-Chasing the Wind-
By J. Austin Wilde
Fission Park Press
J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Minister of Propaganda and
Super Critical Reactor Axe Man,
Fission Park Press
jaustin@aloha.net
Synopsis
Ranma and Akane are caught in a science experiment in Nerima
that affects their ki. They experience terrible nightmares and lose
their fighting focus. Neither can get any sleep without being in close
proximity with the other. They call upon the scientists to help them
through Ranma’s friend from the Second Korean War, Hiro Ohata.
Hiro works for Professor Balthazar McFogg, the leader of the
scientists, as a kind of ‘Man Friday’.
Hiro sends them to England where they become embroiled in a
worldwide search for electromagnetic ‘events’ like the one that
affected them in Nerima. In chasing these events they hope to find
a cure, but what they do find is that there is more going on than
they ever imagined.
Ranma meets a mysterious woman named Anazali, who is
following them. She claims to be their friend, and hints that the
end of their search will not only cure their ki problems, but may
also end Ranma’s Jusenkyo curse. They receive a vision during
the event in Scotland that takes them to Granada, Spain. From
there they experience the next event, and a very disturbing vision
hinting not only at a world wide disaster, but of the end of their
blossoming relationship as well.
Ukyo, Kuno and Nabiki are kidnapped by agents working for
Ivan Tarchenko, an assistant of a second research group that is
studying these events. They are taken to a dacha outside of
Odessa, where Ukyo is tortured. Kuno breaks them free and
they flee across the southern Ukraine. Tarchenko sends a
group of men to pursue them
They are rescued from their pursuer, a vicious man named
Fyodor, by a stranger, who takes them to a ship belonging to his
brother. His brother, named Aerandir, is no less unusual, and he
sails them to an island in the Aegean sea to stay with his uncle.
Aerandir reveals to them that he is an 8000 year old descendant
of an ancient people whose land was destroyed by forces similar to
the event the scientists are looking for. He explains to them the
history of his people and that if steps are not taken, a second
disaster will befall the Earth.
Ranma and Akane in the company of Professor McFogg’s
research group come to Monaco for the Prince’s Charity Ball.
Aerandir leaves his uncle, taking Nabiki and Kuno with him, and
sails to Monaco. Doctor Casimir appears as well, hoping to talk
to McFogg and the Wayfinders, Ranma and Akane. They are all
brought together at the Charity Ball, including Fyodor, who has
his own agenda.
Ranma proposes to Akane that night, but before they can
share their joyous announcement with anyone, Fyodor and his
agents attack. Hiro and Kuno try to stop Fyodor, but succeed
only in killing one of his men and rescuing Akane. Ranma is taken
away into the night.
Part Eight:
At What Price Ranma?
Chapter One
Ivan Tarchenko looked through the soundproof glass window to
the examination table where Ranma Saotome lay. He was unconscious
and strapped down with thick leather thongs. Several men in white
lab coats hovered over him, monitoring his vital functions. A large
gas-plasma display over the table projected a series of Electroencephalo-
gram (EEG) waveforms in both real-time and a scaled time-index
format simultaneously. A little over a hundred electrode leads were
glued to various points on his head and base of his neck, trailing to
the EEG processor.
Fyodor entered the side room where Tarchenko stood.
“I see that ‘Bronze Horseman’ wasn’t quite a success,” he
observed to the huge Ukrainian.
“There were complications,” Fyodor admitted.
“Quite correct Fyodor. Two agents dead, a third with a ruptured
liver that isn’t expected to survive the week, a fourth who will have
to live on broth and gelatin for the next six weeks while his jaw heals
enough to support upper and lower dental prosthesis. Yes I quite
agree there were complications.”
He gestured to the window. His finger pointed directly to Ranma.
“Not the least of which is that I only see Yevgeny lying in there.”
Fyodor swallowed.
“Where is his beloved Parasha?” Tarchenko asked sternly.
“We were unable to escape with her. We were unaware that they
enjoyed the support and protection of the Prince.”
“It was your job to know such things!”
“Authorization was given at the very last minute!” Fyodor
thundered. “Had you ordered me to act in Spain where we had set
up detailed surveillance and the use of indigenous support -to say
nothing of the lack of security around them, your precious ‘Bronze
Horseman’ scheme would have worked! Instead you order me into
a desperate unrehearsed extraction against formidable opposition!”
“It is of little matter now,” Tarchenko sighed, his demeanor
distant and cool. “A second attempt would be too risky from a
political standpoint. The Prince of Monaco may be restraining
himself for the moment, but I do not think he will a second time.”
Fyodor seethed a little more.
“Calm yourself Fyodor.”
“I find it difficult under the circumstances.”
“Did you find your remuneration to your liking?”
“It is the only reason I am still here, Ivan Mikhailyvich.”
“Good. I may still have some work for you then.”
Fyodor raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, Fyodor. Work more suited to your talents. Far less delicate
work than I’ve asked of you in the recent past.”
“Who do you want me to kill?”
“Patience Fyodor. Not yet. I shall contact you. In the meantime
enjoy your money.”
Fyodor grunted once and stared down at Tarchenko with hard
dark eyes. Then he turned and left the room. A middle-aged man
in a lab coat carrying a clipboard entered not long after.
“Ah, Doctor Pulatski. What news?”
Pulatski consulted his clipboard.
“Subject is a Japanese male, aged approximately 18 to 21 years.
Subject is well nourished and well developed, indicative of regular
intensive physical conditioning. The subject is in a barbiturate
induced state of unconsciousness, time approximately nine hours.
He is normalocephalic, and stable, with no acute traumas. Preliminary
blood work indicates that he was exposed to enough Nembutal to
drop a bull elephant, and I’m told it was necessary to affect
extraction without further casualties to the team. Other than that the
subject is clear of steroids, narcotics, alcohol, and nicotine.”
“In layman’s terms?”
The doctor gestured to Ranma through the glass.
“You’ve got a young healthy clean-living Japanese man in
there who is as strong as an ox and requires dangerous levels of
intramuscular barbiturates to put him down.”
“I understand the dangers of the drugs, but what can you tell me
from a more, shall we say, _esoteric_ viewpoint?”
The doctor understood immediately what Tarchenko referred to.
That was the reason he was here.
“His EEG’s normal for a man in drug induced narcosis. If you
want anymore answers you’ll have to let him dry out. I can’t
administer the multiphasic personality inventory or any kind of
intelligence examinations with him doped up. I recommend the
immediate suspension of his Diprivan injections.”
“That may be dangerous doctor, for reasons you have already
pointed out.”
“You can still restrain him physically, but I need him coherent
for my tests.”
Tarchenko nodded.
“I see... Very well doctor, do what you must. But see to it that he
is well restrained.”
The doctor agreed with a murmur.
“May I may an alternative suggestion?”
Tarchenko was willing to hear what the doctor had to say.
“Go on.”
“The subject is closely attached to a woman, a fiancée or some
sort of lover. As he has been unconscious since his extraction, he is
unaware that we do not have her in our possession.”
Tarchenko smiled evilly.
“I see where you are going with this. Yes, I’m sure if we
convinced him that his cooperation was necessary for the well
being of his fiancée, he would be most compliant.”
“I shall see that he is made aware of his circumstances when he
regains consciousness.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few hours at the most. His body is proving to be quite
resistant to the drugs.”
* * *
It was the third day since Ranma had been taken, and still there
was no word on his whereabouts. McFogg’s group had taken up
residence in the Palace, where Akane could be protected from a
second kidnapping attempt. In addition to the Prince’s men, Nabiki
and Hiro alternated their watch over her, but she remained
withdrawn and silent. The nightmares had also returned without
Ranma’s proximity, and she was physically and emotionally a wreck.
Thus far they had been following Doctor Casimir’s advice, and
had made no official recognition that the events of that terrible night
had even happened. At the Prince’s insistence, the police had
dropped their investigation into the kidnapping, and into a possible
manslaughter charge against Hiro Ohata for the death of Fyodor’s
agent. It was fairly obvious that you couldn’t acknowledge one
event without the other, and if there was no kidnapping, then
there could be no manslaughter related to that kidnapping. The
luckless agent was being cremated that very day. No autopsy had
been performed, and no one had come asking for the remains. It
was if the man never existed.
That suited Hiro well enough. If he had his way, there would
have been a few more John Does on their way to anonymous
graves via the state funeral home. He paced moodily outside
Akane’s room deep in thought.
“<They should have learned something by now,>” he muttered.
“<Spook work always takes time,>” Heironymous Durango
replied from a heavy upholstered chair opposite him. “<Pacing isn’t
going to get anything done faster.>”
“<I can’t help it,>” Hiro said bitterly. “<I just feel so helpless.>”
He sunk against the wall and slid down, clenching his fists tight.
“I was supposed to protect them!” He hissed to himself.
Durango looked across the hall to Hiro, who now sat on the
floor and stewed.
“<Don’t worry. We’ll find him. And then it’s pay-back time.>”
Hiro looked up at Durango. He said nothing, but the fire in his
eyes spoke volumes.
Aerandir walked down the hall towards them. Anazali and Nabiki
were with him. Hiro wasn’t sure what to make of the tall man with
the pale hair and the sea-colored eyes. Nabiki had told him a little
about Aerandir, but Hiro still had his misgivings. Anazali only ranked
slightly higher on his list of people he could trust.
One of the Prince’s men stopped them, but when Aerandir
identified himself he was allowed to pass. He stepped up to the
door and waited. Hiro looked up at him.
Aerandir’s face was calm as he addressed Hiro.
“Mister Ohata, may I be permitted to speak with Akane?”
“Something tells me I wouldn’t be able to stop you if I didn’t,”
Hiro replied.
Aerandir offered him a nod of agreement.
“Be that as it may, I do wish to have your approval.”
Hiro stood. “Sure. Follow me.”
He knocked at the door and entered.
Akane was standing at the window, looking out to the sea.
Merchant ships plied the Mediterranean beyond the window. Tall
masted sailing yachts darted between the bulky freighters and
tankers.
She was still in a nightgown. The bed next to her was unmade.
When she turned around to face them Hiro felt his heart sink to
behold her. She was weary beyond the words it would take to
describe her. Weary and heartsick and emotionally spent. She
didn’t have a tear left in her, but still her eyes ached to shed more.
“Hello Akane,” Aerandir greeted pleasantly. “I’m told you’re
having trouble sleeping?”
Akane managed a short, bitter laugh.
“I can help you perhaps,” he said soothingly. “If you would
permit me, of course.”
“I can’t sleep,” she replied in a hoarse voice. “The nightmares...
Without Ranma close by, the nightmares return. It’s too much for
me.”
“Aerandir can help you sleep, dear.” It was Anazali who said
this to her. “He can keep the nightmares from you.”
“Please let him help you sis,” Nabiki added.
Akane did want to sleep. Desperately. But the terror of those
nightmares she had experienced were far worse than any she had
endured in Nerima. Now that Ranma had pledged to share his very
life with her, the thought of losing him forever was beyond endurance.
Her nightmares reflected that loss with a dull edged pain that had
sawed pitilessly through her soul in the last three days.
“I can’t,” she sobbed. Hiro was ready to kick them all out and
force them to leave her alone. At least then it would lessen the pain
that their presence was inflicting upon her. Aerandir nodded sadly,
then pulled his flute from his tunic.
Nabiki’s songbirds suddenly flew through the door and alighted
upon her shoulder. Nabiki looked to them, and they sang brightly
for her. In spite of herself, Akane smiled.
Aerandir offered a hand to Akane, and begged that she sit upon
the bed. “Very well then, I won’t force you to sleep. Allow me
instead to sing for you, that I may ease your worries.”
Akane found that she couldn’t resist him. She sat back on the
bed and waited for him to begin. Aerandir looked to the little
songbirds who perched upon Nabiki’s shoulder, and they trilled in
reply. He put the flute to his lips, and blew a soft haunting note.
The birds had their key, and began to sing.
Aerandir joined them, and they fell into harmony.
“What skies upon the east do glow
That sound the harken to sun’s warm grace
To make the new world stir and grow
And brings light to shine upon man’s face
Farewell to ice and bitter cold
Abjure the snow and banish the waste
Bring forth the rays that shine like gold
Arise ye men, Spring’s sweet dew to taste.”
As Aerandir sang, Akane began to sink down upon the bed.
Her eyes became heavy and she started to drift away. The song
was an ancient one, from an epic that detailed the rise of the Maiar.
Hiro watched dumbfounded at Aerandir as he began another song:
a lullaby to the accompaniment of the songbirds, and of Anazali
who joined him, though her voice was in the tongue of the Maiar.
“Sing we now sweetly and dreams let us weave her,
Wind her in slumber and there let us leave her!
The lady does sleepeth, now light be her heart!
Love is her armor, we are her shield,
Of all that we wish her, our hopes are revealed:
Never from her light, nor love shall she part!
Sing we now sweetly and dreams let us weave her,
Wind her in slumber and there let us leave her!”
Akane was now fast asleep. Aerandir placed a hand softly upon
her brow and whispered something in her ear. She murmured a
reply and sank back into the bed with a slight smile pursed upon
her lips. The songbirds fell silent upon Nabiki’s shoulder.
The mariner sank back upon a chair and rubbed at his temple.
He looked suddenly very tired and at once showed perhaps a sign
of his vast age. Anazali gave him the fondest smile then and retired
from the room.
“You should see to her Mister Ohata,” Aerandir said to him.
Hiro shook his head as if awakening from a dream. He saw that
Akane was slumbering peacefully, the first time he had seen her do
so in three days. With the greatest care he lifted the sheets from the
bed and set her beneath them. Nabiki was nearly bursting with relief.
She leaned over and kissed Aerandir’s brow.
“Thank you Aerandir,” she said to him.
“As always; I am your servant, Nabiki.”
He rubbed at his temple again. “She will sleep very deeply, free
from the imbalances to her essence which have brought her such
torment. I have lent her a bit of my own to carry her through this
day, and I have given her a very special dream as well. When she
awakens tomorrow morning she will be restored to health.”
Hiro looked to Aerandir. His opinion of the man had just grown
by an order of magnitude. Then he returned his attention to Akane,
and watched over her. It was in some small way a redress for having
failed them once.
“Look after her well, Mister Ohata,” Aerandir admonished him
as he rose from the chair. “I shall retire to Kelebros. Look for me
there if any should need me.”
Nabiki stopped him gently with a hand at his arm. When he
turned to see what she wanted, she cocked her head to the
songbirds that were now silent on her shoulder.
“I thought you didn’t like them, so how did you get them to
cooperate like that with the songs?”
“I have reached an understanding with them,” he replied. “In
return for their silence to my uncle, I continue to allow them to be
near you. They’re rather fond of you actually, so I think we have
nothing to worry about.”
This was still all so weird for her, but when he told her that
the songbirds liked her, she became very pleased with the idea.
It reinforced her notion that they were hers, sort of. Sensing this,
the birds suddenly twittered affectionately in her ear.
“Do they have names?” She found herself asking him.
Aerandir nodded.
“Their personal names to each other do not translate very well
I’m afraid. My uncle calls them Innael, Birathiel, and Gliredhel.”
The three birds each chirped at the mention of their name
“They are named for my uncle’s three sisters who perished with
the drowning of Maianar. He would sometimes speak to me about
them and their beautiful singing voices, but I’m afraid these three
birds are all that I will ever know of them... My uncle granted them
a remarkable span of years.”
Nabiki let him go after that. She didn’t have anything she could
say in reply. Innael took wing then and flew over to the headboard
of the bed where Akane slept. Birathiel and Gliredhel chirped once
and then joined their sister. Together on the headboard they began
to sing very softly to Akane, and Nabiki beamed at them.
Hiro watched all of this still a little confused. In any event he was
happy to see Akane resting peacefully and the sight of Nabiki and
her wondrous songbirds made him feel as if they had a powerful
ally in the mariner named Aerandir. For the first time since Ranma’s
abduction, he felt hope.
“Are you going to stay here awhile?” He asked Nabiki.
Nabiki nodded and sat down to listen to the birds and to watch
over her baby sister.
“I was going to see about lunch. Would you like anything?” He
continued.
“If you would please. That would be nice.” She had found herself
liking Hiro even though it could be argued that he and his scientist
employers had gotten them in this mess in the first place.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Hiro.”
Hiro nodded and got up on his feet. He glanced once at Akane
and left the room.
Tatewaki Kuno appeared some time later. Nabiki gestured for
him to be silent, and pointed to Akane’s sleeping form. Kuno began
to beam with happiness.
“Hello Kuno-baby,” she said to him quietly.
Kuno was relieved that she hadn’t called him ‘Tate-chan’
again. To hear that name from her lips confused him so. That
it was presumption beyond forgiveness was certain, but why
he had been unable to reproach her for such familiarity was
the source of his confusion. He settled for a short nod of
acknowledgment.
“I see the lovely Akane is at last within the sheltering arms of
Morpheus,” he observed.
“Aerandir sang her a lullaby. She went right out.”
Kuno nodded sagely.
After that, their store of small talk was exhausted.
They stood or sat in silence. The only sounds in the room were
the soft singing of Nabiki’s birds, the deep even breaths Akane took,
and the ticking of a clock on the mantle of the fireplace. It was
almost laughable, except that the two of them were too busy
thinking about others things to notice how quiet the room had
become.
Nabiki was still trying to figure out what had been going through
her head when she engaged Kuno in that kiss. **It was a stupid thing
to do,** she told herself. **You’re lucky he didn’t attach himself
to you on the spot.**
She wanted to chalk it up to the romance of the moment.
Attaching that rationalization to her thoughts wasn’t coming very
easy though. She thought back to that night, and their kiss. She
had never been kissed like that before. Ever. It felt so good to be
loved like that, even if just for a few moments. Even by Tatewaki
Kuno.
Her eyes drifted over to Kuno, who stood solemnly watching
over Akane. There wasn’t any of the usual adoration in his eyes
when he looked at Akane, meaning that he was in his Protector
mode again. It was the mantle he had assumed over Ukyo and
herself when they had escaped from the Russians.
**Had all of that just been part of the little dramas he played
out in his head?** She suddenly wondered. She thought of how
caring and strong he had been for the three of them. How open he
had been with her as they walked for many kilometers across the
southern Ukraine. It was so unlike him that it had to be genuine.
She laughed quietly to herself about how ridiculous that sounded.
**One way to find out...**
She had to know. Even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to find
out. She gave herself a mental kick in the rear and pressed on.
Timid was an adjective that did not apply to Nabiki Tendo, and
she wasn’t going to have that sentiment proved wrong.
She cleared her throat for attention.
“Hey Kuno-baby,” she said to him.
Tatewaki Kuno was jolted out of his reflection and cast a
questioning glance in her direction.
“Yes Nabiki?” He asked.
**Yes Nabiki-? Not ‘Yes Nabiki Tendo?’**
All of a sudden she felt very nervous. Maybe Kuno _was_ a
little hung up on her. She mustered her cool again and rose to her
feet.
“I wanted to talk to you about the other night,” she began. It
was true enough: they hadn’t said a word about it to each other
since then. She had downplayed it in her own mind, and Kuno was
trying his best to deny that it had ever happened.
