Chapter 2
Cmdr. Sanada handed Mrs. Nanjyoin a signaler and took another for himself. The signalers would properly contact his other self, who would transport them into his world. He was quite confident in his other self, totally ready to send himself and Mrs. Nanjyoin into a parallel world. It was an exciting prospect.
Inspector Yamano and Yayoi were there to bid them goodbye. Cmdr. Sanada had formally given Lt. Yayoi Schwael command over the Earth Defense Force until his return. He hadn't meant to skip out on a battle, but the signalers had been delivered today, and to his surprise the others insisted he use them as soon as possible. He didn't like to think of his army getting desperate or worried while he was gone. The commander would return relatively soon, but Mrs. Nanjyoin would be staying in one of the other worlds for some time, getting as much help for their forces as she could.
Mrs. Nanjyoin bowed to Inspector Yamano and her granddaughter. "Thank you both for coming to see us off this morning."
D abruptly entered the room, saying nothing. She stood beside Yayoi and gazed at everyone impassively.
"Thank you as well, D," Mrs. Nanjyoin bowed to her. D saluted in return.
"Have a safe journey," Inspector Yamano wished somberly.
Yayoi's voice was formal and her face sad, though she didn't mean to reveal her sorrows. "Goodbye, commander. Goodbye, grandmother."
Mrs. Nanjyoin looked her in the eyes. Though she was also sad, she didn't want to make this parting harder for anyone, and kept her expression neutral.
Cmdr. Sanada looked around the room approvingly. "I really do have the best people. Don't worry about us, or about winning or losing. I know you'll all give everything you have, and that's what's most important to me."
Akane frowned. "Unfortunately, if we fail while doing our best, we've still failed, and that ugly old man will still be winning. We have to win."
"We could run away," Cmdr. Sanada suggested.
The inspector was outraged: "Commander!"
"That's the spirit; don't give in!" the commander now encouraged her.
She glared at him. "But you just said-" and there she terminated her words in a growl, seeing that cheeky grin on his face.
Cmdr. Sanada's expression changed slightly as he smiled reassuringly at Yayoi. "Be sure you win that battle. I can't stand to live next door to that idiot!" Addressing everyone, he said, "Goodbye to you all!"
As they had discussed, Cmdr. Sanada went first; the transporter might only have the capability to take one person at a time. He pressed the button on his signaler, and was enveloped in a column of green light. There were arcs and glows in the cylinder. The commander cried, "Haha, it works! To a parallel universe!" and then he slowly disappeared.
Mrs. Nanjyoin waited exactly a minute and pressed her button. She was similarly transported.
She looked about her, and saw that she was in a basement. Near Mrs. Nanjyoin was a chair with leather padding, and surrounding the room were various scientific instruments.
"This is the basement of my house, all right," Cmdr. Sanada said, turning towards her and away from some of the equipment he was looking at. "Only this lucky me has been able to devote a lot more time to his parallel world research."
"Will the device be able to put us into the other parallel world as well?" Mrs. Nanjyoin asked.
"I'll just load up the program now," Cmdr. Sanada said. He pulled out some storage media he had carried with him and began to load the program onto a nearby computer. "There, once this is in, we can go to our original world, or we can visit the world that the hulk and Unit 2 went to. If you don't mind, though, I'd like to look around this world some before we go anywhere else."
Mrs. Nanjyoin agreed, "Of course, Commander. I would appreciate your assistance in our search for as long as you can spare from your duties."
"I'm perfectly content to stay here," the commander assured her. He fiddled with more settings on the software, waited awhile, frowned at the computer, and redid the whole installation.
Mrs. Nanjyoin examined a shelf on the wall. It was empty except for a picture in its center. She saw that the picture was of Ayuko holding a baby. This was an odd item to find in the house of Cmdr. Sanada's counterpart.
"There! It's ready now," he finally proclaimed.
"Commander," Mrs. Nanjyoin addressed him, "there's a picture of Ayuko and a baby here."
"Why have I got a picture of her, I wonder?" Cmdr. Sanada joined her and examined the picture.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, and Sanada's voice called out, "Who's there, and how did you ever get in here? That's not you, is it, Kent? No, I would've recognized your voice. It sounds like I'm in there. Me, am I there?"
"Yes, you're here!" Cmdr. Sanada returned helpfully.
