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“Captain. I have purchased a pair of Phalanx CIWS autocannons and a crew to install them. However, I do not trust the installation team. I’m counting on you and the rest of the Lunar Dial to keep them out of the ship proper. If they claim they need to get inside to hook up systems or whatever, kick them off the ship. If they need to access anything other than the bolt holes on the top of the deck, kick them off the ship. They are to mount the cannons and nothing else. I’ve already spoken with Ewan down in engineering. He can direct the other engineers into integrating them with the ship proper. I don’t even want them pissing aboard our ship. Am I understood?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good.” Alice clasped her hands behind her back as she paced around the meeting room. “Doc will require an escort of at least three, she is heading inland to pick up medical supplies. Gideon will be accompanying her as one of the three. I trust you to figure out who the other two are.”

“I will get on it right away.”

“Dismissed. Gideon, Doc, you can go get ready as well.”

Alister wasn’t entirely sure how much more ready they needed to get. Gideon looked ready to be air-dropped behind enemy lines in the middle of Afghanistan. He had a full set of body armor, his CTAR, a sidearm, goggles, and a helmet. Doc wore what she always wore, a white laboratory coat that matched her hair and a black turtleneck half-hidden underneath. She did have a pistol holstered under her arm and the outlines of much thinner body armor under her turtleneck, but nothing nearly so heavy as what Gideon had. Despite Gideon’s armaments, they were only going to pick up some supplies. It shouldn’t be dangerous.

That didn’t mean they wouldn’t be careful. Especially not with their unknown assailant outside Gibraltar. It had been just over a full week and he hadn’t found a thing on that ship. Granted, without more than the colors and its shape as a yacht, he didn’t really have much to go off. He had thrown out a few feelers with a few of his old contacts in the British Army that were still willing to speak with him, but no one had any reports about a black and white missile-armed yacht off the coast of Spain.

He knew that Alice had contacted her brother about it as well. She kept a lot of cards close to her chest, but something like this, she would have mentioned something to him. Which meant that she didn’t know anything either. Considering her family’s information network, that was saying something.

It was one of the main reasons he hadn’t protested the new defensive cannons. Port authorities wouldn’t like them, but that was what tarps were for. It wasn’t like they would keep them active around coasts. Or even anywhere near possibly friendly ships. Phalanx didn’t have any sort of friend-foe differential. If the systems detected anything that looked like a missile on an intercept course with the Lunar Dial, they would open fire. In fact, they would be keeping the guns offline most of the time. Accidentally shooting down a passenger aircraft that was just passing just low enough overhead would spell the death of Raven Defensive Systems.

But if they spotted a suspicious ghost on their radar again, he- everyone would feel much safer with automated turrets. Even Alister hadn’t raised an objection when Alice bought them. Perhaps it had been out of shock over seeing the explosions and Holly’s injuries. Either way, the turrets were paid for. Too late to change their mind. Mostly.

“As for the rest of you, you’re all with me. That includes you, XO.”

Alister couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You don’t want me on mission control this time?”

“With splitting our party to deal with the resupply, the Phalanx installation, and the delivery, I think we need an extra gun on the cases. Don’t worry, it’s just a—”

“Stop!” Flash said, paying attention to the meeting for the first time since it had started. “Don’t say the s-word.”

“Your silly superstitions,” Alice said with a sad shake of her head. “Anyway, the rest of you are with me.” She pointed a laser back at the map of the coast of Mexico. “We’ll be heading north for several klicks until we meet up with Francesca. We’ll transfer the crates from her lifeboat to the truck at point Alpha. From there, we will transit to Bravo, meet with our contact, and drop off the crates. Afterwards, we will return here. If we are stopped for any reason, I don’t mind if we have to pay someone off. Get ready, Mayhem,” she said with a deliberate nod toward Tatyana, “Flash, XO, and… hmmm. You need a code name.”

