Chapter 1: Calm before the Storm
Sir Edmond Mallory Junior was ready to confront his father. As the founder of Mithril, the organization that was already almost gone. As the son who had been deceived for decades.
He was driving alone, without an escort. It was an old, rusty Toyota he bought off a used car dealer, and he had been driving to the west of London for four hours. He then passed near Halford, on the border of Wales, and continued driving north for an hour and a half.
He went into hiding about a year ago, and planned on ending this game of hide-and-seek today. The constant unpleasant drizzle and low greyish clouds overhead made the dull passage of endless low meadows downright miserable. Soon, a small village came into view - a village he hadn’t seen in thirty-eight years. It looked the same as when he was a little boy. A never changing sight... the small cluster of houses with a small church near them remained the same for a hundred - no, three hundred years.
Edmond stopped the car, and got out. He checked his Browning and put it in the pocket of the cheap parka that he was wearing, and started walking straight to a small house near the church. He walked down the muddy path, and his gait became more and more heavy. He distinctly felt the steel of the 9mm in his pocket, and the raindrops landing on his cheeks... both were cold as ice.
He finally came to the flimsy-looking wooden door that led into the house. After a small pause, he kicked it once - it did not come off. Again, and again - the hinges finally gave way, and it fell inside. Pistol at the ready, he stepped into the cabin, his body
moving by itself, remembering the Navy SEALs training he had once received. His combat posture was still perfect, even though he was now over fifty years old, and he kept every square inch of that house in check.
He passed the empty dining room, and went further. He came into the bedroom, and saw an ancient man sitting in an old rocking chair. A small eight-inch LCD television on a side-table was showing BBC news. It was already two weeks since the beginning of the crisis, and the situation only worsened. Insurgencies simultaneously erupted in Poland, on the Balkan Peninsula, and in Kurdistan, and both sides were taking harsh measures against them. The armies of the Warsaw Pact were conducting large-scales exercise and were preparing to test-launch nuclear missiles as part of them. All NATO member countries switched to a wartime command structure, to be “prepared for the worst”. There were unconfirmed reports of small-scale military conflicts happening all over the world.
In the dim light of the LCD screen Edmond saw the weary face of the old man - Lord Mallory, his father.
“Sir Mallory... so you came,” the old man said, acting as if he had not noticed the gun in his hands. His father always called him that, since he held the title of baron even when he was a child. He never liked the name “Rod”, and always preferred to be called “Sir Mallory”. One of the reasons was to distinguish himself from his father, but due to his bravery during his Navy career he became a knight of the Order of the Bath, and the splendid title was fully deserved.
“I thought you would come sooner.”
“I came as fast as I could.”
“I see...”
He shut a Bible that he was holding and gently put it on the side table. Edmond suddenly noticed that his hands were much thinner than when he saw him last time, a year earlier.
“You do know this place, don’t you?”
“Yes, and no one else, besides me, you, and the butler Dent. Yes, I remember. Dent passed away quite some time ago, that makes two.”
Every year in the summer the father and the son would go to that village together for a week. They left their mother and sister at home, and stayed in that small house, not even going out hunting or horse riding. His father did not even let in the butler, who became worried once and went to check on them. They did simple chores together - chopping firewood, getting water from the well, cutting the chicken for dinner.
There was nothing particularly harsh about that life, but to the son of a nobleman it was a source of precious experience. There Edmond Junior learned the life of a normal person, not the heir of House Mallory. He didn’t want to admit it, but everything he learned here became useful later - both in Eaton and the military.
Lord Mallory looked outside, his eyes glazed.
“Dent... what would he say if he saw us now?”
“He’d think it’s pitiful.”
“Mmm, would he now. Maybe he’d understand.”
“Him? Why?”
“When you were injured in the Falklands, he came to me with a bottle of wine - Cheval Blanc, of the year that you were born, to celebrate. He said, ‘Sir Edmond is now a real man, not in any way less distinguished than you, sir’.”
It was unclear from his father’s expression whether he was praising him, or lamenting the fact. Nevertheless, Dent was right. He went there not to ask for his father’s advice, but to settle things.
“You came to kill me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Edmond’s reply came very quickly.
“I’d like you to listen to me first... the reason I betrayed, the reason I sold Mithril out to them...”
