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Chapter 12
USS Ronald Reagan, south of the Straits of Hormuz. 7 FEB 2013
Rear Admiral James Tollant watched from his flag bridge as the carrier recovered the flight returning from the latest mission into Saudi Arabia. The status board indicated no downed planes this time, at least. In the first few days of this latest phase of the Gulf Wars the battle group had lost more planes than he cared to think about to freakish weather and bizarre encounters with creatures out of fairy tales. The daily briefings for the past month had been full of outrageous reports and insane speculations from the Pentagon – except that sixty-seven of his own personnel had transformed to fairy-tale creatures themselves on New Year’s Eve. They’d been medevaced back to CONUS, but he’d met with them before they left. What was insane and what wasn’t was no longer obvious, he’d decided.
Sea Stallion helicopters wandered around the edges of the battle group, hovering and dipping hydrophones periodically. Iran, at least, had acquired some old Soviet-era submarines that had to be guarded against. Antisubmarine warfare (ASW) destroyers and frigates tagged along with them, occasionally darting off to check out signals reported by the helicopters.
* * * *
USS Cole was a good ship, but she’d had a reputation for bad luck ever since she’d been hit by the suicide boat back in 2000. Chief Petty Officer Anthony Napoli’s duty station was in Cole’s Combat Information Center, and he watched the plots as the destroyer headed for the latest anomalous contact. “Apollo, CIC. Do you see anything?”
Apollo was the call sign of the Cole’s lead pilot, currently trying to isolate a contact to the southeast of the battle group. “CIC, Apollo. That’s a negative. No sign of a periscope.”
“Try an active pulse at grid 25-57, Apollo.”
“CIC, Apollo. Active at grid two-fife tac fife-seven, acknowledged.” The helo moved off to the indicated location. Instead of listening, this time the dipping sonar went active, pinging with high-frequency sound and waiting for the echoes. The feed went to the sonarman on board the helo and was crosslinked to the CIC screens. Napoli stared at the result. The sonarman out on the helicopter spoke for both of them. “What the hell is that?”
He was close to his quarry now – they were ships. Huge ships, some of them even larger than his body was. He remembered ships from before, filled with tasty human morsels, capable of feeling the terror and agony that was as needful for his nourishment as mere flesh. A sudden pinging broke out nearby, and he automatically sent tentacles questing after it.
The sonar’s waterfall display indicated a range of five hundred yards to whatever it was, and it still covered a quarter of the full circle. “Apollo, CIC. Confirm no mechanical sounds?”
“CIC, Apollo. Confirmed. That’s a biological.”
“Can’t be. It’s nearly as big as the frikkin’ carrier!”
“CIC, Apollo. I know, but that’s what we’re seeing, too. It’s – Madre de Dios!!!”
The thing on the sonar trace moved suddenly, and the 500 meters of distance to the main mass did not include its tentacles, which were narrow enough to be effectively invisible to the sonar. One grabbed the dipping array, the violent pull nearly bringing the helo down into the water. The sonarman hit the quick release, dropping the sonar array into the ocean as the pilot pulled the cyclic up hard. The helicopter staggered for a moment, then rose straight up even as two impossibly huge tentacles surged into the air, blindly searching for it. On board the destroyer, Chief Napoli tried to make sense of the display. “Apollo, Cole. What is your situation?”
The pilot’s voice was shaken, and the sonarman’s Spanish prayers came through in the background. “Cole, Apollo. There’s something down there, like a huge octopus. Nearly pulled us in. It got the sonar array. Warn the rest of the battle group to use sonobuoys only. Repeat, do not use the dipping arrays, the damned thing nearly pulled us into the drink.”
He found only a small bit of metal which resisted for a moment and then broke free from something. Strange... there was no ship there. Perhaps something in the upper air...? No. It was gone, whatever it was.
Lieutenant Adams was watching over his sonar chief’s shoulder by this time. “Understood, Apollo. Can you see the thing moving?”
"Cole, Apollo. Affirmative, it's just under the surface now. Moving towards the battlegroup. I'm not sure a torpedo will track on it, but should I try dropping one?"
