Hercules Chen, Zero Hunter: Toroka VS Mecha-Tsuyo, Part 2 of 17

The Black Dragon Society has entrenched itself into every level of the Empire, coiling through and leeching away men and resources to advance their ultranationalist goals. One of the most vicious killers the Society has to offer, Takamoto Haruto, the Ax Hand, has the Zero Hunter’s number, and he’s out for blood.

This is Part 2 of Hercules Chen, Zero Hunter: Toroka VS Mecha-Tsuyo. If you’d like to avoid spoilers, read Part 1 first.

Content warnings: violence, animal violence, mild swearing, creeps.

The Last Warrior.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 8, 1943
ABOARD KOKURYŪYARI
SEA OF OKHOTSK

//Translated from Japanese.//

Manchurian oak shattered like blown glass around Takamoto Haruto's calloused fist. Hardwood splinters fell onto his bare shoulders and shaved scalp, sticking to his sour sweat, while still more were carried away by cold, salty wind. His single strike had disintegrated the top half of the wide tree trunk, leaving a ragged stump behind, rocking on the flight decks.

Steam rose into the wind off his ropy muscles, twisting away from his tattoos of devilish serpents and the maidens they were strangling. He examined his nude form, noting with pride the lack of scars and blemishes. No malady had ever marred his flesh, for he had never been bested at the hand of an enemy. His undiluted blood carried no ancestral weakness.

“Ono-te,” implored a timid man from behind him. Takamoto tensed up. Though he put his life into Ikeda Daiishi's hands whenever they were in the air, he could not stand to hear the man speak. Takamoto ignored his weak-voiced wing man; he had already guessed Ikeda's news.

He gave the remaining meter of broken stump an irreverent shove with his bare foot. It slammed to the Kokuryūyari's flight deck and began to roll aft. Takamoto had grown used to the slight slant that the massive aircraft carrier assumed when underway, and now only noticed it when its effects were visible.

Takamoto watched the stump roll. It built up speed, blindly rushing aft regardless of its obstacles. Hapless deckhands and their attending tanuki scrambled to get out of the way. One was not quick enough and allowed it to collide with his foot He fell to the deck in pain, clutching his ankle. Takamoto scowled and noted the injured man's face.

It took the rumbling log a great while to reach the aft end of the ship, and Takamoto only acknowledged his wing man when it had finally fallen into the sea.

“Zuboshi,” he said quietly. Ikeda had ignored rank, calling Takamoto by his callsign, Ono-te, Ax Hand. Takamoto responded in kind: Ikeda's callsign was Zuboshi, the Bull's Eye.

“All three Zeros lost,” Zuboshi reported. Takamoto nodded silently. He stared into the sea, perhaps hoping to catch a glimpse of his quarry in the jade plane over the vast distance.

“Enemy losses?” he asked with a sigh.

“None,” Zuboshi confirmed.

“Can you confirm it was the Zero Hunter?”

“Yes.”

Takamoto simply grunted. Failures, all three of them. He had trained that squadron himself. He had equipped them specifically to kill the cur and his Hindu and to destroy the Office Lightnings they flew. Pilots unable to best even sub-Asian animals and half-breeds were unworthy to fly in the name of the Ax Hand or the Black Dragon Society. It was best that they were dead.

Takamoto finally turned to his wing man. Zuboshi towered over him, a mountain of muscle that murmured like a mouse. He held a towel in his spade-sized hand. Takamoto snatched it out of his grasp and began walking aft, his giant in tow. He whisked the splinters off his neck and shoulders, then tied the towel around his waist to cover his nakedness.

“Requisition three new fighters and six M120 rockets, with new pilots,” Takamoto growled as they walked. “Pilots with potential, not fools like these last three were.”

The two men stalked down the carrier's flight deck. A crowd of deck crew and chittering tanuki had gathered around the injured sailor. Takamoto recognized him as the son of Eigami Aoi. The younger Eigmai had distinguished himself as nothing more than a soft child of a rich man during his short time as a renga. In truth, Takamoto had only taken him on in exchange for a lucrative favor. The circled sailors parted as Takamoto and Zuboshi approached.