"Please forgive our intrusion," Mrs. Nanjyoin told him. "We used your parallel world transporter. I am Mrs. Reika Nanjyoin, and this is your counterpart, Commander Sanada."
"Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Nanjyoin!" The parallel Sanada had run down the stairs and was staring at them both from only a few feet away. "I'm perfectly content to have visitors from another world. No, wait. Me, please answer this question first; whatever are you a commander of?"
"The Earth Defense Force," Cmdr. Sanada told his other self.
"What is it?" his counterpart replied with many questions. "How'd you ever get involved? Do you get any grants out of it?"
"There isn't an Earth Defense Force or a RaRa Army in this world?" Mrs. Nanjyoin inquired, surprised. "Isn't there a war going on between those two armies?"
"No, there's nothing like that, I'm just a dimensional physicist," Dr. Sanada explained. "Are you saying that Rara got an army in the parallel world? And I got what? Nothing? Why don't you name your organization the Sanada Army? Or at least the A Lot Better Than Rara Army?"
Commander Sanada perked up. "Say, that's a good idea! Maybe we'd get some good press if we changed our name."
"Our current name suffices, Commander," Mrs. Nanjyoin said.
"Please, feel free to use the transporter as much as you like."
"Why, thank you, me," Commander Sanada grinned.
"No, wait, what am I saying!" Dr. Sanada was suddenly alarmed. "Don't ever use it again! It could kill you! One guy used it and he was never seen again, but, oh. You both used it and you're okay. Hey wait, how'd you manage to use it from another universe?"
Cmdr. Sanada was about to show him, but Mrs. Nanjyoin coughed slightly.
"What am I thinking!" exclaimed Dr. Sanada. He gestured up the stairs, "Won't you come in and-" then he stopped. "No, wait, what am I thinking! Uh, I already told his family he was missing and hadn't come back, but, well, have you met a guy named Kent Slade?"
Mrs. Nanjyoin and the commander looked at each other, then back at the doctor. "No, doctor, we haven't," Mrs. Nanjyoin answered for them both.
Dr. Sanada's face fell. "Oh dear. I was hoping that since you were using signalers, or since I thought you were, you had seen him and he was all right. Now I don't know what's happened to him."
Cmdr. Sanada was distressed to see his counterpart's grief. "Well, we did find a signaler, but we, er, didn't find any evidence that this guy you sent had perished, so he's probably still alive, and we just never saw him."
"We're very sorry, doctor," Mrs. Nanjyoin spoke consolingly. "We searched the area looking for another person, but were unable to find anyone at all."
"Well, why don't you both come upstairs and we can compare our two worlds," Dr. Sanada recovered himself. "Are either of you hungry? Mrs. Nanjyoin, do you like ramen noodles? I know I and me do!"
Mrs. Nanjyoin politely declined, while the doctors slipped into ecstasy. She did accept a bit of tea, and watched as the two doctors tore into instant ramen noodles. Mrs. Nanjyoin weighed the odds that either would stop slurping, and decided not to broach the subject.
"Wow, I really feel disappointed now," Dr. Sanada commented after the three had talked over the ramen and the slurping. "I can't access the artifacts in this world, since they're all buried under the City Hall. It doesn't look like there's any way to help you."
Cmdr. Sanada shook his head. "I'm sorry we can't help you," he told his counterpart. "I really wish we could tell you something about Snide."
"We will remain on the lookout for Mr. Slade," Mrs. Nanjyoin assured him, hoping that the commander would not be too embarrassed by his misrecollection of the name.
"I really appreciate that," Dr. Sanada said seriously. "Please be careful when you use the Super Ultra-Deluxe Parallel World Transporter. I'm not sure what will happen, or why none of us know where Slade is."
The conversation lagged a bit, so Mrs. Nanjyoin asked, "May I ask why you had a picture of Ayuko in your basement?"
Doctor Sanada began to sniff. "She was my wife. She and my baby died many years ago."
"I'm very sorry, doctor," Mrs. Nanjyoin said sincerely.
Cmdr. Sanada patted his counterpart on the shoulder. "That's very sad, me."
"Thank you for saying that, Mrs. Nanjyoin and myself," Dr. Sanada rasped.
