Summoning Part V
ver 1.0
This chapter is dedicated to James Earl Jones, who portrayed Rear Admiral James Greer in the Hunt for Red October film series and was the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, and Mufasa in the Lion King. The man was practically the dictionary definition for gravitas and presence. He passed away on September 9th at age 93, and will be greatly missed.
Please let me know what you think of the new characters I introduced, and the final ending to a certain character. I know most won't be happy, but sometimes people don't get what they deserve in this world.
Naval Amphibious Base Coronado,
San Diego, California
1050 hours, two days later
"Tell me again what we are doing here, Master Chief?" Jordan O'Neill, Lt. (SG) USN was not a happy camper. It was bad enough that she had not been assigned to an operational squadron after earning her Budweiser badge after completing all of the required teams training, they had her doing staff paperwork in the NAVSPECWARCOM (WARCOM for short) office. Officially it was because there were no available slots for an officer at this time, but realistically it was because her supposed supporters as well as her commanders had not expected her to actually complete the nightmarish training and were stretching out finalizing her assignment until they could figure out what to do and who would stick their neck out to give the orders. But they kept trotting her out to meet various semi-important people who wanted to meet the first woman to complete SEAL selection training, including the infamous 'Hell Week'.
"Ours is not to reason why, but to do or die." Master Chief (Special Warfare Operator) Jack Urgayle kept his eyes forward as they marched along the sidewalk.
"Given some of the people I've had to meet-and-greet lately, I think I would rather be back in that Libyan desert," Jordan snarked. Meeting politicians was bad enough, especially considering that the last one that was supposedly on her side was the one that screwed her over and almost had her thrown out of training, let alone the navy. But meeting non-military personnel, especially bubble-headed teens, who did not understand military life and being asked ignorant and borderline stupid questions, was in some cases worse than SERE training. At least she was not expected to keep smiling while having her head dunked in ice cold water by the former trainer currently next to her.
"All I know is that the office for the admiral commanding Third Fleet called WARCOM and asked for some people to come talk about a possible TDY. There are some VIPs that need bodyguards, and they can't be too obvious about it," Urgayle glanced out of the corner of his eye while it was all she could do to not spit. Bodyguard duty was something SEALs were trained to do, but it was mostly overseas for local dignitaries and leaders, especially the ones that did not have trustworthy guards.
"So why are we not on our way to Point Loma then?" Naval Base San Diego consisted of several installations spread throughout the metro area, and while Point Loma was on a peninsula separating San Diego Bay from the Pacific Ocean, Coronado was located on another peninsula in the middle of the bay. There was no direct bridge between the two, so to arrive at Coronado one had to drive to the far side of the bay to the east and take the bridge across from there, or take a helicopter if they had enough pull. The brass would summon lower rank personnel to their more comfortable offices, unless they were going to be asking for something they knew was unpleasant.
"They apparently wanted to use our facilities." Urgayle was looking straight ahead again.
"What, they wanted to shop at the Navy Exchange?" asked Jordan incredulously.
"No, the obstacle course." Even with the expressionless look on his face, she could see the older man was curious as well. Seeing the look on her face he continued. "The Hollywood O-course, to be specific."
"Huh." The brass at WARCOM did not want visitors (or worse yet reporters) to see shaved-head ragged exhausted trainees being screamed at by trainers as they were run though the training course after running through wet sand or mud carrying inflated boats. So they had a 'nicer' version of the combat obstacle course built on the lawn in front of the headquarters building, on neatly trimmed grass instead of the usual dirt or mud. The logs of the obstacles were even sanded and lacquered to prevent getting splinters in their hands. The instructors and staff officers were the ones that used the course most often, since they had no desire to slime their work out clothes to the point where they had to be hosed off to keep from wrecking the washing machines. Jordan had run the course a few times herself when the other staff weenies (almost all who had Budweiser badges themselves) had bets for who would pay for rounds at the bar on Friday nights. Thankfully she had not had lost any of those bets, a bunch of SEALs drinking would wipe out a paycheck. "We're not expected to run the course, right Master Chief?" Both she and the older man were wearing their office duty khaki uniforms and not their digital desert pattern utilities. Urgayle shook his head as they turned a corner and got a look at the O-course.
