Book 4 The Heaven's War, Chapter 3: Beef Jerky

The meat was tough, dry, and tasteless but it was the only source of food that was left on the ship after their hurry to leave the Indos port city of Madras. Having been out to sea for four days now, what food they had stocked before leaving was now running out. They had only ten sheep and two cows at the start of their journey, however they had more than one hundred mouths to feed on board the Reliant alone, not taking in account the six Digimon they had with them. As the days past by, they began to run out of supplies, first the fresh meat from their livestock and now the dry meat they had for emergency cases. If they did not find a source of food before coming upon a Ming town or city, the crew would surely become agitated.

Thanks to their strongest Digimon, the sight of Gallentmon and Magnamon was able to scare off the pursuit of the Britannian air fleet; having renamed their country after exiling their king. Their own journey had taken them out to sea at first but thanks to Koushiro's previous knowledge of topography, they had made a sharp turn north after a day drifting east. On their third night, they had finally spotted their first bit of coast and now, on their fourth day, they were pulling into the mountainous interior of the Kingdom of Ming. They had past by a small outpost on the coast, who had indeed confirm their position. However the outpost was not big enough to provide any food as most of their supplies came from their own gardens or from fishing. The Reliant would have otherwise relied on fishing except they lack any equipment for fishing nor would their be enough to sustain them for more than a day or two. Furthermore they could not rely on hunting as the landscape, mostly made of mountains, lacked any sight of animals or plants.

Taichi was not worried about his crew or himself going hungry, he was more worried about Agumon. His fever had not gone down and had been bed ridden for the entirety of the journey, coming in and out of consciousness. Taichi was afraid that with food running out, Agumon might become worst as he would need nourishment to fight off his disease. What little food Agumon did take, came in the form of horrible tasting soup or grub, nothing fit for someone who was seriously sick; however this was a dire situation and anything he could feed to his Digimon he would.

The command of the ship had fallen onto Koushiro as other high ranking officers did not see fit for Taichi to be running the ship with his current worries on his Digimon. Koushiro, being Taichi's first-mate had been voted as the substitute captain until Taichi could come to his senses. Taichi almost laughed; a year ago they would have killed Koushiro and the other prisoners of war from the Empire but now that Koushiro had his title striped and proving his alliances towards Royal after the South Wales incident, he was one of the most respected officer in His Majesty's service even though he could never gain a real rank. However, Koushiro was still the Red Devil, a name that strike fear into those who had heard of his exploits, even though Koushiro never acted as told in the stories.

Taichi had wondered about Koushiro's name, he had even asked the short red headed lord about how he became known as the Red Devil. Koushiro was reluctant at first but with the help of Davis' big mouth, Taichi had soon learned about his best friend's past. The story was out of a book if Taichi had not witness the magic of this world first hand, a fantastical tale of how Koushiro had been the one to kill the "Mad Governor" Horwich.

He remembered Koushiro going on about the tale, "The Mad Governor, starving his city while he fed himself until he became insane. Manchester always had eleven ruling families but the governorship was always given to the most powerful family. The eleven families, under the banner of Manchester United, became increasingly angry with the governor taking everything from them, they became nothing more than commoners under the eye of the mad governor. Of course, the families became angry enough to plan a coup. It was my uncle himself, the new and current Governor of Manchester who planned the attack. Since I was the youngest of the Lords at the time, my uncle must have thought I was the easiest for him to control and therefore, I was voted as the one to stab Horwich and become the new Lord of Manchester. "

Of course, once Koushiro had become the new Lord, his uncle discovered he wasn't so easy to manipulate as he first thought and became lucky when Koushiro was captured. Having nothing to go back to and more likely to be imprisoned or hanged if he did indeed go back, Koushiro swore his loyalty to Taichi when he saved him from a fatal shot by an assassin his uncle no doubt hired.

"Taichi." The soft voice of his wife called. Taichi felt a pang of guilt every time he would look upon her now, not because of his growing relationship with Lady Lily of Crowle but because they had grown distant ever since his sister had split them apart. He did no put blame on his sister, after all, she was a lady of noble stature and the things that he and Mimi did out of wedlock would upset anyone with an ounce of dignity. Taichi didn't know if he loved Mimi or not, not true love at least. He enjoyed their time together but would he give up his quest for home over her was still undecided. Yes he had chosen to stay when the choice was given to him in his dream but he was also worried about his real family and friends. Did they know he was gone, did they even care, or was this world like the Digital World before the final battle, time moving hundreds of times faster than his world's.