“Renga Eigami,” Zuboshi said. The oblivious fool had not noticed his superiors arrive. He jumped to attention, but fell forward with a cry when he put pressure on his right foot. Takamoto caught him gently and helped him balance.

“Your father is a talented businessman and a better politician,” he whispered to the young man, who beamed at the recognition. Takamoto steadied Eigami, then raised his voice so the assembled crew could hear: “He negotiated with Chinese in Manchuko, he twisted the Russians into retreating from Kanchazu, and he convinced the British to abandon Hong Kong.”

“Yes, sir,” Eigami said excitedly.

“Your father is a great salesman, a peddler of goods. His ability to convince someone to take the trash he no longer wants in his home is second-to-none. He is smooth, your father, and he has used his silver tongue to taint the sanctity of our home, the Kokuryūyari, with one unworthy of our ranks,” Takamoto growled.

Eigami's smile disappeared. Takamoto shoved the young officer aside, sending tanuki skittering out of the way. Eigami fell to the flight deck, unable to support his weight. Takamoto glared down at him, then addressed the gathered crew:

“Awareness is necessary aboard any ship.”

His crew nodded reverently.

“Kokuryūyari is not part of the Imperial Navy. She is an un-escorted carrier built and supplied by the Society, and the Society only exists amongst us, and in that last instant, to our dying enemies. We are all brothers in nothingness, and if one of our brothers blinks in the wrong instant, he has killed you all. No one else will ever know that you have died.”

Takamoto knelt and snapped his fingers, summoning the closest tanuki to him. The raccoon dog bounded over, sniffed his hand, then allowed Takamoto to pick it up. He stood and displayed the striped animal for his men.

“This tanuki, an idiot animal, is prepared and ready. It can smell fuel leaks and tell if a bomb is a dud or unstable. It will growl at spies and attack anyone carrying the butter stink of a Caucasian. Even idiot animals can be of use on this ship.” Takamoto paused and looked down at Eigami. “Do you know how the tanuki became this way, renga?”

“It was trained, sir,” Eigami managed to stammer.

“Correct,” Takamoto said. He tossed the tanuki away. The animal landed with a thump and quiet growl, then skittered back to its handler. “And so I will train you, Renga Eigami.”

Eigami smiled nervously. It was known among the crew that to gain Takamoto's attention would lead to pain, but sometimes promotion followed that pain. He allowed his hopes for the latter to surface for an instant. Takamoto smiled back coolly, then lifted his bare foot and slammed his heel down on Eigami's uninjured ankle. There was a pop, and the young man yelped like an animal.

The tanuki hissed and cowered.

“All men, artists and Emperors and samurai, understand that beauty is symmetry,” Takamoto intoned to the whimpering child. He ignored Eigami's mewling and gve his orders to the chief of deck: “Take Renga Eigami to the sick bay and have his bones re-set. No anesthesia. He is to crawl.”

Takamoto walked away before he heard his chief's response. The men scrambled back to work behind him, and Zuboshi followed him away from the chaos.

The two pilots ascended the command tower to flight control, Takamoto's personal domain. Only he and his disciples were permitted within its confines. The room was spartan, cleared of all instruments and clutter. Hard edges scraped at the senses. Maps were rolled up on a simple dresser in the corner, but no other features adorned the large room. Takamoto strolled into the empty space. Zuboshi shut the door behind them.

The oil-stained men who kept this ship afloat knew to stay far away.

In truth, the Ax Hand had no interest in running a ship. He was a warrior. He reveled in the purity of combat, of conquest, and of death. The crew that the Black Dragon Society had recruited from the Imperial Navy were his weapons, no different than bullets to him. So long as they allowed Takamoto to best any who challenged him, he let them be and left the minutia of daily operations in their hands.

