(This chapter concludes the December batch update, and could also count as a slightly late New Year special. Thanks again to everyone who has supported this project, which is now coming up on its second birthday.)
Part 31: Waldo World Waltz
Blue Sea Dormitory, Kaiou Academy
Japan, Second Universal Layer
1999
"Shh!"
The answering giggle was no quieter than before, nor any more refined and elegant.
"If you don't stop," Mari whispered fiercely, "Micchi or the dorm chief will catch us!"
Hagino showed no inclination to heed the warning. She merely spurred Mari on, gently prodding the back of the latter's dripping shirt as the pair tiptoed along the dark hallway. "I'm sure they will understand," the alien replied mirthfully. "But if you catch a cold like this, we shall really be in trouble."
"Mm." It was true, any illness now would put the brakes on Michiko's long-awaited play. Coming to the door of their shared room, Mari eased it open and looked inside furtively. Having Tsubael floating over her when she woke up was bad enough...
"She went back to the ship," Hagino supplied, walking in without concern. "Let's hurry and change."
"Yeah..."
Neither of them bothered to turn on the lights: with their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the dim moonlight filtering in through the window was ample. Mari pulled off her shoes, padded over to her bed and began to peel off her sodden garments one by one. In hindsight, shoving Hagino into the pool – never mind diving in after her – had not been the smartest way to make up, even if it earned her such a thrilling result. How many girls' first kisses left an aftertaste of chlorine?
"Mari-san..?"
"Huh?" Mari looked down, realizing she'd spaced out with her skirt halfway off. Shaking it loose, she removed the rest of her school uniform in a flustered rush and piled it on her chair. She was on the way to retrieving her pajamas when she realized she couldn't hear anything on Hagino's side of the room... and she knew quite well that even the princess of Kaiou couldn't disrobe in perfect silence. Mari turned around to find Hagino sitting motionless on her own bed, wrapped in shadows. "What are you doing?"
"Watching you."
Ba-dum!
Mari hastily turned her back, unable to stop her heart from beginning to race. "Aren't you going to get dressed?"
"Yes, of course."
Mari's pajamas, the usual blue-green set, were in their proper place. She took them out and laid them over her blanket, along with replacement underwear. Pausing to listen to her environment, she again heard no trace of activity from her roommate. The knowledge that she was still being watched kept her pulse up and spurred the spreading flush in her cheeks. They had been together in this room from the beginning, seen each other night after night... but everything changed when they plunged into the water. "Say, Hagino..."
"Yes?"
Something had awakened in Mari, an unprecedented curiosity. "Don't you want to go... further?"
"Further?"
"Yeah... The stuff that comes next?"
"And what would that be?"
Mari didn't actually know – sheltered upbringing, all-girls school, et cetera. "Um... Going all the way?"
"Oh my," the nude Arume teased, stepping into the light. "You're always so bold, Mari-san... I hope you understand what you're asking."
"I'm not stupid," Mari retorted defensively. "I know there's more to this than kissing and holding hands!"
The alien girl drew closer, her pale skin fulfilling a time-honored trope by appearing to glow in the moonshine. "Are you sure?"
"If you don't want to," Mari huffed, fast losing her battle against the urge to stare at those pink little nipples, "put your clothes on already!"
"But I do want to." Hagino wasn't teasing anymore. "I want to do so many things with you."
"Then..." Mari searched for a less intimate part of her newly-bonded girlfriend's body on which to focus, settling on the navel. Within moments, however, her gaze had wandered down to the hairless mound below and the cleft which started midway down its front and disappeared between Hagino's slightly parted legs. She couldn't rationally explain why she was suddenly so very interested in what lay down there. "Then let's do it!"
A look of determination came over Hagino's face as she stepped forward, lifting her hands. Mari tensed, remembering Hagino's impulse to strangle her at their first meeting, then relaxed slightly when those hands slid under her arms instead of around her neck. The fingers and palms felt clammy against the skin of her back, prompting a shiver.
If Tsubael popped back in now, she'd receive the shock of a lifetime.
For a long moment, human and alien looked into one another's eyes. Hagino had withdrawn the camouflaging pigment, leaving only the vivid blue which her classmates never saw. Moving so slowly as to be almost imperceptible, she closed the gap and pressed her lips against Mari's. Their second kiss tasted much better than the first.
Mari wanted more. She raised her own hands, tentatively placing one on Hagino's hip and easing the other around to the small of the alien's back. Hagino responded to this venture with a faint moan and deepened the kiss. A fresh thrill ran through Mari as a pair of bigger, softer breasts gently pressed against her own. "Nnn!"
After a minute, maybe a little more, Hagino withdrew. "I know you were looking at them when we went swimming," she murmured, smiling graciously. "Would you like to touch?"
Mari's blush trebled in intensity. "Can... can I?"
"Mm..." Hagino went in for another, fleeting kiss. "May I touch you as well, Mari-san?"
"Uh... Of course!" A nervous laugh escaped the schoolgirl's lips. She started to slide her hand up Hagino's flank, but a new sensation arrested her motion. She'd assumed her partner was seeking permission to explore her breasts, small and inflexible though they might be, but the Arume instead shifted her weight onto one leg. The smile became mischievous once more as she gracefully lifted the other until Mari was forced up onto the tips of her toes, straddling the alien's knee. "Ha – Haginooooo..!"
Hagino's smile turned into a hungry grin. Before Mari could wriggle away, she planted both hands on the girl's butt and pulled her forwards, sliding Mari's wet sex over her raised thigh until the brunette's nether region rested against her hip. "...Did you like that?"
"I... That..."
"You did." Hagino tightened her embrace and pushed off with her anchoring foot, causing both girls to fall onto Mari's bed with a satisfying fwumph. Mari yielded to the advance, spreading her legs obediently as Hagino rested herself on her knees and elbows. "Mari-san," she panted, a new urgency in her words, "tonight, please... let me have you."
