Warmachine

[ArkhamAsylum]

Great continuation of a fantastic story. Well done.

[Machao6]

He watched as they huddled, protecting their menfolk like a flock of sheep. Explosions and bursts of automatic fire were severing the branches and shattering the rocks they sheltered behind. The commander followed the carnage back to its source at the broken building on a low slope, just where the ravaged village met the jungle proper.

“They’ve made that farmhouse their redoubt,” Fisk pointed out. “If we can dislodge them from there, the others will be vulnerable. It’s that position on the end that’s tethering the line. If only we could bring guns to bear..we'll just have to get close enough to use grenades."

"Sir, that's very risky, we're not..."

But Kitchener's words were not heeded, as the commander waved for his men to follow and set off at a run toward the enemy. It took what felt like minutes for the Larinthians to notice they were on the move, and they had all but made it to cover around a collapsed hut and outlying wall before a few carbine shots pinged off the stones. Fisk called for a grenade and ordered covering fire. His men happily obliged, peppering the farmhouse with dusty ricochets as he pulled the pin and launched the thing as hard as he could. The farmhouse was about eighty meters away, and this was the last cover they could get. The grenade landed a good ten meters short, exploding in a plume of dirt in the half-sown rice paddy before it. Angry bursts of fire raked his position in reply.

"We could go back to the boats and try to manoeuvre the guns onto them?" Kitchener suggested.

"By the time we get ourselves organised they'll have dispersed into the jungle, and maybe taken these people down on the way."

"Sir, these people are not our mission."

Incensed at this challenge to his authority, Fisk seized his first officer by the lapels. "The objective of this entire operation is to make contact with the natives here. This is our first encounter Lieutenant. Do you think our negotiations will go well when they ask what we've done for them and all we can say is that we saw a village get flattened?"

Despite the exchange of gunfire there was a tension as the nearest men, even hunkering down, exchanged significant glances. Kitchener had gone red in the face. "No sir. You're right."

Fisk released the man's lapels and pointed out one of his men. "Archer, you pitched for the fleet cricket team. You have a go."

The soldier received a grenade and pulled the pin. Fisk called for covering fire again and he threw the metal sphere as hard as he could. It landed short but bounced and rolled up to the wall before detonating harmlessly.

"It's too far sir. We might just have to leg it out there and throw on the charge."

"Too risky." No sooner had Fisk spoken than a hail of gatling fire raked their rocky defences. Kitchener's hand was on his arm. "We've got company sir."

The commander followed his first officer's eyes to where a breathtakingly beautiful woman wearing nothing but a sky blue bikini was crouched behind a collapsed wall behind them, watching. Her hair was pale gold and hung past shoulder length as she, realising she was noticed, shook it away from her face. She was taller than any of the sailors by at least an inch, and her body was exquisitely toned and athletic. Without a care in the world she stepped out of her cover, flinched at a volley of carbine shots that snapped around her, and rushed directly toward one of the sailors. Reaching him, she bent down and tugged a grenade from his belt, then threw it for all the world like she was sending a paper aeroplane on its way. The grenade landed inside the farmhouse through a hole in its roof, causing the occupants to panic and scatter. They fell over themselves to escape and, once in the open, were gunned down cheerfully by Fisk's incredulous men. The grenade never went off, because the pin was still in it, but the effect was good enough on the target.

The sailors laughed admiringly. The girl seemed to curl up shyly under their collective gaze, but Fisk hazarded to approach. “Good girl!” He patted her on the arm cheerfully, then turned to his men and waved his rifle for them to come up.

“Now everyone, with me!” Fisk roared triumphantly with his sword outstretched. His band of sailors followed him rowdily toward the Larinthians’ last redoubt as smoke grenades coughed ahead of them. A single survivor struggled to his feet in time to be gunned down as his men took up position behind the building and poured fire into the exposed flanks of their enemies. The conscripts peeled away from the wall and made for the jungle, while enraged Truebloods turned their heavy weapons on Fisks men. A few backed away but were encouraged when the oppressive gatling cannons fired, silencing all opposition.

The blonde girl who had accompanied them leaped up onto the holed roof and ran across it, leading the ripsaw deluge of fire up a broken wall, somersaulting over the heads of the closing combatants, and onto the unfortunate shoulders of a Trueblood. Caught off-balance with his heavy weapon, the brute could only flounder in rising panic as her legs locked around his head. Using the whiplike agility of her body and the considerable momentum of her flying start, the Larinthian was flipped from foot to head as if propelled from a car crash. Fisk stared in awe as three hundred pounds of muscle and armour were tossed around like a ragdoll, bowling two more over in a cry of alarm. The man's neck was broken before he even hit the floor. Then his Myrmadons crashed home in a desperate rush, using the opening the girl's fantastic spectacle had made. She was still moving, but Fisk lost her as he lunged home with his cutlass.

His adversary was a typical Larinthian Trueblood - tall, bulky muscle filling the power-assisted bands of thick metal that comprised his armour. His lunge was aimed at the unarmoured face, but a deft side-step and his blade glanced off a brassy pauldron. The enemy responded by burying a big fist in his gut, the blow almost lifting him off his feet and producing a gasping retch. Another hammer blow landed across his neck, driving him into the floor, but he turned the fall into a feeble roll and evaded a soccer kick aimed at his falling head. The Larinthian laughed at his weakness and produced a wicked looking blade - the length of a forearm with a secondary protrustion, flamed shaped and broad like its wielder. As Fisk wheezed to his feet the Trueblood dashed for him.

Fisk was knocked sprawling back to the floor just as the grinning enemy had him, and he saw that the blonde woman had interposed herself in his place. The Larinthian was on her then and she caught the blade with her bare hands. There was abject fear on the man's face as he realised his adversary had changed, but then desperation caused him to press home with every ounce he could muster. Off-balance, the girl fell against the crumbling wall which collapsed partially under the impact. Now underneath her opponent, she seemed to be pinching the blade so as to keep it from cutting her, but   Fisk fumbled for his revolver as the Trueblood seized this fortuitous leverage and pressed down on the blade with every ounce he could muster. The girl screamed in pain as blood began to trickle from the blade's thirst.

Fisk fired. There was a hollow click. He'd been so focussed on turning the enemy's flank he never reloaded the damn thing after his last tussle.

What happened next would stay with the sailor for the rest of his life. As he pushed himself to his feet the girl's screams turned into a gutteral growl of defiance. Her face changed from that of a tortured beauty to something...else. It was as if the pain was an act now dropped, or as if some other emotion had taken over. He'd seen similar changes overcome men in times of action - the meek turned to monsters, the exuberant reduced to cringing helplessness. This was as if pain had been turned to determination. The Larinthian's grimace of stolen triumph gave way to the amazon's rising scorn, and to Fisk's complete fascination, the girl pushed back - blade and all - until the Larinthian looked like just like a cartoon trying to plug a burst water main. He had no time to utter whatever astonished curse was on his lips before she abruptly turned the blade up and out of his grip, so that his neck fell on it bloodily. She discarded the armoured carcass with a disgusted grunt, and then collapsed against the wall breathlessly. The battle around them had ended. The silence was deafening.

