Chapter LI: Queen's Gambit Accepted
0800hrs, 17 December 2013, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
"POWERRRRR!" Jeremy Clarkson, Top Gear.
Raye hit the accelerator, lurching the Bugatti forwards. There was only fifteen meters worth of driveway to cross, but every meter was going to be hell.
The PMC had predictably blocked the exit with their SUVs, and they opened fire at the highly visible orange and black car. Some of them were behind the low wall that Lita had taken cover behind earlier in the mission.
Lita returned fire with the G36K, shooting off three round bursts at the people behind the wall. Some of the PMC soldiers ducked, but others continued to fired incessantly at the vehicle.
Raye continued to accelerate toward the blockade, bullets snapping past, cracking the windshield.
"At least I can fire now," SAILOR Moon muttered to herself, raising her M4 CQB and firing some rounds at the SUVs.
"Hold on!" Raye screamed. The Bugatti was a sports car, not an armored vehicle, and when it impacted the SUVs, the body on the front was heavily damaged. By design though, the Bugatti had its engine in the back and at least that was protected by the rest of the car. Lita was thrown forward onto the floor, hitting her head on the dash, and Serena almost followed suit but managed to grab onto one of the armrests and hold herself upright.
But it was enough. Two SUVs whipped around, tossed by the impact of the Bugatti, and Raye made an immediate left onto the road, using every single one of those 1200 horses to get away from that ambush.
"Holy fuck," Serena said, turning around in her seat to see the PMC soldiers get back into their SUVs to try to chase them, but it was kind of pointless with a two tonne vehicle that could barely make a hundred in fifteen seconds.
"We're not out of this yet," Lita replied, managing to push herself back into the seat.
"Sorry about that," Raye said to her. Lita just shrugged and kept pointing her weapon out of the window.
"How far are we from the highway?" Serena asked, still looking behind her. No pursuit vehicles, but they more than likely had friends in the police department or other PMC units out there, ready to stop them.
Raye brought up a map on her HUD to see how far away Yokota Air Base was. "We're still five minutes away from National Route 125, then it's onto Joban Expressway."
"Isn't that a toll road?" Lita asked.
"Uh…yeah….sure," Raye replied, wondering how they were going to get past that. They were going to have to find some way, because they needed to have protection against the wrath of the Nakanishi PMC, and with the terrorist attacks starting, the JSDF would have their hands full.
"Should we try for one of the JSDF bases?" Serena asked.
"I don't think we should do that. Nakanishi has security at all of those bases, and they might get us there. Yokota Air Base is one of the few overseas bases that haven't outsourced their security, due to their operational nature."
"Why would you outsource your security?" Raye asked. "I wouldn't trust some company to protect my interests."
"The world is more complicated than that," Serena said, but Raye had a point. If you wanted something done right, do it yourself. Raye continued to drive insanely fast, weaving in and out of the light traffic. Serena could tell there was already something wrong this morning, since at 0800 in the morning the traffic should be extremely heavy. But this morning, almost no traffic was out.
"That's weird," Serena pointed out to Lita.
"Let me get the news on," Lita replied. Thankfully, one of the side benefits of advanced technology was having a built in satellite radio and TV connection. Lita tuned into the NHK and was shocked at what was going on.
"They're reporting attacks all over Tokyo…" she repeated. "Mostly small things, but someone's hit the Sky Tree with a massive bomb. Other than that…nothing too terribly bad, but still…"
"Thirty seconds to the next waypoint," Raye announced, checking her HUD. "On the left, through the toll booth."
"Five finger discount," Lita said, readying her weapon.
"My idea exactly." Serena made sure that her M4 would do most of the talking if some smart-aleck toll collector was going to give them lip for not paying.
"What's that…?" Raye craned her eyes to the exit ahead.
