The ISO and local agencies were already back to work, dredging, clearing, and cleaning. There were shattered buildings to demolish, bodies to bury, the sick and injured to treat.
Those who thought about it wondered why Galactor hadn’t appeared. Galactor had caused this, and no doubt had protected its members. Just because no-one surrendered did not mean Galactor had lost. Right now, food, water, and medical care would win many hearts.
“Hurry!” the crow urged.
“Keep your feathers on.” The revenant who had been Kentaro Washio, Red Impulse, picked his way across the ruined parking lot. “We need a vehicle.”
The crow scolded him. Behind the scolding was its fear that Galactor’s actions had affected the Power it served and used. Was there time enough for Kentaro to do what he needed to do?
Recovery and wrecking crews worked the parking lot. They paid attention to the red-clad figure only to ensure he didn’t get in the way. None knew the uniform of the Red Impulse squadron, so they could not question the anomaly of a squad member not offering to help.
Helicopters had brought the ISO crews to the site. Kentaro strode up to one. He was so open about it that the guard didn’t react until too late. By the time the guard recovered his wits and found his feet, the pilot sailed out the door and knocked him down again.
UN attack helicopters (what remained of them) from the nearest airbase gave chase. When the helicopter thief responded to their hails with the proper codes, the confused pilots called for instruction.
“Get out of here,” Kentaro told the crow perched beside him. “I know that my existence depends on your survival.”
“A little farther.”
“And then what?”
“Jump.”
Innocent people could be hurt or killed if he did that. “I should land.”
“No. Trust me.”
He wasn’t sure if he did, but knew he had to make a show of trust. The same sure instincts that guided him in the air also told him the Power would desert him if he lost his focus on his purpose.
He looked out at the attack helicopters. Just what I need, and I can’t get one.
Some of the crew had left coats and jackets in the helicopter. When he stole the helicopter, he had chosen one closest to his size (it was a bit larger) to wear over his stained flight suit. With any luck, no-one would see enough of his legs to identify him as a member of Red Impulse, never mind as Red Impulse. He only hoped the few who had seen him would garble up their descriptions. Last thing he needed was a full-on UN manhunt. If they caught him, he would be imprisoned, and then eventually come face-to-face with Dr. Nambu or Ken. Neither should see him like this. And it would take time from his mission.
“Now,” the crow ordered.
He tucked the bird under the coat and jumped.
“Holy shit!” one of the pilots yelled, and broke formation to follow him down. He would get into trouble, but he didn’t care. That crazy bastard had jumped at 100 feet.
Galactor mooks fled in every direction as the crashing helicopter led the UN to the base. The base captain fled in a late-model sedan.
Led by the crow, Kentaro intercepted the vehicle and jumped through the conveniently-open window. “I see the intelligence requirements for minions haven’t changed,” he commented, grabbing the wheel. He needed the idiot alive.
“Who are you?” the captain demanded.
“It doesn’t matter. You will take me to Berg Katse.” A grim smile. “If you don’t, I will kill you.”
At the frighteningly matter-of-fact tone, the captain looked over at his ‘passenger’. He almost wrecked the car.
Dead eyes, a photogenic face literally pale as a corpse’s, and an air of --- of powers more terrifying than Leader X possessed. “You don’t want Lord Katse. You want Leader X, the true head of Galactor.”
“Then I want them both.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Leader X is at Cross Karakoram. I don’t know where Lord Katse is, right now.”
“You’ll find out. You have to make a report on the base destruction, correct?”
“Yes, but I can do that remotely.” From another base. Shit.
“Ask for a meeting.”
“There were only three of you left?” Nambu asked Masaki. “Before Kentaro --- died?”
“Yes.” Masaki refused to clench his fists. This was not some Berg Katse trick. Perhaps some poor, traumatized victim wearing a cheap costume, or one of their ‘lost’ comrades had not been lost. A uniform stashed at a lover’s house, now used by an angry civilian? He mentioned these possibilities to Nambu.