Lieutenant Adams was already relaying events to his commanding officer, who confirmed the request. “Weapons free, people.” Commander Mark Jenkins, commanding officer of the USS Cole (Captain by courtesy and tradition), picked up the command circuit microphone. “Reagan, Cole. We are in contact with a giant biological at grid 25-57 that just tried to pull one of our ASW helos out of the sky. I have just ordered a strike to drive it off in accordance with standing orders.”
“Cole, Reagan. Acknowledged. Stand by.”
The Mark 46 was the lightest torpedo still in inventory, but the 45 kilograms of high explosive it carried still packed a formidable punch. One of them dropped from the helicopter now, its sonar head activating when it hit the water. It took only a few seconds to find its target, and the weapon streaked toward the monstrous squid.
Another annoying noisemaker started pinging at him. Again, he reached out to silence it, but this one stung! The end of the tentacle that meant to slap it aside vanished in a fireball. Rage at the enormous effrontery of these humans washed over Creya, and he jetted toward the nearest ship to vent his wrath on it.
The sonar display blotted out as the explosion overloaded the sensors. “Go to active, Chief.” Commander Jenkins joined his officers in the CIC. Chief Napoli had frozen the earlier image of the thing on a side monitor. “That’s a biological?”
The chief chuckled. “Maybe mythological would be a better word for it, sir. It looks to be just a bit shy of three hundred meters long.”
Jenkins shook his head. “Not that funny, Chief. Some of the things the air wings have been dealing with lately... mythological covers it. Nightmares would be better. A squid the size of a carrier? The only myth that could be is the kraken. Supposedly used to capsize ships by grabbing their masts and pulling them over so it could eat their crews.” He frowned, and keyed up the ship’s announcing system. “All hands to General Quarters. Set condition Yoke. Repeat, Condition Yoke. All hands are to remain clear of the weather decks until further notice unless involved in flight ops. This is not a drill.” Throughout the vessel, watertight doors began to close as the crew cleared the exposed decks and sealed the ship.
The ship’s active sonar came up, revealing a rather alarming situation. “The biologicial is approaching at 40 knots, sir. Contact in 90 seconds.”
“All ahead, emergency speed! Right rudder full, come to two-niner-zero true!” The gas-turbine engines kicked up to full power, the ship actually listing slightly from the torque as she picked up speed. From a standing start, the Cole could reach her top speed in three minutes. But she didn’t have three minutes.
This time the ship started making those irritating sounds. No matter. This one was packed full of humans, and they wouldn’t escape. It was already almost within his grasp…
The Cole slewed to a sudden stop as tentacles wrapped around it, hull plates groaning under the stress. The port reduction gear sprayed shrapnel around the engine room as the propeller blades jammed against a tentacle and the rapidly spinning turbine stripped the gearing. All over the ship, crewmen were thrown off their feet as the thing dragged her to a stop. The tentacles moved over the superstructure, blindly searching, poking into everything they could find, getting more and more violent.
The captain ordered the Close-In Weapon Systems activated. “I’m not sure it will accept that thing as a target, sir.” the Weapons Officer noted. “It's not exactly an incoming missile.”
“Put it in surface sweep mode if it won't. See how it likes depleted uranium at Mach 5.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Control keys were turned, and the systems powered up. The cylindrical gun housings of the CIWS (looking much like, and commonly referred to as, R2-D2's) turned as programmed, searching for missiles that weren’t there. The Weapons Officer turned the control key to ‘Surface Sweep’ and pushed the activation button.
<Metal? The whole ship is made of metal? And where are they all hiding!? I know you’re in there! Come out of there, morsels!> He began squeezing the hull, then pain flooded as one of the spinning mechanisms on the stern of the ship came to a halt in his flesh. <Twice they hurt me? They DARE?> Tentacles wrapped around the blades, yanking them loose from the ship. The narrow opening it left behind was too small for anything but the very tip of a tentacle, but the breach allowed water to pour into the ship. <You will all drown, and I will feed on your pain even if I cannot reach your bodies--> The thought was interrupted by a fresh wave of agony. Metal darts of some sort were being shot into his tentacles, punching deep into the muscle and sometimes even all the way through, his tough armored skin seemingly no protection against them. <This is impossible! What sorcery do they--> Again his thoughts were interrupted...