Mrs. Nanjyoin and Cmdr. Sanada both knew that the battle had begun only a short while after they had gone to this universe. It probably had concluded by now. Even in the midst of her sympathy for the commander's counterpart, Mrs. Nanjyoin couldn't help wondering how the battle had gone in the other universe.
The engagement had begun, as usual, with Ms. Rah's bizarre outbursts from atop a skyscraper on the field of honor. This time, she declared, "The city shall be held by the godlike Mr. Rara before the day is through! Let our ancient technology step forward and crush the enemy!"
On this cue, Himc and the five jewel-cannon robots remaining from the previous engagement advanced into the battlefield. The battlefield was once again near to the edge of the city, and was close to Dr. Sanada's home. Mrs. Nanjyoin and the two Sanadas were in Dr. Sanada's home in another universe- in the same place but literally a world away.
Yayoi received a report from the officers under her command, "Lieutenant, the Core Robots are all in position in the urban area."
"All units, open fire and then scatter as planned," Yayoi ordered.
The three Core Robots that had been doing most of the fighting for months were joined by the five newly built Core Robots in rising out of hiding and firing upon Himc and the jewel-cannon robots.
"Destroy these puny things!" Ms. Rah demanded.
The jewel-cannons still standing, two of them, sprinted forward and returned fire, channeling purple beams through the jewels on their shoulders. Himc was out of range for his beam, and couldn't move as fast as the jewel-cannons, so he used his long-range high-energy bullet and managed to hit the green Core Robot. No one was able to get in many hits, though- the Core Robots all ducked back behind tall buildings. They crouched and ran to different hiding spots.
Slade watched this behavior with concern from the cockpit of Himc. "Hit and fade. This could get nasty. Maybe they've even got some sort of trap set up."
Ryla, Mena, and Alice relaxed in their seats in the Rara remote control piloting area. "Too bad," Ryla said, "we got destroyed in the first volley."
"We did our best," Mena shrugged.
Alice's mind had already turned to other matters. "Have Mitsuki and Kent set a date yet?"
"Once the war's over, of course," Ryla told her for the millionth time.
"Is Kent ever going to arrange for a best man?" Mena wondered aloud for the billionth time.
"I hope the best man will be cute," Alice said for the trillionth time.
Ryla made her own observation for the googleplexianth time: "Everyone's just been so happy around her since he finally asked the question."
Bad news about the green Core Robot was delivered by an Earth Defense Force officer, "Unit 4 is down, core is ejecting. Pilot life signs and life sympathy nominal."
"Good," Yayoi nodded. At least the pilot was all right. She could see on the war room screen that her other units had reached their next tactical positions.
Pres. Rara was watching the battle unfold from his main base, the warship disguised as an island. "Pursue them with due caution, Ms. Rah," he ordered. His daughter's alter ego accordingly sent the two jewel-cannon robots scurrying from cover to cover throughout the city, attempting to outflank the last known positions of the Core Robots. Himc bulled ahead as fast as it could. The buildings here were too high for Slade to look over, so he couldn't spot the hiding places of the Core Robots. He constantly checked the area as he moved forward, ready to fire his beam at any Core Robots that appeared.
An Earth Defense Force officer announced,"Units 2 and 7 have engaged the enemy!"
Ms. Rah was disgusted as she saw that the red and yellow units had been left in front to destroy any pursuers.
Ayuko crossed her arms angrily. Her husband, Pres. Rara, sputtered beside her at his war room screen. "Another entire shipment lost! Now Himc is entirely alone!"
"Destroy the puny opponents while they are vulnerable!" Ms. Rah demanded of Himc.
Himc continued on its forward course, and he fired his beam at them. They barely dodged and ran further away. Himc maintained its pursuit, but he could not match their speed. He saw the two units heading towards a mass of skyscrapers twice as tall as the titanic Himc before they turned behind some buildings and were lost to sight. This felt like a trap to Slade.
Slade asked, "Continue, Commander?" since she had not specified what to do should the targets no longer be vulnerable.
"Pursue them," she confirmed, "the fools cannot prepare a trap that can crush the power of our arms."
This blind confidence was not reassuring to Slade, but he continued nonetheless. He proceed toward and finally reached the side of the massive block of skyscrapers. Slade hoped not to have to enter unless he had to.