♦ ♦ ♦
That old man, Lord Mallory, was one of the central figures in the creation of Mithril. The mystery around the nuclear missile that was used in the Gulf War, the rapid escalation of the confrontation between the two superpowers, and ethnic, religious and ideological conflicts all across the world, the food and energy crises – th0se innumerable little coals, smoldering, giving sparks... Left alone, they would lead the world to inevitable destruction in the twenty first century. It was not about national interests. Politicians, bureaucrats, military in every country would not be able to deal with those crises. The reasoning was that when the prescriptions of the physician did not have any effect, it was time for the surgeon’s scalpel. Mithril was supposed to be the scalpel, performing extremely precise strikes with ease. The Mallorys themselves were a bit like the Tracy family from “Thunderbirds”, though their goal was saving people from war, not natural disasters.
The budget was by far not the first problem when the organization was created. It was possible because of what Lord Mallory did in his time. By various methods House Mallory assembled a great amount of real estate, a group of corporations, various intellectual property, and vast connections of Lord Mallory himself. The main problem was finding talented individuals. There was no point in having hundreds of millions of pounds’ worth of hardware without the people to use it. What they needed were professional soldiers who had experience, skill, and above all, faith in the cause. Those would be people much younger than those Lord Mallory knew.
There was no person better suited to take care of that problem than his son. Sir Mallory was a hero of the last war, having received the Order of the Bath for the rescue of the crown prince, who crashed in a helicopter on territory controlled by the enemy. Afterwards he was sent on missions as a military or intelligence officer, and helped prevent several crises. Mallory was able to gather an impressive number of talented people, thanks to his son’s scouting.
Those thoughts were on his mind, as he looked at his son bitterly.
“I risked everything for this organization. I supported your ideas, I was proud of you. I was happy that you were going to inherit anything that would be left after me. When you were in the army, I thought you would see the reality, the worst this world has to offer, and start believing that something can be done about it - and this organization would be the goal.”
“And this in itself was all an illusion.”
Lord Mallory answered in a weary voice:
“Think about it... ‘Mithril’, a fictional metal invented by a linguist with an overly active imagination.”
“And you were laughing at us, all the time?”
“I only hoped it would become real. I wanted to see an evil that had to be defeated, and a silver sword that would defeat it.”
“Well, we became it, didn’t we?”
“No, that did not go as planned.”
“Because of what you did. You were the founder of Mithril, and you communicated with Amalgam at the same time. Before their attacks, you conveniently disappeared as if you knew they were coming. I know the codes they use - the stock prices of a spinning machine manufacture that you own. Those numbers would then be converted into a table of random numbers by way of
some mathematical formula published in an obscure trade journal, and used as access keys.”
It was a simple method, but very hard to decipher, and easy to use in conjunction with modern telecommunications technology. A modern analyst would overlook such old tricks, and whereas a spy from the fifties would probably recognize it, modern intelligence agencies didn’t.
“Those stock prices are my personal cipher only. But you did a thorough job on that.”
“I saw that trade journal in your office. Some numbers were marked, and the same thing was in other articles. After I noticed it, I’ve been assembling evidence for the past six months - it took a long time because I was in hiding.”
“And after confirming your suspicion, you wanted to confront me in person.”
“All things have to be done in order.”
“Hmm... that’s so very like you.”
“Still, I don’t understand. Why? You didn’t just create this organization for your amusement? To throw away when you’re tired of it?”
“Of course not,” said Mallory senior very quietly, making a grimace of self-derision. “Mithril’s too big for a toy.”
“Then I would like to hear your answer. This... is not like you at all. Lead the enemy and abandon the organization you yourself created - to come live here as a hermit? I could shout at you all I want, but I don’t understand the reason. Why?”
He was speaking as if the was a rebuke because of an adultery committed by his father.
“You have no idea...”
“Of what exactly?”
“You know, I could say that Mithril is like an illegitimate child to me. Fighting the Amalgam that I spoiled so much... a tool that makes its own rules. The eternal struggle between order and chaos, good and evil... the balance between them that was always there since the days of legend, and seems such a commonplace phenomenon...”
“...Spoiled?”
“Son... you know nothing about Amalgam yet. Its origin. The dream from which it was born.”
