The Godkiller, Part Three
On a sunny day, seagulls filled the skies, flying through like squadrons of hunters in search of their fishy prey in the seas below. A slight distance away, on nearby beaches, sunbathers and beachcombers enjoyed the beautiful day, a strangely warm afternoon despite it being the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Lastly, as a ship pulled away from its quay, it sounded its foghorn, a deep, booming sound that seemed to echo through the canyons of cargo crates, profiles of ships at steam and at berth announcing its presence as it departed towards locations unknown to the majority of those who watched it steam away.
Still, loud as hell and annoying as fuck, Ben Hallenbeck thought to himself as he sat in the central office of the Port of Fremantle, looking at all the ships in the harbor. He knew it was necessary; a Navy guy he once knew told him that ships tested their foghorns while in port as part of maintenance as after all, you didn’t want it to break while underway. Regardless, it wasn’t anything that sounded like something he wanted to deal with up close and personal. If a ship needed a foghorn, that meant that fog obscured the vision around it and probably the radar, and no one, whether at sea, in the air or on land, enjoyed the uncomfortable prospect of groping blindly, hoping they would survive the experience.
It was an uncomfortable metaphor for how he’d spent the past couple of days. Acting on a tip from the Mexican Federal Police, he and a small legion of BXI agents were here, scouring various ships for connections to the Human Defense Alliance and the potential metamaterials they had onboard as cargo, items that could seriously undermine the peace between the two worlds. At the moment, most of them had been cleared, but there remained two left: a supercargoship that due to its size had to be berthed at the southern Victoria Quay; and the most likely suspect, a smaller droneship at the Northern Quay. Both had potential links to the HDA: the supercargoship, a massive vessel named the FP Oceanside, was previously owned by a shipping company whose CEO had been arrested in Scotland for ties to the HDA. Though the Oceanside was now owned by an Italian shipping cartel, the crew was the same and so the chances of HDA sympathizers being amongst the crew was still high.
The bigger concern was the droneship, a relatively smaller vessel by the name of Axion Alberta 07. Droneships were starting to become all the rage due to their near-skeletal number of crew and the fact that their AI systems ran almost entirely off GPS-guided routes. But that also meant that the smaller crew was less likely to be checked aside from their qualifications and could easily hide HDA sympathizers, which would be harder to do on a fully-crewed vessel. Moreover, the report from Mexico strongly indicated that the Axion, as well as the Oceanside and two other ships in port, were the ones most likely to have the deadly cargo within its hull.
“Hey, Ben?” Hallenbeck turned to see a zebra approaching. Wearing a suit, she carried a tablet and a smile. Jina was one of their first recruits from Alter-Earth and she lived up to her name – Zebrababwean Swahili for “investigator”. Diligent and thorough, she was able to sniff out clues and leads in places that had stumped the most advanced of AI and the most experienced analysts. She was one of Hallenbeck’s top detectives and if the day ever came where he had to vacate his position, he wouldn’t be surprised in the least if she became his successor.
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“We just cleared the Feng Autumn Wind and the XK Lu Bu III,” she said, brushing her mane out of her eyes. “Furthermore, I have two of our folks on the Oceanside right now and I have a feeling they’re not going to find anything.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected,” he told her. “Okay, the moment you get all-clears on those, have your guys get ready to march on the Axion. I think that’s where our action’s going to be.” He then turned to the other non-human in the room. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“As much as I wouldn’t care to, I’m not so blind that I’d think human criminals are completely harmless. Of course, that’s just my biases speaking,” a voice spoke in an American – or rather, Equestriani – accent. The speaker in question was a dark-blue pegasus mare wearing the uniform of the Australian Federal Police. “But regardless of what you told me, I still feel uncomfortable using these many resources against the target in question, Director Hallenbeck. Don’t you feel it’s all a bit much?”
“You lived in the US for a number of years, Superintendent Wolf. You tell me.”
“Just because that was normal there does not mean we do this sort of thing in Australia,” Whitewolf said as she ran a hoof though her white mane. “Yes, I am used to military tactics, as I was part of the 37th Combined Cohort that got exiled to Missouri, and I hated that.”
“I’d heard about that,” Jina told her. The story had only become public in the past few years and it had caused a stain on the reputation of both the Equestriani and US governments. “I can’t imagine how that must have been for you.”
