Dancing Very Merry Christmas Read online

  Prologue

  “We can’t turn down such a fine invitation, Ms. Tsuboi,” the representative from the Board of Education, accompanied by some PTA officers, insisted to Principal Tsuboi Takako. “I know this is all very sudden. But your second-years will be diving into test preparation when they return from their holiday, which means it’s now or never. And losing their big field trip must have been an awful blow to their spirits...”

  “Of course...” Principal Tsuboi responded without enthusiasm. She was a middle-aged woman dressed in a no-nonsense suit, and though she was just over fifty, the waves of trouble that had rocked her school ceaselessly since the year began seemed to have aged her considerably.

  “The field trip is an important memory for young people to have,” the BOE representative insisted. “To lose out on that... to a hijacking, of all things. The emotional scarring must be incalculable. Please, allow me to offer my deepest sympathies.”

  “Very much appreciated...” Principal Tsuboi wheezed again. It was the polite response, but as far as she knew, none of her students had had the decency to feel particularly traumatized by the incident. None of them seemed bothered in the slightest; in fact, they practically bragged about it to the upperclassmen and students from other schools. It was as if their scheduled tour of battle sites in Okinawa had been replaced by nothing more than a visit to some strange theme park.

  Deep down, Principal Tsuboi felt that she was the one who really deserved sympathy, being tasked with the education of students like that.

  The BOE representative continued. “Anyway, Mr. Kaneyama of the Mishima Memorial Educational Foundation—who was heartbroken when he heard the story, by the way—has prepared a little something special. He wants to gift a trip to the students of Jindai High, so that they can make a new memory.”

  He passed her a pamphlet across the conference table. It featured a picture of a huge, beautiful passenger liner, cutting through an emerald sea beneath a clear blue sky. The ship was dotted with windows and stacked high with an intricate arrangement of decks. Waves crested before its curved prow. “The Pacific Chrysalis. It travels all around the world, and it’s scheduled for a one-night cruise out of the Port of Yokohama on the 24th.”

  “And he wants to host my students on this... luxury liner?” the principal asked skeptically.

  “Yes, he says they’re all invited. Of course, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a luxury liner; cruise ships are growing more accessible all over the world. They won’t even have to dress up. Honestly, it’s more like a floating theme park... Even as far as pocket money goes, I’m told they won’t even need more than they would for a domestic trip.”

  “Right...”

  “Think of it more like a visit to Tokyo Disneyland,” the BOE representative said placatingly. “Best of all, the point of departure is Yokohama, just a short train ride away. They won’t even have to board a plane. What do you think, Principal Tsuboi? This is a very generous offer that the Mishima Foundation is making. We hope you’ll consider it swiftly and earnestly.”

  Principal Tsuboi fell into silent thought. It really wasn’t a bad offer at all; she had heard of the Mishima Memorial Foundation before, and everything she’d heard was positive. They were a philanthropic organization with a focus on fostering international goodwill. They were known for providing medical support and cultural exchanges with impoverished countries—including North Korea. Given the role that that country had played in the hijacking, then, it didn’t seem odd for them to extend an offer like this one.

  The BOE representative had also said that there might be a small article about the trip in the newspaper’s local section. She wouldn’t accept her school being used for large-scale advertisement, but a single, minor article was probably tolerable. And there had been some grumbling among the student body over the fact that the field trip had been called off, with nothing planned to replace it... “Well, then,” she said at last, “I will give the offer serious consideration.”

  “Excellent! I knew you’d say that.”

  “But the decision is not mine alone to make,” Principal Tsuboi insisted firmly. “I need to discuss it with my teachers. It could affect our event schedule, after all.”

  “Of course. Discuss it all you wish,” the BOE representative told her. “We just wanted you to know that the Board of Education is fully on board. The rest is up to Jindai High.”

  The PTA officials, who’d spent the entire meeting silently flanking him, now voiced their agreement.

  “We feel the same way, Ms. Tsuboi,” one of them put in.

