::Chapter Seven::
The tunnels had been dug as deep beneath the surface as they could manage, but the sheer noise was still enough to make Jinnai nervous. There was literally no chance that they would be detected, the Phantom Tribe had seen to that. So why was there still a horde of butterflies that refused to leave his stomach alone?
In all the earlier operations, in the days of the first Bugrom War, he'd been at the head of all his troops, so totally confident in their imminent victory that he rode over the field of battle like an old Norse God, urging his minions on to conquer the world.
But now, they were taking no chances with his survival. Diva had seen to it that he was surrounded at all times as a precaution, if he would not give up his notion that he must be present to direct their first several battles. There was one other major difference; aside from his small group of the six Bugrom that he had been personally training since his first days as Pure Grand Chancellor of their forces, the tunnels were flooded with the diminutive blue half-'bugs that Diva had fashioned from the remnants of her genetic memory.
This would be the first test of their efficacy, and already Jinnai was surprised at their speed. His guard was having a hard time carrying his dais and keeping up with the swarm, and they weren't even moving at top speed. Just as Jinnai was admiring this fact, Groucho stumbled slightly and Jinnai was jolted out of his seat. Such was the shock that he nearly fell of the dais altogether.
He let out a yelp of terror, and just managed to grab a hold of the platform to keep from slipping off. GROUCHO! You purple armor-plated pulphead! Are you trying to depose me so you can take my rightful place?
Groucho's garbled response was clearly shaken, his nervousness readily apparent to Jinnai, who had lived with the bug at his side for years. Does this have to do with the battle? Jinnai asked as he climbed back up, still annoyed but no longer furious.
Another series of meek warbles.
Well, I want to see if all this time I've spent training you to be my second in command hasn't been wasted. But it's obvious that you're a nervous wreck, so I guess I'll just have to hold your hand again for this battle, like always.
Jinnai was clearly mocking him, and Groucho's indignant response was exactly what his leader had been hoping for.
Yeah! Now that's the spirit! Jinnai slapped the bugs shoulder as firmly as he dared, and continued, I knew you had the balls for this.
Garble garble?
Ack! That's none of your business!!
The legion kept it's unbreaking pace, and the eerie blue tide washed through the musty tunnels for what seemed like days, until they reached a wide-open chasm with a tiny pinprick of daylight at the end of it - the final staging ground for their assault.
****
Neither Jinnai knew what was coming, thankfully, for if the Madman Katsuhiko had discovered Kiro's true purpose in traveling to Roshtaria alone, he would surely have tried to stop them.
Kiro knew from independent reports that the Madman hadn't hesitated to order his old teacher killed, which was encouraging. But there was no guarantee that he wouldn't balk at having his own sister dispatched. Assassinated, really.
And so he traveled as he always did, under the added cloak of darkness. The timing would be perfect; even if the Madman had wanted to interfere, he would be far too busy directing the attack against Caldan when Kiro had chosen to strike. Lord Nahato had finally gotten the consent of the council. It seemed that they were not as dull-witted as Kiro had always privately believed.
Despite his ability to ignore his body's limitations for brief periods of time, after three days of travel he was fast approaching the point where he would be forced to rest. He would have to give in to sleep for a short while, if he was to be sharp-witted enough to kill his target, but he was only hours from the capital of Floristica now, and he had to strike before the Madman carried out his own operation.
Alone with his thoughts, Kiro ran until the forest that surrounded him finally broke, and the heavily guarded walls of the Royal City appeared before him. He found a suitable hiding place, switched on the silent security device that would wake him if anyone approached, and prepared himself for this grim task.
****
Dear Nanami,
I know you've been so tied up at the Royal Palace, and how hard it is for you to sit back and watch while someone else runs your business for you. So I thought I'd let you know how we're doing.
Trilline is really getting better. Yesterday one of the customers told him how nice the restaurant looked, and he actually smiled at them! Plus, when Arthin called in sick he just said and found Yukoh to work for him! It's like he's a whole new person.
The military buildup is keeping business steady, even if most of our regular customers have been replaced by soldiers on their way to the training camps. Our profit margin actually incresed for the first time since you left, too! I sent along a copy of our balance sheets from the past year, in case you wanted to look over them.
