22: The Fall of Osaka
"I don't know what you expected," Nochichi said reasonably, "You did betray them, after all."
Ayumu, walking alone in a deep corridor of the city, flailed her hands through the air about her head. "Shut up shut up shut up!"
"Seriously, why did you even bother? She's going to be frozen in carbonite soon enough anyway."
She sat down heavily on a step, hands resting on her solar plexus and just a bit out of breath. Tomo hadn't been in the mood to listen, as she had expected. The Honorable Captain had responded to her heartfelt entreaty/apology with the ol' hiccup cure. That was fine; she deserved worse. And perhaps Tomo would've done worse, but Yomi had grabbed her shoulder and said, "She's not worth it. Let's go!"
"Not worth it…" Ayumu recalled with a bitter chuckle. "It's true."
"You're slipping…" Nochichi warned laughingly.
Before she could respond, another, much friendlier voice hailed her. "Baroness?"
She bolted to her feet, straightening her cape and regaining a semblance of composure. Only when she was sure of her voice did she responded. "Yes, what is it?" A young guard (not much older than her, in fact) stood, frozen in the act of offering his hand to help her up. "Er… are you all right?"
"My city's goin' t'hell in a handbasket, the refugees we were shelterin' are cooked, and ah just got punched in the sola' plexus. 'Part from that, ah'm doin' fine." That damn accent made it too obvious when she was upset. Hopefully the guard didn't notice. "How're you?"
"Oh…" he glanced at his boots, only just realizing how stupid his question had been. "Where are you going? You should probably take shelter, if, if you don't mind my suggesting."
"My offices." This was her city after all. "I'd better deal with this."
"I'll protect you!" he said eagerly, hefting his rifle. She started walking and he took up a position next to her, scanning the corridors intensely. After a few yards in silence, though, he spoke again. "Er… at the risk of sounding like a moron, just who are we fighting?"
"The bounty hunters!" she replied, shocked. Was this man even more spaced-out than she? "Who'd ya think?"
"Because it sure looks like some of the Bounty Hunters are cooperating with the stormies… and then there's this militia group of citizens fighting them and the bounty hunters, and then there's- well, none of us know what's going on."
"Neither do I," Ayumu shook her head. "Tell you what, just find someplace to hide and don't get shot."
"But… Baroness!"
"If you don't even know who you're fighting, what's the point?"
"Well… I, uh, I know who I'm fighting for..."
"You do? I envy you."
"But Baroness! Shouldn't we be protecting the citizens?"
"Just…" she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do your thing. I can't…"
"Do you care about this fellow? Perhaps I should have him frozen, too." Nochichi commented. "I can be flexible."
"Shut up," Ayumu muttered, "I don't even know his name!" The guard glanced at her, concerned. "Oh… it's not you," she assured him, tapping her temple. "It's…" He looked even more concerned at that. "Hey! I'm not crazy!"
"Of, of course," he replied, wide eyed.
"What's your name, anyway?"
"Corporal Benjiro Kitamura."
Ayumu didn't know why she bothered to ask; what use was there connecting any more deeply with this guy? He'd probably be shot before the day was up. Her mind turned with dismal thoughts, flickering from his fate to hers to the stupid militants and the treacherous stormtroopers and her desperately fleeing friends, every image darker and more frightening than the last. If she could salvage just one part of the whole sordid mess… "Corporal- I order you not to die."
"Baroness? Uh- that is, I can try."
"Don't try. There is no try!" She cuffed him. "Do it!"
"Y-yes, ma'am." He had a rather amusing deer-in-headlights look about him, obviously wondering if his superior was quite stable. That didn't bother her, as she was wondering the same thing. They were silent until they arrived at her office. "Thank you, Corporal."
"No problem."
"Now remember not to die."
"Uh- right. Sure thing."
The office doors closed between them.
"So, what do you think?" Nochichi hovered above her desk, lost in shadow. The blinds were drawn and the lights out. Ayumu didn't make any move to change either. She merely stared at him, trembling, but in a different way than she had before. "What are you going to do now, eh? I can give you the casualty figures, if you like."
Ayumu's hand closed around her ceremonial saber. She shut her eyes, struggling for a fleeting moment, then—
Its scabbard was devoured by a vividly purple blade of energy, lashing out in an arc towards the Sith Lord as she leapt with unnatural agility, silent, soft eyes blazing, for once every fiber of her being focused, bent on annihilating this hateful monster—
And she stopped. Held fast in the air before that dreadful mask, she stared defiantly, struggling against binds of Force. Darth Nochichi took a moment to savor the anger pulsing through her. "That's more like it!" he commended. "Now we can start your training properly."
The room filled with shrieking lightning.
Benjiro ran along an open-air street, contemplating the strange order from the Baroness. It raised a bit of a conundrum; did he owe his loyalty more to her or to the city? Because their interests sure seemed to be conflicted in this case.
He rounded a bend and was suddenly confronted by a rank of stormtroopers and a rather pissed-off Ohyama. "All right," the Bounty Hunter yelled back at them, "Which one of you let that bigass scream?" None of the troopers responded. Out amid the sea of clouds, a leviathan turned in the air. "The stupid things are harmless! It's like screaming over a roach or something!"
