The car itself was a black, late model Mitsubishi mini with four doors—just the thing for zipping around the back alleys of down town Tokyo. “You drive, Mr. Danner, and remember they drive on the left,” Lcdr. Curtis said, handing the card to Bobby. “I’ll sit in the back and you can leave me off behind Yuki’s apartment building.”
“Roger that, Ma’am,” Bobby replied. The car’s interior was roomier than one might expect, with plenty of headroom thanks to the car’s tall stature. The cabin was conventional in appearance, with a slot for the charge card in place of an ignition key. Bobby inserted the card and the dash lit up.
“This thing has a satnav display, but it’s all in Japanese,” Bobby said to the Commander. He had studied a street map of the area on the trip down, but a working, understandable navigation system would have made him more comfortable.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Danner. Our target is just a few blocks from here. We will circle the block a few times and pick a place for me to jump out. Then you can park on the street in a position to watch the front door. When we come out you pick us up and we high-tail it back to the shuttle.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am,” he replied, easing the little electric car out into the Tokyo night.
Dr. Tropsha’s Pinnace, En-route To The Ship
The rescue party encountered no further resistance on their way back to the shuttle. The Chief managed to board under his own power before slumping to the floor. “Lt. McKennitt!” Ludmilla called out. “Please close the ramp and then come aft and help secure our passengers.”
“On my way, Doctor,” came the instant reply as the sound of the airstair closing could be heard from the rear of the cabin. Sandy appeared a half minute later and, upon seeing the Chief passed out on the floor and Ludmilla’s white jumpsuit smeared with red blood, cried out in alarm. “My God, Doctor! Are you wounded?”
“No, this is not my blood,” Ludmilla answered. “It is the Chief’s and he has passed out. Help me get him in a seat and strapped in.” As Sandy complied with the Doctor’s wishes she spied Jacobs tossing another figure into a seat farther aft. “And who is the other bloke?”
“That is our host, a M. de Belcour. Since he turned us over to armed GRU agents and then had a squad of armed men open fire on Hitch and Jacobs, I thought it might be interesting to have him explain his actions to the Captain.”
“Beauty, Doc,” The Aussie Lieutenant replied, securing the Chief’s seat belt. “Is the Chief going to be OK? I mean he’s not going to cark it, is he?”
“The Chief will be fine, as long as we can get him to the ship within a couple of hours,” Ludmilla answered. “You should probably put some tie-cuffs on our guest and then get us out of here.”
“Right you are, Doc. We’ll be underway in a jiffy.”
Yuki’s Apartment, Tokyo, Japan
“Hey, you got anything to drink, asshole?” asked one of the yakuza, looking around the apartment. All three were evidently sizing up what they could take from the apartment once the deal for Yuki was finalized and he was bundled off to China. One of them turned on the entertainment center, blaring popular music out of the surrounding speakers.
“There is beer in the refrigerator,” was Yuki’s curt reply. To him, these men were scum, criminals and thieves not worthy of attention. Unfortunately, he was outnumbered and he had glimpsed a pistol stuck in the waistband of one of the men. He would rather die here than spend the rest of his life as a slave in China. If he could get to his grandfather’s sword he could take at least some of them with him.
Unknown to Yuki, Gretchen was on the ledge just outside his porch. Bobby had dropped her off at the side of the building and, like a ninja of old, she had scaled the side of the apartment building to the sixth floor. Her problem now was figuring out how to get inside without alarming the three men guarding Yuki.
She carefully moved around the ledge to the bedroom window, quietly testing it with one hand—it was unlocked! As she slid the window open she could hear loud music from the other room. Noise from her movements masked by the music, she quickly slipped into the darkened bedroom. Peering surreptitiously around the edge of the doorway, she could see two of the guards. Yuki and the third were not visible from her vantage point.
Yuki was still not aware of Gretchen’s presence. He was trying to move closer to the swords on the mantle without attracting the attention of his three keepers. As it was, he was almost close enough to seize the grip of the katana. Having practiced tamishigiri, the cutting of rolled mats with swords, he knew he could slice a man in half with the larger sword. Still, he would not be able to dispatch all three yakuza before one of them pulled a gun. It would take a master Samurai like Musashi Myamoto, the legendary 17
th
century sword master, to kill them all before they could react.