All of us miss you. We pray for the day when this menace will be over and we can all taste your cooking again.
Love,
Lewoor
Nanami scowled at the hand written letter. She turned to the girl who had delivered it to her, pausing in her rythmic petting of Lyn.
Thanks, Alielle, but you didn't have to bring it to me personally.
Alielle nodded. Yes I did. Londs says that all incoming mail must be thoroughly inspected before being hand-delivered to it's recipient, and he said I'm one of the few people he trusts to have unobserved contact with you. She was smiling, but there was an unmistakable note of sadness in her voice. Nanami had been under lock and key ever since she'd been shanghaied into the Royal Guard, and while it was flattering to think that she'd done anything to deserve the attention of so many people, there were times when the precautions Londs was taking on her behalf seemed to border on rediculous.
Alielle continued, Besides, I thought you could use some good news to cheer you up!
Nanami blinked. You read it?
Of course. Like I said, everything has to be inspected. By the way, who's it from?
Oh fine. Nanami fell back on her bed, too tired to put up a fight after what was possibly the most rigorous day of physical exercise she'd yet had to endure. Lyn lept off her lap lightly and padded across the floor to his food dish, where the fading light of day broke through the one window in her quarters to throw an irrgular square of white upon the grey stone tiles. Lewoor is my, was my head waitress. I know she meant well, poor thing. She understands just how much the Diner meant to me, but this is actually more depressing than not knowing anything.
Alielle picked up at once on Nanami's use of the past tense in her words. Now now, that's no way to talk! You'll get back to your diner soon, I know it!
Nanami asked pitifully.
Well, Qawoor and sister Shayla left earlier this morning, I think they were headed to the Temple to go and find the Phantom Tribe. And once we've beaten them, you can go back to you life like normal! Alielle was not going to be swayed from her good cheer, and she sat down next to Nanami on her bed and began stroking her thigh absentmindedly.
Oh come on, big sister, Alielle continued, I know all sorts of ways to take your mind off things...
Nanami turned around on her bed to face the wall, and pulled the sheets up around her. Go away, she said sternly.
Alielle sighed. Then, purely on impulse, she leant over and kissed Nanami on the cheek, then hopped off the bed and ran out of the room, closing the door gently behind her.
Oh God, Nanami moaned, the world really is out to get me.
****
As soon as the fading glow of twilight had left the horizon Kiro broke across the approach to the Palace at a run. He passed unseen beneath the guard's tower that stood sentry over this quarter of the great wall that surrounded the royal compound. The wall was designed to be impassable without serious climbing equimpent, which meant that he would have to get through one of the gates, somehow.
Kiro knelt down next to the gate that barred entrance to the northern gallery, and closed his eyes in concentration. He formed the image of the illusion he desired with perfect clarity in his mind, then, through an extension of will that after years of relentless training now seemed easy, maintained his invisibility while he created the image of a Royal Roshtarian cutter approaching the gate from out of the growing darkness.
Instantly the guards were on alert. Hurried questions were lobbed at the gate commander, who had no foreknowledge of a visit by the Air Corps. As the cutter slowed to a stop before the gate, the commander stepped out of the tower with several of his men in tow. The pilot of the cutter argued convincingly, and Kiro supplied his puppet with the memorized code phrases and identification documents his fellow Wraiths had gathered for him.
After a few minutes of debate the guard commander relented, and Kiro stepped confidently from the shadows and into the floodlights that were trained on the gate entrance. It was taking every ounce of his will to maintain this complex series of illusions, but as he walked through the open gate in the wake of his illusion, his spirits were lifted when he caught a scrap of conversation between two junior guards.
Well, that was weird. I don't know that any of our cutters have shown up this late at night.
Yeah, I felt really bad for the pilot, getting drilled like that.
We can't be too careful, you know? We gotta be sure that the Phantom Tribe never gets into the palace again.
Londs walked wearily along the open air corridors that circled the apartments where his military personnel stayed. Most of them were asleep by now, but a few, like Londs himself, stayed up well past sunset working. The light from their lamps crept out from under the tangled masses of vines that humg over every window and danced on the pathway, and Londs couldn't help but feel gratified that his sense of professional paranoia, as he liked to call it, had begun to rub off on his subordinants at last.
