in a strong voice.
Ken nodded at her, as if her injury didn't bother him at all.
"Our mission is to recover the device." he told us. "We must do that, at all costs."
The Eagle stared straight at me, daring me to challenge his words. I glared at him, expressing my anger, but remained silent. My hands trembled, longing to connect with his jaw, but they stayed at my sides. I was tempted to mutiny, but I knew that it wouldn't do anyone any good.
Just as the Swan was driven by her teammates' welfare, the Eagle was driven by duty. This wasn't the first time he had put the mission before the team, willing to let one of us die, to accomplish his goals.
And it certainly wasn't the first time I had wanted to belt him for it. A memory flashed across my mind: standing in a field of Jigokiller flowers, hearing Ken agree that they had to be destroyed, even though Jun was trapped inside one of them. I recalled how good it had felt to hit him then, and how Jinpei and Ryu had backed me up.
But in the end, Ken had done his duty, and Hakase had prevailed upon me to accept my Commander's decision, practically forcing me to take part in this terrible act. I recalled pressing the button to send the bird missile into that field of killer plants, damning myself even as I did so.
It had been the protective suit that had saved Jun from the flames, but I knew that I had been granted a chance: a chance to make things right. I had promised myself, that I would never let Ken force me into making that choice again.
I swore that following him now, didn't mean breaking that promise to myself.
At this point, there wasn't much I could do, except watch out for Jun, and make sure that she made it through this alive.
At that moment, I didn't care if Ken survived the mission or not.
88888
We continued to make our way down the maintenance corridor, and saw no further sign of Galactor personnel. That in itself made me nervous, because now that they knew we were here, Galactor should be throwing everything they had at us.
Still, I appreciated the chance for Jun to recover herself, a bit. I had offered her my arm to lean on, but she had refused it. I could see her stumbling when she thought none of us were looking. Jinpei, Ryu and I cast concerned glances in her direction every so often, and we closed ranks around her. Anyone who wanted to get to Jun, would have to go through the three of us.
Ken was about ten feet in front of the rest of us, scouting the passageway and leading us deeper into the Galactor base. Every so often, he stopped to look at the locator I held, to see if we were still moving in the correct direction to find the Solectran device. Since the locator pretty much pointed straight down, we weren't making much progress traveling through perfectly horizontal corridors, and I could tell that this was frustrating the hell out of Ken.
He wasn't the only one. All I wanted to do was find the damn thing, and get Jun out of there.
After what seemed like hours, but was likely only about fifteen minutes, we found a metallic stairwell. It had a utilitarian appearance, fitting right in with the maintenance corridor, yet somehow, it just felt wrong.
I began to get a strange feeling. It took me a moment to realize why it was vaguely familiar. It felt somewhat like the sensation I had had previously, when spying on Leader X, a couple of weeks before I had rejoined the team.
Dr. Rafael had explained to me that as party of my cybernetic design, he had programmed my mind to recognize when I was near X, so that I could find him, and complete my ultimate purpose.
The sensation I had now made me feel like X was close by, but not in the same way that he had been all those months ago. It was more like… an echo… of that previous feeling.
Still, it didn't bode well.
"I don't like this." I said to Ken. "I think Leader X is nearby. If he's controlling that device…"
"We have to prevent him from using it." insisted Ken.
"Even if it means walking into a trap?" I asked him bluntly.
"Yes." Ken nodded. "We have to find the device, and destroy it."
"What?" Jinpei exclaimed, "Dr. Nambu said that we should recover it, if possible."
"I don't think we'll be able to do that." Ken shook his head resignedly. "Joe's probably right: Leader X has the device and is trying to use it. He's not going to let us have it. I suspect X would destroy it, before letting us take it."
"Then we have to make him think we're going to take it." Jun suggested, in a weak voice.
"I don't care who destroys that thing." Ken stated, "But it has to be done."
"Now," the Eagle turned to me, "Is that thing still pointing down?" he gestured to the locator in my hand.
I nodded silently.
"Then down we go." Ken pointed at the stairwell.
I didn't like it, but in this case, Ken was right. What other choice did we have, except to go back?
I didn't want to think about how that other choice had been denied to Jun.
We began descending further into the ground, our boot heels clunking softly on the metallic steps. The sound echoed through the stairwell. There was no way that Gel Sadra didn't realize that we were coming.
This was definitely a trap. It was frustrating that I couldn't see any course of action, other than to walk right into it.
Jun seemed to be doing a little better, holding onto the handrails. I didn't want to think of how she was going to get out of here. I resolved to carry her up these steps myself, if I had to, to make sure that she made it back to the New God Phoenix in one piece.
At some point, the metallic walls of the stairwell gave way to rock. It appeared that this shaft had been carved out of solid rock. The rock itself was strange too: shot through with strange golden and reddish-brown threads, which only got more numerous, the further we descended.
"What's all of that funky stuff on the walls?" Jinpei asked.
"It looks like some kind of hydrothermal magnetite." Jun offered.
"Huh?" the Swallow appeared confused.
"Modified forms of gold and copper." the Swan explained, a little breathless form the physical stress she was under. "They have strong magnetic and conductive properties."
There was something about Jun's hypothesis that made me uncomfortable, but before I could think too much about it, we reached the bottom of the steps. In front of the steps was a single, metallic door.
"Uh, Commander," Ryu seemed almost embarrassed to be saying anything, "doesn't this seem a little too convenient to you? I mean, we find only one way down, and there's nothing between the place we came from, and here. No other floors, or other parts to this base. And now, here's this door. Are we really going to go through it?"
"I agree." Ken replied calmly. "If you have another suggestion, I'd like to hear it."
Ryu shrugged silently, indicating that he had nothing further to offer.
I looked down at the locator.
"The device is no longer below us."
Everyone turned to look at me.
"It's in that direction." I said, pointing at the door.
"Then we go in." Ken ordered.
