Nurse Venus

Before Minako could answer, Kimi, putting her hands on her head as if she had a headache so she could use her third eye for a little bit, said, "The men are coming back. There are more of them."

Minako said, "There isn't time to get everyone out. Go, all of you."

"Auntie, I should stay to help if there is a fight," said Chibi-Usa.

Minako said, "No, go with the others. I will follow when I'm sure you are safe on the plane."

"Auntie--" Chibi-Usa started to say.

Minako snapped, "This is an order! Ishi, Kimi, go with Chibi-Usa and the others!"

Usagi was screaming from the phone.

"What's going on here?" Marvell asked the woman in the wheelchair as soon as he reached the foot of the stairs.

"Boys with guns are at the airport in Las Vegas. Mina-chan is watching them while everyone else gets on the airplane. So far there is no fight . . . Mina-chan has hung up. She is going through security now. She says they told her not to use the phone now." She folded up her phone. "Do you think they will try to shoot up the plane, Mr. Jones?"

"Mind telling me how I got here?" asked Marvell.

The green-haired woman came in, speaking rapid Japanese. Mrs. Chiba replied with some short, explosive words in the same language. Both the green-haired woman and the tall one who had come in with Mrs. Chiba--she was the one who had given Olivia her bouquet of blue roses--quickly left. Mrs. Chiba called more phrases to then in Japanese until they were out of sight. Then she put her face in her hands and trembled.

Marvell wanted to ask many questions, but none of them seemed right at this moment.

Mrs. Chiba stopped trembling, and brought her face up again. It was wet with tears, but she was no longer crying. "Forgive my discourtesy . . . My daughter brought you. Mina-chan told her to bring you here, since you are who the killers are after."

"What did you tell them?" Marvell asked.

Mrs Chiba replied, "I told them to go do things which should bring everyone back here safely, if the gods allow and the boys at the airport don't do something to blow up the plane."

"Excuse me, but if you brought me here, why don't you just bring the others?" asked Marvell.

Mrs. Chiba said, "My daughter cannot bring everyone at once, and I do not think she can get back onto the plane once she brings someone." She looked at her watch, and opened her phone again. "Mr. Jones, give me the number to Mr. Tombs' cellphone."

"What?"

"That will do." She began punching in numbers. "Keep quiet, please. I am about to do you a favor . . . Mr. Tombs? This is Mrs. Chiba, Kevin's friend . . . Yes . . . Your boss spoke with me a few moments ago. He's changed his mind about returning . . . well, I won't say, but I have the information you need. Please come over to my house. I will give you your new instructions. Just yourself. Oh, bring something that can hold quite a lot of luggage, you'll be picking up some things here and from his mother's place. Please, hurry, there's a special arrangement he made . . . No, I don't think so . . . Oh, be sure to use the front entrance; we have men doing work in back . . . Thank you."

"Who are you calling next? The police?" said Marvell sardonically.

Mrs. Chiba said, "No. Police in Las Vegas wouldn't arrive in time. Airport security would probably get in a fight and a lot of people could be hurt or killed. The same thing goes for when the plane lands here . . . and besides, the police didn't do a very good job protecting Mr. Spotts yesterday, did they?"

"Yeah . . . I noticed that, too," said Marvell.

Minako Jones, nee Aino, was, most of the time, a nurse, a wife, and a mother. But she also had at least part of the soul of the Moon Kingdom's last general, which might explain why she absorbed so many of the lethal arts. Some of the warlike facts she had acquired, so alien to her present compassionate and sometimes childlike nature, were the ranges of missiles small enough to be carried by one man. When she was sure their plane was out of range of any of those, she sent a silent signal back to Usagi. She went to the restrooms to call in a report as soon as the passengers were allowed out of their seats.

"Can it be done?" asked Usagi.

"I am not sure," said Cooan. "I am the only one of us who has ever done this. I failed the last time I tried . . . I won't be able to do it more than once, and I doubt I will be able to recover in time to jump out again."

Karaberas stopped a fight between her boy and Cooan's twins with a wicked glance. Then she said, "There is another way . . . make the plane land somewhere else."

"Oh, let's get ourselves in even more trouble!" said Beruche.

