Twilight looked over her troops, both old and new, and smiled. Louer and Verun-Kanas had done an excellent job merging their respective units, and with most of the administrative work out of the way, they had moved from the awkward introductory phase and began bringing the former Fourth Baalkpan Guard up to speed with the Royals.
It was still quite the hit from the battle, though. The final toll had left many of their wounded out of action for at least the remainder of the campaign, so the combined force could still only field about two-thirds of its strength, and the wounded would bring that up to three-quarters. Louer had to fight to stay because of his amputated arm.
“Oh, Celestia,” she whispered, “I wish you were here to see this.”
A sudden loud splash jolted her out of her reverie and drew her attention to Walker and Mahan, which weren’t too far away. Some of the water was still coming down, and those on Mahan’s stern got absolutely soaked. The Walkers seemed to be enjoying it, though.
She watched Spanky McFarlane drop a second grenade into the space between the two ships, and this time, everyone took cover as water splooshed up and onto the decks. Whatever the purpose was, it didn’t seem to work, as she saw several of the men’s look disappointed.
She turned back to face her unit. They were tired and panting, but they were hers, and they were good. They’d also spent practically the whole morning training, and she could tell they were getting hungry. Some sat down as their aching legs, worked hard nearly every day after the battle, started to give out a little. It was time to call them in.
“Royals, atten-hut!” she called, her hands clasped behind her back.
The ‘Cats scrambled to their feet and stood at attention, their weapons held in the correct position and their legs and backs erect. They stared straight ahead in near-perfect formation, but she knew their eyes looked up at her.
“At ease.” They relaxed a little. “You all have been doing phenomenal lately, especially with the integration and all. I’m proud of you. All of you. You’ve earned the afternoon off, but remember: we’re back here in the morning.” She glanced to her officers and smiled. “Dismissed!”
As the Royals walked to their part of the camp outside Aryaal, Louer and Verun approached her, seemingly excited about something. They chatted back and forth quickly enough that she had a hard time following their conversation, but when they were close enough, they stopped and smiled at her.
“What’d I miss?” Twilight asked, genuinely confused.
“Okay, ma’am, so you know how you want to equip everyone in our unit with magic weapons?” Verun asked.
“Yes, go on.”
“You mentioned using them like Waa-kur’s little guns that the hoo-maans carry, but the battle made me wonder if we can make magic explode like their ‘gren-aades’.”
“You want me to make magic grenades.”
“Almost!” Louer said excitedly. “What if we could make them and then throw them at the Grik with a gun?”
“Like a cannon.”
“Yes, but you can hold it in your hands.”
Twilight held up a hand. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting that I figure out how to make handheld cannons that shoot magic grenades.”
“Yes!” both Lemurians said at the same time.
“I’ll look into it, but it’s going to take a while. For now, we’ll focus on the rifles. Anything else?”
The two shook their heads.
“Alright then. Go get some rest. Harmony knows you’re gonna need it.”
With everything seemingly taken care of for the day, she sat down on the dirt She used her mage-sword as a scrying mirror to check on Phoenix’s progress again, then went looking for Revenge, which had sailed into the open Java Sea to scout their next target, Singapore, as well as act as an advance warning in case the Grik showed up early.
It didn’t take much to find Revenge. The former Grik Indiaman, captained by Rick Tolson with Kas-Ra-Ar (one of Keje’s relatives) as his exec and crewed entirely by Lemurians, the ship had been repainted to Matt’s preferred color scheme and so was pretty easy to spot once her spell was in the area. They seemed to be doing well, although the swells seemed to be increasing to stormy heights despite the clear skies. She’d tell Matt once she boarded Walker in the evening for the day’s report.
Her scrying done, she reached out and teleported her backpack--freshly made in Baalkpan and ferried down by Ben that morning--over from her quarters and opened it. All of her (smaller) magical experiments were accounted for. She set out one of the blueprints on the ground, placed various parts in their respective places on it, and doubled-checked her backpack for anything she might have missed.
Satisfied, she closed her eyes and let magic flow from her fingers into the space above her lap, feeling the air around her tingle with energy as she worked. Slowly but surely, the violet-black swirls hardened into a physical form, which she placed into a hologram blueprint in front of her.
It was time to assemble her rifle.