Alex sat between Tammy and Bonnie as Ophelia shuffled the deck with the dealer button next to her. "The name of the game is No Limit Texas Hold 'Em," Ophelia declared. She then pointed at Bret. "And no one ask what Texas is! It's just the name of the game."
Bret leaned back from her pointing at him. "Why are you pointing at me?!"
Ophelia went back to shuffling. "The blinds start at ten and twenty and will increase by ten and twenty every five hands. Everyone have their 'thousand dollar buy-in?'"
The players put pieces of hard candy on the table. Otto tossed two 5 chips on the table and Tammy tossed in two 10 chips.
Tammy rubbed her side. "Why does it hurt more the longer it goes?"
"Because the adrenaline is being metabolized back into your body and its painkilling effects are subsiding," Lee answered.
"Thanks," Tammy groaned.
Spigot in and took the seat between Franklin and Lee. "Started yet?"
"We just put down the blinds," Ophelia said. "Add your buy-in, and I'll deal you in."
Spigot tossed a piece of hard candy into the pile, and Lee set the remaining chips in front of him.
"I swear, it's like Lee built this poker set," Ophelia said. "The chips are arranged so mathematically and come to a perfect ten thousand."
"Iris has always loved round numbers and order," Spigot said. "We played many games during the downtimes of our investigations."
"If the set is built for ten players," Lee asked, "who was the odd one out?"
"Dean's a devout Methodist, so he's deadest against gambling, even when no real money is involved," Spigot answered.
"Listening to how you talk about all these people makes me wish we could meet them," Bonnie said.
"We work with many of them," Ophelia replied. "Allison is out boss."
"And Chantal is the castle's quartermaster," Lee added.
"I was going to say she's my boss," Tammy said.
"Erin is the morning shift's chief," Emily said. "Humberto retired once he got his twenty years to become a full-time stay at home dad."
"Tanya and Barry run the airfield," Bret added.
"What about the others?" Bonnie asked.
"Félix and Pablo run our weather office in Las Cabeceras," Spigot answered. "Iris is a master fuel cell and electrolysis mechanic on Dexter Province and I think Dean recently got promoted to shift chief in Northumberland Province."
Alex looked back at the Hurricane. "It seems like this craft was a stepping stone for all of you."
"Fortune favors the bold as they say," Spigot said. He flexed his hand. "Though, I remember a distinct lack of bar fights from five years ago."
Ophelia dealt two cards to each of them face down and placed the remaining deck in the center.
They looked at their cards. Alex had the King of Hearts and Nine of Spades. Tammy called the blinds and Alex did as well. Bonnie and Bret followed suit. Everyone seemed stone faced, either due to being that good at their poker faces or just because they were exhausted from the day. Either way, Alex was having a hard time reading the room.
"Any idea where the silver is being taken?" Otto asked as Bret called. Emily did the same.
"I got nadda." Franklin tossed his cards aside to fold. "When the Green Cypress Militia gets the silver, they go silent about it. They probably take it straight to wherever they're making the silver iodide."
"I'm not feeling all that bold with these." Spigot also folded.
"Could they be taking it to their headquarters?" Ophelia asked as Lee threw in his call and she did as well.
"Then we'll never find it," Emily said. "We've been trying to figure out Geronita's H.Q. for a decade, and don't have a clue."
"Which is why they're not taking it there," Spigot said. "Keeping their H.Q. secret is what protects Geronita. Making the silver iodide there would be too much activity: chemics and equipment going in, whatever means they're using to discharge the silver iodide out. They wouldn't risk all that coming and going leading back there. Wherever it's being made, it's somewhere where its materials, manufacture, and distribution can all be done easily hidden."
Otto checked his cards. "Calling the blinds is boring." He put four 10 chips in the pot. "I raise."
Tammy picked up a 5 and a 25. "I call."
Alex did the same. "So do I." Bonnie also tossed in to call.
Bret checked his cards and tossed them aside. "Not with these cards."
"I call." Emily threw her chips in.
"Call." Lee tossed in the needed chips.
"I at least want to see the Flop," Ophelia said as she threw in her chips. "Call."
Otto tapped the table to check.
"What kind of equipment and chemicals are needed to make silver iodide?" Bonnie asked Alex.
"If you're starting with metallic silver," Alex said as he remembered his mother's process, "you first need to ionize it. My mother uses nitric acid to make silver nitrate. That's the most dangerous part because you get nitrogen oxide emissions, so it has to be done in a fume hood both nitric acid and aqueous silver nitrate are quite caustic.
"Once you've done that, just mix it with potassium iodide and the silver iodide precipitates out as a yellow solid," Alex finished.
