Flashback

“Can this Oshkosh take those tanks?” Nick asked no one in particular. With broken ribs and impact bruises fore and aft, he had to gasp out each word as he exhaled painfully.

“No,” said Shinta Ishii from where he was busy tapping at a foldout dashboard keyboard that Nick hadn’t even noticed when he was in the right-hand seat. “Not even one of those.”

“TOW?” queried Nick. It sounded and felt like a prayer.

Sato shook his head. “This kind of battle tank”—he jerked his left thumb toward the monitor showing a tank from an aerial drone’s point of view—has antimissile countermeasures. We have no chance against any of them.”

“Air cover?” asked Nick. “Some sort of armed drone or a jet from Colorado or…” Or any sort of deus ex machina? thought Nick. He’d learned that literary term from Dara. A god from a machine. Being lowered, often in a basket, to rescues the heroes and heroines from a situation they couldn’t get themselves out of. Bad form in fiction and theater, Dara had taught him. But Nick thought it was definitely time for a deus ex machina. Maybe two or three.

“No air support, Bottom-san,” said Mutsumi ta as he drove the Oshkosh back toward the southern riverbank. Back toward the enemy troops and tanks.

“Surrender?” gasped Nick. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a very, very strong suggestion.

“Leave the one mini-drone in place and use all three of its lasers to light up the tanks,” Sato said softly to the man sitting in the crash chair that Nick was leaning against so he wouldn’t fall down. “Bring the others back out of range.”

“Hai, Sato-san,” said Shinta Ishii. He was rapidly typing commands on the keyboard.

Nick peeked at the screen, but all the words were in kanji or hiragana or whatever they called their script.

“Super lasers?” asked Nick, his voice sounding pathetic even to himself. “Weapons lasers on your mini-drones?”

“Oh, no, Bottom-san,” said Mutsumi ta as he brought the Oshkosh to a stop against the steep south bank and parked it there. “Just regular lasers. Would not hurt a fly.”

“Final coordinates in?” asked Sato.

“Hai,” barked Shinta Ishii. “Do no kid ga kanry moe te i masu. J kid wo nokoshi kuma.”

Nick, who’d taken twelve weeks of instruction in conversational Japanese with Dara during his push for detective first grade nine years ago, didn’t understand a word of what he’d just heard.

“Gee-bear t chaku jikan?” barked Sato.

Gee-bear? thought Nick.

“Thirty-eight seconds,” said Shinta Ishii, obviously using English for Nick’s benefit.

Above them, the turret whirred and Daigorou Okada’s mini-gun opened up again and hot, spent cartridges started raining down on the steel floor. Nick could see through four of the monitors that the line of infantry was almost to the south riverbank, the tanks less than a hundred meters behind. The tanks were also accompanied by infantry. The figures in the front were visibly firing on the single mini-drone video feed and now Nick could hear the bullets pinging against the Oshkosh’s outer skin. Slugs hitting the turret above had a slightly more resonant sound.

“Shouldn’t we at least go out and… I don’t know…,” said Nick. “Fight?”

Sato put his strong left hand on Nick’s wrist and said nothing. The pinging on the outer hull became a solid roar. Nick thought of a time when he was a kid and he and his father had run to a farmer’s tin-roofed shed during a violent downpour. This was louder.

The mini-gun above them fell silent. “Out of ammunition, Sato-san,” announced Daigorou Okada.

“Ten seconds,” Shinta Ishii said softly from in front of Nick. The man sat back deeper in his crash chair and tugged at the already tight five-point harnesses holding him in. Okada dropped down from his perch and Nick heard and saw a metal panel sealing off the top gun bubble. Okada pulled down a jump seat and harnessed himself into it.

Are we going somewhere? wondered Nick with a child’s sense of hope. He watched on the single working monitor as six or eight of the infantry jumped from the riverbank to the top of the Oshkosh, weapons firing as they sought out any aperture. Fifty more were rushing to join them. The enemy tanks rumbled closer.

Suddenly Sato moved up behind Nick as if to hug him, despite the shattered arm hanging limp at his side, and the big man shoved his huge and armored body tight, pressing Nick against the crash-couch ahead of him.

Later, Nick swore that he’d caught a glimpse of them via the single drone monitor and the last working Oshkosh external cam. Six slim shapes—about the size and configuration of telephone poles—hurtling down from orbit at eight times the speed of sound.