“Dream..? What a foolish-..”
At that moment, Sir Mallory’s right hand that was holding the gun exploded in a fountain of blood - or he thought it had. He was thrown off and must have pressed the trigger instinctively as a shot went into the wall. For a moment he thought it was a gun discharge, a bullet somehow exploding in the grip - but that was impossible. He must have been shot through the window, as his hand was just above the level of the window sill.
Who was it? Since when were they watching? How did he hit him?
Questions rushed through his head. He instinctively hid away from the window, and looked at his hand. The pain was as strong as if everything below the elbow was blown away, but everything looked fine - except the little finger was missing, and a lot of blood was pouring out.
Idiot, I’m an idiot, he thought, scolding himself for being so negligent. He didn’t even think about his father. The instincts of an ambushed soldier kicked in, and cursing himself even more, he started to reach for the dropped gun.
Before he could reach it, however, a man, clad in fully black, jumped out of the kitchen doorway, rolled over the bed, and kicked away the gun. He then struck Mallory junior in the temple
with the gunstock of the SMG that he was carrying. The latter felt as if something exploded inside his head, and losing all sense of equilibrium, he noticed that his own body fell down, as his mind started plunging into darkness.
He was still barely conscious as he saw the face of the man, who came closer. It looked like he was the commander of the team that had just came into the house. The grey beard and moustache... the always gloomy face, with features as if chiseled from marble. He looked even older than Mallory senior, but that was of course an illusion. In fact, that man was about the same age as Edmond himself, someone he knew very well...
“A-Andrei Kalinin...”
“Sir Mallory. It has been a while,” said the other in an almost friendly voice. Yes, it was the former commander of Mithril’s West Pacific assault troop.
♦ ♦ ♦
The assault took them less than a minute. Under Kalinin’s orders they gave first aid to Mallory and searched him thoroughly. It didn’t look like they were planning to kill him just yet, and he didn’t lose consciousness because of the pain in his hand. His father remained in his chair as if nothing unusual had happened, even though he must have been surprised as well. It was not a trap laid by Mallory senior, he was sure of it.
Kalinin confirmed his guess:
“Sir Mallory, we had been watching you for the last two months. We could not find the location of your father by ourselves, so we started tailing you.”
“You just let me move freely for a while... and the goal was my father.”
“That is correct.”
Kalinin inclined his head a little, and his subordinates started leaving the room. He waited a while, then continued.
“Your father has some information that is important to us.”
As if expecting those words, Mallory senior said quietly:
“The name register, isn’t it.”
“What..?”
“So you did have it, Mister Mercury. Apart from the register of names there were some other things we wanted to confirm with you before your son killed you, so pardon for the intrusion.”
Edmond did not understand what Kalinin was talking about, or perhaps he did not want to.
“Register of names…? Mister Mercury? What are you talking about?”
“Amalgam also has a person who acts as chairman,” explained Kalinin patiently. “He does not necessarily participate in the entire policy making process, but he is the only person with administrative powers over everything. There are a minimum of rules - he is the one that enforces them, and observes the working of the organization. That is Mister Mercury.”
“And it was... my father?”
Sir Mallory stared at the old man in disbelief. The latter fixed his gaze on some point in space, and seemed to not hear anything that happened in the physical world.
“So, are you? Lord Mallory?”
Being irritated more and more by his father’s stubborn silence, and feeling his hand burning, he raised his voice.
“Answer, father!”
After a pause, Mallory senior finally started to speak.
“As this Russian says... I’m the chairman of Amalgam, Mister Mercury.”
“You...”
“I thought of talking with you about it sometime. When you learn things, and become mature, maybe you could be my successor - that is what I thought.”
What kind of bad joke was that? His son was already fifty years old, calling him immature was ridiculous. And “successor..?” “I may be a traitor son to you, but I’m definitely nothing like you!” he wanted to shout, but his father sounded more like he was trying to comfort himself, instead of criticizing him.
“I’m not ashamed of it. Originally, Amalgam was not some kind of evil organization.”
“What part of a terrorist organization that provokes armed conflict to make money is not evil?!”
“That’s now. It was different before. You know, it was created just after the war, in 1948.”
“Forty-eight..? That’s... unexpected.”
