Hakusan Angel (10 page)

In panic, Mari tried to move out of the way, but it was already too late. The snakelike machine had wrapped them up tight and was preventing them from moving. The more Mari struggled to get loose, the more entangled
Hakusan
became.

"Sir, the Level 1 enemy machine has disabled my movement," she said, trying to fiddle with the weapon controls.

"Can you escape?"

"No. Definitely no."

"What
can
you do?"

"Stand here and hope that I'm still covering our own machines so they can get into a defensible position," Mari said, hoping she sounded confident, and not like there was a giant snake wrapped around her machine.

"Good enough for now."

"Thanks, sir," Mariko said wryly, and then she snarled as she failed to bring the weapons around far enough to be able to hit the enemy machine.

The serpent machine settled around them, and at first, Mari hoped that that would be the extent of their attack. Then, in one of her many viewscreens, Mari saw the serpent's head rear back. Its jaw opened up, impossibly wide, and clamped firmly onto the outside of
Hakusan
's hull. As predicted, their shields had absolutely no defence against a physical attack, and the drill dug deep into their metal skin.

Mari's teeth jarred as the vibrations shook their machine. Even covering her ears did nothing to prevent the high, screeching sound as they were breached. Mari slammed her hands on the controls, struggling again to escape, but nothing could shake the serpent loose.

The drilling stopped, and Mari was thankful for about two seconds, and then the energy readings spiked wildly on her screen.

"Shit!" she yelled as one of
Hakusan
's legs buckled unexpectedly.

She flailed at the controls again, but was certain that nothing that she had done corrected the situation. The energy was draining, and Mari watched wide-eyed as their power levels dropped. There was nothing she could do that she hadn't already tried.

"Come on, Kaede," she said. "Do something spectacular and save our asses!"

No sooner were the words out of her mouth, the energy levels stopped dropping and spiked again. Something was going on; their energy was fluctuating like mad, making it impossible to read. Mari tried anyway, and as she watched, the flow reversed, and their levels started rising, slowly at first, and then faster.

"Amazing," she said, and the enemy machine shuddered as its coils loosened.

Taking that as her cue, Mari took up her controls again to try to shake the other machine loose. It was working better than before, but the enemy pilot quickly caught on to what was happening and started entrapping them again. Unfortunately for them, it looked as if their power kept randomly failing, causing them troubles. Mari succeeded in getting
Hakusan's
legs free enough to move.

Suddenly, their shields jumped up to maximum without her doing anything, their level so high that she could actually see the field surrounding them, a startling crimson shell. At the same time, her weapons system beeped at her insistently, telling her she needed to discharge it or risk having the system overload.

She still couldn't hit the serpent machine, but there was a group of enemy Level 3 machines hiding behind a sand dune. She fired at them, not waiting to steady her aim. She only hit one, and it exploded in a spectacular show of orange globs of molten metal. The other enemy machines scattered.

Even after had she'd let off that round, the weapon system was beeping at her again. Kaede was pouring energy into everything, and the enemy machine was quickly losing the tactical advantage. Its shield failed first, and Mari saw bursts of energy as their own Level 3 machines started firing on it. The weapons beeped at her again, just as part of the serpent's coils slid off
Hakusan
and right into her line of sight.

Mari fired.

Hakusan
shuddered again as the serpent machine flailed loose. The snake's head was still attached to their hull, but the force of the blast shook it free. In front of Mari's view screen was a perfect view of her strike, which had burned a hole through the serpent. Mari turned the weapon's system on it again and fired two more shots, severing the creature in half.

The serpent machine fell, sending a shock wave through the earth on its impact. A wave of sand flew up all around it and settled again as it lay there, unmoving.

They'd defeated it.

Mari sat in shock and watched as the majority of the enemy machines surrendered immediately, and those that didn't were quickly dispatched by their own Level 2 machines that had finally entered the battle. She didn't really have to do anything to help; their imposing presence was enough to keep the remainder of the enemy from reengaging.