  “We hope you’ll go and enjoy the trip,” said another.

  There wasn’t much Tsuboi could do to oppose such a hard sell from both the BOE and the PTA. A few days later, at a teachers’ conference, it was decided that they would take any interested students on the proposed trip.

  One week later, class 2-4 took a break from finals preparation to hear the announcement.

  “Okay! Everyone listening? Have a good look through this!” said their homeroom teacher, Kagurazaka Eri, as she passed a paper around to the students. “This is a little last-minute, but we’ve decided to hold a special event, to make up for how your class trip turned out. It’ll be just the night of the 24th, coinciding with the end-of-term ceremony.

  “A charitable foundation and a travel company are collaborating to take our second-year students on a Christmas cruise,” she went on excitedly. “Isn’t that incredible? Look at this big, beautiful luxury liner! All-you-can-eat high-class cuisine, and all kinds of things to do: pools, athletic facilities, shopping centers, arcades... plus exclusive events like concerts and musicals, movies, a gift giveaway, and more! Of course, attendance is totally free!”

  “Wow!” the students breathed in amazed chorus.

  “Participation is voluntary, so you’ll need to fill in the forms I just handed out, then have a guardian sign them. Now, what I’m about to say is very important...” Eri launched into an explanation of the details: By next week, provide a copy of your insurance card, a letter of consent from your guardian, and a photo for the ID card you’ll be using on board; only students in proper uniforms will be allowed on-ship; those with chronic conditions and allergies, be sure to speak with the ship’s doctor beforehand—things like that.

  Chidori Kaname barely listened to the explanation as she gazed at her form blankly, and Tokiwa Kyoko, from the seat next to hers, spoke up in a whisper. “Hey, Kana-chan. Are you going?”

  “Hmm? Ah... I’m not sure. I mean, it’s free, so I guess so?” Still, her eyes were fixed on the date of the trip. December 24th—that would be Kaname’s 17th birthday.

  Some might find the idea of being born on Christmas Eve romantic, but Kaname had always found it to be more of a problem than anything. While her little sister, born in May, would get discrete Christmas and birthday presents, Kaname’s were always conflated. It had been a real source of friction between them when they were younger.

  Of course, any arguments about this always ended the same way, with Kaname being told, “You’re the big sister; endure it.”

  Apparently, said sister was planning to spend this Christmas with their father in New York, where he worked. Kaname’s relationship with her father wasn’t the best, so she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t easier not to see him, but...

  While Kaname was thinking, Eri was wrapping things up. “That should just about cover it. Any questions?”

  “I have one.” Immediately, a male student sitting in a seat by the window, Sagara Sousuke, raised his hand. He was wearing his usual sullen expression, with his mouth set in its usual tight frown—and amid a student body uniformly excited about the unexpected event, he was the only one spor
ting a wrinkled brow and troubled eyes.

  “Sagara-kun,” Eri acknowledged him. “What is it?”

  “This consent form is insufficient,” Sousuke said, waving around the paper she’d passed him. “It talks about precautions in case of accidents occurring during the trip, but it says nothing about what the school has done to prepare for a terrorist attack.”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” Eri asked him incredulously.

  “I thought we had learned our lesson back in April,” Sousuke shot back.

  “Don’t even suggest something so awful. It’s not as if the exact same thing could happen twice! If we had to prepare for every minuscule possibility, no school would ever be able to go on a trip!”

  “It’s dangerous to make light of it,” Sousuke said gravely. “We got off easy the last time, but we might not be so lucky again. Think of the 1985 seajacking of the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro.”

  “I... I don’t even know what that is...” Eri was forced to admit.

  “The passengers were mostly defenseless old men in wheelchairs,” Sousuke explained. “Yet one hostage was shot in the chest and the face and thrown into the sea.”

  Eri just stood there, stunned.

