“You know, Sousuke, you are really something else...” For better or worse, the mike didn’t pick up her voice. Kaname lifted the ‘terrorist’ up by the lapels. “Now, come with me,” she finished ominously.
“Wait... Chidori! I can explain—”
“Just come with me!”
“Listen to me!” Sousuke begged.
“What part of ‘come with me’ don’t you understand?!” Kaname snarled, stalking off the stage, half-dragging the terrorist with her. For some reason, his allies didn’t try to stop it. They actually looked a bit abashed about the situation, which is why the terrorist guarding the ballroom doors simply withered beneath her glare and stepped aside. The door slammed closed behind them, and silence returned.
A buzz of whispers started among the Jindai High students.
“K-Kaname-chan...”
“Not even terrorists scare her...”
“She’s so brave...”
“I’m so impressed, Chidori-san!”
“I think she’s just touchy because she’s hungry.”
“But there was something familiar about that dynamic...”
As the conversations continued, another terrorist took to the stage. This time it was a tall woman, dressed as a casino dealer with a checkered vest, a bowtie, and a tight, knee-length skirt. She was wearing large sunglasses, and carrying a famous German-made submachine gun on a strap over her shoulder. “Sorry about that,” she said with an awkward laugh. “Um, so, anyway, you’re all going to stay here in this hall. That girl had gotten pretty worked up, so our colleague escorted her to the infirmary.” It looked a lot more like it was Kaname who had dragged the terrorist away, but the woman sounded confident in her version of events.
“Fortunately, you’ve all had experience as hostages, so I won’t waste time with all the dos and don’ts,” she continued. “Just find ways to kill time like you did last time—You’ll be back home safe tomorrow.”
“I feel like I’ve heard that voice somewhere before...” Kyoko muttered to herself.
“So, um... any requests?” the terrorist asked. “We’re happy to indulge, within reason.”
“Excuse me, but we’re really hungry!” one of the students ended up shouting.
“Ah, that’s right. Sorry about that—Go ahead and eat,” she told them. “I’ll check back in later.” While the students rushed for the mountains of food, the terrorists walked off the stage with the pale-faced captain in tow.1930 HoursBridge, Pacific Chrysalis
Those Mithril squad members who had infiltrated the ship as employees, and those who had landed in the ECS-camouflaged helicopter—a little over thirty in all—had broken into teams of three or four to swiftly lock down the ship. The machinery room and the crew cabins, the entertainment facilities, the communications infrastructure and temperature control systems, the storage rooms and the pantries... The simple presence of guns was enough to intimidate most of the crew and passengers into total submission. Each team precisely reported the number of hostages they’d taken, then gave an overview of their current status to their commander, Lieutenant Clouseau.
Clouseau was currently on the bridge of the Pacific Chrysalis; he’d entered with two other PRT (primary response team) members a few minutes earlier. The navigator, pilot, and other on-duty crew surrendered immediately in the face of their rubber bullet guns. Clouseau wasn’t happy about putting innocent people at gunpoint, but those were his orders; he’d had no say in the matter.
“Uruz-8 here. Area D4 secured, 32 hostages. Zero casualties.”
“Uruz-5. Area A8 secured, 18 hostages, zero casualties. No resistance.”
“Uruz-8. C-1 secured, uninhabited, zero casualties. Heading for C3 next.”
Zero casualties, zero casualties, zero casualties... One of the PRT soldiers plugged the information into a nearby laptop as the reports came in. Most of the passengers and crew on the ship were already secured.
“Uruz-9 here. D13 secured, three hostages taken. Zero casualties. We did meet slight resistance.”
Clouseau heard the report of Uruz-9, Corporal Yang, over the radio. “Uruz-1 to Uruz-9. What constitutes ‘slight resistance’? Explain.”
“A cleaning lady threw a mop at me,” Corporal Yang replied. “Now, she’s giving me an earful.”
Clouseau said nothing. When he listened closely, he could just hear a middle-aged woman’s voice through the receiver, shouting things like “for shame!” and “get a real job!” He closed his eyes, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “We’re terrorists,” he reminded his subordinate. “You don’t have to listen to her.”
“But she’s right,” Corporal Yang said guiltily. “It’s not right to threaten people with guns, even if we do have a good reason. She’s saying, ‘remember the faces of your family back home, remember Christmas as a kid,’ talking about home-cooked meals around the family table... She’s got my team all tearing up and questioning their life choices.” Yang’s voice was cracking a bit too.
“Well, don’t start bawling, now,” Clouseau ordered. “I’m unhappy about this as it is.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant. But it just doesn’t feel right, doing terrorism on Christmas... It’s a day when the whole world should be happy, you know? I’m missing my mom’s cheesecake.”
“Just secure your other assigned areas as quickly as you can,” Clouseau told him. “Got it?!”
“Uruz-9, roger...”
“Heaven’s sake,” Clouseau muttered after turning off the radio. “I know why we’re doing it, but this plan is still absurd...”
But why were they doing it?
If not for Gauron giving them the keyword “badame,” they’d have never suspected this cruise ship. Mithril’s intelligence division had investigated it in advance and given it the green light, but it seemed they’d been wrong to do so. There was something more to this ship, and the invitation extended to Jindai High School had simply been a trap set by Amalgam, or by someone involved with them. This operation was their squad’s way of getting the drop on them.
The mission was to be carried out almost entirely independently. They hadn’t told the intelligence division, naturally, but they also hadn’t told most of the operations HQ staff that the Tuatha de Danaan was going to take control of the cruise ship. They leaked different information to different departments, so by watching how Amalgam responded, they might also expose any moles in their ranks.
They still didn’t know exactly what the ship was hiding; that’s what
