The Hope Island Chronicles Boxed Set

by PJ Strebor

  From behind a loud whooshing assaulted his ears. It was the unmistakable sound of a powder fire-retardant appliance extinguishing the flames. The heat on the back of his neck died. He hoped Meta, although wounded, could somehow cover their backs. They were totally committed to full defensive fighting mode. The temptation to glance over his shoulder was compelling but he could not afford to take his eyes from the forward enemy line for a second.

  As the flames spluttered and died the headhunters saw a way out. They pressed forward with a power born of desperation and revived hope. They could see the light and only had to overrun his team to gain their freedom. It renewed the enemy and Nathan’s team fell back under their last desperate attack.

  Dearkov disappeared from his side and another took her place. A firm hand grabbed the webbing on his shoulder and pulled him from the battle. Spinning around he went at his attacker with both blades going for the throat. With a start of recognition he held his strike.

  Captain Waugh held her sword defensively. She relaxed only when Nathan dropped his guard. All around her fresh troops from a reformed Gamma team streamed in to fill positions on the line.

  “Stand down, ensign.” Waugh charged into the battle.

  “Yes ma’am.” Nathan could barely recognize his strained, raspy voice. The captain? Here? The captain never leaves the boat. Exception to the rule for an exceptional ruler? A bleary thought came to him. If I were captain, would I sit back while my crew was getting butchered? The answer was too obvious for words.

  More fresh troops brushed past him and drove back the panicked enemy. The grisly spectacle mesmerized Nathan. With Redpath's larger force still pressing forward and fresh replacements blocking the enemy's escape, the pack of headhunters shrank as the converging forces cut them to pieces. It took mere minutes of ferocious close-quarter combat to eliminate the last of the once powerful enemy force.

  Truculent's sailors stood with bloody weapons in hand. Even the fittest of them breathed raggedly. Nathan’s madness had fled, replaced by knee-buckling fatigue. As his heart rate slowed his senses returned. The first was his sense of smell, bringing him the fetid stench of burning flesh mixed with the unique scent of death.

  In the background someone vomited.

  Nathan staggered through the sea of mangled corpses. I have to find my sword. Where’s my sword? Down on hands and knees he groped through the carnage until he found it wedged under a fallen enemy. He could barely lift his arm to sheath his sword.

  “Mister Telford.” Redpath stepped through the crowd of blood-soaked sailors removing his helmet.

  “Sergeant Redpath.”

  The two men faced each other for several mute seconds. “Tactical reserve.” Redpath chuckled, shook his head and slapped Nathan on the shoulder.

  Nathan had never received a higher compliment.

  Medics worked their way around the slaughterhouse, moving from one team member to another. Few were without wounds of some kind. Moe attended to Meta's fractured shoulder. Medics worked on Chief Petty Officers Rocca, Lubar and Tokunaga who lay on the deck.

  Cmdr Demianski stepped into the charnel house and froze. His face paled alarmingly when he made the mistake of breathing through his nose. He joined the captain who stood beside Babs Grimmett. Waugh took in the grisly sight and shook her head.

  The victors stood ankle deep in the carnage. No one spoke for what felt like a long time.

  CHAPTER 59

  The hypo hissed as Moe administered the pain medication to Meta’s neck. Within seconds Meta’s face mellowed from intense agony to glassy-eyed euphoria.

  “Meta like,” she slurred.

  Moe waved to a medic at the far end of Redpath’s Run. They could now painlessly strap Meta’s crushed shoulder. Moe slipped the hypo into the first-aid bag noting with disbelief that her hands shook. She clasped her unruly hands together. “Stop that,” she whispered.

  Nathan grasped her right hand in his while slipping his left arm supportively around her shoulders. Meta, Ozzie and Dearkov looked on as Nathan eased her to the deck. Moe felt overcome by a curiously disturbing numbness. She rested her head on Nathan’s shoulder and waited for the malady to pass.

  From the far end of Redpath’s Run the captain appraised her bloodstained crew.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I am rarely lost for words so I trust you will forgive me if I simply say … well done.”

