Chapter 16

On HMS Agamemnon, in the command center, many of the eyes there were riveted on the display covering the right-hand wall.

It was showing the battle between an invulnerable Menja, and an ever-escalating Lung, who was getting larger, scalier, and more fiery the longer the battle lasted.

All of that didn't do Lung much good, while Menja was invulnerable, and still much stronger than Lung, but it sure looked impressive.

Lung was spending most of his time broken and regenerating, so he hadn't gotten in many blows, and those he had landed did nothing to the invulnerable Valkyrie. So it was a very one-sided battle.

But all could see it would have been very different if she was not invulnerable.

And Dinah had stated the invulnerability was likely granted by Othala and so would not last.

In fact, the 30 foot tall giantess was jumping up and down on top of a prone, wrecked, and unnaturally thin, Lung, when her invulnerability ran out.

Menja had been jumping almost a dozen feet high, and landing with both feet, and all her several tons of weight, on what was left of Lung. But, in her latest landing, she got burned by the flames surrounding the very mangled and shattered form of Lung.

Her burns were not bad - just some charring and cracking of her boots, destruction of her boot-laces, and first-degree burns to her ankles. But they indicated her invulnerability was over.

The crowd watching in the command center leaned forward, and Ron spoke for all, "this is about to get even more interesting."

Menja stopped jumping up and down on Lung, carefully lined up her shot, and punted Lung into the second-highest level of a nearby multi-level parking structure.

She then kicked off the smoldering remains of her boots, picked up an old broken motorcycle in one hand, and tore up a street-light with her other hand, then hopped over next to Lung.

Standing on the ground next to the parking structure, but with her shoulders as high as the parking level where Lung lay, Menja used the metal pole of the street lamp and the broken motorcycle as improvised tongs, or chopsticks, to carefully arrange Lung so his wings dangled over the edge of the concrete parking structure.

Then, she used her former 'tongs' 'to smash some of the supports holding up the top level of the parking structure.

She rapidly took some steps to the side, climbed to the top level of the structure, and took a great running leap, landing with tremendous force on the top level of the parking structure and collapsing part of it down onto Lung on the level below her.

Then she hopped down to the street, picked up a dumpster, and carefully placed it around Lung's wings, which were still dangling outside of the huge slabs of concrete sandwiching him.

With one sudden violent motion, Menja flattened the dumpster around the wings, and, using it's formerly opposite sides as improvised hot-pads to protect her hands from Lung's flames, tore the wings out by the root.

Then she took off running as fast as she could, still carrying the no-longer-flaming wings.

"Ooh!, that had to hurt!" Ron opined.

"No wonder she spent the first part of the fight kicking Lung down the street, then stopped when she got to the parking structure - she can think ahead. Without his wings he will move a lot slower than she can, and by the time he regenerates enough to get out of that mass of concrete, and to re-grow his wings, she'll have enough head-start to break contact, get well away and somewhere safe" Simon added.

"The mind really is the most dangerous weapon of all." Boz noted, then asked, "Dinah, do you know if Lung can feel pain? Super-regeneration sounds nice, but not if he gets to feel everything he goes through."

"Nobody knows..." Dinah started, then got cut off.

"Battle-stations, enemy torpedoes are in the water!" Beth's voice announced from every speaker in the ship, and also in every inner ear.

She continued, "torpedoes bearing 010. Twelve of them. Range 1.1 miles. Speed 63 miles per hour."

Captain Boz struck a dramatic pose, and said, "Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

Abe calmly asked, "do you really want to ram?"

Boz laughed "Nah, I just always wanted to say that. It's a famous line from history you know. Did you know when they said it, 'torpedoes' meant mines? Anyway, turn on the underwater part of the anti-missile defenses. Only the underwater part - we don't want to shoot down news helicopters or things like that."

"Shouldn't that order have come before the quote?" Simon asked. "You must have been desperate to say that line to risk the delay."

"There's no risk." a calm Bas-Oon answered, looking up from his reference material. "Those are Mark 48 torpedoes, a mile away, moving a mile a minute. So we have a full minute before they arrive. And the defenses could easily handle that many, or more, AS-6 missiles, which move almost 45 times as fast with 3.5 times the warhead..."

