Penny

A Chartered Course: Medieval Trading League RP

Phosphorescent foam surged up over the hull in freezing sheets. Inez de Calavria, apprentice armsman of the league, gripped the safety line in one gloved hand and raised the repeater with the other. The bow of the Arxregnum plunged downwards and icy water rushed up over her waist, chilly even through a vacuum rated environmental suit. The winds, close to cyclonic, howled around her whipping the wave tops to ragged flume. The starship rose again, riding up the face of the thirty meter wave until it reached the crest.

Inez had a half a second to look out over a heaving ocean of wind ripped waves. The purplish sky above crackled with a skittish tracery of green lightning that parted the auroral ribbons like cracks running through stressed ice. The view held for a half second and then she was rushing back down into the trough, vision obscured by a storm of flying droplets.

“How is it going out there,” her communicator crackled, carrying with the fury of the permanent storm above.

“Stand by, I…” Tentacles as thick as Inez’ waist exploded from the front of the wavefront, slapping down heavily along the curved silver hull. Unlike its equivalent on Earth, the thing was covered with gripping cillia rather than suckers. A dozen more tentacles followed the first, grappling the ship with dozens of enormous limbs. Inez fired the repeater one handed, it kicked like a steer but she held onto it. A three round cluster, lead by a tracer snapped from the barrel, the explosive tipped bullets shredding a tentacle into hundreds of pounds of fishy offal. The beast went wild, slapping at its wounded appendage with a half dozen of its limbs like a man trying to put out a fire. Inez hurled herself forward, unclipping her line and snapping it to another stanchion. She slipped on the soaking deck and went over snagging up against the line as it drove her harness into her ribs. She sucked in a lungful of spray, half choked and scrambled for purchase. Her hand closed around one of the exterior sensors and she pulled herself to her feet. A tentacle hit her across the chest with the force of a medicine ball and she was punched upwards and away from the hull. Gelatinous tendrils held her as the beast heaved against the safety line. The woven beryllium line could have lifted the ship, unfortunately her bones and sinews had a somewhat lower threshold.

“Fuuuuck!” she screamed as the beast worried at her, trying to pull her towards it’s as yet unseen maw.

“What was that?” the comm cracked, “I cant hear…”

“Shut!” Inez fired, “the fuck,” she fired again, “up!” The last burst caught the base of the tentacle close to the wave front. It exploded in a geyser of spray and blood and the thing dropped her. Inez plummeted to the deck below. Pain exploded across her hips as she bounced off the steel plating and plunged into the frigid water. The helmet was sealed but it didn’t have external air, the filters snapped closed and her available air flashed amber.

“Is there really any need to swear?” the voice in her comm asked pevishly. Inez hauled herself upwards, using the buoyancy of a rising wave to drive her body upwards. Thank the Black Lady for the line because the glittering phosphor bacteria in the water made it impossible to tell up from down. She broached and scrambled up onto the hull. She ducked another slashing tentacle that carried away a secondary communications mast in spray of sparks.

“I have it under…” a giant tripartite beak hammered into the hull, dishing one of the plates in with shattering force. Inez rolled sideways, catching a sensor head between her legs and wrapping them around it. She tensed her screaming muscles and pulled herself upright the beak drew back, revealing three dinner plate sized eyes staring malevolently at her. She flicked a switch on the repeater, deactivating the explosive charges and switching to solid shot.

“Control!” she concluded and emptied the magazine into the things eyes. The fifty caliber rounds punched through the eye in a spray of jelly and blood, they smashed into the nerve ganglia, destroying the primitive equivalent of a brain that motivated the giant creature. Tentacles slashed and battered but the water was foaming with black ink as internal bladders voided, internal buoyancy failed and the thing slipped beneath the waters, washed clear by the next wave.

“It really dosen’t sound like it,” the voice complained. Inez pulled herself to her feet.

