The clean-up process was already well underway by the time dawn arose above Georgia, to the sight of a dark smoke column still rising above the charred husk that used to be the Westin Hotel. The fire Artyom had accidentally caused had raged for most of the night before finally petering out come dawn, having destroyed anything above the prisoners’ floor and making a smoke-damaged ruin of the rest.The premises were now vacant, all of the convicts having run off after the attack, none of them brave enough to contest the sailors’ grip on the area.

Unsurprisingly, they were on the run. With Boss dead by the entrance, most had preferred the dangers of the Georgian swamps to potentially facing judgement at the hands of their former prisoners.

Dilip suspected they might rise again, though not anytime soon. Their numbers were down to nearly nothing and the leadership in shambles, but Councilor was still alive. None of them should be able to pose much trouble for the truck stop any longer, and it would take time before the unicorn leading them found a pony brawny enough to replace Boss, and being stuck in the swamp should further impede his operations.

As for Artyom, his injuries were only mildly concerning.

The dragon had fought like… well, a dragon. He had managed to hold a flank by himself several times over, and he had suffered for it. Compounding the blood loss of his wing injury, he was showing a good dozen spots where bullets had struck and shattered the dragon’s scales beneath his armor, shallow wounds often times accompanied by cracked bones.

By Vadim’s reckoning, his life wasn’t in danger. The griffon did spend most of the night cleaning his wounds and retrieving scale and bullet fragments from the open wounds, as well as stitching his wing back together, but plenty of rest, jewels and red meat should allow the blue dragon to make a full recovery.

Their bosun aside, most of the injuries in the prisoners and the assault team were pretty benign. Scuffs and scrapes here and there paired with some mild smoke inhalation.

That was the physical part. On the mental front though, the ponies were in shock, unsurprisingly. The veterans, they could expect to shrug off the violence and carry on. Not so much for their rescuees. Aleksei was hard at work trying to appease and comfort them, the hippogriff frequently resorting to her cleric magic to help things along and explain their situation to them.

A lengthy process, obviously. It varied from one pony to another how long exactly it had been since they had reappeared, but hardly any of them had an actual idea what their return involved and what the Event even was. In most cases the bandits had snatched them before they could get a good footing, and spawning in a deserted America only to be made the servant of a bunch of convicts didn’t help one understand the way the world turned.

But all of that was work Dilip didn’t concern himself with. His subordinates could deal with the finer details, he was more about taking a step back and appraising the situation.

One thing he had learned from chatting over the radio was that the rest of the fleet was still busy with the submarine rescue off the coast. Probably for a while still. Hence: no use leaving for Cuba so soon.

Dilip didn’t mind. A couple days was all he needed to make sure things settled down properly in Savannah.

One of the first things he did at dawn when the rest of the ship woke up was to gather a cleanup crew to go salvage what remained of the Westin… and to deal with the bodies. Their former prisoners could go piss on their tombs later down the line for all he cared, but Dilip wouldn’t be one to leave bodies to rot out in the open.

Where to bury them… was another matter entirely that had Dilip pacing around his office for most of the morning while Roberto offered suggestions. For all he was inclined to follow Boss’ dying words, Parris Island was too far to bother with to go bury mere bandits…

Though it was a good idea to retrieve weapons to arm the locals. A convoy of Unimogs was soon seen driving off to do just that.

As for the burial? A close look at Roberto’s maps showed an old USMC memorial in a park, somewhere in downtown Savannah.

Close enough. Dilip wrote up an order to have Boss and his posse buried there as soon as time allowed.

His other concerns? What to do of the colony at the truck stop and their rescuees. Needless to say, sorting that out took up most of their day.

For one the Captain had to go to the truck stop himself to convince its kirin owner to accept the prisoners they had just rescued on account that they would lend a… hoof and help around. Ho Jin did have more than enough room for that, what with the adjoining motel to his truck stop. The issue was convincing him the newcomers wouldn’t basically steal his own property from under him.

Part one. Easy enough with Aleksei and her speechcraft bracelet. Ho Jin agreed, and a Unimog eventually transferred all the ponies they had rescued there later in the afternoon once they got all the briefings and support they needed.