“Yes Nabiki?” He seemed quite oblivious to her intentions.
She walked over to him. He watched her approach with a
casual eye but said nothing. When she was standing before him
and looking up into his eyes he began to cross his arms over his
chest.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm and brought it down
to his side, never taking her eyes off his. Her gall was astounding,
even if Kuno expected as much from her. He began to say
something, but Nabiki cut him off.
“I want to know if what happened between us was just a heat
of the moment thing, or if there was more to it.”
“Whatever are you talking about, Nabiki Tendo?” Kuno replied,
just a hint of defensiveness in his voice.
**How can he be so stubbornly ignorant?** Nabiki railed
inwardly. **Just how big _is_ that fantasy world of his?**
“I’m talking about _this,_” she said sternly.
She stood up on her toes and kissed him warmly, throwing her
arms around his neck and pulling herself close to him. She was
about to break the kiss when it seemed he wasn’t going to respond,
but then his arms went around her and he deepened their embrace.
_Then_ she broke the kiss.
She bobbed back down on her heels and looked at him for a
minute. He looked a little surprised, and did she dare think _hurt_
by her sudden suspension of affection? She turned her back to
him and returned to her chair.
“Thanks Kuno-baby, that’s all I wanted to know.”
Tatewaki Kuno stood paralyzed in the middle of the room.
When at last he could move he spared a single guilty look to Akane,
then a confused one for Nabiki. Nabiki watched him with sharp
eyes, taking in his distress.
**It serves him right for being such an insensitive clod about the
whole affair.**
“If you’re looking for poetic words of undying love to Akane,
you had best save your breath Kuno-baby,” she told him after he
turned longing eyes to her sleeping sister.
He didn’t reply, he just watched Akane and sighed.
“Ranma proposed to her that night,” Nabiki went on. “She said
‘yes’.”
Kuno sighed again. He had heard vicious rumors to this effect,
but the tone of Nabiki’s voice told him that the rumors were true.
It was one thing to be trapped in an arranged marriage and still pine
for one’s true love. It was another to commit to that marriage out
of one’s own free will. As disgusting and terrible as being the wife
of the contemptible Ranma Saotome seemed to him, he realized
that Akane Tendo was forever lost to him.
He was an honorable man. As much as he disliked Saotome
(and even more so for finally stealing Akane away from him), he
would abide by their engagement. Unless he could prove that
Saotome had used some sort of coercion, their engagement was
valid, and he would do what he could for Akane that she would be
happy.
Nabiki could see the sudden sad turn in Kuno’s expression. It
had gone beyond the noble melancholy he affected when things
didn’t go his way, it was grievous injury. She felt very sorry for
him then. It bothered her to see him that way.
Suddenly it seemed as if a light bulb lit up above his head.
Granted, it was only a twenty watt bulb, but something had
instantly jerked him out of his sad reflection and put an ever
growing smile on his face. His eyes took on that mad glow that
occurred when his ego ballooned out of control. Nabiki tensed in
her chair, waiting for him to spill forth whatever epiphany he had.
“If Akane Tendo be the fiancée of the accursed Saotome of
her own will, then he has no more hold upon the Pig-Tailed Girl!
At last this cup has passed from me! My way is clear! Oh Love
reveals her true face at last!”
He struck a dramatic pose and raised his sword on high. Tears
streamed down his face.
“ ‘Let not my love be call’d idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike are my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love today, tomorrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to consistency confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
‘Fair, kind, and true,’ have often lived alone,
Which three till now never kept seat in one.’”
The three songbirds stopped their quiet lullaby for Akane and
turned their attention to Kuno. Even for birds, the look they gave
him was one of alarm for his madness. Part of Nabiki wanted to
scream at him. The other part, the one still in control, instead
offered him a fond smile.
“I’m glad you worked this out Kuno-baby,” she told him.
“Oh would that this adventure was of its conclusion reached!”
He cried in rare form. “That I may return to bask in the sweet glow
of the Pig-Tailed Girl’s love!”
With that he started for the door, bowing low once for Akane,
who continued to sleep oblivious to Kuno’s passionate outburst,
before leaving.
Nabiki shook her head sadly.
**Oh Tate-chan, you are so hopeless...**
Hiro appeared with a knock at the door. He had a wheeled tray
with lunch at his side. He pushed the tray into the room quietly for
fear of awakening Akane.
“Don’t worry about the noise, Hiro,” Nabiki said to him. “Kuno
was just in here bellowing, and she didn’t move a muscle.”
“I thought I heard a familiar voice from down the hall.
Shakespeare?”
Nabiki gave him a knowing smile. “One of the stanzas from the
Sonnets I believe.”
“That wasn’t hard to guess,” Hiro said flatly. He gestured to the
tray. “Any preferences?”
Nabiki found that she didn’t have much of an appetite anymore,
but gamely reached for a bowl of consommé and a piece of bread
from the basket to keep up appearances.
Chapter Two
Ranma glared at the man who had introduced himself as Ivan.
The Russian for his part sat calmly across a table from him while a
few men in lab coats finished last minute touches on the array of
sensory gear emplaced around the martial artist. Doctor Pulatski
and an unkempt gentleman in a dirty sweater and stained trousers
watched from the corner of the room. A man acting as a translator
took his place by Tarchenko’s side.
Ranma had a splitting headache, no doubt the side effects of
whatever they had dosed him with in Monaco. Ever since his
awakening he had been questioned, prodded, probed, scanned,
and in general turned into their guinea pig. That was three days ago.
He recognized some of the tests they had performed on him as
being similar to ones McFogg’s researchers had used on himself
and Akane when they first came to London. McFogg’s men had
been a bit more civil about it than the Russians.
He looked around him. He was in the examination room, a
short walk from his windowless holding cell. He had no idea
where in the world he was, but had the sinking feeling it wasn’t
anywhere near Monaco.
“<Are we comfortable?>” Tarchenko asked. The translator
repeated the question in Japanese.
“Go fuck yourself,” Ranma replied curtly.
“<Tut tut, Mister Saotome, that’s no way to speak to someone
who literally holds your fiancée’s life in his hands.>”
Ranma took the translator’s words with a snarl, trying to leap
up out of his chair. For a moment in his rage he had forgotten that
he was bound in a straight-jacket and chained down to the floor.
They had learned about his prodigious strength soon after he had
regained consciousness. An agent was learning to live with one arm
broken backwards at the elbow for his carelessness.
Tarchenko made a gesture to the straight-jacket.
“<Are we quite finished yet?>”
“Let me see that Akane’s all right and I will be!”
“<You are just going to have to take my word for her well
being,>” Tarchenko replied. “<By now you realize what terrible
things are in our power to do to her if you don’t cooperate. Know
that I am quite capable of turning these men loose upon her.>”
Tarchenko gestured to Ranma’s three hulking playmates for
the last three days. They were the ones who were for a lack of a
better term his handlers. They were ones who moved him from
his cell to the examination room and back again, who lashed him
down and beat him whenever they felt he wasn’t cooperating.
Which was often. Ranma’s body in fact was a wealth of welts,
bruises, and contusions.
Ranma wasn’t all that sure they had Akane anymore. Before
he blacked out he had heard Hiro and Kuno’s voices approaching.
It was possible that they could have rescued her, and that the
Russian was just bluffing. On the other hand there was no way
he was going to take any chances with Akane’s life.
“<Let’s begin the interview, shall we?>” Tarchenko asked.
Instruments flicked on with hums and whirs. A tape recorder was
switched on. Ranma could see other men enter the room in the
shadows behind Tarchenko.
When the ‘interview’ was over, Ranma’s handlers dragged his
dazed body out of the examination room and to his holding cell.
The beatings hadn’t been very bad, it was just that he hadn’t been
getting any sleep because of the nightmares. The questions Ivan
had asked were absolutely nonsensical. They had nothing to do
with McFogg’s group, or the events, or how Ranma could sense
them. Nevertheless the assembled interrogators took them quite
seriously, and forced him to answer with the first thing that came
to mind.
The cell door swung open and he was thrown inside. He
wished they would take the straight-jacket off so he could move
his arms. The leg irons they gave him were digging into the flesh
of his ankles. What was left of his tuxedo was mostly tatters.
The door slammed shut and he was in darkness again. He felt
his way to the foam mattress in the corner and dragged himself
onto it. He had no desire to sleep, even though he was exhausted.
The nightmares would come for him if he slept.
He sobbed just once before catching himself. His tears weren’t
for himself, they were for Akane. Even if the Russians didn’t have
her, she would be prey to the nightmares the same as he. The
thought that she was also suffering, no matter where, was a cold
spike through his heart.
“Well Doctor?” Tarchenko asked.
Pulatski consulted his notes.
“He is only of average intelligence. Personality tests indicate a
strong moral core coupled with an abnormally independent
motivational center. He’s tough, opinionated, inflexible, and
confrontational. In addition he has a strong value sense concerning
life and the well being of others -provided they don’t conflict
with his personal value system. We had a good example of this
during his extraction: he was capable of killing a man barehanded
to protect his fiancée, and seriously injured several others.
“Analysis of neural pathways is indicative of advanced
motor and reflex control. That’s in keeping with his martial
artist profession, but we’ve found some other interesting
indications as well.”
“Go on.”
“While his neural architecture is not compliant with accepted
standards of psionic aptitude, his fourth brain structures are
highly developed. There is no corresponding cerebellum
enlargement or pons activity under PET scan, however.
Kirlian analysis supports the theory that while he is capable
of focusing large amounts of psionic potential, he has none
of the accepted psionic talents.”
“Then he’s a latent psychic?” Tarchenko asked.
“No,” the unkempt man interjected. “Not at all. He displays
no aptitude for the so called sensitive talents. No telepathy, no
empathic transference, no precognition, no psychometry. He has
a slight Kirlian awareness, but his index isn’t remarkably higher
than an average person. I can sense no parapsionic awareness
within him.”
“What are you getting at, gentlemen?”
Pulatski fielded this one. “Given separately, his physical aptitude
and his fourth brain development are meaningless. However, when
combined we believe he may be able to gather, focus, and project
energy from himself and his surroundings. That would make him
an advanced physical archetype.”
Tarchenko had heard that term before. He’d never seen one in
action, but the stories were fascinating. Men who could perform
ridiculous feats of strength and agility, some who could even
project psionic energy blasts! Now he felt better about keeping
his young Japanese prisoner tightly bound.
“You think he is one?”
“Current evidence supports this conclusion,” Pulatski replied.
Tarchenko nodded slowly.
“In regards to his sensitivity to the events. What is his
connection?”
The two men conferred for a moment.
Pulatski spoke up. “We don’t have any quantitative evidence
to support any theories, but...”
“Tell me what you think.”
“We don’t think that he is, in and of himself, sensitive to these
events. There is an outside influence at work here. We believe that
it may be in part responsible for the traumatic dream states that
plague him in REM sleep.”
Tarchenko felt as if they were holding back from him. He
would have none of that.
“There’s more to it of course. Do go on.”
“It’s possible that an outside presence is directing him.
Although we are at a loss to localize such a presence if it exists.”
“I see... So his usefulness has reached its end?”
The men understood what Tarchenko was implying.
Pulatski again spoke up. “We would like to observe him for
another two or three days if possible. There is so much we can
learn from him regarding other paranormal fields, that it would be
a waste to get rid of him so soon.”
“You must understand my position as well,” Tarchenko
cautioned. “Our presence with this young man is making our
landlords nervous.” He gestured to the ceiling, where above
them was the bustling activity of the Russian Embassy to
France. “I give you forty-eight hours.”
“We understand,” Pulatski replied. He and the unkempt man
known as Toschev offered good-days and left the examination
room.
* * *
Doctor Casimir entered the Salon in the early evening with a pile
of papers in his hands and a broad smile upon his face. Professor
McFogg, Prince Rainier, Clay and Ferguson, Heironymous Durango
and D-Day, Hiro, and Kuno were already present. They were
smoking, drinking tea, and conferring among themselves. The
mood in the room was subdued, even angry.
“<I have found him!>” Casimir cried.
This garnered immediate attention.
“<Ranma?>” McFogg asked hopefully.
“<He’s in Paris,>” Casimir told them.
“<How did you ever discover this, Grigory?>” Prince Rainier
asked in wonderment. None of his discreet inquiries with the French
had been successful.
Casimir took a seat in a leather bound chair and reached for the
silver teapot. Only after pouring himself a cup of Earl Grey did he
speak. The room was silent in expectation.
“<Tarchenko may have him, but he can’t hope to do anything
with him without the assistance of certain specialists,>” Casimir
began. “<He would need Doctor Vladimir Pulatski->”
“<-The leading parapsychologist in the world,>” Clay was
quick to interject. It took one to know one.
“<And Mikhail Toschev, among others. Toschev is a very
talented psychic who found dubious employment with the Special
Services Section of the KGB. He is a pitiless and cruel man, and
likely fits in with Vanya’s group.>” Casimir supplied mournfully.
He had never fully trusted Tarchenko, but this betrayal had been
especially difficult to put behind him.
“<So how does this tell us where Ranma is?>” Hiro asked.
“<I’m getting to that boy, patience! As I was saying, Vanya
needs these men to learn anything from Ranma. I made a few
discreet phone calls to some old friends in the establishment and
learned that both of these men and a small research team attached
to them had been themselves recently attached to the Diplomatic
Mission in Paris. It appears that Vanya doesn’t yet know that I’ve
thrown in with your lot, or I suspect he would have taken steps
to restrict my inquiries.>”
“<So you think this proves anything?>” Durango snorted.
“<Men like Pulatski and Toschev do not get attached to
Diplomatic units,>” Casimir said calmly. “<They work in well
funded laboratories. Even if Toschev was in Paris to ply his singular
talents for the Intelligence community, he would not require a full
research staff to do it.>”
“<I’m sold,>” Hiro declared. “<Now where in Paris are we
talking?>”
“<The Russian Embassy I’m afraid,>” Casimir replied.
Everyone gave a collective series of curses and groans.
“<Hitting a safe house would be one thing, but the goddamn
Embassy?>” Durango said bitterly. “<That’s hairy. Real hairy.>”
“<Likely the reason they took him there,>” Ferguson noted.
Aerandir entered the room with Anazali. The men all stood for
the tall and graceful Maiar woman. Anazali chose to stand at the
far end of the salon, away from the others. Aerandir took a chair
next to the Prince.
“We would like it known that we pledge our support in
rescuing Ranma Saotome,” Aerandir declared. Anazali nodded
from across the room.
“<We are deeply in your debt Aerandir,>” Prince Rainier
replied fondly.
“<Well that’s all well and good, but we need a plan for this to
work,>” Hiro said to them. “<We can’t just waltz into the Russian
Embassy, find wherever they’re hiding him, and spring him without
getting into the middle of serious trouble.>”
“<A diversion would be good,>” Durango announced.
“<From your tone I would say you already had an idea for one,
Mister Durango,>” the Professor replied.
“<You could say that,>” he replied. He lit up a Don Diego
Churchill and began to puff away.
* * *
It was well past midnight when Nabiki walked into the Salon.
There was a haze of cigar and pipe smoke hanging in the air, and
the remains of sandwiches and other no effort foods were scattered
on tables. Papers, maps, memo pads and other sundries were
likewise scattered about. A servant entered with a large silver
coffee pot on a tray. He set it next to the men as they gathered
around a large table that had been moved from one of the dining
rooms to the salon. A few of them grunted acknowledgment and
poured fresh cups for themselves.
She thumbed through the papers. Most of them were faxes
from all over Europe, but mostly from Paris. One of them looked
suspiciously like a blueprint or technical drawing. For the public
utilities of all things.
Nabiki watched Heironymous Durango as he chewed on the
end of a pencil while he and D-Day pored over a navigational
chart of the local Paris airspace. They wrote down various
communications frequencies, informational squawks, and
beacons on a set of notepads. D-Day checked them with
some other notes they’d taken earlier. Then he began rambling
on about fuel ladders. One of the Prince’s men was on a phone
line getting them weather information.
She moved on to the others. Hiro was going over an inventory
of the small arms Durango and D-Day had with them aboard
Bettie’s Dare. Kuno meditated in silence because he had little to
offer the group other than his sword.
McFogg was in the middle of a phone call on another line while
one of the Prince’s men monitored the line against wiretaps from
equipment housed in a briefcase. Ferguson took down instructions
and notes from McFogg as he relayed information from where
Nabiki presumed to be London. He was puffing away rather
furiously on his pipe as he spoke.
Clay was talking with Aerandir and Anazali in one corner of
the room. He seemed to be detailing some sort of plan to the two
Maiar, who would occasionally shake their heads and correct him
on some point or other. For the most part they seemed to be
agreeing, which made Nabiki feel a little better.
Casimir was on a third line, also being monitored against
wiretap, and speaking in animated Russian with whoever was on
the other side of the line. He jotted down notes and passed them
over to McFogg and Durango. Occasionally the Catalina pilot
would have a question regarding the scientist’s sloppy handwriting,
and particularly because some of the notes taken were in Russian.
All of this James Bond stuff was a little overwhelming, even
for a woman who prided herself on being well connected in the
right circles. For a moment she wished Akane was awake just so
she would have someone she could talk to. She watched them
work for awhile. At least the activity indicated that they had some
sort of plan to rescue Ranma from Tarchenko.
“<Nabiki, could you be so kind as to come over here please?>”
The Professor asked her.
She had barely gotten to know the Professor in the last two
days, but it was easy to see why Ranma and Akane trusted him.
She wondered if she was looking like the fifth wheel that she felt
she was. When she joined him at the table he handed her a notepad
with various scribblings and asked her if she could make a few
phone calls.
It was busy-work, but the alternative was sitting alone and
worrying. She took the notebook and proceeded to the last
available phone line that the Prince’s people had hastily installed
in the Salon. She looked over the notes and got to work.
After awhile her old talents of making connections and getting
people to do what she wanted started paying off. Contacts she had
never known before began complying to her wishes as she applied
a little manipulation here, a little promise of grease there. Just like
old times. She looked over to the Professor, who was smiling in
admiration of her efforts, and wondered just what her sister had
told the Professor about her these last few weeks.
* * *
Akane awoke just before lunch the next day. She seemed to
look much better than she had the previous day. As Aerandir had
promised, she had suffered no nightmares, but in fact had a rather
pleasant dream featuring Ranma.
Reality asserted itself once again with consciousness. Hiro was
quick to allay her worries by telling her they had found where
Ranma was being kept and that they were going after him that
night. Of course Akane was adamant about going with them.
“Out of the question!” Hiro had protested. “It’s too dangerous.”
She had argued with him for awhile, then finally relented.
Nabiki wasn’t too sure about her sister buckling so easy, but
kept it to herself. Her part in this plan detailed that she leave
with Ferguson and Anazali early that afternoon on a commercial
air flight to set a few things up in Paris. Akane was Hiro’s
problem after that.
* * *
The PBY-5A Catalina floated alongside the slip as the Monaco
sky began to darken with sunset. Hiro and Kuno loaded the last of
the gear they were bringing with them. D-Day crawled along the
top of the wing, checking that engine and control surface access
panels were securely in place. Aerandir could be seen through the
cockpit canopy talking to Durango as the pilot went through his
preflight checklists. Clay poked his head out of the dorsal hatch
and took a heavy duffel bag from Hiro.