“Just open the damned airlock,” she replied, and half limped, half crawled her way back towards the lock.

@POOHEAD189

Shields of the Empire

The khareeds hit the creek bed at full charge, the hooves of their great destriers kicking up great clods of dirt and the low shrubs which lined the slight declivity. Eudoxia slashed down with the point of her spear and a six hundred arrows snapped across the intervening distance like a flight of spiteful birds. The enemy horsemen seemed to leap to meet the arrows and suddenly men and beasts were screaming and falling in an avalanche of horseflesh. Beasts went down, tumbling over the corpses of the fallen, or yanked off their feet by heavily armored riders falling and yanking on the stirrups. The noise and explosion of dust was tremendous as the ranks behind rode over the fallen, horses leaping and skipping to keep their footing.

"Go, go!" Phaedra shouted, spurring her steed forward into the stream bed. She lowered her spear, aiming the point of the ten foot length of timber at a khareed in red and black livery who was struggling to maintain control of his mount as it swerved to avoid the thrashing corpses that now filled the creek bead. There was a shattering crash as the Miravet and the Khareeds smashed together in a collision that could be heard for miles. Thousands of pounds of horse and armor impacting withing a front of a few hundred feet. Phaedra's spear punched through the chainmail at the waist of her target as he desperately tried to pull his shield into place, blood fountained from the mans helmet as he flew from his saddle. Dozens of Khareeds went down in the instant of contact, horses and men both spitted on cavalry spears. Out of the corner of her eye Phaedra saw a Miravette go down, as a lance punched through the breast of her warhorse. The horsewoman stood up in her stirrups and leaped free, hitting the ground in a roll before being lost in the swirling dust that now obscured everything more than a few feet away. Phaedra could only hope the luckless trooper could get back out of the killing zone in the next few moments or she would certainly be trampled by one side or the other.

"Back! Back!" Phaedra shouted, pulling her cavalry saber free and slashing overhand at a Khareed who emerged from the dust with a spiked mace raised. Her stroke took his hand of with the wrist a moment before their horses crashed together and rebounded away. Horns were blaring and the Miravet wheeled and raced back the way they had come, the enemy momentum checked. The Khareeds pursed, flogging their mounts with their spurs till blood ran down their flanks, but their horses had already charging hard and the fresher Miravette mounts opened the distance. They came up over the creek bank and plunged through the ranks of Brasadis' infantry who were formed up in squares with open channels to allow the women to pass, closing ranks as they did so to present a wall of spears to the bloodied Khareeds that came up over the bank in a ragged line of pursuit.

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

@Naril How are we looking?

Tricksters and Theives: A Warhammer RP

Emmaline attempted to cover herself with the short throw blanket she had stripped from the couch. The attempt was difficult as her figure made it almost impossible to maintain any but the faintest illusion of modesty. She considered a grab for her dress, but the look in the lead bandit's eyes convinced her that it wasn't a good idea. The rest of the motley crew eyed her like half starved dogs, but the leaders eyes were wary and guarded.

"Looking for a crew to tramp with? Well we might be looking at a tramp to screw with," one of the brigands, a wall eyed man with hair the color of dirty straw chuckled lewdly.

"Claus!," the leader snapped, "do what the man says and check their packs."

"Johann..." the blonde, Claus apparently, objected, but Johann gestured with his gun barrels to where their baggage was stacked. Claus scowled and thrust his own weapon, a heavy horse pistol, into his belt without uncocking it. For a miracle it didn't go off as he crabbed over and pulled open Emmaline's pack. Several heavy pouches of gold clinked out, along with a bottle of wine and a piece of chocolate wrapped in grease cloth. There was an audible 'oooh' from the assembled bandits, clearly no strangers to the sound of decent loot. Emmaline attempted to scowl, but it was difficult to appear intimidating when you you could really only manage to cover one boob at a time.

