Tess then pointed to ‘fang and started to say, “And pirate number two…”
Sajani interrupted. She really had no idea where this was going and that seemed to amuse the others even more. “Well, I was going to just leave you as the platoon sergeant, but promote Chass and ‘fang to corporal. I’d leave…”
“Oh no, my lady, that will never do!” Tess interrupted. “We’re not the Vharkylia Army anymore. We’re pirates.”
Sajani rolled her eyes and said with a hint of exasperation, “Ok, so what would pirates do?” Tess seemed a little too excited about all this to Sajani, but it was better to listen to what she had to say. No sense just squashing the enthusiasm.
“Well, you’re the captain,” Tess began.
“We’re not on a ship,” Sajani started to say, but she thought better of it and stopped short. “Go on.”
“I can be the first mate and Chass here the second. ‘fang will be our master gunner. We’ll rename the squad leaders, petty officers and…” she paused briefly after seeing the stunned look the Copper Wolf was giving her. “What? You want esprit de corp? This is how you do it.”
“You seem to have put a lot of thought into this,” Sajani said slowly. “How long have you been working this out?”
“Thought into it? My lady, I’ve dreamed about this since the day you first told me that Benayle was going to change my enlistment!”
That long? “Are you sure this is what the others will all want? Maybe some would rather keep the wolf pack structure.” Sajani was very sincere in asking, and was surprised with how quickly Tess dismissed that.
“Nah,” she said, “they’d all rather be pirates than privates.”
Chass and ‘fang, who had both been taking in the entire exchange with rapt attention, let out little laughs and nodded.
Sajani let out a sigh, but Tess answered the final unasked question. “Those that might not have wanted it, have all changed their minds since Fenther got here.”
I should have known, Sajani thought to herself. That actor was almost as good at convincing people as Simon. He was probably writing a song and thought pirate was easier to rhyme than pack or army. The “pirates than privates” made it all seem even more obvious in hindsight. “Call it all what you want then. We’re at least thinking alike on where the ranks are, even if the names are different.” She turned to leave but then caught herself, “Second mate Chass, make sure you get with Fenther on where these supplies should go.”
As Sajani was leaving, Tess turned to Chass and ‘fang and said in a sotto voce, “Pirates!” They all laughed.
Ginger turned the dial one more time to make sure that he was getting the information accurately. He had to push his cat back down a few times so that he could see clearly. The images on the screen blurred slightly and then came back into focus. The small icon he was concentrating on remained unchanged—it still had the symbol he’d been waiting almost a month to see. Four other icons that were following it worried him a little, but not enough to quell his enthusiasm. He turned to Tenner, his assistant of sorts, who had also been watching eagerly with a similar understanding of what was being seen. “Tell Lady Sajani that we’ve found one finally.” Tenner ran off quickly while the spark pulled a small notepad and pen from out one of his bandolier compartments and began scribbling down numbers. The math would have stumped anyone else in the platoon and he was doing most of it in his head. The writing just helped him organize his thoughts a little better.
Sajani and Tenner returned before he had it all worked out, but they both knew well enough to wait while he finished what he was doing. After only a moment, he looked up at the Copper Wolf and continued doing some of the calculations aloud while the other two waited. When he was finished, he spoke quickly with a palpable excitement in his voice. “It’s a fairly large shipment, my lady, and it has a little less of an escort than we thought, although not by much.”
“Maybe it’s carrying only a small amount.” Sajani thought out loud.
“Unlikely,” the spark said ponderously, “it’s not a standard transport. It’s one of the larger ones—the kind I was telling you about that we haven’t seen yet.”
“How far out is it?”
“If it continues its current route, it will pass about 240 kilometers west of here. There are some patrols in between that we’ll have to avoid, but so far it doesn’t look like any of them are being rerouted.” Ginger was beaming. This was a moment he’d been looking forward to for a long time—he knew that he was valuable to her before this point, but this would allow the others to directly see what he did.
“Any chance of knowing how much it’s carrying? It’d be nice to know if we’ll have enough space to haul it all out—if we’re lucky enough for it to have that much.” Sajani had moved in closer and was peering at the screen intently.
Ginger pointed at the symbol in question and tried to explain what was happening as simply as possible. “This is the transport and that trapezoid you see right above it is the symbol they use for gold.” His hand motioned to a set of symbols on the top and side of the screen. “They use these to mark where on Terah they are. I haven’t been able to figure out yet what they mean literally, but I’d guess they’re numbers of some sort. I have been able to figure out what they represent distance-wise: they’re not much different than our kilometer.
“And you’re sure that symbol is gold?” She said carefully.
He felt a little disappointed that she’d show any kind of doubt. It was obvious that she wasn’t nearly as excited about this as he was. “Almost 100 percent,” he said confidently.
Sajani didn’t seem convinced. “I’m assuming those four symbols around it are behemoths.”
Ginger nodded, but then realized that Sajani was looking too intently into the screen to notice. “Yes. Those I always recognize.” The metallic cat meowed in agreement.