Mari nodded eagerly, the good feelings overwhelming her. Hagino dropped in for the fourth kiss, upping the ante by slipping her tongue between Mari's lips. The girl on the bottom shuddered as roving fingertips wandered down the length of her sternum and onto her belly, creeping closer to –
Beep-beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep-beep!
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh."
For a moment, Mari seriously considered picking up the alarm clock and hurling it at the far wall with every joule she could muster... but then she remembered the poor soundproofing in these rooms, a problem made doubly clear to her by her neighbors' noisy intercourse last night. She settled for a brutal smack, then rolled out of bed. Time to put the happy memories back on the shelf and get on with her lonely life.
Girls' Dormitory, Eto Delo Headquarters
Hong Kong, China
April 28th, 2016
Renaril was awakened by a distant beeping and a muffled thunk. She felt utterly enervated, had an astounding headache, and her bladder was close to maximum capacity. That last discomfort required attention most urgently, so the group commander climbed out of the unfamiliar bed and fumbled around in the dark until she found her uniform.
There was a rustle of sheets as she zipped it up. "Where're you going?"
Her mouth was very dry, too. "Bathroom..."
"Long end of the hall, last door on the right."
Renaril bolted, leaving her shoes behind.
It was born in Eskilstuna, three months after the death of Queen Victoria and not quite six more before the departure of the Swedish expedition to Antarctica. Its working parts were forged and milled from the land's native ores, fortified with nickel, copper and vanadium, and mated to a length of solid walnut carved and fitted with micrometer precision. It passed its proofing and inspection with flying colors, whereupon a man named Gibson indicated its acceptance by stamping his initials on it. It left the factory packed in a crate with nineteen others, sent out into the world to join their eighty-four thousand predecessors already in service.
The army which issued it had given its breed the uninspiring designation of Gevär m/96, but to others it was better known by the name of its architect – Mauser. By the standards of later times it was a work of art, a grotesquely ironic honor for an implement of war. War, however, was not soon in coming for this one. It was assigned to a regiment in an unimportant part of its homeland, its host unit marked on a brass disk screwed into the stock, and used to engage targets no more threatening than printed and painted silhouettes.
War did come to the fatherland of its designer just a few months after his own passing, and hundreds upon thousands of the m/96's foreign cousins endured trial by fire in a conflict of unimagined scale and ferocity. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month came and went, leaving four empires broken and dismembered. But Sweden had sat out the war, and this Mauser continued its idle fight against paper and pasteboard.
Some were foolish enough to call that bloody mess the war to end all wars. In truth, the fuze was already smoldering anew before the guns went silent. The Mauser family grew, Belgians and Czechoslovakians competing with Germans to meet the demands of the market, but the Swedes were concerned with other things. The ponderous long rifles and their snub-snout carbine companions plodded on unchanged while the world sank in economic depression and shook with the first rumblings of the next global conflict.
As the clouds darkened over Europe once again, some of the m/96's siblings were pulled from service and had their barrels and stocks recut to a shorter length. They were joined by others newly made to the same pattern, following the trends of neighboring armies. Then fighting broke out in the land across the narrow waters to the east, and some of the long Mausers were sent to sit on the sidelines of a battlefield where Mosins fought against Mosins, but this aging m/96 again stayed home. Meanwhile the greater war expanded, the nations to the south and west suffering invasion and occupation one by one.
In the Mauser's fortieth year, its owners undertook another program to catch up with those who might next be knocking at their door. Some of its kind were picked out for outstanding accuracy, fitted with telescopic sights and fed improved ammunition. This one was passed over for the optics upgrade, but in time the new cartridge became its regular diet. It was modified, first with a tacked-on plate instructing its bearers in the use of the sharp-tipped bullet, and then handed in to an armorer who adjusted its sights and punch-marked the condition of its bore on a new stock disk.
Greater changes were still in the works. The Mausers were joined by the newfangled Ljungman, which used gas pressure to do the work formerly entrusted to the operator's hands, and by a fresh production run of long rifles. The hot war ended and a cold war began, bringing revised alignments and rethought strategies. By now the m/96 was severely long in the tooth, as self-loading and select-fire systems were becoming the order of the day. Its wood was nicked and dented from being knocked about in a thousand exercises, its lands and grooves beginning to lose their sharp edges. Many of its brothers were overhauled, their worn stocks and barrels replaced as needed, but not this one.
Over the coming decades, this one and thousands like it were pulled from the racks, stricken from the lists and sold out of service. Some went to domestic customers, while others were bought up by foreign companies and distributed overseas. Yet again, however, this one did not go far: it passed into the hands of a man named Stefansson, who fitted it with a Fäldt diopter sight, like the target shooters used on their match rifles, and screwed a wooden pistol grip onto the stock because he found the straight wrist uncomfortable. He used the Mauser in local competitions for a while, before he retired and moved out to the countryside. Stefansson spent the next twenty-odd years stalking deer and moose with it, until his eyes dimmed and his hands grew unsteady. The m/96 was passed on to his son not long before old age quietly claimed him.
Stefansson Junior carried on the tradition, but by the late '90s those years of frequent use had taken a noticeable toll on the rifle's accuracy. It was still adequate for a hunter, but the younger Stefansson was more interested in feats of precision. He thought about trading it away for something new, a nice Husqvarna or Sako, but in the end the sentimental memories dissuaded him. Instead, he saved up some money and took the Mauser to a specialist. It was knocked down into its components, the barrel unscrewed and replaced with a new one of the same weight and profile. The bluing had worn thin on the barrel bands and trigger guard, and Stefansson Junior found the preventative maintenance tiring. He cleaned all the surfaces and recoated them with an airbrush, duplicating the dark blue-black color of the old finish in a stronger medium.
Then the aliens came.
