Chapter XLIX: Queen takes King

0700hrs, 17 December 2013, Tsukuba, near Mt. Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

"Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality." Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.

The mansion on the hill near the suburb of Miyawaki glistened in the rising sunlight as the SAILOR team pulled up outside the driveway.

"That's a massive house," Raye said, gazing out of the window.

"Stop saying that," Lita replied.

"I was just taking stock of its size…"

"Enough you two," SAILOR Moon interrupted. "Luna, Artemis, give me a sitrep."

"Luna found something in the data traffic from those Nakanishi servers," Artemis said, gazing at his computer and eating some cheese puffs. "It looks like Beryl is making her move on Yamada." He focused the satellite image on their location. "Check out the house and eliminate any threats, including Beryl and head management, over."

"Understood."

"I don't think you'll be needing those Tasers anymore," Raye smirked at Lita, putting some more rounds in her Beta C-Mag and loading it into her G36K.

"I'll take them, thank you very much," Lita said, priding on herself on not killing anyone during her part on the assault on the Nakanishi HQ. "I have my rifle here anyway."

Raye shrugged. "Your choice." She opened the door of the car. "Let's move."

The team got out and headed casually toward the front gates of the house.

"Movement," Artemis said into their radios. "Looks like some PMC goons."

Their HUDs lit up with several red dots, indicating the hostile targets.

"I see them," SAILOR Moon replied. "SAILOR Jupiter, take the back. SAILOR Mars and I will take the front."

"Got it." Lita moved toward the right side of the house, following a driveway that led to a five car garage, and past that, to the backyard. There, she held up against a low wall, out of sight. Two guards patrolled the garage and the entrance to the backyard, an obvious weak point in the security compared to the front of the building.

"I have two contacts," she reported, lifting her HK416 to the firing position. They were not paying attention, and would make easy prey.

"Hold up," SAILOR Moon whispered. She was looking through the gate, tracking the guards and their movements.

"I'm ready to take these guys down," Lita said impatiently.

"Just a couple more seconds…" Serena saw a gap in the defenses, with two guards facing away from each other. "Go."

Raye quietly opened up the entrance gate and advanced forward. Serena was right behind her, gun up and ready to shoot when they got in nice and close.

The layout of the house was this. A large two story, modernist house with big windows and a porch on the second floor made it visible for a good distance around. It overlooked the rest of Tokyo, and the sunrise from the house, amplified by the windows was a sight to behold. There was a large garden in the front, complete with a tea garden, a koi pool, some shrubbery and stone benches, some trees here and there, and a fully automated sprinkler system with environmentally sensitive software that would conserve water when necessary. A rock path lead to the front door, which was reinforced with steel while maintaining a veneer of a normal, western style wooden door. The two guards were on the balcony and by the front door, respectively, but their patrol patterns left a small gap that Serena and Raye could use in order to surprise the guards.

Raye and Serena kept moving at a fast clip, with Serena keeping track of the two guards who were just about to turn around on their patrol route.

"Three seconds," Serena muttered. She kept counting down. "Two…one."

"Engage!"

The guards turned around and immediately saw two people that weren't supposed to be there. They had orders to shoot to kill, and complied by raising their Minebea PM-9 machine pistols to pepper their lines of fire.

SAILOR Moon and Mars were faster though. A couple of very loud shots from their rifles later, the two guards were killed, messy red holes bleeding through their white shirts and staining their sport coats.

Lita engaged the two guards, firing two shots at the guard near the garage, and then a burst at the man on the roof of the garage. They went down.

Mars placed an explosive charge on the door, nodded to Serena, and detonated the charge. The door was blown in, and Raye was in before anyone had a chance to react. A guard opened up with his PM-9, spraying the entrance. He would have gotten them if SAILOR Moon or Mars hadn't had gotten through the door quickly, and he went down as Mars fired a couple of bursts from her G36.

Lita had just come through the back after killing two more guards that had rushed down from upstairs to contain the threat from Raye and Serena. She moved up some stairs to the second floor, but there didn't seem to be anyone else left.

"Clear!" she yelled down to Raye and Serena. Strange. There should be more guards here.

