Chapter 10 - Full Ahead

'Festus, Festus, you awake?' Quincy kicked a leg at his bound partner, who grunted angrily in response. Tape had been fastened around his mouth, their captors having tired of his smart remarks about mothers and sexual conquests. 'That’s good, I think we know where we are.'

'Quiet back there!' yelled a guard, driving the horse on. The cart tumbled across the dirt path, snow occasionally falling in droves from idle branches to soak the two captives.

'So,' Quincy lowered his voice, ‘We’ve been heading east for two hours now, that’s got to be towards the front.’

Festus raised an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, I have no idea why either, could be that they’re that stupid.’

‘Say another word, and I’ll have you taped up too!’

‘Sorry!’ Quincy returned to a hushed voice. ‘Idiots, all of them. We’ll run into some friendlies soon.’

For another few hours, the group travelled at an agonizingly slow pace, with no sign of any 'friendlies', other than squirrels and deer. The entourage consisted of eight men, including the agents, three of whom were armed, spoke little, and seemed unfamiliar with their weapons, while the other two seemed more local and were the ones doing the bulk of the work. The last was the quietest, sat at the back with the agents, speaking out only once to answer a question.

‘Where are we headed to, chief?’ asked a local.

‘You’ll not stop moving, until we tell you to.’ the voice was muffled under a shawl.

Chief, there was only one place where a title like that existed.

Quincy studied the 'Chief', who wore thick clothing, wrapped around in multiple layers of scarves, jackets and a hood. Not an inch of skin to be seen, alluding the agents to nationality, age or even sex. Still, the 'Chief' part alluded to a male, and that’s what Quincy stuck with. Oddly enough, the cart was loaded full of crates with Silverian logos upon them, the mission briefing had said nothing about that. Now that he thought about it, the mission briefing had scarcely told the pair anything. The rest of the travel was spent in silence until coming upon, as they had expected, a checkpoint.

‘Ha-LT!’ called a soldier, clearly too young judging from how his voice broke halfway. Embarrassed, he tried making up for it by taking longer, meaningful strides, the rest of his team sniggering from the safety of a makeshift tent. Ahead, a bar blocked the path.

‘Papers, now!’ the soldier demanded, a gloved hand waiting.

‘Uh, chief?’ the local looked back. Waiting a heartbeat, the Chief motioned to one of the walking guards who produced the identification.

The soldier took some time to check, his team taking their attention to a game of blackjack. Quincy dared not speak out, the barrel of a gun had been trained on him the whole time, the Chief’s hand was of a golden-brown colour, a foreigner as he had expected. The agents were forced down below the boundary of the cart, invisible from the sides, though a detailed search would find, and save them. But the soldier had not realised, and was about to make his way back to lift the bar when Festus let out a suppressed yell.

'What was that?' the soldier asked, and unslung his rifle immediately, cocking the bolt. Already, the armed guards had been a red flag, yet these days merchants were hiring muscle, and it was not exactly an uncommon sight. 'Sir, disembark, guys get over here!'

He turned to signal for help, and received a bullet in the back of the head in return. The other soldiers were ready before he hit the ground, firing and killing a guard, veterans from the front perhaps used to shooting first, asking later.

‘Get this cart moving!’ the chief unflung garments, revealing a woman with golden skin and tribal tattoos across her gaunt face. She fired her pistol and struck true, as the locals whipped the horses into movement.

‘What about-’

‘They’ll be fine, move!’ Festus kicked outwards, knocking the pistol from her hand. She was prepared, and uncovered a wicked blade from the layers she was wearing. The edge was at the throat of Quincy at a moment, and Festus hesitated. Then, he kicked again, this time at the side of the cart. Rotting wood gave way, and a second kick drove Festus out, and down a hill. In seconds, Quincy was hurtling, gaining distance between himself and his partner, whose face was the last thing he saw until the ground broke under him, icy water claiming his body.

{---}

Baker Company trickled in slowly, squad by squad. Irish had failed to keep order, the nature of his commands vague and inbetween. Squad 5 was proudly the first to enter the ridge, Simon egging on his comrades to escape the wrath of the Captain, only to fall into the clutches of another. Lager was not pleased at all.

'Your Company’s currently disorganised, and not in one place?' he asked, shocked.

