(Okay, so I was wrong.)

Part 33: The Little Shiny Thing What Kicks Our Asses

Pinghu, Zhejiang Province, China
G-hour plus 00:31:20
April 29th, 2016

The first sign of overt resistance appeared on Azanael's heads-up display just after Maksim asked her whether Arume pilots recorded their kill tallies. She could have taken these enemies alone in Getour, and felt confident that the Kamov would also suffice for such a battle, but she had been ordered to bypass the opening confrontation, her payload reserved for other targets. She nosed down, leveling off once the Ka-50G was skimming low over the shallow waves of Hangzhou Bay.

"Okay, we have two big fish and three small fish... Ramrod Two, Ramrod Four, you take the Hind on the left. Ramrod Three, you take the Hind on the right with me."

The North Koreans had come to Shanghai as boat people, hundreds of them crowded onto a flotilla of rust-bucket cargo ships. They came, ostensibly, because they were unable to accept the new order in their homeland or because they feared prosecution by the Republic of Korea. Some had been in Shanghai almost since the day RoK troops crossed the demilitarized zone, while thousands more had gradually migrated from Dandong, Weihai and other points of arrival. The exiles found menial employment on the streets of the ally which had abandoned their beloved Democratic People's Republic in its hour of need, sullenly withdrawing to their floating fortresses when their work was done.

"Copy, Ramrod Leader."

In the six years since they'd come here, the local authorities never once searched those hulks anchored in the mouth of the Yangzi. In the six years since the North Koreans left their native peninsula, the victorious Republic's pencil-pushers never noticed that a pair of gunships had vanished from DPRK inventory without a trace. In the six years since the exodus, hundreds of small arms and thousands of shells and cartridges had been smuggled and stockpiled in preparation for this three-pronged retaliation.

"This is Ramrod Two. I have weapon lock."

The two Mi-35s weren't Azanael's problem. Ramrod Wing would deal with them, as well as the handful of hastily up-gunned transports which the Koreans had appropriated from Shanghai's defenders. After opening the way, they were going to cut north to the Nerv base near the shore of Dianshan Lake, on the west side of the city, and relieve its exhausted security forces. When the attack party was finished there, assuming all went as planned, Keiko would lead the armed helicopters on what she gleefully dubbed a 'bruise cruise'.

"Ramrod Leader, Ramrod Three is waiting on your shot."

Azanael and her comrades were welcome to join in, the big woman had told them, if they still had ammo to spare after their own run. While the others met the North Koreans head-on, Buster Wing would fly northeast along the shore, hook around the tip of the Shanghai peninsula, and destroy the enemy's ships in the channel between Chongming Island and Shanghai proper. To accomplish that, her stacked-rotor steed carried eight guided missiles and a pair of 23mm gun pods on its wing hardpoints, plus the standard 30mm autocannon mounted on the fuselage. The Mi-28N advancing parallel to her on the Kamov's left flank was similarly fitted.

"Stand by, Ramrod Three. Skytrain Wing, reduce your speed a little."

The Arume hadn't gotten much opportunity to become acquainted with Buster One's crew. The pilot, Anastasiya, was a thirty-something year old Belarusian with curling hair. She was polite and helpful when Azanael met her on the ground, but made it firmly clear that she wanted no personal advances. Maksim, her gunner, was a prankster in his mid-fifties with brawny tattoo-covered forearms and eyebrows which met in the center. He was the personification of the virtual opponents Azanael had been training against since before Onomil took her virginity, a veteran who'd started out as a young Soviet Air Force pilot flying hunter-killer sweeps in the mountains of Afghanistan.

"Skytrain One, start the tape on my mark."

Maksim had told the alien a little about those days during the night before their departure from Hong Kong, mostly in the form of chilling anecdotes which he used to illustrate his hard-learned counsel on dealing with the anticipated threats. It was on his advice that Azanael had dumped some of the rations from her bailout kit and replaced them with extra magazines for the company-issued emergency weapon. She had no intention of actually using the damned thing, as her grudging appreciation of forime technology did not extend to the noisy, fireball-spewing carbine.

"All right, boys and girls." Keiko's voice was relaxed, perfectly confident. "Let's show these posers some old school style – three... two... one..."

"Vstavaaay, strana ogromnaya... Vstavaaay na smertnyy boy! S fashiiistskoy siloy tyomnoyu... S proklyaaatoyu ordoy!"

"Going out loud and clear," said Schuhart with satisfaction. He turned the music volume down, then placed his hands on the keyboard of the laptop on the handcart in front of him. "And the crowd goes wild."

