Disclaimer; As before, all persons and ships in this chapter aren't mine, they belong to others. Again, all views expressed in this chapter are not echoed by the sites on which they are published.

Chapter Two;
Men of Wounded Time

The crew of the boarding party stepped back onto the Hammersley, their wounded hobbling and carried amongst them. Apart from Rhino, there were 5 men (and women) re-boarding. They were a member down. The Captain's eyes scanned the crew and he realized who was lost. He frowned at the X, who herself was hobbling on what the CO could see was a badly twisted ankle, and she looked up at him with a shake of her head. They led her and Spider, who was sporting an arrow in his hip, into the depths of the ship to be analyzed. The CO left the nervous-looking RO and Nav, who was chewing on her lip, and went downstairs. Buffer and Archie met him there. Buffer strode forward to talk.

"Swain says they'll both be fine." He explained.

"What happened?" The CO asked, frowning back into the room where Swain was now analyzing the arrow embedded in the young Seaman's hip. It didn't look too deep and Spider didn't flinch as he moved, but the Captain put that down more to the look of extreme hate and internal pain etched across his face.

Buffer sighed. "They ambushed us. Made us look right, came left. They already had Bomber, grabbed Pierce and Spider too. The men shook their captors off, but we were surrounded. When we looked back they'd dragged Bomber off. The X was grabbed, pushed, but she fought him off. That was how she got the ankle injury. Spider ran off in the direction of Bomber's voice. We found him 5 minutes later, after the other hostiles ran off, in that predicament." He motioned lazily to the still silent sailor.

The CO frowned. "The French version of the Navy SEAL or SAS. Did you know that Buffer?"

Buffer shook his head. "Never heard of them before Swain mentioned them. I don't know how he knows about them though."

The CO glanced up at the busy medic, not eager to disrupt his work on Spider's injury. "But if they were really them you'd all be dead, so it wasn't them."

Buffer frowned. "You don't think they were military trained? They knew their stuff. Flank formations, leap-frogging." He mentioned the military tactic of moving forward one at a time to fire, so as allowing the first firer to reload behind the others. It protected the group and gave them valuable land without wasting precious time. He hadn't seen it done in a while, not exactly the art of the Navy and certainly not something your basic hostile did. That was what scared him most. They weren't your normal hostile. They were better.

"Again, if they were you'd be dead. No, I think it was just a case of handing them weapons and telling them the basics. It's just like the French to leave someone else to get their hands dirty on their behalf." He sighed. "I've contacted base and Sydney, they're sending help and looking into it. This is way above us, but I'm not leaving without Bomber back on board." He smiled sadly at Buffer. "The crew will agree with me I'm sure."

Buffer nodded. "100 sir." He turned and walked away with Archie, who had been watching the exchange with a frown. He hadn't been on the RHIB and so knew nothing of what was happening. The CO strode into the room where Spider sat staring at the wall with a pout on his face, his expression cold and slightly broken, and the X sat holding a frozen pack on her ankle. She gave him a frown as he walked in.

"Sir, we…" She started, trying to explain.

He held up a hand. "Buffer's told me everything X, you did all you could." X's shoulders slumped and she looked at her ankle as the CO continued. "We're not leaving here without Bomber, no matter who they are."

Spider's head lifted at the statement from the CO and the cold glaze from his eyes fell. But he didn't move at all but his chest moved rapidly as if he were stopping himself from doing something. Thinking something, the CO guessed, about what had happened out there on the island.

The X sighed loudly. "What have he walked into sir?"

The CO frowned. "A coup, for all intensive purposes, but this one looks much larger than Samaru. This island was a French island, Libertile means Liberty Island in French, and as such they've kept it that way. You may have noticed that many people still speak this 'native' language and so it isn't hard to believe that in their minds the control of the French government would be a good alternative to what they have now. This country is plagued by disease during the winter months and bouts of famine in summer. It's hell for them and not the way many of their surrounding islands live. They feel betrayed by their government, other governments, especially ours. We are their closest Western country but our government does not feel their problems are worth the time and effort of military intervention. This may be because they feel no threat to the Australian people from the island, or simply because too few Australians recognize it's even there and as such they cannot justify sending help."

"Money again." The X said dejectedly. She looked up quickly. "Half of Australia couldn't locate Afghanistan or the Persian Gulf on a map." She pointed out.

The CO nodded. "Yes, but America is there so we follow. They speak, we follow. And while we waste tax dollars on unnecessary wars, the people of Libertile suffer."

The room was silent for a moment as they took in the CO's words. While three of them were senior members, none had dared before to mutter aloud such thoughts. It was frowned upon as un-ADF and unpatriotic. And yet it had lingered in their minds for a while. The Armidale Class Patrol Boats didn't have to question their reasoning for existing, they protected Australia's coastline from all things bad, dealing with things that the Australian public neither needed nor wanted to know about, but they still had frigates. They still had gun ships. They still had whole fleets, squadrons and battalions sent off to fight bloody wars against unknown enemy. They still fought wars offshore that defied human belief with their bloodiness and growing number of casualties. And while everyone knew of Iraq and the wars in the Middle East, few could truly comprehend what went on there. Amongst them, Defence Force personnel.

"You shouldn't speak like that sir." Swain finally spoke up, but while his voice was soft he was smiling.

The CO seized his chance. "How did you know about the crossbows?"

Swain gave a shrug. "I read a lot sir." He gave a sly smile and went back to dressing Spider's wound.

The Seaman finally spoke. "Sir, we're going back to get her?" He asked, his voice shaking a little as he spoke of Bomber. The duo had been through so much together, like he and Kate, that he understood the reliance. It was like you couldn't breath if you knew they were in trouble. As if to prove this, Spider spoke slowly and breathlessly like a man with a collapsed lung.

The CO nodded. "Of course Spider. Of course we're going back for her."