“We survived – we had to,” Wolf replied in the tone of someone remembering injuries long healed over. “My husband are grateful for the life we have now, but admittedly, after what happened, we couldn’t stay in America. Thankfully, Australia offered us a new home, so we took it. Sharp Point decided to get completely out of armed service and is now a teacher at one of the schools here; good thing too, as that means he’s home for our foals. But I was born and bred to be a scout, and though the ARA said I wasn’t fit for service, the AFP took me under their wing.”
“And you worked your way up the ranks, I see,” Hallenbeck noted.
“Criminals never expect to be captured from above,” she said with a grin and a flutter of her wings. “In any case, I suggest we focus on the situation on-hoof, Director. A thousand heavily armed officers from the BXI is not going to look good, especially since I only have a couple dozen of my own folks out there, backed up with a dozen more from the WAP.”
“Are they up to snuff?”
“The Western Australian Police? Probably not – this is a little above their paygrade. Oh, I’m sure they’ll do their job and they’ll do it to the best of their abilities, but like I said, this is really going to be above and beyond what they expect.”
“Yeah, well, we need to do this, or else we’re going to have some serious problems on our hands, hooves and collective appendages,” Hallenbeck told her. “So we’d best be sure we have our own folks in position.” He tapped his headset. “Hey, Sam, you out there?”
Sam Rowan’s voice came over the line instantly: “Yes, and we are ready to roll. I’ve got a force of nearly a thousand of my uniforms out here, ready for the show.”
“Okay, we’ve got five minutes until that droneship is ready to take off. We need to make sure that it we get aboard in time.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this all under control. Besides, I have a date with Girdie tonight and I want to make sure that I’m back for that.”
“She might not be around for that,” Hallenbeck told him. “Remember, she’s out in Amsterdam right now checking into an HDA financier lead.”
“Oh, as good as you say she is, Ben? She’ll probably have that done, then pick up a sweet little thing for tonigh—”
“Look, I really don’t think we should be tying up the lines like this,” Hallenbeck told his partner, and Rowan laughed.
It was then that another voice came over the line: Australian. “BXI One, BXI Two, this is WAP Three. We’ve spotted Tangos Alpha and Bravo. They just drove onto the pier and should be getting out of their car soon.”
“Well, looks like it’s showtime,” Hallenbeck commented. “All units, be ready to move on my signal.”
His eyes looking at the pier, a man leaned against the gunwale of the Axion, smoking a cigarette. With tanned skin, a shaved head and cold grayish-blue eyes, he was a mountain of muscles, his physique seemingly held in place by his black tanktop and cargo pants. Though to a casual observer he seemed like just one of the skeleton crew that was assigned to the droneship, a more careful inspector would have noted the gun he had clipped to the back of his belt and the XM8A2 that he kept just out of sight from prying eyes.
“Hey, Faireachdainn!” The man turned to see another person walking up to him. This man was just as well built, with unruly red hair and a matching beard; unlike the first, he had no qualms about carrying his weapon openly in public.
The first nodded his head in a sort of greeting. “Hey, Modine, what’s up?”
Modine slung his weapon over his shoulder. “You know, your name’s a fucking tonguetwister. Why couldn’t you be a Smith or a Jones or Alvarez or something?”
The man gave a slight shrug. “Blame my parents from being from the old country, I guess. They didn’t want to Anglicize the name. Anyway, you can just call me Ian.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that. Fuckin’ much easier to say.” Modine gave the other man a grin. “Besides, you could have some gay-ass kickstand name like Sparkling Rainbows or some shit.”
“Yeah, fuck that noise.” His cigarette spent, Faireachdainn flicked it off the ship and into the harbor water below. “If it wasn’t for the fact that those fucking wastes of space deserve it, I’d almost feel sorry for their stallions. What kind of self-respecting guy goes by a name like Toffee Crisp or whatever?”
“Yeah, no shit. Anyway, we’re getting ready to take off, so get ready. We heard a rumor that the police are moving in on us. And get this shit: they’re even using the BXI.”
“What the fuck? I thought the BXI was supposed to stop cross-dimensional threats or something,” Faireachdainn grunted. “They should be giving us a medal for planning to put those fucking things in their place, not arresting good men and women for protecting their homes!”
“Yeah, fucked up world we live in. But until they wake up and see the threat that the kickstands, birdos and all the others from that other world present, it’s up to us to protect our home. HDA ‘till I die, man.”
“Yeah, I hear that. But yeah, I’ll be ready.”