“Yes, even we did not know that,” interjected Kalinin, sounding very respectful. “We knew it was quite old, but nobody seemed to know the entire history. This man managed it all. There were possibly many people who held the title of Mr. Gold or Silver, and yet none of them knew who their predecessor was. They were only linked by the numbers in the pages of a trade journal. Whether you call it a terrorist organization or a malevolent secret society is not important - the fact is that using only this peculiar decision-making process they managed to affect the world in such a way.”
“They didn’t know each other’s faces or names. Therein lie its power,” nodded Mallory senior. “Nobody could form or control cliques or factions inside this organization. For example, I still
remember that around the time of the Cuban crisis there were in fact three people calling themselves Mister Gold, and no one could tell who was communicating at the moment.”
“And it still worked?”
“Oh it did. One of those calling themselves Mister Gold was one of Khruschchev’s close associates. He strongly advocated the dismantling of the missiles deployed in Cuba. The others, also part of the upper echelons of power, moved to support him.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me,” snorted Edmond.
In the modern world just about anyone knew what the Cuban missile crisis was all about. In 1962, Soviet middle-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads were deployed in Cuba, which to the United States was the equivalent of a gun at their throat, and they reacted in full force. The tension between the two opponents was at an unprecedented level, and people were seriously considering the possibility of an all-out nuclear war. It was a critical moment that decided the fate of humanity as a whole. The resultant military crisis was solved because of the individual will of the leaders of the two countries; but Mallory senior was implying that Secretary General Khruschchev was acting under influence from Amalgam. Did that not mean that Amalgam had actually saved the world..?
“You’re probably thinking, son: how can it be that my enemy saved humanity? And you don’t want to believe it,” said the old man, as if Edmond’s thoughts were laid out clearly before him. “But as I said many times, Amalgam was at first an organization built on a dream. The dream that after the downfall of Nazi Germany we would be able to start anew - it was menaced by the Cold War. A lot of people thought the same, both in the East and the West. My grandfather, who held an important position in the military intelligence created this organization with four like-
minded people: an American oil magnate, a Russian scientist, a German officer of the SS and a Japanese trader. Add to them my grandfather, with his enormous wealth in real estate and knowledge of cryptography...”
“They were only five?”
“Five of the brightest men of their time, five geniuses. Despite their completely different backgrounds and beliefs, they were united in their dream of a future for humanity. Their principles divided them, but that union was made for one purpose - to guide the world from the shadows. That is why they named themselves ‘Amalgam’.”
“‘Future for humanity’, of all things... what insolence” murmured Kalinin. “Mithril was very much the same, wasn’t it? Though the slogans they brandished were a little different.”
“Even now you speak like a filthy traitor...”
“I only speak the truth... I see that a part of the power that the idea of those five people is alive in you” his words sounded like a gloomy joke.
Sir Mallory was not a hypocrite or a stubborn believer. He fully realized how correct Kalinin’s observation really was.
“All right. I understand the so-called dream of Amalgam. I even see its results. I can guess that afterwards things went the usual way.”
“Unfortunately, yes. As Amalgam’s network expanded, the number of members increased. The five founders eventually retired, and their titles were taken by newcomers. In twenty years, until about the end of the sixties, the size of the organization was such that members could barely grasp its extent.”
“The bog of the Vietnam war, then?”
“Amalgam didn’t participate in everything, of course, but you could say it was one of the reasons the war dragged on. The
number of people in the leadership that thought that the end of the war would be a loss increased, and perhaps they didn’t notice it themselves... and then they just started acting in their own interest for personal gain. Plans that strayed from the organization’s ideal, conflicting interests, final decisions that were watered-down compromises... And as internal resistance increased, they started playing unfair. New rules were made on the spot, it was as if everyone was trying to cheat at a game of dice.”
“And then thirty years, and a new generation.”
“Yes, the ones that are in it now have nothing to do with the original idea. Fools drunk with their might, playing vulgar power games.”
It was clear that the organization departed from its lofty goal and turned into a grossly obese creature whose only concern was its personal safety. It was a quite typical case of corruption. No matter how many brilliant men it assembled, and how novel a system it adapted, in the end it could not escape from this decay.
“All right, so it’s become a sort of mass council without any idea or goal. And the part that remained, the one that wished to survive at any cost, made managing this organization even less feasible.”
