There was not much fanfare or ment as the st boarded their ships. Every ship bearing a detachment of the host, every cramped civilian of Sarjenko's faction doing their best to rest save for those fabricating what war material could be made.

  The wounded that could be saved tended by the medicine men, such as they are, attempt to sleep with those slowly dying providing a ghastly track for their slumber.

  The former citizens of Landeska are assigned bors in accordance with the former city authorities lest their anxiety gets the better of them.

  The less said about the few but miserable prisoners the better. Their lives forfeit, their beings to be brutalized as seen fit - they may soon welcome their imposed death sentence.

  The two hundred and forty men mercenary group accompanying this ramshackle collection have spread themselves among the fleet. Sufficiently rge ships or ships designated with potential sea-to-nd capabilities housed the majority of them, all of their leaders with the radios at the ready awaiting orders from Colonel Wilrd, at the head of a sizable detachment housed in the fleet's fgship.

  The fgship, being the st to leave Landeska by way of a small harbor on the west of the city with thin small mountains immediately on the northern side, was a subtle fever dream. The chassis was a crash between a World War I destroyer and light cruiser. Across the length were two conning towers in the front, two smoke stacks in the middle, and one more conning tower in the back. Only the forward conning tower, appearing short due to it rising from the lowly elevated deck onto the raised bow section, bared its aged instruments on top of the third level. It is here where Sarjenko, his retinue, and the ship's command stayed.

  The other two, only two levels high, were shared by the Outsider mercenaries at the bottom and some of the finely armored warriors of the host, the same type guarding their master back in Landeska, staying on top.

  Three single cannon gun turrets of undetermined size, albeit of small caliber, were all the offensive capabilities the ship could offer - one facing the forward conning tower, one between the smokestacks, and one behind the st conning tower, and behind that a ft, empty stern with white and red streaks on it like a weird target symbol. These turrets only had shielding on their circumference with the roof removed. Presumably these breech loaders were loaded manually, however, none of the mercenaries could assert that as fact.

  Save for the conning towers, the smokestacks, and the gun turrets, the rest of the surface sections would be more appropriate in a cruise liner with their windowed walls. Said windows, however did not shatter easily; a few of the mercenaries had earlier attempted to shatter them in disbelief, but only white blemishes were left over the surface. Inside, the doorways went down a flight of stairs onto a wooden floor with the gloss of wax, surrounded by unmovable solid bleachers. Despite the cramped accommodations, the first of these sections housed thirty of the Outsiders, complete with their kits and sleeping mats.

  Below the stern deck, the most severe wounded were tended by a portion of the medical team along with some volunteers from the host, mostly aspiring medicine men doing their best to adjust to the culture shock of Outsider treatment. From their understanding, these patients should already be dead - punctured bellies, shattered bones underneath the limbs, crushed chests, messy torn legs as if knawed by herbivore teeth. Yet here they were still breathing, even if permanently removed from combat.

  Whatever the medical team could not solve properly was differed to the aspiring medicine men and their potions and their mumbled esoteric enchantments. Loath as they are to admit, such magics were the only thing avaible to compensate for no genuine facilities. "If it doesn't heal today, it will heal tomorrow" bares more weight in this world.

  At a lonely corner with two hanging sheets as walls, Colonel Becker, free from his gear, has gone to see the sleeping Sor-Harach. Taking a moment to sit in a nearby stool with an electrical mp hanging on the solid wall was the main medical authority, Captain Rodger Clegg.

  Removing his apron revealed a thin framed man roughly 1.9 meters with a beige shirt with the top two buttons open, grey subtle bell bottom worker's scks, and bck clogs. His thick bck hair, combed to a short shag with the sides going back, made his head seem slightly bigger. Captain Clegg's eyes were beady and squinted between his thick long eyebrows with the fat folds crowning and wrinkling at the intersection with the upper lid.

  His white ivory skin was ft and clean, albeit burnt by the smoke of countless fags burnt between his lips. As he expined Sor-Harach's condition, he did so in a grave voice marked by a rural id-back inflection.

  Capt. Rodger Clegg: I'll put it to you like this - he may STILL be a father.

  Looking down at the bandaged young man in deep sleep, Becker swallowed slowly as the words registered in his mind, rubbing his right temple with the palm of his hand and sliding it up and down.

  Capt. Rodger Clegg: He'll recover faster than the other lot, as is. For now he's back to a drug-induced sleep. I can assume his mind will be a different matter. If his kind are like ours, I would expect that the worst fir-ups he'll be wracked with will be from pig people who will find the prospect of his wounds very funny.

  Leaning as far back as he could, Clegg pressed the top of his head upon the wall while making slow turns and squeezing his eyes hard.

  Capt. Rodger Clegg: You were right, by the way, sir. Heated pliers and burnt fags were used upon his body. And electrodes...they really did a number on him, right? Just what was so important about the d, eh?

  Moving away from the cot and approaching Clegg, Becker pced his back by the wall and pced his hands in his side pockets while releasing an exhausted sigh.

  Becker: They must have presumed they could extract something to bargain with or change their luck. Perhaps something about being a spy...standard operational procedure. What can you do?

  Capt. Rodger Clegg: 'e did not went fast enough, that's for sure...They're all messy affairs, aren't 'ey all?

  Becker took a look at his pocket watch.

  Becker: I'll let you rest. You've done far too much. Again.

  Clegg snapped himself to sit up straight and mustered a quick salute and a smile without getting up.

  Capt. Rodger Clegg: Can't have enough work, now, can we, sir?

