Chapter 29:

A Challenger Returns

Challengers


I still couldn’t transmit, but my headset continued to receive communications from the Mistral Challenger:

“Captain Benjiro Ishikawa sent us a quick text message. He only sustained minor injuries,” Rio reported. “ Thank goodness! Oh, and he’s assisting with recovery efforts and telling us not to return to Chiba-1 until the airfields have been cleared.”

“Thanks, Rio,” Minori said. “Keenan, what’s the Levchenko’s status?”

“The Levchenko was dragged into a rip,” Keenan said. “Now it has completely disappeared. The anomaly itself is shrinking in size.”

Is there any sign of Aiko or Jim?”

Negative. Uh, wait a minute, I think I see something….”

Minori was nothing if not patient. “Keenan? Could you please share it with the rest of us?”

“Roger. Apologies for the low quality, the rip is still active and affecting our sensors. It’s coming up… now.” A low-resolution video appeared, its low frame rate making it flicker. The Mistral’s audio channels filled with a series of gasps.

Minori’s voice broke through the hubbub. “What are we looking at?”

A laugh that could only come out of Keenan’s artificial voice box came through my headset. “What we are seeing is Ensign Akayama clinging for dear life to Lieutenant Peterson, but I don’t understand what is supporting them.”

I heard Minori chuckle just before I lost contact with Mistral. “I saw something just like it once before.”

***

“Isn’t this fun?” I said to Aiko over the soft sound of the wind passing through the static lines of my parachute. “It’s so quiet when you’re underneath the canopy of one of these things. Once we get closer to the ground you’ll even be able to hear birds sing.”

I looked downward at a flight of white cranes flying in formation over the emerald forest far below. “See, there’s some birds now.”

I kept talking, trying to keep Aiko from giving in to her acrophobia. She was strapped securely to my back, but that precaution wasn’t really needed since she was holding me in a kung-fu death grip with her legs as well as her arms.

“It -- it’s not too bad,” I heard her say. The grip of steel lessened from bone-crushing to merely cutting off circulation to my extremities. “It is certainly peaceful.”

She slipped her hands from around my chest and looped them over my shoulders.

I was overjoyed. “Aiko! You’re no longer afraid of heights?”

“No. I still feel as if I might pass out from fright.” I felt her fingers dig into me. “Do not tell anyone I expressed fear, or I will visit you in your sleep with a poisoned dagger.”

“Got it. Your secret will go with me to my grave.”

“Far sooner than you think, if you divulge my secret.” She sounded a little more chipper. Threatening me with bodily harm always seemed to improve Aiko’s mood.

I was taken by surprise when her arms went back around my chest and she held me in a warm embrace. “We did it, Jim. We stopped the Levchenko from destroying Chiba-1 and sent it fleeing in disgrace!” She laid her head against my back.

“Don’t forget the Mistral. Those chain railguns must have knocked out some of the Levchenko’s external systems. And when she rammed the other ship, that took out their engines and damaged the hull. The Mistral might be small, but she’s built tougher than any other grav-carrier in the world.”

“Indeed.” For a moment Aiko was content to just rest and listen to the wind. I tugged on a riser, trying to change my heading.

“Hey, I’ve got a question. How did you get free of your ropes on the Levchenko’s bridge?”

She laughed, something I hadn’t heard her do in a while. “It’s a secret technique taught to me by ancient masters of ninjutsu.”

“You stole that line from me!”

“All I will say, Jim, is that you are not the only warrior to ever conceal a small knife on your person.” She laughed again, then grew serious. “My plan was to allow myself to be captured. I gambled on the fact that I would be taken onto the bridge, thus bypassing security, and then I would break my bonds and capture Nakamura.”

She rested her chin on my shoulder. “Now I have a question for you. Where did you come by this parachute?”

“It’s called a reserve chute. When I first arrived on the Mistral, I was using my main parachute, but I had this one just in case the first one didn’t open. I brought it along when I boarded the Levchenko to come get you."

