Aurora - Blood Moon Tribute Pt. 10

This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted are 18 and over

Watson raised a hand, bringing the shadowy cavalcade to a shuffling halt. Down by the shore, the Widowmaker path opened up into a low-walled, gravel-surfaced expanse, a parking lot for VVIP golf buggies. Beyond it, a broad stone stairway led down to the bridge between the main island and its smaller companion. Cassandra tugged Watson's sleeve, pointing. "That's the road, there. The gate's just a little way round the corner."

Watson heaved a deep, fortifying breath, and was tensing to commit when Ally touched his arm. She set off, staying low, and scooted silently down the stairs, then knelt at the bottom beside some pale, shapeless object. "Wait here." Watson told the others, curiosity piqued in spite of himself. Bent almost double, he hurried down the stairs to Ally's side, to find her kneeling over the body of a young female. Face down, stone-dead. "It's the little Russian girl." Ally whispered. She jerked her chin and together they rolled her over. "Oh well. At least now I know what happened to her."

"You knew..." Watson began, "you know her?"

Ally swiped her eyes. "It's Dasha. She tried to follow us. Poor little mouse. And I was so bloody mean to her."

"Why would anyone want to shoot her?"

Ally craned her neck, scanning the barrack-island skyline. "Why do you reckon? Fun? Target practice? Just like Sook, for no good reason at all. This poor little thing was totally harmless."

"Come on." Watson said, taking Ally's hand. "Let's do our grieving later... if we're still alive."

Keeping low, expecting the impact of a round any split second, they scurried back to the group and Watson jerked his head. "This way."

"What was it?" Cassandra asked, while Beck took one look at Ally's expression and instantly knew.

"Just a girl."

"Who?" Selene pitched in, innocent as the night was long.

Ally raised a hand. "Not now."

Watson reached the barrier first, a low, swing boom he hurdled with ease. It was, indeed, plastered with signs and placards, like some off-the-wall community billboard, local text backed up with various images. An armed soldier in profile, a great big exclamation mark in red. And like Cassandra had said, a skull-and-crossbones.

The road beyond turned inland a little, then bent back to the shore again through a narrow pass between two rocky hillocks. Rounding a bend, Watson caught a glimpse of cultural lighting at a range of two hundred meters or so- streetlamps by the looks- and a lopsided quadrangle of silver moonlight on a flat metal roof. Pulling up, he beckoned Cassandra. "Is this the place?"

Cassandra put her arm around him and Beck sucked a breath. They were almost cheek-to-cheek, close enough that Watson could smell her breath. It was pleasant, sweet. "Uh huh," Cassandra nodded. "Those buildings there are the de-sal plant. Where they make fresh water for the palace. And there's a helipad. Just past that there's a little concrete bridge-thingy, where the yacht lives."

"Bridge? You mean jetty?"

Cassandra shrugged. "El embarcadero?"

Watson shrugged. "Sounds about right. Tell me again, how do you know all this?"

"When we were training." she whispered. "We had to learn all about the island. Where to go, where not to go."

"Is it manned?"

"Que?"

"Any staff?"

"No idea."

Gunfire rattled in the distance and Watson looked over his shoulder. "Well, let's hope not. I guess we'll just have to chance it."

Cassandra pulled back enough to look him in the eye. "What should we do?"

Watson looked at the faces of his flock. "Wait here. I'll take a look."

"Let me come with you." Cassandra whispered, hand on his arm.

The old man looked at her hand. Beck looked at her hand. "Want me to come with, Dommy?" Beck asked.

The hint sailed harmlessly over his head. "Better wait here, Moosh. Can't go making it too easy for them. And if anyone comes you lot head for the hills. Literally. Straight up the side and hunker down. Wait here guys, I'll be back."

They set off, two low, humped creatures of formless black, the sound of their footfall mingling with the crunch of surf. Ally came up beside Beck. "I do believe that grey-eyed little-titter is trying to steal your man."

Beck shook her head. "No. She's not."

"What makes you so sure?" Ally asked, bracing for the inevitable tantric fluff.

Beck gave her the eye. "Because she's too young to die. And so is he for that matter."

Ally grinned in spite of herself. "Spoken like a true pilot." she said and gave her a hug. Crossing her ankles, she sank onto the road, the coarse gravel still warm after the previous day's heat-soaking. Slowly reclining, hands behind her head, she lay staring sightlessly into the void.

Sitting down beside her, Beck watched her old man till he was swallowed by the night, wondering, in spite of her bravado, was she about to lose him in an altogether more permanent sense?

