Anabasis

[Pablo Sanchez]

Bump? We want our fix now please

Check your calendar. In America, what day is tomorrow?

You're going to have to wait.

[darthdavid]

Bump? We want our fix now please

Check your calendar. In America, what day is tomorrow?

You're going to have to wait.

Ein and I both live in America. We just want something good to give thanks about.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Ah it's kool, better a good chapter than a rushed chapter any day of the year

[Pablo Sanchez]

Ah it's kool, better a good chapter than a rushed chapter any day of the year

Sure, put the pressure on me to produce quality. Pfft.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Anabasis
Chapter Five
Travellers


Yamashita finished his briefing, which had taken the better part of two hours. The basics of the situation had been gone through, including most importantly the revelation that the task force had been transported to an entirely foreign universe. Fortunately they were not without resources. Ichiro had summarized the starmaps and historical information that had been seized from the USS Jutland, whose scattered remains had been left glowing a few score of lightyears behind the fleet.

In the fleet, Yamashita was naturally supreme, but he was not a pedant and so had to weigh the reactions and thoughts of his subordinates most carefully. Though his modesty typically prevented him from acknowledging it, he was widely regarded as the best commander in the fleet. One of the most important factors in his skill at command was his judgement of people and their character. Above a certain level, the primary concern of a leader ceased to be tactics or even strategy and became the management of his subordinates and delegation of his authority.

General Fuyutsuki was the commander in charge of the infantry corps attached to task force Hiei, about 64,000 men in two landing and assault transports. They were divided into four divisions each under a lieutenant general, and another lieutenant general was in overall command of their organic air support. The five subordinates were all but irrelevent. They would follow Fuyutsuki's lead to the letter.

The general himself was the important element in the equation. He was a solid man of seventy-five years, twenty years Yamashita's senior, though really only middle-aged in modern terms. With the quality of medical care available to Japanese people throughout the empire, the average man lived for between 120 and 130 years, and was really only a truly old man at ninety or one-hundred. For officers in the military, who entered training for their respective services at fourteen or sixteen, this meant a rather long commitment. Fuyutsuki was a career army man, dedicated first to his duty to the Emperor, second to his duty to his men, and third to his dislike for the navy.

Admiral Yamashita got slight benefit from the fact that his family had provided top-notch officers to the army for 450 years, and for his career of unbroken success (perhaps also for the fact that he had been interservice kendo champion in his academy days). So he was identified as being marginally better than the typical navy weakling. Though institutional contempt would not be overcome by individuals Yamashita believed that Fuyutsuki would be no problem.

Colonel Sawada was a much more difficult proposition. He was a slim weasel-looking man, appropriate for his position in the fleet, as he was the Kampeitai chief. The security service had been installed by the Emperor after an attempted coup in the early 20th century (which had actually been put down by Yamashita's ancestor). Though it was much weaker now than it once had been, the Kampeitai was still definitely something to be reckoned with. It was invested with the personal authority of the Emperor himself, not something to be disregarded.

The Kempeitai, it was said, had attached "advisory brigades" to most of the insurgent armies that had risen up to overthrow the Reich on Earth in 2190. The actual function of these brigades was extermination of ethnic Germans, though considering the records recovered during that triumph over that portion of the Nazi administration that had been Earthbound, some people questioned whether they had deserved it. In America there was no question about it, the Kempeitai was vilified in much the same way that the Gestapo had been just a few years earlier.

Looking at Sawada, it was probably a deserved reputation for villainy. There was a colonel most definitely in search of his promotion, and he would bear watching.

That made up the side of the table facing Ichiro, the army side. On his flanks were his own subordinates. Commodore Sagong, who was a Korean and commanded the cruisers, technically also being second in the chain of command should the Hiei be destroyed. Racial prejudice against Koreans had faded into insignificance; after all, they had been part of the Japanese Empire for nearly 800 years and were Japanese by language and manners with only minor variations--and after the empire had added billions of non-humans to its ranks, it would have been more than a little foolish to discriminate against a people whose main difference was a slight stoutness about the face and body.

Sagong was older than Yamashita by a few years, but respected him as an officer of exceptional quality. He was solid. On the other side of Yamashita was Captain Saegusa, whose ship was the Hiei. They were on friendly terms.

The most questionable person in the navy contingent was Commodore Hara, who was the commander of the destroyer group. He was rather young for his rank, only around thirty-five, and had got his rank from a combination of youthful genius and family connections. He was an admittedly brilliant tactician, of course, but he had a tendency for hero-worship that Yamashita found disconcerting, and his experience was not all that it could have been. It was honestly and without taint of pride that Admiral Yamashita considered that his plan of attack on Neues München had been nearly perfect. The Hiei had smashed the USS Texas and the German Prinz Eugen with the first few volleys and the surviving enemy vessels had been put to flight. There had been no reason for the poor Maikaze to be damaged as severely as she had, except for the aggression and hubris of Commodore Hara.

All the same, he would definitely follow Yamashita's lead. That was comforting, at least.

"Now then, the first problem which must be solved is that of logistics," the admiral continued after the pause to examine his men, "we are without our supply train and there is no way of knowing when we will be able to reestablish it, if indeed we will be able to do so at all."

He gestured now at the starmap which was laying unfolded on the table. "Fortunately, there is a solution to our problem. We will simply take what we need from the so-called Klingon Empire. Their capital system of Qo'Nos will more than likely have everything we need."

The men around the table stirred. Sagong said, "Would it not be unwise, Admiral, to launch an attack into an enemy state of this magnitude? They would no doubt have a defensive fleet of great proportions."

"You have seen the same technical data as I," Ichiro replied.

Sagong smiled sardonically, "Yes, and I scarcely believe it. But your point is well taken."

"I believe that the most efficient course of action will be to attack directly at the primary planet of the system, striking their fleet with our superior firepower and range. Once this is done, General Fuyutsuki's corps will make immediate assaults against their command centers on the planet itself while our marines seize whatever supply vessels can be located in their orbital yards," Yamashita explained.

"A plan that is simple in its audacity," Fuyutsuki replied with a twinkle in his eye, "but I must protest this. Four divisions cannot hold against a planet."

"Gentlemen," Hara interjected, "you are thinking of our situation in terms of what you have experienced of warfare. But it appears that those native to this galaxy are a good deal weaker than ourselves. Recall the invasions of Romulus and Remus, or of Qo'Nos in our own time. Only the weakest and most limited forces were encountered, and easily defeated. I have no doubt that the Admiral's plan will be successful."

"Thank you, Commodore," Admiral Yamashita said. "This meeting is concluded. The plans for the assault will be sent to your ships, and we will embark in 24 hours."


----


Some time later, Lieutenant Takashi received the marines' evaluations of the personal weapons captured from the USS Jutland. A few examples had been seized from that ship's armory and tested by those most qualified to assess them, though the facilities onboard the ship were minimally suited to that purpose. No firing range of any size (they kept in practice with hologram-based computer simulations) could be fit on board the ship, there simply was no room. As he had been ordered to do with any new data collected, Takashi brought the information directly to the Admiral, who was in his quarters.

Takashi pressed the button on the intercom affixed next to the door, and a buzzer sounded inside. He spoke into the microphone, "Sir. This is Lieutenant Takashi with the evaluations of the enemy weapons captured, as ordered."