Admiral Tollant was still looking out at the ASW ships when the tentacles erupted from the water and enveloped USS Cole. He took the time to blink once, then called his own CIC. “What have we got in the air with bombs? Some... thing is attacking Cole.”
The CAG had already taken action, detailing an air group to assist the Cole when the first report came in. “Already on it, sir. We diverted two birds of the last strike to come back and see what LGIB’s will do to it.” The radio was carrying the reports from Cole’s skipper, and the groaning of the hull plates came through all too clearly in the background.
Five minutes later, a pair of F-16’s shrieked over the formation, releasing their munitions at the correct moment, the laser guidance modules on the noses of the old-style 'iron bombs' automatically correcting their trajectories as they fell. In close succession, two bombs weighing a ton apiece exploded on the back of the monster from the deep. It released the destroyer and jetted backwards, black blood staining the ocean as it fled back to deep water.
ASW helicopters trailed after it, dropping additional torpedoes as opportunity offered, until finally it vanished below the thermocline into water too deep for them to track it. Left behind was one severed tentacle the length of a football field and the crippled wreck of the destroyer.
Far below the surface of the Indian Ocean, the Kraken nursed his wounds and wondered what had happened. His fury was no longer hot - that had been burned out of him while being harried for forty leagues by human-crewed flying machines and their self-propelled fireball weapons. But he would have his revenge, oh yes... he would have his revenge.
* * * *
The Idaho-Montana border, 8 FEB 2013
The meadow was somewhere deep in the pine forests of the range that the Americans had named the Bitterroot Mountains. Wind had temporarily scoured most of the snow away , and the sole inhabitant stepped daintily around the remaining drifts nibbling on the exposed grass, his cloven hooves leaving almost no marks. He looked up at the scent of an intruder, his golden horn glowing brightly for a moment until he recognized the scent. The light dimmed then, and his breath smoked out into the cold dawn air in an equine snort. “Coyote. It hath been some little time. Why art thou here?” The language the unicorn used hadn’t been heard in millennia, and the dialect he had chosen had been archaic even then.
The tall, thin figure standing in the shadows at the edge of the glade chuckled, and replied in the same speech. “Forsooth, Cerrunos – canst a dutiful descendant not drop in to give thee greetings without suspicion of some fell purpose?”
The unicorn snorted again, trotting over toward the visitor, shifting to English once that test had been passed. "You never stop by unless you want something, or you feel like trying another of your practical jokes. I do hope it's not the latter. I'm not at all in the mood for it. This cycle looks like it will be a bit different, already. And it could be dangerous for all of us."
The tall figure flinched a bit as the glow of the horn fell on him, his indistinct form snapping into focus at its touch, revealing him as a rangy anthropomorphic canid. “I’ve noticed. Been making the rounds. Quetzalcoatl’s been busy the last few years. He’s the one behind the whole Aztlan movement, as it turns out. He seems to resent the Europeans moving in and wiping out his power base while we were waiting. Wei Lung’s been spending his time in a monastery since the start of the Jin Dynasty, but it looks like he's made plans. I don't expect the PRC government will last much longer. Spider is stirring again. Rakasha’s up to his usual tricks now that the mana is back. Oh, and Haroun’s back. I thought he was gone, but all of a sudden he’s turned up with his whole gang of sycophants. Seems to have time-travelled, somehow. And you know what you’ve been up to, of course.”
The unicorn’s whinny was full of laughter. “Of course. The question is, do you know?” He cocked his head to one side, looking at the Trickster. “You haven’t mentioned the others. What about Pele, Morgana, Merlin, Ashanti, and Creya?”
Coyote looked embarrassed. “I was hoping you could tell me. I know where Pele lives, but she’s stayed quiet since the Awakening. That’s not like her at all.”
“True. She’s always been a bit flamboyant. Maybe she’s napping.” He frowned. “Creya’s in the Indian Ocean, or he was as of yesterday. Tried to attack a carrier battle group.”
Coyote shook his head. “He always was a bit more arrogant than he could afford, but that’s a new low even for him. Just how did you find this out?”
Cerrunos chuckled. “It’s what he gets for sleeping during the Famines. I was hoping I’d found his lair this time; thought he was at Eniwetok, and got the Americans to test their first fusion bomb there. Seems to have missed him, though. I still have my contacts in their government.”