Only when an offensive failure like Renga Eigami presented himself did Takamoto ever step in above his subordinates.

The renga the Society had saddled him with were just that, bricks. While the lowest rank of Black Dragons was so-named because they were the foundation of the Society, Takamoto felt weighed down. These were ladder-climbers, children, and fools, not warriors. Rarely could a raw renga reach the second rank, the jitte.

Zuboshi and the rest of Takamoto's squadron had all been bloodied as jitte. Like their namesake, the sword blocker, they would catch any attack, and with a twist, break it. Less than three thousand Black Dragons held the rank.

Takamoto had not lingered as a jitte for long. His skill in the air and with his fists was only matched by his ability to maneuver through Society politics. Only two hundred Dragons, living or dead, had earned the right to wear the pin of a kaiken, named for the razor sharp dagger that could cut an enemy's throat as simply as it opened one's own belly. Takamoto had been the youngest. The only higher rank a Dragon could reach was tetsujin, the philosopher.

Zuboshi mumbled, cutting through Takamoto's musings.

“What?” Takamoto snapped. He could not stand mumbling. If something needed to be said, it needed to be said loudly.

“Tetsujin requests a change in priority, Ono-te,” Zuboshi said, struggling to keep his voice neutral. Takamoto noted his wing man's control. Any mention the supreme leader of the Black Dragon Society always made Zuboshi anxious and simpering.

“Tetsujin requests?” Takamoto asked.

Zuboshi paused to muster his confidence.

“Tetsujin orders,” he clarified, his voice almost cracking.

“I see,” Takamoto said wryly. “And what does Tetsujin order?”

“A reconnaissance patrol,” Zuboshi answered meekly.

Takamoto stopped immediately. Tetsujin trusted Takamoto's judgment and gave him free rein to pursue whatever actions he thought would best advance the aims of the Society. He had never interfered with that freedom before.

“He would have me abandon pursuit of the Zero Hunter?” Takamoto asked himself. His calloused hands trembled. He had encountered the half-breed in the jade Lightning but once, in the skies over Keijo, and the creature had survived. The cur had, through luck or trickery, survived him, bested him. Chen then had the gall to rebuke every one of Takamoto's students as if they were novices trained by idiots.

The shame burned like white phosphorus.

“The Society lost contact with an invasion fleet they had financed two months ago. We are their closest resource with air capability,” Zuboshi explained.

“And they think me a mother fox, searching for her lost kits?”

“A great, unknown force caused their deaths, to the last man,” Zuboshi said.

Takamoto stood silent. The metal room groaned around him.

“A great force,” Takamoto muttered. He let the towel drop from his waist and willed the permeating cold into his flesh. Per his demand, the flight control deck had been left uninsulated. Takamoto felt that a warrior and his battlefield should be one. Off the coast of French Indochina, the room had boiled. So close to savage Siberia, he froze with the air.

“Tetsujin orders that we determine the cause of the fleet's loss,” Zuboshi continued, unperturbed by the other man’s nakedness. He had learned to ignore the Ax Hand’s proclivities. His leader was the last of the true warriors, a man whose only sense of being and form of expression could be found in combat. He did not prescribe to the norms of any society.

For Zuboshi, accepting occasional nudity and listening quietly as Takamoto waxed philosophical about the truths of combat and death and the purity of blood was a survival mechanism. That is what it took to remain on his leader’s good side, and Zuboshi was determined to stay there.

“Was it the Russian dogs?” Takamoto asked after a moment. Zuboshi could see the muscles under the man's tattooed skin squirming like the serpents inked into it.

“Tetsujin does not think so.”

“American pigs,” Takamoto declared. He had been eager to kill as many Americans as he could since he was left out of the Pearl Harbor attack. Zuboshi hesitated before answering. He was not eager to disappoint the Ax Hand.

“No one knows,” the big man finally admitted. Takamoto's grin disappeared. “The Society suspects weather-related damage, but we are to determine the cause for certain.”