"Then maybe we can find the place by looking for anyone buying nitric acid and potassium iodide," Ophelia suggested as she burned the top card and put down the Flop.
The Two of Spades, Jack of Diamonds, and Two of Diamonds stared back at them. Otto checked.
"The issue with that is they're common chemicals with various uses," Tammy said as Otto checked. She picked up five 10 chips and set them down in the pot. "I bet."
"What about what's also made?" Lee asked. "That would be potassium nitrate, right?"
"Yup." Alex checked his cards again. He could get a high straight if a queen and ten came in. "I call." He put his chips in.
"Same here." Bonnie followed suit. "What is that used for?"
"What isn't it used for?" Alex asked as an answer. "It's used in fertilizer, toothpaste, molten salt batteries, heat treatment of metals, it's the oxidizer in gunpower. My mom keeps what she ends up making to combine with sugar to make rocket candy for our toy rockets."
"I see your fifty and double it." Emily put four 25 chips in the pot.
"So, that doesn't narrow things down," Ophelia said as Lee called. She tossed her cards aside. "I've seen the Flop and it sucks."
"Call." Otto put his chips in.
Tammy paused, picked up ships. She put two 25 chips in. "Call."
A longshot straight was not worth a hundred and Alex was not comfortable enough with these people to try to bluff. He tossed his cards aside. "Fold."
"I'll call." Bonnie threw in her chips.
Emily checked.
"Maybe not," Franklin said. "How did you intend to deliver the silver iodide to the atmosphere, Master Chief?"
"There were various means," Spigot said. "They were anything from flares attached to aircraft to mid to high-altitude rockets to smoke dischargers on the ground."
"Then maybe pyrotechnics has something to do with this," Franklin suggested. "If making their powder from scratch, they'll buy chemicals to make potassium nitrate and sell the kinds of products that could be used to dispense silver iodide."
Ophelia burned the next card and put down the turn: the Four of Hearts.
Otto checked. Tammy picked up chips from one of her piles of 25 chips and let them fall back on the stack. She picked up four and set them down. "I bet."
Bonnie tossed her cards aside. "Fold."
Emily seemed nervous, however, she put her chips in. "I call."
"Call." Lee put his chips in.
"Fold." Otto tossed his chips aside. Tammy checked.
Ophelia burned a card and put down the river: the Five of Clubs.
Tammy grinned at Emily. She picked up two 100 chips. "Bet."
Emily gripped the edge of the table and glowered at the cards. "Tease me with a possible diamond flush at the flop only to screw me down the damn river." She threw her cards aside.
"I would've had an inside straight," Franklin said.
"I call." Lee put his chips in.
Tammy turned to him. "Lee, you've done nothing but call this whole hand."
"I don't think there's anything in the rules against that," Lee replied.
Tammy turned her cards over: the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Clubs. "Jacks full of Duces, eat it!"
"Well, I was screwed anyway," Emily said.
"Good thing I didn't chase that rabbit," Franklin said.
All eyes turned to Lee. He turned over his cards: the Two of Clubs and the Two of Hearts. "Quad Duces. Sorry, Tammy."
Lee pulled the pot in his direction. "Lee, you were sitting on four of a kind from the Flop and you never bet or raised."
Lee organized his newly acquired chips. "I didn't need to to get you to bet almost half your chips."
"You had the highest possible hand, and yet you still called," Bonnie said.
"It sets the mood for future hands," Lee said.
Ophelia moved the dealer button to Otto. He picked up the deck and started shuffling. Tammy threw ten in, and Alex threw in twenty.
"What are we even doing?" Otto asked.
"We're playing poker while figuring out our next move," Lee answered.
"I mean, why are we engineers?" Otto said. "Every morning I wake up, open my closet, and put on this uniform. Why do any of us?"
Tammy shrugged. "It's just a calling."
"That's the best way to describe it," Alex concurred.
"My brother followed in my father's footsteps and I followed in my mother's," Bonnie added.
"I always wanted to be an engineer," Emily said.
"The Sloan's have a long history in the Cloud Generation Service," Spigot said.
Alex, Bonnie, and Otto were confused. Alex was not sure if he heard that second word right.
"Sorry," Spigot said. "Sloan is my stag name."
"Oh right," Alex said when he remembered. "With Beavers, the man takes on his wife's name when they marry." It sometimes happened in the Windmill Kingdom too when a man married a woman of higher status—Nicole's parents being an example.