Part two? Find a use for the truck stop and get them into a trade agreement with the WSU. Dilip did want for a colony to thrive in Savannah, if only so that the area wouldn’t fall apart by the time they had to come back for further deliveries to the HPI.

And of course Jensen eventually turned up on his doorstep to mention she wanted to set up a radio relay in Savannah as well. Matter of extending her broadcasting range.

Savannah could have its uses, and the prospect of trade coming in from the harbor was enticing enough to motivate the locals to look for something. What that could be though, it was down to Roberto to figure it out. Dilip had the de-facto Intel Officer meet up with the locals to recoup his data with local knowledge, if only to speed things up somewhat.

Local colony? That was being dealt with.

Didn’t mean Dilip was free though, because as soon as he cleared up the cleanup of the assault and the colonial development, more paperwork landed on his desk. This time about the ship rather than local affairs.

The Captain chuckled inwardly. The sudden spur to get all this stuff done felt as though his subordinates were doing their best to arrive in Cuba with an empty backlog just so they could enjoy their shore time freely.

“Sir?” Schmitt lifted her head up from the plans she was showing to the Captain alongside Alejandro.

“It’s nothing.” He waved her off. “Go on. Those plans?”

“Yes.” The orange dragon jabbed a claw at the drawings. “Nothing complicated. This all stems back to the decision you made on looting concessions and personalized cabins. Here I got two cabin modifications for the griffons – one Officer-sized for Vadim and Micha, the other rating-sized for Boris and Anton- so they get proper quarters without threatening structural integrity.”

“Details?”

“Simple.” She shrugged. “The way I had it designed, we ‘move’ them to adjacent cabins and basically knock down the bulkheads between them. Leaves them with enough room for what’s basically two-bedroom flats with one bathroom each, and the Officer variant also has enough room to create a living room and an office. The rating variant won’t, but the bedrooms are a bit bigger in turn.” She described.

“Seems like a decent compromise for mated couples. We go from using three cabins per couple with kids to two. I like that. How long to get it done? The two refits I mean.”

“One day’s work per cabin. Just need to move their stuff to the holds while my crew’s doing the works and keep the griffs out for a while. I suggest sending them on a hunt. They love that stuff.” Schmitt explained.

“Yeah, good luck sending Anton on a hunt.” Alejandro chuckled, arms crossed over his chest. “Heard she spends most of her free time watching her eggs like a hawk. Instincts you know?”

“What, she lays over them?”

“No, the eggs stay in the incubator during the day. Though I’m pretty sure I heard she and Boris do keep the eggs between them at night.” Alej’ explained. “So long as they do their job, I’m inclined to let them, no?”

“Right you are.” Dilip nodded. “I’m not hearing they skip work to gawk at their eggs, no need to do anything. Anyway, how soon can you start this stuff, Schmitt?”

“I was thinking tomorrow.” She said. “Send Vadim and Micha gator hunting or something in the morning. Should be done by the time they come back.”

“You do that then. If I remember, that’s not the only modification you want me to approve, correct?” He quirked his head, peering at the other set of schematics lying under the cabin modifications.

“That’s for the ‘looting concessions’ part.” Schmitt grabbed the schematics in her claws, showing an above view of one of the lower holds, the same one where they had installed additional diesel tanks to fuel their vehicles. “We figured it might be wiser to set something up in the lower car decks. As you know, we’ve established a certain amount of space any crewmember has access to for loot acquired during our voyages. Since it’s stuff that’s going to have a fairly low turnover and won’t move around too much, I suggest modifying the aft section of our lowest car deck and divide it into multiple storerooms on either side of the vessel. The deck will still be accessible for rolling cargo through the inner ramp, though actual capacity will be reduced and limited to the central section of the hold.”

“Any impact on stability?”

“Yes, an improvement.” Alejandro spoke up, the hyacinth macaw pulling out a sheet with his calculations. “Adding more weight in the lower decks will improve the righting levers and gain us some twenty centimeters on the metacentric height. This will reduce the need for ballast considerably, and the increased compartmentalization will improve stability when damaged. But...”

“There is a caveat?”