Richardson watched him with curiosity for a few seconds. The Antonov and the Ilyushins were parked and unpacked, and had perfectly good operations centers fitted inside, yet her benefactor preferred to conduct his work from the tarmac. She made a mental note to ask about it later and turned away.

The man had other plans. "Come over here," he called, beckoning to her and Harrington. "You might learn something from this." He moved to the side as the gosta obeyed, allowing them to see that the computer's screen displayed a monochromatic video stream, a live feed from the nose camera on Ramrod 2.

As the girls watched, the gunship swung to the left, tracking an Mi-8 which still wore its former Free City insignia. There was a muffled brrrrrrrt as the Mi-24P met it head-on, the bigger Mil's double-barreled cannon vomiting a stream of shells straight into the target's cockpit. The Mi-8 veered away, simultaneously rolling onto its side, and disappeared from view.

"Ka-boom," said Schuhart, reaching for the water bottle behind the laptop. "Looks like the upgrades are paying off." He reduced the video from fullscreen to a window. "What's the score, Ramrod Leader?"

"That's a clean sweep," Keiko reported. "The jammers worked like a charm... One of the big fish is trying to make a dead-stick landing. You want some prisoners?"

"If you think it's safe, go for it. All other units, proceed with the mission."

Azanael breathed a quiet sigh of relief – so far, so good.

Now Schuhart's attention shifted towards her sector. "Buster Wing, how's it look on your side?"

"No sign of the enemy," Anastasiya replied. "I cannot see any movement on the shore or on the water."

"Copy, Buster One... Buster Two, anything to add?"

Azanael saw gray clouds above. She saw gray waters below. She saw deserted shoreline to her left. That was all. "Nothing..."

"Ramrod Wing, Skytrain Wing, proceeding to the LZ. Watch those scanners, people."

Taking out the North Korean helicopters had been the easy part. The invaders had seized some heavier missiles from Shanghai's defenders, Chinese copies of the aging S-75, but Eto Delo's attack party was flying too low to be targeted by them. Available intelligence suggested that the enemy also had access to a significant quantity of shoulder-launched Strela-2 heatseekers – or rather, the Chinese and Korean imitations thereof – but those could be deflected even by crude countermeasures. The real threat came from camouflaged anti-aircraft guns, which weren't affected by high-tech jamming.

Schuhart's joke from the previous night had been an apt one: the legacies of the USSR were everywhere in this operation. Just as well, Azanael thought: the state of affairs meant that her old training was still useful, and her fellow pilots would also know what to expect. Judging by the steady flow of radio chatter in her ears, all was going as planned on the landward side.

"Ramrod Leader to Command, I'm taking three KPAF prisoners on board. Will rejoin the wing ASAP."

"Copy, KK. They giving you much trouble?"

"Negative. Phil put the fear in 'em."

"How does their big fish look?"

"Needs TLC, but I don't see anything that can't be fixed."

"Noted. Carry on."

This Shanghai didn't look much like the one Azanael had visited in the second layer. That city had been pounded to rubble during the invasion, followed up by a kaijin infestation which delayed resettlement efforts for years afterward. This Shanghai, by contrast, had a crust of abandoned ruins along the shore, but beyond that lay the heart of a vibrant, modern metropolis... or at least that was how she imagined it, since the city looked pretty dead right now. A large portion of the population had fled before the North Koreans could corral them, though there were many more still trapped inside. Would they hear the music, the ominous strains blaring from the approaching choppers' belly-mounted speakers, and know that help was coming? Would the Koreans hear it and shiver in fear?

"Pust yaaarost blagorodnaya... Vskipaaaaayet, kak volnaaaaa – iiidyot voyna narodnaya... Svyashchennaya voyna!"

Azanael herself had shivered a little when the song began: it was a recurring theme in her nightmares ever since she'd given in to Elaqebil's pressure and watched Ostfront. However excellent the acting in the series might have been, the unflinching depictions of brutality only left her nauseous and fervently uninterested in learning more about that conflict... But after hearing Mari's offhand remarks about the dying embers of war back in the second layer, she would in no way be surprised to see the forime sit through the whole program without flinching once.

"Gniloooy fashistskoy nechisti... Zagooonim pulyu v lob! Otreeebyu chelovechestva... Skoloootim krepkiy grob!"

Things started to pick up again as the faint chorus repeated for the fifth time. "Buster One here," Anastasiya called. "I see a small ship coming out of the Yangzi channel."

"Copy, Buster One. Good view from your camera... Looks like the Norks have taken over a Chinese trawler. I see a ZPU on the bow and another ZPU behind the bridge."