"Lee and I were going to be ballet dancers," Ophelia said. "However, life threw us several curveballs and we ended up as engineers. I still wonder what it would've been like to still be in the company—and not one point eight meters tall. I could've been a prima. At least that was the way things were going before my body decided to give weeds to a run for their money."
"At least you had a choice in the matter," Otto said.
"I thought you were proud about becoming a Ministry aviator," Bonnie said.
"I try telling myself that every day," Otto grumbled. "However, it's a bald-faced lie.
"I'm a Ministry aviator because I was the younger brother," Otto explained, "even though I'm twice the pilot of my older brother: better reactions, better shot, better G-tolerance, better everything. Yet, because he was the oldest, he got to be a Sky Knight to follow in our father's legacy and I was the one my father dumped to the Ministry for their P.R. stunt."
"You pilot the King Barbardo at twenty," Bonnie pointed out. "No Sky Knight can claim to fly the flagship let alone at such a young age."
"That was part of a favor and recognition I was better than my assigned station," Otto replied. "And, outside that little reprieve, I fly air freighters with their tacky decorations instead of fighter balloons protecting the royal family like my father and just about every other Jäger man since the Windmill Kingdom was founded."
"I'll do you one better," Franklin said. "I'm an indentured servant."
"How did that happen?" Alex asked. Alex had always pictured the Drop Kingdom as this bastion of personal freedom, so it seemed out of place for them to employ such an archaic practice.
"I'm a white hat hacker now," Franklin said somberly. "However, my hat was not so white to begin with.
"I quickly learned how to use computers and how to use computers to communicate with other computers and how to use computers to communicate with other computers to get those computers to do things they shouldn't. I started out with hacking into the school system computer to switch grades on report cards in exchange for my classmates' allowances.
"However, I got greedy and started surfing the dark web. That's where I learned all about gap bars and all kinds of illegal activity on and offline that happens out of the public eye. I know where so many proverbial and literal bodies are buried and where and how many criminal organizations go about their business online.
"I started taking on jobs of greater criminality, risk, and payoff even as middle schooler. I'm a brilliant hacker, but I was still a naïve and foolish teenager. I got sloppy and caught. However, the government saw how talented I was at such a young age, so they gave me a choice. I could spend the next twenty years in prison or I could be conscripted into the Cloud Generation Service's Cybersecurity Division for the next ten. I chose the latter and have one year left on my conscription."
"Listening to all of you sickens me," Bret muttered.
Otto shot a glare at him. "You got something to say, bush pilot?"
Bret returned Otto's remark with glare of his own Alex had never seen on him or even thought was possible out of a man who had nothing but a goofball since he met him. "This 'bush pilot' actually does. You should be grateful.
"I was a foundling," Bret explained. "I was left on the doorstep of a church on a cold, rainy evening in November—just born with the stub of the umbilical cord still in my bellybutton—with only soaked clothes and blankets and a note saying "His name is Bret" with one 't.'
"After somehow not catching my death, I spent the next eleven years bouncing through the foster system from one family to the next." He sat back and looked up, but not at the ceiling but as if he could see through it to the sky as his eyes seemed to lose focus. "I then happened to be placed with the Greene's and they taught me fly: both figuratively and literally. They adopted me and encouraged and assisted me in becoming a pilot.
"So don't moan in front of me with your woulds, coulds, and shoulds. Things are far from perfect, but I count my blessings and thank God for each one every night. If we were ever given another chance at the cosmic dice, I'll gladly let someone else have my roll."
Everyone was silent at this. Alex was just shocked this person who had not had a serious moment since he met him was capable of something so deep: or that he came from that kind of background. Bret sat back in his chair, the creaking from his weight shifting being deafening compared to the silence in the hangar. "It's just a touchy issue for me."
"Truth be told," Franklin said, "it was probably for the best I was pulled from the abyss before it started looking back. And, the Cloud Generation Service has been like family to me. I don't see myself being anywhere else."
"The career of a ballerina on the center stage is short, I would be playing mothers and spinsters before I knew it," Ophelia said. "And, if we didn't join the C.G.S., I wouldn't have met Andrea."
Everyone turned to Otto. He resumed his shuffling. "I guess I'm in the air which is all that matters. And, it did increase recruiting, so mission accomplished."
They stared him down. Otto sighed. "And I can fly rings around any Sky Knight fighter in the most cumbersome air freighter."
He drew in a breath and sighed. "The truth is, I wouldn't want to trade places with my brother. He's always being compared to my father and his exploits in the war. He'll always be the Violet Count's son.
"The Ministry aviators don't care about what my family has done in the past. Among them, I'm Otto Jäger, a particularly talented pilot in his own right. I can build my own legacy."
