Three Square Meals Ch. 084

"You could go that route, but I wouldn't advise it," Calara said, wincing as if he'd just told her he planned to go for a walk in the rain without taking an umbrella. "I predict your only chance of survival is to release me immediately, and order your entire organisation to surrender. If you're lucky, I might be able to convince John to hand you over to the Terran Federation for trial. If you harm me in any way... it's not going to be pretty. My girlfriend likes to start breaking... people... when her loved ones are threatened."

The absolute certainty in her voice left Mikaboshi badly shaken. He shared a worried glance with the Doctor.

"Should I...?" the Doctor asked in confusion, nodding towards Calara's prone form.

"Wait! Just wait a minute... I need to think," Mikaboshi muttered, his index finger tap-tap-tapping on his thigh. He couldn't get a certain image out of his mind: that of a soldier snapped in half, his mangled body hurled down a corridor.

"Seventeen," Calara stated solemnly.

Mikaboshi lunged forward, his frantic face hovering above the olive-skinned girl. "Seventeen? What the fuck's that supposed to mean?!"

"How many minutes you have left," she said quietly, her gaze filled with pity. "I won't spoil the surprise for who does it."

Mikaboshi started backing out of the room, which suddenly felt much too small and oppressive. He sucked in a big lungful of air, feeling like he was suffocating. She had to be bluffing... didn't she? He glanced at his HUD and started a timer, syncing it up with Calara's proclamation of doom.

"16:57"

As he stumbled backwards into the corridor, he glanced down at his left arm - the one John Blake had ripped from its socket with his bare hands. He felt a tremor of fear run up his still-organic spine, reliving emotions that he had no desire to feel again. His one unbreakable rule was never to expose himself to unnecessary danger and stay hidden in his secret impregnable fortress. But what if she was right? What if they had sniffed out the location of Yomi-no-kuni?! He turned and started walking away, his pace quickening until he found himself sprinting down the corridor.

No! She had to be lying!

***

"Punisher rifles for maximum armour penetration, ladies," John said, striding over to the weapons rack and picking up one of the vicious looking rifles.

Jade was leaning against the wall, her dark-green arms crossed over her chest as she watched the crew gearing up in Paragon armour. "Watch out for their stealth fields. I was able to disrupt them with a low voltage pulse of electricity."

Irillith slapped a magazine into a Punisher rifle and nodded as she said, "I'll be able to create broad static fields to short them out. I did the same thing to the Drakkar who tried to board us."

"Those fuckers are full-cyborg conversions," Dana said, stepping out of the armour-equipping frame. "Just switch to mag-view and they'll light up like a Christmas tree."

"Where's Sakura?" Tashana asked, as she slotted a Punisher pistol into a holster, then picked up a second of the heavy-bore weapons.

Alyssa strode over towards the emergency grav-tube and said over her shoulder, "She'll join us in a moment. There's something important she has to do first."

"Alyssa," John called out to her. "Take a Punisher rifle."

She turned to look at him, her eyes blazing with a fierce white light. "It'll only slow me down..."

***

Sakura walked into the Engineering Bay, her face a mask of conflicting emotions. She knew exactly where the object that brought her to the workshop was, Dana having safely stored it away after checking the serial numbers for Edraele. Striding across the room to the rows of compartments built into the wall, her fingers drifted across the storage crates until she found the one she was looking for. On the front was a tag, with "Sakura's implants" scrawled across its surface in Dana's spidery handwriting.

Hauling out the crate, Sakura lifted off the lid and set it aside, before gazing down at the pile of cybernetic implants that were packed away neatly inside. She froze for a moment, glancing down at all the metallic objects that had been forcibly inserted into her body without her consent. It was astounding that so much could have fit inside her relatively small frame. Of course, that was the petite girl who she used to be, not the glorious amazon she was now.

Squatting down beside the crate, she rummaged around, moving aside the tangle of wires that had been the adrenal booster, until she found exactly what she was looking for. It was relatively small, but had just enough mass for the purpose she had in mind. Scooping up the cranial implant in both hands, she turned and walked towards the Mass Fabricator.