He was cut off by the sound of 13 explosions in the distance. All 13 occurred within one second of each-other.

"Still," Boz said, "lets move a mile or so east, in case they included anything sneaky along with the torpedoes. And after we've gone a hundred feet, so the prisoners in the Chinese junks alongside us can't see it, lift off and stay about 10 feet above the water."

"Good idea," Simon ventured. "what was that 13th explosion?"

Beth answered "that was the launcher - the glory-hound, or Tin Woodsman as you like to call him. He had some kind of framework attached to his flying motorcycle, and was 'flying' it underwater, with the framework full of torpedoes. One of the blue-green lasers mounted under our keel hit his motorcycle and something in it detonated."

"Well," Boz said, "I hope the explosion got him too. That would be 'poetic justice' for a man that just fired torpedoes at us without apparent concern for what that would do to his comrades tied up in wooden ships alongside us."

Ron snorted, "he probably had a plan to use that to try to make him look good too - such as saying we were using them as human-shields or something."

"Shooting human-shields doesn't make him look good." Simon stated quizzically.

"Forgive me for a spur-of-the-moment example which was incompletely analyzed." Ron pretended to be offended. then grinned. "I haven't had time to think through the various mental gymnastics and mental twists that he did, but you get the idea - he'd say what we were doing was bad so his act to counter it was good."

"Speaking of bad and good," Simon ventured, "I've been talking to the two capes in the brig, Dauntless and Kid Win, they seem like nice guys just following orders: like the PRT troopers in the junks. They want to know how long we plan to keep them and what we plan to do with them."

"That's a fair question." Boz answered. "I wanted them held for two reasons. One, with them here, I hoped that would be a dis-incentive for their organizations to attack us again. So much for that idea." he snorted. "Apparently they either don't care about the possibility of hitting their own guys when they shoot at us, or they want, so badly, to hit us that they accept the risks and try anyway. Either way, that reason is gone."

"And two, while their guys are in our custody, they can't re-arm them and send them at us again." Boz gestured to the main screen which displayed the armored column's continuing progress towards the shore. They were all the way back to the district of abandoned factories and warehouses.

"It looks like we'll have all our people back in maybe 10 minutes. Then we can let all the prisoners go and get out of here."

Simon asked, "I thought you wanted to wait the 3 box-cars full of grain you paid for, to arrive by train in, what was it? Two more days?"

"True," Boz agreed, but we can wait at a distance - break contact and wait where they won't find us, so they'll have to leave us alone."

"The crew won't like that - they're sick of this crazy place and want to go back to Mars Colony." Ron stated flatly.

"How would they like a two-day holiday in the Virgin Islands, water-skiing, scuba-diving, skydiving, and otherwise enjoying themselves in every way we can arrange?" Boz asked. "Beth has looked them over for us, and they are mostly uninhabited on this crazy planet. We can stay away from any locals, Replicate houseboats, sea-planes, speedboats, hiking and diving gear and so on, and they can rest and relax however they like for 2 days before returning to the rigors of colony life. They can even take with them all the fruit they can pick - bananas, coconuts, mangoes and so forth will probably be well-received and make them popular back on Mars."

"Oh, gee, that's going to be a tough sell," Ron pretended to grouse, "you really drive a hard bargain."

They all laughed.

Simon stood, "I'll let the capes know they'll be released soon & see if they're willing to offer any more helpful information before they go - not about the Virgin Islands obviously: that's a secret we don't want their organization to have. But they may give us something that'll help when it's time to collect the box-cars. They have been quite friendly so far - unlike that horrible woman going by the name of Brandish we had in the brig before. She had a sharp tongue, as they say."

"Did she ever!" Ron agreed emphatically. "I'd never met anyone like that - with so many issues she is trying to take out on others. Wow! It's too bad we never shot her with one of those Reset bullets. It couldn't help but make her easier to deal with. Oh well, it's too late now."

"Is it?" asked Abe.

"Why would it be too late?" asked Boz, grinning. "Beth, where does the tracking tag say she is now?"

While Beth consulted her screen Ron laughed "you played tag-and-release with her as if you're a scientist studying the behavior of certain animals in their native habitat?"

