Girl Rides the Wind (27 page)

It may have seemed like an eternity, but less than two minutes passed before Emily crested a slight rise and saw the waves. Off to her right, the stars had disappeared and the sky was just beginning to put on its opaque blue. The gap between the two ridges was near its widest here, at a little over a hundred meters, and off in the distance Emily heard the reassuring thump-thump-thump of a CH-46E

“Still too dark for a smoke signal,” Emily called back to Perry, who remained in a crouch just behind the rise, unwilling to risk exposing the little princess before the bird arrived.

“Give ’em some green smoke anyway.”

Emily threw a canister across the beach and watched as a faint plume rose straight up, undisturbed in the still air. Off to her left, Kathy helped Durant find steady footing to cross the rocky promontory that defined the western edge of the sand, and the roar of the chopper’s blades scattered the smoke signal as it settled in and dropped the tailgate. In seconds, Kano’s
Jietai
platoon had disembarked, and Perry broke cover and ran for the back of the bird, while Emily barked instructions to Kano in Japanese.

“Diao’s men are a half klick that way.” She gestured to the ravine and waited until after the engine noise had diminished before continuing. “At least eighty men, now alert to our presence. Two roving patrols approaching from either edge. Where’s Tsukino?”

Kano’s men remained motionless for a moment, eyes fixed on the small child in their midst, as if none of them really expected to find her there. Or perhaps that’s just how it is to encounter a royal personage – the surprise never really goes away. Once they’d composed themselves, every man bowed to her.

“Where is Tsukino?” Emily asked again, and Kano gestured to the tailgate.

“I still don’t know why you want him here. His wrist injury makes him useless, even if he were trustworthy.”

“Get Durant and Kathy aboard,” she said to Perry, and took Toshi from his arms. The princess wrapped her arms tightly around Emily’s neck, frightened by the noise, and the sudden appearance of so many soldiers. Emily found Tsukino seated inside the bird, one arm still bandaged and in a sling, staring at his shoes. When he looked up, astonishment registered immediately on his face, and he stood up to bow. “
Hime
.”

“
Kochira wa Tsukino-san desu, Hime
.” Emily tried to put the princess in one of the seats along the side of the cabin, but she refused to let go, until she turned to look at Tsukino’s face.

“
Hajimemashite
,” she said, and reached a hand to him.

“
Yoroshiku
,” Tsukino said, and bowed even more deeply. “I am at your service, your highness.”

“Guard the princess with your life, Tsukino-san,” Emily said, fixing him with a steely-eyed stare. “That is your task.”

It took a moment to persuade Toshi to let go of Emily in favor of Tsukino, and in that time, Kathy and Durant found seats opposite them.

“You must be brave, your Highness,” Emily said, kneeling to look into her eyes, and holding one hand against her cheek. “Tsukino-san will keep you safe.”

“Why me?” he whispered in Emily’s ear as soon as she stood up. “Why would you trust me? No one else does.”

“Never mind that. I’m certain this is what Gyoshin-san would want… to stay safe, and to do your duty.”

Tsukino’s eyes grew wide as saucers at the mention of that name. “I never knew anything of her grandfather’s schemes.”

“I know,” Emily said. “Now do this for your country, and restore your honor.” She turned to the fight engineer and signaled him that it was time to go. “Tell the pilot to get this crate out of here. His call sign is now Chrysanthemum One.”

Toshi ran after her to the edge of the tailgate, the glow of the sun just beginning to burn off the dawn’s twilight, and Tsukino attempted to restrain her as gunfire crackled in the distance.

“It’s gonna get hot in a second,” the tailgunner yelled, and the pilot spun up the rotors.

Standing on the LZ just outside the tailgate, a cloud of dust and sand swirling up around her, Emily shielded her eyes and reached up to prevent Toshi from jumping down into her arms. But the look in the princess’s eyes was not fearful – more serene than anything else, as if she were issuing some sort of command to a vassal – and she reached down to touch Emily’s outstretched fingers. In the brief moment before Tsukino pulled the princess back up the ramp, Emily felt a tingle run through her hand, and the world went quiet in her ears. Sand pelted her face as she looked up at Toshi’s face and caught a glimpse of something eternal in her eyes, something that demanded her assent… and the bird began to gain altitude.

