Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Fan Fiction ❯ My Magical Gate Experience Was Ruined, As I Expected ❯ YGS: 12 ( Chapter 12 )

[Tanya/Komachi]

“Mrs. Kawasaki?” said a female voice on the other side of my door. They knocked again. I think they had been knocking for a while now. I haven’t slept enough. The chicken was good cold, but Taishi and I needed some comfort, and it required a bath afterwards, and then we crashed into sleep, hard and exhausted. Waking up after only five hours of sleep to some JSDF prick pounding on my door wasn’t helping. Eventually I took my phone off mute and stared at all the messages. This is what I get for having a listed number. I sighed.

I eventually pulled on some clean clothing and checked the charge on my jewel. Adequate. I swapped the power bank and put the drained one on the USB charge cable by my keys and coat. No need for a coat, but maybe a longsleeve shirt and a light shawl? Something to hide my ahoge today. And those ridiculous huge sunglasses with the white rims. I adjusted all the barrette-sensors and checked the time. They were still knocking every few minutes. I looked out the spyhole. It was Hina Ebina. Of course it was.

“Your sister is a dumb bitch,” I said on opening the door.

“Yes, yes she is,” she agreed. She was in JSDF blues, with her medals. I recognized the ribbon I’d seen on niisan’s uniform that matched on Batous. Either that was special forces grad or it was Outbread Company. I took a guess.

“I got clearance now. I got briefed on that other gate incident near Fujisan. Anything you want to say?” I asked her. I saw her jaw muscles clench.

“I didn’t know that yaoi manga would destroy the kingdom,” growled Ebina. Niisan told me about her in high school, about her nosebleeds and obsession. I am amazed he had the nerve to confess to her just to get turned down. Even if it was a fake confession, and she was smart enough to catch the opportunity and use it correctly. Hina Ebina was smart. Demented but smart.

“I thought you would appreciate a local and friendly face. And I’m already on the recon teams, under some new officer named Itami. Saved a bunch of civilians at the palace gate. He’s getting a lot of press because you’re too good at hiding from the cameras. And the surveillance teams. And those other country’s spy rings. Did you really bounce a sniper bullet off you, like Rei did in the final episode?” she asked suddenly. I knew the one, even though it was technically something I watched in my first life.

“Yes, yes I did. And there were two other attacks. How high is your clearance?”

“Tango Delta.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s almost everything. I can tell you that reincarnation is real, and so is God, though God is a dick. And that means I really am a war veteran.”

“What? Which war?”

“World War One. Just not this world.”

“What does that mean?”

“There are shotgun microphones pointed at my door, and I think they’ve hacked my jamming field. Let’s go somewhere else.” I stepped out and shut the door, locking it behind me. We moved down the interior hallway past the obvious spy gear badly hidden in the potted plants and took the elevator, suffering through the Evangelion version of “Fly Me To the Moon”. That song always makes me cry. I wish they’d stop playing it in my elevator, but half the time it’s playing “Girl From Ipanema” instrumental and that’s a special type of hell.

She directed me to a simple K-car in our parking garage and we got into the very generic and thus invisible transportation and left. I ran the spell to scan for microphones and found several.

“This car is wired for sound. Did you know?” I asked her.

“What? It’s from the motor pool. I picked it up this morning,” responded Ebina Hina in genuine surprise. She looked and sounded embarrassed.

“It’s got three different systems. Probably different agencies. I wonder if any of them are ours,” I said.

“Wonderful. I’ll have to take it somewhere special,” she sighed.

“This vehicle has lowjack. And we’re being followed. Are you scared of heights?” I asked her.

“Uhm. No?” she answered in a very confused voice.

“Pull over here,” I said, pointing to a Lawson’s market.

She pulled over quickly and we both stepped out. I stepped up to her, turned my back and gripped her arms in a reverse hug.

“Wait, what are you?” she started to say.

“Hold on tight. And don’t choke me.” And I enveloped us both in my field, including endurance and lightness, and flew upwards at over 100 kph.

“Ahhh!” Hina Ebina screamed into my ear.

“So, where are we going, and should we be going there?” I asked her over the rushing of the wind. I tuned my shield and that noise vanished. Good. Still got it.

“Narashino, the base armory. Then the Gate. We’re holding an invasion there in about four hours, and it will be night time. We’re expecting over 50,000 enemy armored infantry, and dozens of those wyvern things. My commander asked if you would help in case of emergencies. He’s given permission for you to be properly armed and given one of our radios for the battle.”