Just as they were told to expect in the pre-flight briefing, Azanael recalled. She fixed her own targeting camera on the vessel and zoomed in, a hand clutching her control stick tightly. The trawler was a plodding craft with a rust-streaked green hull, its illegible name painted in white behind an anchor swinging from a corroded hawsepipe. The Arume could clearly see the quadruple-barreled 14.5mm assembly mounted on the high forecastle, and its twin halfway up the back of the superstructure at the stern. The Koreans shouldn't be able to depress their guns low enough to fire on her while she was hugging the water – and would do serious damage to their own gunwales if they tried it – but she wasn't in a gambling mood. "Request permission to engage."

There was an audible pause before Schuhart responded. "Uh... Negative, Buster Two, hold your fire. Can you make out what they're doing amidships?"

At this speed, the window of opportunity was closing fast. Azanael nudged the Kamov to the right, putting some distance between it and the shark-faced Mi-28 and gaining a little more time. "They're bringing people onto the top decks," she answered tersely. "Twenty... no, thirty... More than thirty."

"Dammit... Buster Wing, do not – I repeat, do not – engage the trawler. Bypass it and continue your mission."

Anastasiya sounded bored. "Acknowledged."

"Roger," Azanael muttered, pushing her machine back to maximum speed. "Holding fire." If the North Koreans thought they would be free to shoot at her with impunity, however, they were sorely mistaken. "Command, Buster Two requests permission to make a flyby of the trawler."

"Granted, but no fancy stuff... All units, be advised that enemy forces may be using civilian hostages as shields. Double-check your targets before you light 'em up."

A missile streaked out from the ship's low central deck, flying with the distinctive wobble of a Strela. The Kamov's infrared jammer suite, already configured to deal with this exact hazard, quickly disrupted its guidance and sent the rocket blindly tumbling out to sea. Azanael could see individual enemies scrambling about with more of the long launcher tubes as she circled around the bow of the lumbering vessel, rotating the Ka-50 to keep its menacing nose pointed towards the Koreans. Rejoining the Mi-28 on the other side, she corrected her course and flew onwards. The invaders didn't waste another missile on her, and quickly disappeared behind the Shanghai headland.

"Ramrod Leader to Command, LZ is clear. I see friendlies on the ground."

"They see you too... Skytrain Wing is cleared to land. We're setting up a direct comms link for you now."

"Good to hear. Any word on hostiles?"

"One skirmish with a Nork probe at about, uh, about oh-five-twenty hours. It's been quiet since then."

"Copy... Ramrod Wing, perimeter circuit. Follow my lead."

The mouth of the Yangzi was dead ahead now. "Command, Buster Wing is approaching Hengsha Island. No further enemy activity."

"Copy, Buster Two. Do you have a visual on your targets?"

"Negative, no vis – "

There was a flash of green light.

Mari heard the scream of agony from all the way across the runway. Disregarding her assigned duties, she left her patrol route and sprinted towards Schuhart and his gosta audience. "Buster Two, are you hit?" the man demanded. "Buster Two, come in!"

"I can't see." Azanael wasn't panicking, not yet, but Mari could hear the stress patterns in her breathing. "I can't see anything..."

"I've still got your camera feed," Schuhart reassured her. "Bring your nose up a little and turn right... Keep turning... Good, now hold it steady. We'll get you out of there." His typing speed doubled. "Buster One, did you see the hit?"

"Affirmative, Command. The enemy is using a laser weapon. I repeat, a laser weapon. We are flying evasive patterns."

"I copy. Buster Wing, abort mission. Stay with the casualty, Buster One." Clickety-click-tap-tap-click! "All units, all units, we have one bird flying blind. If you pick up any lasers, even if it's just a pocket pointer, evade immediately." Schuhart glanced behind himself. "Richardson, get the girls together – light kit with gas masks and flotation vests. Grab Karan, too." He thumbed the talk switch on his personal radio. "Smirnov, wake up Chugainov and Shevchenko, send them down here on the double, and inform the Hangzhou shore patrol that we'll be borrowing their new Twin Hueys."

Now that Richardson and Harrington had gone, Mari was alone with the boss. Instead of waving her off, he motioned for her to come watch the laptop screen. "Is she – "

"Shh." Schuhart held up a hand. "Lukin, can you fill in for me? ...Thanks. All units, this is Schuhart. I'm delegating anchor control to Lukin until further notice. You go easy on him, KK."

"Will do, Roland."

"Okay," the arms dealer said under his breath, fingers skipping over the keyboard. "Now the fun really starts..."