Sajani backed away from the communication device a little bit and turned to face Ginger and Tenner. “You said you have a way to get our people back out after we set the charges,” Sajani said. “I’ll need something like that about now.”
Ginger was confused about what she was saying for only a moment. It’d been a long time ago that she’d asked about it. “Oh that,” he said slowly.
Sajani looked noticeably disappointed. “You can do that, right? You wouldn’t have told me about all this if there was no way to get our people back out of there.”
Tenner answered. “We’ve only been able to make five so far.”
“Teleportation devices? Quiche soufflé?” She sounded a little impatient.
Ginger was digging around in a toolbox that was on the floor of the transport. He pulled out two hand sized machines. The first looked a little like a clock with no face and only one hand. The second was just a button with a loose wire standing up next to it. Ginger held them up triumphantly. To him it seemed to explain everything on its own. There was silence for a couple of seconds.
“Oddest looking soufflé I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Tenner laughed. Ginger glared at his assistant, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “It’s an egg timer. It helps us make the soufflé.”
The spark hushed him with a glaring look. “It’s not a timer at all,” he said carefully, “It’s not even for eggs. It’s for explosives.”
“You could use it on eggs.” Tenner said helpfully.
“Only if you wanted to blow them up,” the spark said testily. “Do you mind?”
“About all eggs are good for,” Tenner said.
Sajani laughed a short bark of a laugh. “If you two could just let me in more on the use of this thing and less on your culinary preferences…”
“You started it,” Tenner said quickly.
Sajani laughed some more. She seemed to try to quell it briefly, but let out a snort when Ginger glared at his assistant. The cat automaton started looking at Tenner threateningly. The spark was starting to feel a little out of sorts about all this. He was used to being in th
e spotlight whenever new ideas and technology came about.
“You move this dial to the horizontal position,” he said pointing to the clock’s hand, “and then once you’re out of the area…” He held up the button piece as if that was all there was to it.
“It’s a timer?”
Ginger shot a disgusted look yet again at his assistant. “No,” he said flatly. “It’s some spare parts from one of the transports’ communication device and some bits from other stuff we’ve come across. Our people can sneak in and place the explosives and then leave. When they’re far enough out, we detonate the charge. This way we can wait until…”
“Ah,” said Sajani, “I get it. If they stagger when they leave their behemoths, we can just wait it out. That’s, in some ways, even better than teleporting them out.”
Ginger was beaming and so was Tenner, although not quite as much. The spark continued, “I’ve worked out a special double charge to go with them. It should take out the cannon’s breach and make the vehicle completely unusable.”
Sajani looked very impressed. “We just place it where it fell that first time?” she asked.
Tenner and Ginger both nodded.
“And what about those special blue canisters we came across? Any idea what they do?”
“Not yet lady,” Tenner answered. “We set one off at a distance, but all it seemed to do was make smoke that blew downwind from us.”
“They’re just some kind of smoke producing system—something to use to obscure vision.” Ginger said offhandedly.
Tenner shook his head, “I don’t know, Ginger. It seems like something overly simple compared to everything else.”
“So is their food,” the spark said sarcastically.
“Any way to get the contents out without setting it off?” Sajani asked.
Tenner got a little excited. “That’s what I keep telling him.”
“And I told you before, Tenner,” Ginger answered, “that it’s designed to burn off the contents. It’d be a completely different chemical before it burns anyway.”
“Because water changes totally when you boil it too.” Tenner said mockingly.
“This is different.” Ginger started to explain, but Sajani interrupted him.
“Do what you need to,” she said. “Don’t set off another one unless you have to.” Ginger nodded at her. Normally a comment like that would have disappointed him, but in this case, he didn’t really see the point of another trial. “I need to go and get people ready for this run.”
Just as she was out of earshot, Tenner turned back to Ginger and said, “See? She said not to set it off. That means she wants us to take it apart without detonating it.”
The spark started working on the communications console again and pretended to ignore him.
It was a small group that was gathered around Sajani at the moment and it was some of the best of her people. Chass, ‘fang, a slight and wiry scout named Karnes, and a petty officer named Harg huddled in front of the small grid she’d laid out in the dirt using string. Rocks painted with the symbols that the communications console showed were set inside the squares. Chass followed the point of Sajani’s sword as she motioned to one of the rocks marked as a behemoth.
“Chass, you’ll be on this one,” she moved the sword to point at three others in turn. “Karnes, here. ‘fang here and Harg will take the last one. I’ll be waiting at this point here to provide some suppressive fire if necessary. If you’re spotted and the enemy is alerted, give out a war howl. I will answer with one and move to your position. Hopefully, that will distract the enemy enough to allow the others to break free. Tess will be moving the transports into position along with the rest of the platoon so that we can take out their remaining forces. One shot will let them know we’re ready: it doesn’t matter who fires it, us or them. Any questions?”
Chass had a bunch of questions, but they all had to do with what could go wrong and not with what they were supposed to do, so he kept quiet. He was surprised he and ‘fang were picked for this. It put three of the four top people in immediate danger and didn’t seem like a good way to keep the command alive. He’d asked Sajani about it earlier when she, Tess, and himself were coming up with the assignments, but the other two just shrugged it off saying it was based on who was most likely to succeed and not rank.