“Good. At least I know I can count on you. Now I gotta go check on Takeda. That Japanese bastard’s a damn good shooter, but when he reads those comic books of his he starts getting really weird ideas.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. He was just telling Rodriguez and Juntong that even though he’d happily put a bullet between the eyes of a kickstand, he wondered what it’d be like to put something else between something else, if you get what I mean.”
Faireachdainn shook his head. “Yeah, well, that’s how you end up with those half-breed freaks. Tell him if he’s that hard up, I’ll pay for a girl for him once we hit Vancouver.”
“Hell, I might just chip in as well. Anyway, gotta go. Keep an eye out.” With that, Modine walked off, leaving the other man to his duty. He would protect the ship from those who would threaten the world, because he was a soldier of Earth – the only Earth, not that “Human-Earth” crap. And the sooner those talking animals knew that, the better.
It was at that point that a stately black Holden Commodore pulled up just before the gangplank platform. The driver of the car got out, looked around and then proceeded to open the back door, allowing an older man to step out. Reedy and with long, lanky white hair that went down to his collar, he wore a simple gray suit with a black tie. To the average person, he might have looked like a typical Australian businessman in his late fifties, with a grand smile on his face and an eye towards the future; however, those who knew him well enough knew better than that. The old man gave the driver a nod and amicable clap on the shoulder, then walked towards the ship while the chauffeur proceeded to retrieve luggage from the car’s trunk.
Modine met the man at the bottom of the deck. “Now this is a surprise; we weren’t told that someone of your stature would be here. Are you here to see us off?”
“Not exactly; I’m going with you,” the man said in a mellow and jovial Australian accent. “Can’t trust you Yanks to muck up things on something this important.”
“I’m Canadian, sir.”
“As if anyone can tell the bloody difference. Yanks, Canucks – yer all the same, boyo,” he said with a chuckle. Anyway, let Capt. Bingham know I’m coming aboard and we’ll get going soon enough.”
“About that, sir: Capt. Bingham was arrested a few days ago by the AFP.”
“Oh?”
Modine nodded. “WAP motherfuckers were waiting for us at a bar. I almost got caught myself, but I got lucky and got my ass saved by one of our newest guys. Anyway, with Bingham behind bars now, his chief mate, Bonner is taking over.”
The stranger ruminated on the name for a second. “Not familiar with him.”
“Former US Merchant Marine officer; was kicked out because of his ties to the New Black Panther party,” Modine explained. “Obviously the man knows how to run a ship, and at least he’s not a minotaur or something like that.”
“Well, darkie or not, I’m sure he knows his stuff. Besides, like you said, at least the bloody bastard’s human: I’d say we were in real trouble if we had to have an oxie running one of our ships.” He chuckled darkly, adding, “We had one of them, we’d probably be sacrificed to some bloody sea god in the middle of the voyage or some such.”
“No argument there. Anyway, let’s get you aboard, then Capt. Bonner can talk to you about what the plans are. We need to move soon, because after the whole incident with Bingham, we’re being watched.”
“Oh, I figured that’d be the case,” the man grinned. “But don’t you worry: my mates are taking care of that little problem right about….” He pushed his sleeves back, in order to take a look at his watch, “…now.”
On the ground, nestled between two cargo containers, Rowan watched carefully. This was worse than the time back when he’d first been assigned to the RCMP; it had been a case he’d briefly worked on just before he’d been assigned to the BXI. That case had involved a gang of slavers capturing cute First Nations women and selling them to “unknown sources” in the Middle East; sometimes the slavers roughed up a few of the girls in order to “soften” them up for shipping. He’d hated that; as much as he wanted to go in guns blazing like he was McCloud, he had to sit there and gather evidence. This was much the same.
He didn’t like this, either.
“Man, I fucking hate this shit.” The voice next to him belonged to his deputy. Bobbi Morrison had been a Texas Ranger and before that, a Marine. Like Rowan, she was the type that definitely preferred action over waiting, and this sitting around certainly didn’t suit her, either. “This shit reminds me of a case I worked on back in Texas before I got moved to the BXI,” she told him.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Bunch of Tongs trying to hustle into Austin. Local cops were stumped, so they called us in. You know the old saying – one riot, one Ranger, right? Plus, I was one of the first female Rangers, so I had shit to prove. Anyway, I went in to deal with them and….” She shook her head. “Let’s just say there’s some shit even us with a badge shouldn’t see.”
“You put them down?”
“Enough so that I probably would be behind bars right now if it wasn’t for the fact that they were also dealing with some stupid shit with organized gangs from Polara. That’s how the BXI got involved and how Director Justus pulled me in – apparently he’s seen some shit, too.”