“True. I succeeded my father as the head of the organization about twenty years ago. It was already unmanageable then. The title of ‘Mister Mercury’ had quite a reputation, but my role was not giving speeches - it was management. Maintaining the organization’s network, excluding those who violated its rules, not allowing anyone to interrupt the conversation of the staff... but trying to make anyone listen to the original idea would be futile. And besides, Mister Mercury’s authority rested on the fact he was impartial, and did not have his own interests. My hands were tied.”
“You couldn’t even try to destroy the network? Without it, the organization would probably fall apart.”
“Impossible,” Mallory senior sighed deeply. “Fifteen years ago I was seriously considering my options, because I wanted to destroy it. Then there were of course no online meetings, like now; instead, we communicated through classified advertisements, which contained encrypted data, in select newspapers around the world. Every leader had his own cipher key, that they created themselves. Just as I used stock prices of my company, some used for example the figures that came up in the weather report of America’s East Coast, or the string of characters in a tabloid’s daily column. I imagine the authors of those gossip stories had no idea how their petty work was used... Anyhow, it was not possible to somehow destroy their own means of encryption. Several backup lines of communication were always available, and above all, nothing could be done about public means of communication. And now, because of the Internet, next to nothing can be done to disrupt their communications.”
Mallory senior glanced at Kalinin and continued.
“Though Mister Silver seems to have done just that.”
“He does have a limited ability to see the future. This allows him to predict ciphers and used protocols, and analyze their use,” nodded Kalinin matter-of-factly.
“So did he use some kind of virus?”
“To put it simply, something like that. It’s not only an electronic virus, however, but one that has psychological effects. It took him quite a while.”
Sir Edmond felt he could not fully grasp the meaning of the conversation between his father and Kalinin. It sounded like one of the members of the organization was trying to seize control from inside, and succeeding. The pain in his wound had no intention of
stopping, and he would have been shouting and cursing, if it wasn’t for the presence of those two.
“What was I talking about again... Ah, yes, - as I said, I was not able to do anything to stop this grossly inflated organization.”
“I got it already. Is that why you created Mithril?”
“Correct. If I could do nothing from the inside, I would create an outside threat, to check Amalgam’s unpredictable movements. Since that time... the nuclear warhead in the Gulf War. The pinnacle of Amalgam’s hubris...”
The one mysterious nuclear strike, that was the reason of the appalling situation the Middle East was in. And this was also the handiwork of Amalgam.
“I decided then that it was absolutely necessary to create an organization to stop them.”
“Oh, really. Such a noble goal that motivated you?”
“There was no other way.”
“I only see that you hid, while the two organizations you betrayed battled each other, while you sold them out to each other. Even if, for argument’s sake, we suppose that you had a good goal, this little game of yours is inexcusable. What a splendid combination of cowardice and arrogance!”
“You are acting like a child, stop it.”
But Sir Mallory did not have any intention to calm down.
“You did not only betray those organizations, but me! Your son! You used, manipulated me to get the people you needed for the organization!”
“It was a job you were suited for. A romantic in a pragmatist’s hide, who else could become the brains behind Mithril?”
“How dare you...”
“Your reaction is that of disappointment, is it not? If you were a real Mallory, you would be disappointed in yourself for not anticipating your father’s actions.”
Edmond never felt such a tremendous anger in his life. He was fully aware of the fact that he was ready - no, he wanted to kill his father with his own hands that very moment. On his way from his hiding place in London he had asked himself many times - would he really be able to shoot his own father? Now the question would not ever appear.
“I’m glad I took away your gun,” calmly observed Kalinin, who was watching him.
“His intent is quite clear, isn’t it, Mister Kalinin? Now, you had something you wished to discuss. Do I have to finish my story quickly?”
“No, it’s already quite fine.”
Kalinin also probably did not know most of the organization’s history, and its relation to different incidents, but was also able to get a general understanding during that conversation. He no longer wished to see a quarrel between father and son.
“So, can I now ask you to kindly hand over the ‘register of names’?”
Hearing Kalinin’s firm request, Mallory senior frowned.
“It is incomplete.”