“Did the fleet not maintain contact?” Takamoto asked. His curiosity at the 'great force' had been replaced by annoyance at this interruption. This was no task for a warrior. A grandmother's knee could determine the weather.

“The final transmission from the lead ship, the Hamobai, was garbled. Whatever caused their ship to sink, they called it 'Toroka.' It is not a name, or weapon, or location that could be found in the Sealed Archives.”

“Toroka,” Takamoto said. He rolled the word around his mouth. It meant nothing. “Toroka, Toroka. Toroka.”

Zuboshi waited in silence while Takamoto contemplated the alien syllables. The Ax Hand looked up at his wing man expectantly, his interest renewed. Zuboshi continued:

“The Society waited these months, assuming the fleet had entered radio blackout after an enemy encounter, as per their orders. This morning, large numbers of bodies and debris washed ashore on Raykoke. Corpses and flotsam from all nineteen ships in the fleet have been recovered by the Navy.”

Takamoto nodded, considering what could have destroyed nineteen ships without alerting anyone else.

“The Navy determined that the debris field originated several hundred kilometers north-east of our current position.”

“Two months in the Bering currents could have dragged a body to Alaska by now,” Takamoto said carefully.

“Yes, Ono-te,” Zuboshi replied.

Takamoto grinned again. Any excuse he had to enter combat with Americans was welcome.

“And the Americans will have determined this as well,” he said. His muscles danced with anticipation. He stalked over to his tiny dresser and removed a set of fundoshi underwear. He stepped through them and tied them around his waist. He gave orders as he dressed:

“Inform the crew: we turn north-east. Prepare our fighters and have Majo, Gaikotsu, and Akainu ready themselves for battle.”

Zuboshi nodded. The other three members of their squadron were never more than five minutes from flight ready. They knew as well as Zuboshi did what Takamoto demanded of them. The Ax Hand pulled his flight suit over his shoulders and strapped his Black Dragon wakizashi short sword across his chest. He smiled with perverse pleasure as he tied the rising sun headband across his forehead.

“Promise our brothers: we will have Americans to kill.”

The Zero Hunter.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, JULY 8, 1943
F.A.S. BASE “FREDDIE”
BDENIE ISLAND

The artificial clouds blanketing Bdenie Island rolled off its rocky shores like an avalanche the instant the overcaster generators shut down. Jolly Green and Lily Liver took in that first view of their home, Fast Freddie, lining up to land between the parting walls of fog. The short runway the Russians had carved into the tiny island's rocky heart was barely big enough for their Strike Lightnings, but Boxer and Oxford knew it like the back of their hands. If Hercules' vision had not cleared up he still would have claimed that he could land on the island blind.

Both pilots skimmed the surface of the Shantar Sea to land within a minute of each other, expertly guiding their heavy fighters into their own berths within a camouflaged hangar. Fast Freddie's bank of overcasters was already back up and running before their props had spun down, closing off the sky and drowning out the sun to conceal the uncharted island in pea soup fog once more.

Hercules slid his windscreen back and vaulted out, too impatient to wait for the disembarking ladder. He landed softly, a remnant of his Shaolin training, then grinned at his towering Samoan armorer, Talofa Windward, Plumber, who grunted while muscling Blue's ladder over to Jolly Green.

“You are going to need the stencil,” Hercules said, pointing to the grid of Zero kill markers on Jolly Green's nose. “We got two new ones, Lily gets one.”

“That's not what you should worry about, Chen,” Plumber grunted. The big man shoved the ladder into place for Blue. His tattooed face dripped with sweat; he wiped it off with a soiled, flower-print kerchief.

“What do you mean?” Blue asked as he descended the ladder.

“The chief’s got some bones to pick with the pair of you,” Plumber answered.

“How does he always know?” Hercules asked. Blue shrugged. The head mechanic and squadron operations commander, Chief Warrant Officer Bingley Maribell, Saltchuck, was extremely protective of his planes, and the two holes in Lily Liver's tail were sure to put him up the wall.