Everyone settled in for the next hand when rapid footsteps echoed through the hangar as they approached. A Molmo worker ran in, almost tripping as he got to the table.
"We got a problem down in the Seed Kingdom!" he shouted as he reached the table.
"Another levee breach?" Emily asked.
"No." The worker gulped for air. "Your princesses and the lady with them were kidnapped!"
The engineers at the table bolted to their feet, just a reflex from receiving that news. "What?!" Spigot exclaimed.
"Two Gators and old Bullfrog woman took them," the worker explained, still catching his breath.
"What were they dressed in?" Spigot asked.
"Why is what they're wearing important?" Tammy asked.
"The Gators were dressed in dark fatigues with this green tree symbol while the Bullfrog wore a dark cloak over a red dress," the worker answered.
Spigot fell back into his chair. "My God. It's Geronita."
The other Drop Kingdom engineers dropped into their chairs.
"Who?" Alex asked.
"She's that washed up entertainer leading the Green Cypress Militia," Franklin explained. "She has the world's biggest ax to grind with Queen Yamul and a God complex to be generous."
"The princesses and Lady Dupré are in the hands of that psychopath," Spigot groaned. "We shouldn't have left them alone like that."
Otto snickered. Everyone looked at him as he burst out laughing, having to brace himself when his chair was about to go over.
"I don't see what's so funny," Tammy growled.
"You're sure they have Lady Dupré," Otto said, getting control of himself.
"That's what the witnesses said," the worker answered.
Otto grinned.
"I still don't see what's so funny," Tammy said.
"If they were dumb enough to take Lady Dupré," Otto said, "then they have her right where she wants them."
Nicole and her mother almost never saw eye to eye. Nicole was often tempted to tune her mother out when she would go on her rants on how things should be and how she should act and how she represented their family and duchy.
Yet, she did listen when it came to self-defense. Nicole had been surprised her mother had so much knowledge about combat. So, she listened intently the night before she left for Windmill Castle.
The first lessen was "Know your enemy while keeping the enemy from knowing you." Geonita made the most fundamental mistake of bragging about her plans. She just broadcast her intentions. Nicole had already used this to keep her alive and within reach of the princesses.
Nicole also knew she was only dealing with three people for the moment. Geronita was likely in the pilot house steering the ship, and one of the Gators had to be manning the generator and motors in some kind of engine room. That left the one that had been periodically checking in on her to deal with.
He would show up like clockwork, and it was always the same one. He took joy in taunting her, about her being a "wasteful mammal," "mongrel," and "frail creature." He was ignorant of what she was capable of, but that was the plan. "You're the most dangerous when people believe you're harmless," her mother told her.
She took in her surroundings in the meantime. She was in the airship's stern, a comfortable room that was for either the captain or a V.I.P. when this ship plied the waters. The door was locked from the outside and the portholes were too small to slip through. Besides, she needed to find the princesses. The only way out was going to be through the Gator. She also needed to act before they reached their destination and would likely be hopelessly outnumbered.
The time was approaching. Nicole hid her face with her fan and hunched over as if she was depressed. The lock clicked, and the door opened. The heavy footsteps told her the Gator walked in.
"What's wrong, mongrel," the Gator said, "finally accepted you're beat."
He walked deeper into the room, but was not close enough. She hunched over more.
"You half-breeds are what disgusts me the most," the Gator said. "Humans can just do the dirty deed with three other races not even closely related to them and produce abominations like you. And why is it always a Human body and the other race's ears and tails?"
The lug apparently slept through high school biology and the lesson on how genes worked—assuming he even made it to high school. He was also getting closer, almost where she needed him.
"Got nothing to say, half-bitch?" The Gator took another step towards into position.
Nicole collapsed her fan in an instant and stabbed it into the Gator's diaphragm. The air exploded from his throat as he doubled over. He wheezed to try to inhale from the wind being knocked out of him. Nicole stood up and delivered the butt of her fan to his back to send him collapsing on the bed.
She grabbed the keys from his belt and headed to the door. She turned to the wheezing Gator and opened her fan to act dainty. "Not bad for a mongrel, am I right?"
She closed the door behind her and locked it. That was one down.
Nicole walked swiftly but carefully down the narrow hall towards the bow of the airship. She was about to pass a door marked "GENERATOR." The other Gator was probably in there, but she needed to be sure.
The door was quiet as she slowly pulled it open. She peered in. The door led to a staircase overlooking a room. She crept down enough to see in. The Gator was sitting next to the machinery at a computer, oblivious to her presence.