There was a long pause before the reply, "Enter."

The door was unlocked, as was typical for Yamashita. He had sufficient trust in his subordinate's respect for him that he disdained to bar them entrance. No one had evered entered without permission, anyway. The door disappeared smoothly into the wall and the lieutenant stepped through. The room was large by shipboard standards, with plenty of headroom and enough space for a sleeping area, working area, bathroom, and a small dining table in the traditional style (traditional in this case meaning "on the floor") with sufficient space for four, though typically it was used only for important dinners. The final piece of the cabin, behind a paper screen, was the small shrine. The floor of the dining area and shrine was, incidentally, tatami matting over actual wood. All areas were comfortably but not ostentatiously large, and the net effect was to believably simulate a piece of the home islands on board a space battleship.

The admiral's shadow was visible within the screened-off shrine. Takashi respectfully removed his shoes to set them on the appropriate space just inside the door, and stepped gingerly across the floor to the screen. He slid the door aside and looked in. Yamashita was sitting in the lotus position in front of a shrine which featured a small stone statue of the bodhisattva Jizo, mirroring the admiral's meditative position. There was incense burning.

Like most modern Japanese, Takashi was quasi-religious, not generally practicing his supposed beliefs nor subscribing to any foolish superstitions, but honoring in his own way the Zen and Shinto faiths. He was slightly embarrassed in a way he could not explain at the sight of Admiral Yamashita in meditation before his shrine.

Yamashita spoke quietly. "Jizo," he said, "is the patron of travellers, and I believe this to be most important. Everyone is travelling in some way, even if they believe they are standing still. In our case it is more obvious."

He bowed once to the shrine, then carefully disentangled his legs to stand. The admiral was wearing a black kimono of simple design rather than his uniform. He turned, very slowly, and exited the shrine, shutting the door behind him.

"Your report, Lieutenant Takashi?" he finally asked.

Takashi briefly considered the casual dress of his superior officer, then snapped to attention and saluted anyway. "Sir. The Marines have reported that the enemy weapons appear to be particle-based, like our own rifles. However, they do not seem to work on principles of direct energy transfer, but rather on the objective of disrupting the nuclear bonds of the target. Beyond that, the results are inconclusive as we have insufficient... laboratory facilities to discover more."

Yamashita nodded, "Anything else, Lieutenant?"

"Only that the weapons appeared to be quite poor for combat purposes. Some of them lack any sighting attachments and are clumsily designed. They have a significant power output all the same, and could be dangerous to personnel at close range."

"Thank you. You may leave your report on my desk," Yamashita said, and then he reentered his shrine and shut the sliding door.

Lieutenant Takashi crossed quickly to the desk and laid the papers down, sparing a moment's glance at the sword rack that displayed Yamashita's daisho. Most noble naval officers had their family's long and short swords with them aboard ship, though many of them also brought the ancient armor that their ancestors had worn. Yamashita had no such thing, first because his family had only been elevated to status in 1930s, and second because his father would not have passed on the ancestral panoply. Takashi remembered that Admiral Yamashita's father had been on quite poor terms with his son and had all but disowned him in favor of his younger brother, and in fact the swords in his cabin were only about 30 years old, though they were said to be very high quality. It had been a minor scandal not long ago when the elder Yamashita had died and bequeathed all his property and titles to his younger son, and the Emperor had replied by transferring a portion of those to the Admiral.

There were various other details and personages involved, and details about the empress and so on, but Takashi had a poor mind for such things. His father had been a famous successful chef rather than a count or baron, and he did not regret the narrowing of his mental dimensions this brought about. The noble classes, such as they were, had some advantage in advancement in the military, but not to the exclusion of those more capable but lacking in bloodline. This was especially true in the navy, part of the reason that he had selected this service. The other criterion had been the food--he had inherited a love of food and tolerated the lack of it poorly, though he did not overeat.

His report disposed of, Lieutenant Takashi crossed the floor quietly and put his shoes back on, disengaging from the cabin stealthily.


----


The quarters aboard the transport Tokaido Maru were not as well appointed. While theoretically the vessel would have plenty of room for its some thirty-two thousand passengers, it was actually merely comfortable in practice. The task of simply carrying the vehicles, equipment, and men of the two Imperial Japanese Army divisions on the ship was only one of the demands placed on her; there were also the matters of shields to defend them from attack, engines to move through space, and, most onerous, more engines to land safely on a class-M world and take off again with a full complement. A great deal of the Tokaido Maru's internal space was devoted to engines, though there was still sufficient room to live with a reasonable level of humanity.

Each platoon recieved an individual barracks, and use of common spaces was carefully scheduled to ensure that each man had opportunity to use them. Lieutenant Sato's platoon was in the exercise room at that particular moment.

Sergeant Tuan Van Le was doing pullups on the bar provided while two privates first class watched him and talked. The sergeant, in point of fact, was not Japanese but Vietnamese. The three primary nations of the Indochina region had been annexed into the Japanese Empire late in the 1860s, and the Vietnamese had fought long and hard for independence--futily. They had settled down eventually, like the other unwilling additions to the empire, but the Vietnamese had never become quite so Japanese as the Koreans, Manchurians, and Filipinos. That did not stop them from joining the army, of course, and numbers of them could be found in most formations of any sized.

In the three-quarters Earth gravity, Sergeant Le could do a great many pullups before getting too tired to continue. He listened to his young men chatter.

"We're going to fight Klingons," PFC Sato said, "I don't like anything about this. I heard from one of the navy files that we're in a parallel universe, or something. I don't know what's going on, but I don't want to fight Klingons, they're very strong."

PFC Morioka snorted, "I heard that they're going to be pushovers. You remember history class, when they talked about the conquest of Qo'Nos?"

"I joined the army so I could _make_ history," Sato replied.

"Hah. They'll probably be a bunch of screaming idiots with knives. Remember I said that when we land, because I want you to acknowledge that I was right."

"If you're right, then I'll be too glad to remember."

Le dropped from the bar to the deck and checked his wristwatch. He said in lightly accented Japanese, "20 hours until dustoff, kids. Are you going to get tired of this before then or will you keep repeating yourselves?"

"We will repeat ourselves, probably. Why stop when we're doing so well?" Sato said.

"I guess you should continue, then. What about the status of your weapons? If I go and check on them, would they be up to standards?" the sergeant asked.

"Military specifications, yes. Your standards, probably not," Morioka answered for the two of them, "you are obsessive. My rifle--"

"It isn't yours. It is the emperor's. He is allowing you to borrow it; what do you think the mark of the chrysanthemum on the butt means?"

"A Vietnamese who venerates the Emperor? How odd!" Morioka spat back.

Le shook his head happily, "I venerate anything that makes things harder for you. Now, unless you're going to do some exercise I suggest you two break those weapons down, clean them, and put them back together. Make me proud."

He turned on his heel and marched to a rack of free weights. Sato stuck his tongue out at Le's retreating back and pulled his lower eyelid down with one finger.

"Blah!" he groaned.

Morioka clicked his tongue at his friend. "If you had kept your dumb mouth shut..."



NOTE: Originally chapters five and six were going to be one chapter, but it was too long and I split it up so as to have an update for today.

[Stuart Mackey]

This is a quite good fic, a different spin on the usual, most refreshing.

[phongn]

Nice.

[Kuja]

Haha. I like Le.