They were fairly simply devices to use; she'd seen Dana operating them dozens of times over the last few weeks. Dropping the cybernetic brain into the hopper at the back, she walked around to the console, then quickly sketched out the shape of the object she had in mind. The Mass Fabricator performed a quick check and a green light flashed, confirming that it had enough matter to build the item she had designed. Rumbling into action with a deep hum, the Mass Fabricator started to go to work, smelting the metal contained within the cranial implant as the first stage in the process.

While the big machine went to work, Sakura toyed with the pendant around her neck. She paused for a second, unlocking the clasp and turning it, so that she could study the image of her parents looking at her with pride. To see them again triggered a sharp pang of loss and she traced her finger over their portraits, wishing with all her heart that she could have seen them one last time. All those years spent not knowing what had happened to their daughter, the long decades of grief with no sense of closure...

Sakura knew they'd blamed themselves for her kidnapping, however illogical that might seem. She'd seen the look of guilt on their faces during the police video Calara had uncovered and it still haunted her dreams. She much preferred reliving nightmarish visions of Shinatobe's murders than recalling the look of anguish on her mother's and father's faces. Her parents had never really approved of Sakura owning that hover-bike, and she was forced to admit that if she'd taken the grav-train to college as they'd begged her to, she probably wouldn't have been kidnapped.

If only she'd listened to them and not been so headstrong. If only she had been a more dutiful daughter. If only she hadn't been so gullible and fallen into her kidnappers' hands. If only she could have spent just one more hour with her parents to tell them how much she loved them. If only...

The Mass Fabricator beeped, alerting her that the job was complete. Sakura stepped over to the front of the machine and examined the newly crafted object. Yes, that would do nicely.

She hesitated before picking it up, glancing down at the open locket in her hands. "Forgiveness", her parents would say. "There's no room in your heart for love if you fill it with hate."

Her fingers wavered inches above the object on the Mass Fabricator, the light gleaming off its metallic surface.

*Sorry to disturb you,* Alyssa said gently. *We'll be dropping out of hyper-warp in thirty seconds.*

*I'm on my way,* Sakura replied, turning and striding out of the Engineering Bay without looking back.

The door slid closed behind her, the lights in the Workshop slowly dimming.

The object on the Mass Fabricator had been taken.

Hooked over the emergency stop button, a delicate white pendant hung on a sparkling chain. It spun back and forth, making the faces inside look as though they were shaking their heads in disapproval.

***

The planet Kozuno was on the sixth orbital path in the Proxima Centauri system, circling around the dull crimson glow of the Red dwarf star at its centre. As the closest neighbouring system to Terra, Proxima Centauri had been an obvious testing ground for the Federation's first experiments with terraforming. In the sudden rush for newly-colonisable worlds back in the 24th century, there'd been an insatiable hunger for new planets and terraforming seemed to offer the miraculous potential of turning barren rocks into verdant paradise worlds.

At least in theory.

The initial experiments with terraforming had triggered terrifying planet quakes, turning what had once been a relatively flat world into a jagged sprawl of mountain ranges. Terran scientists had learned from their mistakes and ultimately refined and perfected many of the terraforming marvels that were taken for granted in the present day. However, irreparable damage had been done to Kozuno's tectonic plates, and while the planet had subsequently been given a breathable atmosphere, there was no easy way of undoing the fracturing of the planet's surface.

With the benefit of hindsight, Kozuno was the perfect and obvious choice for Mikaboshi's base. It was right in the centre of the Core Worlds, being as close to Terra as possible without actually being in the Sol system. Being so close to the power-centre of the Federation meant quick and easy access to the most lucrative of assassination contracts, while also reducing travel times for redeploying Mikaboshi's assassins. Finally, Kozuno had a scant population, and after all the valuable metals had been extracted from the world, the cost of land was negligible. That meant vast swathes of mountain ranges could be bought up for a fraction of the price they'd be on a more civilised world, allowing Mikaboshi to secretly build his hidden base away from prying eyes.

The Raptor peeled away from the Invictus, engines flaring as the gunship turned towards Kozuno and began racing towards the planet. John turned away from the cockpit canopy, patting Jade's shoulder as he passed her Pilot's chair, before facing the group of attentive girls.

"Our primary objective is to secure and protect Calara. Irillith and Sakura have drawn up a map of Mikaboshi's base, and the location she's being held at has been pinpointed in the HUD overlay. We move straight there, neutralising all threats in our path. Once she's safely back on the Raptor with Jade, then we clean house," he said, meeting the six sets of beautiful eyes looking his way. "Any questions?"