She noticed Fisk watching and her gaze was a cooling inferno, and as her expression softened so did her resilience. Her hands were gushing blood from the deep cut inflicted by the blade, and so Fisk, the spell of spectatorship broken, rushed to bandage them. The girl was disturbed by his sudden approach but when he paused for her to see what he was doing she allowed him to bind her wounds. The cuts were serious - he thought he saw a flash of white bone. They would need a suture, but for now he applied haemostatic powder which the girl flinched and tore away from thanks to its mild exothermic reaction. Fisk found himself pleading for her trust. "Please. It'll stop the bleeding, and keep it from going septic." After a moment's wary hesitation which he was sure had nothing to do with his words, she let him finish.

As he wrapped her hands she insisted on touching him with the other one, caressing his face gently and stroking his hair. In that moment Fisk felt that the sum of his military career had brought him to a moment of destiny, and he understood his mission here, in this strange tropic land, with a new significance. Whatever had just happened had spared his life, and was nothing short of miraculous. He took the girl's hand in his own and kissed it gently.

Kitchener was at his side breathlessly. "Larinthians are dead to the last man sir. What an action! We've taken a few wounded ourselves however and the crew of '33 back on the Corvette have fatalities. Sir?"

Fisk ignored him, instead returning the heady smile of the girl who held his hand tightly. “I have to go and see to things." he told her "But I’ll be back, I promise.” He got up to leave but she tugged him down again, almost off his feet. Even in her exhaustion she caught most of his weight with her injured hand, and when he regained his balance beside her she slipped it to his side tenderly. Still smiling, though tears silently ran down her cheeks.

Kitchener’s hand grabbed Nathan’s shoulder. “Sir, we have casualties to attend to.”

“I’m coming.” Fisk replied curtly. He looked at the girl and nudged some of her tears away with his hand, then stood to leave against her murmured protests. She tried to get up but the pain in her hands made her first try abortive. Tiredly she rolled onto her front and used her elbows to gain the height to bring a knee up, and then she rose to follow him. Nathan felt shocked and disconnected, as though he were watching someone else’s actions. Something about this action had informed him of his place in the world, and his actions were not necessarily subject to his will. Or perhaps they were, but it was no accident that it was his will that had been brought to this place.

[ArkhamAsylum]

Great addition. I am looking forward to the rest of this amazing story.Well done.

[Machao6]

The crew of gunboat B-33 was down to eleven able ratings. Lieutenant Porter was dead, decapitated early on in the fight by a slice of rocket shrapnel. Fisk felt guilty about doubting the lad during the fight, but aside from his death there were six wounded in varying states of injury from that boat. Of his own boats crew, one man had died during the clash on the flank, and another was killed and three more wounded during the final charge. Engineer Trenner had lost both her gunners and was herself wounded by shrapnel in the arm, but still insisted she was fighting fit. Kitchener was unharmed. Fisk realised he himself had been grazed in no less than six places by bullets or ricochets and tutted at the state of his longcoat. He wondered how much luck he had expended in the foolhardy battle. He told himself it was in a good cause, but they would be hard pressed to manage the wounded. He felt energised by purpose. This was it - the nub of everything they were trying to do here. Despite the usual fatigue after combat, he rolled his sleeves up and prepared to operate on the wounded as the flotillas surgeon.

The village was decimated. Not a structure stood and the survivors howled and grieved over the many corpses scattered about. The men sat in shocked silence while the women fell into horrendous fits of rage and sobbing that could be heard no matter where the sailors busied themselves. The two groups avoided each other, the natives out of distrust of the newcomers, and the Navy out of worry for the strange, powerful warrior-women. As Fisk busied himself with the casualties, he ordered that the corvette and the battlefield be looted for supplies. The mess cabin of his patrol boat would be turned to a makeshift surgery. Therein he took on the wounded one by one, treating the most serious injuries first. One man could not be saved, a bullet lodged so close to his spine that any action would cause instant paralysis while leaving it meant that would happen inevitably. He was treated to an overdose of morphine, a relatively pleasant death. Once his sailor’s injuries were treated he left without a word, entrusting the tidy up and accounting to Kitchener, and crossed to the villagers who regarded him warily.

He saw that some of the men were groaning in pain, seriously wounded, while their erstwhile guardians stood or knelt nearby. He crossed to one and began to examine him, but one of the women tore him away from the patient. He looked at their watchdog, a brown-haired woman with pieces of shrapnel perforating her arm. He gestured at the injury and after some remarks in a language he couldn’t recognise, she allowed him to examine the wounds. She refused to sit or be made comfortable. He tried to administer a pain killer but she shrugged him off warily. Eventually he simply tugged the pieces free. She made not a sound, but watched him cautiously as he worked. The largest piece caused her to gasp when he removed it, but it was the way he treated the open wounds that earned him any trust. He cleaned and wrapped each injury carefully, meticulously, missing nothing. When he was finished the woman seized him suddenly and pulled him into a fierce embrace, stuffing his head into her shoulder and cradling him there for a few moments before pointing him to the men.

“They need to go in there,” he explained pointing at his patrol boat “I can’t do anything out here.” 

The woman snapped at her compatriots, who to Fisk’s amazement, simply picked up the patients tenderly and carried them in a short procession toward the ship. Helping in her wounded comrades was - astonishingly - the blonde haired girl who had wrestled for his life. Every time she brought a new patient to be seen, she smiled at him and seemed to linger to watch him work. One of the wounded men took Fisk completely by surprise by speaking in perfect, if accented, Myrmad.

“I can help once you get this shrapnel out of my leg. We have some hollistic medicines - poultices mainly, the plantlife around here is a goldmine of medicinal properties."

“You’re...a Larinthian?” Fisk asked as they walked.

“Was. A medical levy. I ran away and found this place. I came here with two others, but now I’m the only one left. The other men here are from all over. Deserters like me mostly. Stranded sailors. Fallen pilots. Most are waifs and strays from other villages. There were thirty three of us this morning. Now there are ten if the wounded survive.”

Fisk looked at the man with some concern. “I'm sorry for your losses. It looked like a whitewash from the water.”

"Yes. You made short work of that corvette. Some of the amazons were trying to flatten the turrets with boulders but...they had to be close to do it. Too close."

"How come you're hiding behind the women, all of you?"

At this the man looked indignant, but lowered his head sadly. “Way of life here. We’ve come to rely on our amazons for protection. You'll see for yourself before long I imagine. I just wish we could teach them that discretion is the better part of valour.”

"You and me both. It was a mess out there. I've never seen anything like it. Couldn't you have stopped them?"

The man simply shook his head sadly. "Better men than me have tried. When they killed the Princess the others went berserk. It was all we could do to keep them together and wait for a better moment to counterattack. In the end they saw what you were doing and their instincts to protect took over."

Nathan watched the man for any trace of dishonesty, but found none. A long, uncomfortable silence prevailed until an agonised groan from one of the wounded being moved snapped him back to the here and now. "Well, I think he has priority over you mister...?"

"Arman Vahid. Medical Orderly, 1363rd Legion."

Nathan balked. "...how many legions are there?"