Level 9 rescue crew showed up soon afterward, breaking through the doors of the serpent machine to extract its crew.

Mari was shocked as the Level 1 Source and Pilot emerged from the wreckage.

The pilot was old enough to be her grandfather, his shock of white hair showing his age. He was certainly past the age when their own pilots would have been long retired. She could tell he had a knee injury that was causing a noticeable limp.

Even worse was the source. She couldn't tell whether they were male or female from their face, and they were wrapped up in a bright yellow emergency blanket, unconscious. The old pilot was carrying them carefully in his arms. The source looked to be in their early teens, far too young to be fighting in a war.

Mari was suddenly overwhelmingly tired. What kind of enemy were they facing? They were using grandparents and children to fight in their war. It didn't make sense, when they could be using young and healthy men and women.

She grew tired of watching and decided that the situation was being handled well enough without her standing guard over them. Besides, even with all the excess energy, Kaede was probably just as tired as she was.

Mari shut down
Hakusan
, and Kaede began to come out of her source-trance.

*~*~*

"Welcome back."

Kaede blinked as the lights above her came into focus. Mari was standing over her with a crooked smile on her face, obviously waiting for her to wake up properly. Kaede hadn't been happier to see anybody in her life. They were both alive, and it looked as if Mari was relieved to see that she was okay.

"I take it that this means we won?"

"We did, yeah. Thanks to you."

"Thanks to me," Kaede echoed disbelievingly.

"Let's get you up then," Mari said, already leaning down to get the plugs behind her back.

"What's going on? How did we win?"

"Just look out the viewport and see."

Kaede couldn't see anything but black billows of smoke against the beginning of a dawn sky from this position, but as soon as she was all unhooked, she stood. Her legs felt like water, and Mari helped her to her feet. She didn't shrug off the arm around her waist, and let Mari guide her to the window.

There lay a colossal serpent's head half-buried in the sand at the feet of their machine, the end still smoking from where it had been shot.

"'Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair,'" Kaede murmured as she watched a fire crew come in to put some of the fires out.

"What's that?" Mari asked, head tilting to the side to look down at her.

"A poem from times past, about a time even older. The message, however, was for all times. I was just reminded, because of the head in the sand."

"Dare I ask the message?"

"Never mind that. Just forget about the times past, and let's focus on the present."

"Kaede ... just before we forget about the past, can I just say I'm sorry? I said some things that I really regret right now, and while I meant them back then, I've seen that I made an error in speaking."

Mari said this to her while looking at the ground, as if the admission of her wrongs cost her something. However, her tone and words rang true, and Kaede was just glad to finally hear someone apologize for the way they'd treated her and the other sources.

"I've said some things that I've since reconsidered, too."

"Do you think we can work together successfully now?"

"I think we'll do even better. I think we'll make a difference."

Their conversation was interrupted as the rescue crew finally arrived to let them out of the machine.

Mari sighed inwardly and went with them, this time separately from Kaede. She'd wanted to continue with her topic and move it in a different direction altogether. It was hard enough to get it going that direction to begin with, and she wasn't sure she'd get another chance anytime soon. But she was a pilot, and it she knew anything, it was perseverance.

There would be another time, but it wasn't now.

*~*~*

In the aftermath of the battle, everyone was so busy that Mari and Kaede barely had time to talk to anyone, even each other. Quite unexpectedly, they had a Level 1 Source prisoner, and everyone was on constant alert. No one knew what Morwe would do now that their greatest asset was in their hands.

The source, as it turned out, was intersex and preferred male pronouns, making the claim that Morwe had found a male Level 1 Source not completely unfounded.

As for Mari and Kaede, they were on 8 hour split shifts guarding the coast against attack, just in case Morwe decided they needed to take back their source by force. Now that the two of them were confident in their abilities, they had a full bridge crew. Kaede was constantly being monitored by two source technicians, and Mari had a navigator, war machine technicians and bridge gunners manning the weapons with her. Commander Sano came with them, taking the command position.