Blue light flickered from the bedroom, striking first one then the other of the farthest yakuza. The yakuza nearest Yuki heard his comrades cry out as they fell and spun around, gun in hand. A tall figure in black holding a strange looking weapon stepped out of the bedroom doorway. The remaining gangster raised his pistol to fire.
Gretchen had decided to chance a sudden attack, rather than wait to be discovered lurking in the bedroom. She shot the two men she could see with her stunner and then stepped around the door opening looking for the third. To her left, the third guard stood between her and Yuki, pointing a pistol at her.
Oh shit,
she thought, knowing she could not stun her opponent before he fired.
The yakuza pulled the trigger, intent on shooting the black clad intruder, but nothing happened. He looked down to see why his gun had not fired only to find that his hand, gun and all, was no longer attached to his forearm. Before he could figure out how this happened the room spun crazily as his head was neatly severed from his shoulders. The pain just started to registered as the room faded to black.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, outside of the apartment building, Bobby had parked the little electric car up the street from the building entrance. As he watched, a petite Japanese woman walked toward the entrance from the other direction. As she approached, two men who were lurking in the doorway stepped out and confronted her. Even from here, Bobby could see the tattoo sleeves on the men’s arms.
“Oh shit! They must be yakuza,” Bobby said out loud. Like most nerds, Bobby was into all things Japanese, including personal electronics, anime, manga and ninja movies. He recognized the markings of Japan’s criminal underclass when he saw them. The girl turned and started running back up the street in the direction she had come from. The yakuza gave chase.
That girl is in trouble,
was all Bobby could think of. He put the car in gear and raced after the fleeing female. He zipped past the woman’s pursuers, pulled up alongside their intended victim and threw open the passenger side door. “
Kuruma ni noru!
” he shouted, “get in the car, now!”
The terrified woman looked at Bobby and then glanced back at the men closing on her. Seeing Bobby as the lesser threat, she jumped in. Bobby floored it and the little electric car hummed away into the sparse early morning traffic.
A stream of rapid Japanese issued from the young woman who was trying to see what was happening behind the speeding vehicle. Bobby made a left turn and slowed. Speaking to the woman he said, “please slow down. My Japanese is pretty bad.”
“You are American?” the wide eyed young woman asked in quite good English.
“Yes, my name is Bobby. Why were those men chasing you?”
“I was checking my boss’s apartment and they were standing out in front.”
“Oh my God, are you Mizuki?” he asked. The girl stared back at him dumbfounded. “Are you Dr. Mizuki Ogawa?” Bobby repeated.
“Yes, but how could you know that? I have never seen you before in my life.”
“I’m from the ship, the Peggy Sue,” he replied. “We’re here to rescue Yuki.”
Crap! I’d better call the Commander and let her know what just happened, and tell her about the yakuza standing watch over the front of the building.
* * * * *
Gretchen watched as the body of the headless gunman fell to the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. She looked at Yuki, who was standing legs apart, sword in a two handed grip in front of him, looking like an ancient samurai reborn. “Well done, Saito-san,” Gretchen said, and bowed in her friend’s direction.
“Gretchen, I cannot tell you how good it is to see you,” he replied, bowing in return.
“Who are these guys? They seem a little trigger happy.”
“It is a long story, but they are yakuza, Japanese criminals. They were going to sell me to the Chinese.”
“Not anymore they aren’t,” Gretchen said, walking to the entertainment center and turning off the loud music. “We need to get out of here. I’ve got Bobby standing by with a ride outside.” As she was saying that her comm pip chirped, signaling an incoming call—it could only be Bobby. “Curtis, go.”
“Commander, this is Bobby. I’ve got both good news and bad for you.”
“Do not keep me in suspense, Mr. Danner.”
“The good news is that I have Mizuki Ogawa, she was being chased by a couple of men, real live yakuza. The bad news is that they were keeping watch on the front of the apartment building.”
“Yes, we had to handle three more yakuza in here. I have Yuki and we are both uninjured. Are you saying you can’t come back and pick us up in the car?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it, Commander.”
“All right, here is what I want you to do. Return the car to where we got it, then you and Miss Ogawa get on board the shuttle and come and get us.”
“Uh, Commander, where will I land?”