At the end of the road, the old man and his shapely shadow took cover behind the bund wall of a massive kerosine fuel tank, one of two busy feeding the plant's gas turbines. The air was awash with the evocative scent of jet exhaust, a heady perfume, redolent with memories... the GulfStream on the ramp, winding up for another adventure. The hiss of baffled intakes and the dull roar of jet efflux threw up inadvertent aural camouflage, and Watson looked at the young female by his side. "Where to?"

Brows knitted, Cassandra rifled her memory bank, then pointed beyond the wall. Backs bent, they darted from one bund barrier to the other, then cut along the tank foundations onto the helipad. Watson caught a glimpse of the jetty 100 meters away, and a sharp, white shape at its far end. His heart began to race. The yacht, it had to be. For a moment he considered going back to the others, but then on second thoughts... If he could put Cassandra on board with a few rudimentary instructions, she could get the ball rolling while he went back for the gang. The only thing that could happen, he smugly reminded himself, fighting the impulse to punch the air, was what did happen. There was the yacht. He'd found Rebekah and Alana. As for the loss... those deliberations were best left for later.

He knew something was wrong the moment they set foot onto the pier, and his face fell as his hopes crashed down around him. Cassandra had the sense to say nothing, as they stood looking at the bow of the 45-footer, sticking straight up out of the water, the top of the mast just visible, deformed like a crudely-straightened paperclip. "They must have scuttled her."

"Scuttled?"

"Sunk it. Sent it to the bottom. I gather Prince Yusef's not flavour of the month."

"There's another prince, Rashiid. Yusef stole his girlfriend once."

"Make sure to remind me. If I'm ever tempted to poach."

"You already have." Cassandra whispered wryly. "You took the king's wife."

Watson looked down at her. "She was mine first. Finder's keepers."

'His first?' Cassandra opened her mouth, then closed it again, frowning.

"Well," Watson sighed, the fantasy of his triumphant return in tatters, "we can't just hang around here."

"What will we do?"

"Maybe you can think back to those lessons. There must be somewhere we can hide."

By and by they reappeared back out of the moonscape. Beck could tell it was bad news just by the way they walked, scuffing straight into the huddle as Ally rose, groaning, brushing dust off her bottom. "Not there?" Beck asked.

"Oh, she's there, alright. Resting on her stern in about thirty feet of water."

Toes chipped the gravel as they mooched in circles, eyes downcast. "Any other bright ideas?" Ally asked. "Or do we just throw ourselves on the mercy of the gentleman king?"

"There are boats back at the dock." Cassandra suggested helpfully.

Ally shot her a glare. "And lots of soldiers, too. With lots of guns. I've already checked."

The moon had reached its zenith. Watson looked uphill, the looming mountain a shadowy maze rendered in chiaroscuro. "Maybe we could-"

The sound of pounding boots. The tinkle of military equipment hastily donned and poorly secured. Panting breaths. A clutch of- what else?- black shadows rounded the corner and ran smack bang into the gathering before they could scatter. "WHAT? HO!" a voice bellowed, "CONTACT!"

They heard the unmistakeable sound of automatic weapons coming off 'safe'. "GET DOWN!" a voice roared, "GET DOWN. ON THE GROUND. ON THE GROUND. GET DOWN YOU MOTHERFUCKERS BEFORE WE BLOW YOU AWAY."

"Quiet Boet!" a second voice hissed and a third voice added, "For fuck's sake, Daisy. Tell the fuckin' world!"

The trooper lowered his weapon. "What? What? Oh sorry, Boss."

Breathing hard, the alpha commenced creeping slowly through the crowd, now down on their knees, Ally with her arms crossed, Cassandra praying, Selene quietly crying, Hope and Floraliza hiding their faces, Beck and Watson holding hands. "Well, well, well," he said, "and what do we have here?"

The tone and timbre of the voice, the accent, made an instant connection and Beck's eyes flew open. Hands up, just in case, she got to her feet. "Hang on." she said, "You're Bravo Two, aren't you?"

The squaddies looked from one another in patent surprise. "And just who the fuck might you be?"

"It's me!" Beck whispered, tugging her head cover back. "The king's wife. You're the guys who brought me back from the mountains."

The troops flipped their Night Vision Goggles up and stood staring, slack jawed, at the apparition. A huge gloved hand took Beck's jaw, turning her head this way and that. "Well I'll be fucked." Bravo 1 said, "If it's not the chief's little chottie. And just what are you doing out here, Missy? This is a prohibited area."

"Look here, Boss" another trooper said, "it's her Aunty. And that other little rice-burner, the one we got from the Sea Palace. Hello girls!"

"Jesus Christ," Bravo 1 cursed, "you brought the whole fucking family. Eh? What are you doing out here? Hmm? Shouldn't you be back in the palace, polishing a certain prince's knob?"