[Crazedwraith]

Good. Keep it up.

[darthdavid]

Good Stuff

[frigidmagi]

The Klingons vs Imperial Japan? Oh this is going to be a popcorn event. I lay 20 to 1 odds that the Klingons get wasted without inflicting more than 1500 overall causalities on the first wave.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Anabasis
Chapter Six
Turkey Shoot


"Two minutes, Admiral. They've definitely detected us by now."

Yamashita nodded to the helmsman. It was difficult to get any element of surprise when making a clean entry into a key system; they were typically surrounded by subspace sensor nets that could spot a ship under Cochrane Drive from light-years away. Warp drive was so-called because of the way it twisted the space-time continuum to achieve faster-than-light travel, and as it did so it spewed streams of tachyons that could be easily detected over very great distances. It was rumored that the newest Raumkriegsmarine ships had a modernized drive that was virtually emissionless, but there had also once been rumors that they had developed transwarp drives and bombs that could stop fusion in stars. Accuracy was not the strong point of the rumor network.

Yamashita was somewhat proud of his battle plan for this engagement. In Japanese art, one of the most respected traits was precision, the ideal was a painting that reduced the image to its very essence with the fewest number of strokes. Yamashita's wife was a famous artist, he was a famous admiral, and he wryly estimated that he had wrought his masterpiece here. The essence of the battle plan was to enter the system and hijack some freighters, meanwhile blowing up anything that looked a likely target. The admiral felt almost superfluous, this was a tactical engagement that would not require any tactical management by him. Yamashita would merely be supervising Captain Saegusa and offering basic commands at the right moments.

"Thirty seconds."

Saegusa started into action. "Shields up, weapons and targeting on line. I want a volley the moment we're in, but no torpedoes."

The captain was only reiterating what the battle plan had already told the fleet. There was no supply of torpedoes to be had in this universe, so the fleet had to be conservative with them. This order had greatly disappointed Commodore Hara, as the greatest part of his destroyer's offensive firepower was tied up in their torpedoes. More than likely he would have "accidentally" launched a few, if Yamashita had no explicitly ordered that they would not even be loaded into their launching tubes.

"Deactivating Cochrane drive," the helmsmen announced.

The stretched out starfield retracted into individual points of light, and there was the gray-green planet Qo'Nos, about 400,000 kilometers away. The sensors of the fleet reached out.

Lieutenant Hitotsugi reported calmly, "Estimate one-hundred fifty enemy vessels of various sizes and configuration. I do not detect any sign of the moon Praxis."

Astronomical oddities aside, the course of action was clear.

Admiral Yamashita barked, "Weapons free."

"Fire volley," Saegusa ordered.

The main guns of the battleship Hiei were sixteen cannons mounted in eight turrets. They had a nominal firepower of about 200 megatons per shot, and like most direct fire weapons their effective range was limited more by sensors and targeting than by anything else. In optimum conditions they could hit from several light seconds out. They were now one and a third light seconds away from their potential targets, and sensor conditions were more than optimum. The energy from the guns' independent anti-matter batteries streamed into the firing mechanisms, to be converted into x-rays and shot down the barrel, where the beam was collimated for its long journey.

One and a third seconds later, eight different ships in the distance were torn in two. The cruisers then fired their own volleys, destroying scores more.

"Fire at will," Saegusa ordered.

The ships of the fleet hammered out blast after blast as the Klingon ships scrambled into motion. More of them went down, and then abruptly they all disappeared.

Hitotsugi examined his scopes. "Sensor contact with the remaining enemy ships lost."

"Cease fire. Do you suspect cloaking devices, Admiral?" Saegusa asked.

Yamashita replied, "Perhaps. At this range we won't be able to detect their emissions. Move the fleet toward the planet, flank speed."

The engines of the fleet fired and the various warships began to move in unison. The destroyers spread out ahead, and at the center of the whole formation the Hiei and the two transports were very well protected by the guns of the rest of the task force. There was a space of several thousand kilometers between each ship, but with the range of weapons and sensors, ever ship was adequately covered. As the fleet accelerated, the marble that was Qo'Nos steadily grew. The sensors of the fleet stretched out, combing the blackness for any sign of cloaked ships. Then, at about 100,000 kilometers out, the passive sensors began to pick up evidence of the invisible adversary. The trails of ions released by their engines allowed their location to be determined with near pinpoint accuracy.

"Fire at will."

The combined firepower of the fleet traced out across the heavens again, this time supplemented by the lighter, shorter-ranged secondary cannons, as well as the addition of the destroyers' guns. In less than a minute, the field had been cleared of any detectable enemies. Liquid-hot debris twisted in space, congealing rapidly into nearly perfect spheres.

"Excellent. Bring the task force into orbit of the main planet, the army will make its landing and we will find a suitable target for our marines," Yamashita ordered.

Temporarily discharged of his duties, Saegusa approached Hitotsugi's console and examined the sensor hologram closely. There were a number of large stations in orbit, including at least one that appeared to be a major logistical base. Freighters of an unfamiliar configuration were docked there. Its shields were weak, as apparently had been so for all the destroyed vessels. Captain Saegusa had trusted the admiral going into the battle, but in the back of his mind he still hadn't quite believed that it could be so easy. The enemy had not even had the opportunity to fire a single shot.


----


"Captain! Should we not attempt to attack the enemy, or at least summon reinforcements?" the tactical officer asked, too loudly.

Captain Dhulkrang growled back, "Have you a death wish, lieutenant? The entire home fleet is debris! If we so much as maneuver, their guns will lock onto us and destroy us as well."

"There must be something we can do! Ram them, perhaps."

"We will sit here," Dhulkrang ordered, "with the engines offline, the reactor at idle, and the cloak active. We will watch them with our passive sensors for as long as they are here. That is _all_ we can do without committing suicide."

The tactical officer growled and rocked back in his chair, impatiently. It was almost as if he would have preferred death.


----


The Tokaido Maru and her sister ship, the Goleyte Maru, slowly descended into the upper atmosphere of Qo'Nos. Sensor imaging had selected a landing site just outside the capital city of the planet. For General Fuyutsuki, it was like landing in history. It was the very same plain that Montaro Yamashita had landed on in his invasion of Qo'Nos centuries ago. But for reasons that the general could not fathom and did not choose to consider too deeply, he was in an alternate reality that had never been conquered by humans. Very likely he would be the first man ever to land an invasion force on these fields, at least in this universe, and that sat reasonably well with him.

The two transports rapidly picked up speed as they plunged into the gravity well of the planet. As contact was made with the upper atmosphere, the massive vessels were slightly buffeted. The passengers were four elite IJA divisions, and almost all of them had made at least one combat drop prior to this. No one was particularly worried about the descent, with the main fleet overhead suppressing ground fire and experienced pilots at the helm, there wasn't really much to worry about. Even if something did go wrong, they would be dead before they knew about it, so there was no sense in thinking too much about it.

Sergeant Le and his squad were sitting in an armored personnel carrier, waiting for the transport's doors to open up. Once the Tokaido Maru had touched ground, they would roll towards the city with all deliberate speed, terminating any enemies encountered along the way. The sergeant was a tawny-skinned statue strapped into his seat. The other soldiers chattered avidly, but not Le. He was not exactly beloved of his men, but they at least feared him, and that was enough. Nobody spoke to him, so he considered the possibilities of the mission. It was to be a battle against unknown but probably weak forces in close urban terrain. There were a great many unknown variables in the equation the IJA was trying to solve, and there was no doubt whose fault that was.

