The cell doors opened and four men in facemasks entered Hanako's cell.
Here we go again... She lost the count of how many times this scene has repeated but it never got any easier. Harder. Not that she would admit it to her captors.
Sasaki Hanako, the now presumably former Shurei-kan of Gen'an Chrysanthemum, was slouched next to a wall. Her face was, for a lack of a better, word mangled. Spotted with bruises, some dark blue, some fresh, some old. Her hair was cut short. She looked like sh*t. She felt like sh*t. Maybe this time they would finally go too far and kill her. Hanako knew she should not think that way but it has been months since the KSP has captured her. She lost track of how many months exactly. She hoped it has not been years. Time has lost a meaning very soon.
Her capture was the usual case of really piss-poor luck combined with some bad intel. She had a lingering suspicion there might have been a mole involved but she had no way to know. In the end, all that mattered was that she flew straight into a KSP patrol that was conveniently just waiting for her. She lost two sisters quickly, their ships exploding in a fiery ball of fire. She had no such luck and her engine was disabled. That memory reinforced her feeling it was no ordinary patrol but rather an ambush. That and the pilots were really damn good.
She was extracted from her ship, the Blades of Autumn and stashed in a cargohold of fighter. Then transported somewhere. Few hours later when her pod opened the sight of 5 rifles pointing at her welcomed her. She sighed and pulled her arms up. "Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist, I surrender" she said cheerfully. That would not last. Her hope was that they would not be able to identify her, she would feed them some bogus name and sob story and get tried as a low-level GC sympathizer. With luck receiving low sentence, maybe hope for some blanket clemency or at worst, serve a few years.
Hanako was yanked from her pod and her palm was forced to a device one of the guards had with them. It flashed red."I forgot my police badge in my drawe-". Before she finished her sentence butt of a rifle hit her ribs. "Shut the hell up."She arched and coughed before hearing. "Haul her to room C47 and notify Oversight. We've got a big one here."
Fu*k.
The room smelled like disinfectant. Two way mirrors at all walls, cameras and a simple table with two chairs. One with a slot for handcuffs. That was her place. She was placed into her seat in no gentle manner and then the figures left the room. It probably took hours before the door slid open again and a masked man entered the room. What surprised Hanako is that he walked in with a cane.
"Nice of you to join me, mister...?" she paused questioningly. "I thought my date has stood me up."
The man ignored her quipping and sat in front of her, taking out a screen out of his bag and placing it in front of himself so only he could see it. After a moment of silence, his eyes met her and he said
"Name?"
"Anata Okāsan. Yours?" she raised her eyebrow
The man just kept staring at her and repeated his question in a flat voice. "Name?"
"I already told you, it's Anata Ok-". And then the first blow hit and the cane shattered her cheekbones.
Weeks passed and the interrogation continued. She fairly quickly realized they already knew who she was. So after a while she gave up the first notch in the neverending battle of resisting torture and told them her name. It was a slippery slope and she knew that. That night she was allowed to sleep without being interrupted by blaring music. Some questions were meaningless and of no apparent value. Her mother's maiden name. The date of birth of her father. And in between, questions of real importance were vowed in. What is the location of the fabled Kinkaku-ji station? What is the command structure of the the Gen'an Chrysanthemums. What was her dog's name? Where did she study? How many nuclear devices does Gen'an posses. What was the population of planet New Tokyo? True answers meant small rewards, lies and silence meant more beating. And thus the cycle continued. The same cold eyes, the same cold voice. Days after days. She was regularly moved. Sometimes interrogated on a ship, sometimes on a base, sometimes on what she presumed was a planet. From the manners her captors handled her, the ominous professionalism, she was in the hands of the Kempeitai. Her guards never uttered a word in front of her, never hit her unless motioned to do so. Cold professionalism. That meant she was in serious trouble.
In the last weeks she kept goading them on. Spitting on her captors, biting them, at one occasion even doing a less savory act. She was restrained, gagged and transported. Her hope of them ending her suffering by an accident was in nonexistent.
Hanako's mind snapped to the presence when the guards picked up. She was too tired to resist. She needed to preserve her strength for the interrogation itself. Wasting it along the way was an exercise in futility and stupidity. The now fragile looking Chrysanthemum was placed in a chair, handcuffed to it and after a while her personal interrogator entered the room.
He casually sat down, took out the screen out of his bag and asked:
"How many ships dock daily at Kinkaku-ji?"
"Fewer than in your mothe-" she said, her voice just slightly above a whisper. The hit made her bite her lip and blood drops stained the floor.