“So all that interrogation crap yesterday is over with?” I inquired, adjusting my flight towards Narashino base at the north of Chiba. The base was well lit, and the tank hangers and various munitions bunkers were obvious. I decided to be kind and landed at the front gate, walking toward the gate guards, who immediately unholstered their big revolvers. Ebina stepped forward presenting her ID and things calmed right down again. The guards stared at me, of course. Any flying woman is a curiosity worth staring at. A jeep arrived and we were asked to ride to the destination, escorted by the MPs. The armory was a low, concrete reinforced building. It was meant to survive bombs and nearby nuclear blasts. We descended stairs into the depths and got go a wire mesh counter where a no-nonsense staff sergeant presented me with a hated Type 64 and four twenty round magazines and 200 rounds of ammunition. He also presented me with a heavy flak vest.

“Is the enemy shooting flak?” I asked him.

“Not to my knowledge, ma’am.”

“I will put up with this junk gear today, for this battle. After this I get the gear I want.”

“Sign here, ma’am,” responded the sergeant, totally disinterested in my female opinion. This is the downside of looking like a movie star. Just for that I picked it up, slung the horrible vest around me, buckled the sides shut, loaded all four magazines with the speed loader equipment provided, and slid one into place with a clack. I worked the bolt and locked the safety on. I saluted perfectly and activated my SEP at a higher level. He gaped as I vanished.

“I own the night!” I shouted and grabbed Hina’s hand, dragging her out of this damned hole with her own gear still flapping. I flew us from the exit of the building straight to the Gate, probably setting all kinds of radar detection systems off. I saw some attack helicopters scramble from various building tops as I approached Shinjuku but I just don’t care anymore.

“Major!” called Yukino. I released my grip on Ebina. She fell to the ground and started projectile vomiting the rainbow. I guess she didn’t like heights after all.

“Captain!” I replied. We saluted each other. Cameras were recording.

“I think this may be a fun night for a war,” suggested my subordinate.

“It's war. I expect terrible slaughter. They’re just primitive screwheads. They don’t even know about boomsticks. Some probably survived my bombs and fled back to tell their commanders. I have an update for your jewel. Let me run it.” I stepped up, offering the mini HDMI cable. She plugged it into the side of the chip after unplugging the silicon rubber cover, for weather proofing. I activated the download and update as we stood on the ground in front of a long line of tanks and recon vehicles and APCs. There were hundreds or thousands of troopers, in full battle gear, ready to mount up and go. The update completed and verified. We tested flight. All was good.

“I'm pretty sure that if we weren't here JSDF generals would delay this for three months of arguments and requisition forms and hearings. Instead we respond to this Pearl Harbor event with our own immediate military response. This jewel update is pretty close to what we had in Norway. You remember?” I said in German.

“Yes, I remember. There’s only two of us. How do we deal with something that flies and won’t die easily?” Yukino asked. Her hair was braided and she wore a tankers helmet, flight goggles, and the throat mic and earphones. Not very modern but sturdy enough. She looked good. So did I.

“Like what, dragons?” I asked, half joking as I fiddled with the clips on the side of the vest. It was uncomfortable. I was too chesty for this design.

“There are wyverns. Dragons are likely,” she pointed out. “They even have tungsten carbide ceramic scales. They’re at least somewhat bulletproof.”

“Nothing alive stops a 35 mm cannon, much less a Vulcan 20mm burst,” I pointed out. Yukino shrugged in agreement.

“Yes, but we aren’t carrying those. We just have these crap Type 64s. I hope it doesn't explode,” said said fatalistically.

“I demanded better gear we choose for our next mission,” I pointed out.

“Thanks for that, Komachi. Major,” Yukino said. "I'll make some calls when we get back. Maybe I can track down a solution. We should try to requisition. We can't exactly visit a gun store, and the German armories were actually functional. That sergeant was a REMF, an obstacle. And what do we do with obstacles?" she said with a raised eyebrow I could barely see behind her goggles.

"Obstacles for killing!" we chanted together. Ah, Tsian-pu. The tao of amazons.

“Shall we go? Do you think they want us to fly ahead or ride on those tanks at the front?” I pondered out loud. It was strange to go to war with just the two of us. I missed my unit, my men and women. I trained them into an effective Rapid Reaction force. Yukino and I had more experience in this kind of combat than all these infantry around us. They had plenty of equipment and training. I hoped that actual combat wouldn't break them.

“Ugh. The muzzle brakes backblast sideways. No thank you. I’ll fly,” reminded Yukino. A good point.