“Just jam the rear of the shuttle into the apartment’s porch and open the airstair so we can climb aboard. And do it quickly, it’s already growing light out.”
“Aye aye, Ma’am.”
“If there are things you want to take with you, you need to get them quickly, Yuki,” Gretchen said to the physicist, who had just finished cleaning the blood of the katana and was in the process of returning it to is scabbard.
“The only things I wish to take are my grandfather’s swords,” he replied, sliding the katana home.
Dr. Tropsha’s Pinnace, Arriving At The Peggy Sue
The Captain was at the bottom of the ladder to meet the returning shuttle bearing Dr. Tropsha and the wounded Chief. Hitch and Jacobs came down the airstair first, carrying the unconscious Chief on a stretcher. They were followed by Ludmilla, still wearing her blood stained jumpsuit.
Seeing the blood on Ludmilla’s clothes gave Jack a start, but he immediately realized that Lt. McKennitt would have reported if the Doctor had been wounded. Though he wanted to ask Ludmilla if she was unharmed, instead he asked, “How is the Chief? Is his life in any danger?”
“No, Captain,” Ludmilla replied, ship’s doctor addressing the ship’s captain. “He has a shoulder wound and has lost a significant amount of blood, but he will be all right once I get him stabilized and on a plasma drip.” While their words were formal and proper, their eyes met for an instant, allowing unspoken emotions to flow in both directions. The moment was broken by another passenger descending the stairs.
The Captain looked past Ludmilla to see Jean-Jacques de Belcour being prodded down the boarding ramp by Lt. McKennitt. The Frenchman’s hands were bound in front of him by a zip-cuff and he was wearing a look of stunned disbelief.
“And who is this, Lieutenant?” the Captain asked.
“Just some UN poly that tried to get in the Doc’s way, Sir” Sandy answered. “And he’s as mad as a frog in a sock.”
“This, Captain, is M. Jean-Jacques de Belcour of the UNOOSA. He was the gentleman who escorted me to the would be Russian kidnappers and then tried to prevent us from leaving after the Chief was shot.”
“I see,” Jack said, with a dangerous edge to his voice. “I will settle accounts with you later, Mr. de Belcour. In the mean time throw him in the brig, Lieutenant.”
“Aye aye, Sir!” Sandy replied happily. She had taken an instant dislike to the Frenchman on the trip back.
“Captain! I am an official of the United Nations. I demand that you return me to Earth immediately. That woman standing next to you killed one Russian official and gravely wounded another, and those men in the armored suits slaughtered six UN guards! They must all return to Vienna and stand trial for these outrages.”
“I see what you mean about the frog in a sock, Lieutenant,” the Captain said contemptuously. He shifted his attention to the UN official. “You offered Dr. Tropsha a neutral place to converse with ROSCOSMOS officials, Mr. de Belcour. Instead, you delivered her to a trio of GRU thugs, one of whom shot Chief Zackly unprovoked. All the events that transpired in Vienna are an outcome of you violating your word. The dead Russian, the dead guards, all because you have no honor, Sir. It is just fortunate for you that none of my people died, for if they had, your Vienna headquarters would now be a smoking crater.”
The Captain turned from the ashen faced Frenchman and spoke again to Lt. McKennitt: “Take this human offal away, Lieutenant. Before I lose my temper.”
Ludmilla watched the exchange without showing any emotion. As Sandy roughly pushed de Belcour into the hall and the waiting arms of a pair of crewmen, the Doctor stared after the UN official. Once he was gone she turned to the Captain and said, “Captain, I must see to my patient. I will report to you as soon as I know the Chief is out of danger.”
“Yes, Doctor, please do. I will await your report,” Jack replied. “And, Doctor.”
“Yes?”
“I am very happy you are back unharmed.” Ludmilla offered him a waning smile and hurried off toward the sickbay.
Yuki’s Apartment, Tokyo, Japan
Bobby returned the rental car to its stall and led the confused Mizuki to the top of the building. As they crossed the roof and rounded the clutter of equipment installed there, Mizuki stopped and gasped. There, sitting in front of her was a flying saucer. Perched insect like on four extended legs, it made a low humming sound as a ramp with stairs lowered from the rear of the craft. Simultaneously, its skin changed from a mottled camouflage pattern that blended with its surroundings to mat black.