When they had finished stowing everything, Durango asked if
they were ready.
Hiro looked to Kuno, who looked to Clay, who looked to
Aerandir. The mariner was wearing a black cloak and an equally
dark expression. His sword lay over his lap in its scabbard. He
nodded his head.
His reason for joining them was clear. It was likely that his
uncle Sarophan was ultimately behind the Russians, and that one
of his own kind was surreptitiously watching over the Embassy.
He would deal with that threat should it arise. He only hoped he
could stop whoever had been detailed for such an assignment
without killing him.
“<Right!>” Durango cried. “<Cast us off!>”
D-Day scrambled over to the little cleat just outside the door
when he was pushed aside by Akane Tendo. She was dressed
in a dark wool pullover sweater and black sweatpants. Black
running shoes completed her outfit. Despite her efforts, the last
thing she looked like was a commando.
“<Hey!>” D-Day protested. She ignored him.
Akane climbed aboard Bettie’s Dare.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Hiro asked.
“I’m coming with you,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Absolutely not!” Hiro yelled at her. “You are not going with
us! I don’t want anything happening to you.”
“I’m a martial artist!” Akane yelled back in protest. “I’m
prepared to get hurt!”
Hiro turned crimson. He ripped open his shirt to reveal an ugly
scar to the right of his breastbone. From his pocket he produced a
jagged, halfway unraveled piece of dull grey metal flecked with
copper and thrust it in her face.
“When one of these comes crashing into you at fifteen hundred
feet per second you’ll wish all it did was ‘hurt’!” He thundered.
Kuno and D-Day were about to step in and calm him down when
Hiro lowered his voice. Although Kuno wouldn’t tolerate Hiro’s
outburst to Akane under other circumstances, he knew from first
hand experience that the former infantryman and comrade in arms
was correct.
“This thing hit me the day the North Koreans kicked us off our
hill. The same day your friend Gosunkugi got hit. It went in through
my body armor, drilled right through the chicken-plate, and entered
into my chest. From there it grazed my lung, missed my heart by
about three millimeters, gouged a nice groove through the edge of
my spine, and was about halfway out my backside when it hung
up on one of my ribs.”
Akane looked with horror at the oblong scar on Hiro’s chest.
She tried to imagine what it was like for the jagged piece of metal
in his hand to have gone through him like that. It never occurred
to her that the reason it was so jagged and deformed was
_because_ it had gone through him. Now she understood why
he had been reluctant to take his tank top off at the beach.
“The bullet missed everything important, but I still felt like I
was being turned inside-out,” he said in as grim and serious a
voice as he could. “I was in so much pain they had to shoot me
up with morphine just to get me to stop screaming.”
He held the spent round up to the light.
“There are going to be hundreds of these little bastards flying
through the air if and when things go wrong. I don’t want you
anywhere near them. The only way I ever want you to know
about what it’s like to get shot is to hear it from someone else.”
“I don’t care!” Akane cried. “I’m going and you can’t stop me!”
She glared at him with a look that bordered on despair.
Hiro was wounded to see that in her eyes, but his concern for
her overrode any ideas of placating her. He lowered his head
wearily. For a moment she thought he was going to give in.
“Are you going to be doing him any favors if you get yourself
killed?” He hissed angrily at her. He hated himself for being so
mean to her, but goddammit why couldn’t she understand?
“I love him!” She protested. “Ranma would move Heaven
and Earth for me if our positions were reversed. Tell me he
wouldn’t!”
Hiro couldn’t deny that. He’d seen it on a mountain in North
Korea.
“Now it’s my turn to do this for him,” she said sternly. “I am
going with you.”
Hiro was about to take his life into his hands and try and
remove her forcibly from the Catalina when Aerandir stopped
him with a gentle tug of his arm. He turned around to glare at
the mariner. His mouth opened in rebuke. He didn’t care what
kind of powers the mariner had, there was no way he would
allow Akane to go.
Aerandir cut him off.
“Let her accompany us Mister Ohata. I sense that her presence
will be very necessary in locating Ranma.” He looked to Clay.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Mister Clay?”
Clay squinted his eyes at Akane for a moment.
“<You may be right Mister Aerandir,>” the parapsychologist
replied.
“<Excuse me?>” Hiro groused.
“Mister Clay and others who are sensitive to such things can
see something very special with Akane. They can use it to locate
Ranma.”
“Huh?” Hiro replied, wondering what Aerandir was driving at.
“Mister Clay?” Aerandir gestured to the parapsychologist that
he might explain.
Clay cleared his throat. “<I can see a red string floating from
her heart when I concentrate,>” he said solemnly. Akane suddenly
blushed furiously at the same time that enormous happiness welled
within her.
“<What?>”
“<I’m what you would call a psychic sensitive,>” Clay explained.
“<That’s why I got into such a controversial field of science as
parapsychology. I don’t have a lot of the abilities of most genuine
psychics, but I can see certain things that most people can’t.>”
“<What’s a red string got to do with anything?>” Hiro protested.
He thought he remembered a little folklore on the subject, but nothing
was coming to him.
“<The strongest of loves are bound to each other by discrete
lines of psionic force, too weak to be detected by conventional
electromagnetic instruments like the Kirlian. However, the human
brain can be sensitive enough to sense these lines of force. They
connect to people with very strong bonds. I can follow Akane’s
line straight to Ranma if we can get the two close enough.>”
“<How close is that?>” Hiro asked. He could see his attempts
at getting Akane off the seaplane were failing and would argue
anything at this point.
“<Perhaps as far as a hundred meters away. I have seen their
force line from such a distance before.>”
Akane knew victory when she saw it. She took a seat next to
Aerandir and Kuno and offered him a wicked smile of smug
satisfaction. Hiro clenched his fists tight and stuffed his ‘lucky
bullet’ in his pocket.
“I don’t fucking believe this,” he cursed to himself.
Durango called down to them.
“<You guys through pissin’ and moanin’ so we can get this
show on the road?>”
“You may proceed at your discretion Mister Durango,” Aerandir
replied.
“<’Bout goddamn time. Come on D-Day, let’s go.>”
D-Day cast them off and secured the door. Then he proceeded
to the cockpit. The supercharged radial piston engines of Bettie’s
Dare exploded to life moments later. As the engine noise increased,
the seaplane began to taxi out of the La Condamine marina.
Durango firewalled the engines once they got clear, and the
Catalina lurched into the air minutes later. He brought the plane
into a shallow turn and headed north by northwest, Paris bound.
Hiro retreated to the cockpit because he couldn’t stand the thought
of Akane coming with them. It was bad enough that he was scared
about losing his own life, but to lose Akane’s was beyond imagining.
“<We’re talking about 500 nautical miles to Paris, or about three
hours at our present speed,>” Durango announced for them. They
were well aware of their time table, but a little reinforcement never
hurt.
Bettie’s Dare disappeared into a darkening cloud bank as the
sun sunk over the western horizon.
Chapter Three
Ranma awoke with great gasp for breath. Cold sweat rolled
down his face as he shook away the last vestiges of the nightmare
he had suffered. It was a very familiar one, and he started to
wonder if there was any meaning behind it.
Once again he dreamed that he was fighting people atop the
Eiffel Tower. Akane was there, and she was fighting them too.
Then she was pushed over the side, and he jumped after her,
and together they plummeted straight down. He woke up before
they could hit the ground.
He wiped the sweat away from his eyes. Someone had
eventually prevailed upon his jailers to remove the straight-jacket
during the short periods when he was allowed sleep. Double sets
of manacles took the straight-jacket’s place. At least he could move
a little. Perhaps even break them if he tried hard enough.
**If Kuno could do it,** he thought, remembering back to the
short bit of catching up they’d shared with Nabiki before the Ball.
**I gotta be able to do it.**
He was almost certain by now that they didn’t have Akane in
their clutches. It was a little strange, but he felt as if he would
_know_ if she was around. It didn’t feel like it, and the way he
was treated today suggested that it wouldn’t matter shortly.
**All the more reason to try and get out of here. They aren’t
going to just let me go when they’re done with me. I gotta think
of something.**
He looked down at his manacles. They had a little play in them
so as not to cut off the circulation, but there was no way he was
going to wriggle them off his wrists.
**Unless I suddenly got a lot smaller...**
He looked over to the stainless steel toilet basin in the corner
by the dim crack of light from the bottom of the door. He didn’t
need a lot, just enough to transform. He crawled over to the toilet
and splashed up water upon himself.
It was tepid, but just cold enough to do the job. He felt himself
shrink into the tattered fabric of his ruined tuxedo. His breasts
swelled from his chest even as his wrists and ankles shrunk in
their manacles. The things nearly fell off him as he became a girl.
Ranma-chan slipped off her manacles and stepped out of her
leg irons. It wasn’t much, but this was the closest she’d been to
freedom in three days. She knew that she couldn’t get the door
open as a girl, and doubted that she would have the strength or
the focus to blast it open. All she needed to do was bide her time
and wait for them to come for her.
And wouldn’t they be in for a surprise.
* * *
Nabiki and Ferguson stopped the truck along the Right Bank of
the river Seine. It was late evening and the many barges and boats
that plied the river were now moored. She could see the glow of the
Eiffel Tower in the distance, just barely in sight past the Notre Dame
Cathedral upon the Ile de la Cite, across the water. Anazali stepped
out from the passenger side and surveyed their surroundings.
“I believe this is the place,” she said to them.
“<Okay Fergy-baby, you know what to do,>” Nabiki told him.
Ferguson nodded and engaged the parking brake. He left the
motor running as he stepped out of the cab.
“<This would go a little faster if you helped, lass,>” he told her.
Nabiki gestured to the cellular phone she held in her hand.
“<Timing is essential my dear Ferguson. You wouldn’t want me
to miss our cue would you?>”
Ferguson grunted something inaudible and headed to the back
of the truck. Pulling back the canvas flap that covered the bed, he
lowered the tailgate, set two long four by sixes down as a ramp,
and began to carefully roll the ten 55 gallon drums down onto the
pavement. Anazali kept up the watch as Ferguson rolled each
drum to the side of the street and the masonry and wrought iron
fence that protected against a drop to the river twenty feet below.
He stood the drums up on end and reached into his back pocket
for the bung wrench.
He loosened the bung caps on the drums, both the vent and the
siphon caps. For curiosity’s sake he took the vent cap off of one
and took a whiff. A strong petroleum smell hit him square on.
Ferguson was standing beside 550 gallons of JP-8 high
performance military jet fuel.
“<Coming up on target,>” Heironymous Durango announced.
He thumbed one of the function keys on the GPS display, calling
up a preprogrammed position map. D-Day had the wheel, and
made the course corrections as Durango called them out. The
light of Paris was a distant glow on the horizon.
Hiro nodded in reply. Akane hunched next to him in the
cockpit. He still couldn’t believe they were taking her with them.
It was bad enough that Clay had no experience in these matters,
but the rest of them save Akane were all warriors of one sort or
the other. Even Aerandir from the look of his broadsword.
Akane may have been a martial artist, but she had never pulled
the trigger on someone, so to speak.
“<Did I tell you that I hate the French?>” Durango asked them
then.
“<No, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned that,>” Hiro replied.
“<Back in ‘86 old D-Day and I were side by side in our Vark
flying to some place we’d never even heard of before about two
weeks previous. Place called Tripoli. We were going there to bomb
it.
“<We were flying out of the UK then, didn’t transfer to
Germany until just before the Gulf War. It was a hell of a flight,
and the worst of it was the State Department couldn’t get
permission from those French pantywaists to fly through their
airspace. Once the French refused, the Spanish refused as well.
We had to fly clear around the Iberian peninsula -another six
friggin’ hours in the air.>”
“<The Speed was nice,>” D-Day added sarcastically.
“<Oh yeah, two hundred feet off the deck at eight hundred
knots and you’re amping on amphetamines. Great fun. That’s
why the computer was flying the plane until we got ‘feet dry’.
Anyways we’re taking flight surgeon issued amphetamines to
stay alert ‘cause we’re gonna be in the air fourteen hours just
to reach the target.
“<We were all pissed off at the French, and we had plenty
of time to stew over it. Finally after I pissed in my flightsuit for
the second time I decided to do something about it. Get a little
payback you might say.>”
He looked at them for a second to make sure they were
getting all of this.
“<Ever heard of a Paveway laser-guided bomb?>”
Hiro and Akane traded looks.
“<Not that I recall,>” Hiro answered.
“<They don’t miss,>” he told them. “<Trust me, D-Day and
I dropped enough of them in Iraq, and we never once missed.
They go exactly where the Pavetack designator directs them.>”
Hiro wasn’t sure where the pilot was going with this. Akane
listened patiently for the punch line.
“<I dropped a Paveway laser-guided bomb right into the
French Embassy courtyard in Tripoli,>” Durango said with an
evil grin. D-Day suddenly whooped with laughter at the memory
of it.
“<The official story was that a bomb had missed, or that possibly
one of the SAMs the Libyans launched at us ran out of fuel and
crashed there. We weren’t the only ones upset with the French,
and the brass swept the whole thing under the rug. I might have
felt bad about it afterwards, but when we learned that Ducky and
Bull had crashed into the drink on the way out I felt vindicated...
We all knew the goddamn speed made them so paranoid that they
didn’t use the computer and they ended up crashing into the sea...
We wouldn’t have needed the speed if it wasn’t for those six extra
hours in the air....>”
“<And that’s why I hate the French,>” he finished. He turned
back to the GPS display. “<You two better get ready, you’ve got
fifteen minutes.>”
Hiro and Akane nodded and went aft.
“<Orly Approach is gonna want to hear from us soon,>” D-Day
said after the two headed back to the main cabin.
“<Screw ‘em. They have a radio.>”
D-Day jerked a thumb aft.
“<This is just a little nuts, man.>”
“<A little?>” Durango asked.
“<Don’t get me wrong man, I believe him if he says he can do
it. It’s just that this isn’t something that happens every day.>”
“<We must maintain a sense of wonder in this world my dear
Daniel Day.>”
“<Piss off. Call me D-Day.>”
“<Sure thing.>” Durango adjusted the display for the small
pulse Doppler weather radar they had retrofitted in the nose of the
seaplane. There was clear skies ahead, no nasty winds or other
developments that would preclude what they were going to attempt.
“<We are we doing this again? Besides the adventure of it of
course. It ain’t just payback on the French again, either.>”
“<I like that Saotome kid,>” Durango replied. “<And I like
Akane. It really burns my ass to hear how they attacked them
right after the guy proposed to her. What a bunch of bastards!>”
“<Proposed? I thought they were already engaged?>”
“<One of those arranged marriages I’m told.>”
“<They still do that?>”
Durango took over the wheel while D-Day got out of his seat
to energize the EW rig. Various signals posted themselves on the
split screen display. D-Day began to isolate and identify signals
for their use in the immediate future.
“<Guess so. They must have decided that they loved each
other after all or something. All the more reason to get them back
together.>”
He reached down to the radio transponder panel, and dialed in
the number that was taped next to it. Bettie’s Dare suddenly
became British Airways Express Flight 4255 on the worksheets
of Air Traffic Controllers at Charles de Gaulle and Orly
international airports. British Airways Express Flight 4255
never existed; it was in fact a flight plan filed by one of the
people Nabiki had talked to on the telephone the night before.
The man was a friend of Durango’s who ran a dubious air-freight
business out of Calais.
“<Okay people!>” Durango yelled aft to get their attention.
“<Our masquerade is in effect! Ten minutes!>”
The radio crackled for attention. A voice in French accented
English spoke to them.
“<Bravo One Seven Seven, Orly Approach; advising you of
the outer marker, over.>”
Durango keyed his transmitter.
“<Roger Orly Approach, this is Bravo One Seven Seven,
requesting permission to enter Class Bravo airspace, over.>”
“<Copy Bravo One Seven Seven, permission granted. Climb
to flight level one-zero-zero and turn left to course zero-three-five.
Squawk six-six-zero-zero, and await further instructions, over.>”
Durango complied and set his transponder to 6600. Then he
picked up the cellular phone taped to the side of the console. He
dialed a number from a yellow post-it note on the control yoke.
Professor Balthazar McFogg sat in the study of his mansion in
London with Doctor Casimir, Doctor Vickers, MD; Katy Price,
and Ames. Several students from Cambridge University were there
as well, one of whom was online in a chat room via the Internet.
The others in the chat room made small talk, but they were
‘virtually’ assembled for one purpose that evening.
A cellular phone began to ring. The Professor and Katy both
made a dive for it, with the Professor snatching it up and answering.
The loud thrum of supercharged radial piston engines greeted him.
“<Yes?>” he asked.
“<Eight minutes to contact,>” Heironymous Durango told him.
“<Everything’s go unless I say otherwise. Out.>”
The line went dead.
The Professor looked at his pocket watch and waited.
Hiro checked his gear securely fastened to his body. Then he
went through his weapons. Sig Sauer P-220 and six magazines,
that was his backup weapon. The one he carried in hand was a
Thompson SMG with 30 round stick magazine, and an army
surplus magazine pouch with six more. He had decided on the
Tommygun over an MP-5PK because it was .45 caliber, the
same as his pistol. It didn’t have any suppresser on it, but Hiro
figured that if it came down to actually using it, it wouldn’t matter.
An Ithaca Stakeout 12 gauge pump shotgun was slung over
shoulder.
Kuno carried his sword. That was all he needed, and
would accept no firearms. Hiro knew from experience that the
swordsman was deadly with his sword, even in the middle of a
firefight, and so didn’t press too hard for him to accept at least
a pistol.
Akane had no understanding of firearms nor any desire to carry
one. Hiro wasn’t going to try and get her to carry one either. So
armed she could be as dangerous to them as the Russians. She
was to stick close to Aerandir’s side in any event.
Clay took a matching Sig, but he had only done a little target
shooting on a range. Aerandir had his sword, plus whatever other
firepower he might suddenly muster in their defense. If it came
down to a firefight, Hiro was going to be the only one capable
of shooting back.
The point of the plan was that it wasn’t supposed to get that
far. Hiro knew better than that, but had held his tongue. He resolved
to be ready for anything. The only martial art he knew was Ching
Ching Pow. His weapons were the extensions of his art. At least
he told himself this often whenever he saw a true martial artist at
work.
Aerandir gathered them close to him. This was the part Hiro
was dreading. He was an accidental commando thanks to Operation
Chancellor, but a paratrooper was the last thing he had ever
considered being in his short career as a soldier. The dreadful
part was that paratroopers at least had parachutes. They didn’t
have that luxury.
“Hold tight to each other until we touch the ground,” he
admonished them.
Akane looked to Hiro, who nodded his head and put his arm
around her waist. She wanted to go, he couldn’t stop her, so be it.
He just wished everything would work out okay. She smiled gamely
for him and locked her arm around his waist. Aerandir took hold
of her from the other side. Kuno and Clay joined up and then
Kuno took hold of Hiro.
“Are you scared?” Akane asked him. She looked very frightened,
but was still determined to go on. He wondered what he was looking
like for her to ask.
“Scared to death,” he whispered in her ear.