"Looks like they are telling the truth boss," Claus said unnecessarily, his hand still rooting about in Emmaline's pack, intrigued by the clink of glass ware and other odds and ends. With an arched eyebrow he pulled something free. Emmaline's heart sank as she saw it was the wooden case that held the cut warpstone.

"What have we here?" Claus asked, eyes shining with avarice. Emmaline felt her heart rise up into her throat, rather a trick for a naked woman being held at gun point by a half dozen dirty looking thieves.

"Don't..." Emmaline began but Claus was already snapping open the clasps that held the case closed. The wood parted, issuing forth the emerald green glow of the unstable magical stone. The case itself was lined with a thin foil of lead engraved with warding symbols which offered some protection, but if Claus touched the stone with bare flesh...

Emmaline landed on Claus' back at the end of a flying leap, her arms wrapping around his head and her legs around his waist. The thief screamed in anger and surprise reaching back over his shoulder to grab her. As he pulled his hand out of the case the stink of burning keratin came with it, and his eyes widened to see the dirty fingernails burned back nearly to their pads. Her weight, considerable with the leverage she had, over toppled the bandit, and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. The pistol in his waistband cracked, and the bullet whined off stone and sparked as it ricochet around the room before blasting into the couch with a puff of down feathers. Emmaline rolled off Claus, who was frantically slapping at his crotch in an attempt to put out the fire the pistol priming had started in his greasy trousers. Stark naked, Emmaline reached out with a long leg and snapped the case shut, the click of the locks engaging cutting off the sickly green glow from within.

Johann's blunderbuss was pointing at her, steady as a rock for several long moments before he lifted it skyward and eased the cocked hammers down. Nervous laughter at Claus' expense issued from the remaining men, as well as several whistles and a marriage proposal as Emmaline crawled across the room and pulled her dress on over her head, wriggling into it with distracting haste.

"Well," Johann said as he thrust the coachgun into a leather baldric that hung over his back. "Seems like the pair of you have a story to tell at least."

Sontewall abuse

OK? I'm still a little confused as to what you are talking about.

The Pavonis Campaign - Warhammer 40000

Katia was relieved to see that Zeb seemed to be healing well. It was difficult, given their role, for commissars to have friends but the Gudrnite was as close as it came. It also had the practical benefit of giving her someone who could relay orders to other, technically speaking she was a political officer and outside the chain of command. That worked fine when she was back at the regimental CP sipping recaf, but less ideal out here in the field.

“Why does the colonel want see us?” Zeb asked as they exited the main school building and crossed what had once been a scrumball pitch towards what appeared to be a large gymnasium. The air shook overhead as a trio of thunderbolts crossed overhead several thousand feet up, so fast they were little more than streaks against the sky. A few moments later they felt the crump of distant ordnance detonating and the clattering back wash of anti-aircraft fire.

“I’m not sure,” Katia admitted. At the Scolam they had suggested it was usually a bad sign when senior officers actually wanted to see Commissars whom they viewed at best as a nuisance and at worst as a magic bullet they could use to deal with a truly ruinous collapse in morale.

The gymnasium was a large oval shaped space ringed by layers of bench seating. In other times students would have played sports and exercised here but the demands of war had converted it completely. The main floor was covered with a map of the town and its environs in wax pencil. Katia was somewhat shocked to discover that the scale appeared to be accurate, so much so that uniformed men and women were measuring distances and calling out ranges. There were even notations on elevation. The positions of units were marked with pieces of flack board with unit name and specialty marked on them as well as vox frequencies. Surrounding the map were dozens of chalk boards on which the staff, mostly PDF, were recording information as it was called out to them from the dozens of vox operators who sat on the first tier of benches, hunched over their transmitters. As Katia watched an aide drew a line through an inbound air strike, and then added an ETA on the next item, a flight of hellfire heavy bombers. Here and there, red robed acolytes of the Cult of Mars were at work, smearing cogitators with sacred unguents, or adding seals to the thick trunks of cables which rose from the vox transmitters up through a holes that had been knocked in the ceiling to allow a forest of antennae to be fed through. A buzz of conversation and crackling vox transmission hung over it all, completing the impression of frantic but organized export. Every few minutes a runner, either PDF or from one of the Guard remnants burst through the doors, where they were stopped by PDF troopers before the desk of an officer with captains flashes on his shoulders. After exchanging a few words the runner was routed to one of the stations, or sat on the benches to wait while juvies in school uniforms bought them water in large clay mugs.