  “In addition,” he went on, “the terrorists made three hostages hold grenades with the pins removed, with the rest of the hostages gathered around them. Their fear must have transcended language—one careless moment could lead to the deaths of everyone around them. These deaths would be painful, too: brains and organs scattered everywhere. Fear and chaos are a terrorist’s MO; it’s important to remember that.”

  A leaden air hung over the room. The class, which had been humming with excitement over the opulent proposal, was now dead silent.

  “But don’t worry. This time, as aide to the student council in charge of safety and security, I intend to protect you all,” Sousuke promised. “I therefore request permission to bring a submachine gun, C4 explosives, and directional mines on board. With proper armaments and planning, I will dispose of the seajackers one by one, drown them in their own blood, and—”

  Smash!! Kaname was there in a flash, and sent Sousuke flying with a kick. He crashed through multiple desks before landing in a heap on the floor.

  “What are you doing, Chidori?” he groaned.

  “Shut up!” she told him angrily. “You saw how excited everyone was! Maybe you could try not to ruin that?!”

  “But the alarm bells of tragedy—”

  “No one wants to hear about alarm bells of tragedy!!”

  “But the Achille Larou—” he began, trying to defend himself.

  “Shut up! You stupid... little...!”

  “That hurts, Chidori. It’s painful.”

  “Being around you is painful!” Kaname kept kicking Sousuke until her classmates, unable to watch any longer, finally pulled her off of him.

  1: Unfixed Schedule

  21 December, 0135 Hours (Local Time)

  Spratly Islands

  It’s an awfully extensive facility for such a remote island... Sagara Sousuke allowed himself to be impressed, momentarily forgetting the similar nature of his own force’s base.

  His machine’s night-vision sensors made the sea around him look green. The island in question towered over it, a mere two kilometers across at its widest. The main mass was a rocky mountain dozens of meters high, which grew thick with grass and a small handful of trees. It was a common sort of topography, here at the edge of the Spratly island chain.

  But that wasn’t all that he saw.

  A variety of radar antennas topped the mountain’s highest points. Foot soldiers patrolled, equipped with night vision goggles. Electromagnetic-sensitive mines floated on the water, effectively preventing the approach of mini-submarines. It was impressive security for a pirate stronghold; most squads wouldn’t even be able to get close.

  Most squads, that is.

  The arm slave Sousuke was operating, the ARX-7 Arbalest, had just arrived on the north shore of this “pirate island.” According to the pre-mission briefing, the south shore was home to a small harbor and dock. The dock was apparently where the pirates moored the high-speed craft they’d been using to raid passing commercial ships for the past few months. It also hosted the warehouses in which they stored their supplies, ammunition, and plundered goods.

  The north shore, meanwhile, was a treacherous cliff constantly pounded by waves. Sousuke was supposed to climb the rock face here, to ambush the base on the south side from behind. Any flesh-and-blood soldier who tried to scale the cliff would surely end up dead, dashed by the waves against the jagged rocks. Only the humanoid weapons known as ASes could handle a secret landing in terrain like this.

  It was night, and the only light available came from the moon glowing faintly through the clouds. The Arbalest, painted a dark gray to blend in with the darkness, released the faintest of whines from its electromagnetic muscles as it scaled the rocky cliff.

  Once he had gotten beyond the reach of the sea spray, Sousuke activated his machine’s ECS-enabled invisibility mode. The armor opened in places, revealing lens-shaped devices. These projected a hologram screen that enveloped the machine, and caused it to disappear into thin air.

  Just then, he received a transmission from an allied machine. “Uruz-6 to 7. What’s the holdup? We’ve been waiting forever,” Sergeant Kurz Weber complained. He was in a sniping position on the south side of the island, where the waves were much calmer.

  “Uruz-7 here,” Sousuke replied briefly. “I’m not there yet. Remain on standby.”

  “So what’s the holdup? You’ve got a wire gun, right? Get up the damned cliff already.”

  “If I knock any rocks down, the enemy foot soldiers will hear my approach.”