Azanael's eyes watered uncontrollably from the pain, the raw burning that started at her irises and seemed to extend all the way into the visual cortices at the back of her skull. She couldn't understand it, couldn't grasp just how suddenly she had gone from empress of the skies to helpless cripple, trapped in a coffin hurtling through the air at three hundred kilometers per hour.

"Stay calm, Flight Chief." Somehow that gruff voice in her ears brought relief, rather than additional disquiet. "I've switched you over to the secondary channel... I can't fly by wireless, but I can access some of your subsystems. I'll help you as much as I can from here."

The knowledge that it was her nominal employer who was holding her hand only increased the feeling of humiliation. "I'm sorry..."

"Not now, Chief." Schuhart, conversely, was all business. "You're on open water. Make a gentle turn to the right... That's good. I'm going to send Buster One ahead of you to distract the trawler. Once you're past it, you'll be home free."

"Understood."

"...Just this once, I'm glad it's a Fifty-G."

Back in the second layer, the Kamov's lineage started and ended with the plain Ka-50. "Why's that?" Mari inquired softly.

"It's a test type." Schuhart spoke without taking his eyes off the flat display. "The serial model, the Fifty-D, doesn't support remote overrides."

"What can you do with it?"

"Enough, I hope." He placed his fingertips on the arrow keys, and the remote camera began to pan sideways. "Okay, there's the trawler. A little to the left, Chief... Great." Tap-click! "Buster One, get that tub's attention."

"On it."

"They're firing," Mari warned.

"I see them." Schuhart turned the camera so that the Mi-28 was visible. A pair of missiles streaked past it in the background, clear misses both. "Countermeasures effective."

"They are aiming at Buster Two now."

"Copy." The wireless operator pressed a three-key macro. "Popping flares."

The North Koreans' response to the flares was to fire six more Strelas all at once.

Azanael heard a loud bang and felt the airframe jolt around her, followed by heavy vibration. "I'm hit!"

"Are you injured?"

"No."

"Good... Sorry, but it looks like you might not make it to Hangzhou." There was a muffled beeping on Schuhart's end of the link. "Turn right again... Okay, stop. Now drop your landing gear and gain a little more altitude. We'll try for a pickup in Fengxian. There's plenty of open ground, so don't worry."

In another time, another place, she might have laughed at that.

"Buster One, I need you to find an LZ away from the shore, with enough room for a short stop plus pickup space."

"Affirmative."

Mari hoped Schuhart could make sense of the diagnostic text overlaid on the video feed, because the cryptic Cyrillic meant nothing to her. "How bad is it?"

"I dunno yet... The way she's shaking, it's either the blades or the transmission. Probably caught some fragments from an airburst."

"Aren't they armored?"

"Factory claims they're rated for up to twenty-three millimeter." The laptop beeped again. "Cross your fingers and hope it holds together long enough to get her out."

"This is Buster One," Anastasiya called. "I have located a landing site. Coordinates are – "

"I've got it. Relative to Buster Two, that would be... All right. Flight Chief, make a gentle drift to the left... Very good. Straighten out and reduce speed." Schuhart quickly changed channels. "Ramrod Leader, what's your status?"

"Going by the numbers, Roland. What about you?"

"Still guiding our guest ace. Once she's on the ground, I'm going to take the girls and go deal with that Nork gunboat."

"Cool. You want any backup?"

"Negative. Stay on task."

"Suit yourself."

Schuhart switched back to Azanael. "Just a little further, Chief." He glanced away, looking at the fifteen gosta, one Indian and two Russians who had assembled in the meantime. "Shevchenko, Chugainov, we're borrowing a couple of imported choppers from the local authorities for this run." The leader pointed to the two machines in blue-on-white livery which sat at the edge of the rollout strip on the far end of the runway. "Go start 'em up. We'll do the briefing on the fly."

Azanael was starting to feel anxious again. "Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here... Okay, your LZ is straight ahead. Start your descent... A little slower, that's good... Come right just a hair... You're right over the LZ now. You can drop straight onto it... Two meters... One and a half... One meter..."

The Kamov lurched, giving the Arume precious tactile feedback. "I'm on the ground... Applying brakes."

"Well done... Once you're stopped, power down and get ready to go. Buster One will pick you up as soon as they've finished their safety sweep."

The Arume let out a long sigh of relief. "Understood... Thank you."

"No need. I have to deal with some other stuff now, so I'm going to switch you back to the main channel. KK and Lukin will look after you, all right? We'll see you back at field HQ."

"All right..."