Dorothy, who had barely been paying attention, jolted at being directly addressed. “Me?” she said, voice higher pitched than normal. “No, no, no. I’m not- I’m not like you people.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. “Look, I appreciate you getting me away from those men, but I’m not a- a- a gun person. I don’t know- I don’t want to know what you people do. I just want to go home.”

“I agree,” Alister said. “She has no training. No combat experience. Have you ever fired a gun before?”

She looked up at him with welcome relief filling her eyes that someone was agreeing with her. “No! Never. The closest I’ve come is laser tag at—”

Alister waved off her anecdote. No amount of laser tag could possible prepare someone for proper combat and where she played the game hardly mattered. “Alice. You can’t expect everyone—or anyone—to be like you. Not only that, but we can’t just… We need to take her home.” As much as Dorothy seemed grateful that Alice had saved her from whatever assassins they had come across, they really were blurring the line between rescuing and kidnapping the longer they kept her aboard when she clearly didn’t want to be here.

After the missile attack by the black and white ship, Dorothy had freaked out, quite understandably. She had all but demanded they turn the Lunar Dial around right then and there, only relenting when it was explained that turning around would mean getting close to that ship again. The Lunar Dial could have detoured to another port, but they were under a time limit to deliver the cases. In a business like theirs, upsetting the customer could wind up with far more deadly consequences than simply a lack of future patronage. The people he had spoken with had not sounded like the patient sorts, to put it lightly. Keeping everything copacetic was one of his primary jobs and between finishing the delivery or dropping Dorothy off somewhere, he had chosen the former.

Once they were finished, he would insist they return her home. Perhaps just a quick jaunt up to Florida where they could send her off with a bit of cash for a flight home or wherever she wanted to go. Until then, the Lunar Dial should be the safest place for her.

Should being the operative word. Something in the way Alice was pouting had him reconsidering. “Why do you think she needs to come with us?”

“Just a feeling I’ve got. Leaving her here would be bad for everyone.”

Alister scowled. “Is the Lunar Dial in danger? Should I have the captain take us back out to sea?” Most people who didn’t know Alice would probably dismiss her occasional feelings. The crew, on the other hand, often joked that she was psychic. Alister wouldn’t go to that extreme, but he had to admit that her instincts could be counted on. Sometimes.

Alice shook her head. “I want those Phalanx systems. We aren’t leaving without them. No. I like the idea of Dorothy going with us. Between us four, we can keep her safe. Get her outfitted and be ready in twenty.”

“But—”

“Overruled.”

“Tough luck,” Flash said with a pitying glance toward Dorothy. Any pity he might have meant was quickly nullified by his chuckle at the sour look she had on.

“Flash, Mayhem, XO. We’re going in outfitted to carry on an entire war on our own.”

The laughter cut off with a choke. “Aw man. I knew this job was a bad one.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll buy you an ice cream. Let’s go. I want us off the Lunar Dial in twenty minutes.” She made eye contact with everyone at the table except for Dorothy, who had her eyes glued to her lap, before nodding her head. “Dismissed.”

Flash and Tatyana left immediately, the former grumbling under his breath while the latter sported a wide grin. How Tatyana knew what was going on or what to do was anyone’s guess. Alister suspected that she actually could speak English and just chose not to in order to spite him in particular. Alice followed the two out after a parting glance at Dorothy and a subtle nod to Alister.

Which just left him and the linguist. With a sigh, he placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. The girl’s shaking shoulder. She jumped slightly at his touch. “Come on,” he said. “We need to fit you for some body armor.”

“But I thought you agreed with me?”

“I do. It’s just that Alice is usually right. There is a reason so many ex-military soldiers are willing to trust her and it isn’t because she is a fool. Come on,” Alister said, helping her to her feet. “You won’t want to head out without any armor.”