The canid’s eyes widened at that, and then he made a half mocking, half serious bow. “Well played. I didn’t realize you had it in you.”
The golden horn flashed with the unicorn's anger. “Creya is a true monster. He has no care for anyone or anything but himself, and if he’s gone it’s good riddance. Even Spider’s not that bad.” He sighed. “Better luck next time, I suppose.”
“I’d have to agree. And the others?”
“No idea. Merlin and Morgana were furious with each other at the end of the last cycle – wouldn’t put it past either of them to have continued feuding mundanely after they’d sucked up the last of the mana. Europe’s pretty well covered with infrastructure, too – that’d be a problem for both of them. Time will tell.” The unicorn stared at the canid again, pondering. “So why are you here? Just comparing notes?”
Coyote grinned, in the tongue-lolling canine fashion. “Well… not entirely. I came by to offer an alliance, if you’re interested.” His ears flattened. “Quetzal’s gone ‘round the bend in the last few centuries. I don’t think he understands what nuclear weapons can do, or else he just doesn’t care. If his pet organization is any clue, he wants to start by overthrowing Mexico and the United States both, and that sounds a bit too crazy even for my tastes. I have the impression you agree with me. I recognized your touch in the wards the Americans have been setting up – and if I can tell, so can the others. But I like the Americans, too. They’re the very embodiment of successful chaos, after all. My kind of people. So… let me know if you need help, and I’ll try to keep from upsetting too many of your plans. Deal?”
The unicorn shimmered, his form shifting to that of a tall human, pale-skinned and blue-eyed. Long blond hair almost completely concealed the birthmark in the center of his forehead and hung to his waist in a ponytail. “Deal. If you’ll shake on it.”
Coyote sighed. “If I must…” He extended his hand.
Cerrunos took it and a flare of golden light engulfed the two of them for a moment. He nodded. “Deal. You really do mean it.”
Coyote grinned. “Of course I do. If I lied all the time, no one would ever believe me, and then how would I pull any tricks?”
USS Ronald Reagan, south of the Straits of Hormuz. 7 FEB 2013
Rear Admiral James Tollant watched from his flag bridge as the carrier recovered the flight returning from the latest mission into Saudi Arabia. The status board indicated no downed planes this time, at least. In the first few days of this latest phase of the Gulf Wars the battle group had lost more planes than he cared to think about to freakish weather and bizarre encounters with creatures out of fairy tales. The daily briefings for the past month had been full of outrageous reports and insane speculations from the Pentagon – except that sixty-seven of his own personnel had transformed to fairy-tale creatures themselves on New Year’s Eve. They’d been medevaced back to CONUS, but he’d met with them before they left. What was insane and what wasn’t was no longer obvious, he’d decided.
Sea Stallion helicopters wandered around the edges of the battle group, hovering and dipping hydrophones periodically. Iran, at least, had acquired some old Soviet-era submarines that had to be guarded against. Antisubmarine warfare (ASW) destroyers and frigates tagged along with them, occasionally darting off to check out signals reported by the helicopters.
* * * *
USS Cole was a good ship, but she’d had a reputation for bad luck ever since she’d been hit by the suicide boat back in 2000. Chief Petty Officer Anthony Napoli’s duty station was in Cole’s Combat Information Center, and he watched the plots as the destroyer headed for the latest anomalous contact. “Apollo, CIC. Do you see anything?”
Apollo was the call sign of the Cole’s lead pilot, currently trying to isolate a contact to the southeast of the battle group. “CIC, Apollo. That’s a negative. No sign of a periscope.”
“Try an active pulse at grid 25-57, Apollo.”
“CIC, Apollo. Active at grid two-fife tac fife-seven, acknowledged.” The helo moved off to the indicated location. Instead of listening, this time the dipping sonar went active, pinging with high-frequency sound and waiting for the echoes. The feed went to the sonarman on board the helo and was crosslinked to the CIC screens. Napoli stared at the result. The sonarman out on the helicopter spoke for both of them. “What the hell is that?”