She'd run the shutdown procedure enough times in the simulator to do it without sight. Azanael ran through the steps, waited until the damaged Kamov had gone silent, and then unbuckled herself and reached for the bailout kit. A warm breeze caressed her face when she raised the canopy, clearing out the smells of sweat and fear from the cockpit. The alien could hear the friendly Mi-28 circling not far away as she slung the kit over her shoulder and gingerly began her climb to freedom.

A brief exploration with her hands informed Azanael that she had been guided to land in a field of uncut grass. It felt good to run her fingers over the long slender blades, especially after the cramps which had developed from her white-knuckle piloting. Surely it would feel even better to just flop down and lie there... but not when she was blind and lost in enemy territory. Azanael sat cross-legged underneath the helicopter and unzipped the bailout kit's outer cover. There was a personal radio inside, but its controls were unfamiliar and it had been stored without the necessary encryption key preset. It was useless to her in her present state, so she put it back and pulled out a different package.

The AKS-74U was stored in a cotton pouch with a large flap, tied around the middle, and accompanied by a smaller pouch which held a lubricant bottle and four magazines made of a garish orange plastic. Discarding food from the kit yielded enough space for two more, fastened one-up-one-down with blue electrical tape. Azanael started with the latter, pinching her fingers twice in the process, but it proved to be a superfluous exercise: Buster One was already coming in to land by the time she had finished.

She hadn't needed it after all... In fact, she hadn't fired a single shot during the entire mission.

Richardson liked simple plans. The plan she and her sisters were executing now was a simple one. Therefore she felt good about it.

There were six other gosta sitting around her on the UH-1N's riveted cabin floor, making final checks on their equipment. Schuhart stood at the forward end, his leg brace discarded in favor of the old booster drug remedy, observing their target through the windshield. Chugainov handled the machine, a sold-as-surplus South Korean unit freshly dubbed 'Mekong One', with great finesse, skimming even closer to the water than Buster Wing had.

"Masks on!" Schuhart's voice was loud, but not an outright shout.

Richardson quickly unfolded the rubber and plastic device, pressed it over her face and cinched the straps behind her head, under the lip of her helmet. Two deep breaths, then a thumbs-up.

"Everyone ready? Good!" Schuhart adjusted his own filter, then pressed his radio headset tighter against his ear. "Mekong Wing, begin approach. Buster One, watch our backs... Nice and tight, people!"

Mari and Karan watched intently through Mekong Two's side windows as the Mi-28 darted past them, ready to fend off any more Strelas. The remaining gosta were grouped around them, already in their assigned positions.

"Steady," Schuhart advised in her ears. "Let them think we're just making another flyby..."

The armed trawler had gone in circles for a little while, probably watching while Buster One picked up Azanael, and was now motoring eastwards, fleeing back to the shelter of the Yangzi channel. Coming up from almost directly astern, the helicopters were presented with a relatively narrow profile: all the better, since it limited the available space for the Koreans to shoot at them from.

"Mekong Wing, the giggling gull is coming in to roost."

Mari wished the man wouldn't use such obscure code phrases, especially on short notice. It was a good thing that Karan was able to keep track of them. "The make 'n' break is running strong," he replied.

"Hoo-ah." Schuhart briskly rolled the side door open as the Huey deviated slightly from its course, then braced himself with one hand on the back of the empty copilot's seat and the other on his Ithaca Stakeout. "Wait for it..."

Richardson's own hand tingled as she pressed it against Harrington's back. The prone girl stiffened, her movements becoming puppet-like as her brain's processing capacity was diverted to handle the influx of sensory information from her partner. The kneeling gosta kept her wide eyes fixed on the trawler, her sight complimenting the other's narrow view through her telescopic sight.

"HIT THE DECK, BURT – TIME TO EAT!"

Harrington's SVD commenced the engagement without more ado.

Sniping from a helicopter wasn't one of Mari's usual duties and she expected it to be realistically useful only for long-range suppression, even with the Type 79's wooden fore-end nestled upon an improvised rest made from an inflatable cushion. Her problems were compounded by Shevchenko, whose flying was fearless but not very smooth.

Undeterred, she gritted her teeth and pressed her face against the stock's cheekpiece. She barely heard her own muzzle blast under the din of the rotor blades and the heavy earphones.

There was a rapid pakh-pakh-pakh on Richardson's right as Korth, Rubin and Carcano peppered the trawler's after decks with 5.45mm rounds, puffs and trails of swirling ball powder smoke wafting from muzzle brakes. "GOOD WORK!" Schuhart bellowed. "MEKONG TWO, HOLD YOUR FIRE! TAKE US IN, CHUGAINOV!"

