Near Mizushi City
Mikoshu Duchy
Kingdom of Shirakawa
23:47
The trees fell back to reveal the gleaming lake, Mizushi City's lights gleaming over the horizon in the distance. In the beat up truck, the older man glanced to his right to take in the view. Even after decades of seeing this nighttime scene almost on a daily basis, it was still breathtaking. At the foot of the hill, along the coast of Shirakawa's largest inland lake, his hometown sat glowing with the soft yellow of automatic streetlamps. Most of the houses were darkened for the night. After his son had wrecked the family car participating in secret mountain drift races, the man had no choice but to use his much slower delivery truck for personal trips as well, such as to visit his wife way over in the Royal Mizushi General Hospital.
There was little traffic on the rural roads this late at night. The area around Mizushi was sparsely populated, with only a few fishing villages and towns dotted around the lake. Major inter-city highways cut through the countryside, funnelling the neverending heavy urban traffic away from these quiet areas that many in those hives did not even know existed. The man turned his attention back to the winding hill road, characteristic of these areas and a major draw for those mountain drifters that his son had unfortunately gotten mixed up with. He wanted to be like those big-name Yamataian drifters that appeared on TV, not a tofu deliveryman like his father, who sighed deeply as he hit a straight bridge and rested his hands on the wheel.
For one moment, it was as though it was Hinomoto all over again. A jet engine screamed overhead out of nowhere, and the man quickly jammed on the brakes instinctively, one hand moving to cover his eyes and the other curling around the wheel like it was the pistol grip of a rifle long returned to the State. A blinding light filled the windscreen as something streaked past in front of him in the air, just barely missing the bridge and diving into the gorge dramatically. He shoved open the door - a discarded mineral water bottle dropped onto the street - and jumped out, stumbling to the edge of the bridge and peering down just in time to see a sleek shape, almost like a missile or spaceship, ram itself into the trees and the ground. It tore a deep scar in the bottom of the gorge, leaving behind enough flaming fuel to provide the light for the man to see all this.
Blinking twice to ensure he was actually awake and not asleep at the wheel, then shaking his head to make sure he wasn't actually dead from falling asleep at the wheel, the man turned and rushed back to his truck. He grabbed his TaPhone from the dashboard and attempted to unlock it, failing to do so. Evidently, the battery on the year-old phone was dead, as it had been prone to doing so recently. Typical short-lived Yamataian products...
Pulling himself into the beat-up truck, he gunned the engine. If he couldn't call them, he had better physically get the police, and the closest 24-hour police post was not in his village but in the next town over, about half an hour's drive from here. He shook his head at the inconvenience, 'understanding' for a brief moment why his son was so desperate to go to a big city like Niihama to study.
Itomori-Mitsuha Air Base
Kinai Prefecture
Greater Empire of Yamatai
01:32
Tires screeched to a halt outside the headquarters complex of Itomori-Mitsuha Air Base, the largest air base in the area around Heian. Like every military installation, especially one of such importance to the defence of the nation, activity was everywhere even this late at night. The car's arrival, however, was completely unprecedented and not forewarned. There was none of the typical honour guard, for example, for the car which bore the unique licence plate of 空軍-1, or Air Force-1. Only three soldiers in full combat gear and the blue-grey digital camouflage of the Air Force, were there to greet the occupant of the car.
One of the men charged forward and reached for the door handle, his rifle slung at his back. He was not fast enough, and pulled back just in time as the door flung itself open, a much older man pulling himself out of the vehicle. Despite having been woken up at midnight and rushing out of his house in under seven minutes, Air Marshal Tokuma Tenzai was perfectly attired in his black officer's kimono, even carrying the ceremonial sword. Surely this was a result of all the experience as a pilot in his much younger days. The staff officer only looked immensely annoyed, surging past the bowing men and forcing open the glass doors of the headquarters building. The duty officer at the front desk was already waiting with a crisp salute, sheepishly directing the highest-ranking man in her line of service towards the metal detectors with a sweep of her hand.
Tenzai briskly walked over, the scowl behind his rectangular glasses and greying hair unchanging. A sleepy-looking private in combat fatigues nervously waved a metal detector wand over the Air Marshal, who was literally on the other end of the command chain. Following that, Tenzai grabbed his sword off of the x-ray machine's tray and entered the elevator lobby alone. On a typical visit, he would be accompanied by an entourage that would include at least his secretary and whoever was in charge of the base. That whoever was General Hideo Naganohara, and one of the elevator doors parted to reveal the gaunt senior officer, a grim expression plastered across his thin face.