After her interrogator was done with her, a team of medics quietly and efficiently went through over her medical status, applying antiseptic over any external wounds. At the end of the check-up they shot her with a dose of antibiotics and then Hanako found herself back in her cell. They wanted to hurt her but she was of no use to them dead either. Today, she gave them some outdated data combined with some falsities. Nothing threatening to the Movement. Or so she hoped. Right now, AI programs and analytics agents were probably combing through anything she has said. She hoped she had not sentenced any of her sisters to death by what she has revealed today.
In her cell a cardamine rebreather, a bowl of protein smudge and a plastic glass of water were awaiting her. She ignored the food and drink and lunched for the re-breather. They knew that if they wanted to keep her alive, they had to supplying her with Cardamine. Trouble was, they knew how to use that against her as well. They only supplied it to her once every few days, staving off the risk of coma. Her days were spent not just with the effects of physical and psychological torture but with the everpresent lingering feeling of cardamine withdrawal.
She breathed in and out. The cardamine felt weak, like it was once breathed already. It was a small relief but for a few short minutes she forgot about her physical pain. Her tense muscles relaxed and she lay down on the floor closing her eyes, breathing in and out slowly.
"You must not give up, little bonsai tree" she heard Rin say.
Hanako tried to force her tears back."You are not here." I am all alone she thought. Alone in a world of darkness. Sentenced to be tortured until she tells them everything or they find her no longer useful. She realized she was probably going delirious but she did not mind. Better delirious than broken.
It took her a while to remember Rin's face. For the past months her sigh was filled by a walls of different cells. She wondered what her sisters were doing, how the frankly idiotic war with Blood Dragons was going. Whether the bartender still stocked her favourite bottle of spiced gin. Did they already forget her? And if they did, was there a point in enduring all of this pain? She was sure that if she told them everything, in a few days there was a bullet of mercy waiting for her. She felt ashamed for thinking that way, but there was only so much pain a human body can take.
One of Rin's haiku's rang through her mind.
"When the tree has grown
its roots will reach the waters
even through hard ground"
Her stomach turned and she puked next to herself. This tree is withering, Rin.
Meanwhile, a lone Chrysanthemum spends her time chilling around in Morioka. She lingers in the bar, chatting up and bantering with her fellow sisters while getting just a tiny bit wasted. She gets a bit more crazy than usual when she's drunk, so the other sisters find her quite entertaining to hang with. She's about to head for her last drink when the bartender decides to talk her up. Boss, as they call her, is a short but tough looking middle aged lady who lost her sword arm in a traditional duel, katana to katana, with a KNF officer who was her friend, long before she joined the Chrysanthemums. It's since been replaced with a robotic arm that's even stronger than its human counterpart.
"Yo, Boss~! Just one more drink! Gimme a matcha hai, I need somethin' simple." She said, slightly slurring her words.
"Another one? Don'tcha think you've had enough tonight, Tomoe-kun? If you drink too much, you might lose your focus in a firefight. I don't want you getting killed just 'cause I gave you one too many." Boss said this with slight concern. Half to rile her up, but she couldn't help seeing herself in Tomoe.
"Urusei! If I wanted a naggin', I'd go back and find my white collar oyaji on New Tokyo! Alcohol is my fuel! Now c'mon, I want that drink! Hayaku~!" She dropped her fist on the table lightly, feigning anger.
"Fine, fine... Who am I to get between a girl and her drink. Just don't say I didn't warn you when you can't shoot straight. One matcha hai coming up." Boss mixes the drink with unparalleled precision and dexterity. A matcha hai consists of mostly club soda, mixed with shochu, lemon juice, and matcha tea powder. She enjoys showing off her mixing skills by juggling the shaker, or throwing it behind her back. Soon enough, the drink is done, poured out into a tall glass, and slid over to Tomoe, who catches it without a spill.
"Finally! Sweet, sweet matcha. Come to mama~!" She immediately starts chugging the drink, but only manages to get half of it down before she chokes and has to set the drink down. "Ugh. Might'a rushed too much there, damn. Losin' my touch! Whatever... Oi, Boss. Got any crap spinnin' 'round the block? I'm gonna need somethin' to do after this caffeine gets in my blood."
"Hrm... actually, there is something I heard about recently." She ponders, idly cleaning glasses as she talks. Our recon scouts using prototype designs for a new fighter have caught neural footprints, a digital trail. Our more hack-savvy sisters deciphered the raw data and determined that it's the possible signs of a naval cruiser. Evidently, it's en route to Fuchu Prison here in Shikoku sometime soon, but we don't have its exact route, nor the exact reasoning as to why. Whether it's just gonna fly through the lanes or curve behind Seto and Junyo to evade potential threats, we don't know.
"Alright, you've got me interested... But damn, hurry up! Ya like to yap on sometimes, maybe too much." Tomoe voices her concern, now only sipping at her drink.