“It’s an extensive retrofit for one.” Schmitt stated matter-of-factly. “I cannot say whether or not we would be able to finish it before we have to leave Savannah. Plus there is the fact we will lose some cargo capacity.”

“Do we even have vehicles in the lower car deck at the moment?”

“No, just containers.” Alejandro again, since as Chief Officer it was up to him to keep an eye on stability.“I contemplated putting the armored vehicles there since they were the heaviest, but the loadmaster computer says the impact on stability is minimal when compared to a fully-loaded container. So I stowed all the spare parts there.”

“Good call.” Dilip nodded. “This should do nicely, but we’re not going to attempt to make this retrofit here in Savannah. Maybe not even Cuba depending on how long our stay there will be. In the meantime, go through the procedure by the book. Get me a parts list so we know what to salvage to get what we need for that, I want a building process from the ground up, and add contingencies to the system. Emergency pumps, firefighting equipment and alarms. I’m not seeing them on your plan. Take your time, we’re not going to start this tomorrow.”

“Aye Cap’n.” His Chief Officer and Engineer both said in unison before they took their papers and left the room.

Dilip sagged in his chair as soon as he heard the door close. From waking up early on for the assault to overseeing all the cleanup that followed, colony management and now this? Talk about a rush.

Hearing his kettle whistle in the nearby kitchenette, he hoisted himself up on his feet with a groan. If there was ever one thing to lift his spirits, it was a cup of Darjeeling.

Much like they said they would, Rhine Forest and Fugro Symphony packed up their gear and left USS Georgia’s wreck behind, sailing west towards Kings Bay. The submarine base wasn’t far, Georgia having grounded a mere eighty miles or so off the shore, which in turn meant at the speed the ships were going they reached the coast in as little as six hours.

Entry into the base proved… tricky, to use polite language.

Like Amandine had experienced when entering Savannah, buoys had drifted out of position and away from the mouth of the entry channel, forcing them to deploy a sounding boat and waste a quarter of an hour to locate it.

That was just the first hurdle.

Unlike Savannah further north which ‘only’ required shipsto sail upstream along the river, Kings Bay wasn’t as straightforward. The base was situated at the end of a sound between multiple saltwater marshes that were sheltered from the Atlantic by Cumberland Island.

To reach the base, ships first needed to head south and sail for a gap in the belt of islands that sheltered the coast, right on the border between Florida and Georgia. The little creek was overlooked by the overgrown, red brick ruins of Fort Clinch, a 19^th century set of fortifications that guarded the sound, its flagpole already beaten down by bad weather and abandonment. Past that fort, it was either straight ahead to ground in the bayou, or north along the narrow channel to make for Kings Bay.

Captain Lorelei was pretty sure they would have run aground were it not for the submariners they had on board to guide them there. Current was minimal (and thank God for that, the passage was tricky enough already), but the sandbanks and various marshes that forced the entry channel to slalom around them proved enough of a challenge for them, particularly given the fact that Rhine Forest in the rear of the convoy had to be extremely mindful of her draft, being the biggest ship of the two by quite a large margin.

And at two hundred and sixty meters in length, she was nearly twice as long as the dredged channel was wide. Lorelei was all too happy when Graham (Georgia’s XO, normally keeping an eye of those of his crew that had been transferred on her ship) pointed his hoof at the first buildings of Kings Bay as they appeared over the horizon.

Hurray for building the secret submarine base in the least convenient place in the entire state.

Idly, she wondered if the Americans ever stranded their subs in that swamp of theirs. Given the poor maneuverability in enclosed waters and the sheer size of an Ohio-class, that wouldn’t have surprised her.

Or maybe they just stationed enough tugs on base to ensure that didn’t happen.

The quays hadn’t changed much in the span of time since Amandine’s helicopter team had explored the place. The mooring bitts were a bit rusty and there was a layer of green algae coating the bottom of the quays, but the concrete structures had fared rather well. They certainly endured the elements better than most of the buildings commonly found around the region, including some of the shore facilities inland of the quays. Nothing new though, what they found was pretty much identical to what Amandine’s helicopter pilots had described a few days prior.