A black Chevy Suburban SUV with government plates was parked in the small lot in front of the building reserved for VIPs. A chief petty officer driver in khakis was standing next to the SUV and on the grass across from the lot a uniformed officer was standing next to a man in a dark suit and sunglasses and a young woman in casual civilian attire who were looking at someone who was running the course. That person was wearing khaki BDU pants and a black t-shirt with long blonde hair worn in a loose French braid, which was against navy regs. Currently she was scrambling over the various log obstacles, with little difficulty Jordan was surprised to see.
But then she came up to the last obstacle of the course, the infamous 'Slide For Life'. A thirty foot tall tower built of telephone poles and no ladder, it had to be climbed up the side using widely spaced poles. On the top was a platform deck with plastic coated cables leading down to the ground at a 45 degree angle. The person would have to slide down on top of the cable head first, then switch around halfway so their body was under the cable and their feet over the line and leading the way, while hanging over a cargo net and a pool of water to break their fall if needed. Most people fell into the water the first few times due to insufficient strength or skill.
When the girl ran up to the tower, she stopped at the base and looked up for a long moment before turning and running toward the end of the course. Jordan thought that she was skipping the obstacle due to it being too hard or having issues with heights, but to her surprise the blonde stopped at the low end of the cables and with a jump grabbed onto one. Pulling herself hand backwards over up the diagonal cable with her legs curled up against her gut until she was squarely over the water, she swung back and forth for a moment before her legs arced up and her feet hooked over the cable. Then the blonde kept pulling herself up the cable with her arms alone until she was squarely over the tower deck and dropped onto it.
"You ever seen anything like that Master Chief?" Jordan was wide eyed as she glanced over at her companion. The older man still had the expressionless look on his face, except for his eyes, which were narrowed in thought as he shook his head in response. They both watched as the blonde noticed the thick nylon rope hanging over the side on the back side of the tower, which was for when the instructors had to get down from the tower in a hurry. Walking over and grabbing the rope, the girl held herself in place with her hands as her legs wrapped the rope around her feet. Using her feet as a brake she slid down the rope at a fairly fast clip, but stayed on her feet as she landed and walked away, making her way toward the group watching her.
The small group turned to face the approaching pair, having been first noticed by the man in the suit, who said something in a low voice to the officer. The two SEALs got to about two meters distance of the officer in khaki, who they could see had captain's insignia on his collar, before they came to a halt and in unison came to attention and saluted, hands going up to their side caps.
"Sir, good morning sir!" Jordan was the one to speak. "I am Lt. O'Neill and this is Master Chief Urgayle from WARCOM. We were told to meet with someone from Third Fleet's office at this location?"
"Good morning Lieutenant, Master Chief." The captain raised his hand to the brim of his combination cap as he returned the salute then dropped his hand. "Stand at ease." The two SEALs relaxed out of the attention position, but not by much. "I am Captain Davenport, chief of staff of ComThirdFlt. You were told that we need assistance with supplying bodyguards for VIPs here in the States?" The two SEALs both answered "Yes sir," in unison. "And you are wondering why we are asking you instead of NCIS or the Marine Security Guard units." The pair responded affirmatively again. "The VIPs are civilian Subject Matter Experts for a code word compartmented project, and it was determined that having visibly military guards would be counter-productive. SEALs would not stand out as much as buzz cut Marines or law enforcement agents."
"Yes sir." As the two SEALs responded again, the captain could see the master chief's eyes going toward the two young civilian women who were standing there quietly alongside the man in the suit, who up close kind of looked like a security agent.