“All units, this is WAP Two. We have the car pulling up in front of the ship. A couple of suspects are getting out of the car, and we’re attempting to identify them right now.”
“Roger that,” Rowan commented. “Ben, anything we should expect?”
“Don’t know yet. I’ve already contacted HQ and Gard’s computer nerds are looking into it. It’s going to take a few seconds to go through the databases.”
“Do we have that kind of time?” Morrison hissed. “We have no idea what these fuckers are up to and we’re gonna sit here with our collective thumbs up our asses?”
A new voice came over the line. “All, this is FP Six. We’ve got a bit of a problem headed our way – there’s an armed convoy headed towards the harbor, an—” The line immediately was cut off by the sound of gunfire.
“Okay, sounds like our hands got forced,” Rowan commented as he hopped to his feet. “I’m going to take some of our folks and stop that ship from departing. Bobbi, you see what you can do about those reinforcements. I don’t know if they’re a diversion or if they’re trying to meet up with the ship, but either way, that’s not going to be a good thing if they do.”
“Yup, I’m on it,” she said as she raced towards the gunfire.
Rowan tapped his headset to start a new conversation. “Ben, we’re making our move now. Make sure that the Harbor Patrol is on the way, or it’s going to be messy.” Finally, he turned to one of the ponies next to him. “Valiant, get on the roof. If we need to do some strafing runs, better to have you upstairs now.”
“You got it, boss.” The pegasus tapped a spot on his fatigues, activating the barding underneath that activated the magic spell that made him look like a batpony. It really didn’t do much for him offensively or defensively, but the psychological warfare did come in handy in a situation such as this.
As the law enforcement agents began their push, a new voice came over the line: Gardena Glasslens, the Forensics Asst. Director. “Hey, guys, you’d better put the collar on this one: he’s a big fish. MI6 just IDed him as Arlo McCrindle.”
“That and five bucks’ll get you a horchata in Nuevo Laredo, Gard,” Morrison shouted over her line. “Care to tell us folks in the audience who the fuck he is?”
“Former head of the Bold Rocks, which was an Australian white supremacist group. Apparently he’s seen the light and has decided to switch his hatred to those of us from Alter-Earth instead: he’s now the head of Australian & New Zealand operations for the HDA.”
From above, Valiant chimed in. “Great, so instead of picking on various shades of brown skin tones, he’s picking on various shades of fur instead. How enlightened of him.”
“Look, we can argue about how progressive our perp’s bigotry is after we put cuffs on him,” Rowan called over the line, putting an end to the banter. “For now, we have a job to do, so let’s get going!”
Several Toyota Hilux trucks, converted into technicals, stormed the front gates. From the gun emplacements wielded onto the back beds of the vehicles, bullets roared, tearing apart security guards and materiel alike. A dozen people, wearing ragtag, unmatching camouflage fatigues, stormed onto the harbor grounds, opening fire on anyone that didn’t match the same improvised look as them.
Within minutes, the Port of Fremantle turned into a hellstorm of fire and ammunition as the invading forces were hellbent on destroying the infrastructure present in order to ensure the successful escape of the Axion. Nevermind that from a personal standpoint it was economically suicidal to destroy one of the largest shipping ports in the world as well as the main shipping nexus between Australia and several Alter-Earth nations, but that was hardly on the mind of the HDA terrorists present. To them, this place was already a lost cause, a symbol of the subjugation of their nation – and a possible steppingstone in the conquest of humanity by the species from the other world. To them, they were the first line of defense for mankind, and until the day finally came that the men and women of Earth finally rose up as one to destroy the invaders from beyond, it was up to the HDA to be the bulwark.
Seeing the smoke and explosions in the distance, a strangely proud smile came onto the face of Arlo McCrindle. “Looks like the lads and lasses made their appearance right on time,” he said with a gleam in his eye. Taking his bag from the chauffeur, he instructed, “Now get going – you need to be safe, so you can raise your sons to protect this world from the monsters that want it.” The driver, saying nothing more, got into the car and sped off towards the conflict; the car had been specifically chosen so it would be safe from the carnage.
“Now then,” he told the others, “shall we get onboard? I’ve always wanted to visit Canada.”
“HALT! POLICE!” a voice roared behind them as out from a nearby group of cargo containers boiled out a dozen or so heavily-armed BXI and AFP officers, charging towards them.