There were no other questions. “Ok, let’s move then,” Sajani said. “We’ll go single file to the site and then break out from there.” There were no more words spoken. Each of them slung their rifle over their shoulder and followed their leader. Sajani’s bow stood up a way above her head and made it easy to see where she was. Chass brought up the rear. He felt like it would have been easier in the jungles all of them were used to, but they were all skilled no matter where they were.
Skilled, yes, but not perfect. Chass cringed a few times when the wolves made a little more noise than necessary. It wasn’t often, but still annoyed him. Being as large as he was, most people assumed that he couldn’t keep himself concealed or even walk quietly, but it was because of his size that he’d worked so hard to get very good at it.
The elven camp site was about two kilometers from their own camp. Chass guessed that it would take about forty-five minutes to get there at the speed they were moving. It gave him time to organize his thoughts. The transports would start moving about the time they arrived and move up into position behind them, if all went well, about fifteen minutes after that. That would give them a very small window to place the large charges that Ginger had prepared. It was supposed to be two separate charges, but Ginger hadn’t been able to make enough of the detonators for that, so the two would go off at once. He’d warned them that the first charge was meant to damage the cannon barrel, and it alone would kill anyone in close proximately. The second charge was meant to make sure that no one would be able to access the behemoth’s exterior weapons.
Chass was no chemist. He knew some basics about it from school and the semester of classes he’d taken at the University of Vidava, but that was not much compared to the knowledge Ginger and Tenner possessed about it. Tenner might not have any formal schooling, but chemistry had been a hobby for him for many years. The second charge combined magic and phosphorous to set the inside the behemoth on fire. It would also superheat the outside very quickly and possibly neutralize anyone who happened to be on its surface when it went off.
Tenner told him that they got the idea from what they saw at the ruins at Fort Irwyre. They’d taken a brick that was burning and analyzed it. Well, they’d tried to, before it burned through a few surfaces they’d tried to place it on.
The only real unknown in the whole plan was what Ginger referred to as the “super transport.” They had no idea how many people it housed and what types of weapons it held. They weren’t even sure what it looked like. All the spark could tell them about it was that it showed up periodically, usually with behemoth escort, and had more than one symbol over it showing what it was carrying. Up until now, Sajani had avoided them. The one time she’d sent scouts out to learn was the one time that the elven flying machines had shown up. Chass still didn’t know what Ginger had done to take them out.
The newly promoted second mate tried to distract himself from that line of thought. He didn’t want to concentrate too much on the unknown. It was better to keep alert by thinking of what he could do. The plan was simple. They weren’t sure of exactly where each individual enemy would be, but that was a given in everything they’d done so far.
About the fifth or sixth time he’d gone over what he needed to do in his head, he saw Sajani hold up her right arm with the hand closed in a fist. She turned and pointed to her nose. He sniffed quietly. There was someone close by. He could smell what he now thought of as “elf scent and weapon oil.” Sajani motioned for Harg to go to their left and ‘fang to the right. She signaled for him and Onha to stand where she was and act as backup. The large wolf and Karnes stepped forward and quietly locked a bullet into the chamber of his rifle. The
y both kneeled and waited as Sajani moved forward.
Chass couldn’t see the elf at first and had to move carefully forward twice before the lone soldier standing next to a tree came into view. This guard looked mostly alert—not like a lot of the ones they’d encountered on previous raids. It made sense though. The elves probably put their most trusted people on duties like this one.
He watched as Sajani carefully pulled out her bow and nocked an arrow. Then she stepped up right behind the soldier so that she could feel the tip on the back of her neck. Sajani let out a low growl and the frightened woman slowly kneeled and placed her weapon on the ground. Chass would never have thought of the tactic that Sajani used in sparing the majority of their enemy. It almost seemed counterintuitive to the concept of war—indeed their own enemy never made use of it. But in almost all of their encounters, the elves fought on initial contact, and then laid down their weapons once they knew they were fighting the Copper Wolf. They knew that she’d let them live and that to the people in charge of them, if nothing else, they were a non-renewable resource.
This soldier couldn’t have even known for sure that she was up against Sajani, but the growl apparently was enough to make her believe she was. The four other then their leader were just heading up to restrain the soldier and Sajani had briefly lowered her bow when the enemy did the unexpected—she started to call out for help.
But only just started. Sajani still had the bow up, even if it wasn’t directly behind the captive. What was undoubtedly supposed to be a cry for help ended as just a single consonant that rose slightly in volume and then died away as the prisoner slumped to the ground. To both his own and Harg’s surprise, Sajani then motioned them forward to tie her up. As all four converged on her position, she had just finished pulling the arrow out of the unconscious soldier and cast a single spell that, while it didn’t heal the wound, did stop it from bleeding.
Sajani and the others kept watch in all directions as Chass bound and gagged her. He actually tried to be somewhat gentle so that the wound didn’t reopen, but he still managed to get blood all over his fur. Its acrid smell assaulted his nose and since it was drying fairly fast in the warm night air, it made his fur sticky.
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 17