Slade and Ms. Rah simultaneously noticed a group of Core Robots on the side of the block opposite Himc. These Core Robots gathered on a street that ran through the block, and used the clear space of the street to fire their grenade launchers at Himc.
"Be prepared to fall back," Yayoi ordered them, hoping the rehearsals and training would get her pilots through this fight.
The Core Robots launched their assault, easily repulsed by Himc's powerful shields. Slade pivoted Himc to face them; he could only effectively use the beam when targets were in front of him. The Earth Defense Force fell back as planned, but Slade was still able to disable another robot, the purple one. It fell just beyond the block of tall buildings.
Yayoi grimly received the news, "Unit 6 disabled. Core unit ejecting, pilot alive but backwashed." The pilot of Unit 6 would be unable to pilot a robot again.
Slade resigned himself to moving directly through the block, where there was doubtless a trap. The robots had taken cover on the opposite side of the block. If Himc went around the block, it'd move so slowly that the Core Robots would have plenty of time to take up another hiding place and attack again. Their attacks hadn't yet hurt Himc, but he didn't like to count on that. Himc moved at its highest speed along the central street of the block.
Yayoi ordered all six Core Robots, "Open fire on special targets!"
The robots fired their grenade launchers at the base of the nearby buildings, and then ran forward and shoved the buildings inwards. Three of the Core Units were behind Himc, and the remaining three were before it. All of them shoved buildings on top of Himc, which was promptly buried in rubble.
Pres. Rara yelled, "Stupid Sanada!"
Ayuko scowled. "That is certainly a new tactic."
Ms. Rah raised an arm and bellowed, "The respectless cannot extinguish the fire of the RaRa Army! Himc lives to destroy all who rise against us!"
"Commander, I'm stuck," was all Slade could say.
Yayoi smiled fiercely. She hadn't seriously expected the giant's destruction; she had sought to immobilize it. The last battle where it had been jammed between two standing buildings made her realize that the giant robot was relatively vulnerable when it couldn't move. She commanded, "Take up firing positions!"
Himc was buried to its head in tons of debris. Slade applied full motive power forwards and backwards, up and down, and side to side, but could not move an inch. "Himc is immobilized, Commander," Slade reported.
"The fools are upon your sides, loose yourself and smite them!" Ms. Rah demanded. "Hit them with the beam!"
Slade replied, "I can't see them, Commander! Oh, there they are. They're out of my field of fire!"
Careful analysis of previous attacks had informed Yayoi that most of Himc's weapons could only be fired directly in front of it. She therefore had ordered the Earth Defense Force robots to take positions around its sides and back. Yayoi ordered, "All units, open fire."
The six Core Robots fired simultaneously, each volley timed so every round impacted Himc simultaneously.
A display overlaid itself on the RaRa war room screen. Himc had not been crushed already because of its incredibly powerful shield, which was repulsing the incredible weight of rubble. This had already strained the shield greatly, and now the shield was suffering even further, as indicated by the display. Pres. Rara told Ms. Rah, "Get Himc out of there!"
"Himc, move clear!" Ms. Rah appropriately told Himc.
"Affirmative, Commander," Slade said in a strained voice. The main beam of Himc lanced out at the rubble in front of it as he tried to cut the debris away. The beam was powerful, but it wasn't having a fast enough effect. He couldn't use the high-energy bullet, because even at the low energy level he preferred, Himc would be caught in the blast radius.
Yayoi stared at the screen. Destroying all the small robots Rara could get his hands on for a while was a feat in itself, but destroying Himc was essential to the Earth Defense Force ever being able to win the war. If it would only remain imprisoned for several more minutes, it could be destroyed. The Earth Defense Force would have to win back most of the globe from the RaRa Army, but the destruction of the giant robot would still be a giant victory.
Ms. Rah shoved her open palm in front of her. "Himc, move!" she demanded with a shout.
Tersely, Kent replied, "Working on it," his voice full of the strain.
The Core Robots emptied round after round into Himc.
Pres. Rara's hands molded into fists that he clenched on his throne. Ayuko's eyes smoldered with wrath.
The display indicated Himc's shields were nearly gone.
Core Robot Unit 8's pilot screamed.
An Earth Defense Force officer's mouth fell open in shock. "Lieutenant!" she called. "Unit 8 has just been disabled! Pilot backwashed!"