‘Yes, Sir, Captain Irish was making us bivouac in an artillery hotspot-’

‘Son, this ridge is a 24/7 artillery range.’ as if to prove his point, a shell landed overhead and shook the bunker they stood in, ‘You’ll get used to it. More to the point, where’s the rest of the bloody Company, there’s meant to be six, and I only see four, Irish is not amongst them.’

The bunker’s lights flicked, another explosion. Dust came down in a fine mist.

‘You know what, how about we get your guys some field action?’ Lager beckoned for them to follow, trudging out of the safety of the command post and reaching the top of the ridge. ‘You’re now temporary company commander, Simon was it? I’ve yet to see the other squads, but the fact alone that you guys were the first here speaks volumes, that highway’s been struck hard over the past week.’

Lager struck up a smoke, and Leros was tempted to smack it out of his mouth. A lit cigarette was a tell-tale sign that could mean life or death, and this Captain wasn’t proving himself to be survivable.

‘Last transmission I got from Irish was yesterday night, we narrowed it down to that field over there.’ Lager blew smoke towards an almost swampy area. ‘Said he was under attack, not much else though, no troop estimates, strength, nada.’

‘Last night?’

‘Yeah, they could all be dead, for all I know, I need to make sure, though, we’ve needed men desperately these past months, and I can’t allow even two squads to slip. Get your Company ready, and move out at dawn.’

Simon opened his mouth to protest, but the Captain had already slipped back into the bunker. Around him, the restless remains of Baker Company idled, 4 squads, 40 men in total. They looked at him expectedly.

‘You heard the man, prep for recce, three hours.’ Simon was already in motion, ‘Ollie, Leros, I want you two to scout ahead, got your portable radio?’

Leros patted her side pouch twice.

‘Good, I want any information you can get, we’re going in this blind.’ Leros saluted and fired off, and Ollie turned to follow, instead a hand caught his arm, Simon had his brows creased, worried, ‘Stay safe out there, alright, come back in one piece.’

‘Don’t worry, we will.’

{---}

The waves were calmer than ever, skies unclouded and firm. Seven warships formed a spearhead against a line of tankers and cargo ships, and at the head of it was the Comet, gliding through the water. Admiral Constantine kept watch from his tower, hourly reports flooding in about placid seas, and offers to shoot at seagulls, which were duly denied. The operation was going well, though the chance of anything going bad was close to nil. Sometimes, though, old boiler engines needed cooling, and the convoy stopped every now and then.

Like now, as Constantine called the halt, and the Protego went about dissipating the heat from their engine. Above, birds squawked, and unleashed torrents of white explosives. The Admiral seeked shelter in the command room, taking tea from an attendant and listening to the conversations of men around him.

‘I don’t like standing still like this.’ said one, ‘Gives me the creeps.’

‘Me neither, but what can you do? Most of these ships have been round since I was a lad.’

‘Alright, Gramps, they can hurry it up, though can’t they?’

‘Give ‘em some time, nothing wrong with a little elbow grease.’

‘Those crews will need a lot more than just elbow grease.’ an AA operator said, binoculars hanging around his neck.

‘Hey, hey aren’t you meant to be keeping watch?’ the Admiral set down his cup. The room went quiet.

‘Relax, Sir, ain’t nothing out there.’ the operator left the room, and the talk resumed. Constantine read a newspaper he had been saving, though out the corner of his eye, the teacup was rattling. That wasn’t normal, the Comet was hunkered down, as was the rest of the convoy. He ignored it. The rattling intensified. A cry was heard from outside.

‘Torpedo port! Torpedo port!’ the Operator screamed, ‘100 metres-’

A roar. Constantine watched the Protego slowly shift to one side, it’s sailors clinging onto side railings and flailing in the water. There were no enemy ships in sight, ruling out destroyers.

‘Move! Now! All ships in evasive maneuvers!’ the messages were sent through, ‘And the convoy is to keep moving, how many of our ships have depth charges?’

‘Three, including us!’ a crewman said, ‘The Orelis and Cumberly have Type-2 variants!’

‘Get those two to form up alongside us, the rest of the ships are to retreat with the convoy.’

Another explosion rocked the waves.

‘Asgard’s been hit! Minor damage, just the rear hull line!’

‘Damn it! All ships retreat, we can’t risk it, we don’t even know where they are!’ Constantine’s fists balled up.

‘What about the Protego?’

‘We can’t do anything for them.’ The Admiral took a final glance at the doomed survivors, and fixedly stared ahead. This was no ordinary mission any longer. All they needed to do was stay alive.