Another squad member raised Cassandra's chin with his barrel. "What about you, Bokkie? What's your story?"

"Boys." Watson said wearily, starting to rise. These goons were South Africans, no mistake. And if there was one thing he knew for sure, it was the progeny of the lower southern hemisphere were all imbued with the same peculiar energy found nowhere north of the equator. From the very same latitudes that first gave birth to the species, South Africans, like Australians, were blessed with an affable, breezy, easy-going sense of fair play, an innate sense of justice and humour.

A squaddie jammed his suppressor into the nape of Watson's neck. "One more inch, you silly old fuck. And I'll give you what for!"

"Oi!" Beck glared, "Leave him alone!"

Bravo 1 caught her arm on her first step. "Pricey!" he called. An African trooper the size of a bear stepped up. "Here. Hold onto Goldilocks for me."

While the human monolith held Beck back, Bravo 1 stalked up to Watson. He snapped his fingers. "Here! You! Look at me. Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing out here with this pussy-parade?"

Watson heaved a sigh. "It's a long story."

"Well I don't like long stories. I don't even like fuckin' short ones. I like the truth, short and sharp. See my buddy here? His trigger finger's already at first pressure. No fucking around, now. Who are you?"

"Damon Watson." the old man replied.

"Don't try my patience, Boet."

"My name is Damon Watson. I'm a retired writer."

"It's true!" Beck said and Ally nodded, "Uh huh."

"And I came here to rescue my d... d..." Despite the bogus birth certificate, he just couldn't bring himself to say it. "I came here to rescue my girls."

"Your girls? Who? Which girls?"

Watson looked at Beck and nodded in her direction. "Her," he said, then gestured at Ally. "And her."

"Your girls?" a trooper frowned. "Like, are you their pimp or something? Is that what you're saying?"

Ally scowled at the man. "No, you fucking moron. He's our dad."

Cassandra nodded. "Uh huh, it's true. He's ours too. He adopted us." She pointed from herself to Selene. "All of us."

A low, pulsing thrum filled the air, rising steadily over the nearby rumble of surf and the distant din of the de-sal plant. The sound of thudding blades emerged and everyone looked up. "Here's our lift, Boss."

Beck wrenched free of the gorilla who was politely, almost gently, holding her wrist. "Is that a chopper?"

"Only way to fly." Bravo 1 confirmed.

"Where's it going?"

"Anywhere off this fucking island!"

"Listen! Guys! You have to take us with you!"

"What?" Bravo 1 demanded, his glare undiminished by darkness or camouflage.

"We have to get away. Let us come with you."

"You must be tripping, lass. YOU are the reason WE'RE making a run for it. When that prick Rashiid finds out we're the ones who extracted you. We'll be history."

"We'll be off to the screaming wall." another voice confirmed.

The helicopter pounded past overhead, a bare fifty feet off the deck, and everyone ducked. Blacked out, with not so much as a nav-light showing, it rolled hard left, hugging the contours of the mountainside.

"But..." Beck pleaded, "But... I'm the queen."

"No!" Bravo 1 said through clenched teeth, "you're nobody. Your new hubby has just been deposed. So now you're not worth squat. King Rashiid will take you back to his place, where we should have left you. He'll fuck your brains out for a couple days, then either trade you in or turf you over the cliff."

The helicopter carved around onto base then stood on its tail, decelerating hard, setting up on a fast, flat finals for the helipad. While Bravo 1 still showed no sign of leaving, his comrades were all champing at the bit to go.

"Please!" Beck begged, "just take us with you."

"Six... seven bodies? You have to be joking. Boys? Pick one for afters and let's get going."

The squad's collective eye fell on Cassandra, and a big, brawny paw wrapped around her arm. "How about you, Bloss? Want to come with? You can look after us when we get where we're going." He snorted with laughter, "Till you're too sore to walk."

Cassandra clawed at the big, dirty hand. "Let go of me, you pig!"

"Leave her alone!" Beck shrilled, "You fucking hero!"

Bravo 1 seized Beck by front of her robes. "We'd take you too but we don't want to catch anything." His eye lit on the sparkle of diamonds in the moonlight. "Hang on." he said, wrenching Beck around. "What have we got here?"

The chopper settled on the pad a couple of hundred meters away and sat, engines screaming, blades still spinning at full RPM.

"Boss?"

"Charlie! You guys move. We'll cover."

Two troops set off, the hulking big black guy and his pale, diminutive offsider. Holding Beck by the throat, Bravo 1 reefed up her niqab to reveal the diamond-studded cape of golden spider silk. One of the squaddies whistled. "What do you say, boys? This must be worth a pretty penny. Knowing the chief those diamonds are real."