He was close to his quarry now – they were ships. Huge ships, some of them even larger than his body was. He remembered ships from before, filled with tasty human morsels, capable of feeling the terror and agony that was as needful for his nourishment as mere flesh. A sudden pinging broke out nearby, and he automatically sent tentacles questing after it.
The sonar’s waterfall display indicated a range of five hundred yards to whatever it was, and it still covered a quarter of the full circle. “Apollo, CIC. Confirm no mechanical sounds?”
“CIC, Apollo. Confirmed. That’s a biological.”
“Can’t be. It’s nearly as big as the frikkin’ carrier!”
“CIC, Apollo. I know, but that’s what we’re seeing, too. It’s – Madre de Dios!!!”
The thing on the sonar trace moved suddenly, and the 500 meters of distance to the main mass did not include its tentacles, which were narrow enough to be effectively invisible to the sonar. One grabbed the dipping array, the violent pull nearly bringing the helo down into the water. The sonarman hit the quick release, dropping the sonar array into the ocean as the pilot pulled the cyclic up hard. The helicopter staggered for a moment, then rose straight up even as two impossibly huge tentacles surged into the air, blindly searching for it. On board the destroyer, Chief Napoli tried to make sense of the display. “Apollo, Cole. What is your situation?”
The pilot’s voice was shaken, and the sonarman’s Spanish prayers came through in the background. “Cole, Apollo. There’s something down there, like a huge octopus. Nearly pulled us in. It got the sonar array. Warn the rest of the battle group to use sonobuoys only. Repeat, do not use the dipping arrays, the damned thing nearly pulled us into the drink.”
He found only a small bit of metal which resisted for a moment and then broke free from something. Strange... there was no ship there. Perhaps something in the upper air...? No. It was gone, whatever it was.
Lieutenant Adams was watching over his sonar chief’s shoulder by this time. “Understood, Apollo. Can you see the thing moving?”
"Cole, Apollo. Affirmative, it's just under the surface now. Moving towards the battlegroup. I'm not sure a torpedo will track on it, but should I try dropping one?"
Lieutenant Adams was already relaying events to his commanding officer, who confirmed the request. “Weapons free, people.” Commander Mark Jenkins, commanding officer of the USS Cole (Captain by courtesy and tradition), picked up the command circuit microphone. “Reagan, Cole. We are in contact with a giant biological at grid 25-57 that just tried to pull one of our ASW helos out of the sky. I have just ordered a strike to drive it off in accordance with standing orders.”
“Cole, Reagan. Acknowledged. Stand by.”
The Mark 46 was the lightest torpedo still in inventory, but the 45 kilograms of high explosive it carried still packed a formidable punch. One of them dropped from the helicopter now, its sonar head activating when it hit the water. It took only a few seconds to find its target, and the weapon streaked toward the monstrous squid.
Another annoying noisemaker started pinging at him. Again, he reached out to silence it, but this one stung! The end of the tentacle that meant to slap it aside vanished in a fireball. Rage at the enormous effrontery of these humans washed over Creya, and he jetted toward the nearest ship to vent his wrath on it.
The sonar display blotted out as the explosion overloaded the sensors. “Go to active, Chief.” Commander Jenkins joined his officers in the CIC. Chief Napoli had frozen the earlier image of the thing on a side monitor. “That’s a biological?”
The chief chuckled. “Maybe mythological would be a better word for it, sir. It looks to be just a bit shy of three hundred meters long.”
Jenkins shook his head. “Not that funny, Chief. Some of the things the air wings have been dealing with lately... mythological covers it. Nightmares would be better. A squid the size of a carrier? The only myth that could be is the kraken. Supposedly used to capsize ships by grabbing their masts and pulling them over so it could eat their crews.” He frowned, and keyed up the ship’s announcing system. “All hands to General Quarters. Set condition Yoke. Repeat, Condition Yoke. All hands are to remain clear of the weather decks until further notice unless involved in flight ops. This is not a drill.” Throughout the vessel, watertight doors began to close as the crew cleared the exposed decks and sealed the ship.
The ship’s active sonar came up, revealing a rather alarming situation. “The biologicial is approaching at 40 knots, sir. Contact in 90 seconds.”