Sakura raised her chin slightly, drawing his attention. "When Mikaboshi realises we've launched an assault, he's going to bolt. I understand and fully support Calara's need to scare him off, but now he knows we're coming, he'll be on a hair-trigger to run."

"Faye will be providing fire support in the Invictus," John reminded her. "Once we've initiated our attack, she'll gun down any ship attempting to flee the base."

Shaking her head, Sakura replied, "There are tunnels underneath Yomi-no-kuni. If Mikaboshi believes his life is in danger, he'll evacuate the base via the network of underground passages. He could blight us for years afterwards."

"What are you asking then?" John asked, meeting her steely gaze.

"Let me do an orbital drop before you move in on the base. That'll give me a minute or two head start before you begin your attack," she replied, her voice calm and determined.

John was silent for a long moment, staring into her lovely brown-eyes. "Do you want company?"

She hesitated for a second, her lips briefly turning up into a grateful smile. "No, this is something I need to do alone."

"I understand," he replied, glancing back at Jade. "How long, honey?"

"We'll be in position for an orbital insertion in twenty seconds," the Nymph called back over her shoulder.

"Let's go," John said to the Asian girl.

Sakura fell into step beside him as they left the cockpit, the rest of the girls making no move to follow them, but giving her supportive smiles as she left. The two of them rode down to the bottom level in the red anti-gravity field, before turning right and walking down the short corridor to the rear loading area. They stepped into the starboard airlock together, seeing the rocky grey surface of Kozuno filling the view through the porthole.

John hit the button to decompress the airlock, then placed a gauntlet on the DNA reader. A green light scanned over his armoured hand, flashing as it recognised his genetic code. The airlock spiralled open a second later, giving them an unimpeded view of the planet from low orbit.

Turning to the girl standing beside him, John pulled her into his arms. "Stay safe, Sakura. I'm not planning on losing either you or Calara to Mikaboshi."

She nodded, her expression solemn as she stared into his eyes. "Thank you... for everything."

"You can thank me properly after this mission," John said sternly. His expression softened and he leaned forward so that his faceplate was touching hers. "I love you."

"I love you too, with all my heart," she replied, hesitating for a second as her earlier thoughts came back to haunt her, knowing that what she'd said wasn't strictly true.

"What is it?" he replied, seeing that tiny flicker of hesitation.

She pulled away and moved to the airlock, turning around to face him. Her expression was grim as she replied, "I'm going to make some more room in my heart." With that, she launched herself backwards in a graceful dive, quickly plunging planetward.

John watched her for a few seconds, wondering if he was doing the right thing in letting her go alone.

*You know what you've been training her to face,* Alyssa murmured quietly. *You've done all you can.*

He nodded and turned away, the airlock door spiralling closed behind him.

***

Sakura plummeted through the thick cloudbanks, the orange heat from re-entry burning a hole through their fluffy white surface. As she blasted out the other side in an amber blaze, she was finally given a glimpse of her destination. They'd all studied this particular mountain peak while approaching the system, so she knew it by sight, but taking into account her gifts that hadn't been necessary. She could see the silvery ethereal cord snaking from Alyssa to Calara, the bright cable leading directly into the mountain top below.

Using the anti-gravity generators on her armoured limbs, she shifted position as she fell, turning so that she could use the retro-thruster on her back to arrest her fall. The exhaust port flared brightly for a few seconds, sending a long orange tail out behind her as she descended. Her speed began to slow and once she'd levelled out, she deactivated the retro-thruster and began to drop once again.

This time she focused her will to draw on the thermals surging up the mountain face, harnessing their power and swathing herself in tightly controlled streams of air. Falling silently while using only the wind to keep her aloft, she watched as she approached the treacherous mountain surface. She couldn't help bracing for impact as the forbidding escarpment loomed in front of her and then she was through, sighing with relief as she slipped inside the holographic field without causing so much as a ripple.