The helicopter began to drift sideways, fast catching up to the retreating vessel. At shorter ranges, Richardson was more useful as a standalone fighter: she drew back her linking hand and took up her own weapon. Like most of her siblings she enjoyed a technological advantage over the Koreans in the form of a 1P29 daylight optical sight, but only she and the second squad's Lebel had the additional upgrade of an underbarrel grenade launcher.

Schuhart expected her to make full use of it, too: "RICHARSON, LOAD A GAS ROUND! HARRINGTON, TAKE OUT ANY NORK WHO SO MUCH AS LOOKS AT THAT ZPU!"

"Roger," the latter gosta replied coolly, rocking a full magazine into place.

Richardson extracted a cylindrical caseless grenade from her secondary ammunition pack and pressed it into the GP-30's muzzle. "...Gas round ready!"

Schuhart inserted a gray shell into his shotgun and pumped it, ejecting a red shell into the cup holder attached to the inside of the fuselage wall. As the Huey rose above the trawler's stern rail, he raised the barrel and fired at one of the bridge windows beside the engine exhaust stack, shattering the glass. "RICHARDSON! HOLE IN ONE!" Shak-chak! "LET'S GO, FIRST SQUAD!"

"He jumped," Mari muttered incredulously. "That fool is – "

"...Is doing what he planned to do," Karan concluded. "Command, Mekong Wing's first squad is boarding the trawler... Shevchenko, take us in when Mekong One has pulled back."

"Affirmative."

"RPG, starboard quarter!" There was a chatter on Mari's left as Krag and Johnson left off short bursts with their heavy-barrel Kalashnikovs, snap-on deflectors sparing the sniper from being pelted with spent casings. "...Got him!"

Being a culture with a strong nautical heritage, the Arume had several words for what forime referred to as 'sea legs'. The gosta were effectively born with sea legs of their own, and the gentle pitching of the trawler's deck presented no difficulties to them. As Mekong One pulled away, the racket of turbines and rotor wash faded enough that Richardson could hear her sisters' boots ringing on the steel deck and the gentle hiss of her breath passing through the mask's filters.

Uncle Roland was on a roll. "Carcano, Webley, secure the left flank! Korth, Rubin, secure the right! Krieghoff, lock down that ZPU! Richardson, Harrington, we're taking the bridge!"

Harrington had slung the long Dragunov across her back and switched to her backup piece before leaving the Huey. "We're with you," she replied, unfolding the Skorpion's stock as Richardson followed Schuhart and Krieghoff up the ladder to the superstructure's middle-tier deck, where the AA gun was mounted.

A coughing North Korean stumbled out of the bridge one level above them, wreathed in wisps of tear gas. Schuhart blasted him with the Ithaca and he toppled over the handrail, landing with a crunch of bone. "Left side entry," the arms dealer barked, topping off his magazine while Krieghoff pushed another dead man out of the quadruple cannon's gunner seat. "Richardson, cover us!"

"Ready!"

Schuhart went up the next ladder, Harrington close behind. The former waited for the latter to join him, then kicked open the unlatched door to the bridge and advanced, shotgun at the ready. Just as the gosta began to follow him, he suddenly jumped back. "Stop – " Krang-g-g! "...Hammer time!"

"Wha..?" Richardson blinked as the man lunged inside – what had just happened? There was a scuffle, four shotgun reports in rapid succession, and then the fast snapping of a pistol as Harrington charged in to rescue her employer. Richardson scanned the other windows, looking for clues to what was occurring within.

"They're killing the hostages!" Schuhart roared. "Everybody move up!"

"..!" Richardson and Krieghoff raced for the ladder. The former got there first, hooking her forearm through her rifle sling and taking the rungs two at a time. The first thing she saw as she reached the top was a massive dent in the left edge of the door frame, enough to prevent the door from being completely shut. There was a dead man lying on his back in a creeping pool of blood on the other side of the entryway, a heavy sledgehammer resting across his knees. He was short, like all the other North Koreans she had seen thus far, but heavily muscled, and wore a gas mask which had done nothing to save him from the buckshot lodged in his chest.

Turning to the right, she saw two more dead men on the deck and Schuhart's Stakeout lying on the instrument console beside the steering wheel. The tear gas had mostly blown out of the enclosed space thanks to the rising count of broken windows. Richardson's predecessors were busy firing at the enemies on the forward decks through ports lined with jagged points and edges, Harrington with her sniper rifle and Schuhart with a Korean AK-74 clone.

"HERE'S TO YOUR DEAR FAT MIDGET LEADER!" Pakh-pakh-pakh-pakh-pakh! "AND HIS PLATFORM SHOES, TOO!"

