“Hi mom, dad. I… um… I don’t exactly know where to start. You probably have a lot of questions after my last video. I’m not sure I was all that articulate. Hah, a linguist not being articulate with her words.” Dorothy smiled, but it didn’t stick around for long. “Alice says that we’ll be in a location soon where I can make a live call to you, but until then, I wanted you to know that I’m alright and to not worry about me, so you get this video! Which will probably only make you more worried, but I’m getting off track.
“Oh! Alice is my new boss, by the way. I guess I could start there. I have a job! I am a translator for a company called, uh, Raven Defensive Systems Incorporated. Alice even opened me a Swiss bank account. I thought only rich people had those! And then she went and deposited ten thousand dollars for my first paycheck. I haven’t even done anything yet. It’s a company that travels all around the world and does odd jobs for people, so translation is kind of an important thing for them. I’m actually on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean right now, heading to—” She cut herself off as Alice started waving her hands in the background. “Oh. I guess I’m not supposed to say.”
Her shoulders slumped as she let out a clipped sigh. “I suppose you’re really wondering about that thing I mentioned last time about overhearing something about an assassination. I still can’t tell you anything about it. In fact, it might be even more dangerous. Something I overheard or something they think I overheard led to them chasing me halfway around the world. I was in Mexico when they tried to attack me again. Telling you what I heard might put you in danger, so don’t ask. It’s the same reason why I’m not coming home. I don’t want to put people into danger and this company has the resources to protect me. To be clear, they offered to drop me off at home. I chose to stay here with them after they explained the situation.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’m safe. We’ll talk soon! Love you.” Dorothy managed to keep a smile for all of the five seconds it took to shut off the laptop’s recording. She remained frozen for another ten seconds before dropping her face into her hands. “That totally sounded like a ransom letter.”
Alister nodded from where he sat, empathizing. The difference between kidnapping and impromptu protection often came down to phrasing. Getting that phrasing on the protection side of things wasn’t the easiest job in the world. And that was all before bringing in people who weren’t the ones in need of protection.
“As long as you know. That’s the important thing.” Alice leaned over and started compressing the video down to a sendable file size. “You can talk to them and convince them in time. Besides, you’re nineteen! Moving out on your own! Time to throw your parents behind you and live your own life!”
“Is that what you did? How you got here?”
“No,” Alister said before Alice could fill her head with nonsense. “She still calls her mother after every mission. And she’s only eighteen.”
“Your mo- You’re younger than me?”
Alice narrowed her eyes, shooting Dorothy a dangerous glare. “Are you saying I look like an old lady? You better be careful with your answer. I’ll have Gideon throw you overboard.”
“She won’t.” Alice turned her glare on him, but he just ignored it. “In any case, I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you your own set of body armor so that you won’t have to use Holly’s in the case we’ll need it again.”
“We’ll supply anything you might need for a mission. More than that, including extra armor, weaponry, clothing, toiletries, makeup, so on and so forth, all that will be up to you to buy. When we’re in port, we can go shopping. If you need harder to get a hold of things or things in an emergency, let me or Alister know and we’ll have it delivered as soon as possible either to a port or flown in if the situation requires. In addition, there is a limit to how much I’ll allow aboard. The Lunar Dial has limited space, after all.”
Dorothy fell silent for a moment before looking over to Alice. “I can understand clothing and the like, but will I really be needing armor and weapons?”
Alice stood despite Doc’s orders, walked around the table, and closed the laptop so that she could look directly at Dorothy. “I’ll be honest with you. This isn’t a safe office job. I’d like for you to be able to just sit on the radio and translate whatever needs to be translated to the whole team, but sometimes that isn’t feasible. Sometimes I would prefer my translator to be out on the field. And then there are days like yesterday. I trust my instincts. I trust my instincts and I trust my men. I don’t know what would have happened if we had left you on the ship today. Maybe nothing at all. But I had a bad feeling about it, so I brought you along and things turned out like they did. No one seriously hurt. That is a good day for us.”
Dorothy fidgeted uncomfortably in her seat, not quite looking away from Alice, but not quite looking her in the eye either. For her part, Alice hadn’t blinked. She was leaning forward, watching Dorothy with an intense stare. Alister didn’t interrupt. It was a rare occasion when Alice got serious. She didn’t even have the slightest of smiles on her face at the moment. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.
His restraint was all for naught as a wide grin blossomed on her face. “You did lie to your parents though.”
“What? About what?”