  “Then shut ’em up with your taser. Just—”

  “Transmission over,” Sousuke said, cutting him off, and then grumbled to himself. He’d worked hard to get this far unnoticed. A more mediocre operator would already be out of the fight after having triggered a mine, or he’d have ruined the whole mission after being discovered by a foot soldier.

  《Alert message. You are fifteen minutes behind the expected attack time. Move to waypoint Foxtrot swiftly.》 It wasn’t just Kurz; the Arbalest’s AI was also hurrying him on.

  “Shut up,” he snarled back.

  《Roger. But first, a word of caution: statistics suggest that a sense of impatience doubles one’s potential for error. Singing is recommended to calm your mental state. I have prepared fifty of the latest hit songs. If you have any requests—》

  It would have been one thing if he’d said it in a joking fashion, but Al’s voice remained matter-of-fact, and it just made Sousuke more annoyed. “I didn’t order you to prepare songs. Don’t waste your storage space without permission.”

  《It is no issue. It’s a mere 1.2 gigabytes.》

  “Delete it all, or I’ll destroy it myself, for the good of the mission.”

  《I interpret this message to be a joke. Joking is also an effective countermeasure. I have prepared fifty jokes designed to make humans laugh. If you have any requests—》

  “It’s not a joke, it’s a warning.”

  《Excuse me.》 Al said nothing more.

  In the cockpit, Sousuke shook his head irritably, and the Arbalest mimicked his motion. Who ever heard of such a pointlessly “helpful” AI, anyway? Imagine a machine’s control support system telling him to “sing,” of all things...

  In the two months since Hong Kong, his AI’s behavior had gotten stranger and stranger by the day. It was making small talk regularly now, and lack of any obvious signs of malfunction made it all the more annoying. According to the maintenance crew, they’d hooked “him” up with FM radio and BS TV input on Al’s request, and he seemed to be receiving shows—now, Sousuke wondered if he should have stopped them.

  The Arbalest used its manipulators and foot spikes to carefully scale the cliff. The machine’s ECS was working smoothly. He had to ma
ke countless stops to let foot soldiers on the cliff above pass by, and had a few close calls where he almost went plunging... but at last, five minutes later, Sousuke reached his designated location, and informed the team leader: “Uruz-7 to Uruz-2. I’ve arrived at waypoint Golf.”

  A reply came after a pause. “Uruz-2, roger that. Let’s get the party started. Ready? Set your ADM to presets. All units run final checks, then give verbal confirmation.” It was their strike team leader, Second Lieutenant Melissa Mao, who showed no inclination to scold him for the delay.

  “Uruz-6, no problems here.”

  “Uruz-7, ready.”

  “Gebo-3, ready.”

  “Gebo-4, ready.”

  After Kurz and Sousuke, the two “Gebo” responses were from transport helicopters, which were hovering on standby about a klick from the base. Thanks to their newly-integrated sound reduction systems, the Arbalest’s audio sensors could only barely make out the sound of their rotors and engines. The helicopters carried twenty infantry apiece, who would storm the island and lock it down after the ASes had finished their initial assault.

  “Okay. Ahem.” Once everyone had reported in, Mao cleared her throat and shouted, “Then, attack commence! Go, go, go!”

  “Al,” Sousuke ordered. “Drop ECS and switch to military power and combat mode.”

  《Roger. ECS: Off. GPL: Military. Master Mode: 2.》

  The ECS shut down, allowing all power to be diverted to combat functions. Blue sparks popped and hissed against the purple-black sky, and the white machine appeared, standing at the top of the rocky mountain.

  A pirate dozing in a nearby watchtower stared in disbelief as he witnessed the phenomenon for the first time. He hesitated over whether to reach for the machine gun switch, the alarm, or both, but ended up collapsing with a howl before he could reach either of them. An electric pulse from the taser in the Arbalest’s hand had knocked him out cold.

  “Starting up,” Sousuke said, without sparing the fallen man so much as a glance.

  《Roger.》