“Saltchuck's got a second career as a fortune teller waiting for him,” Blue said.

“He would make a mint,” Hercules agreed.

“I'm no medium, I just know how loose you two hosers fly,” Saltchuck said, startling them as he ducked under Lily Liver's tails. He patted the perforated plane, sighing with exasperation. “You're always letting Lily take a lick or two before coming to the rescue.”

Saltchuck hated his call sign, he grated his teeth every time he heard it, but it had stuck to him like sap ever since he joined up with the RCAF. The former fisherman had never left Vancouver before the war, and the more worldly mechanics-in-training could smell the bay salt on him.

Luckily for Hercules, Saltchuck wasn't yelling yet, but he was sure to start soon. He continued his disappointed speech to Boxer and Blue:

“You two are going to patch up that plane. I am tired of rebuilding these things every time you flyboys decide to try a new trick.”

“Nothing new, just a Manila mudslide,” said Blue.

“Besides, one of them flash-lamped me and we still got both planes back,” Hercules added.

“And blind they hounded that last Zeke hard enough to let me get my shot off,” Oakley added. The little gunner skipped ahead of the stoic Oxford, Winchester slung over her shoulder. She grinned wide, shifting the countless freckles around her youthful face. She bounded to Blue's side and tugged her brown hat low over her green eyes. Her cowboy boots clomped on the tarmac.

Oxford also came to their defense, speaking down his nose like he always did:

“Despite their juvenile tactics, Flight Lieutenants Chen and Pabst did prevent the A6M squadron from launching any of their numerous tactical anti-fighter rockets, saving both aircraft and our lives.”

Hercules and Blue knew that was as close to a compliment as their uptight wing man could muster, so they took it. Oxford had inherited his snooty, by-the-book attitude growing up in a Mumbai palace and cemented it by studying civil law at Oxford. Still, he was one of the best pilots in the Pacific. Though they would never admit it, Boxer and Blue would have hesitated to fly alongside anyone other than the Indian ace and his new gunner, the spunky Texan.

Usually by that time Saltchuck would have been shouting their barrage of excuses to silence. His face was infamous for getting as red as Blue's hair after each mission and he would get so hot that the wax would melt out of his mustache, but something was different. He simply stood before them, hands behind his back, listening but almost disinterested.

His uncharacteristic calmness threw everyone off.

“So, we are fortunate that we all made it back...” Hercules concluded quietly, uncertain how to handle the chief’s alien serenity.

“That you are,” Saltchuck said. He sighed, beyond exasperated with his pilots' in-air attitude. He looked forlornly at the pair of holes in Lily Liver's tail.

“Did you set the wave booster?” he asked, half in sigh.

“Mission accomplished, Chief,” Blue answered. The rocket-launched wave booster buoy’s contrail was what had attracted the Zeros' attention in the first place.

“And you got two of 'em?” he asked Hercules.

“Two for us, one for Lily Liver, Chief.”

“Radio should come online in three hours,” Saltchuck said, checking his watch. They were so far off-grid on Bdenie that they had to launch battery-powered radio-boosting buoys via single-use rockets to leap-frog their signal to next closest Bureau for East Asian Affairs outpost in China, who would then bounce it all the way back to the Office’s home base in Bombay.

“While we're waiting, help Plumber get both fighters reloaded, refueled, and patched up, then we'll get you a couple new markers on your nose,” Saltchuck replied. He nodded absentmindedly, then wandered away in the direction of the barracks. The five officials watched him melt into the gray mist.

“What's with him? He should've bitten our heads off,” Oakley wondered aloud.

“Supply bomb dropped in while you were airborne,” Plumber answered.

“Mail?” Oakley asked. Plumber nodded. She was excited, beaming: “What was it?”

“He did not say,” Plumber replied. “If you help me with the ammunition, I will patch Lily while you wash up. There is hot water.”