The m/96 took a human life for the first time in the autumn of its hundred and second year, when the Arume tried to drop a raiding party into the Nordic wilderness. Stefansson Junior and his neighbors, all drafted into a stopgap militia, were the first to catch them on the ground. As the invasion transitioned away from bombardment and terror weapons towards a more conventional ground-pounding affair, Stefansson was inducted into the remnants of the Swedish army as a scout. The Mauser was too unwieldy for his new role, and he had to store it away in exchange for a Bofors automatic.
After some years of lying idle, interrupted only by brief and intermittent excursions when its master was on leave, a new arrival gave the m/96 another chance: a stranger from the east who came knowing almost nothing of the art of war. The son of Stefansson – himself childless – took her in for a while, taught her everything he knew, and then gathered his surviving friends and persuaded them to do the same. Most of them would fall in battle before they had a chance to truly appreciate the fruit of their labor: together they had honed a killer as cold as the surrounding ice, who redeemed their investment by waging a nine-year personal campaign of eradication against the invaders.
It had been a good run, up until that evening when the Arume decided to single out Mari from among all the others who preyed on their hapless underlings. A stranger snatched her up and spirited her away, depositing the warrior and her weapon in a new world. Now the Swedish Mauser lay sandwiched between a Chinese Dragunov and an Argentine FAL on a rack in a locked cabinet, waiting for the next chance to strike fear into its mistress's enemies.
The next chance would come far, far sooner than she anticipated.
Renaril felt better after visiting the toilet and availing herself of the water fountain in the hallway, but she still experienced a certain dread, or maybe a dreadful certainty, about what awaited her in the bedroom. She didn't dare run away, however, when her shameful actions were not yet atoned for. Kang was awake when the Arume returned, sitting barelegged on the bed in her white pullover. She'd opened the curtains a little, admitting early morning light.
"Good morning, Renaril." The colonel's face was placid, her voice calm.
"...'Morning."
"How do you feel?"
"My head hurts." Renaril swallowed. "Li, I... I'm sorry for what I did last night, so... please forget everything and let me start over."
"Forget everything?" Kang cocked her head. "You regret making love to me?"
"What? No... I mean... that is..." Renaril fumbled so badly that she nearly bit her tongue. "I did that?"
"You were rather aggressive," her partner confirmed. "I suppose it was the vodka."
"I'll never drink again," the alien vowed. "Um, does this mean we... made up?"
"Of course." Kang adjusted her posture, the bottom of the jumper riding high on her bare hips. "You don't remember?"
Renaril shook her head, shamefaced. "I was with the Australians, and then a man named Bruce came... or maybe it was two Bruces, I don't know." She searched her opposite's face apprehensively. "Did I do anything weird?"
"No," Kang assured her, "you were a well-behaved drunk." She patted her naked lap. "Come here."
Renaril obeyed the summons, climbing onto the bed and settling down with her thighs spread over Kang's. "Did I say anything I shouldn't have?"
"No... Keldanil and Schuhart were very patient and supportive, so I think everything will be all right."
"Mm..." Renaril snuggled up against her elder's body. She was, to borrow a funny line from one of Elaqebil's movies, not in the condition to fuck – but this closeness wouldn't aggravate her hangover. "Are you okay, Li?"
"I'm fine." Kang stroked her back. "A little tired, that's all."
"...Sorry."
"Don't be," the short-haired woman replied. "I guess we'll need to adjust the rules of this relationship."
"Mm-hm." The smaller of the two turned her head and pressed her lips against the side of her lover's neck. "Does it still have to be a secret?"
Kang squirmed a little at the unexpected contact. "It isn't very secret any more," she sighed, "but please, let's keep it low-key until things have quieted down a little." The fighter suddenly retaliated by kissing Renaril's forehead. "I don't want you to become a target."
Somehow whatever happened last night had really brought out Kang's sweet side. "You... you neither." Renaril decided to test her luck a little and gently pushed the older woman onto her back. "Li... when it's safer, can we, er..."
"Yes..?"
"Can we date?"
"Date? Isn't it a little late to be doing that?"
"I don't think so." Renaril rested her cheek on Kang's chest, listening to her heart beating where the fabric of the jumper was stretched thin by her unsupported breasts. "There's still so much I want to know about you, so much I want to do with you..."
"I know." Kang brushed a few stray hairs away from the Arume's face. "This is all new to me, so please be patient if I'm not very good."
"I feel like I should be the one saying that." Renaril closed her eyes, enjoying the tender ministrations. "Li, what's the name of that dress your people wear? The one with a slit on the outside of the leg?"
"A qipao. Why?"
"Just thinking."
The air of innocence wasn't innocent enough. "You want to see me dressed like the Shanghai bourgeoisie?" Kang prompted, sounding faintly amused. "I'll think about it."
Renaril blushed, and was composing a retort when she heard a knock on the door. "Colonel, Group Commander," a muffled voice called, "it's Lebel. I brought you some fresh clothes, in case you want to use the showers."
Renaril didn't much care that she stank of sweat and sex, but Kang was not so carefree. "Thank you," the latter answered. "We'll be right there."
The Eto Delo pistol range was twenty-five meters' length from benches to target stands, and boxed in on three sides by high piles of concrete rubble. It was placed to the south of the main base in Kowloon, on the border of the abandoned shore area, and faced towards the east because there was nothing important for a stray bullet to hit over there. The light wasn't too good at this time of day, so Mari hoped she could have the range to herself for a little while.
Circumstances were not obliging. She was tightening the screw of her clamp-on brass catcher when company arrived: Sauer the gosta, looking highly handsome as she escorted a blond girl whom Mari hadn't seen before. The latter's left sleeve was empty from the shoulder down, and she had a crinkled burn scar which reached up the side of her neck almost to the ear. It was clear from the way she walked that there were bigger scars under her shirt and trousers. This must be the mildly notorious Camilla Laforey, Mari concluded.
