"A wave of support aircraft will go in first, leading in a team of six Arm Slaves. We'll go in with the attack helicopters next, followed by the transport choppers and VTOL fighters."
Kalinin explained the details of the plan: the landing zones for the helicopters, the formation the Arm Slaves should take, and the time table, right down to the last second.
"Arm Slaves will catapult directly from this ship via XL-2 urgent deployment boosters. Any pilot who's had any alcohol in the last eight hours, speak up now."
Urgent deployment boosters were one-way disposable rockets capable of launching a single AS twenty-five miles—quite useful for taking an enemy by surprise.
At the mention of alcohol, Mao and Kurz exchanged conspiratorial glances. "Don't worry," whispered Kurz, checking his watch, "we just made it."
With no time to lose, Kalinin kept on trucking through his briefing. "Our primary concern is a large bomb."
A CG representation of the Boeing 747 appeared on the screen. It was semi-transparent, enabling them to see the location of the bomb as Sousuke had reported it.
"According to Sagara, the bomb has remote-detonation capabilities. We must eliminate it before the terrorists recover from our first blow and flip the switch."
"How are we going to do that?" asked a helicopter pilot.
Kalinin gave a terse explanation, which made some of the soldiers uneasy—and others quite happy.
"But sir, that will render the jet non-operational."
"Correct. But the jet's out of fuel, anyway. We won't have time to gas it up in the middle of battle. We'll move the hostages to another aircraft to evacuate them."
He paused. "This presents another problem: the sheer number of people."
The plane had four-hundred twenty people on board, making it the largest hostage situation in the history of terrorism.
"Even if we sent every transport ship we have, we couldn't carry . them all. Therefore, we have two C-17s coming from the Pacific Merida Island base to meet us. They already are en route and will refuel over the Yellow Sea just before the operation begins."
"I thought those seated only a hundred and fifty people?" said one of the men.
"Comfort is not the name of our mission," rebutted Kalinin. "We are not a commercial airline. The transports will perform a forced landing, load the passengers, and be back in the air in five minutes."
"Five minutes? That's cutting it close!" someone complained.
"Five minutes is eternity protecting something that big," countered Kurz.
"Yes," Kalinin agreed. "Sunan air base is near a highway and close to the capitol, Pyongyang. Reinforcements will arrive quickly. The capitol's defense force is elite; we need to avoid engaging them. We'll do our best to delay them, but we can only scatter mines."
"What if one of the transports becomes unusable?" asked Mao.
"The other one must take off according to plan. Even if there are empty seats," the Lieutenant Commander said coolly.
"Cram as many remaining hostages as you can into the transport helicopters. If you have to abandon the Arm Slaves to squeeze them in, make sure to destroy them completely; this takes priority over your lives, although we pray it won't come to that."
A heavy silence marked the time it took the soldiers to digest that.
"Have we heard anything else from Sagara?" asked an AS operator from the second unit.
Kalinin shook his head. "That gives us one more reason to hurry. Let me reiterate: There is no room for error on this mission. Mistakes would have lethal results. Now, remember that you're here for a reason; we are the only ones capable of pulling this off. I'm counting on all of you. Questions?"
There were no more questions.
"Then, observe the noise regulations and move out."
The soldiers shuffled to their feet.
From his position in the shadows of a dumpster, Sousuke could see the trailers and the high-output generator on the old tarmac.
Thanks to the huge oaf he'd overcome, Sousuke knew Kaname should be in the trailer with all the electric cables. At first, the officer wouldn't tell him anything, but after Sousuke injected him with an alcohol that had made the guard absurdly drunk, Sousuke couldn't get the man to shut up. It wasn't the best way to conduct an interrogation, but it worked.
Sousuke wondered whether anyone had stumbled across the drunken man yet.
Probably not—after the interrogation, Sousuke knocked him out and dumped him down a manhole.
There were three guards outside the trailers, each armed with a submachine gun. They didn't appear to be associated with the local military.
Sousuke glanced at his watch. 22:30—well past the time he was supposed to contact the de Danaan.