He was just rounding a corner when something on the edge of his vision caught his attention. He looked out across the vast, empty approach to the north gallery that his apartment was situated over, then walked over to the balcony and leaned out to get a better look.
There was a cutter just on the edge of the range of the floodlights at the gated entrance, moving towards the palace. He consulted his daily schedule, which insisted that no more arrivals were scheduled until the next morning. He frowned, then looked back out over the field. The approach was well lit at night -despite the near total lack of activity- for reasons of security, but as he watched the lights on either side of the cutter suddenly went out. He waited for the tiny ship to emerge from the shadows along it's path, but it never did.
The guards in the tower were watching this, too, and they reached the same conclusion that Londs came to after the lights came back on and the cutter was no where to be seen.
The sirens' sound was peircing in the stillness of the perfect black night that had been upon them, and it's shrill and unforgiving tones were guaranteed to wake everyone on the gounds.
Londs heard it, too, but he had been running straight for the princesses' chambers well before the guards had woken the rest of the sleeping Palace.
Kiro muttered a silent curse as he wove his way through the elaborate gardens that the Roshtarians had insisted on putting damn near everywhere. The Tribe's intelligence activities had provided him with a complete and detailed map of the entire Palace, and also described the location that the second Jinnai was staying at. He had to hurry now, though; that blasted alarm was loud enough to warn the whole countryside that something was up at the Palace.
Nanami's hair was braided tight behind her head, and she was already tightening her boots' fittings when Londs burst through the door.
Miss Nanami! Forgive my intrusion, but you must...
His pleas were made reduntant when Nanami flew from her bed to the weapons locker just across the room, grabbed and checked her rifle with practised ease, then held her arms out and let Lyn wrap himself around her.
She turned to Londs. Let's go. She swept past him and out the door, and Londs had to recover himself slightly before he could get his legs to follow behind the deadly-serious warrior that he still couldn't convince himself he'd just seen.
Their rooms were actually right next to each other, but because of it's immensity it was still a short walk until Nanami and Londs reached the door to Rune and Fatora's shared suite. A trailer of six guards had formed up behind them in the distance between suites, and the rest of them arrived peicemeal as the doors that guarded the princesses were opened to admit their protectors.
Rune, Fatora and Alielle had not been trained to awaken instantly at the sound of the alarm, and they had just gotten their robes on when the party walked through the door.
Your Highnesses, Londs exclaimed, we must move you to the bunker quickly. The intruder may already be inside the palace.
Rune managed to speak while her servants hurried around her to gather a few personal belongings. Of course, Sir Londs, we'll be ready in a minute. She shot a warning glance at Fatora, who was debating over which hair clips she should take out with her.
Kiro risked a quick glance inside Nanami's room, noted it was empty, and stepped aside as two more guards hurried past him down the hall. He followed them until he heard the clamor of multiple voices, and among them was...
The Princess. Then Nanami would not be far behind, Kiro reasoned, and his predator's grin was wide as he climbed up the conviniently thick vines that cralwed up the sides of the open doorway -which was thankfully not nearly as high as the ones to each of the princesses regular residences- and perched on the ledge above it, waiting for them to step out and make their way to the bunker.
He drew his weapon, flipped up the small sighting lens, and settled his finger on the firing stud.
Nanami was impressed with how quickly the princesses and Alielle were able to leave. When it became evident that they would not be able to bring a tenth of what they had originally wanted, and when Londs pointed out that no servants would be allowed to stay with them in the bunker, they'd simply dropped everything, and their armor cats wrapped each of theprincesses in a nearly impenetrable shell.
Rune turned to Londs. We're ready.
Londs nodded, and hurried out the door. The princesses followed close on his heels, and Nanami right behind them. The guard contingent closed up around them, and the whole entourage proceeded smoothly out the doors and into the hallway.
Kiro watched and waited as the procession began. First the guards, then that meddlesome Londs, then the Princesses. Oh, how easy it would be to decapitate their entire monarchy in one stroke! he thought to himself. It was tempting, but that wasn't his mission.