"Good morning, Miss Mariko," the artificial girl hailed.
"Good morning," Mari returned automatically. She still hadn't gotten used to that idiosyncratic formality of theirs. "I can go somewhere else if you want the range to yourselves," the sniper offered. "Don't let me get in the way of your date."
"Oh no, it's not like that," Sauer protested, suggesting to Mari that she wished it were. "And you were here first."
"Well, if you're don't mind." Mari went down to the far left end of the range, its extremity marked by a low sandbag barrier, and resumed her preparations – might as well give the pair some space. She noted with some curiosity that Sauer had brought a folding chair and the .22 Lee-Enfield trainer which Schuhart kept around the office for pest control. It was an odd choice for a one-armed person to plink with, but Camilla must have requested it particularly.
"Shall I set out a target for you, Miss Mariko?"
"No need." Mari held up a charger loaded with practice rounds, dull cartridges tipped by red-painted wooden bullets. "I'm just exercising my fingers."
The shower nozzles numbered twenty in all, arrayed along the long walls of a rectangular room with white tiling on all its surfaces. The spray of warm water felt good on Kang's shoulders and back, long rivulets running down her thighs and calves. The lingering stiffness from Renaril's boozed-up coupling was fast dissolving from her muscles. It had been a long time since she'd actually enjoyed the activity like this.
Renaril, standing immediately to her right, didn't look so happy – probably because she had to share the showers not only with Kang, but also with Eripol, Negadael and fifteen gosta... and Renaril really didn't like the gosta, even though the former living bombs were doing nothing to actually cause offense so far as Kang could tell. Most of them were chatting among themselves as they washed, many in pairs. Directly opposite herself, Richardson and Harrington were the very model of modest young lovers.
We could learn something from them, Renaril.
The Arume adjutants, to their own credit, were maintaining a respectful silence. Kang rinsed out her hair and reached for the soap bar thoughtfully provided by Lebel, glancing at the gosta on her left as she did so. Krag was her name, if the colonel remembered correctly: a pretty girl who wore her hair in a sort of bob cut and had the body curves of a small adult, a marked contrast to the overgrown adolescent appearance which predominated among her siblings and their creators. She seemed to be alone, and wasn't adding much to the conversation.
When Kang looked again, she caught Krag looking back at her with a clouded expression. "Do you need this?" she asked, proffering the soap.
Krag quickly averted her face. "No, thank you."
"Is there something wrong?"
"I'm sure I am mistaken..."
"Go on," the Chinese woman encouraged. "I won't penalize you."
"Then..." Krag took a deep breath. "Is there any possibility that you are pregnant?"
"Hm?" Rubin came over, sniffing the air around Kang intently. "She's right," the second gosta declared after several seconds. "It's an Arume child." Her eyes darted towards Renaril. "Hers?"
Kang hoped she was right in judging it better to tell them the truth now, rather than put it off until it could no longer be kept hidden. "...Yes, it is."
Renaril muttered something in Arumic whilst viciously scrubbing her armpit.
Rubin planted her hands on her hips. "Group Commander, we would all be honored to mate with the colonel... But if she has chosen you, we will respect that."
Clearly unmollified, Renaril's only answer was another grumble.
Rubin's lip curled. "Would you like to repeat that so your partner can hear it?" she asked pointedly. "Or shall I translate it for you?"
"Stop this," Kang interceded, rounding on her lover. "Renaril, don't antagonize them... Please forgive her," she continued, turning back to Krag and Rubin. "She's working off a bad hangover."
"We heard," Rubin remarked dryly. "In any case, please accept our congratulations." She bowed her head. "May you have an easy birth and a strong daughter."
"Thank you," Kang replied, doing her best to ignore the way Renaril bristled as the other gosta voiced their agreement with Rubin. Their support filled her with a sense of relief, even though she knew this show of solidarity was miniscule compared to the opposition she would inevitably be required to confront.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
The gunship came out of nowhere, just like its predecessor which had tried to annihilate Mari in Rovaniemi. This model was bigger and meaner, with dual rows of swiveling pulse guns mounted on its underside like the legs of a prawn... but instead of blasting her to smithereens, it discharged a formation of Arume naval security troops. There must have been at least twenty of them, interchangeably sinister in their black suits, boots and shades, with their identical flattop haircuts.
The Butcher of Tallinn was with them, though Mari wouldn't have recognized her had she not introduced herself as such. She was a runt compared to her escorts – short and flat in all the wrong places, with pinkish hair and blue-green eyes under distinctive lashes. Quite a mouth on her, too: "I'd almost given up," she was saying with unbridled glee. "Can you imagine my excitement when I learned that Wakatake Mari was still alive?"
Mari preferred not to. There wasn't much she could do, disarmed and surrounded at gunpoint like this, and Sauer and Camilla were in the same predicament down at the other end of the firing line. The Butcher had also brought a familiar face to her sadistic party: Azanael, her wrists shackled behind her back and a yellowing bruise on her left cheek. They must have intercepted her on her way back from Vladivostok, the Japanese woman supposed. Azanael herself wasn't talking – she seemed to be in shock, or maybe she'd been drugged.
The Butcher was still gloating away, showing spectacular contempt for, or profound ignorance of, the danger she was putting herself in. "I can't wait to watch them open up your head," she leered, turning Mari's pistol over in her hands.
There seemed no point in denying her identity any longer, so the sniper decided to stall for time. Every second wasted here was a second closer to the security teams' arrival. "Why are you Arume still chasing me?" she inquired with genuine bitterness. "Why are you chasing me? What did I ever do to you?"
"Feh..." The Butcher licked her lips. "I wanted to settle things with the traitor myself, but she went and died." Her face twisted into a predatory grimace. "So I'll have to settle for you instead."
"What are you talking about?"