Rhine Forest dropped off her tugs and maneuvered herself in position alongside the quays, a maneuver which only took the shorter Fugro Symphony half that time, and without even needing tugs. That’s what happened with longer ships: increased length may keep a course better, but it also made for very poor turning.

That and Rhine being so large meant she built up a lot of inertia whenever she started turning. With ships that big, you always keep an eye on the rate of turn indicator when you commit to a manoeuvre. If she starts turning one way, it may take several seconds of applying the bow thruster at full throttle before she even slows her turn, let alone stop.

It was all about pacing yourself, knowing how your ship behaved, and always remembering that inertia is a thing. You don’t moor a ship with a deadweight of 45,000 tons like you would park a Prius.

At least there was the upside that having crewmembers able to use telekinesis on board meant they didn’t need stevedores to handle their mooring lines. They could just bring the ship into position and then reel themselves in with the winches.

What followed was not quite unlike what Amandine was doing in Savannah with the folks at the truck stop: a colony setup process, in a fashion. They didn’t expect much in the way of trade from the former submariners in the future, but they still couldn’t really dump them right there and then without at least a modicum of assistance.

If only to kill a bit of time until the more heavily-injured US sailors could be discharged from Fugro and Rhine’s sick bays. Competent as their corpsman was, Ezra was just a unicorn in an unfamiliar body, and he lacked the experience and gear required for prolonged medical care.

Kings Bay wasn’t anywhere near as difficult to convert into a proper colony as Belfast or Savannah. Much of the base already came with a number of facilities ranging anywhere from base housing to shore tanks – albeit limited, Kings Bay was meant to service nuclear submarines, so much of the diesel there was intended for the harbor’s tenders- and all the support needed to run a fully-fledged base.

The difficulties there principally stemmed from the damage the installations had suffered and the sheer size of the place. Georgia’s crew only amounted to about 150 souls with the wounded that were currently unable to work, a far cry from what the base would normally house which meant securing the place would take up a significant portion of their resources regardless of how they went about it. Understandably so: much of the land the base occupied consisted of marshes and forestry between the various facilities, areas that needed to be patrolled at regular intervals to ensure no monster slipped through the security perimeter and sneaked its way into base housing or the barracks.

Keeping the place safe? That was going to need a whole platoon on guard duty. Two if they couldn’t adapt the patrol vehicles for use by ponies, though on the bright side most of the humvees they found should be usable despite the damaged roads.

“I don’t think that’s going to work out. Can’t afford to sacrifice a third of our forces on guard duty like that.” Captain Green announced to the whole meeting room.

A meeting room that was filled to the brim with Officers, both from his own crew and from the merchant vessels that had brought them here.

Too bad here wasn’t inside the command building itself. That was part of the problem with Kings Bay: the base was actually quite large and some sections were rather far inland from the quays. Plus there was the fact that unlike Amandine, neither Rhine nor Fugro carried any road vehicles. Boats? Plenty of them, but not a single car.

On hoof? Going back and forth between the quays and HQ wasn’t something he wanted to waste his time on. Which is why he had decided to commandeer one of the supply depots that would have normally been used as short-term storage for supplies before they were transferred on the submarines. There were enough offices above the warehouses that he could get his work done.

Right then, he had all relevant Officers gathered around a long, narrow table covered in various maps and documents while outside they could see both Fugro and Rhine, the latter ship having hooked her generators to the local grid to provide electricity. For now.

Sailors of nearly all possible species were still busy discharging the submariners’ stuff and carrying it over to one of the supply depots while in the distance, somewhere by one of the sheltered dry docks that would normally service the Ohios, another group was seen checking out the harbor tenders. Tugs and speedboats weren’t much, Green had to admit, but he’d rather have a bunch of tugs than no ship at all.

“I agree, but then how do we solve that?” Graham conceded, his XO seated on his haunches on his right side with Ignacio on the left.

Green was a bit jealous. He had to stack up some books on his chair to even reach over the table. His XO? The Earth Pony had the body of a draft stallion, he towered over him.

And let’s not mention the size difference between Ignacio and him. A little colt couldn’t compare to an adult Diamond Dog.