One of the panes close to Richardson had been spiderweb-cracked by a stray bullet. She smashed out the remaining glass with the butt of her weapon and took up a firing stance. "Krieghoff, go to the right side!"

"I'm on it!"

Many of the civilian captives were women, many more were children, and all were helpless, their hands tied and ankles hobbled. Most of them had been shot already, and several of the Kimists were still expending ammunition on them even as their own comrades were being steadily picked off by the boarding party. The sight made Richardson's alien blood boil.

"Go, go, go!" Karan leaped from the second Huey and landed with a grunt. "Mariko," he ordered as the others' feet thudded on the deck behind him, "take Borchardt, Krag, Vickers and Mannlicher and clear the right side! Johnson, Lebel, Benelli, Astra – follow me!"

Mari quickly fixed her bayonet. "Krag, you're on point!"

"Roger." Krag sighted in with her RPK and advanced into the narrow space between the trawler's superstructure and the starboard gunwale, stepping over a cooling Korean and his rocket launcher.

Mari could still hear Karan's voice through her radio. "Mekong Wing, stand by to evacuate wounded."

"I copy," Chugainov answered. "Standing by."

"Mekong Two, stand – "

"Uwaaaagh!"

"Pull up! PULL UP!"

Mari looked back in time to see the Huey's rotor blades strike the surface of the water. The sudden resistance against the engines' high torque ripped the machine apart in moments.

"Mekong One is down! Mekong One is down!" Shevchenko banked erratically. "I am being attacked with a laser!"

The Mi-28 ceased circling and climbed into the sky, speeding north towards the Shanghai shore. "I have located the enemy," Anastasiya reported. "We will destroy them."

"Miss Mariko," Krag prompted in her usual monotone, "we need to keep moving."

"Right..." Mari reluctantly turned her back on the sinking wreck and its corona of white foam. "Let's go."

The firefight was over by the time they reached the midship deck, littered with corpses and awash with fresh blood. Karan and his team were checking the bodies one by one. "What a mess," the Indian muttered. "Mekong Two, do you see any sign of Chugainov?"

"Nothing... There is nothing."

"Damn it... Schuhart, how do things look up there?"

"The instruments are working," the one-eyed man reported. "I'm setting a course for Hangzhou. Is Mariko with you?"

"I'm down here."

"So you are. Search the lower decks – I want this tub checked end-to-end."

"Roger..."

"Pfwah..!" Schuhart pulled off his gas mask and laid it beside his shotgun. "The air's clear, girls."

Richardson and the others removed their own respirators. Stepping forwards, the gosta could see Karan and some of her siblings on the foredeck, still searching for survivors. It didn't look as if they were having much luck in that endeavor. "Uncle Roland," she asked quietly, "can you really drive a boat?"

"Better than I can drive a car." Schuhart pulled a full magazine – made of ribbed metal, in contrast to the Soviet plastic kinds used by his employees – from the blood-spattered pouch under his arm and knocked the empty one out of his rifle. "We've got radar and a depth sounder, so I think we'll be okay."

"What will we do now?" Krieghoff asked.

"I'm still working on that... Any civvies alive down there, Karan?"

"None... Most of them were shot through the head. No chance of survival."

"The fucking fanatics actually went through with it." The piratical-looking helmsman placed the Type 88 next to his other equipment and fiddled with his headset. "Return to base, Mekong Two. There's nothing else you can do here."

"Roger."

"Buster One, what's your status?"

"The enemy is moving through the canals in motor boats... I see hostages in the boats."

"These monkeys aren't big on variety," Schuhart observed caustically. "Let 'em go and head for home, Buster One. We still need to get that sky eyes to a doctor."

"I copy. Breaking off pursuit and... Chyort! Ya shchas – " There was a bang loud enough to make Richardson flinch, then a burst of garbled Russian mixed with heavy static, then a frightening silence.

"Buster One, come in... Buster One, come in please... Lukin, is Buster One still on the board?"

"Negative... It appears there was total loss of power."

The shoreline which had been on the left side when they boarded the trawler now lay to their right. Richardson crossed to that side of the bridge and looked out, but couldn't see any definite signs of the stricken helicopter.

"Ramrod Leader, we have another bird down and KPA on the ground in force. Can you divert to Fengxian District?"

"I can try," Keiko responded gamely. "Stand by."

Richardson hated this oppressive atmosphere. So, it seemed, did Harrington. "Uncle Roland, what did we do wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong." Schuhart squinted as the shifting wind blew into his face. "I did."

