Omake Chapter: The Black Cannon Incident
0930hrs, 17 November 2013, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, People's Republic of China
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate." Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
"SAILOR Moon, come in, over."
"Go ahead Luna, I've got you."
The three members of the SAILOR team that had been dispatched to Northeastern China from Russia were now hunkered down near Saint Sophia Cathedral, waiting for their target to show up. Serena was sitting on a bench, looking at the Cathedral, Raye was in a van parked nearby (a local production of the Toyota Hiace), while Lita was walking around the Cathedral in circles, making sure that the target would show up.
"I'm transmitting the target specifics, over." There was a slight delay in the transmission of the data, which Luna fixed quickly. The transfer speed was sure slow today…
"A Mr. Wen."
"What?" Raye asked, trying to take the conversation in a direction that probably wasn't a good one.
"No, do not start that," Luna snapped at Raye.
"No, but that's the guy, we're after, right?"
"Yes, we don't know his first name, but we do have a photograph of the person in question."
Luna sent it to their HUDs. The man was skinny, with a slightly gaunt face, measuring about…185 centimeters?
"Wow, that guy is taller than I am," Lita noted. "That'll make him easy to spot."
"That is affirmative," Luna said. "He's been working with some underground types to undermine an upcoming deal with the Nakanishi Group and another Chinese company, specializing in rare earth metals."
"The Nakanishi Group? Why would the PM send us in for something like this?"
"I don't make the policy, I just execute it," was the response.
"Alright, fine then," Serena groused, looking at the people passing her by. They didn't look too much different than herself, she thought. "Took us two weeks to find this bastard," she said over the radio to Raye. "And it turns out he's just some low level flunky who'll just lead us on up the chain."
"Hey, I had fun beating the shit out of the last guy," Raye said to her, looking at a passing SUV. It looked like one of those German ones, but it was probably a local knockoff. "He gave us the information right quick."
"And it was the wrong information, Raye," Lita pointed out, continuing her fifth loop of the Cathedral.
"Will you two knock it off?" Serena interrupted over the radio.
"No, I will not knock it off," Raye snapped back at Serena.
"Well, we need to focus on the mission at hand, and if we keep bantering on in Japanese, someone is going to notice!"
"Does it look like I give a fuck?!"
Lita just rolled her eyes and kept looking for the man they were supposed to be capturing. They would snag and bag him in a back alley somewhere, while Raye drive up in the van and drive off with everyone inside.
Suddenly, Lita saw the man come walking from the south, his head down and every once in a while, look behind himself to see if he was being followed.
"I've got eyes on target. Looks like he just came out of the KFC over there."
"They're closed at that time though…"
"Could be open for side business." What that side business entailed was not for the ears of pleasant company.
Lita stopped where she was and continued to observe the target, looking like she was checking something out on her iPhone.
"Target is still continuing north toward the Cathedral."
Mr. Wen walked a little bit further until he was about twenty meters away from the church, almost in the center of plaza that surrounded the magnificent building. He looked around again, then reached in his pocket and set something down.
"Target has set something down on the ground."
He moved away from the object and continued to walk north, bypassing the Cathedral.
"Okay, I'm going to go pick up the object. Serena…"
"I'll pick up the tail."
"Thanks."
Serena got off of the bench and fell in behind Mr. Wen, who was now casually strolling now toward the north end of the plaza and toward a park that was about half a kilometer away.
Luna's voice chirped over the radio again. "Be advised, there's a middle school nearby, avoid that area."
"Roger that."
Lita walked to the spot where the man had placed the object on the ground. She could see that it was a mobile phone…another iPhone. Some people had walked past it, but lost mobile phones were commonplace in many different areas of the world, and this was no different. Having a smartphone out in the open though, would eventually lead to it being stolen and sold for parts, or "repurposed." Lita bent down to pick up the phone, picking it off of the ground.
"Hey!" Lita looked up to see a very burly man looking at her, no more than two meters away. He was probably the courier sent to pick up the phone for its contents.