"Of course," Boz answered. "Isn't that what we want to know - her behavior in her native habitat?"

They all laughed again, until Beth said "she's in a vehicle that just pulled up to a private residence. A man and two teenage girls have rushed out to meet her. At first they looked worried and relieved, but now she is yelling at them and they look resigned."

"That's her home," Ron opined with great confidence. "That's exactly the reaction I'd expect from her family. Too bad

the Reset bullets don't come in artillery shell sizes - you could just hit them all now and be done. I'm sure her family needs it too - they're around her a lot. Heck, it would probably take that much to affect her."

Captain Boz grinned and responded, "Who said they don't come in artillery-shell sizes?"

Then he turned to Simon at the main Gunnery Console and said, "I've got a twelve-inch Reset shell loaded in Gun #1 of Turret #1, they in range, would you do the honors?"

Simon grinned like a madman as he aimed, then fired. The ship shook a little from recoil as the shell sped on its way.

All watched on the left-hand display wall as, a few seconds later the shell air-burst well above Brandish and her family, all of whom fell unconscious when the chemical reached them.

Ron joking made the Boy Scout sign and said "Sir, I've done my good deed for the day!"

Everyone laughed.

-0-0-0-

The cape known as Trainwreck stood, with a small group of other capes, near a podium at one end of a warehouse, and looked out over a large and growing group of people.

The gang known as the Archer's Bridge Merchants - or just Merchants for short - were assembling, according to their leader Skidmark's orders, in one of the abandoned warehouses within their territory and near the bay.

So far, nearly 300 gang members had gathered, which was a big achievement for them.

Sure the gang included a lot more members than that.

But the gang's primary business and focus was drug-dealing. And they weren't just dealers - they were also users. All their members were addicted to at least one - and usually several - hard drugs.

And so, at any given moment, it was typical for a significant percentage of the Merchants to be either stoned or sleeping it off.

So, to have 300 here was quite an achievement.

But Skidmark had been insistent.

And, with his super-power, he could make a very messy end for those who angered him.

Actually, 'angered' was the wrong word to use, since Skidmark was pretty much always angry. He expressed that in a near-constant stream of swearing and general profanity, to the point where some debated whether he even remembered any other words.

Skidmark stepped to the podium and began talking - well. 'talking' Skidmark style: a stream of profane invective and general-purpose swearing issued from his mouth, and went on for a couple minutes before he paused, as if expecting a response.

When Skidmark's cussing stopped, the assembled gang members all looked confused: they knew Skidmark was upset, but not at what exactly, nor why, nor what he wanted done about it.

From experience, they all looked towards Squealer. She knew Skidmark the best, and ended up translating for him quite often.

Squealer stepped forward and said "Skidmark says that no group of Colombian drug lords is going to succeed at taking over our territory, but one is on the way to try it right now. They're just a few blocks away and we're going to go beat them up!"

Many in the room cheered, but there was some evidence of uncertainty and fear in that cheer.

Skidmark swore some more, then paused expectantly again.

He looked frustrated.

Squealer spoke again, "This is the part where we all cheer and yell supportive things like 'you got that right!' and 'nobody muscles in on our turf!' and 'lets get em!', then we all rush out to the street and fight."

There were a few half-hearted cheers along those lines, and the crowd started shuffling and stumbling towards the doors."

Trainwreck reflected that more than a few were still stoned to one degree or another. He also noted several take out bottles and pop a few pills, doubtless "a little something to help them through the fight."

He snorted, then Squealer spoke again, "don't forget to take an anti-tank weapon from the table over there by the wall before you go." She gestured to a table at the south edge of the room.

The table was piled with weapons, including a few bazookas and recoilless rifles, but mostly the weapons were paintball guns.

These paintball guns fired little blobs of thermite gel, cooked up by a chemistry Tinker, and fused to ignite upon impact. They were supposed to be able to burn through anything - with enough hits and a little time that is.

The sales pitch had been convincing and so Skidmark had bought hundreds of them and stored them for a time of need. That time was today..

But Trainwreck had his doubts - not just about the how effective the thermite balls would be, but also about how effective the gang members would be, no matter what they were armed with.

Many of them were headed towards the exit doors. Not all of those had remembered to arm themselves.

