The Long Shot Pt. 02

He groaned. "Come on," he said, aloud, in the language he knew deeper than his bones.

The boxes flared, and then the squiggly lines started to move. As they moved, the voices of the shark and her glow played in his mind again, as if he was hearing them again, despite the fact neither of them were saying anything.

The symbols on the boxes flared, flickered, and transformed into...charts. Word charts.

[Interrogative Sound]: POSSIBLE TRANSLATIONS --

"Are you okay?" "Are you harmed?"

"Are you [legless]?" ← Legless: Interpolation, possible loanword/figurative speech

[Communicative Sound]: POSSIBLE TRANSLATIONS --

"[Name, Phonetic: Tou-lon], the [she/her] is moving." ← Alternatives: he/him, physical being

He looked at the boxes in wonderment, awe filling him.

They were...making the words into...into his words! He sat up, and the boat rocked under his weight. The alien woman tensed, her hand dropping to one of the throwing spears that she had used to brutal effect in the short, sharp battle that he had woken to the middle of. He smiled at her and then said the first thing that came to mind.

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," he said, distantly amused by the term. It...made him think of a laughing woman. Her eyes crinkled at their corners when she punched him and said...something. Ugh! Argh! Why was remembering so fucking hard? As he considered that, the alien spoke -- and the other voice spoke. Looking closely now, he could see that she was shrouded by tiny, solid motes of shimmering light that flared and glittered in time with the other voice's speech. The boxes popped up, and he saw that they were trying to speak to him -- the shark woman (Tou-Lon...Tulon) pointed to herself and started to give her name, then started to name every part of the boat.

He nodded each time, and unknowingly, the other voice provided even more help for his little boxes. Soon, the boxes had vanished and knowledge bloomed in his head. An awareness of how the words fit together. But...it...hurt.

He didn't know why it hurt. But it did. The pain flowered more and more with every interlocking sentence, every bit of grammar, every reflexive adjustment of his inner-speaker. Wait, his what? He put his hands to his head, gritting his teeth, while Tulon reached for him and gripped his shoulder, speaking...

And the words made sense.

"Are you okay, lady?"

"Yes, sorry," he said. Lady? "Just tiny head of ouch."

Tulon looked completely stunned. "How...the..." she whispered, her eyes wide as saucers, her gills opened to their full, most shocked extent. She shook her head, then started to speak a sentence so fast and so excited and so complicated that it went into one of his ears and came out the other again as gibberish and a collection of boxes. He sighed, gritted his teeth, and got ready for more of the magical translation program.

It turns out, each time the program updated and worked into his mind, it hurt.

The trip from the unmarked island to Tulon's home port took only a day and a half of sailing -- and at the end of it, he had learned several important facts.

Tulon was a...well, the closet translation that his magical senses brought up was a word that felt unfamiliar to himself, despite him knowing precisely what it meant. It was a word that wasn't from his home culture, he was sure of it: Chevalier. Higher ranked then the average soldier, given special dispensation by their rank, with exceptional gear and equipment and training, expected to serve as a defender for the state. But the name felt inexact and inelegant, and he wondered if it was due to the fact his memories were shot to hell and gone.

However it was, Tulon served her Queen, who ruled an island that the translator turned into Home Of Fire, but the phonetic name was Sigadart. The Queen had been a part of a lose alliance of other Queens that had ruled their own islands.

"An alliance?" he asked. "Like..."

The Concordant.

He didn't know what a Concordant was. But the name rang in him, like it was important.

"Yes," Tulon said, smiling at him as her husband flitted about her, filling the air-sail with his body and heat. Her husband, Xan, was...an enigma still. An enigma that he had put into the back of his mind as a problem for his future self to deal with. "There was a great deal of trade and warfare between everyone in the Queens Alliance."

"Warfare?" he asked, cocking his head. "Allies don't fight."

"Why not?" she blinked. "A raid or two, it's nothing big. Yeah, a few Chevaliers might get slit up, killed maybe, but except for the family of the people who are killed, no one gets that upset about it. And most of the deaths are only between two Chevaliers who duel or when navy sailors fight." She clicked her tongue. "And most of us fight to the surrender -- better to get a prisoner to ransom back, or a hostage to buy your way off an island if you get trapped."

It made a kind of sense...

"What about those Imperials?" he asked.

Tulon hissed. "Those." She shook her head, then stood and adjusted the sails. The ship was positively flying across the sea, her hull barely feeling as if it was touching the waves at all. They had picked up a few extra KPH, according to some of the new magical numbers that blipped up in the corner of his vision. "She Who Would be Empress...she calls herself the Empress of the Stars, but that's just puffery." Tulon shook her head. "She was a Queen who first got gunpowder -- she claims she invented it herself, but I think she has to have found it or killed the actual inventor or something. She trained her women to use it, then conquered her neighboring island. It takes years to train up a Chevalier, but you can teach a woman to shoot a gun in a week."

"A bit longer than that, my dear," Xan spoke from the air sail, sounding like he was speaking through clenched teeth.