"You were Ekaril's pet," the Arume snapped, somehow offended that Mari hadn't followed her meaning right away. "She abandoned the mission, turned against us... wrecked my ship, my beautiful Kelbil... It was for you, it was all for you!"
Kelbil?
The missing piece snapped into place. Back in the second layer, Mari had known little about the Butcher other than her sobriquet and the deeds by which she'd earned it. The Butcher didn't go to the frontlines, didn't take part in the battles... didn't present herself as a target of opportunity. There had been many who wanted to kill her even before she personally drafted the plans for the Estonian genocide, her 'lesson' to the subjugated peoples, but she had always kept out of their reach. Relinquishing a chance to eliminate this monster had hurt Mari's pride, of course it had, but she could have lived with that so long as Schuhart's man Hakim or some other assassin got the job done.
Not any more. To think that the Butcher of Tallinn, this little bitch with the blood of nearly a million human beings on her hands, was once the commander of a ship in Hagino's fleet... And not just any ship, but the frigate which attacked Blue without provocation. "That's it?" Mari demanded incredulously. "You followed me here because you're a sore loser?"
"Tch..!" The alien raised the Lahti, its muzzle visibly trembling – whether from her rage or from its weight wasn't obvious.
"Don't do it," Sauer warned. "Uncle Roland won't forgive anyone who hurts his employees."
A brave effort, but a futile one. The Butcher spun around, straightened her arm and plugged Sauer in the gut.
"No!" Camilla tried to reach the gosta, but one of the guards snatched her by the arm and slammed her back against the bench. The second shot flew wide of its mark as the Butcher struggled to control the Finnish brick, but the third hit Sauer high in the chest. She stumbled back, crashed into the sandbags and toppled over them.
Mari inhaled through her nose, bent her knees and jabbed her arms out to the sides, knocking her distracted minders off balance. The one just to her right had been holding her rifle with the muzzle pointed up: it dropped, landing on its buttplate, and fell almost directly into its owner's hands. Running on reflexes, Mari snatched up the Mauser and brought it to bear just as the alien commander turned. There was no time for a witty one-liner. She pulled the trigger, the striker and cocking sleeve snapped forwards, and a searing jet of gas and wood splinters hit the Butcher of Tallinn square in the face.
"Aiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaaa..!"
Mari's hasty action didn't take into account the guard at the six o'clock position, who came up and whacked her across the back of the head with a pulse gun as she was trying to eject the blank casing. The exile fell forwards and scrabbled to catch herself, landing hard on her left side. Her head spun.
Boom!
One of the gunship's underbelly cannons exploded, bits of it falling away as arcs of purplish energy crackled and popped in its wrecked mounting. As Mari stared up at the hovering vehicle with watering eyes, a second gun burst asunder.
"That's the pack leader," said Astra, listening intently to the distant blasts. "Something is going on."
"Are you sure it's not training?" asked Kang, a drop of accumulated water oozing out of her damp hair and trickling down the nape of her neck.
The smallest gosta shook her head. "She doesn't practice with the Gepard so early in the day... We have to find Uncle Roland!"
She began to run, tracing the straightest path from the dormitory entrance to the main offices, and the other girls followed. Kang ran after them, the North Korean threat fresh in her mind, with her bewildered Arume companions trailing behind. They came to the headquarters building just as Schuhart emerged, carrying a yellow travel bag under one arm. Master Commander Keldanil was with him.
"There you are," the arms dealer called, adjusting course to intercept the females. "We have a problem."
So Astra's intuition was correct. "What's going on?" Kang queried.
"Sky eyes," Schuhart grumbled. "One ship, pretty small. Won't answer our hails." He waved towards the south. "It dropped some infantry. Looks like a raid."
"A raid?" Renaril repeated. "On what?"
"Spotter's report says they landed at the handgun range. Sauer, Mariko and Camilla Laforey were down there." He shrugged. "We've got no radio contact, nothing... Urban loadout, girls. Get your details from Artyom."
"What are you going to do?" Renaril asked nervously as the gosta jogged past her en route to the armory.
"Gonna deal with it," Schuhart answered gruffly, opening his bag. "They're not your friends, they're not Keldanil's friends, and they sure as hell aren't my friends... These are for you," he added, handing her a drinking flask and a bottle of painkillers.
"Um... Thank you."
"I think you three had better stay inside until this is over," the one-eyed man went on, pulling some pieces of welded metal out of the bag and snapping them together with brisk, familiar movements. "Take this, just in case." He drew a stick magazine from the bag, jammed it into the submachine gun and passed both the weapon and the bag to Kang. "There's my ride," Schuhart concluded, nodding towards the garages next door as the captured GAZ truck rolled out. "I'll see you later."
Renaril pried open the bottle as he limped away, shook out two of the pills and hurriedly washed them down. "...That was very weird."
"What was?" Kang responded. "That he happened to be carrying a dismantled Sten?"
"No." The group commander took another swig. "He always blames me when these things happen, always. Why didn't he blame me this time?"
The invaders were bugging out.
The gunship withdrew after losing three of its weapons, though the sniper with the anti-armor rifle continued to scar its hull as it retreated. The Arume on the ground were trying to rejoin it on foot, navigating a winding path through the ruins. Sauer and Camilla had been left behind, perhaps left for dead, but the Butcher wasn't ready to let go of Mari or Azanael. Now the sniper was being marched along beside the pilot, hands likewise pinned behind herself, with the low morning sun shining harsh on her face.
"Where did they grab you?"
Azanael didn't answer, though she seemed to be aware of what was happening around her. Something akin to a muzzle brake jabbed into Mari's back, prompting her to march on and keep her mouth shut.
"Just you wait." The Butcher was completely blind, white fluid oozing from under the bandage which covered her ruined eyes. The wound did nothing to improve her temper. "I'll break the big one first, take her apart bit by bit..."