Nicole slipped back out and closed the door. She could lock the door, but he might have a key. There was a fire hose rolled up on a spool nearby. She twisted it around the door handle and looped it back through the spool to tie it in a knot so it could not turn. She even tried the apparatus to make sure it would hold.
That would hopefully hold him, and all that remained was Geronita in a pilot house. She also suspected that was where the princesses were.
Nicole headed up to the deck. It also gave her a chance to see where they were. Things below were dark in the twilight. There were isolated lights here and there, but nothing to suggest a city or even a decent-sized town. However, the clouds were a quilt pattern of altostratus clouds suggesting they had left the Seed Kingdom. She needed to act fast.
The door into the pilot house was unlocked. Nicole peered in. Geronita was at the helm and the cage holding the princesses hung behind her.
Sophie stood up, but Nicole held her finger to her mouth to quietly hush her. Nicole pushed the door open slowly to keep it from making noise. She retreated at the ring of the phone, but just to her position to peer in.
The phone rang again. Geronita took out her phone and flipped it open. She held it to her head. "Did you get my silver?"
A voice came from the phone, but even Nicole's sensitive hearing could not make out the words. However, with Geronita concentrating on the call, she could slip in unnoticed.
"You're in JAIL?!" Geronita's outburst made Nicole flinch. She continued to the cage. "How in God's name did you accomplish that?! The whole reason we used that overgrown hairball's dive bar was because the constabulary ignored it."
Nicole lifted the cage from the hook as the voice came from the phone.
"Engineers?" Geronita asked as the voice continued. "There were a bunch of Drop Kingdom and Windmill Kingdom engineers?" Geronita tightened her grip on the helm. "So, that's where the engineers protecting the princesses went."
Nicole turned back towards the door as the voice on the phone continued.
"No, I'm not going to bail you out!" Nicole again flinched to Geronita raising her voice. "You cost me twenty-five kilos of silver and two dozen gauss rifles! The C.G.S. is also wise to our scheme, so you can just sit there and rot!"
Geronita practically crushed the phone closed and shoved it into her pocket. "Those idiots," she fumed.
Geronita took a deep breath and exhaled it to relax. "Don't be too upset, Geronita. Things have gone better than you could've hoped. You still have plenty of silver to last you for a couple months. You also have a trump card so long as you have the princesses." She turned around towards where the cage has been. She turned to Nicole with the doorknob in her hand.
Nicole threw the door open and ran out onto the deck. The hatch in front of her burst open and the Gators tried to squeezed through at the same time to get at her.
"Get down so I can get her!" The one she subdued struggled to get through.
"I want a piece of her," the other snarled.
Nicole looked back at the pilot house, Geronita coming out with pistol drawn. The only way to go was the side and over. "Wait!" Milro squeaked as Nicole went to the railing. "What are you doing?!"
Nicole leapt over the railing and flapped her ears as fast as she could. All Doggles could fly, even greater Doggles and half-Doggles like her. Though, they were not nearly as graceful or capable as lesser Doggles in the air. Without the assistance of the wind, it was all she could do to slow their descent to something manageable.
Geronita stopped Albert when he pointed a gauss rifle at the girl descending towards a lake below. "No. I still need them alive." She motioned back. "Get on the horn and tell everyone in the area with an airboat to hunt her down."
Albert shouldered the rifle and headed to the pilot house.
Geronita stared over the railing. "She'll become instantly lost down there, and easy pickings."
All of the flapping was tiring and Nicole's whole head hurt. Along with the lack of wind that seemed to make Doggle's lighter in air, there was no balloon birds here. When tired, a Doggle could grab the long tails of the spherical birds to float back home.
Instead, Nicole just directed her descent towards the shore of a lake. It looked like her best bet would be landing in the water. Though, there was a branch overhanging the water: perfect to break her fall.
She tucked the cage under her arm and reached out for it. She grasped the branch and it absorbed her momentum. However, it bent and creaked and snapped. She fell into the water with a splash. She held up the cage to keep Sophie and Milro out of the water. Fortunately, the water was only knee deep and the mud underneath was soft to cushion her landing.
Nicole stood up, soaked to her chest and the back of her skirt covered in a mix of mud and decaying plant matter that stunk. She looked down into the cage. "Are you all right, Princesses?"
"We good, Nicole," Sophie replied.
"Are you okay?" Milro asked.
"I'm fine, Princess," Nicole said. She sniffed. She had a Human's rudimentary sense of smell, but she could smell the rotting material that coated much of her skirt. "I just smell like something died."
Nicole waded to dry land—or at least land that was above water—and looked up. The airship sailed along and away from them. They were safe, for now.