Arman simply shrugged, and sat beside another injured man and checked his breathing. The Myrmad resolved to take this matter up in more detail later, but for now he busied himself with surgery. He managed to save all of the wounded men except for one, who bled to death on the table. The other ‘amazons’ had to wrestle with his aggrieved widow, guardian, or whatever she was to keep her from tearing Fisk apart. Exhausted, he dispatched orders to his crew to take an inventory of the site and had something to drink.

As he felt the sweet scorch of rum, he heard someone enter and sit on the table behind him. He turned to see the young blonde woman looking up at him with the biggest blue eyes he had ever seen. Fisk felt almost paralysed by her gaze. "Thank you," he blurted awkwardly "for saving my life."  There was no response. She simply held his gaze, blinked, and swung her legs idly. She must have sensed the expectation in the pause, as she smiled nervously. "Do...you understand what I'm saying? No?"

More blank silence. Seeing her sat in the confines of the room put her stature in sharp perspective. Her legs seemed unending, her statuesque proportions made the spartan furniture of the boat's cabin seem stumpy and insufficient by comparison. Her bright hair and skin against the cold, grey emulsion paint seemed to shine under the artificial light. He couldn't place her age. Her face was full-featured, with high brow fringed by her golden hair and cheeks that gave her a proud profile. Her jaw was clean lined and softened by generous lips.  Though dirtied by dust, blood and flecks of brass, wood and stone, her stance now was of a bored youth waiting out a detention, shoulders relaxed and slouching though her tight abdominals seemed to defy this example. She caught his admiring eye and smiled again nervously. He had to remind himself that barely an hour before she had won a fight for her life with brutal strength.

Fisk  showed his hands, palms up. "Let's see those hands." She seemed to comprehend and held her hands out, mimicking him. When he pulled the blood-soaked bandages off he was both appalled and fascinated by what he found.

There had been a lot of blood, but it had already stopped flowing. The wounds were nowhere near as deep as he had expected, and in the hour or so since the battle they had coagulated shut completely. Furthermore as he carefully wiped away some of the gory powder residue from around the cuts he found the tissue was already mending. This was recovery he would have expected to find in perhaps two weeks' time. Fisk hesitated as to how to proceed. Stitching would be unnecessary at this rate, and it was never painless to do. He didn't much like the idea of having to poke this lady with a needle. He finished cleaning the wounds and no bleeding resumed, so he erred on the side of caution and bound them with fresh bandages. Fisk mentally tallied the attributes he had observed of these warrior women and added what he found here to the list. A situation that would have cost a normal person all of their fingers and then their neck, had resulted in mere shallow cuts - and to cap that off, the injuries were mending at a very accelerated rate.

"I know its sore, but you have to leave them be. They'll mend clean, I assure you. What you need now, is rest." He put his hands together and rested his head on them, miming sleep. She blinked and nodded at him, but when he gestured for her to leave, she looked confused.

"Ok, well you're welcome to sit here for a while." He said with a tired sigh. As he made for the door however he heard bare feet slapping on the metal floor and then her hand was holding his. He looked at her with a bemused frown, but at her full height she had a few inches on him and the emotion in her eyes was moving. It was hopeful optimism. It was desperate longing. It was vulnerable pleading. "What do you need?" Fisk demanded, trying to break the spell of her gaze.

But when he tried to recover his hand, she held on firmly. Then she was close to him, height level, studying him with her blue eyes, her lips parted. He could feel her breath. Her free hand touched his face, gently, as if fearful of electrocution or scolding. Fisk was transfixed with battling responses. He was tired and needed to rest. He was a stranger in a strange land, and here was a beautiful stranger. She wanted him, and he realised he wanted her too. But this was all too soon. Like a bile rising from within, an inhibition prevailed. What would his crew think if they saw him now? Her body nudged toward his, and he felt her thighs and bust make brush against him.

Her lips were trying to find his but he backed away until he hit the mess cabinets with a clatter of trays and pans. The noise broke their contact and she stood with shoulders hunched, as a cat might after causing mayhem on a shelf. Fisk collected the fallen trays and cradled them like a shield between his body and hers. Her eyes still sought his and when her shoulders relaxed and she stepped toward him he turned away to put the trays back. "I have to go now, excuse me." He mumbled, and left.

When he appeared on deck one of his ratings announced him and those around clicked to attention. Instinctively he reached for the peak of his cap, but it wasn't there. It must have fallen off when he clattered into the cabinets. As smoothly as he was able, he turned the errant gesture into a casual salute, dismissing his crew back to their duties. He ran an embarrassed hand through his hair with a deep sigh, and headed for shore where his troops were raking the battlefield for resources.

[ArkhamAsylum]

Great work.

[sgsg69]

Simply top-notch.............can't wait for the next chapter, love the interactions and simply details that paint such a visual masterpiece......Karma to you

[Machao6]

Cheers gents for your kind encouragement.

[Machao6]

An action of that magnitude would merit some form of response, and they would have to move quickly. It was possible that they had managed to strike quickly enough and cause enough confusion that the enemy had no time to broadcast any details, only that they had been attacked by a new party. Nevertheless, the supplies, wounded and salvage were gathered onto the surviving boats. The landing craft were commandeered as store ships, where the inventoried weapons and ammunition were hoarded. Among the arsenal of captured weapons were some of the truebloods' heavy support weapons - gatling cannons fed by backpack-mounted belts, Assault cannons firing 50mm shells with rotating ammunition selectors, and long-barrelled 20mm anti-matter rifles. The weapons were heavy to use and so Trenner and the other blackthumbs tried their hands at mounting the weapons as pintle weapons to supplement the boats, with some success. The golden-banded armour was made to fit their build, which was very bulky with muscle. It was power-assisted, not powered fully, and so trying it on, his men found it was more of a hindrance and absolutely useless on the confines of their little boats. Trenner insisted on keeping a set as a souvenir, but Fisk knew she would find time to take a closer look at it.

Among the supplies were unspent RPG launchers, grenades, rudimentary medical supplies and rations - enough only for a few days, which told them a lot about how far they were from the enemy's supply chain here. They also found some intelligence, including maps and briefing materials that Fisk ordered Arman, the Larinthian medical levy who had deserted to live in this village, to translate these articles. They pieced together  The highest ranking officer was a Nāvsarvān, a naval officer roughly junior to his own rank. This man had stayed on the corvette and was killed by the explosion when the missile ammunition went up  - they found his tattered jacket and one of the gunners kept the dead man's intact insignia as a souvenir.

Of the survivors there were twelve men - most wounded, some severely - and eight women. The amazons, as they called themselves, kept to themselves and fiercely guarded their little herd of men. More than once he had to intervene to turn his inquisitive men away and set their guests back at ease. They were given most of the Larinthian rations, which they ate unhappily, and before they set off a couple of the girls had caught a few fish and some foraged berries with their bare hands which they presented to the crews as meagre thanks.  The able bodied men were assigned to help Casey Trenner, who complained that teaching them to do anything useful would be more problematic than being left alone, but as luck would have it one turned out to have been a vehicle technician in his former life and between the two of them the third was brought up to speed on menial tasks.