Plumber did not have to tell the four combat-weary officials that there were hot showers twice. They immediately fell out and emptied the munitions carts, handing Plumber belts of fifty-cal bullets, handfuls of twenty-millimeter shells, and stacks of mini-rockets. Within half an hour both fighters had been fed and their ammunition bays and fuel tanks were filled to the brim. Plumber gave them their leave and went to work on Lily Liver's tail with an aluminum patch and some lavender aviation paint.

The Office's Forward Attack Squadrons were unlike any other airbases in the war. The only personnel manning the many hidden emplacements throughout the Pacific theater were enough airmen and flight crew to keep two or three planes in the air. Hercules' base, Forward Attack Squadron F, also known as F.A.S. F, or Fast Freddie, was home to two mechanics, two pilots, two gunners, and one albino cat named Lobster.

Whereas some pilots had the freedom to recuperate between missions, the residents of Forward Attack Squadrons had no such luxury. Hercules, Oxford, Blue, and Oakley had to get in and do grunt work alongside Plumber and Saltchuck just to keep the place going. These scattered forward squadrons had little contact with and rare oversight from the Office, usually just a stream of intel passed down from the Bureau of East Asian Affairs that let them strike out at Japanese convoys and secret Black Dragon installations whenever they could.

Every few weeks a new barrage of supply bombs would drop on the eastern half of the island. These rocket-launched DIVERT capsules carried food, ammo, and mail to their isolated home. Hercules had never figured out where they launched from but he knew they weren't from the Soviets, the food was too good. Whoever lighted them off, one thing was clear: that time, one of them had brought something that had Saltchuck worried.

Fast Freddie was made up of four pre-fab buildings. The crew had memorized the fog-cloaked route to each. The main building, a three-floor concrete structure that housed the bunks, communications center, and briefing rooms, was just across the end of the runway from the three-plane hangar that housed Lily Liver, Jolly Green, and Pushy Penguin, their Supermarine Sea Otter biplane flying boat.

The overcasters that concealed the whole island from passing ships and aircraft were housed on the main building's roof, alongside a deadly M45 Quadmount. The four .50-cal machine guns were manned every second the overcaster generators were deactivated, ready to earn their 'meat chopper' nickname.

Hercules, Blue, Oxford, and Oakley made their way across the tarmac to the main building for their hard-earned showers. Blue opened the door for Oakley, allowing the young woman first use of the facilities like they always did. Oxford was silent, brooding over something while puffing away on his carved mahogany pipe.

Hercules hopped onto the hood of Saltchuck's jeep and laid out, staring up. The artificial gray hanging over and around him could have been two meters away, or two hundred. He was glad to give his shaken bones a second of rest. His flash-lamp-induced blindness had affected him more than he wanted to let on. Those baleful eyes hanging in his mind were the last thing he ever wanted to see while behind the stick, and they almost had been.

Blue kicked one of the jeep's tires and examined the pin-up he had painted on the rear fender, a voluptuous blonde wrapped in silk with curves for days. He had named the jeep Generous Genie. He cracked a little smile, then stared down the runway as if he could see the far end and the other two buildings of the base.

The ammunition and fuel bunker was buried at the far end of the strip, housing all their avgas and ammo under six feet of solid concrete. A pile of jerry cans and scrapped DIVERT capsules loomed behind the bunker, nearing two stories tall. They could not burn anything or toss it into the sea for fear of detection, so the trash just built up on the island, making rats a real problem. Plumber's cat, Lobster, was getting fat off the vermin and they still weren't getting anywhere with the infestation. Hercules was of the opinion that they would need a second rat-hunter soon, but no one else thought a cat could handle a DIVERT drop.

Despite their objections, Hercules had confidence in feline resilience.

A seldom-run, diesel-powered beast of a Russian generator rumbled on the opposite side of the tarmac from the bunker. Saltchuck was prepping for the radio call with Bombay so he had fired the genny up. Hercules could hear it coughing and clanking away all the way down the airstrip. He stared into the impenetrable gray while they waited for Oakley to finish up.

