Capítulo 219: Friend or Foe
Outskirts of The Colony
A Jeep rumbled up a dirt track and passed by a rustic wooden gate and fence before the driver stopped the vehicle before a simple wooden cabin with several large barns next to it. The passengers and the driver hopped out of the military Jeep and looked around their surroundings in interest.
"Bartley?" Mills yelled out. "Are you in?"
One of the barn's door swung open and a massive 3 meters tall Wind Wolf stuck its head out and sniffed the air, before giving off a couple of greeting barks.
"Has the wolves eaten you yet?" Mills joked as he walked over to the barn and rubbed the soft fluffy fur of the wolf which happily rolled over to let its belly to be scratched. "Oh, you like this don't cha?"
Bartley appeared from inside the barn, dressed in a leather work smock over a locally produced shirt and knee-length work boots. He leaned the rake against the wall and removed his gloves before wiping the sweat off his face and smiled at Mills.
"Hey, big guy!" Mills went up to Bartley and gave him a brotherly hug. "Damn! You smell of dog shit and piss!"
Bartley grinned and shooked hands with Drake, Collins, and James. "How's farm life doing for you?" James asked his former section mate.
"The air is good, work is tiring but honest at least," Bartley smiled. "Come inside, it's cold out here."
Bartley shooed the curious wind wolves back to their pens and closed the barn door before bringing his friends into his cabin.
Mills went to the Jeep and came back with a trunk food of supplies. "I got some locally brewed piss for you!"
The cabin was tidy and simply furnished. There were only a single chair and a sofa and in the end, they just dragged the chair and sofa over to Bartley's bed and they gathered there.
"Cheers!" The gang toasted each other and took a swill from the bottles of local beers. The quality of bottling drinks had improved vastly over the months and the men finished the drinks quickly.
"How are you doing?" Collins asked as he popped open the trunk and shared some meat jerky around. "Civilian life good?"
"In a way, yes," Bartley smiled bitterly. "More freedom."
"Hey, don't sweat it," Drake patted Bartley's back. "You did something good there. You saved those wolves."
"Yea!" Mills chirped in. "Train them well! I want to ride into battle on a wolf! Woo!"
James shook his head, "Don't worry, we are all here for you. Even getting dishonorably discharged from the Corps, none of us think badly of you!"
"Thanks, guys," Bartley nodded in gratitude at his friends.
"Hey, we are brothers!" Mills raised his beer up and yelled. "Tonight we party!"
"We got meat for BBQ and plenty of drinks!"
-----
Kingdom of Bluewood, Imperial Capital
The Emperor sat up on his bed and clutched his chest hard, his fingers digging deep into his flesh. A crescent shape appeared under the skin of his chest and appeared to be alive as it radiated a soft glow through his skin.
Sweat trickled down his naked body as he struggled against the scorching pain in his chest. He raised one hand and gripped the sleeping girl next to him and almost immediately, the pain lessened and he felt a cooling sensation flowing from his hand to his chest.
He looked down and in the dim mage lights, he noticed wrinkles on his body slowly disappearing and his skin regaining the supple glow of youth.
As the pain faded, the crescent shape pushing against his skin slowing retreated back into his body and the glow disappeared. Taking a deep breath, he looked down to his bed where the girl laid, only to find a dried out husk curled up in a fetal position.
The Emperor stood up and walked to a full length polished bronze mirror and admired his body under the dim lights. He rubbed the red patch on his chest where his nails had gorged into his skin drawing blood. As he watched, his skin visibly recovered with a blemish.
He frowned wondering why has it been so active lately. It used to only trigger once a year or less but lately, it has kept demanding more and more from him. He looked at his 20 year old plus face and body and smiled, knowing that no one suspected him to be over sixty years of age.
Not even his own sons can recognize him till the last moment when he whispered to their ears. He remembered the disbelieve in his eldest son when he ran his sword through his body. "Luke, I am your father!"