"Chill, I'm getting to it. There are some girls who've disappeared recently, and we suspect that some of them are being held on that cruiser, possibly in temporary holding cells. The Naval Forces don't like to play fair with us. We'll never get them back if it makes it to Fuchu. They've only got two ways to go, so rustle up some of our babes and get a search party going. I'll slide you a datachip with the tracking information, I trust you'll use your hacking smarts to get some real worth out of it." Boss finishes cleaning the dirty glasses for the time being, and leans on the table with her arm. She digs through her pocket and picks out a large datachip held in a protective case.
"Well, if none o' our girls are there, it'll still be fun to just bust the crap outta that thing! See ya around, Boss~!" She finishes her drink and slams it down on the table. She takes the chip from the Boss, and with an odd alcoholic gait, she leaves the bar.
Time to deploy. She takes a few friends to tag along, and takes equipment used for boarding vessels. With everything in play, she boards her Tridente gunboat, the Jisuberi, and leaves Morioka with her wingladies to scout for the liner. Tomoe removes the datachip boss gave her and feeds it into the navmap chipslot, which then deconstructs the airtight casing around the chip and plugs it in. The computer displays a map of the Shikoku system to the group, and the estimated fields of movement for the cruiser.
Sadako double checked her systems as she flew in formation behind Ubukata's ship. The Orchid was fresh out of repairs and fully stocked with anti capital weaponary. The ship was otherwise unremarkable except for the long scar that ran along the nose of the ship where the edge of a cruiser grazed passed it. She ran the diagnostics of her missile weapon systems for the second time.
She tapped the mic 3 times before speaking.
"Squadron leader Alpha. Tomoe-chan. Do you read me? Got eyes on target yet? We have been looking for hours and I am bored. Are you sure the old lady's intel is good?
Before waiting for the reply she opened the sake bottle she had kept behind her seat the entire flight. It was half empty by now and she put the bottle to her lips.
You heard what's going on here sisters, Be ready for anything! Tomoyo had called back to the strike team that had boarded the Asutorapia as they checked their weapons and steeled their minds to the act of killing in close quarters. They had been hand picked by Tomoyo and and Tomoe for the job, and trained for many hours just for this. Regardless of this, Tomoyo knew a few would likely become casualties, an inevitability in such a mission.
As the Drone Freighter sat at the edge of the Saiun cloud, waiting for the go ahead signal from the rest of the fleet, she heard Fuji's call out of the radio channels. Yeah, we better not have done all this for nothing! Wouldn't want to have gathered so many sisters just to sit out here for a few hours and go back home empty handed! She chimed in over the comms right after Fuji spoke. "Oh well, at least we were able to get some nice training out of this..." she thought to herself.
Her Katana, having yet to be wielded in anger, was still strapped to her back even as she sat at the piloting seat. She was so insistent on keeping it equipped at all times she even had a slot made in her seat so she wouldn't have to remove it. "I guess it will be a bloody mess if it does happen." She then remembered something, and turned back to the sisters seated in the Drone, I hope you girls are ready to make some shigeakiki tea on the fly. With what we're going into, it WILL make a difference. She then grabbed one of the vials from a glove box to her side, and then, having a gut feeling she put it in a small pouch on her belt. "I suspect this may come in handy"
As the sisters lied in wait for their prey, Tomoe kept herself busy within the comfort of the Jisuberi bridge. Other than the chattiness of her cohorts and the ambient noises of crew members and computers doing their work, she was hard at "work" sampling a shipment of holo-tainment bands she at some point stole from her father's own company transports. A small sample of them had been reverse engineered by the code brains within the Chrysanthemums to simulate any combat scenario the user desired. She was hooked up to one of these experimental bands and was running a virtual simulation of a mock battle with the cruiser, half as a test for the functionality of the model and half to prepare herself for what was soon to come.
"Hey, quiet! They'll come eventually, they always do! Yeeeeee haaaaaaaw~! Is that what those Libertonians in Texas say? I don't effin care, I'm diggin' it!" She was evidently having a great time blasting the enemy cruiser to smithereens as she leaned back in her chair.
The sisters' comms made beeping noises as a new long range signal entered the range of their vessels. It was none other than Boss, who began speaking at almost the instant her signal strength was boosted by Morioka. Tomoe was forced out of the simulation by the disruption, unable to focus on the virtual reality mission.
"Aww, come on! I was so close! Oh well, this better mean the real thing is coming." She takes the band off of her head and throws it onto the floor. It's surprisingly durable enough to survive the impact.
"Apologies, girls. My fireflies say the cruiser ran quite late. Looks like they took some time to slack around in space, but, if we know the Naval Forces, they were almost certainly up to something fishy. Whatever the case may be, there is definitely something wrong with that vessel. The scouts couldn't get close enough to find out exactly what, but they confirmed its field of movement It's headed directly to you now, it just entered the lane to Deshima Station. The show's on, sisters." She spoke promptly and with haste.