“We make concessions, I’m afraid.” Green sighed, the pegasus pointing one of his primaries at multiple circles that had been drawn on a map of the base. “We can’t hold onto everything, so we will have to limit ourselves to what we actually need. Here I have circled facilities we do not need for regular operations. Most of the base housing we can exclude and just cordon off a section for ourselves. R&D facilities we don’t need either. In fact if we convert the offices along the quays we can cut off most of the base, it’s just going to need a lot of chain link fences and barbed wire to isolate it all.”

“What about the armories and ammo depots?”

“That I’m not worried about. They have the tightest defenses already. Double layer fencing. We shouldn’t need too many souls to secure them.” He explained. “Cameras and all, overlooking the whole thing, not much work needed. So long we have current in the grid, holding it should be easy.”

“In conclusion?” Skinner inquired from the other end of the table. “Far as I heard it sounds like you folks need to build up some fences to keep out monsters, and secure yourself a power supply.”

“That is correct.” Green nodded. “We need a fence built around the Southeast section of base housing – the one with the community gardens-, the quays and… this place. That should cover all our needs.”

Skinner craned his neck trying to look at the map that showed a place north of the base. Quite a ways out actually. It was even further away from the quays than base housing, so that was saying something.

“Aight, what are we looking at then?” The hedgefog inquired.

“A solar farm.” Green replied. “With battery banks to retain power at night. I think the last figures I heard about the stuff were like… 30 megawatts on a sunny day? It’s built, it had a direct connection to the base’s grid, and it’s probably going to last us longer than using diesel generato-”

Lorelei coughed in her hoof, momentarily halting Georgia’s former CO for a second.

“While I do agree it’s a good idea, has anyone gone and inspected the place?” She said. “Last I checked the weather hadn’t been too kind on the infrastructure around here. Your solar farm, chances are it’s damaged. Possibly down to the substation too.”

“Good call.” Green nodded at the pink unicorn. “So let’s go with this: if the farm is still in working order with enough solar cells and the substation working, we secure the place and fence it to get power. By working order I mean that we can get at least 10 megawatts out of it. It’s not like we need that much power anyway.”

“And if it’s not?” Lorelei pressed on.

“Then…” He turned towards Ignacio. “Del Rio, how good is your team at electrical installations?”

“Good enough.” The D-Dog said. “Only problem is two of my electricians are among the wounded. Not going to be easy without them. Not fast either.”

“So long as it can be done, I’m willing to let that slide.” He acknowledged. “Backup plan if the production is below the 10MW threshold and the substation can’t be fixed, is to salvage as many solar cells as we can and relocate them to the armories and the ammo depot. The area is open enough to get good lighting, and it’s already secure too. Are those parameters clear enough for you?”

“Will do.” Lorelei nodded, jotting down the requirements in a notebook with her telekinesis before she put it down and a slight frown appeared on her features. She turned her head towards Skinner, the hedgefog having chosen to remain silent up until then. “Skinner, I don’t know about you, but I’ll have my crew provide assistance until the wounded can be discharged. I can send my electricians to assist with the solar power, and the rest can start retrofitting humvees for pony use and putting up fences. But there is more…”

“And what would that be?” Green inquired.

Lorelei’s horn flared up and she lifted a couple pieces of paper in her telekinesis.

“You see, back in Belfast we picked up a pair of passengers. One was handled by Amandine and should probably have reached her destination in Jacksonville by now, but my own ship picked up another.” She sighed dejectedly.

“Why the long face?” Graham joked.

“I’m just a bit disappointed I couldn’t convince him to join my crew. Needed to plug a hole in my engineering department you see.” Lorelei shook her head. “He didn’t take the job. The name’s Lukas Milford. A mechanic. Earth Pony. Worked a decent job for the passage across the Atlantic, but try as I might he doesn’t want to stay. Was due for Philadelphia, but now… here, read this.” She showed Georgia’s former commander a note.

“Is this… is this a job request?” Green blinked.

“I had him write it.” Lorelei acknowledged. “Had a chat with the guy. I can understand he’d rather stay with his own countrymen than sail the world with foreigners, I get the feeling.”

“So you’re just gonna hand him over to us?” He quirked an eyebrow, echoing a sentiment that was shared by most of his Officers around the table.