"Those damn navy bastards," Le thought.

The officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy all but considered themselves the lords of creation, which for all that it was reasonably accurate was an infuriating philosophy to deal with. Admiral Yamashita had flung 60,000 men into mortal combat with an enemy he couldn't even pretend to have properly reconnoitered. The fact that he had done much the same to his own fleet was small consolation. The APC rocked gently as the Tokaido Maru set down on the planet. Debarkation ramps were dropping, the shield bubble was shifting into a wide ceiling to deflect bombardment by artillery and orbiting enemy warships, and the artillery mounted on the transport itself fired away. Le couldn't see or hear any of this, but he understood the mechanics of the aggressive landing and could only assume that things were going along according to the book.

The APC jolted into motion, and by the shifting of his weight, Le could surmise that they were descending the ramp onto Qo'Nos itself.

"Get ready," he said aloud, "they might try to hit us right at the landing."

The men of his squad steeled themselves for battle; the mechanized infantry and tanks that formed the spearhead of the corps raced across the plain towards the capital city of the Klingon Empire. The enemy might appear and ambush them at any time.

But nothing happened. The vehicles rattled on over hills, and then joined the major roads, drawing ever nearer the city. No great force arrived to oppose them. It was, in a word, unbelievable.

"It's some kind of trick. It must be," Morioka said, his face pressed against the periscope. It was the only way for the men within the APC to see what was going on outside the vehicle, and they were using the narrow view to try to divine the intentions of the klingons.

Sato grunted. "I want to see. It's my turn."

"Shut up, you ass. I'm trying to figure out what's happening out there," Morioka growled.

"If you let me see, I would be able to figure it out in a couple of seconds, maybe less!" Sato replied.

"You couldn't figure out a silk finger trap, you stone-headed ape."

Sato whined, "Sergeant, Private Morioka is taking up my turn!"

Tuan Van Le toyed idly with his helmet, which was lying in his lap. Like the rest of his uniform, it was nearly identical to that issued to the Imperial Marines, only a different color and some other minor differences. He sighed and shook his head sadly.

"Private Morioka, you will share the time on the periscope like a good boy," the sergeant ordered.

The younger man scowled at his friend as he flopped back into his seat. "You would bring him into this, tattler."

Sato stepped up to the scope and swiveled it back and forth. "Wow. This was completely not worth the effort, Sergeant Le."

"What do you see?" Sergeant Le asked.

"Well. The city is a few miles ahead. We're on a road. There are some hills and random houses. Clouds as well," Sato reported tersely.

Morioka scratched the back of his head and laughed nervously, "We're only one part of the corps. Maybe the enemy is attacking someplace else and we just don't know about it."

"Doesn't make sense," Sato said, still looking in the periscope, "we're the hammer of the division. If there were trouble they'd call us there, and anyway this is the main road into that city. If there's any place for the enemy to defend, this is--ooh, now that's pretty."

"What?" Morioka asked.

"One of the anti-matter shells from the transports just landed in some poor suburb. Looks like six kilotons. We're getting close now; I hope they remember to stop the shelling."

The shockwave from the blast rolled over the APC and it rocked slightly as it continued to roll onward.

"They're only navy boys. They do the best they can," Sergeant Le said.


----


In a boarding operation, it was usually a bad idea to enter through the docking bays or airlocks unless the enemy had already surrendered the ship. Those points were constricted and easily defended. It was better to make your own hole and surprise the enemy. Marine transports mounted breaching rigs for just that purpose. The magnetic anchors bound the transport to the target hull, and the depressurization alarm sounded in the passenger compartment. The sixty IJN Marines aboard the command transport sealed their uniforms for vacuum. The alarm faded as the air hissed out.

Beneath their feet, the array of plasma torches was slicing a neat two-meter hole in the hull of the Klingon space station. The air would be rushing out of the small holes already opened and the inner airlocks of the station would be clanging shut. In about a quarter the time that was usually required, the green light went on and the airtight door in the bottom of the floor opened.

"Go!" Major Uchida ordered. The platoon began to move through the hole by pairs. The gravity was still active in the station, so they dropped heavily to the deck before scrambling to their positions. The place was cramped and poorly lit, with a definite emphasis on earth-tones in its decoration. The marines switched on their night vision. The major was one of the last aboard, and by the time he had hit the floor, his men had already moved to the nearest internal airlocks and were placing breaching charges. Before the boarding had commenced, the Hiei had gotten a deep subspace scan of the station. The enemy had made no effort to jam, so he had a solid three dimensional map of the entire complex, which he called up onto his head's-up-display with a verbal command. There were twelve companies of sixty fighting men each, all under his command for this operation. They showed up at various points on the map, and all had made it aboard uneventfully.

A few men moved in behind him, unfolding a sheet of electrostatic plastic to its full expanse of three by three meters. They placed it against the breaching hole and used a portable plasma torch to weld it securely onto the hull. Then they jabbed it with an electric prod, and the current caused the plastic to set, hard enough to contain a vacuum.

"Hole patched," one of them reported.

"Prepare to breach!" he ordered his platoon. Everyone checked his proximity to the charges and braced himself down on one knee.

Uchida barked, "Detonate!"

The actual explosions were felt through the deck plates rather than heard because of the vacuum, but a moment later air rushed into their little compartment through the ruined emergency doors, and sounds could be heard again.

"Go!" Kazuo ordered again.

The men charged through the breaches, rifles at the ready. Major Uchida carried no real weapons except for his pistol, because his role was scarcely more than ceremonial. It was impossible to command or coordinate an operation like this, with so many different groups moving in so many directions, checking rooms and blasting through doors. It was done automatically and by the numbers.

Something that sounded almost like a primitive battle cry rose in the next room, followed by a flurry of automatic fire from the marines' rifles.

"Uh... room is clear," the point-man reported.

Major Uchida stepped though the hole in the emergency door to see what had happened. There was a pile of nine or ten klingons lying in a heap covered with thick purplish blood, all carrying knives and pistols. They were wearing some kind of ridiculous leather armor. Kazuo surveyed them silently for a few moments, and then looked meaningfully at the corporal who had been on point.

"They came around that corner screaming at me and waving weapons, so we shot them," the young man explained.

Uchida looked over at the bend in the hall just ten meters away, and then another scream echoed around the corner. He jerked his pistol from its holster just as another party of screaming klingons rounded the bend. He fired over the corporal's shoulder as the other men at the front let loose a storm of particle bolts. The klingons did not retreat, did not even seem to register the fact that they were being killed. The rifles tore fist-sized holes in their bodies and hurled them to the deck. In half a moment all were dead.

Kazuo mechanically swapped out the magazine in his pistol and checked his three-dimensional map again. "Report in, by platoons!" he ordered.

The responses came back, starting with his own First platoon and on through Twelfth platoon. Everyone was encountering uncoordinated charges by klingons armed with knives and pistols. No casualties among the marines.

"Right!" Uchida barked, "This is nothing to worry about. Keep moving to the objectives."