“Ah well, we do have company it seems,” McCrindle commented, brushing his fingers against his coat as if his impending arrest was of no concern. “I suppose we should give them the due they’re worth, don’t you think?” And with the same lackadaisical attitude that he had displayed a second ago, reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a Micro-Uzi and opened fire, tearing apart the approaching officers in a hailfire of bullets.
Modine immediately reacted, rushing back to the gangplank and shouted, “Okay, heavy toys up! Make way to get underway – cut the lines if you have to!” As he rushed onto ship, he looked at Faireachdainn. “Make sure Mr. McCrindle gets on the ship safely. I’m going to make sure the big guns are ready – if the cops are here, you can bet the Harbor Patrol’s going to be hitting us soon.”
Faireachdainn looked at his boss and nodded curtly. “You got it.” With that, he immediately brought up the rifle and started firing on the police, loosing rounds with precise aim and taking down lives with wanton glee.
The Western Australia Police Harbour Patrol moved in, their boats state of the art patrol craft and designed to deal with a number of things from boats in distress to drug smugglers. Though they weren’t military grade, the police constables aboard them were equipped with assault rifles, as they had to be prepared for the worst. Knowing their duty, the proud police officers aboard both vessels moved towards the starboard side of the Axion, ready to prevent her launch, and if necessary, board her.
This turned out to be a horrific mistake, as the two boats approached, two QW-1B Vanguard II shoulder-launched missiles lashed out from the droneships and hit the two boards directly, turning them both into flaming infernos. A shriek of pain was briefly heard from one of them as the two burning wrecks took on water and began to sink to the bottom of Fremantle Harbour.
Aboard the Axion, the lines that kept the ship moored to the ship, thick and taut ropes made of Kevlar, suddenly fell to the sea, cut by the crew onboard. Normally they would be brought aboard so they could be reused, but given the emergency, there was no time to retract them without getting caught in the firefight. The majority of the crew was tied up in the firefight anyway.
From his location, Faireachdainn rained down gunfire, sparing none of the police that were coming his way. They challenged him and threatened the safety of the ship and its precious cargo and he was sworn to do his duty.
A round suddenly grazed past his ear, the loud buzzing of it burning through the air as it passed. He looked at who did it and saw a man, wearing BXI fatigues. He looked like the kind of guy that wouldn’t be stopped for anything until he caught his quarry.
Faireachdainn and the police officer made eye contact. A second later, Faireachdainn pulled the trigger, squeezing a single shot off. The round burned through the air and slammed into the officer’s neck, leaving a sizeable hole in an explosion of blood. Without even giving it a second thought, the gunsel pulled out the weapon’s magazine, tossed it over the side, and then slammed in a new one just as McCrindle came onboard.
“Damn good shooting, lad,” he said with a grin. “Haven’t seen a shot like that since my days in the ARA.”
“Thank you, sir,” Faireachdainn replied without looking at him. “You go ahead on into the skin of the ship. I got your back.”
“Damn good sight to see a Yank who knows his stuff for a change.” Nothing more to add, McCrindle rushed into the skin of the Axion. A second later, the whole of the ship bucked as the droneship began to pull away from its berth, the great gas turbines aboard the vessel doing their duty as the thrusters pushed the ship towards the open water. Soon after the ship’s screws began to turn and the ship moved to flank speed immediately, running over a few pleasure boats in the process. WAP helicopters gave chase, only to be taken down by another pair of Vanguard IIs. Within a few minutes, the Port of Fremantle was a burning wreck and the number of dead on both sides, as well as the innocents caught in the crossfire, numbered in the dozens as the Axion soon headed to open seas.
From his position in the central office, Hallenbeck nearly lost it. Through the horror of his binoculars, he’d seen Rowan get shot in the neck, as well as several other officers he’d known gone down.
“Command, this is Morrison!” he heard her shout over the line. “Field One is down, I repeat, Field One is down. They’re going to fucking get away!”
He looked at Wolf. “Is the RAN on standby?”
“The Canberra and Newcastle are awaiting orders. They can’t do anything until the ADO clears them to work with us,” Wolf explained. “We’re trying to get permission, but until someone over at the Russells gives them the go ahead, they can’t do anything unless they’re fired on.”
“What about our ace in the hole?”
“The RENS Derpy Hooves and USS Nathan James are both moving at flank speed,” Jina told him. “I just got off the horn with their commanders, but until the Axion reaches open waters, there’s not a whole lot they can do.”