"BoomBang," Franklin said, catching Lee's attention.
"Those crappy fireworks not even the roadside stands wanna sell?" Ophelia asked.
"The very same," Franklin said. "I did a cross reference of pyrotechnic companies in Sinker Swamp Province, suspected association with the Green Cypress Militia, and recent purchases. The owner's son is a militiaman, and they made significant purchases of nitric acid and potassium iodide in late February not long before the silver thefts started. Before that, they were buying sodium nitrate and potassium chloride to make their oxidizers."
"Then we got 'em," Ophelia declared.
Lee looked back towards the table in the kitchenette and then at the empty station in front of them. He now understood why they called it racked with worry. Knowing Nicole had been captured by Geronita and her militia had his innards seeming to twist and tie.
"Otto says Nicole can take care of herself," Ophelia said in a gentle voice.
"But it's the Green Cypress Militia we're talking about," Lee replied. "They've never dealt with nutcases like them."
Ophelia was silent in response. The twisting and tying continued in Lee. He could not even retreat into weather. Part of it was their mission in that regard was completed. It also only made him think of Nicole.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Bret's voice came from the speakers, "we're landing at the Bonneville Strip. Thank you for flying on the Hurricane."
The plane tipped up as the desert came into view from below. Franklin was silent at this, either use to it or just preoccupied by other things. The landing gears extended under them and the plane made contact with the ground. They settled onto the nose and plane slowed as it passed the hangars. The Hurricane came to a rest and everyone was almost instantly on their feet.
The door could not open soon enough, especially when the ladder had to extend. Lee reached for his weather sensor out of impulse. He hesitated, but held it up to get the reading once he was on the tarmac. That was what Nicole would want him to do.
The sensor chimed. "Temperature sixteen point one degrees Celsius, humidity twenty-three percent, pressure nine hundred ninety-four point three hectopascals, wind out of the northeast at seven point two kilometers per hour." He recorded these readings.
Two greater Beaver women and a Caucasian half-Beaver man with medium brown hair ran out as the others exited. Chantal Peltier was the one carrying four cases—two large ones and two small ones. "Did you find what you were looking for, Jerry?" the woman without the cases asked.
"We did, Tanya," Spigot answered. He turned to Chantal. "And good of you get here on short notice, Chantal. I'm assuming those are my package."
"You assume correctly." Chantal set down the cases and handed Spigot a key.
Chantal looked up to Tammy. "How's my old chair?"
"Comfy but a bit lonely all the way back there, boss" Tammy answered. She smirked. "It's just the way I like it."
"You're an engineer after my own heart." Chantal held her hands over her heart.
"What're going to do now, Jerry," the man asked.
"The Green Cypress Militia is behind the Cloud Seeding, Barry," Spigot stated. "We're gonna put the kibosh on their silver iodide factory. There is another mission to take care of as well. We're here to switch aircraft and pick these up."
"Wait, you're sending us against the whole militia?" Ophelia asked. "Just us?"
"Yup." Spigot slid the key into the hole of one of the larger cases.
"We're talking about one of the largest and most organized anti-government organizations in the Drop Kingdom that has its tentacles in just about every crevice of Sinker Swamp Province," Ophelia stated, "and are armed to their very numerous teeth."
"Which is why we're going in with these." Spigot opened the case. "I introduce you to the recently declassified final product of Project Banshee." Spigot held up a pistol made of greenish-blue metal, but one with the barrel in the shape of a parabolic cup. The handle was a more conventional gray while the accents were gold. "These are the first field-ready DASH pistols."
Bret reached in and picked up one of the pistols and held it at different angles to examine it while keeping the barrel away. "So, do they make the target run away real fast?"
"DASH stands for Directed Acoustic SHock," Spigot explained as he put what looked like a golden-yellow dish from one of the smaller cases in the barrel of the pistol. "It fires a coherent, laser-guided beam of powerful sound waves instead. It finds the target's sympathy frequency and literally vibrates it apart."
Ophelia picked up a pistol. "That sounds awesome and all, but they look rather puny compared to a gauss rifle."
Spigot twisted the dish into the barrel and pushed something towards the back on where the barrel met the handle that clicked. He pulled a piece back and held up the pistol. A whine increasing in pitch came from it similar but not exactly like that of a gauss rifle ramping up its magnets. "Can a gauss rifle do this?"
He took aim at a rock alongside the runway. A blue laser shot from it in the middle of a tube of distorted air. Where the distorted air struck the rock became an indent as stone was reduced to dust. A sound like something straight out of a science fiction work came from the impact. Around it, the rock split and collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Lee's eyes widened at destruction such a small arm just inflicted. "Okay, count me as impressed," Ophelia said.