“They are doing all this without cogitators?” Rikkard asked, familiar enough with Guard command posts to be surprised. Katia didn’t respond, the captain acting as traffic control was waving her over and she moved to him with crisp precision.

“Commissar, Colonel Brae left instructions that you were to be passed through,” he told her making a gesture to a large desk beneath a score board at the end of the gym. Some PDF trooper had adjusted the board so the score read ‘13 and not out’. Katia nodded her thanks to the captain and moved to the table, her black coat cutting a path through the thronging troops and aides as effectively as a sword blade.

“I don’t care how close they are!” Colonel Brae was snapping, “Better we burn a few of our own men then the Orks break through, tell Lieutenant Crow he is to mark his positions with smoke and take cover. The Emperor Protects.” Brae slammed an old fashioned bakerlite vox line down with a musical clang.

“What the devil do …ah apologies Commissar,” Brae muttered, pulling round rimmed spectacles from his nose and polishing the lens furiously with a white cloth in what Katia recognized as a habitual gesture. He was a small man, as bald as an egg, with an immaculately waxed moustache that seemed to compensate for his lack of top cover. His uniform was equally well presented, clean and starched to razor sharpness along the seams. He seemed an almost comical figure, a ridiculous little man who had pulled together scattered units from the PDF and a half dozen regiments to hold this salient against all odds for the last thirteen days. Thirteen and not out.

“What can we do for you Colonel?” Katia asked, formally polite. Contempt for the PDF and especially for their officers was axiomatic among the Imperial Guard. As often as not those officers were the bored sons of the local aristos who wanted a nice uniform to wear at a ball. Katia was, for once, happy to be proven wrong.

“Ork fighter bombers in sector 3, casualties…” a pimply faces adolescent fell silent as Brae held up a hand to quite the boy who seemed on the verge of swallowing his tongue as he realized his report had interrupted a real life Commissar in mid conversation.

“Commisar, as I am sure you appreciate our position here is precarious,” Colonel Brae continued, bravely blunt with what might be interpreted as a statement of weakness. Katia could well appreciate his position. The town was only holding on because of air and artillery support from behind the lines. The longer he held out however, the more orks would be drawn to the fighting. Their numbers would grow with the certainty of a crystal forming in a super saturated solution and pretty soon they would begin to contest the air, or attack other parts of the Imperial force. In either case the support that was keeping Brae in the fight would be diluted, and the odds were good he would be overrun.

“We are prepared to do our duty to the Emperor of course,” Brae continued, placing his glasses back on his face and looking up at them. He suddenly had the aspect of a well meaning school teacher about to ask a favorite pupil to redo her homework.


“But there are…” he paused and picked up a sheet of flimsy and glanced at it, “something over two thousand civilians, tech adepts, auxiliaries and the like still in the town.” Katia nodded her head acknowledging the statement.

“In order to preserve the morale of my men, and deny potential slave labor to the enemy, Id like you to coordinate evacuation,” Brae concluded. Katia could understand his predicament, the majority of the PDF here would be locals, which meant that these civilians were their family and friends. If they were still in the area when the orks began to break through the static defenses, no amount of executions would stop men from running home to try to defend their wives and children. Of course that raised the question of how Katia and Zeb could possibly get several thousand non-combatants out of the siege.

“We will see what we can do Colonel,” Katia replied, earning a grateful nod from Brae.

