#65: Carlos Skirmish Farm:Late Night Encounter

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At the Skirmish’s Place

Carlos was in pain. He welcomed the pain. He used the pain of multiple broken bones to keep himself awake. He stood in the wheel house, intentionally putting wight on his broken leg to cause himself more pain so that’d he’d stay awake. Going to sleep was the last thing he wanted to do. He might never wake up if he did.

He’d passed all reason. He was hallucinating. He only knew that he couldn’t sleep. His wife depended upon him to stand watch. Watch for what? He no longer knew. Perhaps for the sound of engines? He heard large engines in the distance. Had someone one found him? How could he draw attention?`

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On board the Horatius it was all ahead slow. All thought of pursuing the wayward island were gone. The plan now was to make it thru the night. That might not be so easy. The watch couldn’t see squat. It was as if they were passing thru grey sawdust. Visibility was less than a hundred feet. Sometimes much less. Sometimes it was only a few feet.

The Helmsman made sure that the Horatius stayed in the middle of the river channel by use of Sonar. UpRiver they’s passed, and were still passing, barges hung up on underwater obstructions. Some of the Bridges were even down, their supports knocked from beneath them by the barges. The watch kept an eye on the radar. They avoided barges.

As luck would have it a barge or several barges screened the Skirmish place from their radar. As luck would have it Carlos’s pitiful airhorn wasn’t noticed over the sound of the Horatius’s big Cats. The deep burbling sound, and the damping effect of the fog, prevented anyone on board for hearing it.

It WAS heard though. Drones have no engines to blank out distant noise. One of the Long Hunter Drones had detected the sound of Carlos’ airhorn and notified Rescue Central, a Dragon Drone had been vectored to investigate. The small dragon was controlled by a Daemon. Akatsuki was taking her turn at the ‘board’. She evaluated the situation almost instantly then took steps. All but a few of the unseen cyber-mites aboard the Horatius swarmed. They flew away from the Coast Guard cutter quickly. The crew never missed them, never having known they were were there.

The cybermites began to traverse the distance from the receding Cutter to the Carlos boat. They were in a hurry so they coalesced in flight to become larger. Many almost microscopic cyber-mites combined to become a tiny dragon. They could fly faster in the larger form.

Akatsuki hovered near Carlos Skirmish in the Pilot House of his boat. When the time was right she said: “That doesn’t seem to be working does it? They can’t hear you.”

One of Carlos’s eyes was swollen shut so he couldn’t see very well through it. He turned his head to stare at a small dragon hovering in the air nearby with the other eye. When he did so a swarm of small dragons, no larger than bees, flew into the Boat.

Ignorant of the swarm behind him. Carlos squinted and strained to bring the hovering apparition beside him into focus . He could still see it although barely.

“Who are you? What are you?” Carlos asked.

“I’m NOT from the government” Akatsuki said “I really AM here to help you.”

“What do you mean?” Carlos was wobbly on his feet. He almost fell down.

“I’m here to help you.” Akatsuki repeated “Before you fall down. We can do this two ways. The easy way or the hard way. The easy way is for you to place this around your neck.”

She held out a dog-collar choker, more appropriate she thought on a man than a feminine necklace.

Carlos didn’t move. “Beware of gifts from Dragons”. Had he really heard that before or was his mind playing tricks upon him. He thought about that for a second. A small dragon was hovering beside him while offering him a fortune in jewels. Was his mind playing tricks on him?

Ya think?

“What’s the hard way?” he asked.

“I bite you on the neck like a snake” Akatsuki hissed.

“My what big fangs you have” Carlos wavered and fought to stay awake. “I believe I’ll take the easy way. Here, Gimme!”

Akatsuki gave him the choker. It stung him when he put it on. The Dragon Tear in the choker took a reading and calibrated itself against Carlos’s DNA. It belonged to Carlos now. Instantly Blood-Nanites, calibrated to match the Carlos DNA was dispatched throughout Carlos body.

“Very GOOD!” Akatsuki said

Carlos turned to look at his wife. She was covered by a swarm of tiny dragons biting her. He couldn’t even see her face. He screamed her name in fear and attempted to interfere. He had to remove those tiny dragons. They were biting her.

“My name is Akatsuki!!” The dragon said “I’ll thank you to do as I COMMAND. The power of the SoulStone made me. By the power of the SoulStone I COMMAND you to leave her alone! I’m working hard attempting to save her life. Work with me NOW boy!!”

Carlos stopped. When someone called him ‘boy’ it always got his attention. Many times to the detriment of the one who had called him that. He’d also been a grunt in the military and there was something about the command voice. The many, many small dragons moved continued to cover her. They had stopped biting began to evaporate. Soon a semi-transparent mist remained, then that was gone.

He remembered his time in the service. Once when he’d been injured a Corpsman had drugged Carlos to the eyebrows for the pain while mumbling something about ‘multiple compound fractures’, and ‘haven’t seen anything this bad since the old days’. There was no way he should be capable of standing, then, or now, much less to be even semiconscious, yet he was.

After the Choker-Sting, his mind was clearing quickly. Somehow, miraculously, the pain haze began to go away and with it the memory. Oddly enough the dragon didn’t, so drugs, real or imaginary, weren’t the explanation for it’s presence. It was still there. Carlos became more aware of his surrounding as the pain receded.

The first thing he noticed, other than the dragon, was that his wife was not dead. She was even looking a tiny bit better.

Not a lot but a little bit.

The second thing he noticed was a window in reality opening before them. A bearded old white man looked at him kindly. “We’ve done the best we can do with the resources we have on site. Hang on a little bit longer while we send more help.”

Then he went away and the face of a young boy appeared.

“ The ArchMage had to go. He asked me to take over. Do you have any questions?” Carl asked. Oddly enough Carlos and Carl were able to talk easily. The Dragon no longer talked. It didn’t even move. It’s motivating force was gone. All that remained was an empty puppet. Carl continued the work that Akatsuki had begun. He managed to get Carlos calmed down, and fixed up to the point that he wasn’t likely to fall down and die just yet.

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The Next Episode Is
#66: Banana Slug -Blood Talon…
The Previous Episode was
#64:-Weldon Melton Farm: Won't quit…
The First Episode was
# 1 : Prologue…
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Book One: SoulStone
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