"Hijacking a plane," said Petz. "What a brilliant idea . . . maybe if we try to link with you, like with the senshi, you could guide us in?"

"I don't think there would be room," said Setsuna. "Cooan has the best idea. Can you get me onto the plane? Into the cockpit?"

Everyone else was open-mouthed at this suggestion--except Usagi. "Yes, maybe. You will need me, too, to take care of the pilot and co-pilot safely. I must take care of some business upstairs before we leave. Setsuna, Cooan, go to my van as soon as you are ready. Michiru, you are in charge of the rest. What Mina-chan is most worried about is a small missile which could be fired from the ground near the airport. The gangsters may have one or two. Or they may use mortars or regular rockets like they did in the war I started, but those would be harder to get to the right place quickly. If we fail, sent everyone who can fight to the airport. And call a TV station. If everyone there knows that sailor fighters are there, the killers may chicken out, or maybe the controllers will keep planes from landing there."

Shooting forward with her chair, Usagi shouted, "Mako, come with me!"

Martin Tiggs had been buzzed through the gates, and then through the front door, to find an apparently empty house--but of course, there were people somewhere, at least Mrs. Chiba, who'd let him in--who'd called him here.

He'd noted the cameras the night before, hardly unusual for a Kensington mansion. But last night he had been in a crowd; now he was alone. If someone was watching, they were watching him.

<Act like who you're supposed to be.> "Mrs. Chiba?" he called.

No answer.

He heard the elevator moving--very quietly; he doubted he would have noticed if the house had not been otherwise dead silent. He went to where he knew it stopped on the ground floor, a spot hidden by one of the staircases. It was a dual-opening model; when the doors opened, he could see through to the kitchen--where he saw Marvell Jones drinking coffee, watching a small portable television. Marvell turned to him, extending his cup in an offer. He followed Mrs. Chiba and a tall woman he remembered from the night before through the elevator into the kitchen.

Tiggs said, "This is a surprise. I thought you was gettin' married."

The sound from the little television became loud static, and Marvell switched it off. "I did. I just came back ahead of the others, Tombs." Marvell glanced at Mrs. Chiba for a second.

Mrs. Chiba spoke before Martin Tiggs could. "Who did you tell about Mr. Jones' wedding plans, Mr. Tombs?"

Tiggs was caught off-guard. "What? What are you talking about?"

Mrs. Chiba fired off more questions. "What I mean is, how did you make your report? When? Do you know who it would go to?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," said Tiggs.

Mrs. Chiba said, "You know that. By the way, are you recording or transmitting now? Recording. Both. That is impressive. But Mako-chan is jamming you now, Agent Tiggs. Mako, it is in his phone."

Tiggs was very fast--he managed to dodge the tall woman and draw his gun.

Mrs. Chiba barked something in Japanese, and the tall woman stopped--but now she was a very grim looking angel, with electricity literally arcing between her hands.

"Are you going to shoot someone, Agent Tiggs?" asked Mrs. Chiba.

"Not if you are all smart." He was already covering the one who mattered, Marvell Jones. "And you smart, Marvell," he added, in his best Hollywood black gangster.

"Ain't packing, Tombs. Mind if I call my lawyer now?" said Marvell casually.

"Yes, I do. Put your hands on the table. You, sit down," he said to the angel, absolutely blanking out the incongruity she represented. He reached for the phone clipped to his belt to hit the panic switch--and it crumbled away.

Mrs. Chiba said something else in Japanese. The angel came toward him. He fired--or tried to. But squeezing the butt of his pistol did not fire a smoothly aimed round; it crunched it up like a sugar cone, letting metal filings and propellant stream down through his hand.

Mrs. Chiba spoke in Japanese a final time, and the angel was an ordinary woman again. Then she said in English, "Agent Tiggs seems to be having a lot of mental stress. Hallucinations. But he doesn't know anything about the killers."

"You do seem upset," said the tall woman. She pushed him firmly but gently into the chair opposite Marvell Jones. In another moment, she set a cup before him. "Drink this. You'll feel better."

Tiggs made no move to drink it. "I don't know what's going on here."