“We’re not in the middle of the Atlantic. We’re headed for the Panama Canal. The Peruvian government has a mission for us. A top commander has been captured by the Shining Path—a guerrilla organization fighting for… well, whatever people fight for around those parts. The point is, the government intelligence reports that this commander is to be executed in fifteen days. They’ve asked us to get him back.”
“Oh. Is he a good guy?”
Alice shrugged. “That’s a question for the history books. We’re just here to make money. Since Peru is a mostly Spanish-speaking area, you can sit this one out and think about how exactly you want to work for me. Of course, you won’t get paid for missions you don’t participate in, but the ten thousand in your account should get you by for a time. Not a long time. Trust me, it will go by faster than you’d think. But relax a bit for this one. Maybe talk with some of the crew and see what they all do.”
Dorothy was silent for a long moment before she slowly nodded her head. “I’ll- I’ll try that.”
“Good! Now, I have some shiny new guns up on deck that I haven’t even gotten to look at with how busy we’ve been.” She pointed a finger up in the air. “Alister, carry me!” Alister promptly grabbed the crutch from where it was leaning against the wall and thrust it out to Alice, only to get an annoyed click of her tongue in return. “What good is having minions if they won’t even do what I say? You’ll carry me, won’t you Dorothy?”
“I uh…” She glanced from Alice to Alister, eyes seeking some sort of help. He just shook his head. “That wasn’t in my job description,” she eventually said.
“Nor mine.” It was a good answer. Somewhat witty. Just the kind of thing Alice liked: People to play into her nonsense without actually giving in.
“Fine.” Alice snatched the crutch from Alister’s hand. “Oh it hurts,” she said in a flat tone of voice as she hobbled to the door. “My poor leg hurts so much.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Alice waved her hand dismissively. “Details.” Throwing open the door, she stepped out into the narrow hall. The meeting room was on the same level as the hangar and infirmary, but the new gun emplacements were actually a level up. Which meant that Alice had to try climbing steep and narrow stairs with her crutch. Despite her bemoaning, she was following Doc’s orders and keeping all weight off her leg. Because she was following Doc’s orders, it took almost a full minute just to get to the second step.
By the third step, Alister took pity on her and helped her the rest of the way up. He didn’t carry her, but he did let her sling an arm over his shoulders. With his help, they made it to the top in about the same time it had taken her to climb the first step. Carrying her would have been faster, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction right after she made a big deal about it.
Up on the deck, two of the engineers were standing around the new gun emplacement. It was a tall thing. Maybe twice the size of a regular person. The first half was a gunmetal grey matching the rest of the ship. A huge drum sat beneath a long Gatling barrel. On top of it, there was a tall white tube with red stripes and it looked like a big Tylenol. Ewan, one of the engineers, had his hand inside the machine’s frame as the barrel spun just to his side. Loading ammunition into the drum.
“Any problems?” Alice called out as she hobbled up to it.
“No ma’am! Just getting her loaded up.” Dominique, who was never seen far from Ewan, answered with a suddenly straight back. She didn’t salute. Most people aboard the Lunar Dial were former military in some form or another, but not all. In some people, he could see a desire—or maybe more of an instinct—to salute those in charge. But Alice didn’t care for it. In the case that someone did salute her, she had never once returned it. “We’ve already finished with the one on the front of the ship. It is hooked up to the ship’s systems, loaded, and ready to go.”
“Excellent! Though I hope it isn’t actively searching for targets at the moment. I would hate to shoot down… much of anything, really. Especially with us heading to a high traffic area.”
“Not unless we push the button. It is monitoring for targets, but won’t open fire without authorization unless said targets are both on an intercept course and traveling at a speed or are close enough that it would not be fast enough to activate said button before the target hit. If you don’t like that, we can disable it entirely. I also recommend shutting the guns off entirely while in ports or at the canal.”
“I won’t tolerate any accidents. Disable it for now. I’ll speak to the captain about getting a few people trained up in operating the things. After that, we’ll reconsider. Get to it, Dom.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Again, Dominique almost saluted. It was just a little twitch of her arm before she took off toward the front of the ship. She was still new, having only been recruited a few months ago. She would get over it with time.
Alice watched her leave before turning her attention back to the Phalanx. She watched the loading process with rapt attention, eyes following the spinning barrel before darting to the chain of bullets being fed into the machine. “These,” she said without turning her head, not really talking to anyone in particular, “should keep us safe from additional missile attacks. They cost a pretty penny, as the saying goes, but it should be worth it. Not to mention how much it costs to replace the ten or fifteen seconds of rounds fired by the two miniguns. If these can shoot down a missile using even three fourths the amount, they’ll have paid for themselves after only shooting down a hundred or so missiles.”