----


Once the APC entered the city Sergeant Le chased everyone away from the periscope and took up position there. He scanned carefully. The convoy was rattling down a wide boulevard towards the place that was transmitting most of the enemy's battle communications. The tanks were in front, the APCs just behind that, and then came the softer-skinned trucks. The division had encountered no resistance in the drive from the LZ to the city limits, which had only made Le progressively more nervous. Maybe the enemy was aware that they could not hope to face the firepower of the IJA in the open and was preparing a vigorous defense of their urban areas.

He turned to his squad, "Get ready to dismount in a hurry if I say the word. Sato, where's your helmet?"

"Um," the private scratched his head and looked around.

"Find your cover and get it on or I will murder you. This is war," Le growled, turning back to the periscope.

"You're not wearing your helmet either," Sato mumbled petulantly.

Le didn't even turn around, "But it's hanging from my belt where I can get at it quickly, stupid."

Suddenly the commander of the vehicle commanded, "Driver, stop!"

The driver slammed on the brakes. Most of the squad was seated and still strapped in, but Sato was standing and tumbled into the laps of several other soldiers, and Le only avoided an embarrassing spill by hanging on tight to the periscope.

"Maneuver us around to the left so we have a straight shot down the boulevard," the commander continued.

Le checked the periscope again, aiming it far down the road. He saw a mob of klingons marching down the street, and triggered the zoom on the 'scope to get a better view. There were so many civilians that they covered the wide street from one side to the other, at a depth of many blocks. They were carrying a wide assortment of weapons, from wicked-looking knives and swords to pistols and short rifles. They did not look happy.

"Wow," Le said. He twisted around so he could look at the crew of the vehicle. The driver sat in the far front at the controls, the gunner and commander just behind him, in front of a bank of monitors that showed external camera views, status reports, and so on.

"Why aren't you shooting?" he asked.

The commander continued studying his screens. "They're civilians. The ROE are unclear on this."

Sergeant Le sneered, "This is the Imperial Japanese Army."

The commander looked at the gunner and shrugged. "Go for it."

The gunner flicked some switches on his console, activating the robotic turret mounted on top of the APC. It featured a small-bore particle cannon which was suitable for use against aircraft and light vehicles and a smaller particle machinegun for antipersonnel work. In practice, however, both were often used against personnel. The cannon began to fire bursts at about 400 rounds per minute cyclic, the machinegun rattling away beside it. The enemy crowd was five-hundred meters downrange, no trouble for the weapons or their advanced optics. The shots hit them like a wall of death, and they broke into a run. At five hundred meters.

"They're not even taking cover," Le said in disbelief.

Then the other APCs, and more importantly the tanks joined in the firing. The crowd finally broke and sought cover in the buildings to either side of the road, leaving great heaps of mangled corpses. The main guns on the tanks fairly disintegrated bodies, and the APC cannons tore head-sized holes through entire rows of klingons. The mob was clearing itself out of the freeway, however, and were no doubt advancing by side streets and alleys.

"They're going to try to flank us, we'd better dismount," Le ordered. He donned and sealed his helmet, then moved to the exit ramp and checked his squad for readiness. Everyone, including Sato, had his helmet on and his weapon ready. Le triggered the door and it descended quickly; the squad stomped out onto the concrete, moving automatically to one side of the street to find cover. The tanks began hammering away at the buildings on either side of the boulevard as Le's squad entered a side street. They kept to either sidewalk, hugging the walls for whatever protection they could provide. Almost immediately, klingons began to boil out of the buildings and around the corners.

Sergeant Le knew from his high-school days that klingons had a great love of weapons, and that they typically wore them whenever possible. Apparently every bumpy forehead in the city had gone to work carrying a weapon of some kind, and was turning out for a piece of their enemy.

"Fire!" he ordered, leveling his own rifle as he dropped to one knee. He clicked the weapon to full-automatic and fired five fast rounds into the crowd. He was the first to fire, but definitely not the last. The others loosed a fusillade into the front ranks of the mob, cutting many of them down, but they surged forward all the same, heedless of the danger. But then one of the other squads from the platoon joined and added its firepower, and the crowd finally broke and retreated only a few meters short of the Japanese soldiers, leaving scores of riddled casualties.

Tuan Van Le clicked to his lieutenant's frequency. "Sir, there's millions of angry klingons in this city and not so many of us. Something needs to be done, fast."

"What do you want /me/ to do about it?" the lieutenant asked sharply, "for now we'll chase them and try to keep them from consolidating into another tidal wave."

Le swapped out his rifle's power pack and got back to his feet. He pumped his right fist in the air, "Let's go, kids, keep them bouncing!"

The platoon started off at a brisk pace, keeping up a steady fire on the fleeing rioters.


----


The operation was proceeding nicely in space and on the ground, Yamashita thought. The klingons were being utterly massacred at every level, and though some trouble was being reported on the ground, things looked fine. The marines reported that they had secured the entire enemy space station, and were preparing to move on the individual vessels docked there. The task force itself had had very little to do for several hours. The admiral wanted to hum a tune, but he restrained himself. He had to be the picture of officerly comportment, which was the way things were done. He stood ramrod straight in the middle of the bridge, moving nothing but his eyes. He glanced at Captain Saegusa, who was rubbing his jaw as he looked at one of the monitors.

"Your thoughts, Captain?" he asked.

Saegusa cleared his throat. "Just looking over reports from the ground. There's a lot of klingons turned out to fight, the general is thinking about using a nerve agent bombardment."

"That ought to be fine," Ichiro replied, "he probably should have done it from the first."

"What are you thinking about, Admiral?" Saegusa asked.

Yamashita considered carefully and took a few steps over to Saegusa, taking in the display on the monitor for a few moments. He leaned close to the junior officer and whispered conspiratorially, "Thinking about my wife."

"Ah," the captain replied. Yamashita knew that, silently, Saegusa was adding the phrase 'the artist' to the end of that sentence. Everyone knew who Aiko Yamashita was--the great landscape artist and composer of songs and poetry. They were a celebrated couple, though she was probably better known to the populace at large. After all, Ichiro was merely the Emperor's favorite Admiral, whereas everyone could appreciate his wife's work.

But in an ordinary working relationship, Yamashita would never have mentioned sparing a moment's thought for his wife. It was shameful to show undue emotional attachment to a female while in public, even worse on the bridge of a space-going warship. But he considered Saegusa his friend (in fact one of his only friends), which allowed him to be somewhat more open.

"Are you worried?" Saegusa asked.

"Naturally. It is conceivable that we will never find our way home," the admiral said quietly.

"That is true of our every voyage."

"Yes, and the possibility is in my thoughts during our every voyage," Yamashita said, "but I do not worry."

There was a distinction in the way he phrased that. He did not say that he was not worried; he said that he /did not/ worry. In most cases, this was true. But his family was a special case; it was in fact the only thing that affected him so. He worried about himself not at all, reserving that for his wife and daughters. He wondered what would happen to them if he never made it home.

"Admiral!" the communications officer called, "I'm receiving a message from Major Uchida. There's a problem on the station."

Admiral Yamashita shook away the cobwebs. He had allowed himself to drift during the long idle like a stupid recruit. He cursed himself an idiot, but silently. "Report, Major Uchida."

Kazuo's voice crackled over the speaker, "Admiral, the crews of the klingon freighters have sealed themselves inside their ships. They say that if we set foot on their decks they will self destruct their ships and cargo."