Mari rolled her eyes. Now that she had time to think about it, she felt... cheated, almost. The Butcher's enemies had taken her elusiveness as proof of cunning – what would they say if they could see her now, with one of her subordinates leading her by the hand as if she were a stray child?
"...And then I'm going to uncoil your guts – "
"Are you?" Mari cut her off as they crossed a rubble-strewn intersection. "Have you ever done anything personally except sign orders?" She worked up a big gob and spat, narrowly missing her enemy's ankle. "You ordered a wall to be built, and the people in Tallinn ate each other. Did you ever go and listen to their cries?" The pulse gun prodded her again, but she ignored it. "You ordered a tunnel to be built, and three hundred thousand Danes – "
Whap!
The Butcher's seeing eye stumbled, making a noise like a wet cough, and crumpled to the ground. The others did what instinct dictated and what training was supposed to prevent: they froze like animals in headlights, their leader still reaching out for a guide who wasn't there.
Zzzup-p-p!
The second projectile hit the Butcher in the left cheek and blasted out the right side of her lower jaw, taking a couple of bicuspids and a molar with it. Her head snapped around, giving Mari a good look at the exit wound, and she fell in a senseless heap. There was no bang and no supersonic crack, but their very absence told Mari that somewhere out there Karan and his Vintorez were watching over her.
They weren't alone: one of the troops raised her pulse gun, aiming towards the north. The third round – smaller diameter, higher velocity – put a pencil sized hole in her forehead and a fist sized crater in the back, accompanied by the familiar blam of a Dragunov. Its fading echo was replaced by a rising roar of truck engines.
Finally! thought Mari. She lowered herself onto her knees and then did a sort of twist, making a relatively gentle landing on the crumbling pavement. Azanael mimicked the maneuver beside her. By now the guards were too busy engaging the new arrivals to take much notice, streams of violet tracers hissing through the air. The aliens' firing was answered by the high, rapid snapping of lighter-caliber weapons. Then a bigger bolt streaked overhead: the Arume gunship, damaged but not disabled, making its return.
BAM!
Mari didn't even have time to worry before the shockwave hit, buffeting her face and leaving a shrill ringing in her ears. She only faintly heard the crash of the gunship falling into the remains of a demolished high-rise, and looked up to find a yellowy trail marking the flight path of the missile which had finished it off. The speed of the shot meant her backup must have been lying in wait for the hostile unit, and the power of whatever artillery they were using made the 105mm tank shell which killed the Rovaniemi ship look like a cherry bomb in comparison.
The firefight lasted another three or four minutes – a long time compared to some she'd had been in. Thirty seconds past the last gunshot, she gingerly raised her head and saw the twelve-man security team moving in for a body check. They were a slick-looking bunch, outfitted with kit her comrades in Finland would surely have drooled over: ballistic vests with matching knee and elbow pads, and AK-100 series carbines with Kobra collimators. A couple also sported underbarrel grenade launchers.
The one in front handled his gear pretty well for a man who was short an index finger. He scanned the battleground quickly, then raised his supporting hand, showing Mari that he was also missing the ring and little fingers on that side, and tapped his radio. "Baza, eta Dyatel..."
"Camilla's fine... Sauer had her vest on, but she's in a lot of pain. They're checking her for broken ribs up at central." Keiko unclipped the water canteen from her belt. "How'd you make out, Woodpecker?"
"Schoolbook," the man with the digit deficit replied. "Couple of wounded, not serious."
"Hell of a first day back on the job, huh?"
"Feels like nothing changed." The Russian threw a glance at the Butcher, still lying unconscious and unattended. "What do we do with this one?"
"Leave her for now," the big woman advised, pausing for a pull at the canteen. "That was a pretty nice shot, Karan."
"Nice?" the dark-skinned man with the silenced rifle repeated critically. "I was aiming for the apricot."
"Ah, you did fine... In fact, it's just peachy."
The Indian grimaced at her wordplay. "Do you want an ice pack for that?" he asked, transferring his attention to Azanael.
"It's nothing," the pilot muttered. She wished the others would go on acting as though she were invisible, at least until her brain caught up with the morning's whirlwind of surprises... but if they were paying attention to her, she could satisfy one point of curiosity. "Was that some sort of rocket?"
"What, the big bang?" Keiko handed the canteen to Karan and made a swinging motion with her arms, stretching out the muscles. "That's the railgun Errol's been working on for the past month. Somehow he talked Roland into letting him try it out... It's a big pig – takes three Spugs to power it, plus a truckload of cables." She waved towards the thin plume of smoke rising nearby. "That one shot puts it out of action until he can pay for new rails. Make sure you thank him, okay?"
"I will." Looking the other way, Azanael saw Mari, the one forime she didn't want to be ignored by, still busy searching the bodies of the slain naval troops. "...Did you need to kill all of them?"
"Maybe not," said the giantess candidly, "but between what happened yesterday and what's gonna happen tomorrow... Let's just say our bullshit threshold is real low right now." She arched an eyebrow. "Weren't any friends of yours, were they?"
The memory of lying in a pool of blood on Novaal's hangar floor hadn't faded. "...No," Azanael admitted, standing up. "Excuse me." She needed to talk to Mari, even if it was only for a minute, before they were separated again. The smaller woman didn't look up from her gristly task when the gray-haired Arume approached, nor acknowledged her when she cleared her throat. "I... I'm glad you're alive."
"You shouldn't be." The Japanese fugitive motioned for her to go around to the other side of the corpse pile, so that they would be facing one another. "Over there, where I can watch you."
Azanael did as she was told. "I swear on Onomil's memory, I didn't tell them anything."
"Someone did." Click... Shachak! "Too bad."
The Arume shivered a little as her old acquaintance tucked away the reclaimed pistol. The other's coldness left her at a loss for words – how Mari had changed in the sixteen years since they last met! "Um..."