"Up ahead!" Lita pointed. Several SUVs were blocking the toll road, called in by the others at Yamada's house. There was no way to go around it, and speeding through was rendered impossible by both the SUVs and the sharp corner that Raye had to go around when getting off of the highway and onto the expressway.
"How'd they know we were coming here?!" Lita exclaimed.
"Don't ask questions!" Serena screamed back, raising her M4 and started to fire. Raye had only a couple of seconds to process all of the data feedback, stop, change directions, and to get away from the roadblock.
"Need an alternate route!" Raye hissed, to no one in particular. On her HUD, she saw that there was a road running on the side of the toll way, and that there was only a small chainlink fence and a metal barrier in the way. About five hundred meters down the road near a construction company, there was a patch of ground that was elevated, and would allow for an improvised ramp onto the toll road. There, the PMC couldn't keep up…hopefully.
"Everyone, hold on!" Raye yelled. She quickly used the handbrake to slide the car along the four lane road, creating a huge plume of smoke that covered the car. The PMC continued to fire into the smoke, but without thermal goggles, the fire was pretty much random.
"I can't see!" Lita shouted back.
"Give it a second!" Raye was relying purely on her HUD to guide her drift to the access road. Fifty meters…twenty five…ten…five…
Raye instantly released the handbrake and accelerated down the access road, crossing the five hundred meter distance in about fifteen seconds. The PMC was left scrambling to get into their vehicles, and by that time, it was already too late.
"Raye…Raye! What are you doing?!" Serena's eyes started to widen as she saw the small ramp near the chain link fence. She still was getting over the power drift that Raye had just conducted.
"Hold on! Again!"
Lita grabbed onto Serena, and they held to each other for dear life. The Bugatti hit the small clump of dirt with a thud, and suddenly Lita felt herself flying. The actual flight only lasted for a couple of seconds, but for those couple of seconds, Lita could sense everything. Birds in the sky moved in slow motion. The few cars below seemed to be stuck in molasses. Even her heart beat slowly. Thud…thud…thud….BAM!
The Bugatti slammed onto the hard asphalt with a resounding crash, the metal scraping against the road with an ear shattering screech. The durable frame of the car held though. One did not pay three million dollars (or about 242.30 million yen), to have a pissant vehicle. Although conducting high speed chases in this particular vehicle was highly discouraged, to say the least. The front fender, already heavily damaged, came off with an unglamorous bang, flying off to the left and into someone's Camry.
"Sorry!" Raye yelled out of the window, even though the driver couldn't hear her.
Raye recovered from the impact, and accelerated the vehicle forward.
They drove for a couple of minutes before seeing the impact of the terrorist attacks on Tokyo.
"My god," Serena said, looking out of the window on her left, past Raye. The Tokyo Sky Tree was billowing smoke, as were some other buildings in the area.
"Didn't Luna say she contacted the police and stuff?" Lita asked, craning her neck past Serena to get a good look at what was going on. She wondered how many more attacks had happened, or had been stopped.
"Doesn't mean they listened," Serena replied, glumly. She could hear the sirens of several police and fire brigade units in the distance, but they quickly passed as Raye continued to floor the accelerator, well past 300 kilometers per hour. The police at this point didn't care about some speeders; there were more pressing matters at hand. There was some traffic on the highway at this point, but Raye easily zipped past the smaller cars and continued her drive toward Yokota AFB.
It worked both ways, really. While the SAILOR team could get to Yokota faster, the PMC could also set up roadblocks without molestation from the police or the JSDF.
If they could catch up with them. The sheer speed of Raye's driving cut down the travel time from two hours…to forty minutes. With the normal traffic dispersed due to the terrorist attacks, the highways were virtually clear. Later news reports displayed the car, captured by CCTV cameras, the newscasters noting that it might have belonged to the late CEO Ichigo Yamada, the head of the Nakanishi Group. Again, it was merely a footnote on the wave of terrorist attacks occurring that day; hell, a wave of shoplifting got all the news channels all riled up, let alone a massive event such as this. The media had much better things to do than to run a human interest story on yet another corrupt CEO and his playthings. That was reserved for those really slow news days.