"Do nothing," Yamashita said instantly, "I will handle the situation."

He signaled sharply to cut the connection. This was the time for immediate action. He understood the Klingon mentality. Among his titles as a nobleman, he had inherited a barony on Qo'Nos from his ancestor Montaro, who had conquered the planet for the Empire. The course of action was clear.

"Open a channel to those freighters. I will speak to them," he ordered. The communications officer did as he was told.

The translated klingon voice barked at him, "This is Captain Kuchluk of the Klingon Empire; I command this station and the freighters in it. What do you want, cowardly invader? There will be no negotiation!"

Yamashita threw out his chest, for his own benefit as it was an audio-only channel, and replied, "I am Admiral Yamashita, commander of the force which has annihilated your home fleet. It is you who is the coward, an honorless son of a derelict and shameful clan. You hide in your paltry vessel in terror of the strength of my men, like a burrowing rodent faced with ferocious predators. Do you have the courage to face me in single combat?"

"Human! I would crush your bones and drink from your skull, had you the gall to challenge me!" the voice came back.

"The challenge is given! I will match your bat'leth with my sword. When I am victorious, your men will surrender your vessels without fight or protest. But if by some impossible fluke you are able to defeat me, my fleet and army will leave the system. Those are my terms!" Yamashita shouted.

"They are accepted!" the voice replied.

The bridge crew stared at him in some amazement, including Captain Saegusa, who said, "Sir, you can't be serious."

"I am. This is the best way to defuse those self-destruct devices," Ichiro explained.

Saegusa shook his head, "At least allow someone else to duel in your place."

"No. If I do not show personally, they will detonate the ships. I had to impress them with my rank for them to even listen, and honor demands that this Klingon captain fight no one else. Moreover, I cannot back down from this challenge with my own honor intact," Yamashita said.

"This is madness, Admiral."

"This entire operation has been madness, has it not?" the admiral replied wryly. "Do not worry. I'm rather good with a sword, and I know how to deal with klingons. Now then, I must retrieve my daisho and board my shuttle. Ensure that the shuttle is ready for me."

He turned on his heel and exited the bridge smartly, followed by the eyes of everyone in the room. Moments before, in the calm idleness, his mind had been abuzz with anxious worries. Now that he was faced with a challenging task, he was an empty vessel.


...

...

After all the traditional holiday craziness, I've got another chapter ready here for your consumption... sorry for the delay!

[Stuart Mackey]

Imperial Japanese Admiral to duel with a Klingon? this is great stuff

[Crazedwraith]

Sweet. Though an obvious excuse for more Klingon bashing...

[darthdavid]

Most execellent...

[Kuja]

HELL YEAH! That was fucking inspired, Pablo.


So, any brave souls willing to place bets on the upcoming duel?

[frigidmagi]

Yamashita! He can take it, the other guy is using a Batleh after all!

[brianeyci]

Looking forward to the duel, awesome chapter!

I hope we get to see the American or German perspective after Q'nos is taken over, without help the Feds will be crushed and we don't want that .

Brian

[Singular Quartet]

Nah, if they get crushed, then the best parts of the fic are over to soon. We got's to let the Feddies suffer.

[brianeyci]

Pablo, a fan request.

Since the Japanese in their original universe conquered Q'nos before the Klingon "renassiance" aka TNG fuckup, they shouldn't have really expected a shitload of moronic Klingons charging them. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but you handled it well, your grunts seem extremely surprised that the Klingons are so stupid. Klingons in TOS intepreted going in "armed heavily" as packing disruptor rifles and pistols (ST:III). Also, if they conquered Klingons before the renassiance, shouldn't they be wondering why the Klingons have bumpy heads and not relatively flat heads?

Anyway, it would be nice for Yamashita to lament how a small religious fringe group of Klingon society seemed to have taken over Klingon society in this universe, especially since Yamashita is familar with Klingon history anyway. Yamashita would have been familar with TOS Klingons as the norm, and perhaps TNG Klingons as a religious extremist group in Klingon society. Its good that there's at least one smart Klingon in the fic who's staying cloaked and turned off his engines.

Brian

[Pablo Sanchez]

Also, if they conquered Klingons before the renassiance, shouldn't they be wondering why the Klingons have bumpy heads and not relatively flat heads?

Anyway, it would be nice for Yamashita to lament how a small religious fringe group of Klingon society seemed to have taken over Klingon society in this universe, especially since Yamashita is familar with Klingon history anyway. Yamashita would have been familar with TOS Klingons as the norm, and perhaps TNG Klingons as a religious extremist group in Klingon society. Its good that there's at least one smart Klingon in the fic who's staying cloaked and turned off his engines.

Well, it's hard for me to decide exactly how to deal with the details of this. The "Klingon Renaissance" has never been clearly dealt with in ST continuity. There have been non-canon theories presented, but nothing that can be pointed to definitively.

The way I've usually thought of it is that the smooth-headed Klingons represented a minority of the population which had a disproportionate control of the military and government because they were smarter and more successful. After the Empire encountered difficulties with the Federation, they lost their mandate and were deposed by the bumpy-headed majority. This is the way I'm thinking of it for writing purposes, but if you have a good source for a different explanation I'd definitely consider it.

So, the Japanese are most familiar with Klingons who have bumpy foreheads and are much calmed down, but still suicidally brave and with very touchy honor. Yamashita knows about Klingon history, but it's been 200 years since they were conquered. Also, there isn't much time for him to be thinking about what happened to them right now. The task force simply is not very involved in anything but trying to stay alive at the moment. The USN chapters will take place in the Federation and will have a different perspective.

[brianeyci]

Well very cool. I'm just hoping for a differentiation between TOS Klingons and TNG Klingons somehow.

The only thing canon so far is Klingons "don't like to talk about it" for some reason. Maybe better to leave it vague. But there has to be a part of Klingon society that didn't start worshiping the honor religion, a small part but a smart part.

Enjoyable stuff!

Brian

[Pablo Sanchez]

Anabasis
Chapter Seven
A Question of Honor


"The Hiei reports no objection to the deployment of nerve agents, sir," General Fuyutsuki's aide reported.

The command center for the corps was, shamefully enough, located in the belly of the Tokaido Maru, a naval vessel. This operation was too brief and fast-moving for it to make moving the headquarters off the ship worthwhile. It was annoying for a general in the universe's greatest army to work from within a transport, but it was convenient in that it allowed him to liaise quickly with his overall commander and his fire support. He stood before a console that allowed him instant communication with the fire control room of the transport. He flipped the appropriate switch.

"Tokaido Maru fire control, you are ordered to fire a Type Six chemical agent barrage on grid reference--" he glanced at the holographic map floating serenely in the center of his command room, then read off a stream of coordinates, "--standard airburst pattern."

"Understood," the naval officer replied.

There were a number of types of chemical agent barrages, ranging from non-lethal incapacitating gases and hallucinogens, through blistering and pulmonary agents. Type Six represented the standard military issue nerve agent, and as this was the most effective of all the chemical weapons available (Type Seven was more lethal but also more persistent; it lingered in the environment for weeks while Type Six would neutralize itself in about three hours), military vessels seldom carried any others. Anyway, in the vast majority of conflicts the IJA faced forces from the United States or Third Reich, which meant that the opposition would be NBC protected and the weapons were just wasted space. They were only kept in case of the rare crowd-control problem, like the one currently facing Fuyutsuki's corps.