“The guard and the pilot said the attacker was a skilled fighter. They described him as pale, with a crow perched on his shoulder.” A crow. That niggled at the back of his mind.
He could not send the Science Ninja Team to investigate. Ken was still angry. His supposedly-dead father was alive and well all these years? And now he was really dead? Without even a body to bury, yet again?
No body means he might still be alive. That’s back of Ken’s anger. Another damn trick by the people he loves, more lies, what do I know about it this time? And yet, even if Kentaro ejected, he could not have survived. There probably wasn’t any way to eject.
Oniishi signed a smart-ass remark: “Maybe it was a tengu.”
Nambu hiked an eyebrow. “Crow tengu have bird heads.” What was the thief doing with a crow? And why am I worrying about the damn bird?
A report arrived. The thief had crashed the stolen helicopter into a small Galactor base. One of the chase-pilots swore the man had survived a 100-foot jump.
Six bullets, fired at truly point-blank range, did not even tickle the revenant. The crow, following outside the car, heard them.
“Wh-what are you?” The Galactor captain felt his sphincter flutter.
“Don’t ask questions you really don’t want answered.” Kentaro took the pistol. “Keep driving.”
At the next Galactor base, Kentaro killed a minion for the uniform. He concealed the crow in a shoulder-bag. “Just don’t start shooting,” it griped.
As they approached the communications center, Kentaro said, “Request a personal meeting. Say anything to get his attention.”
“Like what?”
“Use your imagination, if you have one.”
At Cross Karakoram, Berg Katse wondered that Leader X had not given the expected orders. They may hate us, but full stomachs and decent beds will win them over. Thing is, it has to be now. Before they can recover, so that they won’t see it as the manipulation it is. Everything was ready to go.
The captain used the one thing he knew would get Lord Katse’s attention: Gatchaman’s true identity. In the messy aftermath of the V2 plan, they had come across some old files. Katse, eager, ordered him to Cross Karakoram.
“Very good.” Kentaro itched to take out this base also. He had a greater goal.
“I suppose I’m not getting out of this.”
“Not right now. Maybe later.”
“If I’m lucky.”
“With all that Galactor has done, how can you still serve them?”
“What we’ve done? At least we’re honest about it. If we’d made you, you’d know what you were and why you existed.”
Kentaro smiled. He thinks I’m someone’s project. I’m a dead man out to save the world. “What makes you think that I don’t know?”
The captain, unable to follow up on his cleverest thought to date, led his captor to a small aircraft. When we get to Cross Karakoram, we’ll find out what you are, and turn that knowledge against the ISO.
When they were airborne, Kentaro made a radio call to the ISO. He used the code phrases that only he and Dr. Nambu knew, and informed the radio operator that Galactor’s main base was at Cross Karakoram.
“Don’t get any ideas. If you crash this thing, I’ll climb out of the wreckage and continue on.” If the crow survives.
Nambu, Masaki, and Oniishi listened to the recording again. All three had to sit down.
“He couldn’t have survived,” Nambu said. “It’s impossible.”
“It’s the captain’s voice,” Oniishi signed, “but he sounds different.”
“It can’t be him, yet he knew the codes.” Nambu tried to think. Oniishi’s earlier crack about tengu intruded.
“We can go. We can scout the area.” Masaki typed ‘Cross Karakoram’ into the computer. “Oh, great. Mountains. Let’s hope the weather’s good.”
“If that is the captain, we’ll bring him back,” Masaki said. “If it isn’t, I’ll kill him.”
“I’ll have the Science Ninja Team on standby.”
After the two surviving members of Red Impulse took off, Nambu remembered another legend about crows. When a death was particularly tragic or unjust, a crow led the dead one back to the living world to right the wrong.
Kentaro sat where he could see the Galactor captain, while his own body blocked any view of the peeved crow. While the bird groomed itself, he whispered, “You should be careful. Cross Karakoram isn’t like the rest of the world. It will be enclosed, with corridors full of armed soldiers, automated weapons systems, and sensors capable of spotting a bit of dust off your wing. You can’t fly out of range or out of sight.”