"Another interchange, coming up in about one minute," Raye told them.
"Where are we?" Serena asked.
"Near Misato," Lita replied, looking at her HUD. "Raye, you're a fucking manic when it comes to driving."
Raye just smiled, and hit the gear change lever on the steering wheel.
"How much further?" Lita asked.
"Looks like about fifty kilometers or so," Raye replied, looking at the HUD. "Taking the interchange loop to the Tokyo Gaiken." A huge overpass loomed in front of them, a symbol of Japanese precision and engineering. The smoke from the burning buildings still could be seen in the distance as the damaged Bugatti zoomed through the light traffic and toward the interchange.
"Company," Lita noted. Several police cars, along with some PMC SUVs were setting up a checkpoint at the toll booth. The police seemed to be having a huge argument with the PMC soldiers, as it was not the place of a PMC to interfere with policing duties. Some cars were lined up at the checkpoint, but there was still enough room to get by if they drove fast enough.
"Got it." After what they had been through in the last couple of hours, this was nothing. Raye shifted the gears up, the hum of the W16 engine in the back revving up a bit; but for such a fast car, it was incredibly quiet (as noted on that British show, Top Gear). The police and PMC soldiers didn't even notice something was wrong until the Bugatti blitzed past them, swiping the toll gate aside and continuing down the Expressway. Several policemen jumped into their Mazda RX-6 patrol cars, but before they could get them started, the Bugatti was already a kilometer away.
"That was easy," Raye stated, continuing to accelerate away from the roadblock, leaving behind the flashing lights of the police cars in the distance.
It only took another couple of minutes to get to the next interchange, onto the Kan'etsu Expressway, and then after shortchanging the tollbooth there, the car only took another two and a half minutes to travel the distance it needed to National Route 463, which was a small two lane road. Even so, the car easily dodged whatever traffic was on the road, much to Serena and Lita's chagrin.
"Raye, could you be more reckless?!" Lita exclaimed.
"Well, I'm trying not to let those bastards set up anymore roadblocks!" she replied distractedly. Lita rolled her eyes and then continued her watch out of the window. "Goddamn."
Lita noticed something up in the air all of a sudden. It looked like…
"Uh…is that a helicopter?"
Lita leaned out of the window to get a better look at it with her HUD. "It's an OH6," she reported. "Its not a JSDF one though."
"PMC?"
"Yeah, most likely."
"What's the armament on it?"
"Give me a second." Lita asked the onboard computer database on her HUD about the Hughes OH6, then leaned out of the window to compare the weapons loadout on the helicopter outside with the database. That was obviously not a good idea, considering that they were travelling at high speed. Her hair whipped everywhere, and it was difficult to breathe, let alone see.
"Not good."
"What's the problem?"
"It's got two miniguns on the side." Lita pulled back from the window, and gasped for some air. She kept her eye on the helicopter though. "And a couple of rocket pods."
"Oh shit. Did you get that Raye?"
Raye was already pushing the speedometer past 350 kmph, and was looking to hit 400. "How fast can that thing go?" she asked distractedly, trying to keep focused on the mission at hand. She swept past a man on a scooter, and knocked him off in the process. He would later die of his injuries.
"Only 278 kmph, at the top speed."
"But it's in front of us," Serena noted. "Raye, drive faster."
"I'm going 400 kmph!" she shot back. The dotted lines on the road blended together, they were going so fast. At this speed on a test track, it was dangerous. On a small two lane highway, near suicidal. More traffic started to appear as people started to realize that this was indeed, a very bad situation and that they might want to be home with their families.
"Serena, I gotta slow down, or I'm going to lose it!" she yelled.
"Just get us away from that helicopter," Serena replied. Raye slowed down to a more manageable 200 kmph, fast enough to dodge traffic, but not fast enough to shake the helicopter.