The problem with deploying advanced nerve agents was their volatility. Although a very small dose--in the case of Type Six, about 5 milligrams was sufficient to kill a human--could be lethal, the agents were typically dispersed too quickly to be useful in open areas. It had taken decades of study to perfect a nerve agent that could be delivered by missile or shell and then distributed over a large area, but it had been accomplished, and the basic formula had not changed since the late 20th century.

Fuyutsuki did not know exactly how it worked, except that it was something to do with aerosols, but he did know that a Type Six barrage with standard airburst pattern could clear out a city's worth of unprotected personnel. In all his seventy-five years he had not yet had the opportunity to deploy such a barrage, and he was happy for the opportunity.


----


"Sergeant Le," the lieutenant's voice came over the radio, "make sure every soldier in your squad keeps his suit sealed tight, command is sending some gas over."

"Received," the sergeant said. The order was nearly an insult; what kind of soldier would doff his uniform in the middle of a battle? Not any of the men under Le's command. It was probably just because Le was Vietnamese that the officer had chosen to ask such an obvious question.

"Kids," Tuan switched over to his squad frequency, "the lieutenant wants to be sure that all of you are tucked into your uniforms tightly. Double-check your seals."

Everyone did as told, and everyone found that his suit was fully sealed and rated to withstand whatever chemical miasma the higher-ups were planning to distribute over the city. The Tokaido Maru was miles away, but it would not take long for the fire mission to arrive overhead. Le kept his sights on the street ahead, snapping off occasional shots at whatever lumpy heads presented themselves. The klingons had clued into the fact that they were outgunned and were sticking to the buildings. If the corps was actually required to go in and root them out, casualties would probably be heavy. As useless as a knife was in the open, at indoor ranges with the kind of numerical superiority that the klingons enjoyed, it was sufficiently effective. Fortunately, it didn't appear as though command was going to waste time and lives on room-to-room fighting.

At first the barrage was visible only briefly as it gained altitude. Qo'Nos was possessed of perpetually cloudy skies, so there was simply a single thin line of smoke disappearing into the cloud cover. The Tokaido Maru was miles away, and it took a few seconds for the warheads to get to their targets. Ballistic missiles were used instead of cruise missiles despite the fact that they were less efficient for the purpose of distributing gas, because the weapons normally had to be deployed against enemies who had fairly advanced weaponry and stood a fair chance of knocking a relatively slow moving cruise missile from the sky. So the missiles dropped out of the clouds, moving quickly but just visible to the men on the ground. A hundred feet or so above the rooftops of the city, they exploded into thick white clouds they rapidly dissipated into invisibility. One of them had detonated just above Le's platoon, and the fragments of the delivery vehicle rained down around them.

Sergeant Le glanced at his chronometer display. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes. Most of the buildings around didn't appear to have any sort of environmental seals, so the nerve agent would be able to find its way in. There would probably be millions of dead, but it didn't really bother him in the least. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been through a ghost city.

The synthesized chemicals entered the body through the respiratory system, or through physical contact. Once inside the victim, they interfered with the nervous system such that the muscles of the body fired randomly and incessantly. Death was excruciatingly painful and messy, as the victim evacuated its stomach and bowels and succumbed to convulsive spasms. The only redeeming factor was that it took only a matter of seconds and most people blacked out early on. Klingons, however, had a remarkable tolerance for pain. They would probably stay conscious until the very end. After an interval of about five minutes, Le stood upright and let his rifle dangle by the strap.

"Alright," the lieutenant's voice came over the comm, "everybody load back up. We're moving on"


----


Admiral Yamashita stepped down the shuttle ramp with the long sword held lightly in his left hand. He had left the short sword in his chambers, as there was no need to carry them both around for a duel. The docking bay of the Klingon station had been opened for his access, and Uchida had assembled his command platoon. Facing them was a crowd of klingons, carrying their own weapons but careful not to point them at anything in particular. There was an empty space between them that had been cleared of any obstructions, a circle about 15 across. Yamashita walked directly to Major Uchida, who had removed his helmet as was his habit whenever possible.

"Admiral," the marine said tautly, "this is madness. You cannot--"

Ichiro waved his right hand dismissively. "I have been informed of my madness already and am in no mood to hear it repeated. You have trusted my judgment in the past and must do so again."

Kazuo's jaw clicked shut as he swallowed his protest. After a moment, he replied, "Yes, sir."

"Now then, which of them will be my opponent?" Yamashita asked.

Uchida indicated him with a nod. "The big one."

The admiral turned to look. The klingon was close to two meters tall, and it was impossible to say how much he massed, because klingons tended to be much denser than humans of a similar size. It was likely to be a tremendous weight. The bat'leth hung easily in his hands. It appeared that he was one of those klingon officers who had ascended to position by challenging his superiors to duels, as the klingon tradition went. No such foolishness was tolerating in the klingon formations of the Imperial Japanese Army, of course, but Yamashita guessed that since this universe's Klingons had not had the benefit of the Emperor's guiding hand, they had stuck to that particular stupidity.

"Major Uchida," Yamashita began, "if I am to fail, your men will storm the ships."

Kazuo considered this for a moment before speaking, "They must have left sentries ready to trigger the self destructs, sir."

"They are klingons," Ichiro said, "it is a distinct possibility that they were too stupid to take such a precaution."

Uchida nodded. Yamashita took his cap off and handed it to the major for safekeeping. He loosened his belt slightly, and tucked his sword into it.

Admiral Yamashita stepped into the circle. He called in klingon, "Come face your death, Kuchluk!"

His opposite number entered the ring. "What weapon is that you carry, human? It is no bat'leth. It is trickery."

"This is a human weapon," Ichiro replied, "surely a klingon warrior such as you is not dismayed by it. Are you afraid to try the superiority of your people's weapons?"

Kuchluk, whose integrity as a warrior and a klingon had been impugned, could do nothing but advance. But he did it properly, not recklessly as most klingons did. In most cases, they simply charged and made a direct attack with their bat'leths, trusting their great strength to overcome their opponents. That would have been easy to defeat. But he stepped forward carefully, leading with his weapon at guard. Ichiro drew his own weapon, wielding it in a low guard. He moved a few steps towards Kuchluk.

Bat'leth fighting was fairly effective on the defensive, provided that the wielder actually knew what the defensive was. A skilled duelist could use the two spikes on the inside of the crescent to trap his opponent's blade and tear it from his grip. Moreover, with the way that it was gripped, the weapon could be maneuvered quickly to block. It would have been rather hard on a human's wrists to use it in that fashion, but it was no problem for a klingon. The main problem with the bat'leth was, ironically enough for a klingon weapon, that it was absolute shit for attacking with. Because of the way it was wielded it had no more reach than a knife and rather less flexibility. Moreover, one had to throw the entire body out of line to actually strike with it, leaving one wide open to a counterstrike. Yamashita had read about ancient klingon warriors who greatest talent had been in their ability to switch to a single-handed grip to surprise their opponents, but the bat'leth was not designed for such work and its balance was poor for one-hand wielding. It was best used against another bat'leth, and the duelist was to overwhelm his opponent with main strength.