Arman dutifully translated the collected documents, starting with the map and briefing notes that had come from the dead Truebloods. He said that some elements were written in a military cypher he claimed to know nothing of, but the bits he could read indicated that this was the last part of an operation called Ploughshare. It was a series of clearances along the length and breadth of the river delta, and according to the Area of Operations this village - which was called Ulani by their guests, but simply designated V.41 by the enemy - was the last riverside settlement to be cleared. It could therefore be assumed that the Larinthians had total control of the riverways beyond this point. However, Arman volunteered, there were other villages inland from the river that might not be affected. Though the women seemed very reluctant to talk about it, he intimated that other villages were aware of their neighbours going missing but that their respective council's had either elected to not get involved, or actively permitted the destruction, possibly as some kind of cruel bid to increase their own status or power. Arman suggested there might be Larinthian infiltrators who were part of a broader, long-term plan to pacify the region who had inserted themselves into amazon society by becoming "masters". When pressed as to what this meant, the conscript simply explained it was what the Amazons called an accepted man of their tribe, or village.

Any location of another base was carefully encoded, but using the maps and the inventory of the captured rations Fisk and his officers managed to gauge the distance and expected travel time that would put a base in a fairly certain region on the river, coincidentally at the neck of the Malaise's tributary rivers, the point from which they all separate. He was sure this would be the naval base command speculated about, big enough to hold oceangoing corvettes and maybe larger ships too. But the river was a bottleneck. The Larinthians would know trouble was coming if any form of warning had been given, and it would have to come from the river. Unless he could find a way for it not to.

The news about potential infiltration troubled Fisk. What a force of nature these people had proven to be, sadly expended and extinguished against the crushing weight of implacable Larinthian firepower. It made enough sense to be compelling however, as he couldn't imagine any sort of society - even one as primitive and disparate as this one - would fail to band together against a slave-taking enemy like Larinth. His initial conversation with Arman had painted a picture of a semi-feudal society, caste based, where men ruled as a council and took amazons as...lovers, guardians, vassals, concubines, whatever...in an elaborate series of rituals and trials. Decisions were hard to come by, even though they were simply resolved. There were checks and balances to their power through the Priestesses, and apparently the Princess, which each village has and guards fiercely and who has her own guards, that she names herself.  A Princess implied a Queen, but when Fisk pressed him on this point he simply shrugged and said he'd never met her or anyone who claimed to have if she existed. Every village had a Princess who was treated like a monarch, with her own retinue, who acted as a kind of self-correcting influence over the village. She and the Priestesses, served the justice of the village and had some power to influence, compel or even banish masters.  Arman seemed fairly dismissive of the rituals and the stringent caste system the amazons lived by. It was as if he was ruled by it but didn't believe in it. That made perfect sense from everything Fisk had seen of these broken deserters.

The shakedown was taking too long. His men were taking rest breaks but they needed to be underway as soon as possible, and Fisk snapped at his officers who in turn snapped at their crews to galvanise and bring in the harvest of salvage, tying and stowing equipment ready for travel. The Amazons and their male wards kept to themselves but he noted the men had scavenged their own supplies and the women were bearing abnormally large bundles or wicker baskets salvaged from the destruction. The able bodied were foraging or bringing in animals that had scattered from their enclosures, and one couple seemed to be harvesting what could be taken from vine plots and outlying orchards. Casey Trenner, his chief engineer, flagged him down as he prowled the riverbank looking for idlers.

"Cap, you should see this." She jerked an oily thumb at the broken corvette behind her. "Boat's called the Gorbeh, and she's definitely from around here."
Fisk noted the ships emblem, which showed a black cat snarling wearing a necklace of familiar Larinthian gold and blue serrated Usekh collar."How do you mean?"

She led him to the rear of the vessel where the half-sunken ship had settled on the river bed. She stopped in view of the ship's stern. "What do you see Cap?"

"It's the arse-end of a boat, Casey."

"She doesn't have any screws, Cap. This ship's a waterjet."

Fisk looked again at the vessel and realised it had no funnel." What?"

"This corvette is a waterjet. It picks up water and shunts it out at high velocity to generate thrust.  Size of this engine, I'm guessing it can hit fifty knots at least - though on this river, that'd be asking for trouble. Normally you see that kind of thing on small boats - like our size, for example - which are small enough to be manageable at high speed and wont roll over or stack into something before they can turn properly. But this tub? Shallow draught, straight runs up and down the river, she's never seen an ocean - no salt residue on the waterline, no barnacles, just a bunch of slimy reeds. On which note. Some of the stuff I've scraped off this hull is going to be bad news for our boats Cap. I'm talking tangled screws and blown pistons. These weeds aren't like anything we have back home, and I'm guessing the paddle on this boat was mainly to cut down on maintenance. They wouldn't even have to turn the boat much for this kind of work, though she's got thrusters at the bow for lateral manoeuvring. And this armament? Pretty heavy for any corvette class. My guess is they repurposed a corvette to serve as a riverine assault craft. She'd be top heavy on any kind of wave, but a river? Not so much. Looks like they went to town fitting a masticator to the jet intake to grind up any shit that gets sucked in from the river. Normally a waterjet would be highly susceptible to blockages, but I wouldn't want to be a fish getting sucked up into this thing."

Fisk felt more thunder clouding the skies of his thought as he contemplated the ramifications of these adjustments. He was presented here with proof that a Larinthian ship had been converted for use on this waterway - a waterway he was intending to sail further down - and none of this work would have been possible without heavy industry. A wharf or a shipyard even. He knew the enemy had overwhelming force, but a facility of that scale would be beyond the means of his small party to effectively damage. Could his commanders really have condemned him to such odds so blindly? He thanked Trenner for the observations and ordered her to extract anything useful from the carcass of the stricken Corvette.

The Amazons seemed to favour pyres for their dead. They also were adamant that no men, not even their own, should touch the bodies. Fisk watched with some disdain as they piled bodies together -those that could be gathered whole -  neatly, but piled nevertheless . They erected makeshift bonfires over them using the broken timbers and bamboo walls and whatever shattered trees were at hand. More interestingly, he watched one of the women grind a palm-sized chunk of wood into a dust merely by rubbing her hands together, fine enough to take on the wind where it spilled from her fists. This kindling was lit from the vigorous friction between a stick and a log, which the amazons seemed to have little problem at all with making.  Their pyres lit, the women seemed to watch the smoke rising into the sky for a time before returning to their menfolk, who watched from afar. There didn't seem to be any speaking, but three or four of the women paused longer and Fisk could see from their body language that they were crying. He saw his saviour among them. The others who seemed to have men to return to made a brave showing of stoicism.

As the last of his crew scrabbled tiredly aboard their boats and the refugees recalled their mourners, there was only one direction he could go. Forwards.

[ArkhamAsylum]

Fantastic continuation. I am looking forward to the next part. Great job.

[Machao6]

Although the Landing Craft made for excellent store ships, Fisk wanted one of them up front, crewed by a handpicked team of four, including one of the Larinthian deserters so the boat could respond accordingly to any challenges. The deserter could not be separated from his amazonian protector and lover, and so they left it to him to parse the inflammatory ruse of having her pose as a captured trophy of war - to be restrained whenever an enemy ship was approaching. Dressed in scavenged Larinthian uniforms, they would be able to pass any hostile traffic without raising suspicion, especially since they were coming from a scheduled operation. Even the serial numbers would check out. Thus, Fisk would have eyes ahead of his small flotilla. A radio was taken from one of the PT boats to the Landing ship so they could communicate.