"God damn it, my foot itches," Woodpecker complained loudly.
"So take off your boot and scratch it," Karan muttered.
"Other foot, comrade."
"...Sorry."
Woodpecker wasn't listening any more. "Semyon-Vasiliy-tree-shyest, Semyon-Vasiliy-tree-shyest, eta Dyatel," he reported, speaking into his radio now. "Da, ponyal... Peasants, the boss ladies are coming down to look at us. We must hurry and mop away the blood."
"Smartass." Keiko got up from her seat in the shade and walked across the street to Mari and Azanael. "You look like shit, Mariko," she said casually. "Whaddaya say we take thirty and hit the showers? It's gonna get busy in the afternoon."
"I'm fine."
"C'mon," the blonde insisted. "I need some intelligent company."
Azanael picked up on the subtext: Keiko wanted Mari out of here before Keldanil and Renaril arrived. "I'll talk to you later," she prompted, standing upright and making an ineffectual show of brushing the dirt off her coveralls.
"Yeah." The word slipped from the corner of Mari's mouth as she collected her long rifle. "Later."
Keiko had some advice for the pilot before she departed: "Let the Russkie boys do the talking, big girl. We might have a job for you, so don't wander off."
"What kind of job?"
"A flying job. You'll love it... Mind if we swipe your truck, Woodpecker?"
"Help yourself." The man flicked a key at her. "Ride safe, baryshni."
There was a knowing laugh. "Spasiba, tovarishch Mayor."
How can they do that? Azanael wondered. They go from killing us to joking with each other like it's nothing. What's wrong with them?
"I hope that sonic boom didn't shake up the colonel too much," she heard Keiko remark, the voice fading into the distance. "Last thing we need now is a miscarriage..." A door slammed, an engine started, and then the enigmatic women were gone.
Woodpecker and Karan shared a look, then they both looked at Azanael. "...Miscarriage?"
The Arume raised her hands. "I don't know anything."
"Aaaaa... Aaa..!"
The Butcher was stirring. "She's waking up," Azanael called, watching the other alien's blind hands feeling at her gore-caked face with rising nausea.
"Good." Woodpecker strode over, his happy face changed to nail-chewing grimness. Ignoring Azanael, he planted a boot on either side of the tyrant's back and yanked her head up by the hair. "Listen to me, suka!" he hissed, mouth by her ear. "Your soldiers are dead and your ship is broken. Your betters are coming to beg forgiveness for having a stupid friend like you!"
The Butcher made a low moan, deep in her throat.
"Problem, suka?" The Russian shook her. "Can't see, can't talk? If you don't be good now, you won't be able to piss without a – "
"Better stop that," Karan warned. "Here come the commanders."
"Aha." Woodpecker released the Butcher and straightened, briskly clapping his hands. "Bratsy, syuda! Davay, davay!"
Keiko wasn't joking about the showers. "Wow," she remarked, languidly ambling butt-naked into that space. "Hardly ever see this place empty."
"Mm." Mari went to the nearest showerhead and turned it on, the water cool at first and then warming a little. "...What's going to happen now?"
"The usual, probably." Keiko stuck her head under the adjacent stream. "Keep it low-key for the sake of the Liaison, you know."
"And the Butcher?"
"Sent home on a stretcher. Sending her in a box ain't worth the postage now."
Mari didn't laugh. "Why did she do it? Why here?"
"Why?" Keiko squirted a glob of shampoo into her palm. "Well," she mused, rubbing it into her hair, "word among those in the know is that the Butcher's career has been stagnating for a few years... Massacring your subjects isn't so smart when you need 'em to fight wars for you."
"She thought catching me would bring her back into favor..."
"Looks that way." The giantess rinsed, slicked her hair back, and moved on to the soap bar.
Mari followed suit. "How did she know I was here?"
"Leave that to Majestic. You've got other things to worry about right now."
"Nn..." The sniper watched her companion for a few seconds. "Should I not speak to Azanael?"
"I won't stop you... Just gotta watch what you say to her, hey?"
"Schuhart said she knows about Majestic..."
"She knows a little." Keiko's hands rubbed big, soapy circles on her abdomen. "But better not tell her any more just yet."
"I know." Mari cocked her head. "You seem to like her."
"Hm?" Keiko stopped rubbing. "Who, the ace in disgrace?"
"Yes."
The statuesque female shrugged. "She kind of reminds me of somebody I worked with... before I joined up with Roland."
"A friend?"
"Eh... More like a teacher."
"Oh." Mari raised her arm and grasped her own bar of soap, only to have it shoot from her fingers. "Wah..!"
"Huh?" Keiko turned just as the shorter woman lost her balance. "...Oof!"
Mari felt a tingling where their skin contacted. In the next instant she was in another time, another place... another person.
"Twenty years."
Mari had no control over the body she found herself in: she could only share its true owner's perceptions. She was sitting in what appeared to be a derelict commuter train carriage, not unlike the one she had once ridden with Hagino. The view outside the cracked windows was a dismal one, a scrapyard dimly lit by a twilight sky. There were no obvious clues to its location, save a partially broken-away sign lying on the face of the closest junk pile. ARBEITSLAGER FÜR KRIEGSVERBRE, read the remaining letters, which did little to edify her.
"In twenty years they went from running the camps, to living in them... to this. What the hell have we done, JR?"
Mari's... host, for lack of a better word, didn't look at the man who was speaking. Instead she turned her eyes downward, to the large piece of dusty glass which lay on the carriage floor between her feet. The face reflected in it looked like Keiko, but her eyes and hair – the color of the Arume.
"We really fucked up," the man sighed. "Didn't we?"
Alter-Keiko finally turned her head. Sitting at the far end of the carriage was a man in Flecktarn camouflage. He bore a strong resemblance to Roland Schuhart, but was thinner and appeared to have all his body parts intact. His was the grating voice Mari heard, as if he'd been a heavy smoker or survived a gas attack. Standing in front of him was a second man in a navy blue business suit, his dark hair combed back and an unlit pipe jutting from his mouth.