His eldest son stared in horror and died with confusion in his eyes and he wasn't the only one to die that way. Only his youngest son, did he banished away due to some lingering feelings for his mother and he took his youngest son's identify and reunified the Kingdom under his new identity.
It all had started when he was given a piece of artifact that gave him renewed strength and vitality. He knew his sons were plotting for the throne once he died and knew that they were useless. He was given a new chance in life so why shouldn't he take this chance to unite the whole New World?
His useless sons were only interested in power, women, and wealth and won't amount to anything greater than he ever was! Only him, the great Emperor Dios Bluewood will be able to hold the people's heart and unite the world under one banner!
His youngest son, borne out with a favored concubine was the weakest among his brothers. Weak of will and mind, his magical powers were also below average. Hence, he decided to make use of his youngest child for his plot but in return for his affections to his concubine, he allowed his youngest to live. With that, he faked his death and assumed the identity of his youngest child and played the whole Kingdom into the palm of his hands.
When the uprising by his supposed brothers came, they dismissed him as the weakest and fought among themselves while Dios laughed behind the scenes. He had already prepared his strongest army to only obey him and when his sons were weakened, he attacked and in a brief year of suppression, he regained control of the whole Kingdom again. Expect this time, it was under the guise of Varacen Bluewood, the youngest hidden genius of the only surviving Bluewood lineage.
Admiring himself again in the mirror, he pulled the bell and a small army of eunuchs appeared, he gestured to the body on the bed and the eunuchs bowed before removing the body.
"Bring me another girl."
-----
UNS Matador, 78 km offshore from Far Harbor
Commander Ford sat on his command chair and watched the grey skies as waves as tall as a human rosed against the twin hulls of the Matador.
"Commander!" The bridge navigator called out. "Two more hours to Far Harbor approach. Weather is not looking too good."
"Got it," Ford replied and wondered if the Captain and Princess were okay. "Contact Poseidon and get weather updates from them."
"Aye!" The bridge crew radio back to Naval Command and requested for the current weather update.
"First Officer," Ford stood up from his seat. "You have the conn."
"Aye, I have the conn!" The First Officer leaped up and saluted as Ford left the Bridge to tour his ship.
Ford went down to the hanger deck and found the crew in a joyous mood. Six AF - 1N Sea Cobras rested snuggly on their cradles were stuffed tightly to one side while the crew ensured that all the items that were needed to be offloaded or be replaced were checked and secured properly against the stormy seas.
He returned the salutes of the crew and walked to the end of the internal hanger deck to the stern of the ship where the deck had a large square well that opened up to the Sea Operations well deck. Two PT - 1 'Mosquito' boats sat on an unflooded well deck on secured moorings that could hold another two more PT boats.
Ford could see the UNS Floatin Wreck from the half exposed stern of the well decks were the hanger doors were closed up. The well deck could be flooded and the Mosquito boats will be floated out from the stern. The Sea Ops deck also stored amphibious warfare equipment for launching attacks or landings on beaches.
He headed next to the starboard hull which also known as Hull A while the port side hull was known as Hull B. Several enclosed passageways connected the two hulls together which held the ship's crew quarters, storage, mess, entertainment, and gym facilities, and also the engine rooms.
Each Hull had their own independent engine and power rooms. The Engineering Department had to split their manpower between the two hulls to oversee and maintain the engines. As he entered the Hull A engine's room, the temperature rosed to sweltering levels.
"Chief?" He called out to the Matador Chief Engineer, a newly promoted crewman of UNS Singapore.
"Commander? What brings you here?" The Chief asked as he put down his work tools.
"How's everything?" Ford asked as he looked at the confusing array of dials and gauges.
"A few burst pipes here and there," The Chief reported. "Also a few armor plating sprung out from their bolts and leakages here and there."
He rapped his knuckles against the wooden hull and said, "These hulls are not really designed to take such heavyweight despite having balanced over with a twin hull design."
"The weight ratio calculations are fine, but these hulls are just too old," The Chief engineer said. "Well, if we can rebuild these hulls from the ground up, this ship design is actually pretty solid."