Slowly, more and more crew were being introduced. The technicians were inspecting the machine, since they hadn't had a chance to review it while it was running in two decades. As different sections were either repaired or given a passing grade, those sections were given crewmembers to run them.

It was so different from being a team, just the two of them.

Things improved when one of the docking bays was cleared for use, and ten Level 3 machines were chosen to go out on patrol with them. Matsura was one of them, so occasionally, when she had time, she was able to talk with them. Mari managed to persuade Kaede and her fellow sources to come and spend her breaks with them.

"Our relations are improving every day," Matsura said cheerfully. "Now that we're making a concentrated effort, we have a better working environment."

"Yes, we've all come together and demanded to be given a permanent partner," Sae added, being one of the sources also assigned to patrol.

"They have to give in, because it's both of our sides making the demands," another pilot agreed. "I think they're surprised at our sudden change of heart."

"See?" Mari said with a grin. "Making a difference already."

"Nomura? Ishigaki?"
Two comm units crackled as a message came through from Commander Sano. "
You're needed immediately on the bridge."

Kaede checked her timepiece and frowned. "We still have two hours left on our break. I wonder what he wants with us."

"Better go and find out."

Kaede was tempted to take her time, but Mari marched on ahead quickly, so Kaede sighed and trotted after her. When they reached the bridge, Commander Sano was waiting for them, his mouth set in a tense line.

"The capital called," he said, shaking his head in frustration. "We've been summoned to leave right away. Apparently, tensions between our government and Morwe's are reaching a peak, and the Inner Kingdom has elected to intervene as promised."

"Why do we have to go too?" Mari asked. "We're really just soldiers, when it comes right down to it."

"The Inner Kingdom has demanded both you two and the source and pilot we have prisoner to be present during the conference. It's so that we don't try and hide either of you away and sway the decisions in our favour."

"Why shouldn't we?" demanded Kaede, eyebrows drawing in. "We won."

"Do you want to go to war with Morwe?" Commander Sano heaved a sigh. "They're threatening to start bombing us unless we return their source."

"They attacked us first," Kaede glared. "We were defending ourselves!"

"True, although according to the captive pilot, they were simply taking advantage of an opportunity presented to them. While our power was out, they realized that we couldn't keep watch on their shoreline. Given the chance that we might not notice, they released their Level 1 machine, not realizing the true reason behind our outage."

"So they were really counting on us not having a Level 1 Source to counter their attack. Their plan failed because they jumped to take advantage of our weakness, not taking time to wonder
why
we had that weakness to begin with. Their loss," Mari said, agreeing with Kaede.

"Orders are orders, as much as I don't like them," Commander Sano closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "There are three Level 9 motorcycles waiting to take us back to the capital."

"I don't like this," Kaede said to Mari as they followed Commander Sano to where the motorcycles were waiting in the docking bay. "I don't want to be put in a situation like this in case the Inner Kingdom just decides to take us all prisoner."

"Not much we can do about it," Mari replied tersely.

They were both handed helmets and buckled in behind the Level 9 motorcycle riding sources. They had a split second to give a thumbs up, and then they were off, the tiny machines roaring to life. The motorcycles were extremely light and manoeuvrable, easily keeping to the rough trail through the dense forest on either side of them. They were quite close to the border, and far away from the civilization of the capital.

Kaede watched the world fly by, and settled in for a long ride.

*~*~*

Kaede sat next to both Mari and Commander Sano on a raised platform. They had protective glass raised up around them, and from her vantage point, Kaede could see the representatives from the Inner Kingdom and Morwe. Right next to them in a similar raised box were the source and pilot from Morwe. They were no longer considered prisoners of war, although the Inner Kingdom had yet to return them to their own country.