What am I doing? Was it really necessary to break out of the sealed base using Ageha?
As I absentmindedly pondered my situation, I sat in a seat on an aircraft drinking coffee from a paper cup. Spread out in front of me was a paper newspaper, which was a rare sight these days, and I was reading the day’s news.
I’ve been so busy lately. It’s been a while since I last had a chance to just sit and relax like this.
It would have been a perfect moment if the Russian Air Force’s fighter planes weren’t visible outside the window and if a mean-looking middle-aged man wasn’t sat opposite me.
“In a few minutes, we will be landing at an air force base in the Moscow district, where we will make a brief stop. A number of passengers will be departing the aircraft, and we will take off once again after approximately fifteen minutes on the ground.”
I went on reading the newspaper while listening to the announcement, but then the man opposite looked at me and loudly cleared his throat, so I reluctantly folded away my newspaper and re-fastened my seat belt.
When I bought a ticket for this flight so I could rescue Anton, I barely had time to catch the flight myself, I reflected. They did well to get onto the same aircraft. I didn’t expect to see fighter jets escorting us the second we entered Russian airspace, either.
“I know we haven’t spoken at all, but... when the announcer said ‘a number of passengers,’ he was talking about us, wasn’t he?” I asked... in Russian. “Did the Russian government start providing guides to help civilians with their sightseeing?”
I’d been completely silent since we’d taken off, but now I was suddenly speaking in Russian. I didn’t need any special training to see how shocked the men sitting in front me were.
Heh. Serves them right. They’ve been bugging me ever since we left Japan. I was looking forward to riding an ordinary plane for the first time, but they’ve ruined it for me. And don’t they realize that I live on the Hakone base? I spend all my time with dangerous-looking men like Cote and witches like my mom. That mean look doesn’t intimidate me. It’s just an annoyance.
“We’re here to escort you,” the man opposite said. “My superiors will greet you on the ground. They can tell you the details.”
“Details? I know I’m entering your country, but I’m doing everything by the book. You’ve got no right to divert my flight to a military base and then arrest me.”
“A-Arrest?! You’ve got it all wrong! If anything were to happen to you, it would be a great loss for humanity. Our country considers your safety to be paramount.”
“If you say so,” I said skeptically. “Just remember that one wrong move will cause a diplomatic incident.”
The words “diplomatic incident” seemed to cause them some concern, but I closed my eyes and tried to ignore them.
Mom once told me that whoever takes the initiative has an overwhelming advantage in negotiations. After Mom told me to go rest, I figured out that the threat of a diplomatic incident would make it difficult for the other party to act freely. Now these guys can’t force me to go anywhere without an explanation... or at least, I hope not.
I sighed.
I’m so hungry. I was in too much of a hurry to eat lunch. And at this rate, I won’t have a chance to eat dinner, either. Maybe there’s some polite way to ask them to feed me? They won’t let me land at the airport, but they should at least let me eat.
“I’m getting hungry,” I said. “I’ve heard that Russia is famous for its marinade and ukha restaurants.”
This caused them to talk quietly between themselves about “preparing dinner.”
Looks like they might actually feed me when we land, I thought hopefully. But what if they poison my food? Well, I don’t suppose they want to kill me. That’d cause a diplomatic incident for sure.
Thanks to doing research on the way here, as well as having Ageha obtain some records from the Russian government, I’d determined that a certain polonium-related incident had never occurred. The risk of being poisoned by a radioactive substance seemed negligible.
That reminds me. Clare is always stealing food from my plate when we’re in the Merkava Kingdom. I thought she just liked to taste everything, but she must have been checking it for poison. Clare does so much for me. I shouldn’t take her for granted in the future...