"We're here to talk with your commanders about detailing some of your people for a protective detail. Once we have the names we will do a quick security check to clear you for the code word project, then give you a full briefing as to what is entailed," Captain Davenport explained. "This detail is going to be mostly here in Southern California, and it will augment the security we already have on hand. Most of the time the protectees will be on military bases, but there will be some travel between locations involved."
"Yes sir." The pair responded again. Only this time Urgayle's eyes were focused the man in the suit, who looked to be Asian and in his early thirties.
"Let me introduce you to some of the people involved in this project, there is one more but she had business at her country's consulate." Davenport did not look happy at the last words. "This is Nyamo Namo and Sarah McDougal, they are the subject matter experts that need security, they came over from Japan to assist us with a project. With them is Hiroyuki Akira, the security agent assigned to them by the Japanese government." The dark haired girl and the man in the suit nodded their greetings but otherwise stayed silent. But the blonde girl gave a nod that looked more like a jerk while a partial twisted smile formed on her face.
"Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm sure you have questions, but until you're cleared I won't be able to answer most of them." The smile twitched. "Even after you're cleared there are some things I can't talk about." The girl's bright blue eyes went from their faces to their chests, looking at the ribbons and badges pinned to their uniforms. At first she focused on Urgayle's ribbon rack before switching to Jordan's and her eyebrows went up. "It ain't often that I meet someone with a Navy Cross and multiple Purple Hearts and Combat Action Ribbons, let alone a female with a SEAL badge. How's that working out for you?"
Jordan twitched slightly. As much as she would like to otherwise, it's not like she could publically announce that being a female SEAL sucked, since no one, except for a few exceptions who had been in action with her, took her seriously. "It has its moments. If you don't mind my asking, how do you know what all of our ribbons and badges mean? Are you former military?"
The blonde snorted slightly. "Nope. When I'm not working at Point Loma I either spend time in my quarters doing homework for my degree or exercising. And the PT fields at Point Loma are for weenies." Captain Davenport almost choked. "I was making everyone look bad by blasting past them on the track. Nyamo and Akira will run with me but they got other things to do most of the time and I don't want to run my friend into the ground or fight off a bunch of horndog sailors. So I asked the good Captain if he could get me into a good obstacle course. The only real choices nearby were the Marine basic training depot in San Diego or here at Coronado, and they didn't want to freak out the recruits and drill sergeants."
Sarah paused and then continued speaking. "To answer your question, when it became apparent that we were going to be spending a lot of time on US military bases I looked up and memorized the important ranks, badges and ribbons for military personnel, the same as I did for the Japanese military." Her smile widened. "It makes it a lot easier to mess with idiot sailors and marines who think I'm a bubblehead, especially when I ask them dumb questions. Or worse yet, call them soldiers." All the naval personnel winced at the last sentence. "The best one was when I asked a snotty commander which of their ribbons was for not missing church or catching the clap three months in a row." This time all three naval persons choked, and Sarah grinned. "That line I got from my granddad, he had been in the British Army in the Second Great War in Europe as a paratrooper, and he only had three ribbons and his jump wings on his tunic. I've seen officers with three rows of ribbons with no combat campaign or valor decorations, so I figure they are participation ribbons, you know like the trophies they hand out to all the kids at the end of Little League season." By this point Captain Davenport was starting to turn red even as Jordan and Urgayle were struggling not to laugh.
At this point the silent dark-haired girl next to the blonde nudged her arm. When Sarah glanced over at her she nodded toward the flushed captain. "Oh, sorry about that Captain Davenport. You have pilot and surface warfare badges, a command at sea star, and campaign ribbons for the Middle East wars and a Combat Action Ribbon and sea service ribbons, so you're not one the staff weenies that spend their career driving a desk." Davenport's face started to return to its regular hue, even as the SEAL duo was impressed that she recognized all those decorations.