“If you will excuse me…Calvin, are those earth movers in position yet? We need to get those hydra batteries…”

“He doesn’t want much does he?” Rikkard asked as the Firing Party moved away from the beleaguered Colonel.

“I am open to ideas,” Kaita replied as she watched the organized chaos unfold around them.

The Sunday Group - Seeds and Harvests

She is unmoored in space and time

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

The image of Captain Micha’s face froze in a ricktus of fear and panic as it hung in holographic projection. Sabatine hated to admit it but you really had to hand it to Tilda. When the former (?) reporter had rather offhandedly offered to help prepare the footage for the drumhead court martial Sabatine had imagined it would be a simple presentation, instead Tilda had cut the footage taken from the Vickie’s bridge sensors together in a production worthy of a holofilm. Not coincidentally it also served to subtly highlight Kaiden’s bravery but any client would naturally seek to please her patron.

Kaiden, Sabatine and Lieutenant Rachet were sitting in console seats on the bridge of the Z-21, all wearing full dress whites with medal ribbons. In Rachet’s case these were somewhat tattered and ill tailored, having apparently lost weight since the last time they had been worn, and that last time some ways in the past. Captain Micha sat in a seat on the lower level of the bridge, unshaven and glowering. Though he had been given the opportunity to shave and dress formally, he had spurned the offer, another detail recorded by Tilda’s careful efforts.

“The prosecution rests,” Leyla Savachev declared, taking her own seat with a wave at the holo projection. It was, perhaps, not entirely proper for a warrant officer to serve as counsel, but all three commissioned Cinnabars, Ottis’ commission by courtesy didn’t count for this purpose, were required to make up the three member quorum for the court martial.

“Do you have any further remarks to offer in your defense Lieutenant?” Kaiden asked with cold formality. Technically speaking he outranked Micha now that the later had been stripped of his command.

“You will swing for this you bastards! Ill see each of your rotting bodies over a yard arm at Harbor Three!” Micha blustered. Sabatine rather sadly thought that if Micha had shown this kind of fire during action this court wouldn’t be necessary. Of course that didn’t mean he was right about the hanging. She felt her lips peel back slightly in something between a grin and a snarl. A great many things would have to go right if she was going to survive to face the hangman. Micha continued to rave but Tilda touched a control and engaged the privacy field around his station, effectively muting him behind a curtain of sound cancelation. She was damned good at this, the bitch.

“So noted,” Kaiden sighed. Sabatine didn’t know if he was as unconcerned with Micha’s threats as he appeared. The RCN took a jaundiced view of its officers committing mutiny, which might or might not be what they were doing, depending on the outcome of an inquiry back in Xenos. It was an open question as to whether his family name would help or hurt him in such a proceeding. The RCN prided itself on being above politics, but whether it would find it convenient to spare a Caladwarden or come down hard on him to make the point was difficult to say.

“Lieutenants, do either of you require time or additional material before rendering a verdict?” Kaiden asked.

“No sir,” they both replied in unison.

“Very well, Lieutenant Hickoring, your verdict on charges of neglect of duty to the Republic in time of war and cowardice in the face of the enemy?” Kaiden continued. Sabatine was technically Rachet’s senior on date of commission.

“Guilty on all counts Sir,” she responded formally. Kadien nodded his head.

“Lieutenant Rachet?” Kaiden asked, nodding his head at the gun boat captain. Rachet scratched as his close cropped hair in what Sabatine interpreted as a nervous habit. He had the look of a man in extreme discomfort, having not been present when Kaiden had removed Micha from command, he was now being asked to hitch his reputation to what might be ruled to be a mutiny. Much of the presentation that had been delivered today was aimed at him, as no court martial could be conducted without three captains present, a technicality, among an increasing list of technicalities, satisfied by Sabatine’s temporary command of Z-21. Rachet took a deep breath and cast a glance at the silently ranting Micha then straightened his shoulders.