“All ahead, emergency speed! Right rudder full, come to two-niner-zero true!” The gas-turbine engines kicked up to full power, the ship actually listing slightly from the torque as she picked up speed. From a standing start, the Cole could reach her top speed in three minutes. But she didn’t have three minutes.
This time the ship started making those irritating sounds. No matter. This one was packed full of humans, and they wouldn’t escape. It was already almost within his grasp…
The Cole slewed to a sudden stop as tentacles wrapped around it, hull plates groaning under the stress. The port reduction gear sprayed shrapnel around the engine room as the propeller blades jammed against a tentacle and the rapidly spinning turbine stripped the gearing. All over the ship, crewmen were thrown off their feet as the thing dragged her to a stop. The tentacles moved over the superstructure, blindly searching, poking into everything they could find, getting more and more violent.
The captain ordered the Close-In Weapon Systems activated. “I’m not sure it will accept that thing as a target, sir.” the Weapons Officer noted. “It's not exactly an incoming missile.”
“Put it in surface sweep mode if it won't. See how it likes depleted uranium at Mach 5.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Control keys were turned, and the systems powered up. The cylindrical gun housings of the CIWS (looking much like, and commonly referred to as, R2-D2's) turned as programmed, searching for missiles that weren’t there. The Weapons Officer turned the control key to ‘Surface Sweep’ and pushed the activation button.
<Metal? The whole ship is made of metal? And where are they all hiding!? I know you’re in there! Come out of there, morsels!> He began squeezing the hull, then pain flooded as one of the spinning mechanisms on the stern of the ship came to a halt in his flesh. <Twice they hurt me? They DARE?> Tentacles wrapped around the blades, yanking them loose from the ship. The narrow opening it left behind was too small for anything but the very tip of a tentacle, but the breach allowed water to pour into the ship. <You will all drown, and I will feed on your pain even if I cannot reach your bodies--> The thought was interrupted by a fresh wave of agony. Metal darts of some sort were being shot into his tentacles, punching deep into the muscle and sometimes even all the way through, his tough armored skin seemingly no protection against them. <This is impossible! What sorcery do they--> Again his thoughts were interrupted...
Admiral Tollant was still looking out at the ASW ships when the tentacles erupted from the water and enveloped USS Cole. He took the time to blink once, then called his own CIC. “What have we got in the air with bombs? Some... thing is attacking Cole.”
The CAG had already taken action, detailing an air group to assist the Cole when the first report came in. “Already on it, sir. We diverted two birds of the last strike to come back and see what LGIB’s will do to it.” The radio was carrying the reports from Cole’s skipper, and the groaning of the hull plates came through all too clearly in the background.
Five minutes later, a pair of F-16’s shrieked over the formation, releasing their munitions at the correct moment, the laser guidance modules on the noses of the old-style 'iron bombs' automatically correcting their trajectories as they fell. In close succession, two bombs weighing a ton apiece exploded on the back of the monster from the deep. It released the destroyer and jetted backwards, black blood staining the ocean as it fled back to deep water.
ASW helicopters trailed after it, dropping additional torpedoes as opportunity offered, until finally it vanished below the thermocline into water too deep for them to track it. Left behind was one severed tentacle the length of a football field and the crippled wreck of the destroyer.
Far below the surface of the Indian Ocean, the Kraken nursed his wounds and wondered what had happened. His fury was no longer hot - that had been burned out of him while being harried for forty leagues by human-crewed flying machines and their self-propelled fireball weapons. But he would have his revenge, oh yes... he would have his revenge.
* * * *
The Idaho-Montana border, 8 FEB 2013
The meadow was somewhere deep in the pine forests of the range that the Americans had named the Bitterroot Mountains. Wind had temporarily scoured most of the snow away , and the sole inhabitant stepped daintily around the remaining drifts nibbling on the exposed grass, his cloven hooves leaving almost no marks. He looked up at the scent of an intruder, his golden horn glowing brightly for a moment until he recognized the scent. The light dimmed then, and his breath smoked out into the cold dawn air in an equine snort. “Coyote. It hath been some little time. Why art thou here?” The language the unicorn used hadn’t been heard in millennia, and the dialect he had chosen had been archaic even then.