The Lunar Dial’s armory wasn’t far from the meeting room. Dorothy’s footsteps weren’t as steady as they normally were, but they made it without much trouble. Both Flash and Tatyana were inside, getting geared up. Flash was checking over a submachine gun. He had a sidearm at his hip and had several grenades of varying types poking out of a small backpack. It was somewhat surprising that he hadn’t slung an M79 over his shoulder but- Oh, wait, there he goes. He kept begging Alice to get him some of the American’s fancy ‘smart’ grenade launchers or even just a Milkor MGL, but she kept finding excuses not to. Probably worried that he would wind up blowing up the ship in a fit of over excitement. A perfectly valid concern in Alister’s opinion.

As for Tatyana, well, Mayhem wasn’t her nom de guerre for no reason. It would be easier to take an inventory of what the armory had that she hadn’t equipped. Alice telling her to be ready to fight as a one-woman-army might have been a mistake. She had her trusty KSVK rifle slung over one shoulder, a pair of handguns, one under each arm, and another pair in hip holsters, an assault rifle slung down by her hip, a knife strapped against each boot and one at her back, and just a pair of grenades tucked into a pouch. Just when Alister thought she was done, she reached for a shotgun. The fact that she could even carry all that stuff along with extra magazines in pouches all over her clothing, even if she had taken the thinnest armor available, was a testament to her strength. Actually being able to use it despite the encumbrance of having a weapon tucked in every nook and cranny was another thing entirely.

“You do know that you have to fit in the truck, right?” Flash had been eying her out of the corner of his eye. The shotgun was the last straw for him. “Understand? Tiny truck.” He made vrooming noises with his mouth as he mock drove, then mimed a small box. “We all have to fit in it. Leave some room for me.”

Tatyana stared at him for a moment before shaking her head. The message apparently got through as she put the shotgun back on the rack, though she didn’t miss the opportunity to scowl at Flash in the process. Still, she didn’t bother replacing any of her other many weapons.

For his part, Alister was perfectly happy with his SA80 and a sidearm. Standard. Unoriginal, maybe. But it was what he had been trained in using.

And a good thing too. He had to figure out what Dorothy needed to wear. She wouldn’t get any weapons. Handing an untrained and easily panicked girl even an airsoft pistol would end up disastrous. She would probably find a way to shoot and kill either herself or one of the crew before she managed to hit anyone who counted as an enemy.

So armor only.

Most of the armor in the armory was stored away in personnel lockers. Everyone had different sizes and had their straps pulled to different amounts that fit them. There were a few spares left out, but most of them were meant for bigger and more muscular individuals. Dorothy was on the skinnier side. Most of her exercise probably came from walking around her school’s campus more than any real trips to the gym.

A metal plate was a metal plate regardless of the size. People might think that a bigger plate would be easier to hide behind, but the fact was that if someone didn’t have the strength to carry around a slab of metal the size of their body, they would end up becoming a sitting duck. Sitting ducks were dead ducks. Rather than use any of the generic armor, Alister popped open Holly’s locker. The cloth had been mended and a fresh plate of AR500 had been inserted where the shrapnel had stuck. It was good to go. She and Dorothy had similar height even if Holly had significantly more muscle and, while she was still recovering, Holly wouldn’t be using her armor any time soon. Alister made a mental note to let Holly know before he left so that she wouldn’t waste her time with her locker in the hopefully unlikely case there was an emergency on board.

“You were in the military?” Dorothy asked as he helped her slip into the armor. Even though the two were roughly the same size, Holly had a great deal more muscle and a bit smaller chest, resulting in some straps that needed readjusting.

“British Army,” he said as he worked. “Technically, I was more of an InfoSec guy, but I did complete basic training and maintained my physical fitness. Not to mention Gideon’s ‘training’ he puts everyone through who he thinks needs it. He is more of a Drill Sergeant to me than my actual D-Sarge” Alister smiled at his little joke, but apparently Dorothy didn’t get it.

“InfoSec?”

“I was a computer guy,” Alister said, dumbing it down the way he would have back when he still attended family functions.

Dorothy just nodded like that explained everything. “Everyone else is from the army as well?”

“Not quite,” Flash said, walking around Dorothy like he was some sort of inspector. “Some of us are from our country’s navy or air force.”