The OH6 opened up with its miniguns, blazing away in the general area of the fast moving vehicle. The 7.62mm rounds zipped past, tearing up the highway but missing the Bugatti. And the gunner wanted to be more selective with his fire; this was one of the most densely populated areas in the all of the world, and despite the terrorist attacks, he knew better than to wantonly fire into civilian areas…provided if he was ordered not to.
In the chopper, the two pilots were stunned by how fast that car was going.
"Uh, Checkmate Actual, this is Star Four One," the pilot said over his radio, "This car is clocking over 200 kmph, we cannot continue pursuit at this rate, over. We'll be at Joker fuel if we try to keep up."
"Star Four One, continue to engage if possible, break. Other units are trying to coordinate with the local police to set up a roadblock, but it'll take some time, over."
"That's a negative, Checkmate Actual," the pilot replied, straining to his tiny helicopter to the fastest possible speed. He had already seen that car blaze through two checkpoints already, and another one wasn't going to stop these guys at all. "Request permission to use the rockets."
"Permission granted, just stop that vehicle, whatever the cost."
"Roger. Star Four One, out."
Star Four One fired a volley of four rockets from the pods on the side, again, missing. A warehouse on the side of road blew up in a spectacular fashion. While not damaging to the SAILOR team, they did make quite a stir in the car.
"Fucking hell!" Raye cursed. She wanted to go faster, but again, pushing 400 kmph was nigh impossible on the small Japanese roads.
Raye checked the fuel gauge. Already, it was a little bit below three-quarters empty. To go faster meant that they would use up more fuel, and possibly crash into something…no, it was guaranteed that they would crash into something. To go slower meant instant death at the hands of that helicopter up there.
The helicopter fired another volley of rockets, this time, hitting what seemed to be like a high school on their right.
"Shit!" Lita said, looking at the smoking ruin at what used to be a school building. "That was a high school!"
"Shit!" the pilot yelled at the gunner. "That was a high school!"
"They said whatever the cost!" the gunner protested.
"Fuck." The pilot got on his radio to at least try to clean up the mess they were making here. "This is Four one to Checkmate, alert local authorities to an explosion at Sayamagaoka High School. Massive civilian casualties, over."
"Negative Four One, continue pursuit, over."
"Roger," the pilot snapped back. "Out."
"Serena, we have to do something about that helicopter or more people are going to get hurt!" Lita said.
Serena considered the options, as Raye continued to dodge traffic, which was becoming more heavy as people tried to escape the carnage behind them.
"Raye, stop the car!" Serena ordered.
"What?!"
"Stop the car! They'll overshoot! Get ready Lita!"
Raye immediately deployed the brakes and the Bugatti went from 200 kilometers per hour to zero in five seconds. The rate of deceleration was so rapid that Serena could feel some of the blood rushing in her head. But the car was relatively stable as it came to a sudden stop. The OH6 completely overshot them, surprising the pilot.
"They stopped! I'm bringing us around."
"Lita, now's your chance!"
Lita got out of the car and knelt down beside the open door and aimed the G36K up at the helicopter. It was half a kilometer away, but only one hundred meters up in the air. It circled about, coming back for another strafing run.
"Come on…come on…" she muttered.
"Star Four one, engaging!" The gunner hit the trigger, and fired both the miniguns and the rockets.
"Gotcha!" Lita sighed in on the vulnerable rotor, just above the cockpit. She opened up on full automatic, her prosthetic arm keeping the recoil of the G36K down, allowing her to stay on target at a moving helicopter some half-kilometer away from her. Several rockets zipped past, as well as the bullets from the miniguns blazing up there.
Star Four One's pilot felt the impact of a couple of dozen bullets hitting his helicopter. The windshield in front of him was riddled with several bullet holes, but was rated enough to stop a 7.62 bullet. However, he noticed a massive shaking in his controls, and looked up at the rotor.