Somewhere in the rocks and fog, Saltchuck had built a still that cooked up bone-bending moonshine from leftover oatmeal, but he never let anyone have a sip. He himself did not drink, instead he used the stuff to run his jeep and to spin the generator on special occasions that weren't in the fuel budget. Hot showers after a mission weren't typical, but Saltchuck was doing them a favor since the genny was already churning to run the radio. Usually they cooked over a butane grill and bathed in cold water, but after that dogfight the grime of stress felt an inch thick on Hercules' skin. Warm water would be an unfamiliar, welcome luxury.

The door creaked open and Oakley poked her towel-wrapped head out.

“Shower's all yours, boys,” she said, always considerate enough to wash up fast for her wing men. She walked upstairs to her bunk, already dressed in her typical blue jean overalls and olive drab undershirt. Oakley wasn't one for any fancy foolishness, not that she had access to any.

Hercules and Blue scrambled for the door, so eager that they got wedged together in the frame. Oxford shook his head, tapped the glowing cherry out of his pipe, and waited patiently until his comrades finally squirmed their way inside.

Hercules scrambled through the storeroom-armory, shrugged out of his flightsuit, tossed it into a deep pile of filthy clothes, and jumped into the closest shower stall. Hercules didn't wait for the cold water to flush out of the pipes before he jumped under it. No matter the temperature, the water felt like it was peeling away a layer of something awful from his body.

Oxford took an antique leather shaving kit and a crushed velvet robe out of his locker, grabbed up a clean towel, and made his way to the left-most of the three shower stalls. His sweat-stained flight suit and under garments went into the laundry hopper along with Blue's and he stepped under hot water. He audibly sighed when the water hit, dissolving the film of near-death sweat off his brown skin.

Blue bounded nude into the last empty stall like an orange billy goat, kicking out of his flight suit as he ran. His hair was sweat-caked flat to his head, turning it to a greasy rust color. He balled up the suit and tossed it in the laundry.

Hercules exhaled and let the water run over him in cooling rivers. It traced the lines of his body, loosening his flight-tightened muscles, tracing his scars, both from Shaolin tradition and combat. He scrubbed his hair, working the grime from his scalp and pushing it back, out of his eyes. He scraped the suds from his body and turned off the water. The cool air chilled his wet skin through to the bone.

He grumbled in Mandarin, grabbed his towel, and stalked back to his locker. He wrenched it open, and all his belongings tumbled into a pile halfway up his calves.

“Missing the sky, Boxer?” Blue asked. He had put on a white shirt and khakis with suspenders.

“This was not on the recruitment posters,” Hercules grumbled. He dried off quickly and threw on his traditional black pants. His matching tang shirt went on next. Had he buttoned it up, he’d have completed the look he had grown accustomed to as a student at the Distant Bells temple. The only deviation in his wardrobe from his days under Master Wong was his steel-soled paratrooper boots and the short blade he kept tucked next to his ankle, a relic from his time on the streets of Shanghai.

He collected his discarded clothes and clomped over to the laundry bin. His name was written on a chalkboard above it. He groaned and tossed his soggy towel went in.

“You lot done drying?” he asked. He dodged Blue's reply, a flung wadded towel. “How about you, Oxford?”

Oxford walked over and gently placed his folded towel on top of the bin. His jet black hair had already been perfectly sculpted and he look down his nose at the younger pilot.

“Not much glamour in the unmentionables, is there Boxer?” he asked.

“A posting with an officer's club would be interesting,” Hercules said.

“We are not here to be playboys, Chen. There is neither fame nor fortune to be found here,” Oxford chided him. “I hope you remember that while on-mission.”

“If you do not like the way I fly, why am I here? You are the one who sent for me, Jagat.”

“At no point did I say you were good, only that you were the best.” Oxford paused for a second while Hercules' mouth hung upon. “The risks you leave to me in the air are unacceptable. You are young...”