"If it does that to rock," Otto said, "what does it do to flesh and bone?"
"Due to the nature of sonic waves, it causes more damage the less elastic the target is," Spigot answered. "However, what it does to the living is probably best left to the imagination." He moved the knob thing on the handle forward. "There are two settings. The lower setting can incapacitate the target for a time without causing permanent damage."
"So, these have a stun and kill setting," Tammy said.
"Basically," Chantal said. "We've also been calling them sonic pistols rather than the acronym."
"Who of you have had gunnery training?" Spigot asked. All of the younger engineers raised their hands. "Really?" Spigot asked.
"We're paid overtime to spend a couple weekends shooting at things," Emily said. "Who's not gonna sign up for that?"
"If you're well-versed with gauss weapons, then there isn't much of a learning curve," Spigot explained. "The gun has feedback cancellers that do kick when it's fired. They're also more powerful and accurate underwater compared to air. Though, be careful with firing through pycnoclines as changes in density have strange effects on the beam."
"You sure want to put our experimental weapons in the hands of citizens from another country?" Chantal asked. "Even if they are our allies."
"They will be under constant supervision," Spigot replied. "Besides, I have no choice."
"You've been acting strangely, Jerry," Tanya said. "You take the Hurricane out of nowhere, been avoiding communication with anyone, and now come back intending to take on the Green Cypress Militia on their home turf with ten engineers armed with nothing but sidearms. What's going on?"
Spigot took in a breath. "Princess Milro and Princess Sophie were shrunk to eight centimeters tall by the Mother Tree as a curse for the rain and clouds, so I gathered these engineers to investigate with the Hurricane and found out the Green Cypress Militia is cloud seeding to flood the Seed Kingdom. However, when we went to stop a shipment of silver from Hog Hell, Geronita kidnapped the princesses and Lady Dupré. Now we need to rescue them as well as take out their silver iodide operation." Spigot gripped his hands together over his head. "And please, for the love of God, don't let Queen Yamul know any of this." Spigot drew a breath back in.
Tanya blinked. Lee had to admit everything they had been through in the last day or so sounded ridiculous when summarized.
"Why didn't you include us?" Chantal asked. "You hog all the fun, Jerry."
"Of course, you would think this is fun," Spigot groaned. "However, I need you here."
"She can take my place," Franklin declared.
"We need your computer expertise," Emily said.
Franklin sighed in response. "Of course, you do."
Franklin pulled out his laptop as it beeped. "How many notifications do you have?" Tammy asked.
Franklin opened his laptop and took his glasses apart. "I basically set all the things relating to the Green Cypress Militia. There is a whole community monitoring their activities." He scrolled, nodding as he read. He smiled and clapped his hands together. "She escaped."
Lee turned to Franklin and knelt down behind him to see his screen. "Really?"
"There is a lot of radio chatter in the militia regarding a search for a half-Doggle girl in her late teens with long, blond hair," Franklin said. "She must've gotten away."
"And she wouldn't have escaped without the princesses," Otto said. "I told you she had something up her sleeve."
"Do they say where?" Lee asked.
"The search area is centered on West Crescent Lake," Franklin said.
"Then we have our targets," Spigot said.
Spigot sat them down in the breakroom with a map of Sinker Swamp Province. Sinker Swamp was so named because the ground was so soft most things would sink into it. This prevented any substantial urbanization or even infrastructure from being built much beyond its capital of Firmland. It was the watershed of the Which Way River and its tributaries, a river that meandered in seemingly every direction across its broad, flat plain. There were also numerous lakes and freshwater bayous dotting the landscape.
What civilization managed to establish itself was in the form of floating villages at intersections of rivers or in bayous. It was an agricultural area: growing rice and harvesting crawfish were the primary activities in and around these villages.
He pointed to the sparsely populated western side of the province. "Our first order of business will be to find Lady Dupré and the princesses and get them to safety." He pointed to a body of water that looked like two lobes connected by a bow-shaped body. "This is West Crescent Lake." He pointed to where two rivers joined near it. "North Crook is the closest settlement where we can start from. We'll also be on the look out to see if there are silver iodide delivery operations in this area. We need to stop this at every level."
He moved his hand towards Firmland. "Once they're safe, we go for the source: the main BoomBang factory in the Firmland suburbs."
"You sure you don't want us along?" Chantal asked.
"I need you here," Spigot said. "We might need the Hurricane in the air to help with the hunt. Félix and Pablo will be here shortly."