“Guilty sir,” Rachet declared with a slightly pained look. Sabatine had reviewed Rachet’s record since the Whitehall had joined their nascent squadron. He was a son of minor nobility whose father had squandered most of a small family fortune on bad investments. He had, none the less, made his way in the RCN with little interest and no money, not the sign of a coward or incompetent.

“Guilty,” Kaiden said decisively. He crooked a finger at Tilda, who dropped the noise cancelation around Micha who cut off in mid expletive when sound from the outside reached him.

“Lieutenant Valten Micha,” Kadien began formally, “you have been found guilty of Cowardice in the Face of the Enemy by this court martial.”

“You have no authority to…” Kaiden silenced Micha with a raised finger. Sabatine was struck by how well he played the Cinnibar Noble though that shouldn’t have been a surprise.

“In recognition of the extraordinary circumstances, I have elected not to have you shot on your own quarterdeck, as has been done in the past,” he continued coldly. That shocked Micha as effectively as a glass of cold water to the face. He had been worried before, but now he was scared. It would have been an easy thing for Kaiden to have him disposed of out here where fewer questions might be asked.

“Clear the bridge,” Kaiden declared. There was a general rush for the door as spacers obeyed, piling out into the corridors beyond.

“Lieutenant, you will be transported to Cinnabar aboard the Nestor as Captain and Astrogator,” Kaiden continued coldly. Micha stared at him in shock. Sabatine could see the wheels turning behind his eyes, considering how he might be able to get the wheels of the Navy House bureaucracy moving behind the scenes.

“I’ll be sending a report on the situation here in a sealed fleet packet,” Kaiden told him. The packet was a solid state device sealed with encryption that could only be opened by Navy House. It would contain not only the report of what was going on, but a transcript of the court martial.

“I’ll see you hang, I swear I will,” Micha snarled hatefully.

“So long as it is after you get to Xenos and deliver the packet,” Kaiden responded.

Cinnabar Forever! (RCN)

Sabatine had never felt more exhausted in her life. Breaking that record was becoming a routine however and she rubbed her hands over gummy eyes as she finished the shut down sequence. The sudden silence as the roar of expelled plasma cut off was almost physically shocking. Not for the first time, or even the hundredth time, she cursed the name of Prince Kaiden Caladwarden. She had brought the Z-21 on a short hope through the matrix to an unnamed world that rejoiced in the simple alpha numeric M-X-2341 in a little under 2 days. It had been tricky with her new rig, designed for looks rather than efficiency, but even if she wasn't a brilliant astrogater, she was solidly competent. She glanced around the bridge at the exhausted faces of her few watch standers, all of whom had been needed to land the destroyer after the brutal chore of rerigging her. Fortunately the hard part was now over, and all they had to do was wait for Kaiden to arrive in the Vickie to take them on to the next phase of the plan.

"Open hatches, get some men out soonest to top off reaction mass," Sabatine ordered over the command net. M-X-2341 had a breathable atmosphere, though the air as very arid. It even had liquid water which allowed starships to refuel. Colonization had never been attempted however because the powerful magnetic storms which raged across it played hell with sensors of all kinds. Sabatine had bought them in to what had once, in the geological past, been a crater lake, but now was a dry sandy basin several kilometers across. The crew would have to deploy the drills to get down to the aquafir twenty meters or so below the sand, but that was easy work in close to the 1g that humans were designed to operate within.

With nothing pressing to do, Sabatine opened the ships log with a private thrill. Brought vessel from Delta 3-7 to M-X-2341 in a voyage of one day seven hours, fair conditions in the matrix with course attached. She appended the file with a few key strokes then allowed herself a few moments to savor something she had dreamed of since she was a small girl visiting the great naval base at Harbor 3 on Cinnabar. She flexed her fingers and added: Lt Sabatine Hickoring, Officer Commanding, RCS Z-21. If the ship survived operations and returned to Cinnibar some day, that entry would be copied to the Navy House records. Whatever else might happen, she would always be able to claim she commanded a ship in time of war, even if it was for a short hop from one no where to another. Her irritation with Kaiden dropped a grudging degree, given that he had made this possible.