“That does not matter,” quickly answered Kalinin, as if expecting the answer. “You, sir, should know at least the leadership of the organization from its founding and up to now. There were many examples of Mister Mercury expelling members for violating rules - by letting other members know his name.”
That was, however, all that the manager could do, without taking direct action, otherwise he would risk losing the trust of the other members.
Leonard Testarossa’s ability of predicting the future, no matter how limited, allowed him to understand more or less the current status of the organization and its membership, but he did not know anything about the past. The only person who did was Mister Mercury.
“So, what do you plan to do with the data about past members? They’re mostly gone now.”
“Information on a need to know basis, sir.”
Yes, Mallory senior did not need to know anything. The group to which Kalinin belonged already had information on most members, and for all intents and purposes has seized power within Amalgam. Information about the present was quite worthless to them. The past, however, was a quite different thing, especially about Amalgam around eighteen years ago. That was the turning point. If the modern world had to be returned to the right path, the Amalgam that existed then could prove useful. This information would be a sort of reference for the creation of the next world, and for that, she had to know the register of names. Kalinin was only obeying orders.
“Mister Kalinin... as the manager of that organization, there is a line that I cannot cross. Otherwise I would be selling them out.”
“And you are prepared to defend this ‘line’ at any cost?”
The sudden bout of faithfulness seemed absurd. That person created Mithril, the ‘justice league’-like organization that together with Amalgam constituted a perverse self-maintaining balance. What could possibly drive that man to be so stubbornly loyal to the past of the organization?
“I’d like to see you try and get it out of me. If you’re expecting me to simply hand it over to you in a gift wrap, you are very much mistaken.”
“Then you’ll excuse me.”
Kalinin surveyed the room, paused in front of a bookshelf, and quickly started throwing all of the books out on the floor. It took him less than a minute. A cloud of putrid-smelling dust filled the room, and Edmond started coughing.
Kalinin took another book, and was about to throw it down, but then paused.
“No. Not here.”
His gaze fell upon the Bible that was lying on the small side table near Mallory senior. He took it, opened it, ran his finger along the spine of the book, and pulled once. It came off, revealing an old, yellowish piece of folded paper. Every square inch of it was packed with what was clearly a cipher - it was the “register of names”. Kalinin glanced at it, gently folded it back and put it in his breast pocket.
“...How did you know?”
“Hiding dirty secrets in the back cover of a Bible seemed like something that a person like you would do.”
“Hm, isn’t it... It only seemed appropriate to hide it in a vulgata,” nodded the old man, pointing at the Bible.
The cipher key was probably a character string in the book - a primitive measure by modern standards. With the help of an AI the analysis and breaking of the code wouldn’t even take an hour.
Mallory senior made a face like a spoiled child suddenly deprived of his favorite toy. The guess was probably right.
“Well, it seems we do not need anything from you any more, sir. You are free to do anything you wish,” said Kalinin, taking the Bible under his arm and turning towards the door.
“You’re not going to execute me?” called out Mallory senior.
“There is no reason to. You are powerless now.”
“So, I’m already part of the past, am I not?”
“Not only that. You are already a prisoner here, of your own device.”
The old man would probably not go out of that room any more. He was bound by invisible chains he had forged himself.
Kalinin glanced at the son. Mallory junior’s face was already very pale, but he could still read a cold intent to kill his father. It seemed that he had already forgotten about the pain, and his murderous intent had left him indifferent to what had happened between his father and Kalinin.
The father, who gave up on fighting against life. The son, kept conscious only by the rage of his father’s betrayal. Suddenly Kalinin realized how that sorrowful sight reminded him of himself and Sousuke, and smiled bitterly. It was even more absurd that he told that old man, - practically his own reflection - that he was a prisoner. Wasn’t Kalinin himself bound by chains of the past…?
As if driven by some impulse, Kalinin stopped, took out the gun and placed it in front of Edmond Mallory.
“This is yours.”
And he left the room without even looking back. He heard Sir Mallory grab the gun, certainly not to shoot himself.
Outside of the house he was greeted by a rain that had gotten stronger without them noticing. Two black wagons were parked around the Toyota which Mallory junior was driving not so long ago, and six subordinates waited for him, silent, under the rain.
“Let’s move out.”