The fortress beneath was constructed from huge stone blocks, making the grey citadel seem menacing in its appearance. Yomi-no-kuni covered several levels, with pagoda-style roofs made of black slate surrounding several courtyards. The mountain-top castle was never designed to repel a full-scale assault, relying on subterfuge to avoid detection. There were no gun emplacements or anti-aircraft batteries in place, with Mikaboshi's battlecruiser, the Amaterasu, intended to smash anything less than a full-scale Terran Federation invasion. Unfortunately for the forces lurking within, the Amaterasu had been blasted into a million pieces, Dana thoroughly obliterating the once-mighty vessel.

Sakura spotted movement on the covered walkways that surrounded Mikaboshi's lair. The assassins were more than confident that their lethal skill would be enough to eliminate anyone bold or foolish enough to dare trespassing. She switched to mag-view and sure enough, a half-dozen guards patrolled the rooftop, evenly spaced around the circumference of the closest courtyard.

Reaching above her shoulders, she grasped the hilts of her ninjato, drawing the sparkling white blades from their sheaths, and holding them ready. Floating down like some ghostly apparition in her pristine white armour, she gathered her will as she touched the ground behind the first assassin, willing her psychic speed into effect. Her target had no idea she had even landed, when he was impaled through the back by two irresistible white blades. They sheared through his titanium chassis with a shrill shriek, neatly impaling his heart and severing his spine.

Sakura placed an armoured boot on his back, tugging out her blades as she kicked off from him. Using the momentum, she backflipped and reversed direction, before running full-tilt at her second foe. The first ninja was already dead by the time he'd started to topple over and the second didn't even have time to react before Sakura was on him, driving her first blade through his temple, the second through his heart.

Startled cries of alarm reached her ears as the rest of the guards reacted, but she was already charging towards the third. A terrifying crack echoed around the mountain top as her blades were rimed in hoar frost, the ice clawing its way up each of her sparkling blades. She heard the low hum as the remaining cyborgs activated their alacrity enhancements, massively increasing their speed as they reacted to her assault.

The third had only partially drawn his two weapons as Sakura fell upon him, slashing down with her twin ninjato in dual overhead chops that hacked through both cybernetic limbs below the shoulder. She heard his gasp of horror as she pulled back and rammed her swords into his chest, not bothering with any finesse in the location of her strikes this time. Stabbing him through his synthetic gut and piercing a cybernetic lung, she poured the glacial cold swathing the blades into his torso, freezing him where he stood.

As the flash-frozen cyborg pitched over towards the courtyard on her left, she heard rapid footsteps from behind her. Whirling around, she crossed her swords and blocked the lunging black blades that had been aimed for her back, matching the cyborg strength for strength. Before the shocked ninja could react, she dropped and lashed out with her crystal-Alyssium plated boot, sweeping the cyborg's feet out from underneath him. He crashed to the ground, sliding down the slate roof towards the courtyard below. Sakura pounced on the stunned assassin, driving both blades into his skull as she rode him down the roof like a sled.

Her impromptu ride dropped off the roof like a stone, lifeless cybernetic limbs twitching wildly in his death throes. Sakura leapt clear and used the swirling mountain wind to carry her to the middle of the courtyard, landing lightly and whirling in place to face the last two assassins. They ran at top speed down the slate roof, flipping off the end to spin through the air towards her. She made a sharp gesture towards the one on the right and he yelped in surprise as he was suddenly buffeted by the winds and twisted upside down, his elegantly controlled descent turning into a clumsy headlong dive.

Not bothering to wait until they landed, she sprinted towards his companion, racing underneath him and slashing out with a ninjato as she skidded across the floor. The force of her blow hacked off his leg beneath the knee, sending him cartwheeling sideways with the momentum of that strike, his severed leg sparking as it sailed across the courtyard. Both cyborgs crashed into the ground at the same time, one face-planting straight into the stone floor with a stomach-turning crunch, the other crumpling in an ungainly flailing of limbs.

As the ninja that had thumped head first into the stone floor stumbled to his feet, Sakura was upon him, her deadly ice-coated swords whirring in a figure-of-eight that carved through metal like a knife through butter. The cyborg's titanium body was flayed just as efficiently as if he'd been made of flesh, his leg slashed right down to the titanium bone, his arm hacked off at the elbow. He lurched drunkenly to one side, just as Sakura's finishing strike neatly sliced through his neck. There was a shrill screech as his head was cleaved straight from his shoulders, rolling through the air as his mangled corpse collapsed in a heap.