“No, we’re not forcing him onto you lot.” She raised her hooves to placate him. “The choice is up to you. I only agreed to pass over the letter and tell you. He does a decent job.”

Green pinched his muzzle with two primary feathers.

“Alright. Fine. Del Rio, he’s a mechanic, care to interview him?”

“Will do Captain.” His Chief Engineer nodded.

“Good. No guarantee we’ll actually hire him though, Lorelei. He’s a civvie.Good as you claim he is, he probably doesn’t have the military mindset.”

“Your call.” Lorelei shrugged. “What’s next then?”

A lot actually.

The whole meeting room erupted into various strings of conversation as multiple Officers all started vying for attention, each with their own set of issues that needed to be tended to, from security perimeters to briefings the submariner returnees had yet to receive.

Green’s ears folded back against his head. He threw Lorelei an accusatory glare. The mare had the merit of at least looking sheepish.

This was going to take a while.

“Hello world, DJ Jensen here with WSU radio. Hope you’re all having a fine day in whichever part of the world you call home, I’ve got some news for you.” Sandra recited in her microphone, vaguely keeping track of what she wanted to say in the day’s broadcast on her notes.

It really was just a rough summary of what intel they had collected for the day, news she was told from other colonies, and some extra remarks and tips on the biology of post-Event species, how to deal with certain monsters, and even a practical extra on how to maintain a water purifier. The last one she suspected was the kind of topics that attracted most of her audience, as she frequently received that kind of questions on the e-mail address (satellite-based, of course) she mentioned every so often in her podcasts.

Those questions she would usually go and ask around the ship looking for answers. There were plenty of folks in engineering that could go on for hours talking about the ins and outs of a desalination plant and diesel generators. She didn’t always invite them on air though. Angelo for instance? Big guy was friendly enough, but the minotaur had a bad tendency to ramble for hours whenever someone asked him about technical stuff.

Not a good idea when she wanted to keep her podcasts short.

“So let’s start with the good news.” She began. “The first post-Event baby was born today in Montana near Flathead Lake. Little Jimmy’s mother was already pregnant when magic swept the world. I’m sure the pregnancy wasn’t easy for his mother, but now I daresay this little pegasus foal brings a measure of hope in a world that would otherwise look rather bleak, don’t you think?” She chuckled. “Congrats on the new mommy. Just let me say this folks: have some sympathy for returning mothers like this. Chances are, they didn’t come back with their husband, and winding up on your own, having to care for a child in a nearly deserted world?

I’m not saying you should step in and help her raise the kid if you’re not the father. That’s not your role, don’t be a servant. I’m just saying: if you’re in a colony, set things up so the community helps her a bit. Toss a couple cans of food and some clothes her way. We ain’t getting anywhere as a budding society if we start leaving people by the wayside, right?

Now, don’t mistake me saying you should not raise a single mother’s kid for me saying you shouldn’t adopt stray children. There will be plenty of them coming back in the future, and personally – I know some of you will disagree-, I don’t consider this to be the same thing as a child that’s with his mother at all. Given that their parents might not come back for ten… a hundred… ten thousand years, I don’t see the harm in adopting them.”

She paused and looked up towards the ceiling.

“Undskyld mig-err, sorry I mean. That was a bit preachy even by my standards.” She apologized. “I guess I should just say: be serious about it if you’re going to adopt a returnee kid. Griffon children may look cute and all, but they’re not pets and they’re even quite the handful to manage. Seen enough of it to know they can be a bit wild, to put it mildly.” She laughed.

Still, pity Vadim and Micha. Even with ‘Uncle Rahul’ helping them Andy had a bad habit of fooling around in the cargo holds and slipping between their talons at a moment’s notice. At least she looked happy.

“Now, back to more serious stuff. For you today I have a road train in Australia that’s slowly turning into some kind of nomadic convoy wandering the desert with their posse of ponies and reformed changelings – yes people, turns out the King of the Outback really met with the changelings, and now they set up their own thing over there-. The northerners in Narvik are progressing quickly with their community and have a proper trade post set up there under the divine protection of the Nordic Gods, and now I caught word of another member of the Celtic Confederation.