His subordinates got into the vehicles, still silent, and they withdrew from the village. On the way back Kalinin thought that
those people were nothing like those he was happy to lead, only a short while ago - none of their humanity, their kindness, and their skill. However, it was easier for him that way. He did not have to listen to pointless conversations, and he did not care when one of them got injured. Yes, it was better that way.
When he was getting in the front passenger’s seat of one of the wagons, he heard a muffled gunshot from inside the small house. His driver only paused for a split second, before starting the engine as if nothing had happened. There was no scream, though a voice full of bitterness and anger reached Kalinin’s ears - but the wagon started moving, its wheels kicking up large amounts of dirt, and Kalinin did not hear anything else. Maybe Mallory senior was actually alive. That place... wasn’t the fact that he was waiting for his son in that village only they knew about, a proof of his sincere wish to mend their relationship? Instead of being killed by some unknown assassin somewhere else, one shot, releasing him from his burden, would be a fitting end to his life. If one could not hope for at least that, then the world--
An indicator flashed on his satellite phone, indicating that the prepared communication channel was open.
“I got the register.”
“Good. Come back quickly,” he heard Leonard’s voice over the line. Besides the negligible time lag, the channel was perfectly clear. “It’s also generally going fine here.”
“Generally? Is there a problem?”
“My sis and her crew sniffed us out somehow. Well, satellite communications aren’t that safe, it was a matter of time, really.”
“Our counter?”
“I think I’ll let the US Navy do the work. Trying to sink the ‘Toy Box’ with all they got” in fact, they were supposed to engage them right about then.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Conn, sonar! Torpedo - bearing one-two-oh distance twenty-five hundred, closing in at fifty knots!”
Almost at the same time that the sonar operator’s suddenly tense voice announced that, the main screen, depicting the map of the immediate area of the ocean, turned red and warning symbols appeared. It was a Mark 48 fired from the USS Augusta1, a nuclear hunter-killer submarine of the United States Navy.
1 USS Augusta (SSN-710) was a Los Angeles class sub, in reality decommissioned in 2008. Ironically, it was involved in the incident which clearly inspired Mardukas' first encounter with Tessa's father - see the translation of "Birth of the Tuatha de Danaan". Gotoh just draws parallels.
Tessa, sitting in her captain’s chair, reacted instantaneously.
“Starboard, bearing 2-9-0, hold speed.”
“Aye-aye, Ma’am. Starboard 2-9-0, holding speed,” repeated Mardukas, always by her side as her XO.
One could not call that the best maneuver for avoiding the torpedo. Standard practice would to be to set course east and accelerate, and some members of the crew evidently thought so, but Mardukas remained absolutely impassive. Noticing their reaction, he only shook his head a little, which as they well knew meant “Obey your orders, immediately”.
As the Captain expected, the sonar soon caught another signal.
“Contact! Bearing 2-9-3 distance eight hundred, closing in at fifty knots!”
“Ah, there it is,” muttered Tessa with a little satisfied smile.
If they had done things by the book, they would have walked straight into the enemy’s trap. She easily anticipated that the enemy had reinforcements, and that they would attack that way.
“Hold course. Lower speed.”
“Holding course, lowering speed, aye.”
“Open tubes three and four.”
“Open three and four, aye. Target data input complete.”
“Wonderful. Weapons free.”
“Aye-aye, Ma’am. Torpedoes away.”
Two ADCAP torpedoes left the de Danaan’s stern - they were nothing more than a decoy to disrupt enemy movement. One of the subs that lie ahead of the de Danaan had no choice but to engage in evasive maneuvers, which created a breach for them.
The first torpedoes were fired from the stern, and were rapidly approaching, as the numbers on the screen showed. Seven hundred yards, six hundred, five...
Now’s the time.
“Hard to starboard, 3-3-5. Engine stop, EMFC to passive.”
“Aye, starboard 3-3-5. Full stop, EMFC in passive mode.”
Having waited to attract the enemy torpedoes close enough, Tessa made the ship perform a steep turn, at the same time engaging the EMFC, a system that, together with a special alloy covering the hull of the ship, drastically reduced the resistance of the sea water.
The maneuver sent the enormous hull of the Tuatha De Danaan gliding through the water like a car on ice. It was unimaginable for an ordinary submarine.