"How bad is the leakage?" Ford frowned, wondering why no one has reported this issue to him.
"The leaking isn't too bad, the pumps are able to keep up," The Chief said. "Since we are nearing Far Harbor in a couple of hours, it isn't a very big issue nor will it affect our speed at this point of time."
Ford nodded, "Regardless, I want a damage report on that."
The Chief nodded resignedly. "Got it, Commander. Once we hit the docks, I will also get the docks to see if we can fix the hulls up properly to prevent more of these issues."
"Good," Ford replied. "Keep up the good work, Chief!"
"Aye!"
After checking each department, Ford returned to his office and started going through all his reports. "Six goblin raiding groups destroyed over a three week period with 47% aircraft ordnance and 62% aircraft fuel onboard expended. Zero casualties."
Suddenly the alert buzzer rang and the public announcement system blared, "All hands! Action Stations! Repeat, this is not a drill! All hands! Action Stations!"
Ford jerked up from his reading and in reflex, he ran out of his cabin. The crew ditched what they were doing and quickly moved towards their stations as they had trained and drilled.
Appearing at the Bridge, Ford immediately asked as he stepped in. "What happened?"
"Sir! Surface radar is picking up multiple contacts!" The First Officer quickly reported. "We don't know what is it, but they are big!"
"Bearing and heading?" Ford stood over the tactical plot table. "Report back to Poseidon and Thunderchief now!"
"Aye!"
"Launch the alert Cobras!" Ford ordered next. "Prep the half of the Sea Cobras for anti-shipping combat and the rest with air to air loadouts."
"Aye!"
"Order the Floatin Wreck to take up station between us and the unknowns!" Ford gave the next command. "Deploy the Mosquitos and have them on close by escort duty!"
The bridge crew scrambled rapidly to Ford's orders while Ford frowned, "What came come so near to us without us detecting it?"
"Sir! Surface radar is showing seven contacts! All twice the size or even larger than the Matador!"
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Capítulo 220: Terror of the Deep
Klaxons continued to wail, as crewmen rushed to their stations. The yellow and green coated techs swarmed over the cradled planes and readied them for launch.
The two alert Sea Cobras sat on the flight elevator awaiting their pilots as techs armed the onboard weapons and the trolley accumulators kick-started up the propeller engines.
The alert pilots quickly climbed onboard their planes and techs helped buckled them up as the elevators cranked loudly, moving up to the launch decks. The platform shuddered to a halt and techs unhooked the accumulators before guiding the planes to a launch cradle.
Once the Sea Cobra's wheels and the airframe were properly locked in place, the techs scrambled clear while the Air Boss that sat in a glass blister on the launch deck overseed the entire flight operations. A Red signal light turned yellow and the pilots pushed their engine power to the max, the roar of the engines louder than the clashing of waves against the ship hulls.
The Matador groaned as the ship maneuvered its stern towards the wind, allowing the planes to launch with the wind behind them to prevent crashes caused by crosswinds.
The signal turned green and the steam catapult fired, super accelerating the hooked up planes to speeds of over two hundred kilometers in just a couple of seconds, tossing the biplanes into the air.
The 'Catafighters' dubbed by the crew and pilots dipped down as they hit the air before rising up. The two planes did a loop around the Matador to orientate themselves before charging off in the direction of the surface contacts.
-----
Seaman Lero Gemwoods angled his body as he raced through the hatchways, heading towards the Sea Operations well deck. Several crew members ran passed him as they headed to other locations in the ship.
As Lero reached the Sea Ops well deck, he saw the stern doors had lowered and the well deck was already flooded. He quickly ran to his equipment locker and grabbed his gear consisting of a harness webbing, personal flotation device, and his personal arms.
He quickly slipped into his webbings and donned the dark blue PFD over and checked his service revolver was loaded before slipping it back into his holster. Other PT crew members were also similarly gearing up and while others lugged ammo boxes and weapons onboard the two Mosquito boats.