Hallenbeck threw his headphones down on the ground. “Goddammit!” He kicked a nearby trashcan, disgusted by his failure and all the death around him. He then stomped out of the room.
Jina watched him leave. “All units, this is Command Two,” she spoke. “Wrap up arrests and start taking care of the wounded. Bobbi, you need to take command of the field units for now. Command Two, out.” Pulling out her headset, she looked at her fellow Alter-Earth native. “To use a human phrase? This sucks, Superintendent Wolf.”
“That’s funny,” the pegasus said softly. “I would have used much stronger words.”
Hours later, the Axion moved up the coast. The vessel was running all the stolen military gear it had available on it: electronic countermeasures, military cloaking technology, and disposable radar duplicators. In the distance, through binoculars, Faireachdainn could see the two gray ships still on the horizon, headed in the same direction as they were. He couldn’t tell if it was the Aussies, or someone else. As much as they were prepared to push off against cops, warships were an entirely different level of problematic.
“Don’t worry, boyo.” He turned to see McCrindle walking towards him. “We have a surprise for them in case they get a little close.”
“Oh?”
“I’d tell you about it….” McCrindle’s eyes narrowed, “but I don’t know you. And no offense, but I don’t trust any wet-behind-the-ears lad, whether he’s loyal to the cause or not. After all, how do I know you’re not some copper that got planted with us?”
“I can vouch for him, sir,” Modine told them. “Yeah, he’s new, but he checks out. Plus, he’s the one that saved my ass when the AFP tried to nail me in the same raid they caught Capt. Bingham in.”
“Oh? And you’re sure he’s safe?”
“I had him checked out, sir. He’s legit. Plus, he’s got a pretty good reason to fight the bastards, like the rest of us.” Modine looked at Faireachdainn. “Go ahead and tell them what you told me.”
“Yeah. Look, when we first met them, I was like everyone else: I thought it was cool – aliens, real life and they were friendly and all. And I grew up thinking that. Especially since I’m from the same general part of the world that the Alien Girl – Martinez, or whatever her name is – comes from. And then after First Contact and all that, I was okay with it. I even dealt with it when my older brother Benji started dating some mare, some kickstand by the name of Plenty Muffin.
“But then she got him killed. She told us that wasn’t true, that he was caught up in the Menagerie murders and that the murderers nearly bumped her off as well. But I could see the look in her eyes that she was lying to us. I didn’t have proof, but what I did have was a friend who was a cop. He wasn’t happy about Benji getting killed either, so he went looking into it. And lo and behold, Plenty Muffin’s older brother? He was one of the murderers. She knew that – and she was protecting his ass.” Faireachdainn trembled with anger. “That fucking kickstand let my brother die – the supposed human she was in love with – so her fuckstick of a brother could get away with it.
“That’s when me and Pablo woke up to the truth. That’s when I left my job at the construction company and joined a local resistance cell. It was them that pointed me here to Australia to help out, and to be honest, I just happened to run into Modine here while walking around, or else I’d probably still be looking for you guys.” He laughed. “It’s not like I was in the military or anything, so I don’t have those kinds of skills. All I got is some hunting background from my old man and some stuff Pablo taught me.”
“And this Pablo is?” McCrindle asked Modine.
“Deputy Pablo Vasquez, Faquier County Sheriff’s Office,” Modine said. “Like I said, he checks out. He’s on our list of friendlies. Not influential, but a solid guy. And he’s apparently known Ian here for years.”
“Ah, I see.” McCrindle offered his hand. “Well, then, welcome to the right side of history.”
“Thanks, sir. It’ll be an honor to kick those fuckers back through their magic gate.” He looked towards the horizon. “That is, if we can get away with our precious treasure.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Modine told him. “Is it okay to tell him, sir?” When McCrindle shrugged indifferently, Modine took that as a sign to continue. “Well, thanks to some wealthy and influential backers, those ships we have coming after us are going to have a little bit of a problem. With some good men, we managed to buy ourselves some, let’s say, ‘museum pieces’ and they’ll be on our side.”
“Museum pieces?”
McCrindle laughed. “A few old Adelaide-class frigates that used to belong to the Greek Navy, as well as a few American Spruances. Nothing state of the art, but enough so, with enough dedicated men and women on those ships that they’ll still give anyone opposing us a run for their money. Once we meet up with them, we’ll have smooth sailing towards Canada.”
Faireachdainn whistled in appreciation. “I knew we had some stuff on our side, but warships?”