"Yes, well," Tulon said, shrugging and then adjusting their heading by tapping on the rudder and locking it into place again. She licked her lips, then put her finger into the water, nodding as if she had just confirmed something to herself. "The Empress has conquered four islands now. She has enough women to keep their boots on their necks, and she has each of their Queens as a hostage, and priests too." She shook her head. "There are legends that there was another Empire, when the world was first being filled with water by the Goddess, that ruled all the islands. But those legends also said that the Empire could kill from miles away!"

"Guns are-" Xan started.

"Guns can't kill from miles!" Tulon snapped. Then, pausing. "Unless they're those big cannons." She sounded like someone was pulling her teeth to get her to admit that.

He had taken time to consider that. But the question had to be asked: "Okay, uh, I have to ask: Why is your husband made of light?"

Tulon looked at him curiously. "Huh?"

"Your husband is made of light," he said, pointing to Xan.

"No, he's a...man, a sexy, strong, gorgeous man," Tulon said, laughing. "He makes light -- but he also makes heat." Her grin grew saucy. "And he makes other things too..."

"Tulon!" Xan laughed.

"Have you never seen a man before, lady?" Tulon asked.

He sighed. He supposed it was time to pull this bandage off. "I'm not a lady," he said, quietly. "I'm a man."

Tulon blinked at him. She blinked again. The boat rocked under her feet as they hit an unexpected swell and she had to throw her arms wide to keep from pitching headfirst over the edge. "Whoa!" She exclaimed. "I...Goddess, what!?" She looked up at Xan, then back down at him. "How!?"

"I'm not from here," he said, smiling. "I'm from...up there." he pointed up at the sky, the confidence growing in him. I'm from space, he thought. I'm...

I'm...

The thought buzzed on the tip of his mind, furiously close -- but he was distracted by Tulon screaming and putting her hands over her face. "G-Good Goddess!" She said, through her palms. "You've had your cock out this whole time?"

"Well, yes," he said, dryly, glancing down at his member. It rested against his balls, gleaming faintly in the sunlight that shone down from overhead. "I figured you didn't mind."

"I thought it was a birth defect and was being polite," Tulon hissed, then turned. She bent over and began to rummage around inside of her ship's stowage, her rump thrusting into the air and drawing her thong taut against her sex. The view was remarkably fetching and he felt his cock hardening -- and as it got harder, it got harder to keep himself from getting harder. He pressed his thighs together and felt the faint click of his metal knees bumping together. Xan chuckled, quietly.

A single mote of light drifted down to float beside his head, whispering. "Glad to hear my wife still has it, huh?"

"Heh," he chuckled as Tulon stood and threw a thong at him, with a loincloth attached.

"Put this on! Now!"

When he was dressed, the conversation continued -- Tulon asked him about the stars, about his people, about what he had done, how he had done it, about everything. The only problem was that it all went back to the same yawning gap in his memory.

"I don't even know my own name!" he said, frustrated, as the stars began to emerge out overhead, wheeling and spinning gracefully in the sky as the ship cut through the waves. Tulon by now was sagging against the railing, clearly exhausted by the extra efforts that this course had taken from her sailing. She was surrounded by her husband, and from the way she groaned quietly, her eyes fluttering shut, he was doing something to her. Likely something involving warmth and caresses, gentle touches. Massages.

"Well, I've never had to name a man that was also a woman who was also not a member of my own fucking species before," Tulon grumbled. "I'm a Chevalier, my job is to sail and stab people fir my Queen." She grinned, then spread her arms, gesturing to the horizons. "I'm good at both, I'll have you know. Notice something?"

He glanced around.

"A clear horizon, not many could-" Tulon started

"There are enemy ships, approximately sixty eight kilometers behind us," he said, though his mouth turned those into the local units -- twenty five lens -- and she blinked at him.

"Wait, you can see them?" She paused. "Wait, they're still behind us!?"

"Yeah," he said, glancing back.

The ships, which looked like tiny specs on the horizon, transformed immediately into full blown images. He could count the gills on the neck of the captain as she stood on the forecastle of the ship, and was holding something large and clunky and metal up to her eye. It looked like a telescope, with additional components -- copper wires and jars of glass and metal plates. She lowered the telescope and her lips moved as she spoke to her crew. The Imperial ships were significantly larger than the single hulled vehicle that Tulon used: They had multiple decks, and snouts of cannon thrust from the sides like broadsides.

No, not like broadsides, they were broadsides.

It was a strange mental reflex that he had noticed in himself: He kept thinking of things as being like sea combat, as if his...mind kept wanting to think of a different kind of battle. But it was a form of battle that involved ships and sailing and cannons.

No...

Not cannons.

DX-901 Grazer at the maximal range of 1.2 AU can ablate off one layer of-

He shook his head, then looked back at Tulon. "They have a telescope," he said.

"Telescopes don't let you see at night!" Tulon snapped. "And they're big bulky things, and everything's always upside down!" She scrambled to the back of the ship, glaring out into the darkness, her husband flitting around her. "How the fuck can you see them? Even if they were five kilometers away, I'd be fucking shocked!"