There was an additional boon among the captured enemy equipment in the form of a Larinthian radio set - completely functional and intact. The other set had been unceremoniously destroyed when an amazon smashed its owner to the floor with it still strapped to his back, but it did yield spare batteries. This radio was keyed in to Larinthian traffic, and so Fisk had some inkling of what was afoot thanks to Arman's translations. He caught himself wondering about the reliability of the deserter, but reminded himself that whatever Arman had been, he was now hunted by Fisk's own enemies, and he seemed grateful for tasks that carried him away from the slaughter and devastation of his old new life.

They sailed on. The river twisted and turned and the jungle was an impenetrable wall either side, and sometimes overhead at narrower points or from marooned outcrops festooned with growth. They passed squat reptilian creatures lurking in the mudbanks in gangs, leaping fish that somersaulted and others that glided like bats, scooping insects out of the air as they travelled. Bulbous protrusions turned out to be bathing mammals of enormous stature, lumbering slowly about and watching the flotilla pass with only mild interest. There was commotion once as one of the amazons leaped from the high flank of their stolen landing craft in a perfect dive, and swam to the riverbank. Fisk had assumed she was leaving, but the others seemed to be cheering her on, and it was only when the mud writhed and reared up at her approach that he realised what was happening. The girl was raven haired and pale, and contrasted against the beast she was - apparently - swimming to confront. Whatever it was seemed truly hideous, slathered in wet mire and elongated but with four short limbs that were clawed. It had a short, powerful snout full of gnashing teeth and seemed to combine the agility of a cat with the articulation of a snake. It rose from the mud at the girl's approach and hissed, but as she swam directly for it, its reaction escalated. It darted into the river, serpentine jinking through the water toward her, and the splashes of her crawl stroke stopped as the combatants engaged.

It lunged forward and the amazon snatched its throat in one strong hand. Her compatriots on the lander cheered. The creature wrapped itself around the girl, draping over her arm, her neck, her torso, and Fisk could see its body pulsating and writhing as it began to squeeze. The girl clawed at the thing's coils with her free hand, finding the tail and starting from there, but the beast dug in with its clawed feet and scraped red gouges in her flank. She pulled the tail and feet completely away, holding head and tail at opposite ends as if tying a knot around herself and the noise of the cheering reached a crescendo. Her arms were knotted with muscular tension, shaking as she controlled the thing and Fisk wondered what on earth would possess anyone to jump into a body of water where these creatures dwelled.

Then she went under. The cheering subsided, and for a minute there was only tumult and the occasional flash of her fair skin in the dark water. The thing's head erupted from the water, her hand still clutched around its throat, and it gnashed its teeth. It could breathe, but she was still below. Then, slowly, shudderingly, the head was pulled below by the amazon's iron grip. The water went still.

Then the girl burst from below with a triumphant bellow, flicking her sodden hair out of her face and holding the creature limply by its neck where it hung, the coils sloughing off her. To Fisk's horror, she brought it back to the lander where the small crowd seemed to be delighted, then she swam back out again with a small net and rummaged in the mud where it had been minding its own business. She found what she was looking for and loaded the thing's eggs into her net to bring back.

"Dinner." Arman muttered cheerfully. The Larinthian deserter was shorter than Fisk by a few inches, standing maybe 5"7. His swarthy face was beginning to show the creases of age, though his shaggy hair and beard were pure black. He seemed healthy save for a few scrapes and nicks, and his mouth climbed at one side to give him a constantly amused expression that Fisk assumed was his natural one. It was a far cry from the defeated man he had met earlier.

The sailor blanched. "Rather you than me."

"It looks uglier than my old sergeant, but it tastes delicious. Slow roasted over an open fire, the meat falls away in long, thin strips. Enough to feed us all, and let your crew try some if they're feeling adventurous? With the eggs, we can make omelettes."

"Seems like a risky way to eat."

"Round here that's the equivalent of fast food. Not everything here is willing and able to kill you, but most of it is. Hunting like that keeps the girls sharp and gives us small victories to celebrate. Don't rain on it."

"When were you planning on cooking it?" Fisk inquired, feeling exactly like he was about to rain on the parade.

"When we stop of course. Even I know you don't want a fire on a boat." Arman met Fisk's eye in the silence that followed.

"We have a long way to go my friend. We won't be stopping for days, potentially. We won't get an open fire. Will it fry do you think? We can use the galley cookers. Maybe throw some of that Larinthian rice in with it, make a stir fry?"

"I'm sure that will work." Arman grinned. "It would be more enjoyable to stop, but...you are on a mission. You have a schedule to keep, I assume?"

"Always." Fisk admitted tersely. "I'm already behind."

"And we are grateful. We have nowhere and no-one else. We will fight for you, mister Fisk. You should consider naming one of our maidens, four of them survived."

"What?"

"Amazons are nameless until a scion - a man - gives them one. Theirs is a life of constant training, trial and testing until they are named. Once named, they serve their master for life, fighting to protect him and to enact his will in the village council."

"Why though? They don't need us to do their heavy lifting for them, do they?"

The Larinthian spread his hands and scoffed. "I once heard my Sergeant say they were a slave race. Since I named her Jacinta has done all I asked without complaint." He seemed to reflect wistfully on that before adding; "That is not true, when there is a complaint she is very stubborn, but that is very rare." He looked away thoughtfully before continuing. "They have a religion, a myth of creation. They believe they were created by some ancient scholar called Octavius, who was apparently a master alchemist. Their Goddess, Vitalia, apparently formed a bond with this fellow and when Lethys - whom the Larinthians worship, interestingly enough - spread his shadow over the land he tried to use Octavius to create slaves for himself. But Vitalia protected him, and the story has it that the two deities are locked in combat even now. During their struggle Octavius used the blood of Vitalia or some such to craft the Amazons to fight the followers of Lethys. So, they believe they were literally created to protect men like Vitalia protected Octavius, and they believe that it is only through the guidance of similar scions  - who are waiting to receive the blessings of Vitalia in the form of the amazon they name - that they can prevail for their Goddess."

Fisk's lip curled in distaste. "That is an odd culture. Believing you were created to protect or oppose something, I can understand. Believing you were created to serve though? It sounds abusive to me. Are you sure you're not simply transferring your own cultural bias over theirs?"

Arman laughed. "From slave to master eh? I suppose it is quite a jump for me. I like to think I understand somewhat the difference between love and slavery."

"Love? Where does love come into it?"

"You will see. I hope you will see. The Sacred Bond can easily be abused, and I am sure that those slave-driving fucks are eagerly researching how that can be done. They will be torturing captives, running tests, dissecting the bodies. But I would never be without my Jacinta and I think that is true to the Bond, however it may seem to you."

"I have a wife and child back home."

"I had two," Arman declared proudly "before I was summoned. I was a haematologist in Perlitos before conscription. They have probably been taken now. My sons are probably old enough to be drafted by those bastards."

Fisk gave the Larinthian a sidelong glance. "How did you stay here, knowing that? How long has it been since you saw your family?"