“You are a presumptuous creature.”
“If so, I apologize. I worry that I will be destroyed and your mission wasted.”
No reply from the bird.
At the controls, the Galactor captain concluded that the ISO had cybernetically-modified a volunteer who had subsequently died. That explained the pallor, the immunity to bullets, the dead eyes. This guy had the equivalent of a heart-lung machine inside him, somewhere. A different sort of cyborg. I shall deliver him to Lord Katse. There, he will learn what he is.
Because they were expected, and the captain used the proper codes, they arrived at Cross Karakoram without incident. Kentaro was not certain what he would do unless he found Lord Katse sitting on a nuclear warhead. It would not be enough to kill him. Galactor the organization had to be destroyed.
No-one questioned the presence of a soldier: the captain could have a guard if he wanted one.
They reached Lord Katse before anyone manning the sensors realized that the ‘guard’ was anything but.
“Well, Captain,” Katse began, “let me see this inf --- urk!”
Kentaro had Berg Katse by the throat and a gun to his head. “Take me to Leader X.”
Lord Katse tried to fight. In life, Kentaro Washio could wipe the floor with Gatchaman. In death, he still could, so Katse didn’t have a chance.
“You want Leader X?” Katse growled, face bloody. “I’ll give you to him.” He spat blood onto Kentaro’s chest.
“Feel better?”
“Your breath reeks.”
I have no doubt.
The crow demanded release and shook the bag. Not wanting his plug pulled this close to victory, he obeyed.
“Great, you brought your pet birdie. This way. I want to see Leader X roast you both.”
Leader X. The real head of Galactor. Had to be as crazy as Berg Katse. Nothing else could explain the attempted genocides, and mecha with the vulnerabilities of the animals on which they were based.
I will kill them both, then do as much damage as I can. He hoped that Nambu would send troops.
Masaki counted six aircraft on his radar. Just before he could call a challenge, the followers identified themselves: the God Phoenix, three Mammoth Tigers, and two conventional bombers from Indelhia. Dr. Nambu had decided to take a chance that the information was correct.
(In the God Phoenix, Joe was in the peculiar position of talking sense to Ken, who really wanted to use the Bird Missiles on Galactor.)
“A computer avatar?” Kentaro shook his head. “So the Wizard of Oz is just you and your toys, Katse?”
“I am my own being,” Leader X snarled.
“We’ll see about that.” He grabbed Berg Katse’s mask. “First, just so I’ll know, let’s have a look.”
“You first!” Katse snatched the goon headgear from Kentaro.
Even Leader X gasped.
“You’re --- dead,” Katse insisted.
“Yes, I am. My last memory as a living man was throwing myself out of the missile.” He fired twice, a bullet per eye. “Now for the man behind the curtain.”
Fighters and attack planes launched from the Mammoth Tigers to meet the attack from Cross Karakoram. They took out the Galactor fighter craft and anti-aircraft weapons, then the God Phoenix and Indelhian bombers moved in. Bird Missiles, conventional bombs, and missiles from the Tigers and Red Impulse, slammed the underground base.
When massive doors rolled open, the combined forces poured their fire onto it. The huge doors jammed in their tracks, perhaps a quarter open. They continued fire.
Masaki circled, watching the fire and smoke billow out, then shouted, “Retreat! It’s about to blow!”
Kentaro sat against the ruined wall of the spaceship with the dying crow in his arms. “That was a merry chase, wasn’t it?”
“You are a strange human.” Blood from the wing stump oozed between his fingers, where one of Leader X’s razor-wires had caught the bird.
Cornered, Leader X had fought with every weapon at its disposal. The revenant Kentaro was tireless, dodging and twisting and tearing into the spaceship’s guts to find the entity.
And he had, just as the engines fired. Just as he figured out how to kill Leader X.
With a last spasm, Leader X had mortally wounded the crow.
I can go, now. Galactor is finished.
Ken, forgive me. I had a million chances to tell you the truth, and never took one of them. I was a fool. I’m sorry.