"Drop that!" he screamed in Chinese.
It was now or never time. She could comply, and lose whatever was on the phone, or fight and cause a ruckus.
"Serena, pursue the target NOW!" Lita screamed into her radio before the burly man took a swing at her.
From across the plaza, Mr. Wen turned his head to see if the person who was supposed to be picking up the phone was doing so; instead, he was treated to the sight of a very tall girl beating the ever-living shit out of that man.
Then he saw the blonde girl. She was now running toward him, full tilt, and…
Lita slammed her left fist into the attacking man's neck, and a sickening crunch told her that someone would probably not be walking again, ever. He went down, hard.
Lita shoved the phone in her pocket and immediately turned and started running in the direction of Serena, who was in full pursuit of the target.
"Raye, move!"
"Got it!" Raye accelerated from her position at the KFC across the street and made a left turn onto Zhaolin Jie, the road where the pursuit was happening.
Serena saw Wen pull out a gun. She though he was going to fire at him, but he brandished the weapon at a stopped driver at an intersection, and tossed him and the family out.
"He's hijacking a vehicle!" Serena yelled into her radio. "It's a blue…uh…Chery?" The HUD flashed the car name and model and highlighted it. The car was a Chery A3, and it was booking it down the street.
"We're on Zhaolin Jie, proceeding north!"
"I'm coming in your direction!" Raye accelerated the van and slowed down, but did not stop when she caught up to Serena and Lita.
"Get him!"
"On it!" Raye punched the accelerator and was on the man's tail in no time.
Serena hopped into the passenger's seat in the front and kept a lookout on their target. "Luna, we are in pursuit of target currently and are on Zhaolin street."
"Okay, we'll keep watch here," was the reply from Luna.
The two vehicles continued to race along at high speed down the road, dodging other vehicles and pedestrians alike.
"Luna, we're approaching Zhaolin Park!"
"Affirmative." What exactly do you want me to do about it? Luna though sarcastically. "I'll try to keep the police off of your for as long as possible." Already, there had been several calls to the police, but Luna was going to try to slow down the response times at least.
"Raye, you're a manic!"
"I know!" That response didn't make Lita feel any better. The target car suddenly made a right turn, trying to throw them off.
"Turn right, turn right!" Serena ordered at Raye.
"Hold on!" Raye engaged the handbrake and powerslid the car onto Sen Lin Jie…which was a one way street. And they were going the wrong way.
"Goddammit!" Lita held on for dear life in the back as Raye dodged the infamous Chinese traffic. She hoped that the other driver was not as skilled, but he was giving her one hell of a time. A big minibus swerved to avoid being hit by Chery, but sent them right into the path of Raye's vehicle. She swerved out of the way in time, but right into the path of another minibus, which she had to dodge that one, and then there was a couple of cars right behind it…
"Oh my god, we are so going to die," Serena muttered to herself as Raye and the other car plowed through about three hundred meters worth of heavy traffic.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" was all that Lita could mutter as she hung on for dear life.
"Making a left onto those train tracks up ahead!"
The car that they were pursuing made a rapid left onto some train tracks, after dodging all that traffic, and began to accelerate down them.
Raye prayed that there wouldn't be any trains coming their way at that moment, and stayed in close with the target.
In her P-3 Orion, Luna looked at the train schedule for the day, making sure that the SAILOR team didn't get run over. What she found was much worse.
"Advise caution, SAILOR Moon, a battalion of PRC troops are using the railroad half a click to the north, try not to get them involved."
It didn't help much.
"Say again, you're breaking up," Serena said, trying to keep her eyes on the car. "Raye, keep driving!"
"Advise caution, PRC troops are passing through on the railroad half a click to the east, over."
"Still didn't catch that. I'll get back to you!"
Luna threw up hands up in frustration, but there wasn't much she could do about it besides trying to contact them again.
On the railroad tracks, the quickly approaching Songhua river made a bad situation already worse.
"Is he..?" Lita said, looking at the river down below.