With her head down, Emily ran clear of the LZ and turned back from the rise at the mouth of the ravine to watch the bird make a slow turn in preparation for its return journey. When bullets raked the starboard side as far forward as the cockpit, the Phrog settled back down in the sand only a few meters from where it had started.

“Omagod,” Emily shrieked, and ran back, trailed by Perry who laid down covering fire off to the right, where Diao’s eastern patrol must have just cleared the point. Kano’s men found flanking positions and returned fire, and the tailgunner sprayed the treeline, until no more fire came from that direction. More ominously, however, sounds of gunfire came from the ravine itself, where Diao’s main force must have been advancing as fast as they could move, hindered only by whatever mayhem Connie and Danko could rain down on them.

Once the rotors had slowed enough to hear, Emily shouted into the cockpit window, “Captain, you have to get this bird in the air.”

“Co-pilot’s wounded bad, LT… the corpsman’s working on him… and the hydraulics are shot. It’s gonna take a few minutes, at least, to relaunch. Second bird’s ten, maybe fifteen minutes out.”

“Lieutenant Gunderson’s qualified on Phrogs,” she shouted. “Put her in the other seat and get this thing the hell out of here. We’ll try to buy you some time.”

Perry attempted to confer with Kano and Ishikawa, but wasn’t confident they understood him, and waved Emily over.

“Expect another hostile patrol coming from the west,” she said, in Japanese.

Kano nodded and barked instructions to Ishikawa. “Hold this position with two fire teams. I will lead the rest of the platoon to eliminate the second patrol, then make a flanking maneuver over the ridgeline and come in behind Diao’s forces.”

“We have two snipers on overwatch on the western ridgeline,” Emily said. “They have instructions to move laterally to slow Diao’s advance. But I’m sure he will send men to neutralize them.”

Kano nodded again and shouted another instruction to Ishikawa. Then he turned back to face her. “What will you do?”

“The Lieutenant Commander and I will set up on the opposite ridgeline and try to hinder his advance from there. We need to prevent him from bringing up anything heavier, like RPG’s, or that helicopter’s doomed.”

Perry reached over to reconnect Emily’s radio. “We can’t afford to have you go silent now. Too much depends on our comms.”

Once they’d rounded the foot of the eastern ridge, they came upon what was left of Diao’s first patrol, all four men dead, one of them cut in half by the tailgunner’s 50 cal. Gruesome as the scene would have been to anyone else, Emily felt only relief. A threat to the princess had been neutralized, and for once she wasn’t the cause of the mayhem. At least, she had partners in this nasty business.

“What are you doing?” Perry said when she turned to climb the ridgeline. “You’ll be a sitting duck up there.”

“Diao can’t allow the princess to get away, which means he’s going to send fire teams along both ridgelines to take it out. We have the west covered already…”

“… and you’re gonna cover the east? Let’s move along the shoreline and climb the ridge further down.”

“I can’t risk letting anyone get by us.”

“Fine,” he said, and turned to follow her.

“No, you follow the shoreline and come up behind anyone I encounter.”

“
W
e had
’em contained a quarter klick from the LZ.” Connie’s voice crackled in Emily’s earpiece. “You’ve got two four-man teams coming your way, one on the ridge, and one eighty feet below. Over.”

“Do you have a shot? Over.”

“No. We’re moving to new positions toward northern end of the ravine. The
Jietai
appear to be preparing to take out the units Diao sent for us. Was that your doing? Over.”

An explosion from an HE round lit up the morning air, and Emily used the distraction to take cover just below the ridgeline. Perry would clean up whatever remained of the first team, and she’d have to manage the second one. Without the cover of darkness, she would lack the element of surprise on which she’d depended so heavily just an hour earlier.

The blast on the ridgeline would drive the second group to seek cover below her position, expecting the danger to come from a different direction. Once they’d dug themselves in, she sprayed their position with bullets, maybe striking one or two of them, and when they tried to reposition for better cover, she hit them with another HE round. If any survived the blast, she’d have to clean it up later.

In the meantime, whatever order had arranged Diao’s men before seemed to have broken down, and she spotted movement in several directions among the trees below her position.

“The ridgeline is clear.” Perry’s voice reassured her, like a voice from the sky. “Your position is about to be overrun. You’d better hotfoot it to the tree-cover at your three. Over.”

Emily considered his advice, and thought better of it. He was probably right, but that would leave her in a static post, and she wouldn’t be much good to anyone there, no matter how many clips she had left. She loaded the Starburst round and lofted it over the front of Diao’s advance. The scene was still dim enough in the ravine to get some use out of a really bright burst, that might momentarily blind his men and allow Danko to hold his position a bit longer.