Aiko didn’t answer immediately. When she did, her voice was softer than usual. “You came to get me?”

I side-stepped the question. “Hold on! We’re just a few seconds away from the ground.”

She clenched me tighter while I scanned the ground below us. “Hang on, it’s going to be a rough landing. Here we go!”

The forest had reclaimed the old city and its surroundings. Here and there I could see sturdier stone buildings poking up through the thick vegetation that had collapsed and destroyed any wooden structures.

I was looking for the softest patch of open ground I could land on, but those reserve chutes are the worst when it comes to maneuverability.

We came in fast onto what looked like an old concrete-surfaced street covered with ground creepers. I slid my hands up on the risers, put my feet together, bent my knees, and prayed I wouldn’t break anything.

But as we were coming down, a swift wind came out of nowhere and caused a freak updraft. I landed with a slight thump on both feet.

Even Aiko was impressed. “You are very good at parachuting, Lieutenant Peterson.”

“Uh, actually, this is the first time I’ve ever landed without incident,” I mumbled.

Aiko slid off my back and heaved a grateful sigh, then sat down on a moss-covered tree that had fallen years earlier. I stepped out of my jump harness and rolled up the chute, then remembered that Aiko had been injured.

“How did you hurt your ankle?” I asked.

The look of relief on her face changed to embarrassment in a heartbeat. “I… tripped on debris during my infiltration of the enemy ship.”

“You? Trip? That must have been a once-in-a-lifetime event. I wish I could’ve been there to see it.”

She regarded me with a cool stare. “I have two words for you, Lieutenant Peterson: Poisoned. Dagger.”

“Right, I won’t tell anyone.” I pulled a smoke marker off my web gear, then sat down next to her.

“Once we were close to the ground I lost all contact with the Mistral,” I explained. “I’m going to set one of these off now and a flare when it starts to get dark.”

I pulled the pin from the grenade and tossed it in front of us. A column of blue smoke poured out.

Aiko was scrutinizing me with an intense focus, like she could discover something if she searched hard enough. It was a little unsettling.

“Jim. You flung yourself off the side of Chiba-1 in an untested armor exoskeleton, using an unreliable means of conveyance that was about to explode, and risked your life just to -- come for me?”

I abandoned all my flip, one-liner responses under her gaze and nodded. “Yes. I may no longer be a member of the Mistral’s crew, but ….” I paused, awkwardly searching for the right words and coming up blank.

For a moment she stared at me, then reached out and pulled me close. “Thank you,” she whispered in my ear.

Her breath was warm on my skin. Slowly, she pulled her head back. I stroked her long hair and she closed her eyes….

I didn’t find out what might have happened next.

Instead, I heard the familiar sound of MHD turbines as the Mistral Challenger glided over the nearby treetops. The red port side navigation light was out, but the green starboard light blinked cheerfully, and the Japanese and JAXA flags still flew above the battered but mostly intact ship.

Minori extended the landing skids and set the huge vessel down a short distance away.

Aiko sat back and rested a hand on my arm. “I -- there’s something I need to tell you, Lieutenant Peterson. About your status as a criminal --”

I tried to make things easier for her. “Yes, I’m still an escaped prisoner at large. You have to arrest me, Ensign Kinoshita. It’s your duty as the ship's security officer.”

I held my hands out. “You don’t have handcuffs, so you’ll have to tie my wrists. I’m still wearing prison orange, and I could even be legally shot and killed if I’m not in restraints of some kind.”

Aiko cocked an eyebrow. “Is that an order, Lieutenant Peterson?”

“I’m no longer your executive officer, so let’s call it a personal request instead.”

Her facial expression changed back to that of the impassive professional warrior. “Very well.” She cut several lengths of parachute cord, then securely bound my wrists together in front of me.

The forward ramp of the Mistral opened like a clamshell, slowly revealing the Mistral’s officers standing in a row. Aiko walked forward to greet them while I hung back.