Mrs. Chiba spoke. "Drink, Agent Tiggs. If I had wanted, you would be dust like your gun and your phone. The drug in the tea will do no permanent harm. And if you don't drink it, there are other less pleasant ways to give you your dose."

Tiggs noticed that the tall woman was setting out a plate of small cakes. She said, "It takes a few minutes to take effect. You should eat something. It can upset your stomach if you don't."

"What is it?" asked Tiggs.

"We just call it 'the powder.' It is a special product," said Mrs. Chiba.

"It takes away memories," the tall woman explained. "Recent memories. My husband uses it sometimes; he has some very troubling dreams."

"Drink it," asserted Mrs. Chiba, and before he realized he had, Martin Tiggs had drained the cup. The tall woman replaced it with another cup, filled with fragrant chocolate, heavily creamed, with a little liquer as well. He drank some of it, wondering what was going to happen next.

"I am sorry, Tiggs-san," said Mrs. Chiba, "I thought you might have told one of Jones-san's enemies."

"The Bureau doesn't work like that," said Tiggs. He picked up one of the cakes.

"You FBI, Tombs?" asked Marvell.

"Yes," said Tiggs. "The name is 'Tiggs,' Mr. Jones. Martin Tiggs, if you're curious. You know, my backup is going to be here any minute, now that I've stopped transmitting."

"No, they will probably not come," said Mrs. Chiba, apparently addressing Marvell. "He hopes someone will notice soon, but he is not monitored all the time."

Tiggs looked at the tall women who had been an angel. "You've been working for Mr. Jones all along? Is that why Kev was saved?"

"No, we don't work for Mr. Jones," answered the woman in the wheelchair. <Who was she?>

Martin Tiggs ate most of his cake before the drug took full effect and he faded out.

"Well. What do I do with him now?" asked Marvell Jones.

"We will take care of him," answered Usagi. "We have things to hide from the government, too."

Makoto picked Tiggs up and carried him into the elevator. Usagi said, "Go with Michiru's group," in Japanese as the doors closed, and began to wheel out.

"Where are you going?" asked Marvell.

"To catch the plane, Mr. Jones. You can come if you like, but you'll be safest if you stay here."

He got up. "No, I want to see this."

The flight from Las Vegas to Oakland was short on a 737. As they made their last wide turn to get into the landing pattern, Minako hoped the positives would outweigh the negatives from this fact. There would be less time for an enemy to prepare, but there would also be less time for the other senshi prepare. She held Kimi in her lap, with an airline blanket wrapped around her, concealing her third eye, through which Minako was looking for trouble.

"Ma'am, you must put your child in her own seat," said a flight attendent. Minako had not seen her; her vision was focused miles ahead of the aircraft. But suddenly she could, because the flight attendent had lifted Kimi out of her lap and broken contact--and also inadvertently pulled the blanket from her Kimi's head.

Finding herself staring into Kimi's third eye from inches away, the woman screamed at the top of her lungs, and kept on screaming.

That is why Minako did not hear Kimi's screaming, because she had just seen something.

Marvell Jones hadn't seen any wonders for awhile, and, like most, he was beginning to wonder if what he seemed to remember was real. He also had a solid suspicion that this might be some charade; there wasn't any proof of assassins apart from the word of Mrs. Chiba and her friends. The only thing he was sure they'd told him was true was that Tombs was wrong; he'd put the gun on Marvell too quickly not to have thought of the move for a long, long time.

Mrs. Chiba had just pulled to the side of the road, the frontage road north of the Bay Bridge. There were already tie-ups ahead; they weren't going to get to a better place for whatever it was they were going to do.

"Is that it?" asked Marvell, pointing to an aircraft.

"Yes," answered the green-haired woman--not the one he had first seen arguing, but an older, taller woman, with hair in a darker shade, and much longer. She had a soft voice, a jarring contrast to the nasal, catty voice of the other woman who had come.

Mrs. Chiba barked an order in Japanese, and the two women lifted her out of the van and held her between them in her arms.

"What's that?" he exclaimed.

Three smoke trails were snaking up ahead, moving toward the aircraft.