Yayoi leaned forward and commanded, "Enlarge Unit 2's video feed!"
The small window showing Unit 2's view of the world expanded to fill the whole screen. Himc's head, the target for the Core Robots, was squarely in the middle of the view, and the pink robot which had just been disabled was on the side of the picture. Nothing drastic appeared wrong with it. Had Unit 8 been human instead of merely a humanoid robot, an observer would've said it was just flopping to the ground with exaggerated exhaustion. That was all that could be seen between the explosions and the smoke and dust, which obscured most of the view. There was then a rash of interference patterns on Unit 2's video feed until the whole picture devolved into static. Another officer declared, "Unit 2's core link is severed! Pilot backwashed! Essential control systems scrambled, but the Core Unit is ejecting properly, as is Unit 8's Core Unit!" Yayoi wondered if there was another RaRa robot striking from ambush.
Slade's voice came to the RaRa Army after a lengthy silence from Himc's cockpit. "I'm getting them, Commander," he grunted.
The wind changed, and most of the dust and smoke was blown away from the rubble pile. Now Yayoi could see clearly through the video feeds of the four remaining Core Robots. "What damages are being inflicted on the Core Robots?" Yayoi inquired, trying to determine what sort of attack they faced.
"Many of the electrical components are being overloaded-" The officer interrupted himself, "Lieutenant, we lost Unit 5!"
This time, Yayoi had been able to see how it happened. A golden tentacle had poked itself out of the rubble, groped a moment, and grabbed onto Unit 5's foot. Then the tentacle and Unit 5 arced with orange discharges, until the tentacle's hand released.
"The black robot's down," breathed Pres. Rara. The display indicated Himc's shields were improving as the Core Robots attacking it were being eliminated. "It looks like the white one will be next, or maybe the yellow one."
Yayoi was horrified to see, on the videos of her three remaining units, three tentacles meandering, finding their targets. A fourth erupted from another location. Yayoi knew the battle was lost, and so pressed the callsign.
Pres. Rara erupted in relieved and triumphant laughter.
From her perch on the battlefield, Ms. Rah strode forward with a gesture and proclaimed, "The glorious Mr. Rara is triumphant!"
Yayoi stood from her seat and announced, "Thank you all for your discipline and fortitude in this difficult time. I am glad that all of us have survived to fight another day."
Ever since Slade had realized that the Earth Defense Force was staying out of his field of fire, he had set out to move Himc's tentacles through the rubble. It was hard work, trying to control six limbs, and move them through compact, heavy rubble which he could not directly see. Slade was just glad he had recalled that Himc could send energy pulses through its tentacles, meaning he could assault any robot with only one tentacle.
Himc's tentacles now turned to pulling the debris off of it, and with tentacles and beam working together, Slade was making great progress.
Dr. Sanada looked around and suddenly remembered, "Oh, no! I totally forgot a class I'm teaching! And I've got another one fifteen minutes from now!"
Promptly, Mrs. Nanjyoin stood up. "Please pardon us for our intrusion, doctor. We won't impose upon you any longer."
Dr. Sanada bowed to her, and she bowed back, and he spoke while fidgeting, "Thank you, good bye, it was good to meet you, maybe we can meet again."
He turned to his counterpart. "Goodbye, me," both Sanadas said at the same time.
"We can show ourselves out of this universe," Cmdr. Sanada added.
Dr. Sanada shouted, "Goodbye!" over his shoulder as he ran out the door.
"I forgot to lock it," Cmdr. Sanada said as he walked to the door and locked it from the inside.
Mrs. Nanjyoin looked at him. "We should return to the base now, Commander."
He turned a surprised face towards her. "We've got a whole parallel world to explore!"
"The chat with your counterpart was fascinating," Mrs. Nanjyoin said sincerely, "but this world is unable to help us."
"Yeah," the commander agreed, "but what I meant is the third world. The one that the hulk and Unit 2 went to. We haven't even gotten to go there yet."
"The doctor has made me rather concerned about the reliability of the transporter," Mrs. Nanjyoin told him. "I don't want us to suffer the same fate as Mr. Slade. I'd like to see if we can return safely to our world. If we can, then we ought to explore the third universe."