Hoping to disrupt the men coming up the hill toward her position, she fired two more HE rounds at her nine – the opposite direction from the one Perry had urged – and charged directly at them, counting on the smoke and dust in the air to sow just enough confusion to cover her. With Perry howling in her ear, she slashed at a few men as she went by, and kept running, until she found herself crouching next to a stand of bamboo behind Diao’s line. No fire came her way, which suggested they hadn’t been able to track her movements, at least, not yet.

“
W
e need a little more time
,” Connie said. The noise of a nearby firefight chattered and roared in the background. “The
Jietai
are TIC just below the western ridge. Over.”

“What the hell is taking the second bird so long?” Danko’s voice sounded increasingly anxious. “We may not have enough firepower to keep Diao from pushing through to that beach, and that bird is still a sitting duck. Over”

“We should divert the second bird to the western LZ,’ Perry suggested. “Shake Kano’s men loose. Over”

“What?” Emily growled. “Toshi’s still not in the air? It may be time for something crazy.”

“No,” Connie said. “It’s definitely not time for anything crazy. We can make this work for a few more minutes. That’s all we need. I’m on the east ridgeline now, and I’ve got a clear view of the next rise they’ll have to cross.”

“Listen to Connie,” Perry urged. “We’re not at crazy yet. We still have options. Over”

“I can’t risk it. Nobody shoot Diao for the next few minutes. If I can distract him…”

“Why not?” Danko said. “If we take him out, doesn’t that end the conspiracy? Over.”

“Because if you shoot him, nothing will prevent his men from shooting me. Over.”

“What the hell are you thinking?” Perry’s voice shook as he propelled himself down the slope.

Too late – Emily had already lofted her last three HE rounds over the heads of Diao’s men, effectively stalling their advance toward Ishikawa’s position for the moment… and focusing their attention on her.

Perry stopped halfway down the slope, having realized he couldn’t help her any longer. Becoming a hostage would only undermine whatever it was she hoped to accomplish. He took up a position near a stand of evergreens – no cover from fire, but at least he could remain hidden there, and try to get an angle on Diao.

Lt Yan appeared, his shaved head only partly covered by a cap worn at an angle. Perry could only watch in horror as he sent men to prevent her retreat – nothing would be gained by shooting him, and something about his manner seemed not quite what he expected. Initially, he pushed men aside to find out what had caused the commotion at the rear, but when he spotted her, his shoulders slumped, as though he were actually sad to see her at that moment.

“That’s Yan.” Perry whispered as loud as he dared into the radio. “Do you read? That’s Yan, shaved head, ball cap. He’s the one Em said
not
to shoot, and now I think I see why. Over.” No one responded.

A moment later Diao emerged from the right, as his men cleared a path for him. Diao spoke loudly, but Perry couldn’t understand anything he said, though his vaunting tone was clear enough. He stood a few meters from the clearing where his men had contained her.

“I’ve got a bead on Diao,” Danko said. “Do I take it? Over.”

“No,” Connie said. “Can’t you see? It’s like she’s tricked them into a cease-fire. If you shoot him, they’ll just shoot her. Over.”

“How the hell did she manage that?” Perry whispered into the radio absentmindedly. Even the distant gunfire from the opposite ridge, where Kano’s men were caught in a standoff, had gone quiet, though they couldn’t possibly see what was unfolding here. If only he could shoot Diao – he so ached to pull the trigger, even though his M4 had nowhere near the accuracy of the long guns Connie and Danko carried. All he could do was observe, and wait for his moment. Surrounded and glowering, Emily cocked her head to one side and smiled crookedly at Diao.

“After all your simpering about honor in the XO’s wardroom, it’s good to see you as you really are,” she said. “A grasping, ambitious schemer, ready to betray anyone and anything.”

“There’s nothing wrong with ambition,” he replied in English. “I do what I do for the sake of China.”

Emily shouted something in Mandarin, evidently speaking for the benefit of his men, and they murmured uneasily.

“You were the final ingredient to our plan,” Diao said, making a visible effort to control the situation, and still speaking in English, perhaps because he didn’t wish to share the details of the plan with his men. “… and it’s not too late to add you to the mix.”