Usagi saw the smoke trails, and transformed without thinking about the pain. She put all her concentration in a wide attack, hoping to disable the missiles. But they were even further away than the missiles she had once seen launched against Chibi Moon . . . moments before her daughter had died.

One of the smoke trails passed the plane. One stopped. One ended in a small flash.

Directly in front of the plane.

"Jump! Jump now!" Sailor Moon shouted.

An unfamiliar woman's voice came over the radio in the flight control center.

"This is the damaged 737. Flight crew is dead. Flaps are jammed in position, no ailerons, wing damage. Landing gear is inoperable. All electronic instrumentation has failed. I am attempting an immediate emergency landing. There is no other option."

"Identify yourself."

"Call me Angel Nine."

Angel Nine, whoever she was, kept the plane under control until touched down. From then on, it was a matter of friction, and fortune. A more lightly-built aircraft would have broken up, but a 737, or at least this one, held more or less together down the length of the runway--and for a distance beyond it. Even then, the fuselage did not break in two; it cracked, just aft of the wing roots, with the nose digging into the mud, and the tail section sagging down to drag a ways until the dying aircraft finally came to rest.

Unfortunately, it was not where the emergency equipment could reach it.

Michiru made her decision instantly. She sent everyone she had to help people get out of the plane.

Marvell was an observant man, and he had had little trouble adapting to the hand controls on Usagi's van. He was already back on the freeway when Angel Nine finished the flight.

He knew who must be trying to kill him: Laurence Van Huff, the new red boss he had given so much to in order to stop the war. Huff was supposed to have turned over all the war toys B.Q. had been so fond of.

Now Huff was betting everything. Marvell was sure he had Huff figured. Huff had been given a golden chance to eliminate the only one really dangerous to him. It hadn't worked; now he had to get Marvell just to stay alive. Only thanks to Kevin's new friends, Huff was going after the wrong target. All Marvel had to do was get off at University, drive a few blocks, and he could hook up with a trustworthy crew. Huff would be lucky to live until tomorrow.

But by then Moms would be dead, and Kevin, and Olivia . . . maybe even Minako. She'd taken wounds at the lake. Huff would send everything he had left against that plane, and try to kill everyone who possibly might be Marvell. Kev first, if anyone was bothering to pick shots.

It was stop-and-go, because people had slowed or stopped to watch the airliner, streaming fuel from the dump valves and the damaged wing. The airliner was gone; there was no column of smoke ahead, so Marvell guessed it had landed safely, or at least hadn't burned up.

Marvell stopped the van and set it in park. He couldn't operate a cellphone and the hand controls at the same time.

"Hey, Huffy. This is Marvell. Just called to tell you, I was never on that plane. Call off your dogs now and you got a truce. Ain't none of my crew on that plane; just family. You go on after my family, Huffy, this war don't stop with you."

It was probably too late, but Marvell intended to honor his offer.

Chibi Moon and Cooan's three sisters were the most useful in getting people out, but Sailor Venus began flying out with whomever seemed to be the in the most need in her reach. Kimi and Ishi took whatever children they were offered or could take. But the whole operation was interrupted by an explosion quite a way off, followed by a closer one.

"Mortar!" shouted Venus. "Mercury, can you plot the trajectory?"

"Got it, I think . . . here comes another!"

"Kimi!"

Kimi Moon did not get to Venus and Mercury fast enough to stop the round, but fortunately it was long this time, and the explosion was modest--it buried itself in mud before exploding. Venus was able to stop the next round. The mortar itself was out of her range--but she could paint it with a bright light, and Chibi Moon fired at that. A second later, the mortar and its crew were gone in the after-image of a violet fireball.

There weren't any more interruptions.

The last off the plane was Setsuna. She was about to get onto a slide when she noticed something dropped on the floor. She picked it up. It was smushed, but recognizable for what it was: a bouquet of roses, blue ones, made up the way only Makoto used. Setsuna wondered idly who had caught this one. She kept it in her hand as she slid off, and kept it as she walked out through the mud, until Chibi came to pop her back to home, a shower, and a long soak. Before cleaning up, though, Setsuna set the pathetic bouquet in water, wondering idly whether it would survive like its progenitor, Usagi's.