"Oi, everyone get heated, it's about to go down! Everyone aboard the Jisuberi, get to your stations! I know it's hard to resist, but if what Boss says is right, we can't blow this sucker up, so try to just disable it so it can't fight anymore." Tomoe orders as the crew members aboard the Jisuberi scatter to their assigned positions.
Soon enough, alarms sound as the cruiser blazes straight towards them through the lane, before being disrupted and steering out of control until the excess speed manages to subside.
"Mayday, mayday, this is the Kanazawa, all hands on deck! We are under attack by hostile terrorists, this is not a drill! All hands, open fire! Protect the shipment!"
It's a fight!
Boss's info was right. A suspicious lone cruiser heading in the direction of Fuchu Prison. Something about a shipment, even. Meanwhile, in the depths of the holding cells, the number of guards there begins to thin out as some are required to change positions. If Hanako only built up the willpower and strength to escape, to survive, they could possibly think up a way to break out. The Jisuberi assumes a tactical position to provide suppressive fire on the cruiser, hindering its movement while quickly deshielding it with its pulse turrets.
Guess the intel was right after all, Asutorapia, moving into position, just say when we have a shot at entering! Tomoyo called out over the comms channel as she engaged the thruster on the freighter and enabled the cloaking device. She hadn't engaged it yet as she knew she'd need to stretch out the batteries for the escape.
Turning to the sisters of the strike team in the Freighter, she warned Alright! this is what we've been training for! target is confirmed, be ready to board quickly, we need to to be in and out before they even knew we were there. Now's the time to drink that Shigeakiki, we're gonna need it. Tomoyo then reached into the same glove box where she had taken a vial from earlier, grabbed another one and popped it open with her thumb, drinking it swiftly as though it were a shot of alcohol. Wincing slightly at the bitterness, she the opened her nearby bottle of water and chugged a few gulps to dilute the solution in her stomach slightly as the freighter continued to fly towards the engaged cruiser, disappearing as the cloaking device kicked off.
Sadako saw the Intelligence cruiser dawn before her.
"Alright. Lets get this party started." She said as the took the vial of shige, emptied it in the remaining sake and drank it all. After a few seconds the glare of the Shikoku star started blinding her.
"Shi.. that is bright." She put down the darkened visor of her flight helmet.
"Hey Alpha, when we get back I will have one massive hangover!" Sadako fired up her thruster at maximum speed and charged straight at the cruiser, while the adrenalin was coursing through her veins and was steadily increasing her heart rate.
"Target locked! And... missile away!" The torpedo was aimed at the primary engines of the cruiser. The ship's computer was showing the distance readings and time before impact. Impact in 4... 3... One of the cruiser turrets turned towards the torpedo and fired. 2... The torpedo was deflected by the EMP pulse.
The other turrets now turned to face Sadako's bomber. "Well that sucks." All the turrets opened fire and Sadako quickly broke off her trajectory. Due to the shigeakiki, her preception of time was slightly altered, making it look like the projectiles were slower than usual. Even so several shots impacted her shields before she got out of the cruiser's range.
"Yeah, woo~! Get hopped up on that tea girls, it's good sh*t! And hey, Beta, you work faster and you'll get home in time to hydrate! Pro tip, water helps the symptoms. Here, let me do a little o' this!"
Tomoe orders the guns to be orientated towards the anti missile/flak weaponry just as the cruiser's shields collapse due to constant pulse fire from the Jisuberi. The tender hull of the vessel is now exposed, ready to cook.
"Let's scrap those little babies, then pummel this thing enough to board it nice and easy!"
With the Jisuberi's weapons trained on the anti missile EMP and countermeasures, it won't be long before they break off of the ship, and make the vessel unable to defend against missile weapons. Thanks to the sheer presence of her gunboat, the cruiser is forced to go on the defensive and attempt to repel it as the smaller fighters are paid less attention to.
Sadako steered her bomber into range of the cruiser again, making sure to dodge the debris of the turrets
"Let me try this again" She said while trying to get a proper lock on the target's engines.
A beep indicated a proper lock was made and she fired 2 torpedoes now, after which she moved out of range of possible counterfire.
The ships computer gave off the distance reading again. Impact in 4... 3... A turret franticly opened fire on the torpedoes. An explosion marked that one of them was hit. 2... 1... A second explosion marked the impact of the second missile. The engines stopped working and the ship continued to drift one direction while the engine debris drifted behind it.
"That one isn't going anywhere. Lets begin phase 2"
![[Image: dTAhMi6.png]](https://i.imgur.com/dTAhMi6.png)
![[Image: 29yFjlj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/29yFjlj.png)
![[Image: 2bf1b7469c.png]](https://puu.sh/GPIgt/2bf1b7469c.png)