Not in Ireland surprisingly. Mind you the Celtic Nations aren’t just Ireland. We’re speaking Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and -depending on who you ask-, Galicia. It’s bigger than you’d think.

So where are they then? Roll of the drum please...”

She quickly played an effect on a soundboard she kept on hoof.

“These guys are from… Brittany! That’s right folks, we now have news of a colony in France, under divine protection of none other than the Horned God Cernunnos.” She read off her notes. “They caught my broadcast when they set up a radio station of their own in their castle in… Trecesson was it? Far as that guy Emeric told me, they’re near a former military academy in a medieval castle. The unique thing with them is… they’re in a magic forest. Dunno if any of you is into Arthurian Mythos, but turns out it’s all true and Broceliande is a thing. Powerful thing too, from what I heard, with fay ladies, Merlin’s ghost and all… details on that another day though. I’m still getting details from my local correspondent.

The big news today is what I was told happened the other day in Sao Paulo. ‘member what I said about demons and pirates and all?

Turns out they made their first attack, and the port of Sao Paulo was the target. Santos that is. The pirates attacked with a warship and bombarded the colony for a good while before they swooped in to take the spoils. Be careful with those guys, the colony in Santos was pretty well defended by police folks and they still got roughed up real bad trying to fend off the pirates long enough for the colonists to evacuate inland.

Worse even is that they didn’t only steal stuff. They took people too.Corpses even. What they needed them for I have no idea, but it can’t be good. Remember the pirates are sided with honest-to-gods demons, so… I wouldn’t hold too much hope for whoever it is they captured. Beware the snatchers.

I can say there is an upside though. The GATE guys did good work – GATE is their special police over there FYI-, so casualties were pretty limited and the refugees were taken in by local homesteads and salvage outposts. They had to give up the harbor and move in further inland, but apparently it’s mostly sorted out.

Although… okay, fair bit of warning: that last segment may be a bit of a reach. Cordeira – the GATE guy that contacted me in the first place- said there was this Argentinian fisherman that passed through the area before the attack. Bit of a loony from what he described, but he may have been onto something as he was telling everyone about some evil in the far south or some such.” Sandra sighed.

The next page of her notes was a weather chart of the South Atlantic taken a few hours prior.

“You see peeps, I’ve looked at satellite pictures. Cape Horn? Yeah the weather around there just doesn’t seem right. There is some kind of… ever-present storm covering the whole area. Weather doesn’t work like that, so either it’s some weird ancient magic or… one of the demons that oh-so-nicely decided to invade our quaint little planet.” She explained grimly.

“Take care people. Avoid Tierra Del Fuego and southern Chile and Argentina as a whole. Tangling with demons… there are fates worse than death. That’s it for today’s podcast. Up next is a request: Overdrive from Eraserheads. Hope you like Pinoy rock folks.”

When Schmitt told them they could go hunting for the day while they converted their cabins, Micha and Vadim had been elated. Micha for one had been pretty pumped at the prospect of going gator hunting and Vadim felt like he could use the distraction after tending to some of the wounded that had come from the Westin.

He was all too glad to leave Artyom in the hands of his fellow veterans and join Micha and Andy in the holds before the three of them piled up to have a little day off out in the marshes. Like they did when going hunting in Ireland, they took one of the Defenders from storage and drove off.

To say that Andy was ecstatic at the prospect would have been an understatement. The young griffon was bouncing in her seat in the back of the truck as they left Amandine behind, leaving Vadim to try his best to calm her down long enough for Micha to give the cub (and him, though he wouldn’t admit it aloud) some hunting lessons.

His mate was rather stringent that they didn’t get a repeat of the semi-feral incident they had experienced in Belfast, and funny as Andy seemed to find it, she wasn’t too inclined to turn into a wild animal whenever she went hunting. She liked the activity too much for that.

Dilip had been of some help in combating the issue. Not unlike them, the D-Dog had experienced some trouble with the wilder parts of the canine psyche, particularly whenever jewelry was around. He never had been a paragon of Hindu faith, but his habit of meditating turned out to be a pretty decent solution to the issue that the Captain actively encouraged his subordinates to practice.