"What ribbons did your grandfather have, if you don't mind my asking?" Jordan was the one to speak next, and Urgayle looked interested as well.
"If I remember correctly, he had the France and Germany Star, the War Medal with Mention In Dispatches clasp, the Military Medal and two Wound Stripes." Sarah frowned slightly. "He didn't have a lot of respect for officers who weren't combat tested, especially the ones that only got their rank due to their family background. And he did not talk specifically about what he did during the war to me, he barely mentioned the big battles he was in, like Normandy, Arnhem and the Ardennes."
"If he didn't talk about his service, how do you know what he did during the war?" asked Jordan curiously.
"One night me and him were stuck at a family friend's house during a blizzard, they kept talking after they thought I had fallen asleep," Sarah replied. "They had been drinking, and my granddad was trying to keep Russ from freaking out, something about winter storms triggering his PTSD. Granddad mentioned he had been at the Battle of the Bulge at Ardennes, and Russ replied saying he had been at a winter battle worse than that." The trio of military people turned pale at the next words. "He had been with Task Force Faith at Chosin Reservoir." The Battle of Chosin Reservoir had been the most brutal of modern US military history, and while the nearby 1st Marine Division had been mauled by Chinese forces that surrounded it before it managed to punch through and escape with dead and wounded figures reaching almost 50%, the Army Regimental Combat Team 31, latter called Task Force Faith after its last commander and numbering 2500 men, was surrounded by almost 10 times as many Chinese troops and wound up suffering almost 95% casualties, dead, wounded, missing or captured. All of this took place in temperatures that dropped to almost – 40 degrees Celsius at night.
Seeing the looks on their faces, Sarah decided to change the subject. "Anyways, I wanted to run the O-course here to keep from going stir-crazy, Kusanagi-san is busy doing diplomat stuff, and the staff at Third Fleet is busy running around like headless chickens setting stuff up for our project. The sooner we can get you guys read into our project the better, that way we can go into San Diego and elsewhere without having a squad of Marines trying not to be obvious security."
"I do have a question." Everyone looked at Urgayle as he spoke. "How was it that you were able to go up the tower wire backwards, most people don't have the physical strength to do that."
Sarah glanced over at the security agent for a moment before she answered. "I've been training in martial arts in Japan since my mid-teens, I have dan rank in a couple of different styles, and I keep up with the conditioning. After some of the training I went through I can pull myself up a rope using only my arms." Eyebrows went up at that statement; it took an insane amount of upper body strength to do that. "I also had a trainer that was in the Japanese version of SWAT, and she ran me though military style physical training." The blonde plucked at her khaki military style cargo pants. "That's why I wear these clothes when I exercise, don't really expect to fight in sweats." Urgayle nodded, a curious look on his face.
"Now that everyone is here, lets go over to WARCOM and check in with your commander, then we can get the ball rolling on getting people for this detail." Captain Davenport's words were met with nods all around, and the group turned to walk towards the headquarters building.
US Navy Third Fleet HQ,
Naval Base Point Loma,
San Diego, California
1:00 PM (two days before)
The two groups were staring silently at each other across the table after they had come back from the lunch break. The Japanese group had walked down to the dining facility and flashed their visitor passes to gain access. Ironically it was more difficult to enter the DFAC than the main gate of the base, since the gate guards were used to civilians coming in, and the pinch faced petty officer at the mess hall door was convinced they were dependants that weren't entitled to eat there.
They had also learned to eat at the Gold Nugget table (for junior officers) otherwise every wannabe horndog sailor and marine would hit on them and not let them eat their food in peace. Or senior officers giving them the stink-eye for eating in their exalted presence. It had gotten to the point where Sarah and Nyamo let their contractor ID passes hang from their lanyards rather than tucked away to keep people from bugging them. Akira did not have that problem oddly enough; one gimlet eye stare, even through his dark sunglasses, was enough to ward off anyone short of an armed security officer.