"Orders Captain?" Creavy, the engineer and acting chief of ship asked. He was nervous, drafted from the Whitehall to a ship ten times its side, and suicidally short crewed, though she suspected he was the type that would be nervous no matter what was going on.

"Soon as we have topped off the tanks power everything down, fusion bottles to stand by," she replied. Already the steady thrum thrum thrum of pumps told her that water was coming aboard.

"Lets put her in moth balls and wait for Lieutenant Kaiden arrives to pick us up," she instructed, without another word she stood up and walked into the captains cabin, throwing herself down on the bed without even removing her boots. She was asleep in moments.

Pirates - Ye Be Warned

Jess listened to the report with unconcealed skepticism. She had brought the thief with her for two reasons, one - she wanted to keep an eye on him and two - it was pretty clear he would be useless for the task of heaving around heavy water butts in the hot sun. She scratched behind her ear and shrugged, shifting the bandau of black silk that was her customary garb in hot weather. Wherever they were it was much hotter than it should have been given the seas they had been in just last night, and she was more than a little nervous about what star sights might reveal once the sun went down.

"Snake men, or eel men, or whatever, they can keep the stinking island so long as we can take some bearings from it," she snapped and turned and continued through the jungle. They followed a... trail was the wrong word, it was probably a water course that collected rain from the high ground during tropical storms, but for now it was dry enough to make for easy walking. Jess was glad enough for a clear path, the jungle was lush and dense and filled with strange sounds and perfumes. Once, long ago, she had been to the Green Land south of Lhsoutu where the rainforest stretched for thousands of leagues. Men died in their hundreds attempting to pass those jungles, whether by wild life, poisonous plants, or the innumerable diseases that seemed to haunt the tropic latitudes. As they climbed the jungle began to clear and they passed through a landscape of shrubs and low rocky outcropping. Sleek black bird like things lay on the rocks, apparently sunning themselves, casting lazy unconcerned eyes at the intruders as they trudged towards the mountain peak.

As they cleared the shrub line and reached the even more rocky pinnacle the sea stretched away before them. Far below the bay in which they had come to anchor spread out in a semicircle, from this distance, the Weather Witch looked like a child's toy floating on a distant ultramarine pond. Jess wiped the sweat from her brow and took a canteen of leather wrapped glass from her belt. She unstopped it and took a long drink. Galt gave her an imploring look, and she sighed and passed the canteen to him. He took a swing and then gasped.

"I thought it was water!" he gasped.

"Cut one third with rum and lime juice," Jess told him, plucking the bottle from his hands and restoppering it. There was an old sailors superstition that if you mixed rum and juice with water there were less cases of the flux. Jess had never felt there was a particular need to invent reasons to drink rum, but she partook in the old superstition none the less. Across the distant sea Jess could make out the green shadows of other islands. She took her glass from its leather sheath and unsnapped it, taking bearings to the various points with the aid of a battered brass compass.

"Jess!" Galt called from behind her, she ignored him as she took another bearing, memorizing it rather than writing it down like a lubber.

"Jess!" Galt called again more urgent than before.

"It is Captain..." Jess turned to snarl at the thief but froze in her tracks as she saw that he had climbed higher and moved a was around the peak. She trotted up to join him and saw at once what had captured his attention. Off in the jungle was a vast stone ziggurat. It was small from this distance, but must have been as large as the largest temples in Jess' native Bettony. A great road of black green stone lead from its stairs to the base of the mountain on which they stood. Tiny figures were marching out of it. Jess lifted her glass for a moment but lowered it without putting it to her eye. Even at this range she could tell by the strange almost serpentine sway of the column, that they were not human.