He almost did a double-take as he noticed who was already waiting for him in the lobby.
"Good evening, Air Marshal Tenzai. You're earlier than expected," Naganohara greeted and immediately gave a deep bow. Tenzai replied with a smaller one.
"What's the situation?" Tenzai demanded, moving into the elevator.
Naganohara stepped back to make way, and the two stoic men in the Ashigaru-like military dress uniforms perhaps meant to be an impromptu ceremonial guard. The lower-ranking general pressed the floor number of a certain basement level, swiping his security pass in a card reader placed next to the buttons. The elevator began descending immediately.
"It's crashed in a remote area, so we're not expecting a quick discovery unless someone was around to see it," Naganohara replied, somewhat apologetically, "satellite shows that there's nothing nearby, and we were very fortunate that this region has virtually no Shirakawan airbases, though we are assuming the airport at Mizushi could have seen something."
"So they probably didn't see it through radar. Visual would still be a big problem. Shit," the Air Marshal lightly pounded his left fist against the elevator wall.
"There's nothing out there," Naganohara protested, just as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open to a typical lobby with soft lighting and wood panelling. The two officers stepped out, and Naganohara dismissed the two honour guards, who remained in the elevator.
Leading the way, Naganohara brought Tenzai down the left side hallway and into one of the conference rooms, which was full of activity, yet devoid of people. Lower-ranking soldiers sat behind communications terminals and field laptops, or rushed around with papers and reports. Actually sitting at the conference table was a sparse assortment of less than half a dozen Air Force men and one civilian from Nagajima Aerospace, which had built the drone that was causing all this trouble. On the projector, joining via teleconference, were Marshal-Admiral Mitanabe of the Imperial Navy, Defence Minister Ikuo, and Imperial Security Agency chairwoman Kayabuki. Blank spaces for the commanders of the Army and Marines were also on the screen, though for some reason Marshal-General Toyama and Lietenant-General Naoki were not available.
"Good... Morning, Air Marshal," Kayabuki greeted instead of the Defence Minister, who was preoccupied with something off-screen, "Our satellite feeds show that the supersonic stealth drone crashed in Shirakawa, far from anything that could have detected it, so discovery should not be so soon. We have perhaps 12 hours."
"What, 12 hours for what?" Tenzai asked, taking the seat at the head of the table. One of the Majors slid a prepared dossier to General Naganohara, who slid it to Tenzai himself.
"To recover the drone's black box," Kayabuki replied softly, "we need to know why it crashed, and if anyone had detected it on its flight."
"No," Ikuo sat back down, "it's too risky with such a tight time limit. We also do not know if the Shirakawans had actually been tracking it the whole damn time and shot it down."
"Impossible," the Nagajima engineer spoke up, "the drone is equipped with the bleeding edge in stealth technology and electronic countermeasures, and would not be detectable even by current Shirakawan systems. Also, we were flying it the entire time, so it was not shot down."
Tenzai almost rolled his eyes at the civilian's habitual corporate shilling. He folded his arms and turned from his own boss, to the ISA chief, to his fellow chief of staff. It was too late in the night for this nonsense.
"Can Umibozu pull this off?" The Air Marshall asked after the Imperial Navy's elite special forces troops, famous throughout the world for their varied exploits since the Hinoan Conflict.
"The Imperial Armed Forces will not do anything, I want the drone destroyed," Ikuo cut in before the Navy chief could reply, "Nagajima will blow up the drone with the self-destruct before Shirakawa knows what's happening. We have already wasted two hours here. Who knows how many members of the public has seen the damn thing. I've just got off the phone with the Foreign Minister, with Her Imperial Highness's upcoming visit to Shirakawa, this cannot look good at all."
The Air Marshall shook his head, letting out a long sigh. Rubbing his temples, he leaned back in his chair, glancing at the satellite photographs and maps of the crash site and surrounding area. The nearest village was around four kilometres away in a straight line, maybe double that with the winding hills and valleys. The drone had conveniently crashed right next to a road, but was inside a gorge, so was perhaps somewhat inaccessible unless by foot. But the Shirakawan Army wasn't some third world force that would be stopped by such an obstacle, if word reached them they would be all over the damn thing in hours.