The tall, thin figure standing in the shadows at the edge of the glade chuckled, and replied in the same speech. “Forsooth, Cerrunos – canst a dutiful descendant not drop in to give thee greetings without suspicion of some fell purpose?”
The unicorn snorted again, trotting over toward the visitor, shifting to English once that test had been passed. "You never stop by unless you want something, or you feel like trying another of your practical jokes. I do hope it's not the latter. I'm not at all in the mood for it. This cycle looks like it will be a bit different, already. And it could be dangerous for all of us."
The tall figure flinched a bit as the glow of the horn fell on him, his indistinct form snapping into focus at its touch, revealing him as a rangy anthropomorphic canid. “I’ve noticed. Been making the rounds. Quetzalcoatl’s been busy the last few years. He’s the one behind the whole Aztlan movement, as it turns out. He seems to resent the Europeans moving in and wiping out his power base while we were waiting. Wei Lung’s been spending his time in a monastery since the start of the Jin Dynasty, but it looks like he's made plans. I don't expect the PRC government will last much longer. Spider is stirring again. Rakasha’s up to his usual tricks now that the mana is back. Oh, and Haroun’s back. I thought he was gone, but all of a sudden he’s turned up with his whole gang of sycophants. Seems to have time-travelled, somehow. And you know what you’ve been up to, of course.”
The unicorn’s whinny was full of laughter. “Of course. The question is, do you know?” He cocked his head to one side, looking at the Trickster. “You haven’t mentioned the others. What about Pele, Morgana, Merlin, Ashanti, and Creya?”
Coyote looked embarrassed. “I was hoping you could tell me. I know where Pele lives, but she’s stayed quiet since the Awakening. That’s not like her at all.”
“True. She’s always been a bit flamboyant. Maybe she’s napping.” He frowned. “Creya’s in the Indian Ocean, or he was as of yesterday. Tried to attack a carrier battle group.”
Coyote shook his head. “He always was a bit more arrogant than he could afford, but that’s a new low even for him. Just how did you find this out?”
Cerrunos chuckled. “It’s what he gets for sleeping during the Famines. I was hoping I’d found his lair this time; thought he was at Eniwetok, and got the Americans to test their first fusion bomb there. Seems to have missed him, though. I still have my contacts in their government.”
The canid’s eyes widened at that, and then he made a half mocking, half serious bow. “Well played. I didn’t realize you had it in you.”
The golden horn flashed with the unicorn's anger. “Creya is a true monster. He has no care for anyone or anything but himself, and if he’s gone it’s good riddance. Even Spider’s not that bad.” He sighed. “Better luck next time, I suppose.”
“I’d have to agree. And the others?”
“No idea. Merlin and Morgana were furious with each other at the end of the last cycle – wouldn’t put it past either of them to have continued feuding mundanely after they’d sucked up the last of the mana. Europe’s pretty well covered with infrastructure, too – that’d be a problem for both of them. Time will tell.” The unicorn stared at the canid again, pondering. “So why are you here? Just comparing notes?”
Coyote grinned, in the tongue-lolling canine fashion. “Well… not entirely. I came by to offer an alliance, if you’re interested.” His ears flattened. “Quetzal’s gone ‘round the bend in the last few centuries. I don’t think he understands what nuclear weapons can do, or else he just doesn’t care. If his pet organization is any clue, he wants to start by overthrowing Mexico and the United States both, and that sounds a bit too crazy even for my tastes. I have the impression you agree with me. I recognized your touch in the wards the Americans have been setting up – and if I can tell, so can the others. But I like the Americans, too. They’re the very embodiment of successful chaos, after all. My kind of people. So… let me know if you need help, and I’ll try to keep from upsetting too many of your plans. Deal?”
The unicorn shimmered, his form shifting to that of a tall human, pale-skinned and blue-eyed. Long blond hair almost completely concealed the birthmark in the center of his forehead and hung to his waist in a ponytail. “Deal. If you’ll shake on it.”
Coyote sighed. “If I must…” He extended his hand.
Cerrunos took it and a flare of golden light engulfed the two of them for a moment. He nodded. “Deal. You really do mean it.”
Coyote grinned. “Of course I do. If I lied all the time, no one would ever believe me, and then how would I pull any tricks?”
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 41.1 kB
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