"He is. Shit." There was a railroad bridge, and Mr. Wen was going to cross over it. There was no other choice.
"I'm following him!" Raye floored the accelerator and was hot on his heels.
The minibus bounced up and down on the railroad ties, sending poor Lita in the back flying around some more before she could find something to hold onto.
"I'm going to try to shoot out the bastard's tires!" Serena yelled at Raye.
"Okay!"
Serena rolled down the passenger's side window and withdrew a Norinco Type 86S from the back, passed up by Lita. It was a bullpup rifle, and while similar to the AKM, the differences in its design and manufacture made it a unique weapon rather than just another AK knockoff. In the words of some reviewers, it's "an ugly bitch but puts outs really good."
Serena fired off a burst, but only managed to hit the trunk of the car, the bullets snapping through the cheap bodywork and into the seats inside.
"Hold her steady!" she shouted at Raye.
"Serena, we're on a fucking railroad that goes straight!" she yelled back. "How hard can it be to…"
"Just hold the car steady!" Serena repeated, irritated that Raye would talk back at a time like this. Another burst from her went wild, due to Raye hitting a particularly bad spot in the railroad ties.
"For fucks sake, Raye, can you PLEASE hold the fucking car steady!"
"I am doing my best, Serena," Raye snarled back. "It's not my goddamned fault you can't hit the broadside of the barn!"
While those two were arguing, Lita noticed a light in the distance, down the tracks.
"Wait…what is that…?" Lita said, pointing down the railroad tracks. Raye squinted for a second, then realized she could just put on her HUD and see what it came up with. The chase car was accelerating toward that train at high speed, oblivious to the fact that it was in the way.
"Oh shit…" Serena muttered. "Is that train moving?"
"I don't…" Raye stuttered.
"Is it?!"
The train did not appear to be moving, but the way the two vehicles were moving, it was going to be hard trying to dodge a thousand-tonne train parked at the station.
"Uh, sir?" A sergeant with the PLA battalion that had just gotten into Harbin on exercises pointed to the two oncoming cars coming down the railroad tracks. "That's…"
The lieutenant he was talking to, newly minted and very excitable, had read reports of suicide bombers in Qinghai, and was determined not to be another statistic on the nightly news. That, and he had to prove himself to his unit, of which he had only been a member for two weeks.
"Clear the station!" he screamed out. "Sergeant, get your squad and prepare to engage those vehicles!"
"Sir, I don't know if that's a great idea to…"
"Do it!" The LT didn't really care about that, they could blow themselves up at the station and their loaded cargo of ammunition. The sergeant screamed at his squad to get their rifles online and to get ready to fire.
"I've got hostile contact!" Serena's HUD flashed with several PLA soldiers reading their rifles to fire. Within a few seconds, bullets zipped through the air and riddled the blue Chery in front of them. At first, it seemed like the driver had been killed, but due to the hasty aim by the PLA troops, the driver was unscathed as he opened the car door with his hands up.
"Get on the floor!" the sergeant yelled at him, almost putting a bullet in the poor man's skull right then and there.
"You guys gotta help me! They're chasing after me!" he screamed to them.
"Bullshit!" the LT screamed back.
"I'm not a suicide bomber! What do you think those guys are doing?!" Mr. Wen argued. He pointed at the minibus barreling down toward them. "Plus, I would have blown myself up right now if I was a suicide bomber, so there! Happy?"
That was all it took to convince the gullible LT.
"Focus fire on that minibus!" A stream of gunfire from assault rifles and machine guns roared toward the SAILOR team, peppering the entire vehicle with bullet holes.
"Take a left, take a LEFT!" Serena screamed at Raye as the full force of the People's Liberation Army bore down upon them. There was a small road next to the train, and if they could put the heavy train between them and the army there, they could easily escape.
Raye powerslid the minibus onto the small road, spitting up dust and gravel…
"Jesus more bridges!" It was yet another bridge leading across a tributary of the river and into Taiyangdao Park. Poor Lita was tossed about again in the back, this time landing in a weird, contorted position that would have made the Kama Sutra look easy. In the confusion, the iPhone that she had picked up earlier slipped out onto the floor.