  Waugh moved amongst her crew checking in with each in turn.

  She looked at Nathan’s small, battered team. With a single nod and a tight smile she acknowledged their contribution. Her small commendation almost made up for their savage day.

  The captain crouched by the civvies, listening attentively to their heartrending pleas. Moe could not hear her words but could well imagine her response to these people who had suffered so much. Waugh would no doubt placate the traumatized civvies by saying she would do what she could to recover their lost children.

  “How long?” Moe asked.

  “We cross the frontier in twenty-six minutes,” Ozzie said.

  “That’s it then.” Moe felt Nathan’s body tense.

  They could not remain onboard the headhunter ship. Nor could Truculent pursue Picaroon across the frontier. Violation of the plague quarantine regulations carried an automatic court-martial for any crew that did. Such was the understandable panic engendered by the Derwent Plague.

  The female civilians filled the first landing boat. The Franc males, heavily drugged to dull their terrible pain, followed.

  One of the ratings found bottles of clean drinking water in a container. The combatants quenched their parched throats and removed the worst of the bloody residue from their body armor. With their high bloodlust fading to a nightmare memory, a lighthearted mood surfaced. Water fights broke out amongst the combatants who had so recently been embroiled in brutal mayhem. Any hares who failed to demonstrate their fleet footedness got a good soaking.

  The operation had been an outstanding success against incredible odds. Nonetheless Moe sensed Nathan's dissatisfaction. Five civilians were still unaccounted for. Most likely they were hidden within one of the Picaroon’s sensor-blind zones. Behind armored hatches and internal shields the chances of locating and rescuing them in the time available loomed as an impossible task.

  Nathan had never tried to disguise his fanatical loathing for Pruessen. After what he had been through as a child slave the thought of leaving children in the hands of such fiends would burn within him. He thinks we've all fallen for his 'I can't remember anything about my time as a slave' spiel. Nathan may have fooled everyone else with the bull but not us. He couldn't hate Pruessens with such passion if he didn't remember a lot of what happened in the north.

  The time arrived for the teams to disembark. Alpha team had already returned to the boat with their wounded. Beta Team moved to the aft hatch while the newly call-signed Tackies sprawled on the deck by the port-side bow hatch. Moe felt control returning to her hands as she savored the peace and quiet. After the recent massacre the remaining headhunters were unlikely to venture anywhere near the battle zone.

  Moe glanced at Meta who stared back through glazed eyes. She had asked to remain with her team. Due to the large number of wounded filling the landing boats, she got her wish. Ozzie moved gingerly to avoid aggravating his cracked ribs. Even Dearkov was content to enjoy a few moments of idleness. Moe opened her hands palms down, pleased that the embarrassing shaking had gone.

  Moe was no longer the tomboy girl she used to be and felt justifiably proud of holding her own in any fight. But this had been the real deal. It could not get any more real; dark, cherry-red real.

  “The blood,” Moe whispered. Did I say that out loud?

  “The barbarity,” Ozzie said, his eyes unfocussed.

  “Can’t believe how much those animals stank.” Meta's lazy half-smile confirmed the drugs were doing their job.

  Dearkov’s warped expression reminded Moe of a Kastorian leopar
d. “I really liked the way they squealed when I hacked into them.”

  Nathan had gone mute. He sat slightly off to one side of the group, his head resting against a bulkhead, his eyes closed. Moe knew when to back away and when to break his morose mood. He should feel good about the mission. They had rescued eighteen out of twenty-three civilians. Pruessens by the score had fallen to them with minimal casualties to their own forces. The team had been cut and bruised but they survived the ordeal. All in all a damn fine result. Nathan had to know there was no chance of rescuing the missing children. Moe sidled over and grunted as she dropped beside him.

  “A dollar fifty for your thoughts.”

  Nathan opened his eyes. He was like a brother to Moe so she knew he would be firmly focused on what had not, rather than what had been accomplished today. Being Nathan he chose not to speak of it.