Micha wouldn’t say she was fully in control just yet, griffon instincts were far too potent for that, but she wouldn’t be caught flat-footed like what happened in Northern Ireland at least. And from what she gathered, Vadim was actually quite a bit better at the whole meditation and remaining in control thing than she was.

“Ever looked into gator hunting then?” Vadim questioned her in Polish when they finally reached a spot she deemed decent enough to hunt atop a levee in the middle of the swamp.

She would rather use a stand, unfortunately they had all either been reclaimed by nature or outright destroyed by the elements. Shooting from the Defender’s roof would have to do.

“Only vaguely. I don’t know the shot placement for them.”

“So?”

“Well...” She took her hunting rifle out of its sheath and slid a magazine inside before pulling out a small picture of a gator lying on a shore. “Let’s be smart about it. Andy? Come over sweetie, lesson time.”

Like a cat, the adopted cub leapt onto the roof, spreading her wings ever so slightly to catch more air. She still had a ways to go before she could actually fly on her own power, but she sure was doing her best to get there faster. Andy sort of had taken to the habit of hop-gliding instead of running regularly. She would half-open her wings and alternate at quick intervals between outright sprint and gliding.

It was… surprisingly fast, as Rahul had discovered when she decided to steal some bread from the galley.

She climbed onto the roof of the Defender and squeezed herself between her two adoptive parents, Vadim giving her an affectionate nip on the back of her neck before he let Micha continue her explanation.

“Alligators are pretty tough, and we don’t have the gear to hunt them in the water. What we need to do is to let them get out of the water to sunbathe and rest with their… pod is the word I think? Regardless: we attack them out of the water when they’re vulnerable and when we can recover the body.” Micha said, motioning with her talons towards a muddy shore facing south that she fully expected would attract the reptiles.

If it didn’t, she could always drop a bit of jerky. Might attract them.

“Then… well, I’ve seen TV shows where they fish them out of the water and finish them off with a round of .223 or .22LR to the back of the head.”

“So you’re aiming for the back of the head?”

“No.” She shook her head firmly and pointed at the back ridges and thick scales that covered the back of the gator. “With the angle I’m shooting from, it would just ricochet off their back. That rules out spine shots too.” She circled her talons over a spot a little behind the gator’s forelegs on the picture. “Remember: on TV they do it with .223. My gun is a .308. I think that should be enough to punch through the scales as long as the angle is favorable. The rest… I admit it’s guesswork, but behind the forelegs should strike a couple vital organs. If it’s a lung shot, that should prevent them from swimming away and dive under the water.”

“Mommy not sure?” Andy quirked her head.

“No sweetie. Sometimes you just don’t know and you have to guess based on what you do know. Understand?”

The little cub blinked owlishly at her before she looked at the sky with a scowl.

“Totally. I tostally un-destand.” She finally said.

Sure she did… Micha ruffled her head feathers and told them to lay low while she went to set some bait on the shore.

Unsurprisingly, the gators didn’t turn up immediately. A few birds tried to get the bait but were soon chased away by the three griffons, but it wasn’t until a few hours later that the reptiles’ heads finally peeked out of the water as an entire congregation (the actual word for a group of gators) of them swam for the shore.

Not that the griffons minded the wait. They were there to kill time in the first place, and it certainly felt better to sun themselves under the Georgian sun than wait inside a deer stand in Northern Ireland. Must have been the big cat part in the griffons.

The gators went for the bait and lazily plopped down on the shore.

Micha took aim with her rifle. The range already long set in the scope and…

Another gator emerged out of the water. Or rather, it looked like a gator, except double the size, double the teeth, and twice the scale thickness, so hard were they that they looked as though they were made out of stone, with the jagged appearance that came with it. Two rows of plates lined its back, each pointing to its malicious yellow eyes.

“That ain’t no gator...” Micha mumbled, tearing her eyes away from her scope.

“That… is a cragadile.” Vadim realized.

Author's Notes:

Eeyup. Big magic gator, that's the type o' monster I went with for the area. Feels appropriate for Georgia, no?

Tune in next week for some Broceliande stuff.