The American personnel's lunch consisted of sandwiches and Navy-grade coffee, Admiral Painter and Captain Davenport busy catching up on the daily paperwork they were missing out on, and Admiral Greer trying to do damage control, both figuratively and literally, after the revelation that the Enterprise summoning that had resulted in the major misfire had been the result of a deliberately sabotaged chant bought from a disaffected academic in Japan. Normally American intelligence agencies did the utmost to protect their foreign sources, but Greer was not all that enthused to do so for something that almost caused hundreds of deaths.
Which is why Greer did not say anything when Japanese representative Motoko Kusanagi pulled the desk phone toward her after the revelation. In the clear she called the JMSDF and ordered them to take the academic into custody to be questioned about illegally releasing classified information regarding summonings to the Americans and maybe other governments. The naval officers across the table cringed but otherwise did not say anything, even though Motoko had made a point to speak in English. At that point everyone agreed to go to lunch and come back in a couple of hours.
"Admiral Painter, Admiral Greer, I have information regarding the source of your intelligence." Motoko had her normal deadpan face on, but it was apparent that she was really not happy with what she was about to say. "The day after this group of personnel left Japan to talk to your military, researcher Arata Goro called out sick from work, and today was found dead in his apartment, the victim of an apparent suicide." Ryan cringed and the naval officers' facial features all hardened slightly. "There was no sign of force or compulsion, and the presumed cause of death is barbiturate and alcohol overdose. A full post-mortem examination is underway."
The Japanese woman's eyes went across all of the Americans' faces before continuing. "A suicide note was found, admitting to selling the summoning ritual and that it was deliberately sabotaged. He also stated that he had given the $100,000 he had been to paid to a far right wing anti-American nationalist group in Japan, and that he hoped that many Americans had died as a result of the summoning." Motoko eyed the officers again as she continued speaking. "Upon review of his security file, it revealed that his grandfather had been an Imperial Japanese Army officer at a POW labor camp and after the war he had been tried, convicted and executed by the Americans for atrocities against Allied prisoners. Goro's father had been radicalized by this event, and he passed it on to Goro himself. His far right tendencies had been noted in the security review, but it was determined that he would not do anything to hurt Japan itself. They were partially right." The lavender haired woman flipped shut the notebook she had been reading from. "The investigation will continue, as well as a determination if the current level of co-operation will change." The faces across from her turned to stone. "At this point things will stay the same." Motoko steepled her fingers. "Any questions?" Painter and Davenport glanced at Greer, who after a long moment shook his head. "In that case, I believe Ms. McDougal wishes to speak."
Sarah sighed and pulled out a note book of her own. "While I was eating lunch, it occurred to me that we also need to start the process as to deciding where we are going to do the next summoning ceremony. We certainly don't want to do it here at San Diego again, so I decided to look into what other bases are nearby that won't put your fleet in danger all over again."
Flipping open the notebook (which the Americans noticed was a Rite-in-the Rain waterproof notepad sold in the base exchange and had a duck camo pattern cover) Sarah continued speaking. "The location needs to be controlled by the US Navy for security reasons, in reasonably good shape for ship operations but conversely not too busy with ship traffic, and not too near civilian populations. So I looked up a list of bases in the southern California area and started marking down from there."
"Where did you get a list of military bases?" Davenport asked incredulously.
"Online, from Wikipedia, on my mobile phone." Sarah smiled thinly. "I even tried Google Maps, but the actual locations had been blurred out for some reason." The smile got larger as it was directed to Admiral Greer, who kept his poker face regardless.
"First place that came to mind was Area 51 in Nevada, since the Wiki entry stated it was next to Groom Lake. Imagine my surprise to read it was a dry salt flat." Sarah's eyes flicked toward Painter and Davenport. "Plus it's an Air Force installation, and I don't think you guys want to share your toys with other services."
