Seemingly to have lost all interest in both of them, the Alastor slowly turned around and tilted its faceplate upwards. It was looking toward the upper decks of the ship’s fore. The next instant, the robot whipped around, leaped, and crashed through the deck above. Fragments of plaster and pipe rained down, and when the dust settled, they could see a perfect hole torn in the ceiling.
The robot was gone.
Could it be that its designer had programmed it to listen to her pleas? No, not possible; he wasn’t that kind of person anymore. Which meant... the diversion had worked.
Kaname-san, Sagara-san... be well... Tessa prayed to herself.
Meanwhile, Sailor stopped coughing long enough to curse. “Ugh... the hell is going on here? How was that thing so strong? Guh...”
“Are you all right, Sailor-san?”
“I’m fine! But I want to know what’s happening on this ship!” he demanded. “Who the hell was that? And who the hell are you?!”
“Well...” Tessa began, and trailed off while considering her next move. Sailor was in so deep at this point, that it occurred to her she might as well come clean with him—but just as she made up her mind to do so, she heard another voice.
“That girl is the captain of the Toy Box, sir. And the leader of the terrorists.” She turned to see Captain Harris standing there, holding a German-made automatic pistol.
Tessa froze up, and Sailor looked suspicious. “Captain,” he said. “Where have you been hiding? And... what’d you just say? The Toy Box? Captain? Leader? Her? Don’t give me that crap—”
“I don’t have time to explain. I need you out of the picture right now.” Then, without warning, Harris shot him. The sound echoed through the room, and Sailor dropped like a sack of potatoes.
A bloodstain spread out across the floor as the big man let out a moan. “Run... strange maid.”
“Sailor-san?!” Tessa gasped. “No! You have to hold on!”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but... please run,” Sailor told her weakly.
“No! You need treatment—”
“He doesn’t need treatment.” Harris calmly pointed his gun at Tessa as she clung to Sailor’s body. “They’re going to sink the ship soon enough. At least, that’s what I’d do, if I were an Amalgam executive. Even with treatment, he won’t last long in the open ocean at this time of year.”
Tessa glared at him. “How could you? He saved you when you were a prisoner, out of the goodness of his heart!”
But Harris just shrugged. “Yeah, right. I think he was just trying to play hero. He’s a stupid man. And let’s not forget... the one who got him, the crew and passengers all mixed up in this, was you—Mithril.”
Tessa had no response for this.
“We don’t have any time left,” Harris announced abruptly. “I’ve given up on catching Chidori Kaname, and I’ll be taking you with me instead. The organization has to forgive me if I bring them the captain of the Tuatha de Danaan.”
He’s going to take me and escape, Tessa realized. The captain is going to abandon his ship, its passengers and its crew, and run away. “You coward. You’re unworthy to captain a ship!” she shouted angrily. “Captain Sailor isn’t the stupid one. You are!”
Harris’s response was simply to sidle up to her with a grin. “I certainly am,” he agreed. “There I was, scolding you on the observation deck, and I didn’t even recognize you. It never occurred to me that the much-rumored Miss Testarossa could be such a beautiful, frail... easily wrangled little girl.” His hand reached for the back of her neck.
Kaname was running up the stairs. She took them three at a time, grabbing the railing—which was white, with anti-corrosion paint—for support. How long until the rooftop deck? She wondered. She knew the ship couldn’t really be a hundred stories tall... but right now, it certainly felt like it was.
“Don’t stop! Keep running!” Sousuke shouted from behind her, before turning to unload briefly on their pursuer. The ear-splitting gunshots made it almost impossible to hear his rebuke.
Kaname panted as she kept running. “Sheesh!” she wheezed. “Who thought up this plan?!”
“You did, remember?” Kurz said, injecting some of his reliable snark as he took his turn against their pursuers with his submachine gun. The two men were alternating regularly in firing back at the Alastors chasing Kaname.
“Uruz-7 to all! We’re about to reach the jogging track! Don’t shoot us, okay? We have three enemies in sight right now... no, now four! Team Echo, come from the starboard side—” Sousuke spoke into the radio, swiftly updating his comrades.
Struggling for breath, Kaname mounted the top stair and slammed the door open before exclaiming in shock. She had made it to the highest deck at last—but now, there was Alastor standing right in front of her eyes.
Did one get ahead of me? she wondered. No— Just as the Alastor began to reach for her, a hail of bullets assailed it from the side. Squeals rang out from the bulletproof metal, and sparks from ricochets showered down on her.
“Team Golf here! I think we made it in time. Get Angel to shelter—You hear that, Kaname? Run, run, run!” Just five meters to her right, around the corner of a hallway leading to the fitness center, stood an armed Mithril crewman who was shouting at her. She remembered that his name was Yang.
“Ah...”
“Hurry!”
Sousuke grabbed Kaname and ran in the opposite direction from Yang and the others. The Alastor in front of them was about to fire back, but Kurz unleashed a burst to distract it.
They never had a chance to catch their breath. Just as they thought they’d evaded the enemy, another Alastor would appear from the darkness and charge at them. Enemy after enemy came out of the woodwork, then pursued, hot on their heels. Just how many were there?
At last, they made it out into the vast open space on the roof of the ship. Seeing that it contained both a tennis and a basketball court filled Kaname with a renewed