"Eight years. I was drafted, trained, and posted to the 1363rd and then we came here. I remember the column I marched with. You couldn't see the end of it from the middle. Rows of tanks and trucks loaded with men. By the end of the first year I'd had my hands inside most of the survivors. They just threw us at the jungle and expected we would make it...habitable. The wildlife, the plantlife, even the terrain itself here is set against us. The smallest scratch from the wrong thorn can turn gangrenous or burn right the way through a hand. I've seen a mudpool swallow a tank, the stranded crew completely helpless as it slowly succumbed and the ropes we threw to rescue them were swallowed up too, as if the very ground were alive. A squad of men heaving on a rope with a poor soul on the end just to keep them from sinking. The mud won."

"But what about your family?"

"A draft is indefinite, and besides, life expectancy is two years in a normal theatre. Here? It is less. But I was safe. I worked in the rear echelon mostly, and I have watched bases rise over my time into sprawling complexes. There are tunnels underneath - I once heard that at the base near Boa's Bend they tunnelled into some kind of den of giant insects, and troops were sent there to flush it out. More and more were sent in, and then they simply sealed it off."

"...and your family?" Fisk didn't hide the irritation in his voice.

"Ah, my wives...they were both good Larinthian wives. They would have mourned my loss for just about as long as it took them to find others after dividing my estate. And my sons will have been raised to forget me like good Larinthian sons, and think only of their own futures in the brave and glorious Legions."

"So, you don't care at all?"

"Of course I did!" Arman snapped, then repeated it as if to reassure himself. "I did. But no more. I cannot go back. They will not remember me, they will call me a coward for returning, and that assumes I make it through this jungle and that army to get home. I think this is my life now. And thanks to you, I have it still. The things I have seen since I came here...they are terrible, and amazing. It is as if my old life were a lie I was telling myself in order to cope with subjugation. Here, I am free."

Fisk digested this information with unease. Something about the man seemed transparent, superficial. It wasn't that he was lying. It was as if the things he were talking about were being spoken of too casually. Arman seemed completely disconnected from the events of his life, even though his face showed the emotions of memory as he talked. Fisk pressed for more. "So how exactly did you get out?"

"I was called upon to stand in for a field medic due to some logistical mess. We were in the Bird's Foot base - the place where the river begins to delta off in three directions. I fled the Legion when the column I was with was ambushed by Amazons two years ago. I was tracked down and brought back to Ulani. It was Jacinta who captured me two days later. I had run and hid well, I knew the patrol routes and I knew where they feared to go. But I was a fool. I was caught in a snare trap and spent most of a day hanging upside down. I passed out. When I came too it was because Jacinta had found me and brought me back to the village. A Priestess, Leona, asked me why I should not be killed. I told them I was dead wherever I went so they should just do what they want with me. Before the day was out I watched twelve beauties fighting for the right to be named by me. My Jacinta won of course.  Imagine that! I thought I was dreaming."

"So they just let you in? No questions asked?"

"I think they were convinced of my allegiances - that is to say, they knew I was done with the Legions. Or perhaps I was on probation, or they felt that they could control me through the council. There was something...although the trials of combat for me took place the day I arrived,  I was taken to see the Princess, Hera. Blindfolded of course. No master gets to see the Princess. The guards left us and she spent a long time walking around me and then commanded me to speak."

"What, just speak?"

"Well, where would I start? I asked her if she wanted me to talk about myself. She said nothing. So I told her my name, my job, my drafting, my..." Arman shook his head and scoffed again in amusement "...I told her everything about myself. Why I left. That I was scared I would never leave. That I knew I had no future other than in the Legion. Maybe that is how they knew I would not betray them."

Fisk mulled this possibility before new questions arose. "So you must have known the Larinthians would come calling. You've followed them up the river from the south side, hopping from base to base?" He made a mental note to grill the deserter about these bases at another opportunity.

"Yes. I knew they planned to clear the river, that is the strategy they settled on after the first year since it was easier going. I tried to convince the village to move, but in the council there were about thirty of us. Only seven believed me. It was our amazons versus theirs, and although the fight was hard fought, we were not enough to prevail." At this admission Arman seemed genuinely remorseful. "It wasn't down to the amazons, not really. They just fight because the Priestesses say that's  how it has to be. It was my job to convince the others. And I failed. Now you can fit the entire village in a dinky little boat like that." The pseudo-smirk on his face was gone again.

Fisk decided Arman was genuine, if oddly disconnected from his past life. Considering the events he supposed it was natural. "You'll have to tell me more about the way the village came to decisions, but not right now. Go and get that thing and cut it up and see if you can show us what the cooking is like here."

"Yes. I think that's a good idea. Let me see what I can do."

The boats slowed, but did not stop while the feast took place. Some of the men produced beer and spirits they had squirreled aboard, but Fisk snapped that they needed to stay alert and so the alcohol was reluctantly put away. The thing - which turned out to be called a Rake Eel - tasted as good as Arman had promised and went down well curried with rice and jungle fruits. The men were in a celebratory mood after their brilliant fight, and the refugees were eager to show their gratitude to the Myrmadons. Some of Fisk's men produced mouth-harps and whistles and struck up a tune, but again he had to step in and curtail the merriment for fear of losing focus.

Bruised, but not daunted, they amused themselves with card games and inevitably, flirting with the amazons. The male refugees weathered the advances on their respective companions politely, but the maidens Arman had spoken of - the women who had not been named - quickly became the highlight of the evening. Fisk had to return angrily when he heard drumming and music once again to find that they were dancing to the delight of his baying crews. After he had shouted down the music and called an end to the party, the slender blonde who saved his life rose from the back of the room, walked right up to him, and placed his captain's hat on his head with a kiss. The crew jeered and cackled, and Fisk went beet red.

It was but the first inkling that having the refugees along might prove to be problematic, though for now his men seemed to be in great spirits considering they were the farthest Allied unit behind enemy lines. There was a long running superstition about women at sea, as well as the myths about sirens and mermaids. Fisk realised there would be social problems compounding his command soon enough, but the presence of the refugees also reminded him that his mission was more than military now. He would have to learn how to incorporate or adapt to these people if there would ever be a working alliance between them. Night had fallen while the feast took place, and although they all needed rest, Fisk decided the going had been quiet enough to allow himself and the majority of others to get a little sleep while the first watch resumed. 

[ArkhamAsylum]

Great work.

[Machao6]

<I've gotten a bit carried away with this section so if it seems like talk of luscious amazon muscle babes has dropped off I promise there's some coming. This particular character has a bit more ground to cover than the others and some of the bits I point out here will matter greatly later on.>

He was woken by the engines cutting out. His mind was so accustomed to the noise and his body so used to their constant vibration, that for them to abruptly stop was a tangible event. When he headed out on deck it was still dark, and a heavy fog surrounded the boat. He could see why Kitchener had stopped. He could just make out the shape of the boat behind in the gloom.
"Anything to declare?" He asked as he stepped up to the bridge.

Kitchener turned anxiously. "Some air traffic. Helicopters. Visual only, we've switched off our radar. We probably register on theirs but they must assume we're friendly as nobody has been over to inspect us. Arman said the navy and the airforce don't talk much to each other."

"Any contact on the radio?"

"They've been asking for reports from the Gorbeh. Arman said that signal interference was very common here, so they might not assume the worst until much later. He said they'd probably wait until the ship had passed its due return date before starting to worry."