Lita continued to move down a hall, with two doors on her left, a door on her right, and a common area with the stairwell down to the first floor. She tried the first door on her left. Open.

Lita slung her HK416 at her side and brought up her ballistic shield, with her Glock 26 at the ready. This was probably one of the few times that holding a gun "gangster" style was appropriate; the limited view from the slot in the top of the shield forced the user to hold the gun sideways if they wanted to use the sights on the weapon. She kicked the door open.

Nothing. It was just a guest room. Two western style beds were on the right side of the room, with a small closet on the left. A glass door led to the balcony. Just to make sure, Lita opened up the closet. Again, there was nothing.

"Lita, how's it coming up there?" Serena asked over her radio. They were clearing out the first floor, and Raye had just found a door to a basement. The kitchen looked especially nice; there were high tech appliances for everything. Serena resisted the urge to check in the refrigerator for some food; she was feeling a little bit peckish right now, and especially after that raid on the Nakanishi HQ.

"It's going good. There's not too many rooms to clear out."

"We just found a basement, and we're clearing it out."

"Okay, I'll assist when you're finished."

"Got it."

Lita continued to the second door. Same story as the first one.

She then turned her attention to the final door on the right. This room seemed to bigger than the other two, considering that they took up the same amount of space on each side.

"This must be Yamada's room," SAILOR Jupiter said to herself. She readied herself, her shield on her left arm, and her pistol at the ready on the right. Again, before entering a room, one should make sure that it's open. This time though, it was locked. Not a problem for most CQB specialists, but Lita simply snapped the handle off and pushed the entire locking unit out into the room, making a loud "clank!" as it hit the floor. It was kind of pathetic, really. Someone with much money should be able to afford better locks than this. Lita kicked open the door and advanced forward, keeping the shield and her body armor facing toward the center of the room to prevent anybody shooting her.

There was no need for that though. Lita slung the shield back over her back and looked at the scene in front of her.

Yamada was deader than dead, his face completely pale and a while foam around his mouth. He was eagle spread on his the extremely large bed in the center of the room, almost buried beneath the multitude of pillows and heavy blankets that adored it.

Lita took a quick look around the room, just to make sure there were no surprises waiting for her. The room was decorated with tacky post-modern art, including a blank canvas (Lita could never understand how that consisted of art), a large Plasma TV on the wall in front of the bed, a coffee table, a loveseat and a small couch, some bookshelves that had a gigantic collection of pornography of all types, and a walk in closet on the right side of the room. Large French doors led out to the balcony, but the windows were covered up by blinds, letting in only a few rays of light. Lita hit the light switch and made sure that everything was secure.

"Guys, you might want to come up here and get a look at this," she said over the radio.

"What is it?" Serena asked. There was nothing spectacular about the basement, although Raye did find a yoga wall, complete with straps and hooks.

"It's Yamada."

"He's dead, isn't he?" The tone in Lita's voice gave it away.

"Very dead."

"We're coming up then, standby." Serena motioned to Raye, and they clomped back up the stairs to where Lita was waiting in Yamada's room.

"Jesus," Raye said, inadvertently. Serena didn't catch what she muttered to herself, but she continued to stare at Yamada's dead body.

"Wow, you weren't kidding on this one," Serena said to Lita. "What the hell happened, do you think?"

"Someone must have slipped him some bad coke," she replied, pointing to several lines on the coffee table. A rolled up 1000 yen note lay nearby, along with several shot glasses.

"Beryl?" Raye asked. She poked at one of lines of coke before Serena knocked her hand away.

"More than likely," Lita replied, stifling a chuckle at those two. "She's trying to clean house."

"Why have the guards here then?" Raye asked.

"Probably to keep the situation under control until they figure out how to explain all of this to everyone," Serena guessed. She took another look around the room, trying to make sense of it all.

"I'm going to ask Artemis about this," she said to the other two.

Artemis and Luna were in the conference room, coordinating the operation from there. The local security team had complete control of the Medical Facility, and the doctors and medical staff were supportive and cooperative with their recent coup. Artemis poked at the computer screen some more, wondering how all of this was going to play out when Serena's voice sounded over the radio.

"Yeah, Artemis, go ahead."