  “I was just thinking about a long hot shower and a drink of something non-regulation.”

  The Tackies groaned in agreement.

  “I’m going to sleep for the next week,” Ozzie said.

  “So what's new?” Meta slurred.

  Moe suspected that her friends would be considering the questions raised today. How had Nathan avoided the headhunter patrols? What demon had possessed him during the heat of battle? However, their academy training had prepared them to be not only naval officers but ladies and gentlemen of refined dispositions. No one would be rude enough to broach the subject.

  “So, Nathan, what's with the spooky shit?” Meta’s eyes were two bleary slits. Her head drooped to one side.

  Nathan’s raised eyebrows indicated he had no idea what she was talking about. Everyone groaned at his usual response.

  “I think what my esteemed and semi-delirious friend is trying to ask you, Nathan, is how did you avoid those patrols?” Ozzie asked.

  “That's what I said,” Meta slurred.

  Nathan tapped his right ear. “Good hearing.”

  In an instant Ozzie's affable expression hardened, together with his tone. "We bled together, Nathan." A declaration wrapped in an accusation. A gauntlet thrown down.

  Moe caught Nathan’s slight wince. She knew he would deflect the conversation as he always did.

  “I had a gut feeling, Ozzie,” he said. “So I followed it.”

  His frankness stunned everyone into silence. After several awkward seconds Nathan received support from an unexpected source.

  “With all due respect, ladies and gentlemen,” Dearkov said, “you're all full of shit.” Every eye considered the brawny petty officer. “He came up with the plan, he led us to victory over our enemy and he fought with the courage of a Salamisian lion. But all you lot can do is whine about how he saved your collective rumps.”

  Nathan thought he handled such moments well but Moe noted the prickly rash on the back of his neck as it flared with the prominence of Quasimodo’s hump.

  The uneasy silence lingered until a distinct clang of metal on metal echoed down the corridor. They were on their feet in an instant, swords drawn. Nathan strode along the corridor, Dearkov his shadow. Moe nocked one of the remaining arrows.

  They ventured deep into the lateral corridor. The plaintive cry of a distressed individual guided them forward. Ahead, sprawled on the deck next to an access tube, an enemy sailor cradled his foot in his hands. This genius had apparently fallen out of the access tube.

  The headhunter's sword lay on the deck beside him but he did not attempt to reach for it when he spied the approaching sailors. Dearkov raised her ax and went for the kill.

  “I surrender,” he squealed. His hands covered his head in a useless gesture of protection. Nathan stood before the ax and raised his hand.

  “You're not going soft on me are you, Mister Telford?”

  Nathan ignored her. He knelt beside the terrified headhunter.

  “Name.”

  “Flencher.” His narrow eyes darted between Nathan and the ax-wielding petty officer.

  Flencher did not fit the headhunter archetype. A short, spare fellow, Moe doubted if he had the strength to lift the enormous sword resting so close to his hand. His voice had a nasal quality. On closer inspection Moe saw that Flencher’s nose had recently been broken. The ill-fitting armor hung off his wiry frame. Obviously, this weak excuse for a man was no warrior.

  “Flencher, my name is Telford. I am going to ask you some questions.” Nathan kept his voice to a low whisper. “If you answer my questions honestly you will get to keep on breathing. If not, I shall become quite irritated. Do you clearly understand what I have said to you?”

  “Will you take me prisoner?”

  Nathan cleared his throat.

  “No, I will not,” he ventured.

  “Then no deal,” the wiry headhunter said. “If you're going to kill me, get on with it.” Flencher tensed and swallowed nosily but his resolve remained firm. Unlike his knees.

  “Are you saying you want to be taken prisoner?”

  “What do you think I'm doing on this deck? I was trying to link up with any Athenians still onboard. I don't belong here. I was press ganged from Midway ten months ago. I’m a gentleman's gentleman not a killer. You have no idea what these people are like. They're animals. I want no part of this ship. Take me with you when you go and I will tell you anything you want to know."

  “You've got a deal, Flencher. When we leave, you go with us. First, there is something specific I would like to know.”