“Me too,” she admitted.
He gave her a squeeze which she returned gratefully.
They were ready. It was all in Durango’s court now.
Nabiki nearly jumped out of her shoes when the cellular phone
rang. She turned it on.
“<Ready?>” She asked.
“<Five minutes to contact. Get ready.>” It was Durango’s voice
over the roar of propeller wash.
“<Gotcha,>” she replied.
The line clicked dead.
She turned to Ferguson and gave him a ‘thumbs up’. He returned
her gesture. Anazali came up next to her and began taking deep
breaths.
Ferguson removed all of the bung caps from the drums and began
kicking them on their sides. JP-8 began gushing forth to spill down
into the river. The current was slow on this part of the Seine, and a
rapidly expanding slick of high performance jet fuel began to form.
“Are you going to be able to do this?” Nabiki asked her.
“Don’t worry about me Nabiki,” Anazali returned. “Now you
and Ferguson get out of here so we can continue with the plan.”
“<All done here,>” Ferguson cried as the last of the drums
emptied. He began to pick up a drum.
“Leave them,” Anazali cried. “I shall take care of them. Go now!”
Ferguson shrugged and jumped into the truck with Nabiki. He
released the brake and jumped on the gas. The truck sped away as
Anazali gathered in the energies around her. She felt something odd
in the wind. Something unexpected.
“<Talk to me D-Day,>” Durango said with a tight edge to his
voice.
“<I’ve got Orly’s air search radar locked down. Interference
patterns just as we thought. Gotta keep it low though. Charles de
Gaulle is screened by the big housing tracts around Saint-Denis
to the northeast of city center when we get in close.>”
“<It’s a real bitch when the Paris skyline isn’t any taller than
six stories. No where to hide.>”
“<You like a challenge, man.>”
Durango smiled. “<That I do.>” He turned back to the main
cabin. “<Four minutes!>”
“We are ready, Mister Durango.” Aerandir called back to him.
Durango looked to D-Day, who rejoined him at the controls.
D-Day gave him a ‘thumbs-up.’ Durango nodded, laughed once,
and then dialed his transponder to 7700.
“<Here we go!>”
He took a deep breath and clicked on his radio transmitter to
121.5 MHz.
At first Orly Approach did not notice that B177’s transponder
squawk had changed to 7700. He was busy directing the always
crowded airspace around two major airports. When Durango’s
voice came over the radio, the controllers suddenly looked to
their screens in the closest they would allow themselves to panic.
B177 was headed straight for metropolitan Paris.
“<MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY... This is Bravo-1-7-7,
British Air Express Flight 4-2-5-5 declaring an in-flight emergency!
I am twelve miles northwest of Orly airport VOR, Heading 1-1-9
True, at flight level 1-0-0, speed two hundred knots. I have a
hydraulic plant failure and a fire light in number one engine!
Request emergency clearance to land!>”
The ATC supervisor took immediate charge of the situation.
He consulted the displays while another controller pulled Flight
4255’s flight plan and manifest. He flashed the number 26 with
his fingers, indicating that Flight 4255’s total list of flight crew
and passengers was 26 people.
“<Roger, Bravo-1-7-7-Heavy, this is Orly Approach. Can you
maintain flight level 1-0-0? Over.>”
“<Negative, Orly Approach, my elevons seem to be jammed
with the hydraulic failure, I’m dropping out.>” It was the best
Durango could do to keep a straight face.
“<Understood, Bravo-1-7-7-Heavy. Can you turn right to 1-6-5
True? We are trying to clear a path for you, over.>”
Durango paused for a moment as if he was actually trying to
turn. Instead he began his shallow dive towards the heart of Paris
a few miles distant. His landmark was the Arc de Triomphe, which
someone had thoughtfully illuminated for him.
“<Negative, Orly Approach!>” He cried in his best panicked
voice. “<We have suffered a total hydraulic failure. It’s knocked
out all controls, we’re trying to hand pump them into position!>”
“<Copy, Bravo-1-7-7-Heavy. What are your intentions? Over.>”
A total hydraulic failure was as unlikely as they came, but the men
at Orly were too busy thinking about 26 people on a crippled aircraft
and who knew how many below if they should crash in the city.
“<Put out the alert to the Metropolitan Emergency Services!>”
The Supervisor ordered. A man scrambled to a telephone. “<Get
the crash teams on Runway 2-9 North and clear all traffic from
there. I don’t care if you delay half our flights!>”
“<Orly Approach, I intend to crash land in Bois de Boulogne
Park if I cannot make the airport,>” Durango told them. Then added
with a cry, “<I have a fire light in number two engine! Losing
electrical power!>”
“<Bravo-1-7-7-Heavy, keep trying to turn,>” the ATC pleaded
with them. “<We have Runway 29 North cleared for emergency
landing, but you must turn to 1-7-2 True!>”
The radio began to crackle badly as if it was shorted out.
“<Orly Approach, Bravo-1-7-7, we can’t hold it in the air any
longer. We think we have the gear locked down but electrical power
is failing and we can’t get a ‘locked’ light. We--->”
Durango clicked off the radio and began sniggering, trying to
hold it in and keep his concentration.
The men in Orly ATC went silent. Eyes went to displays where
the blip marked 7700 dropped lower and lower, and headed straight
for downtown Paris. There was nothing they could do now but wait
for the inevitable.
Bettie’s Dare howled over the rooftops of Nanterre on it’s way
into Paris proper. D-Day had swiveled the GPS display to face him,
and now called out course corrections to Durango in his measured
bombadier drawl. The pilot dove the Catalina down to 500 feet. It
was just like the good old days, only instead of dropping a few
thousand pounds of high explosives they would be dropping about
six hundred pounds of people.
“<Nothing like screaming in over the rooftops of Paris at six
hundred knots, eh D-Day?>”
D-Day spared him a momentary frown. “<Six hundred knots?>”
“<Awright, so it’s only two hundred, it’s still a gas!>”
They were almost to the Arc de Triomphe. Durango made his
bank when D-Day called it out, and the Catalina slipped in midair
to a parallel track along the Champs Elysee headed southeast. Their
target was coming up: an older four story building better known as
the Russian Embassy to France.
“<Thirty seconds!>” He yelled.
Aerandir opened the door, and the wind howled and threatened
to suck them out. The lights of Paris glowed below them, though
much closer than Hiro and Akane and Clay would have preferred.
Kuno of course was fearless in this regard, and it was Aerandir who
would support them. He had no doubts in his mind. If he did it
wouldn’t work.
“Remember to hold tight to each other, the slipstream could
be treacherous,” he admonished them.
Durango made the final adjustments to their heading. D-Day
called out the GPS cues as they howled in under 200 feet. With
his other hand D-Day throttled back on Bettie’s engines. Durango
began to pull up into a slight climb and lowered the flaps. The
Catalina began to flare out, and airspeed bled off quickly. The
final act was to switch off the transponder and altimeter squawk.
“<Ten seconds!>” Durango yelled. “<And remember: I NEVER
MISS!!!>”
Bettie’s Dare screamed in within two city blocks of the Embassy
at two hundred feet. The preprogrammed GPS prompt began to
flash on the display. D-Day’s voice rang out clear and loud over
the roar of the engines.
“<DROP! DROP! DROP!>”
Aerandir pushed them out the door with as much force as he dared.
“<They’re clear!>” D-Day called as he watched out of the
canopy. He still couldn’t believe they were doing this, but what
the hell, right?
Durango firewalled the engines, which roared in reply. The
Catalina began to level off as it shot straight over the roof of the
Russian Embassy. Durango slip turned back on course directly
above the always busy Champs Elysee at an altitude of one hundred
and twenty feet.
“<Keep this pig in the air, man!>” D-Day yelled.
“<I’m on it!>” Durango shot back.
“<You’re gonna drop us straight into the Tulleries,>” D-Day
observed, gesturing to the park before them, and to the Louvre
not so far ahead. Like any good bombadier, he knew better than
to try and usurp Durango’s control by grabbing his own control
column.
“<I ain’t gonna drop us in the Tullieries!>” Durango snarled
back as he wrenched at the control column. “<Have a little faith
will ya?!>”
Ivan Tarchenko heard the sound of Bettie’s Dare roaring
overhead and then felt the entire building shake with its passing.
**What on Earth was that?**
He and the others who enjoyed a late evening drink in the
lounge looked up to the ceiling. Someone declared that it sounded
like a low flying aircraft. Members of the diplomatic staff ran to
the windows.
“<There is a plane crashing!>” One of them cried. That drew
the rest to the windows.
Nabiki and Ferguson were heading to the pickup point when
they saw the Catalina roar overhead, and dive for the river Seine.
Ferguson stopped the truck as he and Nabiki looked out the
windows. The seaplane was dropping like a dead duck.
“<Oh I hope Durango knows what he’s doing,>” Ferguson
remarked.
“<They should be out by now,>” Nabiki said, thinking of Hiro
and the others. She didn’t know that Akane had accompanied them
yet. She looked down at the cellular phone in her lap. Soon it would
ring, at least she hoped it would.
Anazali drew in the energy around her, felt it build up within her
body. The seaplane was close, she could hear it diving towards the
river where she stood. This was not something she made a habit of.
She wasn’t as strong as most of the others. Not like Aerandir, who
was stronger than he believed.
The air seemed to crackle around her.
Bettie’s Dare was seconds away.
“<This is it!>” Durango cried. He jerked at the control column
as the Catalina dropped like a rock in a stall. D-Day grabbed at his
column in support of Durango. They risked all the engine power
they had in their final maneuver.
“<One way or another people’re gonna think we crashed!>”
He yelled to no one in particular.
Bettie’s Dare bounced along the water for an instant before
clawing it’s way aloft. The two pilots had calculated their fuel
consumption very carefully to know how heavy they’d be when
they hit. It was close enough.
Anazali released the energy that had built up within her in a
furious lighting bolt. The bolt rippled across the river with a great
thunderclap, and the jet fuel exploded into the air with a blinding
fireball. Windows shattered close by, buildings shook, and the
narrow bridge over the Seine she had targeted disintegrated in a
roiling cloud of dust and shattered masonry.
Flames leaped across the river, rising fifty feet into the air.
She was nearly overwhelmed by the fierce heat, and found
herself stepping back in response. Debris from the destroyed
bridge began raining down around her.
As an afterthought she obliterated the ten empty fuel drums.
Fragments of scorched metal began to scatter around the street in
concert with the pieces of shattered stone. It was a scene straight
out of a disaster movie, and would keep emergency services busy
for sometime before anyone figured out that it was a hoax.
Feeling very tired, she ran away from the river to her next
objective. The nagging feeling that something was in the wind
tugged at her awareness. She couldn’t put her finger on it yet.
The sing-song wail of French emergency and police sirens
picked up in the distance.
Ranma-chan felt the building shake above her. She had no idea
what it was, but it was followed moments later by the sounds of
boot steps coming down the short hallway outside. She tensed in
expectation, ready to explode into whoever was dumb enough to
open the door.
Akane had never wanted to scream so badly in her life. Her
voice just wouldn’t come. She was falling at a hundred miles per
hour straight at a building from a height of a two hundred feet. In
fact there were buildings all around them they could hit. She
clutched onto Hiro with all her strength as he was the first out
of the door. She was dimly aware that Kuno was now behind
and above her.
Aerandir focused himself and began to pull at the winds around
them. There was ample energy to be found in the currents of the
air, and he was well accustomed to controlling them. The wind
responded to his wishes, twisting and pushing up at them. Their
falls began to slow.
He then tugged at the four below him, catching them up in his
mind. He willed them to slow down even as the winds pushed
against their fall. He needed energy to do this, but there was plenty
to be found in a bustling city of ten million people.
With one last tug of his mind he stopped them three feet short
of the ground. He released them then, and they dropped to their
feet upon the grounds within the twenty foot compound walls of
the Embassy. The underground garage was only thirty meters
away, and that was their best access into the building.
Professor McFogg’s watch read the appointed time. Durango
had not called, and therefore he had to assume that everything
was going as planned. He nodded his head to the Cambridge
student at the computer terminal.
The student got everyone’s attention in the chat room. Upon
giving the proper code word, those who were involved
acknowledged and left the chat room. The student then
disconnected.
McFogg looked to Doctor Casimir, who had his fingers crossed,
and to Doctor Vickers, who had brought two interns, a nurse and
enough surgical gear and supplies to provide immediate trauma
care as necessary when they arrived in England. McFogg prayed
that it was an unnecessary precaution.
Now all they could do was wait.
Emergency lines began ringing off the hook in Paris. Some of
the calls were legitimate calls from local Parisians who lived close
to the explosion Anazali had caused. The rest were a sudden influx
of bogus calls being bounced in from across Europe while looking
like local calls. They all said the same thing though: that a plane
had crashed in the river near Notre Dame.
Fire Companies scrambled to their trucks. Hospitals went on
alert. Police units called in off duty officers. The city responded as
best it could. No one knew exactly what was going on yet, but
plenty of misinformation was being fed to them.
That was why no one was terribly surprised when half of Paris
went black with the sudden disruption of electrical power.
Anazali couldn’t keep this kind of destruction up all night. The
substation crackled merrily beneath the street after the Maiar
woman had summarily blown it up. Pink and gold flames
launched into the air from vents in the streets and manway
covers. Lights went out all around her as power was lost.
Aerandir had just enough warning to push the others clear before
a lightning bolt exploded at his feet. Hiro had his Tommygun to bear
but no one to aim it at. The Embassy went dark a moment later.
Kuno caught Akane before she could fall, and pulled her to safety
beneath the garage overhang. Clay threw himself against the wall
and held out his pistol. He had nothing to aim at, but felt much
better with it in hand.
Aerandir looked up to see a man floating thirty feet above him.
A glitter of silver caught his eye, a large broadsword. He didn’t
have to see who it was that nearly fried them with a lightning bolt.
He felt his familiar presence.
It was his brother Palandir.
“Sil Amarn! I will not allow you to betray us so!” Palandir cried
to him in the tongue of the Maia.
“It is you who betray the world!” Aerandir retorted. He
detached a part of his consciousness long enough to shout in
the minds of Hiro, Akane, Kuno, and Clay.
^Go! Find Ranma and get him to safety! I shall follow when
I can!^
Hiro was the first to jump to action. He rushed the door to the
parking garage, jamming the butt of his Tommygun into the jaw
of the one man on guard. The Russian was stunned by the force
of the thunderclap, Hiro’s strike put him out for the rest of the night.
“Come on!” He shouted to the others.
Palandir watched them run and raised another lighting bolt. It
was hard to find the energy with all of the power out in the
neighborhood. He was forced to reach farther from the center
of the city. It took more time than he had.
Aerandir lofted up at him with his sword ready. Palandir let
go of his tenuous hold on the energy and raised his sword in
defense. Steel rang against steel as the two brothers clashed in
midair.
“Very clever, brother!” Palandir noted. The other four had
escaped within the garage, and there was no way he could reach
them without turning away from Aerandir. He did have other
means of taking care of them. As Aerandir had done moments
earlier, he now detached a part of his consciousness to sound the
alarm within the minds of Ivan Tarchenko and his cronies.
Ivan Tarchenko looked up at the lights as they went out. He saw
that lights had gone out all over that part of town. It didn’t matter,
the Embassy had it’s own backup diesel-driven generators on the
premises. They would start up automatically.
He suddenly wondered if the plane crash they had witnessed as
a huge ball of fire rising into the sky had been responsible. It made
sense. He looked to Fyodor and the other thugs in his employ.
They seemed unconcerned with the goings-on.
It was late. He was about to take his leave of the room and go
to bed when a sudden thought burst into his mind. Concern flashed
across his awareness. Something was very wrong and he must see
that his Japanese prisoner was secure.
It must have been the paranoia born of being a spy, but he
trusted gut instinct. Right now his gut was telling him to make
certain Ranma Saotome was secure. He yelled to Fyodor and
his men and ordered them to follow him to the examination cells
in the basement.
Ranma-chan tried to contain her glee as the sounds of a bolt
being thrown back echoed in the silence of the basement. The door
was opened. Just then the lights went out. She saw her one favorite
jailer look dumbstruck at the sight of a young woman wearing a
tattered tuxedo with the sleeves and pant legs rolled up to her
elbows and knees.
It was the last thing he saw. As the building’s lights went out,
so did his.
Emergency lights flicked on. Ranma-chan cracked her knuckles
with righteous fury as the man bounced off the far wall and collapsed
with a heavy thud to the stone floor. Doctor Pulatski stood across
the hall in shock as he saw a strange red-haired girl step out of the
cell and bash the daylights out of Gennady.
Ranma-chan turned and saw Pulatski back against the far wall
of the hallway, stammering in broken Russian. She glowered at him
and started stomping towards him. It was the kind of walk that was
only intimidating if you were a full grown and muscular man. The
hate filled look in Ranma-chan’s eyes more than made up for the
fact that she weighed 100 pounds soaking wet and holding a brick.
“You!” She yelled at him.
He didn’t understand Japanese, but he had an idea what she
was saying as she stabbed a finger at him.
She backed him against the wall and then lashed out a hand to
collar him and lift him up on his toes. Nevermind the fact that he
was several heads taller than the mysterious and extremely violent
girl that grabbed him. Nevermind the fact that he was even now
voiding his bladder onto the stone floor. Ranma-chan seemed not
to notice.
Ranma-chan switched to English. Hopefully the Russian had
a smattering of that. Otherwise she was just going to beat him to
a pulp and find someone else who could show her to the door.
“<Two things!>” She yelled in his face. “<Hot water and the
way out of here!>”
“<What?>” Pulatski cried. He understood the part about
leaving, but hot water?
“<I said...!>” Ranma-chan yelled, putting the squeeze on
Pulatski’s throat. “<I want some hot water and the way out of
here!>”
**Hot water?**
Ranma-chan gave him a tighter squeeze.
Pulatski gestured over to the examination room. Through the
open door she could see a coffee pot and some instant tea bags
in a glass bowl. Steam wafted from the pot.
She picked him up by the throat and dragged him with her to
the examination room. With one hand clamped firmly around his
throat, she reached out to the coffee pot and picked it up. This
was going to hurt, but beggars couldn’t be choosy.
She dumped the contents of the pot on her head. It was coffee
all right. And it was hot. She screamed in pain, and her voice
suddenly took on a deeper timbre. Pulatski nearly fainted as he
watched the girl grow taller, muscles burst forth on her arms, a bit
of five o’clock shadow formed on the face, the jawline became
tight and firm.
Suddenly there was a fully grown Japanese man with a black
pigtail holding him by the throat. It was Ranma Saotome! He
couldn’t believe his eyes!
“<Now about the way outta here...>” Ranma growled
menacingly at him.
“<H-How did..?>” Pulatski stammered in Russian.
Ranma threw the man into a stack of computer equipment.
Pulatski crashed onto the floor whining in pain. Ranma stood
over him and kicked him sharply with his bare foot.
“<No time for that!>” He yelled at the fallen scientist. “<All I
want is for you to get me the hell out of here. Do that and I’ll let
you live. Otherwise...>” He drew his hand across his throat in a
slicing motion.
Pulatski got the hint.