"Son of a BITCH!" The shout was loud enough to make even Schuhart wince. "I'm being lit up from four directions! They've got beam-riding SAMs!"

"Get out of there, KK." The hands on the wheel were turning white from clenching so hard. "Ramrod Wing, Skytrain Wing, return to base at maximum speed."

"Roger," Keiko sighed. "Okay, I think we're clear. Heading back to base... Should I tell the Nerv guys we're canceling the supply drops?"

The answer to that was as blunt as could be. "We're not canceling anything."

"That's more like it... By the way, Phil got that Nork pilot to talk. He claims his chopper wasn't damaged at all – the assholes sent him out with no ammo. When he saw that we were calling their bluff, he decided to bug out."

"Get to the point, KK."

"I am. If this guy is telling the truth, that gunship doesn't have a scratch on it. What say I have Pavel drop me off and bring it back?"

"What if the instruments are in Hangul?"

"I can fly a Hind with my fucking eyes shut, Roland. Leave it to me."

"...If you're sure."

"Thanks."

Richardson, who had been following the conversation raptly, was startled by Mariko's noisy entrance to the bridge. "We've finished searching the hull," the Japanese woman announced. "There was nobody down there."

"Any supplies?"

The brunette wrinkled her nose. "I wouldn't touch their rations with a stick... We did find four Maxim guns, a full crate of Strela-Twos and enough RPG rounds to knock out a small armored brigade."

"Water-cooled MGs?" Schuhart mused. "That's handy." He peered through the broken window ahead of the wheel. "I see Karan and company are sorting the bodies. Take your section and gather the enemy weapons and ammo – the stuff seems to work well enough for our purposes."

"All right," said Mariko, but her expression was dubious. "I assume you have a contingency plan?"

"I'm working on one."

"What about Azanael and the others?"

"Assuming Anastasiya was able to autorotate safely, they'll have to dig in and hide until we come back for them... KK, tell Phil to try and find out what kind of night vision gear the Norks have."

El Palacio Hotel
Tokyo-2, Japan
Several hours later

Shouta didn't look up from his notes when the telephone rang: even if it might be for him, he wasn't allowed to answer it. This time the honor fell to Razael, who openly despised the primitiveness of the device. "Hello?" she said curtly. "...Yanami Shouta? One moment."

The reporter took the handset when she thrust it at him. "Er, hello?"

"Yakkun? Roland Schuhart. How's the weather in glorious Nippon?"

"Dark and cloudy." Shouta glanced towards the gap in the lavender curtains, confirming what he already knew. "I thought you were going to Shanghai."

"I'm in Hangzhou, which is pretty close. It's dark and cloudy here too."

"Do you know that the North Koreans have made a propaganda broadcast about your company?"

"Yeah, I saw it."

"So... is it true?"

"That the Norks knocked out three of our helicopters and captured an Arume pilot, yes. That they won a clear victory over the imperialist aggressors thanks to the wise teachings of Eternal President Kim Il-sung, no... You got a pencil handy?"

"Yes."

"Good. I need you to write down what I'm about to tell you, make an article out of it and get it published as soon as possible. Can you do that?"

"I'm sorry, I can't do 'spin'."

"The info is legit, Yakkun."

"Well..." Being out of the loop on events here in Japan wasn't helping Shouta's moral fiber. "All right, go ahead."

"Okay... It's true that the Norks gave us a mauling. Why? Because they are cowardly little maggots who hide behind human shields and blind our pilots with illegal lasers, that's why."

"Lasers?"

"We're pretty sure they're using the Norinco ZM series. You can probably get a stock photo from one of the ministries over there... Despite their underhanded tactics, one of our strike teams boarded and captured a Chinese trawler which the North Koreans had converted into a gunboat. Twenty-five of the enemy were killed, with no further losses on our side."

"That's good, I suppose."

"I wish. We didn't lose anybody because most of the Norks turned their guns on the hostages instead of on us. There were forty-one civilians on the ship, and they executed every single one."

"Oh..."

"Tell me about it. We also managed to capture a Russian-built attack helicopter with a three-man crew and destroyed four others in an air-to-air engagement, but there's still a lot of work to be done."

"What will you do next?"

"I can't go into specifics right now, but I should have more info for you tonight or tomorrow. I'll try to get you some pictures in a little while."

"Ah..." Shouta looked over the notes he had scribbled during the exchange so far. "You want me to publish all of this?"

"Take it all, the good and the bad. If the Norks think we're going to give up now, they think of themselves too highly... I'll talk to you again later."

Schuhart hung up without any farewells. Shouta contemplated the open notebook for a minute, then pushed back his chair and went to find the telephone directory.