  ***

  “What do you mean they're not there?” Waugh slumped into the command chair, sighing deeply.

  “Skipper,” CPO Stokes said, “I locked onto the hatch right on schedule but the Tackies were nowhere to be seen. I checked the adjoining corridors but found no trace of them.”

  “Do you have any idea where they might be, chief?”

  “Sorry, skipper.” A long pause followed. “Maybe the team was ambushed and taken prisoner. I mean it's possible, ma’am.”

  Waugh struggled with an inner turmoil. Her best instincts compelled her to arm every able-bodied combatant and get her people back. Her duty, however, forbade such action.

  “Chief Petty Officer Stokes,” she said, “unless you come under direct enemy attack, you will remain locked onto the hatch until 1356 hours. If by that time you have not recovered the team you will disengage your boat and return to Truculent. Am I being clear, chief?”

  “Aye-aye, captain,” Stokes said glumly.

  “Very well. Carry on. Captain out.”

  What the devil could have happen to them? Waugh could not imagine a man like Telford falling into an ambush. Considering the gigantic losses inflicted on Picaroon's crew, only small isolated patrols remained. Where the hell are the Tackies?

  Truculent would hit the Rio Grande in sixteen minutes. The most sacrosanct rule in Corps, the Athenian Naval Service and the forces attached to the Coalition League Navy remained as solid today as it had thirty years ago. For no reason could a League vessel cross the border into Pruessen space.

  Like it or not, if Telford and his team did not return to LB three by 1356 hours she would be left with no choice in the matter.

  CHAPTER 60

  Orson disengaged EDF. With the internal sensors restored they revealed the disastrous truth.

  “What the fuck are you doing,” Weiss shrieked. “Restore the field immediately.” He leaped from the captain's chair and loomed over Orson, his hand caressing the stock of his sidearm. “Saxon, did you hear me? Get that fucking field back up.”

  Orson could visualize the pure joy he would feel from slowly garroting the cowardly headhunter. The twelve heavily armed bridge guards would undoubtedly dispute his fair-minded reasoning. Weiss might be scum but he was their scum. Orson submerged his rage and turned the EDF dial back to the maximum setting.

  “Why the hell did you do that, Saxon? There could be Athenians outside the hatch ready to force their way in. Are you mad?”

  “We need to have current-time in
tel, Weiss.” Orson had given up trying to conceal his contempt. “We’ve received zero intel since the insulated line to the captain went down.”

  “I don't care about intel,” Weiss yelled. “Touch the panel again and it will be the last thing you do.”

  “We’re almost at the frontier,” Orson said. “The Athenians won’t remain aboard. It would violate their most sacred military oath.”

  Surprisingly, Weiss considered his words. “Helmsman, how long till we cross the border?”

  “Fourteen minutes at current speed.”

  Orson examined the few readings he managed to record. It confirmed his worst fears. These scum should never have been entrusted with such an important operation. But the Family had refused to listen to him.

  Weiss strutted around the bridge buoyed by the news they were minutes from safety.

  “Tactical, what internal readings do you have?”

  “None, commander.”

  “Didn't you get anything when the EDF was disengaged?”

  “No sir,” the T-O said. “It was too quick. But Saxon might have.”

  “What can you tell me, Saxon?”

  “It’s difficult to say with such a short time to record the data,” Orson said impatiently. “However, from what I can ascertain our special platoons have been annihilated by the Athenians.”

  Weiss' face paled. “All of them?”

  “There are a few patrols still operating on the upper decks but nothing on deck five.” Orson could not resist a last jibe. “That’s the bad news. Would you care to hear the good news?”

  Weiss nodded, his mouth agape.

  “Throughout the engagement the EDF worked flawlessly.” He paused shortly before adding, “But we don’t need it anymore.”

  “I don't agree with you, lieutenant,” Weiss said, the fear returning to his eyes. “And you will address me as captain.”

  Orson ignored him and returned to his readouts. With this fool in charge, Orson's sense of apprehension amplified.