“Three.”
As Harris desperately protested, Mao fired three muffled gunshots at his knee. Harris let out a falsetto scream and fell onto his backside. “Ahhh! Ah! Ahh! Did you shoot me?! You stupid bitch!”
“Now, the left one,” she decided, and began to adjust her aim.
“No, please! Stop! I can’t open it, I’m telling you! Dammit! I mean it! I mean it...” Mao and Sousuke exchanged a glance as they watched Harris, gripping his right knee and sniffling. They seemed somehow disappointed.
“Well, Sousuke?” she asked her compatriot.
“It doesn’t look like a performance,” Sousuke said, giving his opinion with cool-headed insight.
“I guess it’s not gonna be that easy, huh?” Mao asked with a sigh.
“Just as expected,” he agreed. “Let’s get to work.”
“Right. Have Speck and the guys bring the machinery in,” Mao said, making the order official.
“Roger.” Sousuke reached for the switch on his radio and contacted the team.
“Hey, big guy! You gonna sit there crying all day? Get up!” Mao said, kicking Harris roughly with her toes as he rolled around on the floor.
Meanwhile, the sound of the gunshot had brought Tessa and Kaname running from the other end of the hall. They protested immediately when they saw what was happening.
“M-Mao-san?!” Kaname exclaimed in shock. “I know he’s a bad guy, but this is too far!”
“Melissa? I understand that this is necessary, but at least treat his injury!” Tessa insisted.
Mao scowled at them. “‘Treat his injury?’” she scoffed. “At the most, he needs some ointment.” They both looked at her, confused. “Look closer,” she suggested laconically. “Rubber bullets.” There was no blood on Harris’s shot knee. If she’d used a live round, there would have been a pool of crimson on the floor by now.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!! A doctor... call a doctor, please!” The only one who didn’t seem to realize this, then, was Harris himself, who continued to writhe overdramatically.
Soon enough, the members of the other teams that had secured the Pacific Chrysalis began to wander up to the vault. Some of them seemed to recognize Kaname, and called out things like, “Hey, Kaname!” and, “How you doing?” But because they were wearing masks, she didn’t know who was who. Corporal Yang and another soldier led off Captain Harris, who was still whining indignantly about the pain he was in. They’d probably continue his interrogation in another section of the ship. Electronic devices large and small were rolled in on a cart; these were probably meant for opening the vault door.
“Are you gonna crack the safe now?” Kaname asked.
“Yep,” Mao told her. “We’ll just have to pick the lock. Directed explosives won’t even dent the bulkhead around it; it’s about on par with the reactor of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.” Mao used a specialty tool to remove the console panel, then started fiddling with the electronics inside.
“Is that impressive?” Kaname wanted to know.
“Affirmative. A carrier’s nuclear reactor is designed to survive even a direct hit from an anti-ship missile unscathed. The metal they’re using here is close to that,” Sousuke said.
“I was hoping to show Kaname what was in the safe, but... this is gonna take some time. Why don’t you rejoin your friends for now?” Mao asked.
“Fine,” Kaname agreed. “But what’s in there, anyway?”
“We don’t know yet,” Tessa said. “But it’s clear that they were after you, so it’s most likely related to your nature as a Whispered. They probably want to put you into a TAROS, or some other research apparatus... We’re going to interrogate the captain, and break into that safe tonight. We’ll collect all the data we can, then withdraw from this ship.”
“Oh. So that’s why you’re here, Tessa?” Kaname finally understood. Tessa was quite capable as a submarine commander... but the minute you threw her out into the field, she became a useless klutz. It was one thing when trouble arose spontaneously, like in Ariake, but it was unusual for her to join a planned operation like this.
“That’s right,” Tessa agreed, puffing out her chest. “They’ll need my intelligence to analyze what’s inside.”
“I think you just wanted to dress up as a maid and mess around,” Kaname told her acridly.
Tessa slumped over.
Kaname was wondering if she’d gone too far, when Mao chimed in with agreement. “Kaname’s right, Tessa. You can’t complain about being seen that way, after how you’ve acted today.”
“I—”
“Please don’t trip up your soldiers in the field, all right, Colonel?” Ignoring Tessa’s pouting in response, Mao plugged a few cables to her laptop, then spoke into her radio. “Uruz-2 to Kaun-6. Cut the power to C35.”
All the lights in the ceiling suddenly flicked off, then turned on again. Mao gazed at her PC’s holo-screen and clicked her tongue. “Ah, it’s no use. Forget it... Put it back on,” she ordered. “Knew it’d be an independent circuit... ugh. I’ll just have to work my way through each security level. I’ll need Dana’s help, too. For connection... yeah, V-channels and G-channels are too slow. I’ll need the wire. You brought the drum of fiberoptic, right? Call a turtle to the starboard side...”
Kaname and the others stood by silently, listening to Mao’s jargon-laden speech.
“Yeah,” Mao went on. “I want a wired connection to the turtle. Huh? The commander says no? Say it’s Tessa’s order, then.”
Naturally, Tessa was annoyed at having her name used in vain. “Melissa! Do not arbitrarily invoke my authority!”
“Okay, fine,” Mao said agreeably. “Can I have permission?”
“W-Well—”
“Kind of in a hurry, here.” Mao waved her hand in annoyance.
Tessa hesitated for a second, then, with a sulky scowl, said, “You have my permission.”
“Right, thanks.” With that, Mao turned her attention back to the job at hand. “Speck, is the ‘stethoscope’ ready?”
“Ready,” Corporal Speck reported, playing around with the machine that used ultrasonic waves to determine the layout of the blocked-off room.
“Then let’s try it out. Go on, Kaname, go rejoin the hostages,” Mao ordered. “Sousuke, make sure she gets there safe. Tessa, don’t loiter around here; you’ll end up tripping over the cables. Go somewhere you won’t