He looked to the young engineers and realized how young they were. Emily was the oldest at 27 while the twins were not even 19 yet. He was taking them into one of the most hostile places in the kingdom. "I'm not going to lie. We're going into the hornet's nest. The Green Cypress Militia has a lot of friends in the swamp and even more who dare not cross them out of fear. The best strategy with the locals is to avoid contact as much as possible, whether or not they fly militia colors or insignia.
"Keep your…" Spigot forced himself to use the colloquial terminology "—sonic pistols on stun. We're looking to rescue people, not cause harm"
"Hopefully Lady Nicole can avoid trouble before we can get to her," Ophelia said.
Nicole used a bobbin pin to turn the lock of the cage holding Milro and Sophie. It was a cheap cage, so the lock just needed something to stick inside to get leverage. It was enough to defeat a bird's attempts to open it. The lock clicked and the door opened. She returned to the pin to its place holding back her bangs.
Milro and Sophie stepped out onto the grass. Nicole took in their surroundings, trying to get some sense of their bearings. They were by a lake bordered by trees draped in curtain-like moss. Between the trees and clouds, she could not see the Full Moon which would be some kind of land mark, being south southeast to southeast of them.
Sounds of wildlife surrounded them. Some of them were familiar like the hooting of an owl, but many were strange. The whole place was strange, the ground felt spongy under her feet.
"Have any idea where we are, Princess Milro?" Nicole asked.
"I'm afraid your guess is as good as mine," Milro answered.
"Terrific." Nicole put Milro and Sophie in her mantelet pockets so they could easily hide. She stood up and looked around.
Things were getting dark. She took out Milro's watch which was still ticking away. "Good thing this is waterproof."
"I wouldn't expect anything else from the Drop Kingdom," Sophie said.
Nicole took out her small flashlight and it fortunately still worked as well. She shined it on the face of the watch as she opened it. It was a bit past five Saginaw Time which meant it was probably past seven where they were. Night had fallen and it would be several hours before the Blessing of the Sun would be out of eclipse.
She remembered that Lee said that the wind was coming out of the north and east. She held up her ear and let it hang. The wind was light, but her ears were sensitive enough she could pick up that it was blowing towards the lake. Knowing they were in the southern part of the Drop Kingdom; north was the best bet. Though, who knew how far north she would have to travel. Still, it was better than staying here for Geronita and her followers to come back for her.
She headed in the direction of the wind into the woods. She turned to every strange noise, a crack, some animal making a call. She was surrounded by darkness. Her small flashlight offered little light compared to the inky blackness around her.
Nicole started to whistle to herself to get her mind off the fact she was lost and danger could be hiding all around her. She settled on the melody of "Are You Sleeping" as it was a common song when she was a girl in both English and the Pastureland Duchy and Hotlands County's native French. She hoped anything that was a threat was sleeping at the moment.
She thought she saw something ahead of them. She stopped whistling and made herself small and well-hidden. There was a light. The orange color and flickering suggested it was fire. However, was it Geronita's militia or someone else? Did it make a difference here?
"You should keep yourselves hidden, Princesses," Nicole whispered.
"Be careful," Milro said. She and Sophie ducked down into her pockets. Nicole snapped the pockets closed for good measure.
Nicole made her way quietly towards the light. There was a bush she could hide behind while having a good view of its source. She slipped behind it and looked to it and peered over it while keeping as little of herself visible.
There was a fire with several figures sitting around it. They were all Gators, a man, a woman, and at least two children with the girl maybe in her early teens and the boy a few years younger. The bundle the woman held might also be an infant.
They were not dressed in fatigues like the two accompanying Geronita. Instead, the females were black dresses and the males wore dark denim overalls over black T-shirts that fit tightly. Behind them was a flatbottomed boat with a large propeller in a cage on the back.
The boy held up a box with screen in the wide gaps between the boards that formed its structure. "It's full of 'em, Pa."
"Lookin' like a good year," the man said. Their accent was not like the drawl Geronita and her henchmen spoke with. It was vaguely reminiscent of French, in fact.
The girl got close to the fire. "It's getting so cold."
Nicole did not need the reminder she was soaked and cold herself. The fire was so attractive.
"I know, sweetheart." The man placed a large pot on a grate over the fire. "We're warm up and have some of our catch and be home before you know it."
The infant began to yelp. The woman adjusted him in her arms. "I told you we should've headed home sooner, Pa."
"I know, I know, Ma," the man grumbled.
Nicole took a step, but her foot came down on a twig. The snap was deafening in her ears. She jumped up from the sound, exposing her hiding place to the Gators.
The man stood up. "Hey!"