"We just found Yamada," she said.

"What's his status?"

"He's dead."

Artemis rolled his eyes at that. It wasn't all that unexpected that Beryl would make a move like that. "Okay, give me a video feed and I'll get Luna in here." He covered the mouthpiece on the headset he was talking on and shouted.

"Hey Luna! We got Yamada!" Luna was taking a restroom break and quickly ran back into the conference room.

"Is he…?"

"He's dead."

Luna sighed; that made things both simple and complicated at the same time. The live video feed from Serena's HUD confirmed it.

"SAILOR Team, hold position and await further orders," Luna said, taking a look at the communications traffic.

Artemis looked at the satellite feed showing the house, and suddenly noticed several vehicles approaching at high speed toward it.

"What the…" he continued to watch as the vehicles drove full tilt toward Yamada's house, until they stopped about two-hundred meters away, and proceeded more slowly until they were fifty meters away. It hit him all of a sudden.

"SAILOR Moon, get out of there, multiple Nakanishi PMC units converging on your position, over," Artemis said frantically, looking at the satellite feed.

It suddenly cut out. Artemis blinked, wonder what the hell happened. "Uh, SAILOR Team, standby, we have some technical faults here…"

"Uh, how can we standby if you just asked us to leave?" SAILOR Moon asked him.

"Artemis!" Luna screamed at him from across the table. He looked up quickly, not expecting that.

"What?!"

"They're after us too!" Luna had just checked the flow of data coming in and out of Medical facility and everything had stopped. Nothing was getting in or out, and that could mean only one thing; they were about to be attacked by the PMC. She tried the phone lines; nothing.

"I thought they were after Yamada's place?!"

"No, they just got an order from Beryl to clear this Medical facility out!" That was sheer guesswork, but it was the only logical option that she could think of at this point.

"Shit, Beryl is covering her tracks." Artemis started to clear up his workspace, but stopped himself on the absurdity of that move. "Where are we going?"

"The Americans know of us, we're going to Yokota Air Force Base…" Luna said slowly, realizing that was a foolhardy move; major attacks were planned for Yokota, and trying to explain themselves to base security was going to be next to impossible. But driving six hours away…where could they go? Nakanishi had contracts with all of the JSDF bases, and even the American ones as well. The SAILOR team could handle PMC goons, but the rest of the support staff…they would be dead in seconds.

"But that's over six hours away!" He quickly racked his brain for options. "And Misawa Air Base is just as far from here."

"Well, we can't stay and fight. Those PMC goons will overwhelm us."

Artemis remembered the time that Amy and Mina were trapped, and had asked for help from another party…a paramilitary unit…?

"Can you get in contact with any 1st Airborne units?" he asked Luna.

"What…?"

"There's a whole garrison of units near here at Matsushima Air Field, on exercises from their base at Chiba."

Luna took in a deep breath. Involving more people and more units from around the nation would certainly attract more attention…but they needed all the help they could get. And plus, if they were discovered, so what? They weren't working for Nakanishi any more…it was time to break off the shackles of that infernal corporation. And plus, that would get all the other JSDF units on alert, something that she had been failing at for the last couple of hours, despite all the information she had on hand about the terrorist attacks.

"Okay, I'll call the 1st Airborne…hopefully, we can get them here and get us out of this situation. I'll just tell them that we're part of the Special Forces Group and that we need their assistance."

Artemis wondered if he should do that, since there weren't too many women with the Special Forces Group, but he needed to get the SAILOR Team out of the area they were operating in at the moment.

"Okay, listen up, our facility has been compromised. We're going dark at the moment and you're on your own for now."

"Where should we go?" Serena asked.

"I don't know," was Artemis' reply. "I don't know. Things are getting out of hand here, and I say just head for the nearest US military base…uh…that would be Yokota, in Fussa."

"But that's over two hours away!"

"I'm sorry, but we cannot provide assistance. Artemis out." He didn't know where else to send them. He just hoped that the police did their job and stopped most of the terrorist attacks before they started, and that Serena, Raye and Lita would be able to survive on their own.

The transmission was ended abruptly.

"Shit," Serena said. "Guys, we gotta move!"