The floor or the control room inclined steeply, and everything that was not affixed began sliding towards the port side.
“...Incoming!”
The guidance system of the enemy torpedo was not made to follow such rapid and irregular movement, and it detonated around six hundred and fifty yards away. The felt the impact of the shockwave as the control room shook and the main screen flickered.
“EMFC to active! Course 1-1-0, fire one and two when ready!”
“Aye, Ma’am! EMFC active. Course 1-1-0, weapons free.”
Because of the timing of the launch, the enemy sonar would not be able to detect the opening of the launch tubes of the de Danaan behind the detonation. They were now firing from a drifting maneuver at the enemy that was behind them.
“One and two away.”
“Excellent. Port, ahead, one-third, course 0-4-0. Take her to nine hundred, down twenty degrees rudder. We will break through them on a north-north-eastern heading2.”
2 The slang used here is a mix of the real thing (as far as I could find) and some elements from Gatoh I had to keep - for example, the text says "rudder down", though in reality the rudder would only control left or right turns as far as I could find out; but I would consider it appropriate to keep the expression because of the futuristic technology of the TDD. In a revision I will perhaps consider a more realistic approach.
“Yes, Captain.”
Even though it was a retreat, Mardukas sounded relieved. The remaining enemy torpedoes would be completely confused by the detonations and after a few minutes their safety switches would kick in, bringing their engines to a stop, and they would sink quietly into the depths of the ocean. The torpedoes fired by the de Danaan would not explode even if they hit their target. Those were only Amalgam’s pawns, who were probably themselves curious as to why they suddenly had to hunt down the “Toy Box”. He wanted to avoid bloodshed if at all possible... but the other side was
“serious”, firing at them with live ammunition, so to speak. And they didn’t even fire a shot until the last possible moment, obeying seemingly nonsensical orders...
Was it necessary to go easy on the others? There were three US hunter-killer submarines, as far as they could tell, and probably at least one more below the thermal layer. If they made course corrections immediately, fired ADCAP torpedoes, ADSLMM mines and MAGROCs, all four enemies would be destroyed.
Should they try to?
If they destroyed their pursuers, their own crew, who had been on alert for more than twenty hours, could finally get some rest. Yes, it was easily done--...
“Captain,” Mardukas’ voice interrupted her darkening thoughts, “should we reload the same torpedo type?”
Normally that would be the case, but if they were to proceed to annihilate the enemy, it would be tactically sound to load in two ADSLMMs. This question was Mardukas’ very indirect way of confirming her intentions. She glanced at her XO, who was standing near her as usual, and noticed that he slightly furrowed his brow. His message was obvious: “I understand what you are thinking, but I’m against it”.
“Yes, same type. Let us leave this area as soon as possible.”
Which was equivalent to saying “I understand, no more attacks”.
“Yes, captain.”
The Tuatha de Danaan descended to nine hundred feet and leveled out, continuing on her original north-north-east course in complete silence.
♦ ♦ ♦
After the submarine had been taken off full battle alert, and noise reduction procedures were no longer in effect, the main hangar deck became lively once again, with maintenance crews
appearing from whatever hole they were hiding in during combat, and resuming their work. Some were busy on the rotary-engine transport, others gathered around the Arm Slaves, who looked like skeletons with their armor taken off and bare frames and wiring plainly visible. Each machine was undergoing some kind of maintenance, and Sagara Sousuke was busy helping with his.
The ARX-8 Laevatein, their only machine equipped with a Lambda Driver, and possibly the second most powerful in the world. It was white with sections of dark red armor on it, and compared to the M9 Gernsbacks it looked very aggressive.
That said, there was not much Sousuke could help with in terms of maintenance. He mostly did simple things that the maintenance crew trusted him with, as a show of good faith towards the machine’s AI. And if he touched any of the parts himself, Lieutenant Sachs (the one leading the crew) would probably be enraged beyond reason. It was like that in any army in the world - the maintenance people thinking of the machine they were responsible for as their own, “lending” it to the pilot for a sortie.
<Please reset the alignment of the sixth cartilage unit on the right arm to point-twelve > the request, both in vocal and text form, came from Al, the machine AI.
“The sixth again? You just told us to reset it to point-zero-five,” said Sousuke, speaking in the headset microphone.
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