The girl who followed them was. He'd been told that she now wore a furry green coat with a cat's head on it, and the Phantom Tribe had always assumed that it was no more than an elaborate pet. Both princesses wore them too, now that Kiro had noticed, but the recognition was fleeting.
His target now completely in his sights, he followed Nanami for half a second, then depressed the stud.
Very few people truly understood that the cats had been engineered to resist virtually every form of attack known, and even fewer knew that they could even stop a point-blank shot from a Demon God, if only once. Therefore, the Phantom Tribe assassin could be forgiven for not knowing that, powerful as their plasma-based weaponry was, one shot would certainly not suffice to kill someone who was thusly protected.
Kiro's aim had been perfect, and the bolt of pure blue energy liberated it's fury against the back of Nanami's head. But the helmet of Lyn's tail robbed the shot of everything but it's force of impact, which was still powerful enough to slam her forward.
Nanami cried out in pain and collapsed on the ground in front of her, barely conscious underneath the sea of hurt that was throbbing in the back of her head, and Lyn was yelping too in the high-pitched sound of a terrified and injured animal. She fell across her gun and landed at an awkward angle, eyes screwed shut and mouth locked open in a silent wail of protest. Londs spun around, paralyzed for a precious instant by what had happened.
Kiro was frozen too, but he quickly recovered and swung his weapon to bear once more, just as Londs pointed up towards him.
The bolt came from up there! Fire! The guards raised their own weapons, and just as they fired at the archway Kiro jumped, letting go of his gun as well as any hope of escaping alive, and pulled his dagger out. The peircing wail of the siren in the background was still drowning out virtually every other noise, but the guard closest to the doorway felt a disturbance in the air next to him as Kiro landed. The guard turned around to face the invisible killer, just as the tip of Kiro's blade drove through his throat and back out again, leaving him to die in agony as blood poured out of the gaping wound.
The guard next to him nearly fired in that direction, but he seemed to realize that he would simply manage to kill another guard if he missed. Before he could decide what he should do Kiro's knife found him, too, and soon a third and fourth guard were screaming as they slumped horribly onto the stone floor.
Londs pushed the princesses outside of the circle the guards had formed, grabbed the active forcepike from the hands of one of them, and lunged forward with an animal yell of revenge. He swept the space in front of him with such speed that his movements blurred together, and he quickly came to the spot where the last guard had died.
Despite the siren Londs heard the clipped yelp of surprise that seemed to eminate from thin air in front of him, and he twirled the forcepike around him to ward off attack. The invisible assassin shifted his target priorities and made a few attempts to get through Londs' guard, but the seemingly harmless head of the Royal Military was proving to be as deadly a warrior as himself.
He lunged again towards Londs, but instead of diving straight into his defense he slipped to the side and brought his knife up in a delicately timed swing. The blade caught the flesh of Londs's forearm, and his immaculate uniform was splashed with crimson as his last swing of the pike brought it around in a horizontal line in front of him.
Kiro's hand was not fast enough, however, and the forcepike caught the steele knife and split it easily in two. The clank of the blade's upper half hitting the ground was barely audible, and Londs clearly wished to press his advantage. But his strokes were wild and barely controlled now that his arm was wounded, and Kiro flipped backwards away from the assault and reassessed his options.
He nearly cried out a second time as he landed right next to the plasma rifle he had discarded earlier. No one had noticed it in the confusion of the fighting, but Londs stopped abruptly as his sharp eyes noticed something disappear from the ground in front of him when Kiro picked it up. Londs opened his mouth as if to scream, but he never got the chance to before a brilliant blue-white bolt of energy lanced across the space bewteen them. It struck Kiro squarely in the chest, breaking the illusion that concealed him at last. The assassin looked in horror at the smoking hole where his heart had been, then spared one gape-eyed glance at something that was behind Londs before he crumpled over.
Londs followed the path of the dead man's gaze, to where Nanami had managed to sit up slightly. She was still pointing her rifle in the direction that Kiro had been standing.
She managed to grin at Londs, and said through clenched teeth, See? Told ya you could trust me, before she passed out, freed from the pain at last.