Kuchluk apparently realized that he was at some disadvantage, because he was smart enough not to try this. He advanced to within a few paces of Yamashita and began circling to the admiral's left. Yamashita's eyes narrowed. He wasn't going to join that game. He took a few steps back and to his left, keeping the klingon in front of him. Kuchluk stopped then, facing Yamashita from about six meters. The klingon's strong will showed in his face, he was no doubt a fairly expert duelist. After the fashion of his people, at least. Ichiro regarded him calmly. The Japanese officer no longer saw the crowd at all, his world had narrowed and his only concern was his enemy.

The klingon officer darted forward with impressive speed for his size. Admiral Yamashita read his opponent's eyes and the carriage of his body so that when the moment came, he was already moving through it. Kuchluk raised his weapon and slashed with one end, a diagonal cut designed to cut Ichiro from right shoulder to left hip; the powerful warrior would have no doubt battered through the entire ribcage and laid the whole front of the admiral's corpse open. But Ichiro had known what was coming with the first few steps that his opponent had taken. The bat'leth was a weapon that telegraphed one's intentions, and badly.

Ichiro hopped back and to his right, moving his sword up towards his right shoulder as he moved. The admiral kept his feet and rhythm perfectly, and Kuchluk's strike fell well short. Then Yamashita's precise cut intersected Kuchluk's exposed left wrist, and the hand fell away. There was a splash of purple blood as Ichiro took a few steps back. Kuchluk was as good as beaten, but the wound was not mortal and there was likely fight left in him. It would be a fool's death to lose a duel to a one-armed opponent.

The klingon officer turned a deeper black with rage as he regarded his bleeding stump. He roared inarticulately and raised his bat'leth over his head with his one hand, no doubt hoping to carry the fight with a final mad rush. Yamashita maneuvered his sword low and to his own left, and rushed towards the klingon. He moved through Kuchluk's undefended left side, making another surgical cut as he went, just underneath the klingon's ribcage. This one ended the fight. The defeated alien's entrails spilled out of him, and he managed one final gurgle before he pitched backwards to the deck, still clutching his weapon.

Yamashita pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the thick purple blood from his blade before he sheathed it. He stepped around the pool of blood surrounding his opponent, and dropped his soiled handkerchief onto the klingon's face to hide the staring eyes and frozen expression of rage and hate.

"Major Uchida," the admiral ordered, "take possession of those ships."

"Your cap, sir." Kazuo handed him the hat, then affixed his own helmet and trotted past, towards the docking rings that lead to the freighters. The klingon crewmen parted to let the marines pass, as they were honor-bound to do. Yamashita was standing over the corpse of their commanding officer. He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he wiped the sweat from his brow, put on his cap, and carefully straightened his uniform. He ought to get back to the Hiei. He walked back to his shuttle.

"That looked rather one sided," his pilot said, standing by the ramp.

"Today has been a day for one-sided contests," Ichiro replied.


----


"The enemy command centers are environmentally sealed, preserving large numbers of our foes, and combat will be at short range and fierce," the lieutenant said, "so the major has sent down orders to fix bayonets."

The convoy had halted in front of a squat brown concrete structure that was purported to be the primary command center for the enemy forces in the capital. Most of the infantry had dismounted and were waiting for the engineers to finish setting up their breaching charges. The command center was a hermetically sealed bunker and would have to be blasted open rather violently. The old men in command wanted documents, and that meant going over to the assault.

Private Morioka grumbled as he drew his blade from the sheath on his vest webbing. "What the hell is the use of these things, honestly? This isn't the nineteenth century; we're not conquering China with muzzle-loaded rifles."

"You'll be happy you had it when one of these lumpy foreheads comes at you with a knife," Private Sato said.

"If one of them does that," Morioka retorted, "I'll just damn well shoot him in the face."

"That's actually a brilliant plan," Sato replied as if he would have never thought of that.

Le clipped his own bayonet onto the lugs on his rifle. It was a rather ornate sword style piece about 50 centimeters in length, nearly 40 centimeters of that devoted to the blade itself, with a hooked quillon. It altered the balance of the rifle, but not enough to changing its aiming characteristics in room-to-room fighting. For sharpshooting it would have been a handicap, but for this kind of work it was no problem. The sergeant's platoon would again be the spearhead.

"Detonating explosives!" the all-bands radio crackled. The engineers touched off their charges. The soldiers' helmets shielded them from the worst of the noise, but they could still feel it in their teeth and in the shaking of the street beneath their feet. The main blast doors of the command center disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke. Most of the fragments were thrown inward.

"Banzai!" the lieutenant shouted as he charged into the smoke. A proper Japanese officer led from the front. Le allowed a few men to take off behind the officer before he moved ahead himself. He was neither an officer nor Japanese, so he was prepared to act sensibly.

The inside of the command center was composed of claustrophobic and unadorned concrete corridors. The klingon defenders had apparently been concussed and otherwise disoriented by the explosion. For the first few moments, Le saw nothing but corpses dead from bayonet wounds. As he came to a T-shaped junction in the corridor, the lieutenant took a left turn. Le went right. Immediately upon turning the corner, he spotted enemies advancing on him, finally armed with relatively effective looking weapons--stubby rifles as well as the omnipresent pistols. He fired a long burst into them from the hip, mowing them down. There were doors set on either side of the hall. The sergeant went to the first one and pointed the way further down the hall.

Morioka and Sato stacked up with him next to the door, preparing their grenades. Le stood to one side of the portal, tapping the release carefully. It snapped open hydraulically, and the two other soldiers threw their bombs in. Le hit the key again, shutting the door long enough to contain the explosion. Then Le opened it against and Morioka charged in. There were several dead klingons lying on the floor. Or nearly dead.

One of them, riddled with shrapnel but still animate, lurched to his feet and charged at Morioka. The soldier had already written the enemy off as a corpse, and it was too close to get a shot off. Morioka struck the klingon across the face with the butt of his rifle, sending it reeling back, then jumped forward and plunged his bayonet through its chest. The alien growled and let loose a stream of blood-tinged spittle from its mouth before expiring.

"Scary shit," Morioka said as he yanked his weapon back out of its flesh.

The sergeant snorted. "Next room."

With hand grenades, flamethrowers, and bayonet, the Japanese soldiers cleared room after room. Le was almost sorry for the klingons, horribly outclassed as they were. Almost. If he was going to have an enemy, it was best for them to be as incompetent as possible. He'd fought battles with the Schutzstaffel and the United States Marine Corps, and if it was his fate to fight mentally challenged aliens instead, Tuan Van Le would be more than happy.


----


"The enemy command center has been taken. The kampeitai are recovering the intelligence," said Fuyutsuki's aide.

The old general nodded. "As soon as they're finished, order the withdrawal back to the transports. We'll get our feet off the ground and rejoin the fleet as soon as possible. Were the marines successful in their mission?"

His aide spoke back and forth over the comm for a bit. "Yes, they recovered the freighters and their cargo intact."

General Fuyutsuki nodded and exhaled calmly. The slight tension that had been building between his shoulder blades loosened, and the future looked a little brighter. The task force would be able to survive long enough, perhaps, to figure out what had happened to it, and how to get back to where it belonged.

[Trogdor]

Can't say I'm surprised at how badly the Klingons got raped. Good chapter. When are you planning to bring in the Americans and the Nazis into the story?

[darthdavid]

Yay. Good stuff.