"Where is Arman?"

"Sleeping. I felt we had best stop, since we can barely see the bow in this fog." Kitchener pointed with his cigarette at the impenetrable miasma.

Fisk shook his head. "We're on the clock. We have to reconnoitre that base before they send something back down the river to find us. This is the best window we're going to get, and I'm not stopping because of the bloody weather. Ahead slow."

The first officer nodded and gave the command. The engine gurgled back into life, and the searchlight scanned ahead for any signs of the approaching river bank. The other boats followed suit, and he had to trust that they would all keep sight of the vessel in front. So they travelled at walking speed, and more than once Fisk had to wrench the wheel away to scrape against some unseen log afloat down the river, or a ridge of rock that threatened to hole the keel. It took two hours for the fog bank to clear, scoured away by the blazing dawn sun. When it did the river looked completely different - wider, wide enough that every boat in his little flotilla could sail abreast with space for more. The land too seemed to open up, the jungle respectfully waiting further out from the banks as they sailed through the middle of a valley. Ahead of them high, forested mountains rose and were criss-crossed with waterfalls all feeding this mighty deluge.

Fisk kept his speed constantly low and scanned the area with binoculars. There was a lot of traffic here. Great, flat barges worked in the flows, forming a supply chain from one side of the estuary to the other. The loaded ones were laden with stone, ore, crates and vehicles. Sections of metalwork and concrete. Further inspection indicated why - a bridge was under construction, massively ambitious, and wide enough to serve as a highway allowing lanes of traffic to pass. This was a Larinthian base alright, and a permanent wharf hosted three more corvettes like the Gorbeh and several smaller, faster boats. PT boats like his Pikes¸ armed tugs some of which were helping the barges from straying away. A strong-looking torpedo net lay across the estuary and seemed to serve as a failsafe to catch any barges that were overcome by the current.

Buildings encroached on the jungle which showed signs of fresh clearances and the sound of machinery, saws, and drilling echoed across the valley. There were fortifications here too - low bunkers on the shoreside like silent sentinels, and high watchtowers. He could even see a submarine, but what that was doing here or how it had arrived was anyone's guess. Construction craft were moored beyond the military vessels, their tool-arms poised like sleeping crabs. A dredger worked in the estuary and was the closest vessel, scraping the bottom out and loading the sloppy result onto barges that came and went like eager servants. Cranes moved on both sides of the river, around the wharf, loading and unloading and moving great segments of bridgework into place.

Arman, roused by the bright sunlight washing the boat, emerged blearily on the bridge. He wiped his face and took a deep breath of the cleaner, easier air in the estuary and took in the view, recognising the workings. "The Bird's Foot" he declared with disgust. "There was no bridge when I was there. "

Fisk was taken aback by the sight of industry taming this wild land, the magnitude of the Larinthian presence in so isolated a locale. The buildings and habitation climbed the foothills and hid behind copses of vegetation. A Zephyr transport came in to land, its four VTOL thrusters angled to cushion its fall to a pad, obscured behind a low rise. Two gunship escorts followed suit.

Kitchener broke the aghast silence. "We don't have the firepower..."

Fisk ignored him and returned to studying the vessels busy in the estuary. As he watched he saw the barges were for the most part unpowered, punted along by tired-looking amazon captives. Each was rigged with some sort of harness that looked like the kind of apperatus used in hospitals, or in athletic trials to measure pulses and respiration. Sturdy-looking metal frames with offshoots leading to a circular paddles laid symmetrically around the body. The harnesses all connected to an armoured powerpack on the victim's back with a small antennae rising from its top. At each bank of the estuary stood a watchtower, but these were poorly placed to deter water-borne assailants. Instead, Fisk realised, the bored-looking Trueblood's manning these outposts were scanning the barges for signs of disobedience. As he watched one of them noticed something on the barges; an amazon had collapsed and her barge was drifting errantly towards the torpedo net . When Fisk looked back at the tower the Larinthian noble had produced a hand-held device with an antennae on it and pressed something on it. There was no alarm or sound of any kind, but when he panned back to the amazon she was writhing around spasmodically for a few moments until she wearily forced herself to stand and, desperately, began to heave the barge away from the net with her long punting staff, which Fisk noted was as thick as a man's leg. The Larinthian in the watchtower was watching her get back to work, but when he took his viewfinder from his eyes he caught a glimpse of something else. When he put them back, he was looking directly at Fisk.

Fisk dropped his binoculars and seized the wheel, signalling for the other boats to follow suit. They were still over a kilometer away and if they made speed now they could hoodwink pursuers in the Malaise. The delta separated  behind them into three prongs that ran off from the estuary, which then divided and criss-crossed into the Malaise they had travelled through. It was simple enough to head back the way they came, but Fisk felt exposed as might a stranger at a house party and accelerated. The captured radio came alive with challenges and Arman warned they had been noticed.

The first shot thumped out. Then, a screaming shell passed to send a plume of water high ahead of them. Looking back Fisk saw gunsmoke from one of the bunkers, and then noticed a corvette was leaving its mooring and some smaller boats were rushing out ahead of it.

"Split up!" Fisk ordered, signalling to both boats for emphasis. Accordingly the PT boats began to drift apart as they made for a different channel, and a brace of heavy shells struck water between them. The two Landing craft however were being left behind, and so Fisk circled around.

"What are you doing?!" Kitchener exclaimed.

"They're sitting ducks without us. What was the point in saving them from the Larinthians only to deliver them straight back again here? Guns, guns, guns!"

At his command the weapons on the PT boat opened fire. At this range they were largely ineffective, but the 45mm cannon and pintle-mounted machineguns forced the enemy small craft to divert course and evade, while the captured Trueblood weapons systems waited for closer targets. The initial attack wave disrupted, Fisk righted course for the Corvette. "Ready Torpedoes!"

Sensing disaster the Larinthians began to concentrate fire, and a hail of bullets hammered off the armoured shell of the boat, causing Fisk, Arman and Kitchener to duck and flinch while some of the crew were less fortunate. One poor soul struggling with the bow tubes was shot away by a corvette's 50mm shell, leaving his severed arms holding onto the attitude lever. The bunkers fired in tandem to send a gout of water rushing across the boat and leaving a wave that sent the boat skyward for a moment before it crashed back to the surface, engines roaring to the fullest. A slight adjustment, and the Corvette was still ahead, frantically turning to face him and narrow its profile.

"We've no attitude of attack!" One of his torpedomen screamed, but Fisk didn't care. The torpedoes didn't have to hit.

"Ready on my mark..."

The Corvette fired a hasty salvo of missiles that lanced up and outward like an opened fan. "Clear for flares!" Fisk roared, poising his thumb over the appropriate switch. The small boats were chasing him now and his gunners and theirs played a deadly, frantic game of chicken as their courses aligned and their speeds matched. The craft may as well have been stationary for all the adjustment that needed to be made, and only the unpredictable turmoil of their own progress through the stirring waters presented any ballistic variable. Sailors were smacked down by tearing bullets from all directions, and others cringingly took their place at each mounting. The deck was awash with blood as Fisk finally gave his order to the last able-bodied torpedoman who cowered behind the long explosives as if he were any safer there.