"Minister, I may have a solution that will allow us to recover the black box and maintain secrecy, but I need some time," Kayabuki spoke up, "just an extension of the deadline to twenty four hours."
"I'll give you fourteen hours, but let's hear it," Ikuo irritatedly replied, his eyebags far more prominent that usual.
Wanshi
Enkai Province
Kingdom of Shirakawa
02:50
A buzzing sound roused him awake. He'd always been a light sleeper, ever since that habit had been drilled into him in the Imperial Marines. Shintaro Hijikata propped himself up with his muscular right arm, the blanket sliding off his naked torso. His female companion for the night stirred slightly but remained asleep. His phone was ringing. The number was unknown.
"Yeah, Hijikata," he groggily answered, covering his mouth to avoid waking the woman on the other side of the bed. He glanced sideways at the clock, the luminescent green hands telling him it was roughly three in the morning. What the hell...
The caller suddenly hung up. The ex-Marine exhaled sharply, groaning at his bad luck. Suddenly, the phone vibrated again, and a new text message had come in from some unknown number.
Niihama Wildlife Photography Magazine here, you were on our mailing list
Need some help getting some rare shots up near Mizushi
There'll be some other guys too
Don't mind if you walk out, but come over soon and talk to us first
We'll pay well, maybe 1.5 to 2?
Check your email
Near Mizushi City
Mikoshu Duchy
Kingdom of Shirakawa
12:05
Hijikata knelt down on the soft snow, easily hefting the Type-95 Arisaka sniper rifle, a distant descendent of the rifles that the same company had made for the troops that rampaged across these lands eighty years ago. The same reliable bolt-action design was replicated with modern materials and a powerful scope that he had bought off the civilian market. A former scout sniper in the Imperial Marines, Shintaro Hijikata had left that field of work four years ago after eight illustrious years putting an end to the Empire's enemies. Working for the military and the government just did not appeal to him after some time, and being an insurance salesman apparently was not as easy for him as putting 7.62mm rounds into heads. More recently, he had joined the niche market of armed civilian contractor, security systems specialist, special civilian assistance agent, or for the less articulate, mercenary.
All of the team trudging up the final snow-covered knoll behind him were mercenaries, except the only other Yamataian on the team. He had a good guess who their true employer was, based on the mission scope and the shadow that had been attached to them. Evidently the Yamataian government was not yet done with him, and he was yet again employed by them, though in a very different context. And this time, the pay was much, much higher than it had been in the Marines. One third of the massive two million total had been deposited into their offshore accounts before they left what was most definitely a very well-disguised ISA safehouse in a civilian-painted helicopter. Whichever agency or body of the Yamataian government was their true benefactor, they really wanted that black box badly.
Perhaps the thing was a Giangi drone, or something. Hijikata wasn't one who typically questioned the true nature of an assignment, especially not one as well-paying as this, but this one in particular really piqued his interest. Perhaps it was because it involved his homeland, or because of how ridiculously dangerous this was for not just his life, but also international relations. Or maybe it was because of that man, who did no favours for whoever was paying them all.
"Two more hours to the deadline," Hideki Yamamura appeared and got into a prone position beside Hijikata, the much older man propping a pair of binoculars up with his arms and peering through them at the distant crash site. Yamamura had a distinct appearance that stood out, with a scar bisecting an aged face from the forehead, through a greyed walrus moustache, and down to his chin. That man was perhaps the opposite of Hijikata, acting as the team leader and their liaison with whoever was truly employing them. Hijikata suspected ISA TokuSa, which made their employer the ISA. An uncomfortable thought, perhaps, but two million did not come easy. They had already taken a three-hour hike to reach this spot, though at least now the wreck was in sight.
"I estimate maybe another half hour's walk, especially with this terrain," Yamamura scanned the ground between them and the crash site. The fires had already gone out. Hijikata instead focused on the site and the nearby road bridge.
"There are vehicles on that bridge," he remarked, looking at the distant structure, "I think local police have arrived."
"We'll have to get closer. We cannot afford to miss that deadline," the older man pushed himself up, shouldering his Type-64 rifle.
He gestured to the rest of the team, who had made it to the top of the knoll. Now it would be downhill almost all the way.
"Trust me, you don't want to miss the deadline," Yamamura repeated, "let's get moving, people."