The troops crowded around the struggling young female, and Bravo 1 looked from face to face. "This should keep us in beers for the foreseeable, eh lads?"

"If you don't take your hands off me!" Beck rasped.

Bravo 1 gave her a shake. "Then what? What are you gonna do? Get it through your empty little head, girlie. The fairytale's over. Rashiid's king now. And you are just a little piece of worthless white meat."

A radio crackled, and Bravo 2 clicked his mike. "Boss, Charlie's in, covering."

Bravo 1 licked his lips. Strip her here? Or do it in the aircraft then throw her overboard? He let Beck go and took a step back. "Take it off."

"What?"

He jerked his chin in the direction of her robes. "Get that fucking cape off, girlie. Hand it over."

"But... No! I will not! You can all just go and get fucked!"

Bravo 1 gestured with his eyes. A big, burly trooper drew his combat knife- enough hacking power to bring down a tree- then stepped up, towering over her.

"NO!" Watson bellowed, surging to his feet. The squaddie saw him coming. Twisting at the hip, he seized the old man in a headlock, his hard-muscled arm the consistency of steel. Drawing back the knife, he drove it hard enough into Watson's lumbar spine to lift his feet off the ground. Continuing around in one fluid movement, he hurled the old man's body over the embankment, down two or three meters into a gully.

Beck's scream tore the air and Ally swiped her fringe back. The radio crackled again.

"Boss," a trooper called, "Charlie sees movement."

"GIVE ME THAT FUCKING CAPE, YOU SLUT!"

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" Beck screeched, punching Bravo 1 in the face hard enough to set him back on his heels.

"KILL THE BITCH!"

Ally waded into the melee, already swinging, while Selene heaved a rock off the roadside, the size of a watermelon. Absorbing the blow on his helmet, Selene's target spun, growling, then picked her up and flung her over the side of the road.

The air began to snap and crackle, rounds of tracer hitting the rocks. Bravo 2 roared, "CONTACT!"

Suddenly losing interest in Beck's spider-silk cape, the men formed up to do what they did best; perform calmly and skilfully under hostile fire. Two leading, two covering the rear, the mercenaries withdrew in the direction of the waiting helicopter, the tail-end Charlies unleashing a few parting rounds.

Beck, Ally, Cassandra, Hope and Floraliza hit the dirt, but the incoming rounds went high, either merely intended to frighten or meant for someone else. After a moment or two of hesitation, the chopper beat its way into the sky, staying low and accelerating hard, chased by tracers.

The sound of rotors dwindled as the aircraft disappeared around a hillock at the end of the bay. Head up, Beck stiff armed herself off the ground. "Ally?"

"I'm okay." Ally whispered, still flat-out. "You guys?"

Hope and Floraliza lay with their hands on their heads. What on Earth did these white women think they were up to? Were they actually so determined to die?

Ally heard the crunch of boots on gravel, someone taking one cautious step after another, and the nearby the hiss of radio hash. She looked over her shoulder in time to see a dark shadow loom over her foreshortened horizon, then lay down again with her head on her arms. "Ohhh... no..." she groaned, "not again."

Beck looked up as a pair of legs stole into view. Black. Like every fucking thing else in this madhouse. A voice said, "Moosh?"

Beck shot up. "Damon?"

"Give an old boy a hand?"

Beck crawled on all fours to the side of the road, completely ignoring the heavily armed soldier standing beside her. Ally shuffled to her side, then leant over the edge extending her arm. Vaguely aware of more strangers approaching, they hauled Watson up the near vertical incline back onto the road. "Are you okay?" Beck piped, feeling him over for the stab wound he'd seen the trooper inflict.

"I was until I hit the bottom," Watson grated, prone on the gravel, reaching for Selene's hands. "But then I got better. Then Selene landed on top of me and I got worse again."

"How the fuck?" Beck squeaked, "I saw him stab you."

"I think he struck gold." Watson grunted. "Literally."

Between them they dragged Selene up out of the ditch, then brushed her down and inspected her for damage. Her skin shone white through a rip in the seat of her pants but she had otherwise survived the excursion intact. Ally tugged Watson's sleeve.

Watson looked up and his shoulders sagged in dismay. "What the fuck?" he cursed under his breath. "I thought they'd gone."

The newly-arrived squad closed-in, step-by measured step, Night Vision Goggles down, sweeping the dark with their weapons. A soldier raised his hand, gesturing the ragtag band- the old man and the girls- to the ground. No prizes for guessing from the smell of cigarettes and sweat, these troops were locals. "You gotta be shitting me." Ally breathed.