  Passing the other patients, Becker went up the flight of stairs until he reached the deck level in the st conning tower. Looking out towards the darkened Landeska were Kaehe'wa, with his padded stud armor and burgonet clearly visible now that he was no longer surrounded by pitch bckness, and a red scabbard hanging from his left hip with a strange hilt.

  Along with Magic-Man and Wilrd leaning by the solid ledge with their binocurs out.

  Wilrd: Ah, brother! Just in time to enjoy the bonfire!

  As he turned to address him, his voice returned to its normal self from his earlier hurried inflection; a distinct suave storyteller with a tacit authoritative, coarse depth.

  Becker took out his waterproof pocket watch as the long hand moved closer to the top mark.

  Only the noise of the waves breaking by the moving ship filled the air.

  *Boom* *Boom* *Boom* *Boom*

  The fiery mushroom clouds briefly lit parts of the cityscape before fizzling out into the darkened sky, and as it did, strings of fme fell back onto the buildings. The fire rushed hitherto, engulfing everything behind it into a red hell. The wind blew the heavy sparks onto anything not yet on fire, slowly torching the fmmable material into ash.

  Wird: Whatever the fire cannot consume will not matter. Nothing useful will be left in this molten cauldron.

  Kaehe'wa: One less city for the enemy to use...for now.

  His words were weighed with grave experiences from his profession.

  Magic-Man continued to look at the raging spectacle while Wilrd turned back to address the other two.

  Wilrd: If there is nothing more, I need to inform my brother about the pns for Na-Geski.

  Kaehe'wa: When is the flying man joining us?

  Wilrd: Soyd? Sometime tomorrow or the day after. He'll be here in time, regardless.

  Taking a light bow, Kaehe'wa left the three and headed forward on the ship. Wilrd and Becker said their good-byes to Magic-Man, completely transfixed at the sight of the burning city gradually becoming smaller, as they headed onto a room on deck in the st tower.

  The room itself was custrophobic with just enough space to step around. Bags stacked on one corner, locally produced sack beds around a simple table, and tube scrolls on another corner.

  On the table were an electric mp that Wilrd was just turning on, a cleaning kit, and two empty handguns - a cssic Browning High Power and a bck Smith & Wesson 1911. Behind the sack bed opposite the entrance was the butt of a rifle Becker could not fully observe.

  Wilrd: I have nothing to offer you, I'm afraid. I myself have not have a drink in...a long time.

  Becker: I grieve for you.

  Wilrd: So the SD6 has held up to snuff so far! I trust it has satisfied you well.

  He lowered himself slowly on the sack bed with the gun behind before throwing himself down in a slump.

  Wilrd: *Huff* I know, I know - "Not my regiment, not my ptoon." But I trust the work done at the shop more than makes it an ideal tool to compliment your necessities. I never did asked you about it.

  Becker: I hear these new gizmos called Honey Badgers are making the rounds. Perhaps one day you may join the 21st century if you make the effort.

  Wilrd stayed silent for a moment.

  Wilrd: In retrospect, have you encountered any reliable merchant to procure .300 AAC? On the regur? Seriously?!

  He leaned slightly forward to drive the point.

  Becker: ...There's Wild Turansky, you know, the one who services Mad Lily...

  Wilrd gestured in illumination, as if Becker had trouble puzzling through the conclusion.

  Becker: Right! It is a silly old toy, is what it is.

  Wilrd: I'm only surprised you did not say that those two have met a sticky end in a muddy ditch yet.

  He sat one bed away from his brother, blowing out air from his mouth as he did and fidgeting his fingers as if snapping them against his thumbs.

  **How did you ended up in this pce?!**

  **IT'S NOT WHAT I THINK IT IS, IS IT?!**

  As their synchronized words left their mouths they animated themselves to look at one another.

  *AGHH, NO!*

  *BUGGER ME!*

  *YOU BELLEND!*

  *DAMN YOU, YOU TIT!*

  They both realized that the answer formuted in their minds was correct.

  Wilrd: When did this happen?!

  Becker: It took a while to guess but it must have been from that one job we did in the Canoe, or whatever it's called in our shores. I suspect the only one targeted was me, though seeing all of you here...

  Wilrd: No, no. We did too good on one contract. Next thing we know, new contracts are opened. Against us. If we didn't listened to that one elder expining to us some queer porkies about a "magic cave" to a dreamnd...

  Becker: I found one in West Heath.

  Wilrd: Really?!

  The name took the life out of his eyes, blunting them into a ft stare straight at the mp. His ps came at a sharp end after a moment's contemption.

  Wilrd: I'm sure the men are already spreading the word of your return now. It would be best if I told them...

  Becker: I want to address them myself, in person.

  He took out his money pouch, and shuffling through the coinage, he produced three gss textured marbel-sized spheres out of it. The rgest had multiple sharp colors in swirls across the surface. The middle one was blood red with cream white forming a circur patter that when hit by the light of the mp resembled gucoma eyes. The shortest one was a striped mess of pastel blues and soft reds with hints of yellow.

  Immediately, Wilrd's pupils sparkled at the sight.

  Wilrd: Oi, that's rather excessive brother!

  Becker: It's still our firm, and I know you all have not much chance to receive payment.

  Wilrd: Well that's true. We just started working for this...Thanks awfully.

  He took the spheres with no more protest, taking a small metal chest from behind the chest and securing them inside.

  Wilrd: We can deal with the other problems ter. For now, I'll inform you about the next job, and this time, the boss-man wants it INTACT.

  Grabbing a nearby canvas bag, Wilrd produced an "Rx" armband like the ones worn by the other mercenaries, along with an earpiece and handheld radio, and handed them over to Becker.