Benjiro started to shuffle away, but Ohyama rounded on him. "Hey!"
"Erk!"
"Have you seen this woman?" the bespectacled Bounty Hunter asked sharply, holding up a picture of Kaori.
"No. I- I haven't."
"Hmph. Carry on, then. Come on, lackeys!"
He jogged away, followed by a column of grumbling stormtroopers. As the last one passed out of earshot, Benjiro sighed in frustration. "They could at least make it a little less obvious…"
"Crap…" Kagura backed away from the corner and turned to the others. "They've blocked this one, too. Is there another way?"
"You're the one that was always running around," Yomi replied. "If you don't know, we sure don't."
The four of them had had a rough time getting this far, but fortunately they'd avoided any shootouts. (You couldn't rightly call it a shootout when Kagura blasted a corridorload of troopers before they realized anything was up.) "How many?" Tomo asked. She had this thoughtful look on her face; of the group, only her partner knew to be frightened by it.
"'Bout ten. Why?"
"Because I just got an idea."
"Oh, God," Yomi moaned. "At least tell us what it is before you—"
Tomo sprinted into the trooper-laden room with a wild yell, waving her blaster in the air with absolute confidence. Assuming she knew what she was doing and there must be more behind her, the Imperials fell back from the blaster-toting banshee. Her companions stared in shock for a moment before piling into the room after--but Tomo and her prey were already long gone.
"Holy shit!" was all Kagura could manage.
"That was… really brave," Kaori added.
"The idiot!" Yomi snarled. "What the hell is she thinking?"
The room emptied into a lower concourse. They could still hear Tomo's yelling down one corridor, while the Silver Rose lay in the other direction. The two Rebels started that way, but then paused when Yomi didn't move.
"Oh, yeah… your life-debt." Kagura looked understanding for a moment, but then her eyes hardened. "We're not waiting for either of you."
Yomi nodded resignedly and started after her partner.
Meanwhile, ahead, the troopers were just beginning to figure out they were running from a lone woman. The whole column of them gradually stopped and turned to face her. Tomo awkwardly skidded to a halt, still howling. She tried making herself look big, faking towards them, the works, but they didn't fall for any of it.
"Well?" she finally asked, short of breath. "What'll it take?"
In response, they raised their rifles as one. Tomo blasted the one closest to her and turned on her heel, screaming again, but now for a much different reason. Unfortunately, she couldn't outrun the crisscrossing stun beams they fired after her and sprawled to the ground, instantly silenced.
"Yeah," one of the troopers said, kneeling next to her. "This is the one."
"Take her down below," the commander ordered. "And tell the techies to get that carbonite cell ready."
Yomi was too far behind to hear this exchange, but she managed to track the group as they moved deep into Osaka, down through the industrial areas that their few tourists never saw. She stole down musty hallways with no windows, the only light coming from dim fluorescent tubes. This was for the comfort of the Ughnauts, ugly little dwarven creatures that made their living running the machinery down here.
She had no idea what they were planning to do with her friend, but she vowed that they wouldn't manage it. In spite of all the grief Tomo had given her, the life-debt still held. And perhaps, perhaps she even cared beyond it.
Her bowcaster's arms snapped into place.
It was a dreadful risk, but the most direct way to the Silver Rose's berth lay along one of the open-aired walkways that circled Osaka's crown. Kagura paused near its doorway to let the Princess catch her breath. "You ready?" she asked.
Kaori nodded gravely. The soldier couldn't help but notice how Sakaki-esque her expression was; was this emulation a good thing? Was all this silent strength genuine or a façade? Did it matter? Kagura forcefully derailed that train of thought.
They sprinted out along the concourse together, suddenly surrounded by blazing sunlight and a pale blue sky. Visible in the distance, the Rose gleamed invitingly on its platform, alone and unguarded.
"I don't trust this," the soldier commented. Kaori might have responded, but she was already gasping for breath. Her dress, unfortunately, was not exactly made for running, and the black fabric soaked in sunlight with a vengeance. Strong, she reminded herself. Quiet and strong.
Even Kagura was a little hopeful when they came within a hundred paces of the vessel without any resistance. Her hope was almost instantly crushed, however; a dozen stormtroopers disembarked from the Rose and spread out before them, weapons at the ready.
One of the bounty-hunters, an extremely tall man in a flowing, dark gray coat, walked casually down after them and stood at the base of the ramp, one hand in his pocket. Long black hair whipped around his hard, lined face in the wind. Declining to gloat or even introduce himself, he drew two bulky blaster pistols and leveled them on Kagura. She knew instinctively to fear them more than any number of troopers.
But then he started shooting, and the Imperials didn't realize they had been betrayed until most of them were dead. The last few spun and tried futilely to bring their ungainly rifles to bear before merciless green beams cut them down.
The Hunter whirled both blasters on his fingers and holstered them. As the Rebels drew nearer, Kagura still holding her weapon on him, he bowed ironically and stepped aside to let them mount the ramp.