He shouted an order at his men, and they levelled rifles at her. But no one fired after Lt Yan made a commotion, waving his arms as he ran over to whisper in Diao’s ear. Whatever it was, Yan’s message did not seem to mollify his boss’s mood, at least not judging by the expression on Diao’s face.

“Yes, I imagine it makes a difference how I’m killed,” Emily shouted once more, switching between Mandarin and English. “I mean for the staging. The wrong bullets, the wrong guns… a Type 81, or whatever knock-off Kalashnikov your men are carrying will hardly do. You need to match the guns carried by the Crown Prince’s security detail.”

“No problem,” Diao said with a sneer. “It will suffice if you are merely beaten to death.”

At his signal, three of the men surrounding her attacked, knives in hand. Of course, the problem such attackers face is their own reluctance to wound each other, or to be wounded by each other’s knives. Their hesitation made it that much easier for Emily to disarm one man, smashing an elbow and stabbing him with his own knife. The other two, emboldened, or perhaps enraged by the reduction in their number, lunged at her from both sides with no better results. Three men wounded, though Perry could see she’d been careful not to kill them, and figured she was still trying to manage the mood of this crowd.

“You remind me of your girlfriend,” Emily said. “… or was Yu Mei your sister? It’s so hard to tell, the way you guys change names.” When Diao’s face tightened into a red knot, Perry knew she’d found his soft spot. “She was a very difficult woman.”

“Hold,” he shouted to his men. “I’ll deal with this one myself.”

Diao strode into the circle his men had formed, and handed his rifle to a subordinate. Emily dropped the M4 at her side, though in her case, the weapon was now useless, since she was empty.

“I remember Diao Chan quite well, masquerading as a student, terrorizing teenagers. Quite an impressive specimen, that one.”

“I will give you a lesson in the White Crane, Miss Tenno, and once I break you, we’ll leave you here with the bodies of your friends, and Princess Akane, for the
Jietai
to find. Then everything Diao Chan fought for will come to pass.”

He circled her, moving always to his left, and she shifted her position to keep facing him, but when she turned in Perry’s direction, he thought her eyes were closed.

“What the hell is she doing?” he said. “This isn’t a tournament. He won’t wait for her.”

And Diao didn’t wait, lunging at her with a fist aimed at her face, which seemed to make contact, though Perry couldn’t quite tell from that distance. She twisted away, eyes wide now, and somehow managed to land a counterstrike. At least that’s how it seemed from Diao’s reaction, though Perry had seen nothing. Grimacing and clutching at his ribs just below the armpit, Diao turned to face her again, his face now even redder than before. Emily rubbed her cheek where it seemed his blow had landed, and Perry realized it was all for show. He’d hit nothing but air.

Emily dodged and feinted for as long as she could, but risked no direct strikes and initiated no attack. Eventually Diao made solid contact, and she withdrew into the purely defensive position she’d been so keen to demonstrate for Tarot and Racket that day on the
BHR
. Perry winced to see how many blows she was willing to absorb – she protected her head and her legs, blocking where she could without extending her guard very far. It didn’t take Diao long to recognize her strategy and find the most damaging strikes to use, but even he wearied of the exercise, eventually.

“The second bird’s here,” Danko called over the radio. “Devil Dogs are on the scene. Over.”

“The princess is safely away,” Ishikawa reported. “We are advancing into the ravine.” He repeated his message in Japanese.

The sound of gunfire from Kano’s position on the west ridge increased, suggesting he’d received Ishikawa’s signal. A moment later, a similar sound rattled the heavy air and Perry knew Theo and the Marines would come crashing through the forest any minute. Emily just needed to survive a little longer.

“You’re cleared hot, Danko,” Connie said. “If you have a shot, take him down. Over.”

“Shit, I’ve got no shot. I’ll hit her, too. Over.”

“I’m moving forward along the east ridge,” Connie said. “Does she even know the reinforcements are here? She doesn’t have to take any more punishment.”

“Damn, her radio’s probably busted,” Perry said.

He watched in horror as Diao, now weary of striking her with fists and feet, drew a large knife from his belt.

“I think our time together is coming to an end,” Diao said, looming over her.
Did she even hear him?
She seemed dazed, still holding her guard up to protect her head from strikes that no longer came.

“Shoot him, somebody,” Perry barked through the radio. “He’s gonna kill her.”