“That’s the thing, my friend,” Modine told him. “When you have justice on your side – as well as the right people – you tend to get things done. It’s a tough job we’re doing now, but once we have all those animals off our planet and Earth is human once more, we’ll be remembered in the history books. Just you watch.”
“Well, we got a meeting in a few with Capt. Bonner. He’s going to give us a briefing on how we’re going to meet up with the Thunderlord and the Talons of the Eagle. We need to be prepared, and so do they.”
“I’m going to stay out here for a bit more. First time at sea, and while I’m not seasick or anything, I’m just….” Faireachdainn let it go.
“Yeah, I gotcha. My first time was like that as well. Now I know why Sailors are they way they are. Just remember: when the sun goes down, no smoking allowed outside. Apparently, strange as it is, I got told you can see a lit cigarette for up to miles out here.”
“No shit?”
“Yup. Probably bullshit, but then again, this came from one of our guys who used to be in the Dutch navy, so he might just be telling the truth. Either way, just be careful.”
“Yeah, got it.”
In the headquarters building of the Western Australia Police, Frank Justus wiped a hand across his face. “Fifteen of our folks dead, along with twenty-six WAP officers, four AFP officers, the two crews of the Harbor Patrol ships and twenty-one civvies that got caught in the crossfire. The news media around the world is going to fucking eat us alive, folks. Think our reputation from that shitty TV show is going to save us?”
Leaning against the back of a chair, Hallenbeck looked dejected. “They had far more firepower than we expected, bossman,” he told them. “We came ready to deal with some heavily armed goons. We weren’t expecting them to pack enough firepower to take on the Australian Army.”
From where she sat, Morrison looked as though she was going to murder someone. “And they killed Sam! How the fuck am I supposed to explain this to Girdie?”
“You don’t,” Justus told her.
“Fuck that – they took out one of our own! I say we start fucking headhunting,” she hissed.
“No,” he told her firmly. “We’re cops, not vigilantes.”
“Besides,” a familiar voice said, “I’m not as dead as people would like to think.” To the shock of several of them, Rowan walked in, looking completely unharmed.
Morrison’s jaw dropped. “How…?”
To answer that, he reached into a blouse pocket and pulled out a strangely colored bullet. “This is a magic bullet,” he said with a grin on his face. “No, seriously. It’s one of Gard’s inventions. You shoot someone with it and it makes a massive blast of fake blood and an area-of-effect glamory spell that makes it appear as though someone took a fatal wound, and a small airburst spell so that it seems like they got hit. But as for the bullet itself? It vanishes the moment it makes contact.”
“Which means that—”
Justus turned to Rowman. “This had better fucking work, Sam. We lost a lot of good men and women on this and the moment the Aussies hear about this, they’re going to assume we threw away their people so we could get one of ours onboard in deep cover.”
“Deep cover?”
Hallenbeck nodded. “Yeah. We got lucky that one of their own turned on them in return for being put in the Witness Protection Program. Guy by the name of Ian Faireachdainn. Used to run with the Glory Hounds, a DC-based HDA affiliate, wanted revenge for his older brother getting killed during the Menagerie murders by his brother’s girlfriend’s own older brother. But apparently we found out that the girlfriend in question, a earth mare named Plenty Muffin, couldn’t take the fact that her brother killed her boyfriend and committed suicide herself. Faireachdainn found the note and after that, turned himself in. We’ve been working in conjunction with the FBI and NSA to work to build a solid background for our insert for the last couple of weeks.”
“Look, I don’t care how good our insert is, they’re going to know,” Morrison told them. “Shapeshifters are common knowledge, and all they have to do is a bloodtest to find out that our guy in there isn’t Faireachdainn!”
Rowan smiled. “Fortunately for us, changeling – or should I say, flutter – blood is capable of imitating its source material up to forty-eight hours outside of the body. Given the paranoia of the average HDA member, they’ll have long checked it before then.”
Faireachdainn rubbed his arm. “Seriously? I fucking hate needles.”
“Better a needle than a bullet in the head,” the nurse said dispassionately; at the moment, she was inserting the vial containing his sample of blood and placing it in a handheld device. “You know the rules. With rug carpets and those fucking freak ponies able to shapeshift, we have to make sure that everyone is human, right?” The machine in her hand chirped and the screen flashed. “Fortunately for you, that’s not going to be a problem.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She then looked at him very differently than she had a second ago. “By the way, my name’s Banu. Banu Jizan.”
“Iranian?”