“<Which way?>” Hiro cried. They had made their way into the
lower levels of the Embassy with ease during the confusion.
Casimir had drawn them a fairly accurate map of the Embassy
from his time spent there in the 60s. Fortunately they hadn’t done
any major remodeling since then, as Hiro found what he
remembered to match up well with what he found. So far so good...
They had Akane in the middle with Clay. Kuno followed as
rearguard with his katana drawn and ready. Aerandir hadn’t caught
up with them, and Hiro could only presume that the mariner was
busy outside.
Clay squinted hard at Akane. The excitement was interfering
with his concentration, but after a few moments he could see the
red thread of psionic force that lead from her heart point straight
down and to the left of them. Ranma was down there.
“<The basement!>” Clay responded. “<To the left and down.>”
That was good enough for Hiro Ohata. He introduced a burly
GRU major who had blundered into them from a side door to the
butt of his Tommygun. The two hit it off right from the start, but
it was a short friendship.
As the GRU major hit the floor, things went to hell from there.
A security man cried out and drew a machine pistol. Hiro barked
a warning for Akane and Kuno and brought the Tommygun to
bear. Akane had just enough time to cry out as the first of the
Russian’s burst chewed into the fine oak paneled walls over her
head before Hiro’s answering burst took the man apart at the
midsection.
They ran past the fallen guard. Akane looked down with
horror at the dead Russian’s body. There wasn’t time for
anything more as the sounds of gunfire drew more attention.
Clay pulled on her with them. Suddenly she began to have a sense
of appreciation for Hiro trying to keep her from joining them.
Hiro led the way. The idea that they had been discovered rang in
his mind. It was to be expected, but they were counting on Aerandir’s
support. Now it was up to him to get them out of this alive. It was
like being back in the middle of the war again. He had never felt
more alive in his life than when someone was actively trying to kill
him.
Another burst of gunfire ripped apart an endtable in the hallway.
Hiro barked a short burst of suppression fire at the security man,
who ducked behind a door frame. The door to the stairwell was
just past the hallway.
“<Get Akane through that door! It leads to the basement!>”
Hiro yelled. He unlimbered his shotgun and cycled a shell.
Clay started to go, but the security man popped out from behind
the door while Hiro was busy and nearly blew the scientist apart in
a storm of 9mm hollowpoints. Akane saw the Russian just in time
and jerked him back behind the corner. Hiro fumbled up his
Tommygun with one hand and cut loose with the rest of the
magazine. The Russian ducked back behind the ruined door
frame to reload. Kuno sounded like he was hacking someone
up down the hall.
Hiro was ready now with the shotgun.
“Go!” he yelled at them. “I’m covering!”
Clay swallowed hard and jumped into the open. Akane followed.
The Russian appeared, and he had a friend. Hiro clamped down on
the shotgun trigger and held on.
Hiro’s shotgun blast annihilated the door behind the two
Russians as they jumped back inside at the last second. They
popped back out, guns blazing, before they thought Hiro could
cycle another shell through the breech. They were wrong.
9mm bullets whined past his head and shot down the hall.
One very nearly struck Akane, but it smashed into the paneled
walls and showered her with splinters. She cried out about the
time Hiro fired a second time with the shotgun.
Whereas Hiro’s first shell had been double-ought buckshot,
the second shell was a 3 inch Nitromag .50 caliber discarding sabot
slug. It blasted clean through both mens’ chests, through the wall
behind them, and out a first floor window via the closed steel
shutters. Hiro’s wrist and the webbing between his thumb and
forefinger were on fire. That was just not the kind of shotgun shell
you fired with a roomsweeper like the Stakeout.
Kuno ran up to him as he winced in pain for his wrist.
“No time to dawdle, man!” Kuno rebuked. “This way! Onward!”
Kuno charged through the door with his bloodstained sword
after Clay and Akane. Hiro decided to sling the shotgun again
and use the Tommygun for awhile. At least as long as the ammo
held up. He had burned one magazine already and they still hadn’t
found Ranma. The way things looked the whole building would
realize they were under attack before they could get out.
He jacked a fresh clip into the Tommygun and turned to follow
Kuno. He tried to ignore the two ruined corpses not ten meters
away. The sight of the cherries jubilee stain all over the hallway
was a little much even for him.
Aerandir leaped clear of Palandir’s fiery sword. His brother
was ever the finer swordsman than he, and he suspected he was
holding back from him. He managed to hold his own against the
renewed assault, but it was taking all he had.
“Why do you insist in this Sil Amarn?” Palandir asked him. “We
are your family!”
“Ask yourself why you insist upon destroying the world, Sil
Amass,” Aerandir retorted. “For that is what you seek!”
Palandir didn’t reply to that. Instead he lashed savagely at his
brother and said, “In truth I did not expect to see you here, brother.
One would think the sea has too great a hold upon you.”
“When the cause is noble enough, not even the sea may hold
me fast in its thrall.”
“And the life of one man is noble enough for you?”
“Especially the life of one man!” Aerandir cried. His brilliantly
flaming sword stroke nearly took Palandir’s nose off. “We were
sworn to protect these people since before you and I were born!”
“Then why do you betray us!?” Palandir thundered. His
brilliant sword strokes drove Aerandir down towards the ground.
“Our uncle would save this world and it’s people from themselves!”
Aerandir called up a reserve of strength to fight him off to a
standstill. Palandir retreated in midair to fly back thirty meters from
him. The mariner rose up to the same height and waited.
“A hundred of our finest magi couldn’t hold the Heart of the
World in the end. How do you imagine our dear uncle could hope
to do so alone?”
Palandir spit in reply. “Had any one of those hundred wise men
lived for twelve thousand years? I think not! Sarophan has the power
to tear this world in twain if that was his desire!”
“Sarophan may get his wish!”
They flew at each other again with renewed fury. They were
no longer brothers in each other’s eyes. They were the deadliest
of enemies.
Ivan Tarchenko heard the sound of gunfire from the lower
levels and suddenly his worst fears were coming true. **How was
this possible? This was the sovereign territory of the Russian
Federation. An attack was unthinkable!** But he knew it to be
true. He knew what they had come for, whoever they were.
He wasn’t going to let them have Ranma Saotome alive.
Fyodor and the others drew appropriate small arms and followed
Tarchenko to the basement holding area. Calls to the Paris Police
had been futile, every single man they had was converging on the
site of the plane crash. The local television stations, acting on
anonymous reports, were calling it the worst air disaster in French
history.
If necessary he would have Saotome killed on the spot. It
wasn’t as if he had any more use for him in any event. Fyodor
grunted to his men, and they began to file down the hallways.
Staff types and pencil pushers cowered behind doors, unsure of
what was going on. They watched timidly at them as they made
their way to the stairwell. Others began the process of destroying
classified documents. He could hear the shredders working
overtime.
**I’m afraid I’ve worn out my welcome here,** Tarchenko
thought bitterly. **But if in the end I have the Heart of the World,
it will not matter.**
Ranma had Pulatski by the throat as the scientist directed him
towards the stairwell. If his luck held out, he could be free in ten
minutes. Maybe less. He didn’t know what he would do once he
escaped, but he’d burn that bridge when he crossed it.
Chapter Four
Kuno had the point as they scrambled down the dimly lit
stairwell. His sword gleamed by the emergency lighting as he
stomped down the stairs. Akane stayed close to Clay. She was
starting to understand why Hiro had been so adamant about her
staying in Monaco. The last thing she wanted to think about
was getting herself shot.
She just wanted to find Ranma. She needed to know that he
was all right. She vowed that she would do anything to see him
safe and sound. They had a future together, and no one was going
to take that from them.
Hiro snaked ahead of them again. He had powder burns on his
face from where a guard had nearly taken his head off at point blank
range with an AK-74. Akane didn’t have to guess where the bright
red splatter across his brow had came from.
“<How much further?>” He cried. He was running out of
ammo for the Tommygun.
Clay knew they were close. The red thread of force was visible
to him without any effort now.
“<There!>” he cried, pointing down to the bottom of the
stairwell. “<He’s down there for certain!>”
Hiro slammed up against the stairwell wall to make room for
them to pass. “Kuno! Cover them below while I cover from
above!” He unlimbered the shotgun again and remembered to
extend the folding wire stock this time. It wasn’t much, but at
least he could brace it against his shoulder.
“You need not give orders to me Ohata!” Kuno bellowed.
“Tatewaki Kuno knows what must be done!” He leaped over the
banister and down two flights of steps to the bottom.
Ranma Saotome appeared through the door with Pulatski in
his grasp.
Kuno very nearly decapitated Ranma in his fury and haste.
His blade stopped just a centimeter shy of Ranma’s throat. Both
Ranma and Pulatski breathed a sigh of relief. Pulatski because
Kuno’s blade was going to go through him on the way out of
Ranma’s neck.
“Saotome!” Kuno announced. “I am a man of my word,
and have come to rescue you from these villains!”
“Hey uh, thanks Kuno,” Ranma managed. As much as he
hoped someone would come, he honestly hadn’t expected it.
“RANMA!” Akane cried out from a flight of stairs above.
Ranma looked up to see Akane, dressed in black mufti, looking
down at him. He didn’t know if he wanted to cry out in delight or
in rage at seeing her here in the middle of this mess. Kuno took
his burden from him, throwing Pulatski against the wall and raising
his sword to cut him down.
“Thus ends thy sorry life!” Kuno cried wrathfully.
“Hold on a second Kuno!” Ranma told him. “We could always
use a hostage to get out of here.” Even he had noticed the sounds
of gunfire raging above just minutes earlier, and figured the element
of surprise was quite thoroughly destroyed.
Kuno complied with a scowl and pushed the man before them
at the end of his sword. This sorry wretch deserved only a swift
death by his hands.
“Step lively knave, lest ye feel the steel of the Blue Thunder!”
A poke of the katana between the shoulder blades got Pulatski
moving, even though he didn’t understand a word of Kuno’s
Japanese.
Akane wasted no time in jumping down over the banister to
reach Ranma. She ran up to him and threw her arms around him,
eyes suddenly dewing with tears. A tiny part of him knew better
than to waste precious time holding her tight against him, but that
was the part that didn’t love her with all of his heart. He caught
her up in what would have been a crushing embrace if they weren’t
used to each other’s shows of affection.
“I thought I’d lost you forever,” she whispered to him.
“You know me better than that,” he replied quietly.
“Well you didn’t have to scare me like that. Twice is enough
for one lifetime with you! Now three times?” She retorted once
more in a whisper. She kissed him on the cheek next to his ear
and let him go.
“You okay Saotome?” Hiro called from above them.
“What took you so long?” Ranma shot back. “Hell, I was
halfway out of here on my own!”
“Finding out what city you were in took a little time,” Hiro said
as the party climbed back up the steps. Pulatski was in front acting
as a convenient bullet stopper for them should the need arise. Clay
followed behind Kuno and Pulatski. Now that Ranma was found,
he served no more purpose, and was eager to get the hell out of
here while the getting was good.
“Oh yeah?” Ranma asked, holding Akane close to his side.
“What city is that?”
“Paris!” Akane said next to him.
“This ain’t how I was hoping to visit Paris,” he observed. He
reluctantly took the Tommygun Hiro gave him because he had been
pretty wasted over the last three days and had spent damn near
all his strength on Pulatski while in a rage. Hiro had the Stakeout
in hand, sweeping it along the winding stairwell banister above
them as they climbed.
“That’s okay Saotome, I think we’re in the process of leveling
most of it in order to make a diversion for your rescue,” Hiro
remarked casually.
“That was nice of you.”
“Anytime.”
Ranma looked at the Tommygun.
“Feeling kinda light. What do I have left?”
Hiro handed him a stick magazine from his pouch. “Maybe half
a clip in the gun, plus this one. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Ranma tucked the clip in his waist band. “I’ll try not to.”
“It’s a Thompson, so it’s got a low rate of fire compared to
the MP-5 you’re used to. And the bullets are nice fat .45
hydrashoks, so don’t try shooting through any walls with it.
They might make it through, but not in any shape to do much
good.”
“I’ll remember that.”
They were just getting up to the right floor when a blast of
gunfire from high above them hit Pulatski. The scientist staggered
back against Kuno, his white lab coat suddenly soaked in red.
The man tumbled over as Kuno threw him aside and began
moaning on the stairwell.
Hiro only saw the muzzle flash for a second and fired his
Stakeout on reflex. Ranma jerked Akane behind him to shield
her from any more gunfire. Clay began shooting sporadically over
their heads until his Sig was empty.
“<Did you think you were going somewhere Mister Saotome?>”
Ivan Tarchenko yelled down at them in English. He looked to
the others in his group. Fyodor and his men readied hand
grenades. Their fingers locked around safety rings in preparation
to arm and toss them at Tarchenko’s command.
“<I’m tired of your lousy hospitality!>” Ranma shot back.
“<Perhaps we should talk this over,>” Tarchenko told them.
“<If you would prefer your fiancée to live I suggest you listen to
me.>”
“<Go to hell!>” Ranma yelled furiously.
Tarchenko nodded to Fyodor and the others. They pulled the
safeties on their grenades. The grenades’ spoons flicked away and
rang upon the concrete stairs.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!” Kuno hissed
suddenly.
He wasted no time in busting down the door to the floor that
opened into the parking garage. He began waving his sword at
them to spur them on. Hiro finished off the rest of the shotgun’s
internal magazine and began combat loading on the run.
“Make haste!” Kuno bellowed to the four of them. “Lest the
foe surround us!”
“Go!” Hiro yelled at Ranma and Akane. “While their heads
are down!” He kept up a blistering series of shotgun blasts.
Ranma pulled at Akane, practically dragging her through the
door. Clay was close behind them. Kuno was already charging
down the hall with his sword, chasing the staff types before
him and ranting madly.
Hiro saw the dull egg shaped grenades falling towards them
as they made their break for the exit to the stairwell. His finger
tensed on the trigger of the shotgun once more as he leaped for
the door. He just hoped it wouldn’t hurt as much as he was
expecting.
“Fire in the hole!” He yelled.
Ranma caught and lifted Akane off her feet while still on the
run. He threw her a little roughly to the floor against the wall
and then dove over her body. She cried out in protest, but in
that scant second before the grenades went off she saw that he
was too busy holding his ears and yawning. In that instant she
figured he knew something she didn’t, and copied him as best
she could.
Six grenades exploded in unison at the door. The shockwave
helped to blast Hiro clear of the door. Glass windows set in doors
shattered, paintings and photographs were shaken off the walls.
A wall of heat and black smoke washed over them.
A consuming silence fell over them, broken only by the patter
of dust and small bits of the ceiling raining down.
“You okay?” Ranma asked her.
She was seeing stars from the noise of the explosions, but told
him she was all right. He wasted no time in pulling her to her feet.
Clay was already up and helped them along. Ranma cast a look
back to Hiro, who pulled himself up and hobbled towards them
with a limp.
“Hiro!” Akane cried when she saw the bloodstains on his right leg.
Hiro waved them off and barked at them to keep moving.
“It ain’t bad!” He protested. Actually it wasn’t, but hurt like
blue blazes anyway just to spite him.
Aerandir knew he was outmatched against his brother’s
swordsmanship. Part of his awareness informed him that Ranma
had been found alive and well, and for that he was glad. All he
needed to do was hold off his brother long enough for the others
to escape.
He wasn’t sure what Palandir would do if he saw Ranma
escaping, but wasn’t prepared to take any chances with the
young man’s life. It was possible that Palandir was merely
around the Embassy awaiting orders from their uncle to kill
Ranma. Perhaps Sarophan had assessed the man and his
fiancée as the threat Anazali and her companions believed them
to be.
He didn’t have too much time to dwell on such thoughts, as
Palandir drove home another series of glittering fiery sword strokes
upon him. He heard astonished voices in French and Russian below
them as he fought off the attack. He and his brother were putting
on quite an aerial show for them.
“You waste my time brother,” Palandir told him curtly. “I have
other business here.”
“If it concerns the life of Ranma Saotome and his fiancée than
I’m afraid you’ll have to take it up with me, Sil Amass.”
“So be it!” Palandir barked. “I did not wish to kill you, but if
I must than I shall!”
Aerandir braced for the all out assault he knew Palandir had
been holding back from him.
“<I wish I knew what was going on,>” Ferguson lamented.
The truck was at the assigned pickup point four blocks from the
embassy. Power was still out in this part of town, and the incessant
wail of police and emergency sirens echoed in the distance. The
Parisians hadn’t figured out yet that the crash had been a hoax.
Nabiki silently agreed. Her thoughts drifted to Akane and
Ranma. Hiro. Even Tatewaki Kuno. She hoped they were all right.
Anazali appeared silently before them out of thin air. Both
Ferguson and Nabiki started in their seats within the truck. The
woman’s oddly complected skin seemed to glow even in the
darkness. Nabiki found herself just a little jealous of her for a
moment.
The Maia woman looked very weary. She walked over to the
cab and opened the door. Nabiki scooted over next to Ferguson to
make room for her. Anazali stepped up into the cab and sank into
the bench seat.
“Are you okay?” Nabiki asked her.
Anazali nodded.
“I’m very worried,” she told them. “I sense another presence
here. On par with Aerandir, and that frightens me.”
“Huh? Who?” Nabiki asked. Ferguson was quite lost.
“There are few among my kind who are as old or as powerful
as Aerandir. I myself am but an eighth of his span of years... I fear
it may be Sil Amass, known as Palandir, his brother.”
Nabiki remembered Aerandir mention his brother once to Ukyo.
He had been the one to pull them from the Dneister River. He
had saved them from Tarchenko’s murder squad, and sent them
to safety with Aerandir that they be taken to Sarophan. If Palandir
was their enemy, then that meant that Sarophan was their enemy.
And that meant that...
“Oh my God!” Nabiki cried in horror. “Ukyo!”
“What is it, Nabiki?” Anazali asked her.
“Ukyo! She’s with Aerandir’s uncle!”
Anazali was missing something here. So was Ferguson. Nabiki
looked at both of them and grit her teeth in frustration. There was
too much to explain to be doing it here.
Anazali didn’t give her the chance. She jumped out of the truck
and started running towards the Embassy.
“Waitaminute!” Nabiki yelled at her. “Where do you think
you’re going?”
“Aerandir needs my help!” Anazali cried in reply. Then she
faded from sight.
“Damn!” Nabiki cursed. She turned to Ferguson and gave him
a sour look. “<You know Fergy-baby, just once I’d like someone
to sit me down and explain to me absolutely everything that’s going
on around here.>”
Ferguson gave her a dubious look in reply, thinking back to what
he had said to begin this conversation. “<You’d like to know what’s
going on? Bloody hell lass, I should think you know a damn sight
more than me!>”
The two of them harrumphed and turned back to face over the
hood of the truck. Nabiki felt very cold inside with the knowledge
that Ukyo was in the clutches of their enemy. **I won’t lose Akane,
Ranma, and Ukyo too. I won’t lose any of them!**
Tarchenko scrambled down the smoke filled stairwell when
Fyodor and his men had secured it. One of Fyodor’s men had the
dazed Doctor Pulatski in his arms. Aside from the bullet wound in
the arm, the doctor was unhurt. Blind luck had him roll down the
stairs far enough to avoid the shrapnel of the grenades.