"Priority Message from 3 Alpha 6, request immediate assistance at this location," Luna said over the radio. At least they still had that, but for how long was anyone's guess. It probably helped that they had that secure network that had been set up for Amy's and Mina's excursion to Hong Kong. After a couple of minutes arguing with the communications officer, the commander of the 1st Airborne Brigade came on the horn, quite irritated at this development.

"Identify yourself," the voice of the 1st Airborne Brigade commander gruffly said.

"This is Third Platoon, 1st Company, of the Special Forces Group, we're under attack by an unknown force. We are currently holed up in an office complex at this location."

Luna gave the GPS coordinates, a long string of numbers that would help in locating their facility, which technically didn't exist on the map.

"Uh, I've never heard of this facility here, break," the commander replied. "And I certainly don't know of any special operations force up in this area. And why are you under attack? Over." This was true, since many of the Special Forces Group were drawn from the 1st Airborne Brigade.
"How the fuck should I know?" Luna replied, impatiently. "I'm just the comm officer!"

That answered the 1st Airborne commander's next question, why the hell was there a woman with the special operation force? A lot of things weren't making sense or adding up, but they were nearby at least, and if nothing else, this could be a good training opportunity. They had been getting some weird reports about a massive wave of terrorist attacks occurring in the next eight hours or so, and while intelligence didn't have much to say about it, this might be related to those reports they kept getting.

"Okay, I'm mobilizing my force now, ETA to your location…sixty minutes, over."

"Thank you. Out."

Luna put down the radio and looked at Artemis.

"Well, we've got our work cut out for us then."

"What are we going to do now?" Artemis asked.

"We're going to have to hold out for sixty minutes, that's what."

"I haven't held a gun since basic," Artemis muttered. "I don't think…"

"We don't have much of a choice." Luna thought of the two men that were locked up in the sterile, white rooms downstairs. "I can at least buy some time then. Follow me." She got up from her chair and exited the conference room, followed by Artemis.

Luna and Artemis walked down to the isolation wing that the SAILOR Team had found themselves six months ago, flanked by armed security guards, their PM-9 submachine guns ready. Luna went into one of the observation rooms and tapped the person monitoring the screens.

"Nurse Kuroi," Luna said. "Need to get into Room 1B."

"They've been a bit antsy as of late," Kuroi-sensei told her. "What do you want with them?"

"To give them one last chance."

Kuroi simply nodded and unlocked 1B.

Luna told the security guards to wait outside as she went inside the room. Two men were in there; one was lying on the bed, the other one was pacing about, muttering to himself.

"Akamatsu. Colonel Iwasaki."

Luna's voice brought them back to reality.

"Morning," Akamatsu grumbled irritably. "Here to gloat some more?"

"No, I'm here to ask for your help."

Iwasaki scoffed at that. "First, you mutiny against your superiors…take over this facility, and now you want your help?"

Luna sighed; she knew that this was going to be a problem. "Look," she said. "Nakanishi is cleaning house. We've got everything on them, and they're trying to cover their tracks by getting rid of us."

"Just get to the dammed point," Akamatsu replied, sitting up from the bed.

"Right now, the Nakanishi PMC is headed this way to sanitize this facility."

"By Sanitize, you mean, kill all of us," Iwasaki said back.

"Exactly."

"And why should we help you?" Akamatsu retorted. "You haven't been the best hosts after all."

"It doesn't matter if you aren't with us," Luna replied. "They'll kill you all the same. So the way you die comes down to this; you die fighting, or you die in this cell without any means of defending yourself."

"Is there any help coming from outside?" Akamatsu asked after a moment of hesitation.

"Akamatsu…" Iwasaki hissed.

"Yes," Luna said, sensing Akamatsu's reluctance to die in a small cell. "The 1st Airborne Brigade is on its way, but they won't be here for another hour or so."

Akamatsu weighed his options for a second, but it didn't take long for the former soldier to side with Luna. "Yeah, I'll fight them."

"Akamatsu!" Iwasaki shouted. "You can't do this!"

"I am doing this," he spat back. "I'd rather die a man than to be executed like a common criminal."