We waited on the Colonel running this mission to call the advance. We rose up and darted ahead of the lead battle tanks, our radios squawking about clear fire zone. I didn’t wait and zoomed forward in silence at 150 kph. The trip through the black was over quickly and we burst out of the far end of the Gate and rose into the starry night, gaining altitude past the startled barricades and over the ironclad armies of primitive screw-heads. I blame Ash for that. We climbed a thousand meters above the battlefield.

“My daughters… welcome. Welcome!” carried a throbbing whisper in the mana, like sound, but felt in the bone. I shuddered at the sensation, totally new and foreign. It was worse than Being X, much worse.

“Did you just feel that?” Yukino asked, confirming my fears.

“Yes. What was that?” I asked her.

“I think that was a god. Probably a local one. And it recognized us,” she said over our private combat net, just the two of us able to hear each other.

“I don’t know if I want to tell the brass about that, but we probably should,” I admitted after thinking a little while.

Below us the Gate sat, foreboding, and the torches and campfires of 20,000 men flickered in the light breeze. We waited for the tanks and APCs to roll out, relaying images via our cameras to the little drone parked just outside the gate, unnoticed.

“We read you, Pixie 1 and Pixie 2,” I heard over the radio. “Visual signal clear. Continue operations. First element ETA 3 minutes.” We waited.

The tanks showed up and went hot, their Coax guns, a machinegun alongside their main gun, chattered antipersonnel small caliber rifle bullets into the ranks before the gate. The armored men died howling in disbelief.

The APCs showed up a few minutes later, and went around the tanks to either side, establishing a firing line. They hosed down the enemy with tracer fire. Infantry dismounted under cover fire, carrying crew served light machineguns and belts of ammunition. A minute of setup and there was an order for illumination. Parachute flares went up from 60mm mortar tubes, showing more targets and more machinegun fire spat from dozens of crew served weapons. This went on for a while.

The enemy forces were mostly running away, trying to regroup under their surviving officers. Everything closer was cooling metal and blood and screaming horses and groaning men, probably dying of their wounds. It was disgusting. Real war was disgusting. This is the truth a combat veteran knows. There is no glory in war. It isn't righteous. It's a meat grinder, and it turns brave men into fertilizer and pain. The unlucky ones survive their wounds. I had pity for the dead, but I had no time to care. There were no threats to us up here. We shot some wyverns until the AAA got setup and we were told to back of the fire zone and loiter. The guns would steer clear as long as we stayed out of the fire zones.

After a good twenty minutes the machineguns ceased. Military construction equipment came forward in armored diggers, trenching through an area between the gate entrance and the army, now retreated a good mile out. The trenching equipment churned, diesels roaring from a half dozen machines and followed quickly by another machine with tank traps and layers of concertina wire getting stretched behind them. That would stop infantry, even in armor. Sand bags were quickly filled by soldiers and laid atop the new earthen embankment. More soldiers set up heavier machinegun nests, probably 50 caliber.

After an hour with the enemy trying to work up the courage for a charge they finally did, and there was more flares, brilliant now I’d adjusted to the night, and mortars popped, falling into packed groups of armored men. The blasts were black, not white. Military explosives were very efficient, unlike Hollywood. The tracers started up again. More trucks left and more arrived with more men and supplies. The wyverns approached and we obeyed orders and waited as antiaircraft shot them down. This continued until dawn. By then I was tired and hungry and needed a pee and a big glass of water. We got permission to descend to the gate and did all those things.

I briefly considered flying back to Tokyo, where it was barely 9 PM by my watch, but they’d probably have to unlock the metal doors on the Shinjuku side of the Gate and I might run into a truck in the dark of the tunnel. So I drank bottled water and ate something hot from the mess tent, served on Styrofoam. It was probably only minutes old. I yawned.

The sun was rising over this big brown world. Alnus seemed to be light grassland and exposed rocks for the low mountains in the distance. I could see a river winding at the bottom of the valley about 20 km away. Our army had this handled.

“Thank you for coming. We’ll escort you back to Tokyo in about 10 minutes with the next convoy. There’s a truck with a soft seat,” said the colonel running this slaughterfest. I guess I was grumpy.

“You’re welcome. Can we return this gear where we got it?”

“Keep it for now. We might need to scramble you in an emergency, so have it near you at all times.”

“Understood, sir,” I said, disappointed. I wanted a better rifle, and some lighter flight gear, and some granola bars, dammit. And a camelback. Flying is thirsty work.

That night I slept in my own bed after a good shower and a hot dinner and a husband who loved me to curl up around. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close.

++++++++