"We can lose them in there, hurry!" Serena could see that the troops behind them were recovering from their little stunt and were starting to pursue, but it would be hard with the train in the way.
Raye came to a sudden stop in a grove of trees, sending Lita flying for the last time into the back door of the minibus.
"Goddammit, everyone out! OUT!" The doors quickly opened on the minibus and the three SAILOR members piled out.
"Owww…" Lita complained.
"Shut up and toss the thermite grenade in there," Serena ordered to her. Lita rolled her eyes and took out the grenade and pulled the pin, tossing it in the back of the van.
It blew up in a blinding flash, marking their position for the PLA troops, who were already across the bridge and running toward their location.
"Let's get a move on," Serena said. "There's a mall nearby we can disappear into."
The three SAILOR members ran at full tilt toward the mall, and easily evaded the pursing soldiers and later, the police that combed the area for the intruders.
"Luna, come in, over." Serena and company were hiding out in an alleyway, safe for the time being.
"This is Luna, what took you so long, over?"
"We ran into a whole fucking battalion of PLA troops, that's what," Serena snarled into the radio. "Why didn't you tell us about them?"
"Uh, I did, and you didn't listen…"
That brought an exasperated sigh from Serena. "Okay, fine. The mission is a complete scrub. We need extraction ASAP."
"Working on it."
Luna typed in some information about flight leaving from international airport that day; there was a flight on Southern China Airlines to Narita. Perfect.
"Okay, I've got you on a flight leaving at 1800hrs from Harbin International to Narita. Get on it."
"Anything about heightened security?"
More typing on Luna's end. "Nothing on the local network. Looks like they're trying to keep this incident under wraps."
"Just the way we like it."
"Trying telling that to Iwasaki," was the dry response from Luna.
Serena groaned, knowing that was going to be a bitch to deal with once they got back. "He's pissed right now, isn't he?"
"You don't want to know. Now get to that flight."
"On it." Serena disconnected the conversation and took her sunglasses HUD off, and put it in her purse that she had snagged from a counterfeit dealer on the way out of the park.
"Okay guys, let's get rid of our weapons and high tail it out of here."
"We sure go through a lot of weapons…" Raye moaned, dissembling her Glock 26 and tossing it in a nearby trash can.
"At least we can replace them," Lita pointed out, also getting rid of her weapon as well. "Unlike us."
"What do you think Iwasaki is going to say once we get back to base?" Raye wondered, putting her HUD away as well.
"I have no idea. I think it's going to involve lots of swearing and cursing, that's for sure." Serena looked at her watch; it was 1600, and they needed to be on their way to the airport or else they were going to miss their flight.
"Got your passports?"
"Yep." Lita and Raye held up their forged passports. At least something was going well today.
"Alright. Let's get a move on." The three of them started to walk out of the alley, when Serena suddenly remembered something.
"Wait, where's the phone you picked up earlier…?" she asked Lita.
"I think I have it right here…" Lita rustled through her pockets and came up with an iPhone.
"Ah crap."
"That one's yours, isn't it."
Lita nodded.
"And the phone was in the minibus, wasn't it."
Again, Lita nodded. This was not turning out very good for anyone.
"Which was blown up. By you."
"Sorry." Lita conveniently left out the part that it was Serena who ordered her to blow up the minibus.
Serena threw up her hands in frustration. She was way beyond caring at this point; all she wanted to do now was get back to base and fall asleep.
"Come on. Let's get moving before something else goes wrong."
"Nice going, Serena," Raye quipped.
"You know, you're really getting on my nerves right now, and that's the last thing I need…"
Lita just rolled her eyes and Serena and Raye fought with each other all the way to the airport, all the way on the flight to Narita, all the way on the drive to the medical facility, and all the way to Iwasaki's office.
Things were just peachy with the SAILOR team.