"You've got a point," the commander admitted, and they went to the basement. They had confirmed with Dr. Sanada that the parallel world transporter could take only one person at a time. The commander set the controls for the same room in the Earth Defense Force base that they had left. This time Mrs. Nanjyoin went first, at Cmdr. Sanada's insistence, and he went second.
Cmdr. Sanada saw Inspector Yamano walk into the room. She had heard the transport noise, and hurried inside. She told them both, "I'm very happy to see you again!"
"Me too!" crowed Cmdr. Sanada.
Inspector Yamano shot him a look and moved on. "Have you had any success?"
"I'm afraid not," Mrs. Nanjyoin shook her head. "I hope you have fared better?"
Yayoi entered the room and saluted. "Commander," she said, "I regret that we have lost the battle."
Cmdr. Sanada shrugged. "Too bad. Well, thanks for holding down the fort."
"Commander," Inspector Yamano argued, "Lt. Schwael did her best. She was only minutes away from beating the big robot, and no one could have done better than her. I must, however, impress on you the seriousness of the situation. This base, our headquarters, is well within striking range of the RaRa Army."
"I'm going to have to move to the base dormitories," Cmdr. Sanada mused, "it just wouldn't be proper for the Commander of the Earth Defense Force to live next door to a maniac who wants to rule the world."
Inspector Yamano exclaimed, "You must take more decisive action, Commander! If something isn't done, soon you won't be able to live at the base either, because that ugly old man will have captured it!"
"Inspector Yamano," the commander assured her, "I have thought through the problem. It's quite a dilemma. Either I, the Commander of the Earth Defense Force, lives on a base the enemy has captured, or I become a wanderer with no place to lay my head. Neither is at all appropriate for my responsibility to conduct this army properly."
The inspector wasn't sure she was getting through. "Perhaps more importantly, our Core Robots will have no place to lay their heads, or be repaired with what few parts we have left."
Cmdr. Sanada looked seriously at everyone. "Any trailers yet?"
"No sir," Yayoi told him. "We have no indications as to when the RaRa Army wishes to fight next."
Cmdr. Sanada informed them, "The Super Ultra-Deluxe Parallel World Transporter can only take one person at a time, so we'd better not use it to flee. I want everyone to begin preparations for a tactical retreat aboard our artifact warship. The Core Robots are already in the base's hangar, right?"
"Yes, Commander," Yayoi said.
"We'll just leave them there for the time being, but load all our spare parts aboard the artifact carrier," Cmdr. Sanada directed. "We'll move the robots to the carrier after the next fight. I also want everyone to begin living aboard the carrier now, so we get everyone settled and moved in before we run out of time."
Inspector Yamano stared at him. "I was hoping for something more inspiring than running away."
Cmdr. Sanada grinned cheekily at her. "You did remind me that we're within range of the RaRa Army. It's my job to establish contingency plans for desperate situations." His eyes flashed. "Don't anyone worry. We're going to do everything we can to hold this base. All of us will do our best to win not just the next few fights, but the whole war." He smiled again. "I just want us to be prepared for the worst."
Mrs. Nanjyoin stated, "It appears essential that we visit the other parallel world, Commander. The transportation process is clearly quite safe."
"Yeah, my Super Ultra-Deluxe Parallel World Transporter is quite a beauty!" the commander enthused.
Inspector Yamano rolled her eyes. "You didn't build it. The other you is the one to whom it belongs."
"Yeah, I built it," nodded the commander.
"Perhaps it'd be best to start right away, Commander," Mrs. Nanjyoin pulled out her signaler.
He checked his watch. "It's closer to dinner than it was a while ago. Maybe the other me will have more ramen!"
Yayoi saluted. "Goodbye again."
"Goodbye," Mrs. Nanjyoin bowed to everyone.
She and then the commander left that universe.
Cmdr. Sanada saw Mrs. Nanjyoin patiently sitting in the padded leather chair, comfortable in the basement of Dr. Sanada, the man they had just visited. Cmdr. Sanada went over to the computer, and reset it, ordering it to send them to the basement of his house in the parallel universe the giant robot and Unit 2 had visited for a brief moment.
Commander Sanada called, "Ready, Mrs. Nanjyoin?"
"Yes, Commander," responded Mrs. Nanjyoin.
Her transport was completed successfully, and the commander then transported himself to that world.
The main characters return in 1 day!