“Flash doesn’t have a military background at all,” Alister clarified.

“After everything the old man puts me through? I think I’ve qualified for the honorary Israeli Special Forces club.”

“You run away and hide from him half the time.”

Flash gave a casual shrug. “Maybe if he wasn’t such a hard-ass all the time…”

“Don’t let Gideon hear you.”

“So what were you then?” Dorothy asked as the pair fell into silence.

Shooting Alister a look, which he responded with a shrug, Flash frowned down at the girl. “Let’s just say that I disagreed with Cuba’s government on a few minor matters.”

“Explosively disagreed.”

“Yeah… I don’t think I’d be able to go back home without meeting the open arms of a firing squad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Dorothy said with a slight shudder.

“Don’t be. I might have been young and foolish, but I don’t regret my decisions.” His eyes darkened ever so slightly as he glanced off to one side.

When Flash didn’t resume speaking, and Dorothy had shifted awkwardly back and forth as Alister swapped out her shoes for some steel-toed boots, she glanced over to the other person in the room. “What about her? Mayhem? Is that her name?”

At hearing her nom de guerre, Tatyana glanced over. She didn’t say anything, she just raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Alister admitted honestly. “I assume so. About the military training. Her name is Tatyana.”

“You assume? Isn’t she your teammate or something?”

Alister frowned, not entirely sure how much he could or should say. At the edge of his vision, he could see Tatyana quirk her lips. He didn’t know if she could understand the conversation or not, but it was clearly making him uncomfortable and that gave her some amusement. Well, here went nothing. “One day, she just started walking around and acting like part of the crew. Which was after fighting with us for some time. Caused quite the stir, but Alice said that she was fine with it.”

“But you never asked about her history or anything?”

“No one here speaks Russian except for her.”

“Have you never heard of Google Translate?” Dorothy asked with an incredulous sort of exasperation.

Frankly, Alister doubted that Tatyana would have responded had they used any kind of translation software. She never answered any written messages and only ever responded with belittling remarks to Gideon even though he was the only one who was trying to learn her language.

Before Alister could respond as such, Dorothy leaned around and locked eyes with Tatyana. “Вы служили в армии? Чем вы там занимались?”

Tatyana blinked in a rare display of confusion before her black lips curled back. It wasn’t really a smile, but it was close enough. “Ага, я – киллер.”

The blood drained from Dorothy’s face, which only made Tatyana’s not-smile widen. Dorothy’s eyes flicked all over the arsenal strapped to Tatyana’s body before trying to subtly hide behind Alister again. “O-Oh,” she said in a whisper.

Tatyana breathed out through her nose slightly harder than normal in what might have been a laugh as she strode out of the armory.

“So,” Flash said. “What’d grumpy say?”

“Ah- Assassin. She’s an assassin?”

“Makes sense.” With the most nonchalant nod of his head, Flash glanced at Alister and gave another slight shrug before heading out to follow her.

Alister had been hoping for something a bit more specific. He had already known that much about Tatyana. But, maybe he could convince Dorothy to ask a few more questions before they dropped her off in Florida. For now, he seated a helmet on her head and adjusted the chin strap. “Alright,” he said. “If something does happen, keep your head down. Doc can fix your arms and legs relatively easy—” as long as she wasn’t hit by anything too maiming, but no need to tell her that. “It’s what is here,” he tapped her chest, “and here,” he tapped her head, “that’s most important.”

Dorothy had seemed to calm down a bit while he had been armoring her up. Maybe the conversation had been distracting enough. But now, with that assassin quip, she had locked up tight once again.

Of course she had. She had mentioned fleeing from assassins with Alice back in Greece. But, nothing to do about it now. After getting his gear together, he gave her a light pat on the back and started leading her out to the waiting truck.

 

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Author’s Notes:

Character Page updated.

“Вы были в армии? Что ты сделал?” — “Were you in the army? What did you do?”

“Да. Я убийца.” — “Yeah. I am an assassin.”

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