Hercules had to interrupt him:

“It took three years for the Brits to let me fly, even with a Bureau field commander pushing for me. Sorry I wasn't with you and your fraternity brothers getting rotor-copter kills at Giza or shooting down Vichy Goblins. What you think is risky, I call creative.”

“This is not Shanghai, Chen. Bullheadedness and scraping by will leave Lockwood and myself as statistics in a file.”

“I know that. You and Saltchuck and Master Wong have pounded that into my skull,” Hercules said.

“You fought to fly, Boxer, for years. But with that victory, you also gained responsibility. None of us fight alone, and none of us can win this war on our own. You especially should have learned that lesson by now.”

Hercules' stomach twisted into a tight knot. His hands fell away from the pile of laundry he had been sorting. Blue stopped lacing his boots.

“Should I have?” Hercules asked quietly, ominously

Oxford knew he had gone too far and tried to backtrack:

“I am simply saying that you have a chance this time. You do not fight alone up there.”

He stepped away from Hercules, and Blue jumped to his feet between them. The short Australian shepherd's damp red hair barely reached his Chinese and Indian comrades' chins.

“He's just trying to say he can help us up there, just like we can help him, Boxer,” Blue explained, trying to calm his pilot.

“I know what he is trying to say,” Hercules said. He turned his back to Oxford and put his attention into the laundry. He wrung out a towel like it was Japanese neck. His voice was menacing when he growled over his shoulder: “He needs to figure out how to say it without bringing up my mother. If you spoke like that where I come from...”

“Boxer, mate, that's not how we do it,” Blue said. He grabbed Oxford by the elbow and led him out of the locker room against the Indian pilot's whispered protestations.

“You can clear it up later, mate,” Blue hissed in Oxford's ear, “Let him cool off for a bit.”

Blue pushed Oxford up the stairs to the bunks.

“Boxer, we're going to see what dropped in those supply bombs. See you up there once you're finished with that laundry,” Blue called down the stairs.

Hercules let himself tremble for a moment.

Helplessness, loss of control, failure, his mother.

He grunted and hefted the entire laundry bin onto his shoulder. It dug in to his neck painfully and made a welcome distraction.

He dropped it out back, then filled the washtub with bucket after bucket of steaming shower water. It would take more than an hour to scrub and wash the weeks-worth of flight suits and towels, time enough to calm down, take in the mission, and try to meditate.

Despite his flash of calmness while blinded, pure meditation was usually beyond his grasp. The thoughts in Hercules' mind wrestled and snapped at one another like fighting dogs.

In the Office, they had trained him to break down his problems, delegate via specialties, and chip away until they were gone. At the Distant Bells temple, they'd taught to reach inward. His father had wanted him to talk everything out. And his mother had insisted he tear apart anyone and anything who saw any weakness.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to silence the mob. Even without them all, the same image remained, patient and furious just behind his eyelids: those hanging, baleful eyes, his mother's.

Her eyes, cold and unseeing in that last second before the Japanese firing squad opened up, were latched in his mind like a lamprey and twisted his heart and stomach. He had gone there to save her after her arrest, too angry and impulsive to come up with a plan other than being there. She just looked at him, froze him with her gaze, not even acknowledging that he had tried in her last moment.

Those eyes clenched the inside of his chest like he was at the bottom of the ocean. He could not subject himself to them again.

Instead, he lost himself in the wash. He churned the steaming water until the marbled whirlpool reached the bottom of the tub. He let the water settle and scooped the steaming clothes out, still hot enough to scald his calloused hands. He scrubbed them clean, scraping his knuckles on the washboard. His stomach unwound itself and he finally let exhaustion hit him.

He hung the flight suits and towels on the line and made his way back inside and upstairs. Saltchuck would have new intel, and news from the outside world to share.

Hercules just hoped that whatever it was wasn't so urgent that he would have to miss any rack time, or the chance to apologize.

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.