Making a check mark with a pencil Sarah continued. "Another base is China Lake Naval Weapons Station in the Mohave desert near central California. Another dry lake, but at least this place is run by the Navy." She looked up and spoke directly to Painter. "By the way, in theory it should be possible to do a shipgirl summoning at a non-ocean non-water body location, but it would require a crap-ton of magical energy, maybe even an order of magnitude more. So why make things more difficult?" Another checkmark.
"Next is San Clemente Island, off the coast of Southern California, halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Good news, it's owned by the US Navy, and apparently you guys use it for both ship to shore target practice and SEAL training. Not so good news, it's still a little too close to San Diego and civilian population areas, not to mention civilian shipping traffic." One more check mark.
Sarah looked up. "The last one on the list is actually a two-fer. San Nicolas Island is also owned by the Navy, and it's fairly close to Naval Base Ventura County and Port Hueneme. San Nicolas is also a target practice and SEAL training site, but it is farther from civilian areas but still kinda close to the Naval Base, which co-incidentally is the West Coast home base for the Navy Construction Battalions. This is a very good thing, since the Seebees are probably going to be involved in setting up the site, and can help provide site security. I really would not want to do this kind of thing at a location with ship traffic nearby, but I guess it can't be helped." At this point the three officers were having a silent conversation consisting of eyebrow movements, head tilts and nods before one of the officers finally broke the silence.
"We will take this all into account," Admiral Painter spoke. "Your last two suggestions do sound particularly appropriate, Captain Davenport will speak with the naval district commander and see what would be involved in setting up operations on one of the two islands." Painter glanced at Greer for a moment. "Is there something else Ms. McDougal?"
"A couple of things." Sarah stated. "One, Nyamo and I will be working on translating the chants from earlier and you don't have to be here while we do it. We can stay here or another secure room while Mr. Ryan or another person can keep an eye on us. I'm sure you have important things to do. Admiral Greer too." The senior officers nodded. "We'll give you our notes to lock up, it's not like most people can read them." Greer almost snorted; a glimpse of their notes showed that they were written in Japanese, and to make things worse a certified translator had looked at them during the lunch break and had literally thrown his hands up in the air – the characters were archaic ideograms not commonly used in modern times, which was the equivalent of reading medieval French from an ancient handwritten manuscript. It could eventually be translated, but it would take days to weeks of work.
"Second, the weekend is coming up, and I do want to leave the base, do the sightseeing thing. Plus I want to eventually go visit my hometown near Lake Tahoe, got some people and places I haven't seen in years. I'm presuming you're going to want to assign security to us." Painter and Greer both nodded, and Sarah glanced at Akira for a moment. "We don't have a major problem with that, but assigning a squad of Marines or law enforcement agents would probably be a bit much."
Painter puffed out his cheeks as he sighed while he thought for a moment. "I have an idea about that, it will take a day or so to set up. Anything else?"
"Well, do you think you can get me access to an obstacle course?" All the Americans blinked at the question. "I've been using the PT field here at Point Loma, but it's just a running track and soccer field. I want to stretch my legs some more," explained Sarah. "I'm making all the desk weenies look bad."
Painter chuckled. "You know what, I think I can kill two birds with one stone here. Let me make some phone calls, I have people I need to talk to, and they can probably let you use their obstacle course. Captain Davenport will let you know by tomorrow. If there is not anything else?" The blonde shook her head, and Motoko and Akira did the same. Painter then came to his feet, and everyone else did the same. "You all can work in this room for now, Mr. Ryan will stay with you. If you need anything please let the secretary outside know, and once you're done have Captain Davenport secure your paperwork. Jim, if you don't mind coming with me for a moment, there are some more things we need to talk about." Greer nodded and the two senior officers walked out of the room while the young women started taking out notepads and pencils as Ryan passed over a folder containing some of the chants for them to work on. Motoko whispered in Akira's ear for a moment before she turned and left the room, and he leaned back against the wall again in his usual position.