The stroke came quickly, almost before anyone realized he’d moved. He must have meant to stab through her spine along the back of her neck, hunched over as she was. A subtle shift of her shoulders saved her, though the blade still tore the flesh on her back, under the left shoulder. She shrieked in pain and pivoted away, slipping under his arms, and without anyone realizing what she’d done, she managed to draw the
wakizashi
and slash at his ribs. It all happened so quickly, Diao might not have realized that he’d been cut until he saw the blood dripping from her blade.

“Holy crap,” Danko said. “Did she really just do that? I was sure she was a goner.”

“Just keep it together a little longer, girl,” Connie said.

The sound of the advancing Marines grew louder, and the chatter of gunfire from Kano’s position had gone quiet, but Diao couldn’t focus on what that must mean. He touched his side and saw the blood on his hand, then glanced up at her, his eyes wide.

“I recognize that look,” Emily said, now seeming more focused. “Right about the time I cut her head off, Diao Chan had that same look.”

Nothing could keep Diao from charging at Emily, attacking her, ripping the life from her body. He blocked her first stroke with the knife, holding off the blade long enough to punch her face, the impact twisting her to the ground. Before she recovered her wits, he kicked the
wakizashi
from her hand, and crouched down to plunge the knife into her chest. She managed to buy a few more seconds with a scissor kick from her supine position on the ground, catching him on the side of the head, and allowing her to roll away and recover her blade, though now she bled profusely from wounds on her back, arm and leg.

Diao was on top of her before she’d managed to find her feet, bringing the knife down through her shoulder, narrowly missing her neck. The two of them fell backwards, Emily taking his full weight on top of her, just as the tip of the
wakizashi
broke through the center of Diao’s back, and his body went limp.

The suddenness of the turn of events caught the Chinese troops by surprise, and a brief moment of befuddlement gripped them, before the first few rushed to Diao’s aid, rolling his body off the intruder, hoping to find him still alive. But the blank look in his eyes was unmistakable, and they turned to vent their rage on her, kicking and punching her as she tried to defend herself from the ground. She reached for the
wakizashi
, which still protruded from his chest, but it was lodged firmly in the bones of his spine.

Perry saw his moment, and charged down the hill spraying the crowd between him and Emily with rounds from his M4. He’d emptied all his clips by the time he made contact with the first man who’d stood to face his onslaught – “I’m black. Cover fire would be appreciated. Over.” – he swung his M4 into the man’s head like a club and stripped the Type-81 and clips off his unconscious body. Re-armed, he continued the charge, just as the attention of the Chinese troops turned to the onslaught of Theo’s men, who’d come pouring over a rise, crashing through the last bit of foliage.

In the ensuing battle, the Chinese found cover behind the many fallen trunks in this old, volcanic forest, coordinating fire with surprising effectiveness, and driving the Marines and Ishikawa’s units back. The Chinese were fighting for their lives, like cornered animals, and would not go down easily, and they still had superior numbers, even if they didn’t know it.

Connie and Danko responded to Perry’s call and looked for targets wherever they could find them. But Emily’s position in between two hostile forces made it too dangerous to get to her. It seemed like a standoff, until Kano’s men arrived on the scene, bringing a new source of fire from an unexpected direction.

“This is our moment,” Perry shouted. “She’ll bleed to death if we don’t get her now. Over.”

“We’re on it, sir. Over.” A familiar voice crackled in Perry’s ear, and then Tarot and Racket broke from the tree cover and converged on Emily’s position. Tarot scooped her up in his arms as if she were as light as a rag doll, and Racket tossed smoke canisters and laid down cover fire as he followed his buddy back toward their line, and Perry charged in from the side to divert fire.

E
mily drifted
in and out of consciousness, her head lolling over the elbow of a huge arm, rocking slightly with each stride.

“Back to the LZ, sir. We’ll get her there. Over.”

Tarot’s voice rumbled down to her through an improbable quiet, and she opened her eyes and tried to bring him into focus, but all she could see was his chest and the chin that jutted out in defiance of danger. With her head swimming, she tried to turn to see what they were running from, and there was Racket, following by a few feet, turning to fire behind him, and over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of a full-on firefight.

“No, Tarot. Don’t waste your time on me. They need you guys.”

“Sorry, LT. Orders are to medevac you.”

In the next moment, Tarot stumbled and she felt the strength in his arms flag for an instant.

“Racket,” Tarot called out, trying not to let her hear the pain quaking his voice. “Take her, man.”