Before the ramp fully opened, Tama shot through the gap, dashed across the vine-covered ground, and tackled his mistress. I stood and smiled a little enviously at the two as Aiko ran her hands through the big cat’s fur and he circled and butted her playfully with his head.

Keenan, Rio, and Minori shouted with joy as they surrounded Aiko, trading hugs and pounding her on the back. My sense of loss at having been excluded from this tight-knit group almost overwhelmed me.

Finally, Minori saw me standing awkwardly to one side. “Lieutenant Peterson!” she shouted. She and the other officers rushed toward me, only to stop short when they saw that my hands were tied.

Minori turned to Aiko. “Why did you tie his wrists? Didn’t you tell him he’s a free man now?”

What?” I said. I shot a look at Aiko.

The Mistral’s ninja was displaying the smug, sexy-but-menacing expression she always wore when she’d put one over on me. Her smile stretched a little wider when I looked at her, and I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“You mean -- you didn’t tell him?” Minori turned back to me. “Jim, the investigation results were invalidated in the face of new evidence. Rio spent every minute she had deciphering the contents of the files Mayor Takahashi took from the YFT base. As soon as we found out what they contained we turned back immediately. That’s why we were here to intercept the Levchenko.

“Yeah!” Rio chimed in. “Project ROYAL was blown wide open by Yamanaki Future Technologies. Every page of it was in Takahashi’s tile. The United States Army will have to declassify it now, and the contents of the file justify your actions!”

Keenan couldn’t stifle a laugh. “I wish you could see your face, Lieutenant Peterson! It’s so red!”

Aiko had to add fuel to the fire. “I did not wish to tie him up. However, he made it a personal request and even insisted on it. Correct, Lieutenant Peterson?”

Rio held her hands over her mouth in mock horror. “Lieutenant Peterson! You’re into things like that?”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “Aiko! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

She tilted her head back and idly examined a stray cloud passing overhead. “I seem to recall someone forcing me to jump off the side of the Levchenko. Such an act must not go unpunished.”

“Oh, I just remembered.” Keenan pulled an envelope from his pocket and held it up. “Ensign Rio, you forgot this. It’s the envelope that Ensign Kinoshita wanted you to deliver personally to Lieutenant Peterson -- eh?"

He looked around in confusion. One moment, the envelope had been held aloft between his fingers. The next moment, it was gone. I glanced over his shoulder and saw the envelope pinned to the tree behind him with a small throwing dart.

Aiko lowered her arm and gave Keenan a frosty glare. “The delivery is canceled, Ensign Keenan. Thank you for your devotion to duty.”

“So, what’s in the envelope, Aiko?” I asked with a grin. “A confession?”

She reached over and took me by the arm. “Let us go, Lieutenant Peterson. We must get you out of that filthy prison suit and into a proper JAXA uniform.”

“I’m not sure how appropriate that sounds, but I’m all in favor. Uh, can you cut me loose now?”

“No. You still have much to atone for.”

Rio giggled as she took my other arm and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Come on, Jim. We need to get you and Aiko treated, then eat dinner. We can’t go back to Chiba-1 until the airfield is cleared, anyway.”

“Sounds great! But you’ll have to feed me by hand unless you untie me.” I looked over my shoulder and winked at Minori. “Isn’t that right, Lieutenant Asakusa?”

She smacked a palm against her face. “I’d almost forgotten about that embarrassing incident. Ensign Kinoshita, let’s keep Lieutenant Peterson restrained for a little longer. We can all take turns feeding him those nasty vegetables left over from yesterday’s dinner.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” Keenan laughed. I'd swear his metallic mercury eyes lit up. “I’ll go heat up last night’s side dish. Broccoli stems and rutabaga, all you can eat!”

Minori smiled at the stricken look on my face. “Welcome back aboard the Mistral Challenger, Jim.” She laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “We’ve missed you. A lot.”
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