When she passed him, however, Kaori came to a sudden halt, shock stamped across her face. "Wait a second!" she turned to the towering man and met his dark blue eyes. "I know you!"
"You have me at a disadvantage, then," he replied quietly, then walked away.
"But… but you're…" Kaori called after him, looking more distressed than she had since the start of their Osakan ordeal. "Hey!"
"Princess!" Kagura snapped, more sharply than she intended.
Kaori looked after him a moment longer, then finally shook her head. "R-right. Let's go."
"You're a little late," Tomo said dryly.
It was a vast room, dimly lit as the rest of the industrial areas. Under a vaulted ceiling, row after of row of alcoves set into a wall lined with catwalks waited to be filled with carbonite. The Honorable Captain was restrained in one of them, looking around in bemusement.
"What is this?" Yomi dropped an unconscious stormtrooper to the ground with a clatter of broken helmet pieces. He had been the lone guard. "And where are the others?"
"Oh, they got called away," Tomo responded with perfect equanimity. "Crazy stuff goin' on, I hear." The First Mate reached for her partner, but her fingers struck sparks on a force-field that spread over the whole wall before her. "Wha…? This is a ridiculous way to execute you—why didn't they just blast you?"
"You complaining?"
"No! I just- where are the controls? I'll get you out of there."
"I heard the commander say to lock them."
Yomi stared for a moment. "We'll work this out… but what were you thinking?"
"I saw all those troopers, and nobody else stepped forward, and I thought to myself… now's my chance!"
"Your chance to what?"
Tomo shrugged.
"Moron!" Yomi cursed again. "What the hell am I supposed to do? Godammit!" She drew her bowcaster and fired it into a corner of the force-field, but the quarrel shattered uselessly. "Dammit dammit dammit! Wha-? You're laughing! What's so funny?"
"It's just fun watching you freak out."
"Why are you so cheerful? You're about to have molten carbonite poured over your head, you idiot!"
"Oh, I figure this way, my beauty will be preserved forever." More probably, it was just a desperate defense mechanism, but even as pissed as she was, the Valerian decided not to point this out. "And why are you so upset, eh? Don't you want to get rid of me anyway?"
"Not like this!" Yomi punched the field. "Help me, here! I… I can't think of any way to get you out!"
"You're the smart one, stupid! If I knew a way, I'd be shrieking at you to do it, wouldn't I?" There rose the deep grumbling sound of machinery coming to life deep beneath their feet. Gas started spraying into the alcoves, making Tomo wince and cough.
"Shit! I can't… Tomo!"
"Would you shut up, you dimwit? I'm trying to die with dignity here." A calm, fatalistic Tomo! Would the wonders never cease? "It'll be a fitting end to my illustrious career. And there's a chance I'll survive, too... "
"Tomo, I… I…" Yomi put her hands on the force field as thick gray fluid started oozing into the alcove behind her partner. She sputtered out, tears beading beneath her glasses. "I…"
The Honorable Captain's eyes were wide, clear and thoroughly unnerving in their intensity. "I know."
"I'll come back for you, Tomo! I'll find you!"
"You'd better go… ah! Oh, sh- this stuff's cold!" She shuddered eloquently, then cast an annoyed look at her partner. "Get outta here, stupid, they're coming back!"
"Tomo…!"
"Lord Nochichi, what a pleasant surprise!" Captain Ganner tried to hide his shock at the Sith Lord's sudden entrance in Osaka's control room. "What can I do for you?"
"You've done excellent work, here, Captain. I only have one more item of business to attend to, and I will leave Osaka to your care."
"Yes, sir. If, if I may ask, what else do you need to do?"
"I'm just waiting for my daughter to arrive."
"Sir, another unidentified vessel is coming in." One of the technicians put a hand over his ear and turned to Ganner. "It's not one of the bounty hunters."
"What kind of ship is it?"
"One of those new rebel fighters… Angels or whatever they're called."
"Dispatch Zeta Flight to intercept," Ganner ordered. "Shoot it down."
"That would be her now," Nochichi said casually.
"Should I recall…?"
"Oh, we ought to keep up appearances. But you won't be getting those fighters back…" Darth Nochichi started to drift away. "I have taken up in the carbonite refinery. You would be wise to clear her a path."
It was a good thing the fighters were occupied. Yomi stood on a walkway that coiled down Osaka's tapered underside, leaning on the rail as she pocketed her comlink. In spite of Kagura's cold warning, the Silver Rose was still nearby, and it rose beneath her out of the churning clouds.
If anybody had been watching her, they would have had a hard time reading her expression. What turned within her? She had failed in her duty as a Valerian… and yet it was somehow even worse than that. As her beautiful ship hovered before her and offered its ramp, Koyomi Mizuhara knew that she would find Tomo again and save her.
It didn't even cross her mind that Tomo might not have survived her carbonite freezing; the great and mighty Captain Takino, brought low by an oozing mass of fast-hardening solution? The Captain's ego would absolutely not allow that, and it was enough for Yomi.
And besides, the smaller woman still owed her seventy credits. She'd have to collect on that, right? Sure, Yomi thought wryly, hopping onto the ramp, Take any excuse you want, me.