Taichi turned his gaze from his faithful Digimon to his wife, she had a sad face but she was still beautiful none the less. "Taichi, you should get some rest. Give me the bowl and I'll get the cooks to find some more food for Agumon."

Handing the bowl to her, she kissed him on the forehead before smiling a little. "He'll be okay, it's you who should be getting some rest. Koushiro says we're still a day or two until we reach the western capital of Xi'an, where we can stock up on supplies before making our way to the northern capital of Beijing." She said in her soft voice, almost as a whisper.

Taichi nodded, "Will you sleep with me? I miss you."

Mimi smiled, looking at him as signs of tears started to form on her eyes. She allowed the bowl to rest on a table surface near by and almost tackling Taichi to the ground, stealing kisses rapidly while he tried to recover from the fall. Somehow, Taichi forgotten about all what had taken place, his time spent with the young Lady Crowle and nearly forgetting Agumon was still sick and in pain sleeping in his bed. Taichi was able to find an extra blanket to cover both himself and Mimi was they stayed together sitting with each other on the floor of Taichi's cabin.

Taichi was awaken as sun light grabbed his face but he was truly woken up when a loud, sharp howl could be heard. Getting up, his sweat laden cloth cling onto his body. Taking a look outside his window - a large window looking out of the large one hundred gun ship, he was surprise to find the ship had come to a stop on land; it looked as though they landed in a large valley surrounded by mountains on every side he looked. The land was barren, sandy plains with patches of large tall grasses. He could not spot a single tree or animal, only a couple of birds flying above them.

Wondering how and why they had grounded the Reliant, Taichi took a quick check on his Digimon partner, still ill and in pain as he slept on Taichi's bed. Sighing, Taichi unlatched his door, quickly closing it after himself making sure not to wake Mimi, he made his way to the top deck of the ship hoping to find answers. He soon found his second-in-command, Koushiro as he was directing orders to the ship's crew as they rushed around himself and Koushiro.

"Koushiro! Why have we landed? Is there a problem with the ship?" Taichi frantically asked his best friend's doppleganger.

Koushiro merely blinked and answered, "It seems that our ballast balloons cannot carry the wait of the ship in this temperature. We have landed until the weather warms up or when Davis finds some wood so that we can heat up the balloons."

Taichi nodded pretending to understand, looking around him he noticed that both the Noble and Sparrow were not with them. Looking back at Koushiro quizzically and opened his mouth. However before he could ask where the other ships were, Koushiro replied, "The Noble and Sparrow have gone ahead of us to scout positions. They do not carry the same weight as the Reliant and can still flying in cold temperature."

Their conversation was cut short when one of the crew member shouted at the arrival of Davis' party. The crew then dropped a roped ladder down the starboard of the ship and a large basket to bring up any supplies Davis had found. Davis being the party's leader, came back up last, huffing and puffing, looking excited Davis yelled out towards Taichi and Koushiro.

"Captain! Look what I found." Rushing toward the basket that was not yet hoisted back up to the top deck of the ship, Davis pulled out an item that Taichi nearly mistook for a peach. Taking a closer look, Taichi then found that these were not peaches but instead a mushroom with a white stem and a cap that was solid pink at top and defusing to white as the pink ran down.

Looking back at Davis, Taichi asked, "Are these safe?"

"Doctor Montparnasse has taken a look at them, they seem to be safe to eat. We've gathered enough to feed us for a week. And enough wood to heat the balloons until we reach Beijing."

"Yes, have the chef cook them up as soon as possible." Taichi replied to Davis and turned to face Koushiro, "Have the engineers get on putting us back in the air. We're not stopping until we arrive at the capital."

All around him, each soldier and both his friends replied in a loud voice, "Yes Milord!"

The rest of the journey was uneventful, passing through only a few small villages, none big enough for them to resupply on. However, they still had a large supply of the pink mushrooms, but the usual fare of cooking them was a simple soup or stew and the crew including Taichi soon began to become bored with them. Agumon was still ill but Taichi found that Agumon looked less in pain day by day but he still had no clue as to whether or not Agumon was getting better. After a week of sailing straight east, they had finally caught sight of the outer towns surrounding the grand city that was Beijing. As they came closer to the city, a small ship came upon them to direct the Reliant into one of ports that housed airships, the Noble, Sparrow, and even the HMAS Lyon, the ship that carried Prince Ken's party had been docked there. They were met by a small group of officials who were there to bring Taichi and the important people that he had with him to the imperial palace.