“<Where are they?>” He demanded.
Fyodor pointed down the hall.
“<Kill them, Fyodor!” Tarchenko thundered to the big Ukrainian.
“<They serve no further use to us, and are in fact aggravating me
greatly! Kill all of them!>”
Fyodor nodded and circled his finger to muster his men. Finally
he would be able to do what he did best. He was tired of treading
lightly upon eggshells. It was time to crush a few.
Kuno held off two guards at sword point. He had deftly
disarmed them, his blade having cut clean through their rifles.
He was just about to turn them into steak tartare when Ranma
and the others came running towards him from down the hall.
The parking garage beyond was now filled with armed soldiers.
Unfortunately it was their only way out.
“Leave ‘em,” Ranma told the swordsman. “We got other
problems.”
Kuno seethed at being told what to do, but conceded that
Saotome might have a point. He leaped at both of them, bringing
his pommel down upon their heads and knocking them out cold.
He spat upon them in contempt.
“Know ye that the mercy of the Blue Thunder is vast beyond
even your meager worth,” he told them.
“<I hope you have a plan to get past all those soldiers,>” Clay
said in a hushed voice. The soldiers for their part were busy
watching two men outside wheel and dive around each other
in midair. Silvery flashes of light were punctuated by the ring
of steel on steel.
“That’s Aerandir!” Akane cried. “Who’s he fighting?”
“Beats me,” Ranma replied. He looked to Hiro, who was
rubbing at his leg and looking for the piece of shrapnel that hurt
him so. “Got any ideas?”
“You’re the great martial artist,” Hiro replied between clenched
teeth. He found it.
“If I thought I had the juice left in me, I’d rush ‘em.” Ranma
said bitterly. “But even if I did, it’s too dangerous with Akane
and Mister Clay to worry about.”
“Hah! You think I can’t take a few?” Akane asked archly.
Ranma clenched his fists and glared at her. She glared back
at him.
“For Christ’s sake, this is no time to start arguing,” Hiro spat.
He pulled an inch long piece of bloody steel filament wire from
his leg. Standard anti-personnel shrapnel. “Give me a minute, and
I’ll give us a little cover.”
He bit back a few choicer curses as he shifted his weight on
his wounded leg. He reached into his satchel and produced a
brace of four canisters. He handed one to Ranma, Kuno and
Akane, keeping the last for himself.
Akane looked at hers. It had this ring pin on the top of the can.
“What?”
“Smoke grenade,” Ranma supplied for her.
“If I had any I woulda brought a few frags, but we were
kinda in a hurry to find you.”
“This’ll work,” Ranma said. He looked to Kuno, who readied
his without a word. Then he looked to Akane. “Just pull the pin
when we do and throw the grenade at them.”
“On three,” Hiro said. He pulled his pin and the rest followed.
“One...Two.. Three!”
He lobbed his smoke grenade as Clay held the door open.
Ranma and Kuno hurled theirs. Akane wound up and threw hers
as hard as she could. Hiro’s grenade popped loudly in flight, then
began spewing forth voluminous clouds of thick blue smoke. At
the sound the Russians turned, only to get more grenades going
off around them. The last Russian in sight took Akane’s grenade
right in the forehead and was cold-cocked before it went off.
“Well that wasn’t quite what I had in mind, but whatever works!”
Ranma said to her as they watched the Russian fall over unconscious.
Hiro charged through the smoke blasting his shotgun blindly in
the direction of the Russians. Kuno let out a blood-curdling war
cry and leaped to follow. Ranma led Akane around the outskirts
of the garage. There was no way he was going to take her through
the middle of Hiro and Kuno’s crazed charge.
The garage became pure pandemonium. Choking blue smoke
filled the space, billowing out of the open doors. Gunfire erupted
in response to Hiro’s shotgun blasts. Kuno kept yelling something
like “The Hundred Blows!” and men screamed in terror and pain.
Akane coughed against the smoke and her eyes watered badly.
Ranma led them past the melee with Clay close behind. As they
staggered out into the open he saw a Russian raise his rifle against
them. Akane shrieked once. He remembered the Tommygun and
emptied the clip into the man’s legs. The Russian dropped like a
stone and began howling.
Hiro appeared through the smoke a second later. Kuno charged
through behind him. They were free of the building, there was
just the matter of the twenty foot high walls before them.
They looked towards the gate, which someone had finally
sealed off and posted with heavily armed security guards. They
wouldn’t be getting out of there that way. They were still trapped.
“Aerandir was supposed to get us over the wall,” Hiro said
bitterly.
Palandir had finally drawn blood. His brother had fought with
all his might, but the superior skill was beginning to tell. Aerandir
managed to disengage long enough to get a few meters between
them. Blood dripped down onto the grass of the courtyard below
from a slash across his side.
That was when Palandir saw that Ranma and the others had
escaped from the building.
“Very clever!” He commended Aerandir. “You play a
marvelous waiting game... All for naught I’m afraid.”
Palandir began to gather the energy he needed. The electricity
was restored to the building, so there was no need to reach so
far from himself to collect it. He held Aerandir back with one
arm pointing the sword directly towards him, while the other arm
lifted over his head. St. Elmo’s fire began to crackle in his hand.
Aerandir wasn’t finished yet. He knew he couldn’t charge his
brother without catching either the sword or the energy blast that
was being mustered. Instead he decided to affect a more localized
defense. He reached out with his mind, looking for something
useful.
A gas main beneath the grounds ruptured at his prompt.
It didn’t take much from there to get it lit.
A geyser of blue and orange flame rocketed skyward. The
Russians on the grounds cried out in panic and threw themselves
to the grass. The main blowtorched fifty feet into the black sky.
The roar of the ruptured gas main was deafening, distracting
Palandir’s attention back towards Aerandir. Ranma and the
others had a few more moments respite.
The exploding gas main sent Ranma and the others to the grass
as well.
“You get the feeling we’re the minor players in this firefight?”
Hiro groused. He jerked a thumb into the air at the two dueling
Maiar.
“We got ourselves another distraction,” Ranma said. He
scrambled to his feet. “Come on, I got an idea!”
They got up with him and followed him to the corner of the
wall and away from all of the pyrotechnics. Kuno began to argue
that a charge upon the gate would succeed, but Hiro started
yelling back that it was crazy to charge across that much open
ground. Clay kept watch against the Russians, but for the
moment it was clear that they were still trying to deal with
the exploding gas main to bother with the five intruders.
Ranma ignored them and looked straight into Akane’s eyes.
“I need your help for this,” he told her. “I can’t do it alone.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I don’t have the juice for a ki-blast on my own. I haven’t
slept in three days, really. The only thing keeping me up right now
is the adrenaline. I need you to power me up.”
“What? I can’t do any of that stuff!” Akane protested. It was
a bitter point with her, as she had felt very little like a martial artist
around people who could use such techniques.
“You’re wrong, Akane!” Ranma told her sternly. “This attack
doesn’t work unless you have the utmost confidence in yourself.
You have to believe you can do it! I’ll get the thing started, but I
need you to help me give it some oomph!”
“What are you talking about? How am I supposed to give any
power to you?”
Ranma clasped his hand in hers. By this time Hiro and Kuno
had stopped arguing and spared them a look of wonderment.
Then a stray bullet whizzing by got their attention, and they
focused themselves on holding the Russians off. Clay had the
Tommygun now, and began clipping short bursts at them to the
accompaniment of Hiro’s shotgun and Kuno’s taunting oaths.
Ranma paid no attention to any of it, instead looking once more
into Akane’s eyes.
“It’s our ki’s, Akane. We’ve got each other’s ki’s. Sort of.
Parts of them anyway. That’s why we’re skewed opposite of
each other! You’ve got a piece of me inside you, I’ve got a piece
of you inside me! When we’re together, we’re the same!”
Akane knew it to be true then. She didn’t know what she could
do to help, but now as Ranma began to gather himself, she could
feel that part of him within her begin to glow with power. That
inner flame was infectious, spreading to the rest of her until she
tingled at the fingertips with heat.
“I know you can do this,” he said to her. “I believe in you.
You just gotta believe in yourself.”
He held out his right hand as he held her right in his left. She
put her free hand next to his as he directed. He took a deep breath.
He could feel what little power he had to spare rising within him.
**It would be enough, dammit!**
The fireball of ki energy began to coalesce in their hands. He
was giving it all he had. Akane gasped as she saw it, and more
importantly _felt_ it. There was power there: his power, her power,
_their_ power. She felt it flow out of her in a torrent.
The fireball grew and grew in their hands. It was all Ranma
could do to keep it together, Akane was busy feeding it her
strength. When he had all he could hope to contain and
possibly a little bit more, he flung it forth.
“MOKO TAKABISHA!!!” They cried in unison.
For an instant, if you knew what you were looking for, you
could see the image of a tiger swell around the two. The ki ball
blossomed forth into a lance of power that slammed straight
through the stone wall with runaway freight train force. The
explosion blew them off their feet, and for one panicked moment
Hiro thought a Russian had launched an RPG at them from the
roof.
When the smoke and dust cleared, there was a seven foot
hole blasted through eighteen inches of stone. The edges of the
hole were scorched black. A faint sparkle of light dimmed to
nothingness in the wake of the blast. Clay lowered the Thompson
and stared wide-eyed at the huge hole through the wall.
“Let’s go!” Ranma yelled. He sagged against Akane for a
second, and she helped to steady him.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a little shaky,” he replied. He started towards the hole.
“Come on, I’ll be fine.”
Hiro didn’t need a written invitation. He fired the last of his
three-inch Nitromags into the corner of the building where several
guards took shelter before running for the hole. The slug blew
apart a large stone, peppering the Russians with rock shrapnel
and convincing them that they had best wait a few moments
before doing anything.
Aerandir felt the buildup and release of ki energy below. The
explosion that blew apart the wall surprised him. He hadn’t
expected Saotome to be capable of such a feat in his current
condition.
Palandir was of a like mind.
“It appears Nimatar’s opinions of them are well founded,” he
said to himself. His hand crackled with power and he directed it
at the fleeing party below. Aerandir realized that he didn’t have
much choice at this point, and flung himself towards his brother
with a great cry.
It wasn’t Aerandir who connected with Palandir. It was
Anazali’s blast that caught the Maia across the chest in a storm
of radiant blue light. Palandir staggered back in midair, stunned,
but not hurt. Anazali’s attack wasn’t strong enough to hurt him.
He snarled a curse and split his energies into a triple tined fork
of crimson red might. One blast stopped Aerandir cold, making
him wince against the blow but not seriously hurting him. Anazali
was blasted to the ground with a cry of pain. The third blast landed
squarely between Ranma and Akane, and the others.
The pavement was thrown up around them in a ear-splitting
peal of thunder. Angry red motes of light exploded around them,
burning with an icy touch upon exposed skin. Ranma and Akane
stumbled forward, still running, while Hiro and the others were
thrown back.
Hiro, Kuno, and Clay were closest to the blast, and were
knocked silly by the concussion. They fell over face down and
lay there with their ears ringing loudly. It was the only thing that
saved them when Fyodor and his men came charging through the
hole in pursuit of Ranma and Akane.
Fyodor saw the smoking crater the three were laying around
like points on a clock face, and decided that they were quite dead.
He saw Ranma and Akane running away from their friends and
that confirmed his beliefs. He motioned for his men to pursue
them. There was too much cover for a clear shot at them down
the tree lined boulevard.
They ran off in hot pursuit.
When Hiro got to his feet and the dust settled, he could see
Ranma and Akane running away as fast as they could. He could
also see Fyodor and his men chasing them. He yelled a warning
but they were too far away to hear him. He pulled himself painfully
to his knees, waiting for another blast to come raining down upon
them, and praying that one wouldn’t. Kuno got back to his feet,
and turned in time to cut down one of the Russians with his sword
as the man ran through the hole.
The scream cut short was enough to get Hiro moving again.
Bullets crashed around him as Kuno stepped away from the hole,
and the rest of the Russians opened up with AK-74s. Clay threw
himself against the wall and began edging away as fast as he could.
All he had left was the Sig. He drew it in one swift motion and
stood in the middle of the hail of bullets and fired twice. His shots
took the closest one square in the chest, pitching him back. He kept
firing, knowing that he was buying time for Ranma and Akane to
escape.
The seventh round was gone and the slide locked back before
he realized what a stupid thing he was doing. A bullet grazed him
across the temple and confirmed it. As he spun around seeing stars
he wished he hadn’t done it. When he hit the ground he saw that
Ranma and Akane had put a considerable distance between
themselves and the Embassy. At least he had kept more people
from chasing after them for long enough to let the trail grow cold.
**Hope it was worth it,** he thought before he blacked out.
Kuno saw Hiro spin around to the ground and felt the splatter
of fine droplets of hot blood upon his face. While Ohata had
never been his friend, he too was a comrade in arms, and he
deserved to be avenged. He would take that vengeance now.
“Oh wretched villains!” He raged at them, as heedless of
the bullets as Hiro had been. (Such courage must only be
recognized in kind.) “Your lives are forfeit! The Blue Thunder
comes for thee!”
A growl arose from the depths of his throat. He raised his sword
on high, and at once sparkling blue flames lit up along the steel. If
he had known that he was doing it, he would have stopped and
stared in awe right there.
But this was Tatewaki Kuno, and when the red rage was
upon him the words ‘tunnel vision’ failed to describe his lack of
awareness. He charged right at ten men armed with AK-74s with
fifty feet between them. The Russians stood their ground and
dropped into firing stances.
The rifles barked with foot long tongues of flame in the night.
Brass shell casings spurted high into the air in shimmering golden
streams. The sound of so many fully automatic reports was blurred
into an angry roar of gunfire.
They never touched him.
The first one was lifted up into the air with the steely stroke
and flung ten feet away. His uniform became wreathed in eery blue
flames as he hit the ground. The second one took a slash across
the chest and fell back with those same blue flames licking across
his clothes. The third was twisting away in panic and so only lost
an arm at the elbow.
The rest had enough time to scramble away in panic. They did
not face a man but a incoherently babbling demon with a fiery
sword! Kuno bellowed at them to stand and die with some honor.
He shook his flaming sword at them and berated them ceaselessly
for their cowardice. He still hadn’t noticed the spectral flames that
danced upon the blade.
Hiro had by this time come around. He had caught the tail end
of Kuno’s suicide charge and grit his teeth expecting the swordsman
to get blown into hamburger. Instead the butcher shop belonged to
Tatewaki Kuno. Hiro shook his head in disbelief. This was just like
Korea. His thoughts drifted back to memories of Kuno standing
upright in the middle of artillery barrages unscathed. Of him taunting
machine gun nests as others worked their way in close with
grenades.
**And by way, where the hell did those blue flames come from
on his sword?** Some terribly rational part of his mind squeaked
in his head.
“How the hell does he _do_ that?” Hiro said to himself. He
brought his hand up to his brow and it came away slicked in blood.
It didn’t hurt, yet, and he had more pressing concerns.
Like finding Ranma and Akane before the Russians did.
The truck with Nabiki and Ferguson screeched to a halt next
to Hiro as he stood up. Hiro spun around ready to put his fresh
magazine through them. Nabiki raised her hands to her face,
expecting to get shot.
Hiro lowered the Sig and jumped inside next to Nabiki. She
looked at the dirty, bloody mess he had become, and reached for
something to staunch the free flowing wound at his temple. Hiro
for his part was screaming for Clay and Kuno to get in the truck.
Clay appeared from behind a tree and made his break for the bed.
Kuno looked around him as if he was hearing a ghost, which
considering that he thought Hiro was dead, was exactly what
he was thinking. The sword was no longer alight.
“Kuno you blockhead!” Nabiki yelled at him.
“There isn’t time for this!” Hiro yelled. “We gotta go now!”
Kuno stood there with his back to them looking very puzzled.
He couldn’t possibly have heard the voice of Nabiki Tendo.
Could he?
Nabiki brought out the big guns.
“Tate-chan!” She called to him sweetly.
This couldn’t be a hallucination. Kuno turned around to see
Nabiki Tendo smiling winsomely for him from the window of a
heavy truck. As soon as he figured out that he wasn’t seeing things,
her expression became very irate.
“Get in the truck you moron!” She yelled at him.
Kuno turned and ran back for the truck. He saw that Hiro was
still alive, and was about to say something in regards to it when
Nabiki collared him and dragged him halfway through the window.
“<Step on it Fergy-baby!>” She cried over Kuno’s vehement
protestations.
Ferguson put the truck in gear and floored the accelerator. As
the truck sped off down the boulevard, police cars finally showed
up in response to the Embassy’s pleas. The gas main continued to
spew fifty foot high flames into the night as they put distance
between themselves and the Russian Embassy.
Palandir wasn’t expecting his brother to have fared so well after
his blast. He had thought that he had hurt him. He was mustering
up the power to incinerate the fallen Anazali when he felt another
power surge from behind. He spun around in midair as Aerandir
brought his fists down swiftly to his sides, and the winds spiraled
around the blowtorching gas main, turning it into a tornado of
flame. Aerandir directed the winds again, launching the tornado
at his brother.
Palandir admired his brother’s cleverness. He was always a
master of such elemental forces as the wind, never much for the
raw power of an energy blast. His wind attack was subtle in that
Palandir was expecting something flashier, something with a bit
of give-away before it hit.
It took all his will to muster sufficient moisture around him
to keep him from being broiled by the fiery tornado. As it was
he felt the waves of blistering heat all around him, driving him
away as fast as he could fly. He would have to flee or he would
be burnt to a crisp. As long as he was close to the burning gas
main he was vulnerable to more of those tornadoes. He didn’t
have a chance at contesting Aerandir for control of the wind.
As he fled his awareness flicked out ahead of him. There
was the unfinished matter of the two Wayfinders. If anyone
needed to die tonight, it was them. Aerandir could wait. When
Sarophan bound the Heart of the World perhaps his brother
would see his mistake. In time they could be reconciled. It might
take a few centuries, but that wasn’t an inordinately long amount
of time to wait.
Aerandir knelt over Anazali. She yet lived, though her breathing
was labored. Her eyes had a dull gleam of pain in them.
“That was a stupid thing to do, woman,” he told her softly in
the tongue of the Maia. “Had he not split his attack in three parts
you would have been slain.”
Anazali looked up with a weary smile for him.
“I had to do something for the living legend of our people.”
Aerandir took her up into his arms and carried her gently
towards the gate. The police were arriving, as well as a few fire
trucks called away from the bogus crash site. He walked past
all of them, caressing each man’s mind, whispering to them that
there was nothing to see. They let him pass without comment.
He knew that Ranma and Akane had escaped. He could only
hope that they were on their way to the rendezvous point with
Durango and his seaplane for the quick hop across the English
Channel. Palandir was out there as well. He could be searching
for them even as he delayed with Anazali.
A sudden prickling sensation traveled up his spine. He sniffed at
the air then, not liking what he sensed. Anazali wriggled in his arms.
“There, did you feel it too?” She asked him.
“Yes.”
“It’s coming,” she declared. “They won’t be leaving Paris yet.”
“You are likely correct,” he responded.