“I hope we don’t have to make them pay for themselves.”
“Me too,” she said, voice barely audible. After a moment with nothing more than the whirring of the bullets being loaded, she spun around on her heel and looked between Alister and Dorothy. “We’ll be arriving in Panama in a few hours. From there, ten hours through the locks. You’re free to… whatever it is you people do when I’m not around.” She stared for just a moment before hobbling across the deck, heading toward the stairs to the bridge.
Alister watched her go for just a moment, wondering if she would actually make it up the stairs without putting her foot down, before turning to Dorothy. He couldn’t help but notice how Alice had only started the compression on Dorothy’s video. While she might remember later and send it off, it would probably be for the best if he just took care of it. “As usual,” he said, starting off toward the meeting room, “come find me if you need anything.”
“Right. I’ll just… Where does Tatyana usually hang out?”
His footsteps faltered. Opening his mouth to say something wound up with him sucking in a bit of saliva, prompting a light coughing fit. “Why, uh, do you want to know?”
“I thought I would thank her. Her hum—I assume that was some secret code—warned Alice in time to save me from that first bullet. Alice did say to talk to the crew too.” Looking up at him with concerned eyes as he continued to fully clear his throat, she tilted her head to the side. A sudden look of shock crossed her features as she put a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I never thanked you. And after you jumped between me and him right before he—” She cut herself off with a light wince. “Right before the end. Thank you. I don’t know how to show my appreciation, but I do appreciate what you did. I guess call me if you need something translated, though I suppose that’s my job now so it wouldn’t really be a be much of a thanks.” She scrubbed her fingers through her curly blond hair, scrunching up her face in thought. “I’m really no good at this.”
“It’s fine. I was just doing my job too, so if you thank me by doing your job, we’ll be even.” He put on a reassuring smile, though it felt somewhat strained. “As for Tatyana, she usually maintains the weapons down in the armory in her spare time. Or exercises.” There were other times when she went missing, but Alister had never actually looked in on what she was doing during downtime. “But why don’t you talk to Gideon first?” he added as fast as he could. “He’s the one who trains everybody on the ship, whether they need it or not.”
“I’ll think about it, but I would still like to thank her first.” Dorothy skipped off toward the same stairwell they had come out of, but paused at the top of the stairs and turned back. “Thanks for telling me,” she said with a bright smile before heading down the stairs.
Alister tried to return the smile, but didn’t quite manage. Luckily, she didn’t stick around to see his frown.
“Hey, dae she know about that bitch?” Ewan asked, stepping down from the cannon.
“I told her that we weren’t exactly friends, but didn’t go into further detail. I didn’t want to frighten her as I thought she wouldn’t be aboard the ship for any length of time for it to matter.” Alister paused and glanced over his shoulder. “I should reprimand you for referring to a coworker in such a manner.”
“Come off it ya bawbag. You feel the same way.”
“Regardless of my personal feelings, Alice insists on at least a modicum of respect between the crew. There are others aboard who were once not exactly friendly with us.”
Ewan let out a loud guffaw. A fairly sarcastic one at that. “Aye, but how many of them have blown up our old ship? Look, all I’m sayin’ is don’t come cryin’ to me like a wee babe when ya got to scrape her body off the walls. Av no sympathy for you.”
It wouldn’t come to that. Would it? No. Tatyana had actually said something back to Dorothy when she said something in Russian. That was more than Gideon got out of her. That must mean that she liked her. Which might just be worse.
“Anyway. Gun’s all loaded. Got to do some calibrations. Ear pro or might want to run away a wee bit.”
“Go ahead,” Alister said, heading to the stairs. He needed to get down to the armory and… idly polish he gun or something.
If he just so happened to be present in the room while Dorothy was thanking Tatyana, all the better.
Author’s Note:
So that’s Dead Language arc 001. Hope you all enjoyed it. Sort of an ‘and the adventures continue’ type ending there, but it was always meant to have more to it. However, I’m not going to post any more of this particular project at this time.
Next week on Thursday will be an update post. It’s a bit earlier than the monthly schedule I’ve been keeping since new year’s, but it keeps the every Thursday schedule that I’ve had with Dead Language. In that update, I’ll talk a bit about what I’ll be posting next. I already mentioned it, Vacant Throne, in the previous update, but there will be a little more info coming up.
Anyway! See you all then!
Thanks for the chapter. No obvious spelling or grammar.