You must tell us what happened, Maria says. Sanna leans against the tree we’re under. And Sanna lets out a deep breath, as if she had been holding it for the duration of the call.
Lord Byron, she says. Another sigh. Lord Byron has been executed. The Southern Council found him guilty of high treason. Admiral Silve and Captains Ryden, Hatcher, and Lathe were all hanged alongside him. The Bear Island Fleet has been confiscated and the remaining men to be prisoners. Which doesn’t make sense, at all.
And who is in charge of the Bay now?
I heard from the secretary that Lord Fairfield was chosen to be the successor. Either my men were in on the conspiracy, and I don’t believe they would meddle in international affairs, or they were murdered. We need to go there and find out what happened. The secretary didn’t want to say much. She said she didn’t want to cause an international diplomatic incident. But they already did when they killed my men, so this isn’t adding up. And.
And…?
And we’ll still rescue the Iron Island Fleet. But I’ll send Florian to the Bay right now to have him sort out what’s going on. But if they even so much as look at him the wrong way, they will get the war they’re so desperately asking for.
And you. She looks at me and then back to Maria. You were right, both of you. Something was wrong when they didn’t send the Royal Guard. I should’ve listened.
Never mind that, I say. Let’s focus on getting to the Horn. Then focus on dealing with the oowa.
—-
The last two days were hectic, almost frenetic, but we made it to the Horn without a hitch. The Iron Fleet seems to be mostly intact, a couple hundred casualties as opposed to estimated thousands, and two destroyers… destroyed. Other ships suffered some damage, a few major but repairable and some minor.
Problem was, and is, that the oowa circled the lighthouse at the tip of the Horn, which means that it will be a problem to move the fleet, let alone for it cross the ocean. Good news is it had calmed down. No longer did it have the reported smoky aura that had enveloped it during the attack. However, there seems to be a limit to the oowa’s range because we flew low and close to the trees to arrive at the beach, and the psyfoxes provided us with active camoflouge.
Admiral Kazarian and a few of the major captains sit in the bridge of the Berserker, the flagship of the Iron Fleet. Sanna, Drakon, Maria, and the fighter pilots are in as well. A team of Kazarian’s men give a detailed report of the attack, describe the status of the fleet, and then they lay out potential escape strategies. There’s two options they won’t present, even though they are the most straightforward.
The first option is to have a special squad undergo fusion and then one by one, each fighter will break off. The last would need to escape on an gyrprey, an arctic psychic falcon, even though escape would not be guaranteed. Problem is, the death of any of these ten is a catastrophic loss.
Next would be to have Calamity attack the oowa and have Drakon eject and caught by a gyrprey. The issue would be to convince Calamity. Of course, the men don’t know about Calamity. So, that is not presentable. Drakon and I have told Sanna that is an option.
The first option the team presents is to lure the oowa away with fighter jets. If chosen, these pilots will be guaranteed death. But, the pilots seem ready to make the sacrifice. Good, experienced men, but not essential and they are in expendable aircraft. Costly, but not the end of the world. The team recognizes the immediate problems. The jets aren’t fast enough to provide enough time for all ships to escape, we don’t know how far the oowa will chase, and we don’t know if the oowa would break off the chase in order to attack the fleet again.
Absolutely not. Sanna leans back. They weren’t finished, but that doesn’t matter now.
The next option is to have the damaged ships head towards the lighthouse, and to load it with explosives and to have psychics provide mirages that would act as human decoys. Then, the rest of the ships would slip out from the southside exit and then from there, travel southeast to get out of its sight horizon and after a few hours, we’d head north. Again, the oowa’s motivations are not clear. It would be best to immobilize it, but killing it is out of the question. Only a few beings would be capable of that.
No. Too many unknowns. Does your next option include attacking the oowa head-on or are we to hope we can sneak by a god of shadows?
We never considered attacking the oowa head-on, ma’am. The casualties would be too great.
Conventional battle would be suicide, I understand. Thank you. You can sit now. Sanna stands and takes their place. With a tap of a few buttons on her cybernetic hand, she connects to the projector. Kazarian, your men will provide anti-air support. Ice missiles, psychic-locked only. From the hip and we’d risk hitting one of our own. Drakon, your squad will act as flies. Don’t get too close, but get close enough to distract it.
She looks to the fighter pilots. Stun rounds, psychic-locked only. I was told that it should understand nonlethal attacks.
Maria makes eye contact with Sanna and nods. Esoteric, ancient, knowledge is one of those things unique to The Masked. A stereotype, true, but you can expect many to be living encyclopedias. A behavioral relic of their culture.
We can’t kill it. And even if we could, we shouldn’t try to kill it. When it’s immobilized, we’ll lock it in a temporary psychic prison. Once we know it is secure, we’ll leave. I’m making this sound too easy. It’ll be anything but. I’ll send you reports now. And her eyes and her hand glow for a brief second and almost instantly it is received. Any questions?
What will I do? I ask.
You’ll be with me, Maria, and Kazarian. We’re attacking the oowa. Are you ready, Wretch?