Lero quickly boarded the Mosquito boat he was assigned to, FAC 04, nicknamed by its crew as 'Mozzy' and quickly ran through a series of checks on his boat station. His crew members consisted of thirteen others and he generally manned the top side twin .50 caliber guns.
He quickly helped moved and secured the stacks of olive green ammo cases to the storage bins while the engine of the PT boat roared to life. Once the All Green was given, FAC 04 'Mozzy' and her sister boat, FAC 05 'Lassy' reversed out of the Sea Ops well deck and into the open sea.
-----
Thick grey-white smoke spewed out from the funnel of UNS Floatin Wreck as it pushed its engines to the maximum speed and took up a protective screen before the seaplane tender.
Dark figures of crewmen could be seen running along the top deck of the Corvette as they manned the weapons on the decks from Commander Ford's vantage point on the Matador's Island Bridge.
Multiple reports came in from all sources, some demanded answers, others asked questions, harrying the Bridge crew. "Ford," Captain Blake's voice spoke from the image on the screen. "What's the situation?"
"Not too sure yet," Ford replied. "Our alert Cobras just launched and are en route to the location of contacts."
"Noted, I have scrambled a flight of Cobras to provide support over your AO," Blake said. "Also, Far Harbor defenses are being activated."
"Thanks, my remaining planes are still being scrambled for launch," Ford frowned. "This came at a bad time, we had already prepped all the planes to be ready to be off loaded when we arrive back at port in an hour or so."
"Lucky, the two alert Cobras were still standing by," Ford shooked his head. "Bad oversight on my part. "
"Well, not entirely your fault," Blake replied. "We just never expected something to appear so close to the port. Our nearest UAV is being routed over to investigate too."
"Alright, keep me updated when you have news," Blake said. "I gonna have a talk with the Isles representative, see if they know anything."
-----
The two Sea Cobras flew side by side and less than a hundred meters above sea level. The two pilots kept their eyes peeled wide as they approached the location where the radar reported multiple surface contacts.
The grey skies and light snowfall made visibility low and the pilots could only see a cluster of small islands as they reached the target area. They dived lower and did a long loop, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary in the area but couldn't find anything unusual.
"Flying Fish One to Matador," The lead pilot radioed. "No contacts sighted. Over."
"Matador," The ship replied. "Surface targets right on top of you, over!"
"Negative, Flying Fish One sees no targets, over."
Just as Flying Fish One finished his report, the seas below him appeared to churned violently. To the pilots' surprise and horror, the cluster of 'islands' appeared to come to life as massive flippers rosed up from the water and the 'islands' swam away from the churning sea.
"SHIT SHIT SHIT!" Flying Fish One yelled out in fright at the sight of the suddenly alive islands. "Flying Fish One, we got sea monsters! Repeat! SEA MONSTERS!"
As the two planes pulled up to a higher altitude, dozens of wiggling tentacles burst out from the churning seawater and shot towards one of the nearest Island. The tentacles wrapped another the 'island' and the pilots could clearly see trees and rocks getting destroyed by the rapidly constricting tentacles.
A serpentine head suddenly popped out from the 'island' and it roared loudly with its beak like mouth and the four giant flippers thrashed madly as it tried to escape from the pull of the tentacles.
"Gods of the Heavens!" Flying Fish One cried out as he saw what rosed out from the depths of the sea that the tentacles belonged to.
A massive arrowheaded dome, with a pair of bony ridged claws rosed up from the sea. Its maw a mess of tentacles that were able to stretch over a hundred meters long, that was drawing the island creature closer and closer to it.
It's two claws snipped rapidly in excitement as it drew the creature it caught closer and closer to its gaping maw. The rest of the island creatures cried out in panic and distress as they saw one of their kind about to be eaten by the monster. One of the island creatures even turned around and charged towards the monster, seemingly trying to save the other.
"Matador, Flying Fish One," The pilot radioed. "What are our orders?"
"Flying Fish One, Matador, Hold one, over."
-----
The Owleye UAV happily hummed in the air as it flew over the AO of the sighting of the sea monsters. Its sensors recorded and imagery was fed back to the data servers onboard UNS Singapore and everyone who was the images were frightened by the size of the monsters.
