It looms in the light of a sickle moon, a god of plated steel, shrouded in salt rime
and striated rust and blasted barnacles. The tower of its turret bristles with guns,
primary, secondary, tertiary, satellite dishes and antenna arrays challenging the
stars and the midnight sky.
Slicing clean and quiet through the sea like a gargantuan razor no one even knows
the battleship is there until it opens fire.
-
Ends are often beginnings, and isn't that strange? Maybe it isn't, it's philosophical,
academic, merely logic.
I really don't care. To me it's just the crash of shells exploding, chaos and screams.
-
Hard to believe twelve long years have passed since that evening. I went from a
conscript to an admiral since then, in command of a carrier and several squadrons
of jet fighters.
They've lost the war, most of their cities are smoldering shells, and we've tried
and hung most of their high command. Yet...
That battleship is out there still. I know it's name now. Chrysamere.
Intelligence points to the North Wolf, an expanse of icebergs, stony islets and
sunken old world ruins that from space appear like a canid snarl.
Fitting, in a way, that my last mission is to hunt it down.
Hardly coincidence, though. The Premier knows my history, is grateful for my
service. It's a reward.
The ship seems a phantom though. Even worse the North Wolf is living up to its
ferocious reputation. It's riddled with mines and AI torpedoes. Some of the islands
are fortified too, fortresses of bunkers, trenches and ship killing artillery.
-
More and more I'm beginning to feel like Ahab, hunting my white whale. I've
scrambled my jet fighters more than twenty times, the fleet vast has cleared more
than two thirds of the North Wolf, leaving nothing behind on the coasts but
seals and seabirds. The war is officially won in the eyes of the world, there is
no continental resistance.
Just this accursed place, so close to the northern pole of the planet I'm having
coffee on the command deck under the lights of the Aurora Borealis in the middle of
August.
-
At last we caught sight of her. A recon flight took several photos. Amazingly
Chrysamere is still at full strength, seeking to elude us by sheltering in a
swirling eddy of mountain sized icebergs. It's a daring move by the enemy captain,
though it's obviously a desperate one. His helmsman will have to be fast and clever
indeed to stay safe in that miasma, one mistake and even a hull that thick could
be breached and the ship would sink...
-
Idiot Griggs, I don't know why he had the rank of Vice Admiral. He sent all six of
his destroyers into the gap, relying on sonar and space station data, full assault.
Chrysamere decimated them all, using bergs as cover, skillfully exploiting that
and their superior firepower.
Now it's just me and my escort, two cruisers.
A showdown then.
-
There it is, a dark silhouette in the bright day, like a floating castle with
cannons abristle. We have them now.
What's this? It's turning about, prow drifting south. Facing me directly?
Fucking journal. Be back soon.
-
*South Wales*
"Mother look!" the young fox yells, laughing as he throws aside the shells he's been
gathering. They tumble onto the sand, a rainbow of color sparkling in the sun.
The vixen looks up from her magazine with a sigh, expecting a sand castle or some
strange piece of foreigner flotsam...a soda can or a toy perhaps.
Her son runs up with a leather bound book.
It would have been wiped clean by the sea had it been an ordinary thing, though
each of the pages were sealed in water tight laminate.
She was lost after page one and-
-
"I think they scuttled her off the coast of Argentina, sir."
The premier frowned, clenched one paw. The tiger's tail twitched. "What about *Him*?
The Master. Was he aboard?"
General Ritter looked at the floor. "Well...we're not sure. We never did find the
body in-"
The glass carafe shattered, shards flying everywhere. "Out you imbecile," the premier
snarled.
-
Unknown.
-
Someone once told me maybe I wasn't done. This was all on impulse though it was nice
to write again.
Wish me luck, whoever you are.