"You could say that," the one with the pipe answered.
"I do say it," alter-Schuhart sighed. "We didn't use Möbius when we had the chance, Tu-Four never paid off, and now you're coming down here in person. Is Yui going to pull the plug?"
"No," said the one addressed as 'JR'. "Not yet."
"Humph." Alter-Schuhart noticed that one of his boots was coming untied, and hunched forwards to correct it. "That woman – is not nearly mature enough – to responsibly exercise the powers you allow her."
The pipe wiggled. "She says the same thing about you, you know."
"She's not the one getting her ass shot at every day." Alter-Schuhart sat up again. "So if she's not bailing out, then what's up?"
"She wanted your opinion on... acceptable losses."
"Acceptable losses? Buddy, we are far, far past the point of accept – "
"Gordon!" A waif-sized Arume stumbled into the carriage through the doors beside alter-Schuhart. As she relayed the message, delivered in her native language with frequent pauses for breath, Mari noticed that she seemed to be wearing an oversized Czech woodland uniform with visible outlines where the insignia patches had been stripped off.
Alter-Schuhart heard her report, then sent her off with a pat on the shoulder. "We'll have to finish this later," he said to JR. "You ready, kiddo?"
"Always." Alter-Keiko bent and picked up what looked like a modified Kalashnikov machine gun, with a long charcoal-gray cowling, triangular in cross-section, fitted around the barrel. As she checked the ammunition belt, Mari saw that it was not loaded with brass or steel cartridges, but with solid pieces molded from a glassy gray ceramic, like Arume pulse gun rounds. Satisfied, its wielder thumped the top cover, cranked the charging handle and pushed herself onto her feet. "I'm right behind you."
"That's my girl." Alter-Schuhart turned around, carrying an ArmaLite carbine with the same style of barrel shroud. JR had vanished. "Let's move."
The messenger was waiting outside, along with six other Arume. All of them had grimy faces and matted hair, and they wore the scavenged uniforms, helmets and fittings of various European armies, mixed and matched without regard to nationality. Among them Mari identified a FAMAS, two Vzor 58s and an AK variant which might have been Finnish, the latter three sporting more of those gray cowlings, before alter-Keiko turned away. Now Mari also saw that there was a helicopter parked beside the derelict carriage, an Mi-8 with hand-patched bullet holes in its hull. The rotor blades were missing, the engine section replaced with a piggybacked module which, like the strange guns, appeared to be of Arume origin. Somebody had taken a stencil and christened the chimerical machine Unbecoming Bathytrope in white paint.
"...My lead, go!"
"What about the chopper?" alter-Keiko asked, following as the others moved out in a ragged close combat formation.
"We'll have to come back for it," alter-Schuhart answered gravely, "if it's still here when we come back... If we come back."
"Yeah," alter-Keiko opined. "Big 'if'."
The scrapyard was huge. The others seemed to know their way through it, though Mari had no idea where they were going or why they were in such a hurry...
"Contact!" Alter-Schuhart threw up a hand, bringing the team to a sudden halt. "Up front, kiddo."
Alter-Keiko hustled up, snugging the butt of the crypto-PKM against her shoulder. Standing in the middle of the path, maybe twenty paces away, was a slender adolescent figure – a naked being with no visible genitals. After a second, Mari realized that the creature wasn't standing, but floating just above the ground.
"Steady now," alter-Schuhart muttered as the bizarre being's eyes evaluated his companions one by one. "Maybe it's as dumb as the last – "
The messenger was suddenly plucked off her feet by an invisible force and pulled forwards irresistibly until she was suspended, squirming helplessly, directly in front of the creature. "No... No!"
The Arume with the crypto-AK fired a burst, seemingly uncaring that her comrade was in the way. The purple bolts didn't reach their target, but exploded just short: intercepted by an energy shield, a barrier of concentric orange octagons which flashed with each impact.
"Save your ammo!" alter-Schuhart barked. "You can't hurt it!"
"But – !"
"Get out of here," the man ordered tersely. "Go now, before it calls in the big one!"
The alien allies withdrew with open reluctance, leaving alter-Schuhart and alter-Keiko alone to witness what came next. The monster's neck bulged just before it opened its mouth impossibly wide, disgorging a swarm of oily black tendrils. The messenger was still screaming as the seething mass peeled back her face, cracked open her skull and burrowed into her brain.
Mari felt alter-Keiko's stomach contract. "Dad..!"
"Steady, kid... Steady..."
The thing dropped the lifeless messenger, threw back its head and let out a shrill cry. For what seemed like an entire minute, none of the three moved... And then it descended: an Evangelion, with the same skinny build and huge shoulder pylons as the ones Mari had seen in photographs, sinking towards them out of the evening sky as if it were a colossal marionette hanging on unseen strings. This one didn't match any of the models Mari knew. Its head looked like Giger's interpretation of a jumping spider, and its armored body was painted in camouflage rather than the gaudy hues of the prototypes. On each upper arm it wore a number, 28, and the black-red-yellow of the German flag.
"Killing flies with a sledgehammer," alter-Schuhart observed coolly.
"Ngh..!" Keiko jerked away convulsively, breaking the connection. Mari floundered for another source of support, collapsed against the wall and slid down into a jelly-legged pile on the shower floor. Keiko herself was in little better shape. "Fuck," she moaned, clutching her head. "I forgot you could..." One eye opened, the iris and pupil glowing electric blue... just like Hagino's when Mari accidentally intruded into the Arume's mind. "You saw it?"
Mari nodded, her heart pounding. "That... Is that how it's going to end?"
Keiko shook her head. "That was how the second try ended." Her other eye was also glowing. "Pray that the third turns out better."