"Ah, fuck." The rotor was smoking and sparking. He got on the radio to tell his boss that there was a big problem.
"Checkmate Actual, this is Star Four one, we are hit, requesting permission to break contact and land at Yokota AFB." Already, Star Four one was getting out of there, heading toward the base.
"Roger, we'll get permission from the air control there, head to Yokota for emergency landing, out."
"Nice shooting," Raye said to Lita, who was climbing back into the car.
"Where are they headed?"
"It looks like toward…Yokota Air Base," Serena noted glumly.
"Great…" Lita grumbled, but there was nothing that they could do about that.
"Come on," Raye said to them. "We need to get going." Raye started the car up again, and drove at a quick pace toward Yokota.
As the Bugatti Veyron approached the entrance to the base, Serena noticed the chaos that was emanating from around it. Some smoke could be seen emanating from inside the base, and a large hole had been blasted into one of the walls on the outer perimeter. Already, there was a long line to get in, from returning off-duty service members, civilian police trying to keep fleeing civilians from entering the base, and Security Forces with armed Humvees, their fingers nervously tapping on the triggers.
"What the hell…" one of the security officers said, looking at the battered, yet beautiful car approaching his post. It had completely bypassed the line waiting to get into the base, and was actually going the wrong way on the opposite side of the road. Several SFs trained their weapons on the car, but there was no way in hell that someone would pay that much money to blow it up in a suicide attack. Tempting, but Al-Qaeda didn't have that much money. The base was, of course, on FPCON DELTA, and anyone entering the base would be searched thoroughly.
"Driver, stop your car!" one of the security officers yelled out in Japanese. It helped that they memorized Japanese phrases by rote in order to better communicate with the locals. "Or you will be fired upon!"
Raye stopped the vehicle immediately, jerking everyone forward and causing Lita to fall forward, again.
"Ow!"
"Sorry."
The security officer who had yelled out to them approached, his M9 in hand and ready to go. He was followed by more SFs with M4s.
Raye rolled down the window, and the Security Officer approached the car, M9 at the ready.
"Uh…" both of them said. Raye's English wasn't the best, so Serena stepped in to help out.
"We're…we're looking for…uh…" She didn't have any identification on her, and trying to explain in English about the situation was going to be extremely difficult.
The officer then noticed the multitude of weapons in the car, which snapped him into high alert mode. At the same time, several PMC SUVs came screeching around the corner, having finally guessed the location that the three of them had been heading.
The PMC SUVs, like Raye, ignored the line to get into the base and accelerated toward them, stopping a scant fifteen meters away from the Bugatti. Several more PMC soldiers got out and readied their weapons. Now the Security Forces were really confused; who were they supposed to shoot at again?
Serena, seeing her chance, started pointing at them and shouting frantically. "Japanese government, we work, them…away! Get away!"
The officer put two and two together. They were trying to get away from that stupid PMC that had been harassing them all this year, especially in regards to replacing base security with them. That was something they could get away with in the states, but overseas, not so much.
"Okay, pull over to the side, inside of the base over there, and we'll have the officers take you to the detention center."
Serena got the "detention center" part; at least it would mean that they would be safe from the PMC for now.
"Go, go!" he urged as the PMC SUVs approached. Raye revved the engine and pulled inside of the base.
"They've got weapons!" the officer yelled out to the others. "Make sure you secure them!"
Raye got to the side of the road, where a couple of officers ran up to escort them to the detention center.
"Ma'am, your weapons, please," the officer tersely said. Lita complied, handing the G36K over to the security forces. Raye and Serena did the same thing. They then escorted the three of them into a Humvee, and drove off.
As they drove away, Serena saw the security forces officer arguing with the PMC to leave the area. Finally, the ordeal that had begun some nine hours earlier was finally coming to a close.