"Release!"

The man heaved on his lever and then rushed to the other to do the same. The torpedoes leaped forward and Fisk was already turning as the Corvette's small arms opened fire, presenting a veritable wall of fire that turned the water to grass-like blades around his boat and pattered off its iron skin in showering sparks. He was close enough to hear the General Quarters alarm on the larger ship as he thundered around and away, while the Corvette had to turn awkwardly aside to narrowly avoid the closest torpedo. Now Fisk thumbed his flare catch, and the dispensers at the back of the ship fired plumes of red projectiles that smoked and dazzled behind.  The Corvette's missiles, on their downward home run, were waylaid and lanced in conflicting directions to crash and explode in the water behind. Beyond that wall of water, Fisk raced up behind the Landing Craft which were now heading down the rightmost toe of the "Bird's Foot".

Fisk realised now that there was silence on his boat save for a few snapping ricochets. His crew were mostly dead or wounded, and the pintle guns were silent. Kitchener was shot in the arm and clutched the wound miserably in one corner of the bridge. Arman was lying on the floor covering his head with his hands. Trenner, he hoped, was stowed safely below where the guts of the boat were still working hard for them. The smaller craft seemed to have lost their stomach for a fight as most had peeled off to lick their wounds, but one was following and its forward turret - a twin-linked machinegun - was battering away at his bridge. Frustrated at the difficulty of the slim target Fisk presented, the Larinthian gunner shifted fire onto the landing craft ahead - the slower of the two being full of their supplies and the refugees, many seriously wounded. The shots produced guttering sparks on the metal flank of the landing craft but Fisk could see pink mist where there were penetrations, and steered to put himself between the two.

The Larinthian craft was as fast as his own, and he made no headway. Instead he angled his vessel so that it would clip theirs if they refused to move. He was almost there when the enemy noticed and swerved urgently away, but this broke the gunner's line of fire and allowed Fisk to get alongside the Lander, which was foundering and starting to sink. An amazon, the black haired beauty who had wrestled with the rake eel earlier, clutched onto his boat as he slowed, holding the two together while others began to move the wounded and some of the heavy bushels of supplies. 

"Arman! Kitchener! Get those people aboard now! Leave the loot!"

He could hear the enemy's machinegun starting up again and bullets cracked overhead and swept one of the amazons into the water with a gout of blood and a scream. Fisk rushed to the aft gun mount - a mirror image of the Larinthian's twin-linked automatic - and returned fire. The Larinthian was aiming at the soft targets, the people crossing from boat to boat, and Fisk was unimpeded drawing aim on their gunner and killed him, and he stitched a line of red-hot holes on one of their guns for good measure. The Larinthian turned away and he could see a crewman scrambling across the bow to take the gun for a new run while others foundered with hand held small arms that fired wide and wild.   

The boat was suddenly crowded again as the amazons and their injured menfolk struggled aboard. The fallen amazon in the water was being hauled over the side as Fisk rushed back to the wheel and slapped the throttle forward. "Kitchener, get on the aft mount! Arman, keep everyone's heads down!"

"I'm trying, but Carlita's going berserk!"

Fisk risked a half-second glance back to where Arman was pulling on the arm of an incensed Amazon, with one foot on the aft boards, already wounded and screaming angrily in foreign tongues at the turning small craft. The bunkers fired again and this time the lander scraping starboard aft went up like so many splinters, blasting everyone to their feet. Fisk was throw onto the wheel and the boat spun in a tight circle until he groggily recovered, by which time their pursuer had caught up to them. He could hear Kitchener cursing as someone, presumably the same amazon, started up again and the whole mess continued even while the Larinthian boat started to aim low for his engines. Desperately, Fisk turned sharply to cross his path, forcing either a collision or a break of his line of fire. Instead they both got something unexpected.

His boat turned perpendicular to the enemy, but as their bow nudged the stern of his own craft, the amazon straining to get at the enemy leaped from the Myrmadon boat to the Larinthian. Fisk only noticed as he turned the tables on the enemy to come at them from behind, and saw that they were too scared to manoeuvre. They were in arms on their deck or diving overboard as the amazon  smashed through them with horrific strength, immense blows punching through bodies or knocking men flying off into the water. She laid into the boat itself, bringing her hands down in rupturous strikes, seizing welded plates and wrenching them loose. As she snarled triumphantly Fisk recognised her as the girl who snagged the Rake Eel the day before, and saw the same terrible beauty he had seen in his quiet blonde guardian. Then the boat mounted the embankment, and exploded in the jungle.

There was a moment's shocked silence, broken only by the quiet moans of his wounded passengers or a few sobbing gasps. Then the Corvette fired another rush of missiles skyward. Fisk gunned the engines and noted the faltering, unhealthy tone they made now as he committed to the right-hand fork and the second Lander ahead. His boat was smoking from singed perforations and the smell of diesel oil was everywhere. If he could just make the next boat, the precious cargo could be transferred and he could use the damaged boat to decoy any further pursuers. "Trenner! Engines!"

He heard a muffled "...on it, cap!" from below and smiled that she was safe. "Try now!"

With a spluttering roar the boat surged back to life and gained on the Lander. Fisk glanced behind and saw that the missiles were ready to begin their final approach, and so he ordered the deck clear. "Everyone forward, now!" They were no longer under small arms fire so there was as much safety in standing on the prow as there would be anywhere else. The amazons hemmed in the menfolk, including Kitchener and Arman, preventing them from being knocked overboard by the shuddering motion of the bow. The Lander, sensing his intention, had slowed to help him catch up.
Fisk fired his flares. Nothing happened. He looked back in horror to see the missiles hurtling toward him and screamed at the top of his lungs; "JUMP!" He waved forward with his arms as if pushing them off his prow from afar. The amazons seemed to take only a moments hesitation to realise what needed doing and dragged their human net into the water while Fisk wrenched the wheel away from the Lander and spun the boat toward the missiles. "Trenner! Get out!"

Trenner poked her head out from the engine compartment, saw the missiles coming for them, and ducked back inside."Just a second!"

She did something to the engines as his rev counter redlined and the boat leaped forward. As she made to disembark the first missile plunged into the water just shy of the stern and exploded, lifting the boat up and forward. Fisk and Trenner were thrown out of the boat screaming. As he plummeted toward the water the other missiles caught up to the airborne boat, deafening detonations tearing and scorching.

Time slowed as shock numbed his senses. He knew he was falling, he knew he was injured, he knew he had to take a deep breath for the water that was closing toward him. It was only as he neared the surface that he saw her as a reflection. No, just underneath, on the other side of that mirror. The pale girl with shining gold hair splaying out eerily, arms reaching toward him. Her eyes wide, watching his. Her mouth open to receive him as he closed in faster, and faster.

He knew he was about to hit the water, but he never felt the impact.

[ArkhamAsylum]

Fantastic continuation. Great work. I am eagerly looking forward to the rest.

[sgsg69]

Take your time, this is an excellent story, well developed and quite the interesting read. Each chapter is visually stunning........KARMA x 100

[Jaguar]

Great work, excellent pacing, dramatic scenes. 

Don't rush, take your time, go at your own pace.  You're writing a classic here.   


K++