None were moving in a manner that suggested they had determination and purpose - no, they sort of wandered.

Some were asking anyone near them variations of the question "tell me again: what are we doing?"

And there were quite a few who were just standing around, staring at things only they could see.

In short, the stoners were stoned, and acting like it.

At least none of them had fired weapons within the building, just to see the pretty colors or something.

Trainwreck crossed his fingers at that thought.

As for the capes in the gang, Trainwreck had a lot more confidence.

Skidmark planned to stand in front of the enemy armored column and draw their fire. He would use his super-power to put some layered acceleration fields in front of himself, and those would deflect incoming bullets and shells. So he'd be safe.

And while Skidmark occupied their attention, Squealer would attack, followed by Trainwreck and Mush.

Squealer was a Tinker focused on vehicles, and she had come up with something special.

It was built on a vehicle transporter - the special kind of trailer pulled by a semi-trailer truck to take a bunch of cars from one place, like the manufacturer, to another, like a sales lot.

The trailer was basically a framework that cars could drive up and onto, and later back off of again. It had upper and lower levels.

Squealer had turned the whole framework into what she called a "Gun Calliope". Somehow she had come up with thousands of guns of every type - rifles, pistols, shotguns, machine-guns, and weirder stuff like blunderbusses and hand-mortars - and had attached them all to the trailer's modified framework and had set things up so they could all fire at once towards the trailer's right-hand side.

A calliope was a kind of pipe-organ used by circuses, and all the gun barrels did indeed resemble a pipe-organ - one laying on its side.

She had even included a dozen or so of the recoilless rifles in that monstrosity.

She planned to just pull the vehicle forward out of the warehouse it was in, and pull the trigger, spraying all the vehicles in the whole armored column with projectiles of every kind.

Trainwreck had pointed out that their foes would likely shoot it before it cleared the warehouse and could fire, and in response to that discussion they now planned, instead, to just use explosives to suddenly drop one wall of the warehouse and then fire through the opening.

Squealer had stuck with the circus theme and added 2 big circus cannons to the end of the trailer. These were the kind of cannons that circuses fired whole people out of.

And she was indeed planning to fire Mush out of one of them. His battlesuit would protect him from the impact and then he'd be right on top of a tank, able to batter it to death by the battlesuit's fists, or by whatever weapons Mush happened to remember to bring.

The other cannon would fire a really big ball of thermite gel.

Squealer had wanted to fire Trainwreck out of the other, and Skidmark had liked the idea. So in order to get out of that, Trainwreck had had to pull out his secret project - the bigger battlesuit.

Trainwreck wore his regular battlesuit nearly everywhere, and it was pretty capable.

But he'd designed and built his bigger battlesuit as an answer to Menja and Fenja - for in case he ever had to go up against them in battle.

They were 30 feet tall, so it was 50 feet tall. Trainwreck would - while still wearing his normal battlesuit - just climb into the head of the bigger battlesuit, and then control it as if it was his own body. It was ridiculously strong, as well as being very well armored.

It didn't have many special weapons or surprises built in, but it did wield a huge pickax, which Trainwreck expected that he could use to punch right through any tank's armor.

He had also Tinkered with, and armed with explosives, his collection of toy steam locomotives, and they would all swarm out of hiding towards the armored column just after Squealer fired..

So that was the plan: Skidmark distracts, Squealer fires, self-directed bombs in the form of toy steam locomotives swarm out and explode, and Mush and Trainwreck use their battlesuits to finish whatever is left, possibly supported by gang members armed with anti-tank weapons, assuming any gang members held it together that long and didn't wander off or just sit starting at the sky or something.

Squealer should not even need a second 'shot' with her calliope, though she insisted she could reload and make one. Trainwreck didn't see how, but she did have a nightmarishly complex apparatus behind all the guns, so maybe she could. Tinkers could do crazy things, after all.

If there were any survivors among the occupants of the armored column, the Merchants planned to hold them for a very steep ransom, to discourage any other Colombians from trying to take their territory.

Skidmark said something profane, with no clear subject or other of the usual parts of speech - only expletives - so it could have meant just about anything.

The 4 capes present simply took it as a signal to go, and each departed to his or her starting point for the upcoming ambush.