“Set me down,” she told him then. “I can manage for myself
now. You must protect them from Palandir.”
Chapter Five
“<Where the hell are they?>” Heironymous Durango grumbled.
Bettie’s Dare was making a slow and low orbital of the vast Bois
de Boulogne Park. They were sufficiently low enough and
screened by the low hills surrounding Paris proper from the air
search radars of Orly and Charles de Gaulle.
“<They’ll call,>” D-Day said not looking up from the Electronics
Warfare suite. A stray beam of radar energy occasionally hit them,
but not of sufficient strength for the kind of return signal an ATC
would consider to be anything more than ground clutter. He listened
over the headphones, dialing around the various radio and
microwave frequencies to monitor for signs of the rescuers’
progress. (Or detection.)
So far there was mass confusion at the ‘crash scene’. Radio
calls for scuba divers and a 100 ton mobile crane were traveling
back and forth across the ether. A frantic report of a gas main
explosion at the Russian Embassy got his attention. He didn’t
have enough French to get any details, just enough to pick out
key words.
The cellular phone rang then. Durango fumbled it up with
one hand as he kept the other on the control yoke. He turned
it on and barked, “<where are you guys?>”
Nabiki’s voice replied. “<We have a little problem. It’s going
to be awhile.>”
“<What’s going on?>”
“<We got Ranma out, but we lost them in the confusion. We’re
trying to find them now. We’ll call you when we can.>”
Nabiki hung up.
“<Shit!>” Durango cursed. He looked up to the sky. “<I knew
this wasn’t going to be easy, but work with me here, okay?! I
thought we were doing the right thing here!>”
D-Day looked at him after this outburst.
“<Since when did you get religious?>”
“<Since never, but a little intercession couldn’t hurt right now.>”
Bettie’s Dare continued its impatient orbit of the park.
Ranma and Akane were about to stop running when they
noticed that Fyodor and his men were only two blocks behind.
The Ukrainian and his men were gaining on them. They couldn’t
see Hiro or the others anywhere, and suddenly wondered when
they had lost them.
Speaking of lost, they had no idea where they were. They were
just running now. Ranma doubted that he had the kind of
horsepower left to try and fight them. He would if it came
down to it of course, but he wasn’t very optimistic about his
chances.
**Maybe if I had a chance to rest.**
He tugged at Akane’s hand and pulled her towards the river.
There was a small park here, perhaps they could lose them through
it and backtrack. Akane followed after, glad at least for bringing
running shoes. She had almost procured a pair of combat boots
like Hiro’s for this. Ranma was barefoot. At least he was used to
running barefoot.
“Any ideas?” He asked her.
“What are you asking me for?” She replied with nary a huff.
She was thankful for keeping in shape during their time with the
Professor. The running was paying off.
“ ‘Cause at the moment I’m fresh out,” he declared. “I guess
we can just run all night until we find Hiro and the others.”
They ducked through the park and twisted past tress and
jumped over hedgerows. They did everything they could think
of to confuse their pursuers. The park was smaller than they
hoped though, and it soon ended with a broad thoroughfare about
a quarter mile from the Arc de Triomphe. The Seine flowed
leisurely before them, and the twin lights of two raging fires
glowed in the darkened Paris sky. The more distant of the two
began to fade, but the gas main fire still filled the night with an
orange glow.
Fyodor had anticipated their move, and sent three of his men
branching off towards the river while he and the rest stayed on
the trail. When Ranma and Akane burst free of the park they
were only fifty meters away from them.
AK-74s and an MP-5 spat a few dozen rounds in their
direction. With the Russians firing on the run, and Ranma and
Akane moving targets, the most they did was kick up fragments
of stone and macadam at their feet and make a lot of pretty
sparks. The noise did however direct Fyodor and the rest on which
way the couple had run.
“Will you two shut up!” Hiro yelled to Nabiki and Kuno, who
were busy yelling at each other. He thought he heard something.
His outburst silenced them long enough for them to hear the
second burst of gunfire in the distance. Ferguson craned his neck
out of the window to locate the source.
“There, ya see?” He snarled at them. “Shut the hell up so we
can follow after that noise.” He elbowed the back window out and
pulled himself gingerly through into the bed of the truck. He saw
Clay sitting there, he was not very content at the moment.
“<I’m not cut out for the commando business I’m afraid,>” the
parapsychologist remarked.
“<You did fine sir,>” Hiro replied. “<Did you get hurt?>”
“<Nothing compared to you, Hiro.>”
Hiro wiped at his temple again. It was starting to hurt, but
looked far worse than it was. A few stitches at the most. **Now if
it had been a centimeter to the right...**
A third burst of gunfire perked up his ears. He thumped on the
roof of the six by six truck to get Ferguson’s attention.
“<To the left Mister Ferguson! Turn left!>”
“<I bloody well heard it too, Hiro,>” Ferguson replied, and
jerked the wheel to the left.
Hiro checked his Sig fully loaded. He was out of ammo for
anything else. Only five magazines too. At the rate he had been
using ammunition, it wouldn’t last. He turned over his shoulder
to look at Clay.
“<You still have that pistol, sir?>”
Clay offered it up to him with the three magazines he had left.
Hiro took the other Sig and smiled. He tucked the extra Sig
magazines in his satchel.
“Just call me ‘Pistolero’,” he said to himself, holding the two
P-220s up in a gunfighter stance. Gods help those Russians when
he got within range.
They only had one way to go now. Ranma and Akane
sprinted for the bridge across the Seine to the Left Bank.
Fyodor and his men pursued them brandishing their rifles
openly before the throngs of curious that came out of their
homes following the blackout.
Fyodor knocked them over whenever they got in his way. He
wouldn’t let Ranma and his fiancée get away. When the crowds
became too thick to run through, he cut loose with burst of rifle
fire and they obliged him with screams and lots of diving for cover.
Not having a police presence was at last working for them now,
he had no fears of running into a Gendarme with them all over
at the Notre Dame Cathedral.
One of his men blasted away at the two again. He succeeded
in putting out a bunch of automobile windows, but little else.
The gunfire rightly inspired Ranma and Akane to run a little faster.
The Left Bank was on a separate power grid than across the
river. Thus it was still lit. Ornate street lamps glowed for them,
which would have been very pretty to look at and even a little
romantic to stroll under with the love of your life at your side if
there weren’t a bunch of bloodthirsty Russians led by one
particularly psychotic Ukrainian hot on your heels. He looked
to Akane. At least he had the love of his life by his side.
At first Ranma didn’t realize what he was running towards.
He was too busy trying to stay on his feet and avoid all of the
people that were outside to watch the disturbances in the city.
Fyodor and his goon squad shooting at them at least got the
citizens out of their way.
It was when Akane gasped in awe that he looked up. Not so far
ahead of them was the Eiffel Tower. His nightmare came back to
him in a rush. Every fiber in his being wanted to drag him in some
other direction.
The sudden appearance of Palandir above them gave him other
ideas. Like ducking for cover. He and Akane made a sudden juke
to the right as Palandir rained down a vicious blast of crimson heat
death at them. The blast dug a meter wide trench through the street.
Fyodor and his men pointed up into the sky and began shooting at
Palandir.
The range was long, only a single round zipped through the
Maia. He clutched at his chest as blood spurted forth from the front
and the rear of his body. He felt the round pass straight through
him. It punctured his right lung, which was bad in and of itself,
but at least the tiny 5.45mm round hadn’t struck bone. He could
cope.
He coughed up a little blood, willing away the sudden fire in his
chest cavity from the collapsed lung. The pain at least fueled his
rage. He called up a bolt of hellfire from within him heedless of
the fact that he might need it to heal himself. This was the first
time one of these worms had injured him in a very long time.
That insult would not go unaddressed.
“DIE!!!” He told the offending rifleman. The hellfire spurted
forth from his hand to strike the Russian square in the chest. The
man burst into spectral flames and fell to the ground writhing in
agony. Fyodor and the rest dove for cover as the man’s dying
screams echoed across the well to do neighborhood. There was
just a pile of ashes when it was over.
Palandir sank to the ground. It was too much to remain in the
air and try and repair the damage within him at the same time. He
watched Ranma and Akane sprint away like rabbits and gurgled
an impotent curse at them. He had spent the last of his offensive
strength in that wasteful lesson upon the rifleman.
Fyodor looked up to the sky, but the man was gone. He knew
it was the same man who had nearly killed him at the Dniester
river. The same man who had been ghosting Doctor Casimir’s
research group, and his own men for months.
Cautiously he got to his feet. Upon seeing that no bolts of light
struck him down, the survivors joined him. They made their way
forward, using the parked cars for cover. When he got close to
where the man had floated, he saw a fresh pool of blood, still
warm.
**He bleeds...** Fyodor thought to himself. The others saw
the blood and drew the same conclusion as himself. **We can
kill this man if he shows his face again. We must simply be faster
on the draw.**
“<Keep after them,>” he told his men. “<But keep an eye out
for Georgi’s killer.>”
Ranma and Akane didn’t know that Palandir was wounded.
They kept running in the only direction they had available. That
was in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
Once they scrambled across the marble tiles a hundred yards
from the Tower they realized that while Palandir was not chasing
them anymore, Fyodor and his goon squad were. The ironwork
of the Tower suddenly sounded like a good hiding spot.
**Maybe I could take them out one or two at a time up there.
No way I could do it out here in the open. I’d just get the both of
us shot.**
“Come on,” he told her. “To the tower.”
She followed him across the marble tiles and skirted around
a large pool. The fountains were spraying and cheerfully lit with
white, blue, and red lights. The massive ironwork frame of the
Eiffel Tower towered three hundred meters high before them.
The elevators were shut down, and the doors to the stairwells
up the four legs of the tower were locked. A few twenty-something
Parisians watched them scramble around for a way up in
amusement. Finally Ranma got mad enough to rip a door off
it’s hinges. The Parisians decided to leave quickly at this point.
He and Akane clambered up the winding iron stairs as fast as
they could. The first observation deck was a good ways up. When
they got there they were starting to get winded.
“How far have we been running?” Akane asked him with a pant.
“Four, five miles. Plus all the fighting, running up these damn
stairs.” Ranma paused to catch his breath. It was then that he
realized that he had caught a piece of shrapnel from those
grenades. Either that or piece of the pavement that Palandir
blew up right behind them. His back was sore, and fresh blood
came away from his hand.
Akane gasped in fright.
“Ranma!” She cried.
“I’m all right. I don’t think it’s bad.” He told her. “I just
noticed it myself.”
She wasn’t buying it. She turned him around and gingerly
lifted the tattered tuxedo jacket and shirt to inspect the wound.
There was a piece of steel wire just sticking out of the small of
his back, to the left of his spine. It was just like the piece Hiro
had pulled out of his leg. She couldn’t tell how much was inside,
and was afraid to touch it for fear of hurting Ranma even worse.
“Oh my God, Ranma. There’s a piece of metal in your back.”
She said in a frightened voice. She thought of him huddling over
her when those grenades had exploded. The shrapnel was meant
for her.
“I said I’ll be okay. It ain’t the first time for me you know.
It’s just another scar to add to the collection, that’s all.”
**It would be nice if it would stop happening though...**
“It’s the first time I’ve had to know about it,” she told him
crossly. “You know I worry about you just as much as you
worry about me.”
He looked softly at her. He knew she cared, but there was a
time and a place for it. This wasn’t the time and it wasn’t the place.
“I know you do Akane. But right now we gotta think of a place
to hide from these guys. Come on.” He took her by the hand.
The first observation deck was also a restaurant. It was also
locked. Ranma had committed enough property damage for one
night. There were other places they could hide.
“Higher?” Akane asked as they came to the next set of stairs.
“Yeah, that way we’ll be able to hold them off easier.” He
gestured to the way the four legs of the tower gracefully arched
inwards towards each other at the top. “If we get lucky they won’t
look for us here. But don’t count on it, ‘cause so far our luck ain’t
been so good.”
“<They could have gone anywhere by now!>” Fyodor
thundered. The park was big and open, but with their head start
they could have gone in any direction and disappeared from
sight by now.
The gaggle of Parisians ran by. He stopped them short with a
quick burst of rifle fire. He turned to Mikhail, who spoke French,
and pointed at the college students. Mikhail asked them if they had
seen a young Japanese couple, and that they had best answer as
quickly and as honestly as possible. Fyodor brandished his rifle
and scowled at them from beneath his dark forelocks for effect.
The students pointed frantically at the Eiffel Tower. Fyodor
looked at the imposing structure and nodded. With a quick word
to Mikhail and the others he started stomping off towards the
tower. The students huddled together, fully expecting to be shot.
When the last of the Russians turned his back, they ran away as
fast and as quietly as they could.
Ferguson didn’t need to follow the sounds of gunfire anymore.
He just asked all of the frightened Parisians on the streets a few
direct questions and was rewarded with the direction they had run
and how long ago that was. The hard part was getting through the
traffic.
It seemed everyone in the city was driving around to see what
was going on. Everyone was talking about the airplane crash they
heard about over battery operated radios. Now there was a terrorist
bombing at the Russian Embassy or something. A gas line had
exploded and threatened that part of the city.
Hiro stood in the bed of the six by six with his pistols lowered
in hand. They were catching up, but how far away were the
Russians? At least no one had said anything about two Japanese
being killed.
“<A little traffic control if you would please Hiro,>” Ferguson
grunted as the cars moving across the Seine wouldn’t let them get
by and onto the bridge.
Hiro complied. He jumped out of the truck, favoring his
wounded leg, and stumped over to the offending automobile
drivers. He was in no mood to mince around with pleasantries.
His friends lives’ were in danger.
He casually smashed the driver’s side window of the first car
trying to cut them off and jammed one of the Sigs against the
driver’s nose. With the other Sig in hand he waved the truck
through. The driver of the car began to babble in terror. Hiro
screamed at him to shut up in Japanese and dug the pistol in
a little deeper. The man shut up.
Ferguson rolled by.
“<Thank you, Hiro.>”
“<No problem Mister Ferguson.>” Hiro smiled.
When the truck was on the bridge Hiro removed the pistol from
the man’s nose. There was a little .45 caliber sized circular
indentation pressed into the end. He bowed for the man and
jogged at a limp to the truck and hopped into the bed. The truck
sped off across the bridge. Nabiki gave him a wink and a grin
through the broken back window of the cab.
It was only when the queue of cars behind him began honking
and yelling at him that he remembered to start driving again.
They got across the bridge. About that time the Parisian
students who had narrowly escaped Fyodor with their lives
came barreling through. Hiro and Ferguson had seen enough of
that in the last few minutes to know that they were on the right
track.
Ferguson yelled for them to stop. They kept going. Hiro waved
the pistols in their faces and they came to a weary halt, not
believing their ill fortune this evening. Ferguson asked them the
standard questions. They replied that a bunch of rifle toting thugs
had also asked them about Ranma and Akane. Then they pointed
to the Eiffel Tower.
Ferguson thanked them for their help and floored the
accelerator.
The students decided to call it a night before someone _did_
decide to shoot them at the end of the interview.
Nabiki decided that now would be a good time to call Durango.
She picked up the cellular phone and began dialing. Kuno was
sulking in his seat next to her. He had wanted to swim in the hot
flowing rivers of his enemies’ blood, but so far they had all just
run away the minute he started hacking up their companions. It
just wasn’t fair that no one would give him a stand up fight.
“<Now where the hell are you?>” Heironymous Durango
asked her in a grouchy voice as he picked up the phone on his end.
“<No need to be rude,>” Nabiki berated him. “<We’re coming
up on the Eiffel Tower. Can you land in the river to pick us up?>”
“<Sister, I can put this boat down anywhere you like,>” came
Durango’s self-assured reply. “<Did you get them?>”
“<Not yet, but we’re going to right now. You’d better hurry
though.>”
“<I copy. We’re on the way.>”
Nabiki hung up.
“<Okay, we’re cooking with gas now!>” Durango told D-Day.
“<How’s it looking for the river near the Eiffel Tower?>”
D-Day consulted his chart. “<Looks good. Nice and wide. About
a quarter mile stretch between bridges.>”
“<Goddamn!>” Durango cried. “<How about a challenge
already?>”
“<I’d settle for just pulling this one off now, man.>”
Durango had to concede that point. While the aerial phase of
this operation had gone off without a hitch (he knocked on a piece
of the plywood divider panel), the ground phase had gone straight
to hell. Drinking a stiff snort of the Professor’s brandy and smoking
a good Churchill sounded really great right now.
He nosed the throttles forward a bit and pulled the Catalina
into a nice wide flat turn. He didn’t have the altitude to try
anything terribly fancy. He set course straight for the Eiffel
Tower, another Paris landmark someone had thoughtfully
illuminated for him. Then he lit up one of his Don Diego
Churchills, sucked in a huge drag, and then began chewing on
the end as the smoke spilled out of his grinning mouth.
Ranma and Akane were up to the second observation deck now.
It was about halfway up the tower. They stopped to rest for a few
minutes. At least they would be able to see Fyodor and his goon
squad approaching.
What they didn’t know was that Fyodor and his goon squad
were already there. They had missed their approach as they
climbed the many steps to the second deck. They also didn’t
know that Mikhail knew where the circuit breakers for the
elevators were.
So when two of Fyodor’s men stepped out of the elevator with
rifles at the ready, you can imagine Ranma and Akane’s surprise.
They froze in place. The two men began to fan out, covering
each other with their rifles. The tower made the occasional settling
noise, even after over a century of standing, and the two would
carefully investigate each one. In one of those occupied moments
Ranma pulled Akane quietly up into the ironwork structure
When one of them nosed close, Ranma carefully made his
way along the ironwork and hung upside down over the man.
His hands lashed out, snapping the man’s neck instantly. The
Russian slumped to the deck.
Ranma pulled himself back up into the ironwork. Hopefully
Akane hadn’t seen that. He may have gotten over his reluctance to
kill when necessary, but it was never an act he was proud of.
His partner lost sight of him and called out softly in Russian.
If Ranma had even a clue about that language he might have said
something softly in reply to allay the man’s suspicions. Instead he
waited very patiently. This was for Akane’s sake he told himself.
He reached down to snap his neck when he got close. At that
moment the piece of shrapnel in his back shifted, and a white hot
sliver of pain shot out to the ends of all his nerves. It was too
sudden and too intense to hold back a gasp of pain.
The Russian jumped back and cut loose with a long burst
above him.
Bullets zinged and whined around him with bright firework
flowers of red and orange sparks. The Russian had misguessed
his position, but in the spray of light from the long muzzle flash
he saw where Ranma hung.
He dropped back and corrected his aim. Ranma flew out of
the girders and somersaulted onto the ground. The second burst
went high, ringing across the iron work. Ranma charged the man
before he could get a third burst off.
He took the man with a head butt in the midsection. The man
nearly dropped his rifle as Ranma slammed him against a beam.
Then his back spasmed again and he lost his leverage.
The Russian dropped his rifle down hard on Ranma’s back.
The young martial artist felt his knees go weak and he slumped to
the deck. The Russian threw a loose knife-edge kick that caught
him across the jaw. Ranma flew backwards and splayed along the
deck.
The Russian leveled his rifle to shoot Ranma through the chest
when Akane cried out in her most wrathful voice:
“DROP IT OR I’LL KILL YOU!!!”