"I can just see them," he said. "My eyes are good. I guess?"

"Man or not, you're still a Goddess!" Tulon laughed. "Hm, can you tell how fast they're going?"

He looked back at the ships. They were larger, heavier ships than theirs -- but they also had more sails...and there was something strange about their backs. He thought he could see the movement of thick, broad canvas tarps that swept through the air and then vanished behind the ship. They were moving at a very steady power. His brain practically sparked and he knew, immediately, what the term was. Flywheel. Steamship. But there were bizarre inconsistencies -- there was no smokestack, no metal boilers, nothing but the spinning flywheels, moving by themselves without any sign of how the vehicle was creating the power.

A mystery for later.

"Approximately?" he asked, looking at her. "Faster than us, now that we're not going with the current."

"How!?" Tulon snarled. "I refuse to believe that Imps are magic."

"Not magic, they have some kind of technological assistance," he said, shaking his head. "But I think they might catch up with us just before arriving at your Island. Does your Queen have defenses?"

"We've learned to make our own cannons, and a fortress to put them on," she said, frowning. "But..." She sighed, then stood and stretched. "It looks like it is another long night for sailing -- another long, long, long night." She closed her eyes, then groaned and rolled her arms. "I can do this. I can do this. I can do this."

She paused, bouncing on her feet.

"...can you blow them up?" she asked. "Like, you did to the Imp?"

He frowned. He shifted in his posture, moving to his knees, then pointed his finger at the distant ship. He furrowed his brow and tried to make the...death happen. But he had no idea how he'd done it last time. He had just...done it. He furrowed his brow harder and clenched his teeth and a warning box popped up.

ALERT: CNS The Widening Gyre in violation of ROE -- Sentient Life Not Under Direct Threat, you are not under live fire, consult your tactical officer.

He laughed.

"Did you get them?" Tulon asked, excitedly.

"No!" he said, beaming at her. "I know my name!"

"Oh, well," Tulon said, her voice dropping into ranges that even he could tell were sarcastic. "What is it?"

"Gyre," he said, smiling slightly. "But I think we're going to be okay."

He turned his gaze back towards the distant ships and frowned.

If he understood the alert that had already fizzled away from his field of vision, the instant that ship fired on them? He'd have his chance.

***

Kilometers away, on the deck of the Imperial ship, Captain Yenta lowered her nightseer and groaned.

"I hate this fucking thing," Captain Yenta said, glaring down at the damned thing in her arms. The vision it provided made her eyes hurt, almost as much as the weight of the horrible thing made her neck ache. But despite all of that, her words were less heated than they normally were. Because it had provided her something that made this whole damn expedition worth it.

When the Empress had given her the orders to head for some uncharted island for no reason, she had thought they had been pure madness. But Yenta kept that kind of thinking to herself, and good thing too. Not only did something of incredible value land on the island, just as the Empress claime it would, but also...well...the new servants of the Empress were quite merciless when it came to ensuring that the Empress' will was done. She had put them into place shortly after the second conquest, when it had become clear that her reign would not be a mere kingdom but a true Empire, to rival the Empire of legends.

Stasi, she thought to herself. The name was alien and harsh and felt wrong on her tongue. But that was what the Empress had named them, and that was a name that was now being learned throughout all of the Empire -- a name to fear. A name to...

"Quite a nice evening we are having, Captain?"

Yenta turned to look respectfully at Stasi Chevalier Lidara who had decided to 'grace' her deck. Lidara had been less than welcome before the disaster on the uncharted island -- but now, Yenta would have gladly pitched Lidara over the railing of the ship with her gills slit to the marrow if she thought no one on her ship would be whispering to other Stasi once they got back to port. As it was, she grated her teeth and tried to not let how much she despised the secret policewoman show on her features.

"We should be catching up with the mongrel ship soon," Yenta said, nodding. "The Empress will have her prize." Whatever it is. Not a single marine survived the landing. Surely, we're not facing a Chevalier that good...are we?

"I hope that is the case, Captain Yenta," Lidara said, quietly, watching the darkness, as if she didn't need a nightseer to see where the enemy ship was. "The Empress doesn't countenance failure."

Oh wow, she doesn't? I never fucking noticed, you prig, Yenta thought to herself, then snatched up her nightseer. Her arms strained and she held it to her eyes. The grainy, fuzzy view of the enemy ship -- with the brilliant flare-glow of the male aboard making it very clear, very obvious to her.

It got closer.

It would keep getting closer.

And Yenta allowed herself a thin little smile.

They had cannons loaded and propped up on the blocks to drop their field of fire down into the surf, rather than at the horizon clearing distance of long distance gunnery. And best of all? They were crammed with their newest invention, straight from the Empress' laboratory.

She tasted the word of it on her mind's tongue, and despite the Stasi, despite the madness of a nighttime chase, despite the clunky nightseer...

She loved it

They called it: Canister shot.

TO BE CONTINUED