“Swedish, actually. My parents emigrated just before I was born.” She ran a finger across his chest. “Irish, right? You don’t sound it.”
“American, actually – my ancestors just never Anglicized our surname.”
“I see.” She wrote something down and handed it to him. “Here’s my cabin number. I get off in an hour. And I could use some entertainment.”
“Oh?”
“Would you rather spend the night in open berthing, or in an air-conditioned cabin alongside a hot girl like me?”
“Fair enough,” he said, giving her an appreciative look. “See you then.”
As he walked out of the room, another guy looked at him. “Lucky bastard,” he grunted. “I’ve been trying to get in her pants for weeks. And she don’t play easy.”
“Oh?”
“Bloody Banu? The other man grinned. “Yeah. She’s a stone-cold bitch if you rub her the wrong way and certainly doesn’t live up to her name.” When he got an uncomprehending look, the man added, “It’s Persian for ladylike. Trust me, nothing ladylike about that woman. You know she actually shot someone two weeks ago?” When Faireachdainn looked at him with surprise, the man waved it off. “Eh, don’t get the wrong idea. Apparently it was a furcoat in disguise – they might be able to shapeshift to look like us, but the blood doesn’t lie.”
“Yeah,” “Faireachdainn” commented, glad that he’d volunteered for this deep cover assignment. If any other BXI officer that could shapeshift had done so, they might be lying dead right now. He noted, though, that he’d have to report the missing agent as soon as he could – ISPO reported one of their kitsune officers missing, and chances are, he just found out what happened.
“Well, you’d better get to the mess decks and eat your fill,” the other guy commented. “You’re gonna need your strength. I’ve heard Banu is a handful in bed.”
“Yeah, better go do that then,” he said waving towards the other man and walking towards where he recalled the mess decks were. He might as well eat anyway; he was going to need to keep his strength up, but for a different reason aside from sex.
As he wandered the passageways of the Axion, Constable Curryleaf sighed. Of all the research he had to do for this undercover assignment, human mating practices wasn’t one he’d been expecting at all.
The things I do for the job, he groaned inwardly. Hopefully he could find something to teach him quickly – real quickly.
Yup, this one's unedited as well. Edited version to come up later.
Oh, and I've heard that another chapter might be coming in the near future. Not tonight, though. I need to go grill some burgers. 
OC credits:
Valiant belongs to Aiyel. Thanks for loaning me the use again.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the character of Bobbi Morrison is named after my dear departed colleague and friend Robert Morrison, aka the Eternal Lost Lurker (or as we knew him here, Mythril Moth). His passing was a shock and and while we have to go sometime, I felt that the character of Bobbi Morrison would be a fitting tribute.
Why female, some wonder? Well, it goes back to an old story from his and my days at the FFML. It would take a long time to explain - a long time. Suffice to say, I hope that he'd appreciate the homage.
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Can't help but feel in Twilight and Luna's desires to give their children "normal" lives they might really leave themselves vulnerable. With changelings and NMM involved they could easily exploit that.
Plus also the human side of things with this HDA group. I mean even the RoP almost got DJ and even Celestia. Who knows what damage they could do with just a shock and awe attack especially with their aces in their sleeves.
9714530
Don't forget about the Purehooves. They're still around as well.
9714537 Very true.
Very nice tribute to our dear and much-missed MythrilMoth, btw.
I miss him, too.
well the HDA seems well prepared with armed escort ships which would likely give the two cruisers a fight, but what about the attack subs and aircraft Carriers providing cap and support ?
9716379
The REN and USN ships in question are both destroyers. The HDA ships are a frigate (Perry/Adelaide-class, specifically) and a Spruance. It would would be like putting Garcia-class frigates up against Burke-class destroyers. The latter might get their shots in, but ultimately they'll be missile sponges. That being said, the crews know that and are doing their jobs regardless.
9716438
but both will have current tech with the exception of the REN Derpy hooves which will have Derp tech systems but again the destroyers are not going by them self a Air cap and a attack sub will be in support. also the Australian Navy ma want a piece it was their port shot up.
9716460
Chances are, the RAN ships will be the ones to engage, with the other two ships providing picket.
9716467
Do RAN uniforms have red shirts ? because they are going to show how the monster works
9716473
Only if they have medals on.
9716481
aside from ship to ship , the derpy hooves will be the only ship with a team for a boarding party
9716509
Every ship has a boarding party. It's just that the REN ship will have the fastest one.
You can't kill Sam Rowan that easily!