He started for the door; Luna let him pass. She knew that he could find his way to the armory just fine.

"How about you?" she asked.

"What about me?" Iwasaki responded, tossing the question aside with his own.

"I guess you prefer to stay here then."

"Yeah, I guess I do."

Luna shrugged. "Your choice then." She left the room, closing the door behind her and letting Iwasaki fume in silence.

"We gotta move!"

Serena, Lita and Raye ran outside, only to find that several minivans had pulled up outside.

"Oh fuck," Raye hissed. "Our car is outside there!"

"The garage!" Lita pointed out. The three of them quickly moved to the garage, hoping that there was something of use in there.

Lita opened up the door after busting out the lock…and was dumbstruck at what she found. She hadn't really paid much attention to this part, only making sure that there were no bad guys when she passed through earlier.

The garage was a multi-story lot, but instead of having all of the cars parked on one floor, there was an automated system that would store the cars underground, and would bring them up via sled. The user would select which car they wanted, and in thirty seconds, the car of their choice would be hefted up to them on a sled, ready to go. The keys would be deposited/released via a slot by the computer, simplifying the process considerably.

There were no cars on the floor at the moment, and so they needed to select a vehicle to get out of there. Lita went over to the computer, a stand-alone terminal with a box nearby it for the keys. The menu was open, and she looked at the variety of cars there.

"What kind should I pick…?" she muttered to herself.

"Hurry and pick one," Serena urged. "I think they're getting closer."

"I'm trying…" Lita saw ten different cars, but figured anything else was better than taking a stupid Kei-car out into a gunfight. She picked the most exotic naming one on the list…she didn't recognize the name at all.

The garage whirred and hummed as it selected the car, moving the metal sled onto an elevator, which would take the car up to the garage floor.

The three of them turned to face the car that Lita had selected…and nearly fainted at the sight in front of them.

A black and orange Bugatti Veryon Super Sport sat in front of them. It looked like something out of a scifi film; sleek curvatures of the body, perfectly engineered to slice through the air at maximum speed. Three million dollars' worth of automotive bliss, designed to be as good as a car could get. The tires alone cost more than the average car in Japan, let alone the salary that some people made in a year. Zero to a hundred in 2.5 seconds. 1200 horsepower. A top speed of 431 kilometers per hour. And it was one of thirty produced.

"Lita, I think you've done good," Raye said. A loud noise from outside, most likely flashbangs, sent them back to reality.

"Raye…?" Serena asked, handing her the keys from the box next to the computer.

"Hell yes." Raye took the keys and opened up the driver's side door…which she found to be the passenger's side.

"Dammit." People were such idiots for driving on the wrong side of the road in other countries. Oh well.

There was also another problem with the car; it only had two seats. That meant…

"Sorry Serena," Lita said, squeezing in next to Serena in the seat. She put her shield on the floor, along with her HK416; maneuvering it around was going to be a challenge in this car. There was enough room in the seat, but with fatass Serena in it, the large seat was quickly taken up by her bum.

"Oh, don't mind me," she replied back, somewhat annoyed. Serena was also in a position where she couldn't shoot out of the car unless she wanted to seriously deafen Lita or Raye. The only way she could fire out was through the windshield, and the flying brass would be more than a distraction to Lita.

Raye first inserted the special key by the driver's door that caused the entire car to sink close to the ground, as to gain its maximum aerodynamic properties. She then hit the ignition button, and the beautiful sound of the 8.0 liter engine powering up filled the garage. From the internal database on her HUD, Raye was fed information about how to use the car, from the floppy paddle…er, semi-automatic gearbox, the rate of acceleration, corrections for a car driving on the right side for the left, and so on and so forth.

"Everyone in?" Serena asked, even though that answer was obvious.

"Uh huh," Lita said. "Raye, pass me your rifle, please."

Raye did so, and Lita rolled down the window, sticking the rifle out of it. They would certainly be able to outrun their pursuers…but they had to get through them first. That part was certainly not guaranteed.

"Get ready," Raye said. She breathed in and out, taking stock of the situation.

"Punch that shit," Serena ordered after a moment.

"Done." Raye hit the garage door opener, and all hell broke loose.