"What are those creatures?" Ford shuddered at the thought of such monsters were hiding in the depths! "Those looked like some kind of giant sea turtle while the squid like thing looks like a hermit crab with tentacles..."
"This is fucked up," Ford took a deep calming breath. "Order Flying Fish One and Two to maintain altitude and keep observing the monsters."
"All ships are to maintain a five-kilometer distance from the monsters!" Ford ordered next. "Weapons on standby, if that thing shows any aggression to us, fire at will!"
"Sir, do you think we should help those, 'island creatures'?" One of the female bridge crew asked. "They look kind of pitiful..."
Ford frowned and returned to observing the fight between monsters. It clearly is shown that the tentacle monster was the apex predator compared to the giant turtles who kept baying away in panic.
Even the brave giant turtle that attempted to save its friend suffered greatly from the pincher claws of the tentacle monster. Help them? Ford rubbed his chin as he thought to himself, thinking of the pros and cons.
Helping the turtles will definitely bring about the wrath of the tentacle beast and there weren't any returns from the saved turtles but If we can defeat this monster, it will greatly boost the morale of everyone, and also show off our might to the isles, thought Ford.
Just as Ford was about to give his orders, Captain Blake called in. "Ford, I spoke with the Islanders and shown them the images of the sea monsters."
"They called the tentacle monster as 'Krarga the Terror of the Deep' which the Islanders greatly fear. They are known to devour whole ships and convoys," Blake repeated what the Islanders told him. "It took them a fleet of over twenty warships to defeat one and that creature was just in its infancy and yet less than half the ships were able to sail home. Very dangerous and that creature should be a matured monster they said."
"These turtles like creatures as Island Whales," Blake explained. "Island whales are gentle and peaceful creatures and are highly revered as sea gods and is said to be good luck for the sailors. They also saved many sailors lives as the Island whales travel from place to place and its back, as you can see, is like its own ecosystem."
"Ford, I want you to save those creatures," Blake ordered. "It will grant us goodwill with the Islanders and not to mention also a way to show off to them our naval strength."
"Hmm... don't you mean that you wanna just show off to your love competitors?" Ford joked while the bridge crew sniggered.
Blake cleared his throat loudly and smiled mysteriously, "Yea, as if I needed to that! Ha!"
Ford raised an eyebrow at the mysterious smile of Blake and wondered what happened while he was away. "Alright, seen you what to show off what we can do, I assume you invited the Islanders for a view?"
"Yes, they are actually here at Command," Blake replied. "Well, put on a good show for them for us alright?"
Ford nodded and turned to his excited crew. "Let's show them what the Navy can do!"
-----
"Flying Fish One, this is Matador," The radio crackled to life. "New orders to engage the sea monster attacking the island creatures once the rest of Flying Fish flight have joined up with you. In the meantime, provide artillery observation, over."
"Roger that!" Flying Fish One replied in surprised. They were gonna attack that huge monster? Are they serious?
As he waited for the rest of the aircraft from Matador to join him, UNS Floatin Wreck sailed to a distance of three kilometers away from the Krarga and open fire.
Shrieking shells landed around the surprised sea monster as it reeled in its weakening prey. It screamed as a shell hammered against its rubbery body and the HE shell exploded. The shock and flames of the explosion flash fried its skin and transmitted shockwaves into its body, causing it excruciating pain.
The Krarga's rubbery hide was thick and strong enough to bounce the shells off its body but the resulting explosions badly shook its insides. Its primitive mind was unable to comprehend what was happening to it except that it was in much pain.
It loosed its hold on its prey and wiggled free, trying to escape the pain that came from nowhere. The freed Island Whale quickly swam away from the loud explosions while baying in even more panic.
"Floatin Wreck! Good hit! Good hit!" Flying Fish One cried excitedly over the radio as he observed the shells fall. "Fire for effect!"
The guns of UNS Floatin Wreck roared again.
REFLEXIONES DE LOS CREADORES
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