Star Four One landed on the tarmac, near one of the runways. The small helicopter was immediately surrounded by Security Forces in Humvees.
"You there in the helicopter!" someone shouted out over a megaphone. "Power down your engine and toss your sidearms out onto the ground!"
The pilot and the gunner complied, tossing their Beretta 92s out onto the tarmac.
"Step out of the helicopter with your hands on your head, interlocking your fingers."
Again, the pilot and the gunner cooperated, and the Security Forces moved in, flexcuffing them and shoving them both into a Humvee, where they would be taken to a detention center.
Serena, Lita, and Raye however, had already beat them to it.
"Heh, suckers!" Raye smirked as the two of them were pushed back to a detention cell.
"Fuck off," the pilot said to her, before being pushed away by the guard.
The three of them waited for what seemed to be an eternity, until they were taken away from the detention center, to one of the HQs for the 5th Air Force. There, they were taken to a small, windowless office, with a conference table, some chairs, and nothing else. More waiting ensued.
"So…" Raye said to Serena. "How was my driving?"
That got a laugh from all of them. The Security Forces guarding then looked nervously at them, then returned to looking as stoic as possible.
"You got us here, didn't you?" Serena replied with a smile.
"Indeed, I did."
"Where did you learn how to drive like that?" Lita asked, fiddling with her wavy hair. It was slightly mussed from the day's activities, but for surviving several gunfights and a car chase, it wasn't in too bad of shape.
"Kobayashi let me train on the VR sim, but I liked the driving section of that the best."
"I don't remember any driving section," Serena pointed out. "When did that happen?"
The door opened suddenly, and everyone turned around to see who was coming in.
It was only a staff officer, who was carrying some coffee and cookies. She placed them on the table, and gave the girls a smile.
"Thank you," Serena said, in her very choppy English.
"Someone will be along shortly to interview with you," the staff officer replied in Japanese. Obviously, someone had been eager to go to those cultural sensitivity training sessions. She bowed politely, and left the room.
"What kind of cookies are those?" Lita grabbed one, looked at it, and sniffed it. "Oatmeal raisin," she said, sadly.
"I can't stand those kind," Serena griped. "Any chocolate chip?"
"Yeah, there's a few right here." Raye gave one to Serena, and one for herself. Lita munched on the cookie she had taken, not wanting to seem greedy. The coffee went untouched.
"I like Cappuccinos," Serena said, looking at the pitcher of coffee. "But not when it's pure black."
"Why those?" Raye asked. "You don't seem to be a coffee person."
"I had a couple with my parents sometimes," Serena continued, nibbling on the cookie. "We used to go to this Italian place in Ginza, called Daze, Dazzle, whatever. I can't remember what it was called, but they had some pretty good cappuccinos there, from what I remember."
She fell silent for a second, remembering the life she had left behind.
"I can't wait till this is all over," she moaned, wiping away some tears. "My mom…dad…brother…"
Lita patted her on the shoulder, with her prosthetic arm. "It's okay…you can see them before we get these guys."
"No…" she said resolutely all of a sudden. "No…we've found ourselves in a situation that needs to be resolved. I can wait a couple more months if I have to. Plus, Lita…Raye…I know you two don't have a family to go back to…"
Lita smiled weakly. "Yeah, I guess that's right." She looked over at Raye.
Raye wiped a couple of tears from her eyes as well, trying not to choke up at the memory of her late Grandfather.
The door opened up again, this time with the staff officer and a couple of other people. Serena and the others stood up, but one of them, a man in his late fifties with three stars on his shoulders, waved them down.
"You must be the SAILOR unit," one of them said, after sitting down opposite of them.
Everyone gave each other some looks.
"The President was personally saved by the actions of the other two in Washington D.C yesterday evening," he said, tapping on his Blackberry Playbook. "Amy and Mina, wasn't it?"
Serena exhaled on that revelation. That was good news indeed.
"Now, tell us who you are."