It was at this point that the Russian noticed that Akane was
pointing an AK-74 at him. She had screamed at him in Japanese,
which he didn’t understand a word of, but the rifle made her intent
clear enough. Ranma looked up from the floor in shock.
**She doesn’t know how to use one of those! Does she...?**
The Russian decided she was serious enough to use the rifle.
He spun on her and squeezed the trigger. **Nothing! The rifle
was empty!**
Her body was moving too fast for her mind to register this fact.
Akane closed her eyes and jerked at her trigger.
The AK-74 exploded into a fusillade of 5.45mm copper-jacketed
lead. Shell casings spilled all over the ironwork. She had no firm
concept of recoil, as the only guns she had ever really seen in action
before this night had been on television or the movies.
Thus when she began hosing her Russian-made heater at the
man, she quickly lost control. The assault rifle belched out its
storm of fully automatic fire totally out of control. She tried to
walk it back in the right direction, but just kept throwing the
bullets around in crazy circles. She was clamped down on the
trigger in panic, too busy trying to hold onto the damn thing to
realize that if she let off the trigger it would stop on its own.
**Guess not!** Ranma thought suddenly in terror.
He threw himself into a fetal position in the hopes that the
wild ricochets she was causing wouldn’t hit him. Spent rounds
crashed and whined all over the second deck. The stroboscopic
flashes of gunfire made for interesting lighting effects upon the
iron framework, but Ranma was too busy fearing for his life to
appreciate it.
About three seconds later the rifle was empty.
The Russian slid down the girder to the deck and lay very still.
Akane dropped the rifle and stared at the man in shock and
self loathing.
Ranma got back to his feet and looked at the Russian. Akane
was close to tears at this point, but something was very wrong here.
There should have been enough blood and gore splattered all over
the place to look like a slaughterhouse. He crept over to the man.
“Don’t touch him,” Akane gasped.
Ranma looked down to the man.
**Jeez... Full auto at point blank range and she couldn’t hit
him once... He must have passed out from fright.**
Then the smell hit him. He jerked his face away and tried
not to gag.
**Yep... He was scared all right!**
He stood up and laughed at her.
“Akane, you are such a klutz!” He said with a wry smile.
“What?!” She spluttered.
“Next time let the professional handle it.”
Akane began to realize that she hadn’t killed the man. Her
sense of relief was suddenly cut short as her brain engaged again.
“Professional? If I hadn’t done that you’d be dead now!”
She protested.
“You damn near killed me yourself with that thing,” he nudged
at the depleted rifle with his foot. “Where’d you get it anyway?”
“From the guy whose neck you broke,” she replied off-handedly.
He suddenly flushed with shame.
She punched him lightly in the arm. “I don’t think badly of you
Ranma...” She said quietly. “You did what had to be done...”
“Come on,” he said then not wishing to discuss further, he
snatched up the other guy’s rifle and the few spare magazines.
The smell was really bad now. He decided the best thing he could
do was leave him there after taking everything he might use to fight
with. “This is bound to attract attention.”
Fyodor and the others converged on the elevators from the
third and highest deck. At a radio prompt from Fyodor, Mikhail
secured the elevators from the first deck down so they couldn’t
escape the tower. There was no radio contact from Sergei or from
Anton, and that was a bad sign.
Ranma and Akane took the elevator down to the first deck. If
the Russians could use them, they weren’t going to argue about it.
Hopefully they could sneak away.
The doors opened onto the first deck. A Russian was there with
his back towards them. Another was standing on the other side of
the first, facing the elevator. He yelled, Ranma yelled, Akane
yelled. The first Russian turned around in time to catch Ranma’s
fist in his face. His knees went out as Akane stabbed at the ‘door
close’ button. The doors slid shut and up they went.
Bullets slammed into the elevator, but with all of the iron
framework around them, they were just ricochets.
The truck stopped at the base of the tower. Hiro wasted no
time in shooting the Russian who stood guard over a service
shack next to one of the massive legs. It was Mikhail, and now
he had a couple hydrashoks in his gut to worry about. He clutched
at his stomach as Hiro kicked away his rifle.
The man wasn’t in any shape to answer questions, so he and
Kuno looked at the stairway door ripped off its hinges and drew
their own conclusions. Hiro threw the rifle to Nabiki, who passed
it immediately to Ferguson. The scientist studied the weapon for a
few moments before setting it on the dash.
“<I don’t know how to use it either, lass,>” he explained to her.
“<That’s why we have Hiro.>”
They came out on the second deck again. For a minute Ranma
considered trying the stairs, but they all passed the first deck in big
wide open areas. It was possible to cover three legs of the tower
from one corner. That was asking to get shot.
As the doors opened, Ranma took a quick look around. There
was nothing in front of the doors. He poked his head out, and
Fyodor jerked him out of the elevator the rest of the way. The
man’s huge hand neatly palmed the top of Ranma’s head as he
did so. As Ranma flew across the observation deck, his rifle
spilled over the side and was gone.
Fyodor’s partner grabbed at Akane. She responded by cold-
cocking him with a shot to the jaw. The Russian made one startled
cry before flying into Fyodor, and knocking his rifle from his hand.
Akane launched a desperate kick at the weapon, punting it neatly
over the side.
The big Ukrainian backhanded her in response. She flew against
the elevator with a cry of pain. Fyodor palmed her head as well
and threw her in Ranma’s direction. Ranma caught her up in his
arms and kept her from joining the two rifles over the side.
“I think we’re in trouble,” he whispered to her. This was starting
to look chillingly like their favorite nightmare. He turned over his
shoulder and looked out across Paris.
**Definitely looks familiar,** he thought darkly.
“I don’t need a weapon,” Fyodor menaced in badly accented
Japanese. He popped his knuckles and started walking towards
them.
Ranma sighed tiredly. He was just about out of gas at this point.
He had maybe a minute of no holds barred fight left in him. Keeping
Akane at his back, he assumed a fighting stance appropriate for
facing off against Godzilla.
As Fyodor closed the range, two more of his men appeared
from the elevators. They had come from the first deck obviously.
“<Mikhail is hit,>” one of them stammered. “<He may be dead!>”
Fyodor stopped. “<What?!>” He bellowed, still keeping his eyes
on Ranma. “<Mikhail’s on the ground! How could he be dead?>”
“<He isn’t answering on the radio!>”
Ranma began to feel a peculiar tingling sensation at the base of
his spine. At first he thought it was the piece of metal stuck in him.
But when his tongue began to tingle he began to tremble with anger.
The wind began to pick up around them.
**Not now! Anytime but now! I don’t need this kind of
distraction!**
Akane touched him worriedly. She could feel it too.
Fyodor decided that they had no time to play around. If Mikhail
was dead then the friends of these two were on their way. He
gestured to the two Japanese who were obviously quivering
with fear.
“<Shoot them and let’s get out of here,>” he ordered them.
The two leveled their rifles at Ranma and Akane.
“I love you Ranma,” she whispered desperately.
“It ain’t over yet.”
Hiro and Kuno charged up the stairs at the run. Hiro couldn’t
even feel his leg wound anymore he was so charged up. Hiro had
the lead, and body checked one of the gunmen. His burst cut loose
into the overhead and he fell to the ground. The second one spun
around in time to catch Kuno’s katana in the belly. The swordsman
opened him up like a can of spam.
“Go Akane!” Ranma yelled, pushing her away from him.
Sparkles of light began to dance around them.
Fyodor was too fast for them. He palmed Akane by the face
and threw her over the side of the rail. Ranma twisted backwards
to catch her arm and was pulled over the side with her. They fell
towards unforgiving concrete.
“NO!!!” Hiro screamed. He emptied both Sigs into Fyodor’s
chest. Every round struck dead on, but the giant didn’t even flinch.
Hiro stared dumbfounded.
“Body armor,” Fyodor replied smugly in his mangled Japanese.
“No coat of mail shall withstand the blade of the Blue Thunder!”
Kuno bellowed. Upon seeing Ranma and Akane plummet over the
side his heart twisted in rage beyond imagining. Once again his
katana burst forth with spectral blue flames, though once again he
was unaware of that fact.
Fyodor knew a few kevlar panels weren’t going to stop a katana.
Particularly one that suddenly burst into flame. He wished now
that he had waited long enough in Monaco to kill this raving samurai
lunatic. **The man was relentless!**
He did the only thing he could in that situation, which was pick
up the stunned Maxim and throw him at Kuno.
The swordsman lashed out with his blade so swiftly that Maxim
was diced into bite sized pieces before his mortal remains could hit
the ground. It was just enough of a delay for Fyodor to make a
break for the stairs. He drew a Tokarev and emptied it ineffectually
at them in escape. Kuno tried to pursue but slipped on Maxim and
lost his balance enough for the Ukrainian to get away.
The wind was bitter and cold and just getting stronger.
Hiro began to notice the sparkles of light in the air. Then he
heard a very faint cry for help.
He looked over the side to see Ranma hanging by one arm
from the framework, with Akane clutching tightly to his chest.
“Saotome! Akane-chan!” He cried.
Ranma couldn’t hold on for much longer. He was too weak
and wasted, and in addition to having himself to worry about
there was Akane weighing him down even more. He could feel
his grip loosening more and more. It was about a hundred feet
to the ground. He looked up to Hiro high above him. That was
about two hundred and fifty feet of climb, assuming he could
get a foot hold somewhere. Which he couldn’t.
The light began to sparkle around them. He grit his teeth in
anger. Who cared if the next event was here and now? They
were gonna die and it wouldn’t make any difference. The wind
became even stronger now, rocking them back and forth as
they hung.
“I can’t look,” Akane said in a soft voice.
“It ain’t over yet,” Ranma growled. He tried to make himself
believe it.
The sparkling lights became even brighter, more numerous, it
was just a matter of moments now before the next event unfolded
around them.
Ferguson felt the wind pick up. He looked up at the tower and
saw that it was shimmering faintly with a golden light. Motes of
color began to appear around it. Even Nabiki noticed it.
“<What the heck is that?>” She asked.
“<It’s the next event!>” Clay cried from the bed of the truck.
He stood up and began to open himself to it as he had many times
before.
“<Bloody hell!>” Ferguson yelled. “<We’re missing it! My
equipment!>”
“I got an idea,” he told her as they nearly fell. He clamped
down hard on the girder and garnered them an extra few seconds
of purchase.
Akane was ready to hear him tell her they could fly.
“We’re gonna fly,” he told her.
Well, not quite ready for that.
She gave him a hopeless look in response. The wind was raging
around them now. They were oscillating pretty badly.
“No I mean it!” Ranma protested. “Anazali said I could draw
on this kinda stuff, that I just didn’t know I was doing it. I don’t
have the power left to try this now, and I don’t think you do either,
but what about when the event gets here? You know how much
power there is when that happens.”
She could already feel the enormous buildup of energy around
them.
The event unfolded then with a flash of brilliant white light. A
rush of wind tore them free from the girder, and for a moment they
were actually heading upwards. Then they began their fall towards
the ground.
“Hold on tight!” Ranma cried. He had all the power he needed
in that moment.
“<There’s your intercession, man!>” D-Day yelled as the Eiffel
Tower lit up before them. A column of golden light rose high into
a bank of clouds from the tower. Paris was aglow with the light,
truly living up to its name.
Durango grinned and put his sunglasses on.
“Oh God!” Nabiki cried as she looked up and saw Ranma and
Akane falling through waves of golden light.
**This is the only flying trick I know...** Ranma thought in that
instant before release.
He held onto Akane with one arm and thrust the other up into the
air as they plummeted straight down.
“HIRYU SHOTEN HA!!!”
He dropped his arm savagely towards the ground. The Dragon
Cyclone blowtorched through them and spiraled towards the ground.
It rebounded then and shot back up at them. Ranma nearly lost his
hold on Akane as the blast wave struck them.
Now they were flying. Flying straight through blinding amounts
of energy. Ten times what they’d endured in the Alhambra. It was
like being in the center of a brilliant and comfy warm sun.
In fact they were flying straight up the now golden sides of the
Eiffel Tower. Very fast. Hiro saw them coming and reached out with
his arms.
At the very limit of his reach he caught them.
Ranma and Akane couldn’t feel it, because they were somewhere
and somewhen else right then.
They saw an island nation in the very zenith of its existence. Radiant
people like Aerandir and Anazali walked the wide tree lined streets.
Baroque flying machines formed like butterflies, birds, and even more
esoteric creatures floated silently upon the air.
They found themselves standing in a great public square filled with
people. Before them was an enormous pyramid of white stone. Golden
light flowed from the top of the pyramid and bathed everything in its
radiance.
Akane turned, and there were the stone lion fountains of the
Alhambra standing next to them. Water continued to flow from
their mouths as they spoke to them. The water flowed around them
and then seemed to fade away.
“Watch,” they told them. “Learn.”
They looked back to the pyramid, which began to shimmer and
quake. People began to look around in distress. The radiant glow of
light began to change colors to an angry red. They watched as a
hundred men in flowing robes scaled the pyramid at a run. They
raised their hands to the sky, perhaps praying, perhaps fighting what
was happening.
It was to no avail.
The pyramid exploded with the force of a hydrogen bomb. As the
blast wave rolled out to consume the island, Ranma and Akane saw
that the people did not disintegrate, but were instead drawn into the
fiery core of the blast. Everyone was sucked into the fireball even as
the seas drowned the entire island.
The lions were weeping water from their eyes as well as their
mouths.
“We are trapped in the Heart of the World,” they told them. “But
you must not free us.”
Ranma and Akane looked at them in puzzlement.
“If you’re trapped then why don’t you want to be free?” Akane
asked.
The stone lions looked at her. “To free us would mean to repeat
this tragedy. Never again.”
The fireball faded away from their eyes. A small white pyramid
appeared then before them. Ranma could see into it, and he suddenly
knew how perfectly it was formed. He didn’t know how he knew,
but he was getting used to the practice of ideas being planted into his
head.
He also knew how important it was for the pyramid to remain
flawless within. And for some odd reason how important it was for
the pyramid, no, something corrected him; for the prism to be flawed
within. Very important. Part of his consciousness slapped him around
and told him to pay attention to that last part.
The world exploded back into view around them. Hiro heaved
with all his might and pulled them onto the observation deck. The
night sky went dark again and the wind died away around them.
Hiro held the two of them close to him. They trembled in his
embrace at the power and vision they had experienced. The Eiffel
Tower’s radiance faded away and returned to its regular black iron
self.
* * *
Bettie’s Dare was twenty minutes from the McFogg estate.
Ferguson and Clay sat on chairs and dozed idly. Kuno knelt on the
floor of the cabin and meditated upon his sword. Nabiki cleaned
up the bloody mess that was Hiro’s face, clucking motherly every
time he winced. The gash on his temple was only going to need a
few stitches. Hiro carried on like he was mortally wounded.
Durango poked his head in to check on everyone while D-Day
had the wheel. They were bloody, they were hurting, and they were
very tired. One thing was certain however: When they looked to the
other side of the cabin, what they saw told each of them that the
price they’d paid was worth it.
Akane cradled Ranma in her lap. He was fast asleep, the first
decent sleep he’d had since his abduction. She was happy to hold
him close and occasionally whisper something in his ear. He never
responded, but he had a deep and contented smile.
* * *
That Ryoga Hibiki was lost was such a hopelessly regular
occurrence as to be cliché. That didn’t change the fact that it was
all too true. He struggled on through the jungle, with no idea where
he was, and the sinking feeling that he was wandering in circles again.
That sinking feeling hit him in spades when he saw that he _was_
walking in circles again. He had passed this same crashed airplane
twice today. He knew it couldn’t be a different plane, because the
same skeletal body of its pilot lay halfway out of the cockpit window
wearing the same faded floral pattern shirt. The jungle had long since
overgrown the wreck.
He was feeling pretty depressed, and just a little tired of all of this.
He sat down next to the wreckage of the plane and thought long and
hard about where he could possibly be. He hadn’t heard Chinese in
a very long time, not since winter, and so he gathered that he was
no longer in China anymore.
He was positive that he had crossed no large bodies of water.
Positive! That had to put him in Asia. The locals he had seen had
dark skin and black hair. They spoke a language altogether unfamiliar
to him. Where did that put him?
**India maybe?**
It was a thought. India was close to China as far as he remembered.
He heard a rustling through the jungle nearby. He looked up to
see three small boys looking at him. It was a look he was used to:
locals staring at the stranger. He was too tired and homesick to care.
The boys took another look at him. He wore camouflage pattern
trousers and combat boots that had seen a lot of marching by the
look of the worn soles. He wore a dingy tank top because wherever
this place was, it was sure hot and humid! A yellow and black
headband completed the ensemble.
It was when they saw his traveling pack that the children freaked.
“El Paraguo Rojo!” The oldest of them cried, pointing to the red
bamboo umbrella Ryoga carried with him, and then to Ryoga himself.
“El Javelino!!” The other two cried in unison. The three ran away
as fast as they could into the jungle.
Ryoga watched them go. He didn’t think Indian children would
be so rude. He wished that he had spent enough time in one place
to pick up a little of the language. As it stood he knew enough to ask
for work to pay for his food and shelter, please and thank-you;
politeness kinds of words. Nothing substantial.
He sighed and went to sleep. Perhaps he’d figure it out over a nap.
A voice woke him. He opened his eyes to see a man squatting
down on his haunches looking at him. He wore faded jeans, soft
knee high buckskin boots, and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. The man
had a golden complexion to his skin -not just a healthy tan, but a
faint metallic shimmer to it when the errant ray of sunshine poked
through the jungle canopy to strike it.
“Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in a bed?” The man asked
him. It sounded like Japanese, but Ryoga noticed that his mouth
wasn’t moving correctly for the sounds he was making. Watching
him speak was like watching a badly dubbed movie.
He seemed friendly, and Ryoga was so lonely at this point he
was dying for the chance to talk to someone. Perhaps this stranger
could tell him where he was. Instead the man said to him:
“You look like you could use a good meal as well. Come. Follow
me and I shall see that you get both.”
“Both?” Ryoga asked. He was still a little groggy when the man
first spoke to him.
“A bed and a meal,” the man supplied. “It isn’t far.”
Ryoga had nothing better to do, so he followed him.
End of Part Eight
Author’s Notes:
1) I had meant for a lot more to be discussed in this installment than
space permitted. Part 8 is really the rescue of Ranma now. I
suppose if you’re happy then I’m happy. Part 9 was my buffer
installment against my dreaded literary elephantitus anyway.
2) I would like to thank Big T of Fission Park for his assistance with
the procedures for declaring in-flight emergencies and with general
Air Traffic Control protocols. Squawking ‘7700’ with your transponder
is an emergency signal. 121.5 MHz is the distress radio frequency.
3) I would also like to thank Front 242, Gravity Kills, Metallica,
Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult for their invaluable inspiration
while I wrote this. For your own information, the original draft
of Part 8 was much bloodier because of them. Later I felt that
the violence needed to be toned down, although the recent spate
of snuff-fics on the ML may have desensitized some of you.
4) You didn’t really think I was going to have Akane kill someone did
you? Shame on you!
Free the Nukes!
