Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Four (section)

===Gone Fishin'===



Soon enough, they were soaring over the waters that surrounded Asaheim, until the whole world was blue and grey skies and white-capped waves.  In under an hour, the gunship was circling a jagged little island, with pads of thick green foamy plants and massive flocks of birds wheeling overhead.

The gunship settled down on a thick spur of rock on the top of the stubby island and wheeled off, as the five teens made their way down to the shore.  Freya heaved a massive tarpaulin down to the rocks with the crate in Venus’ arms.  When they were just above the waterline, Freya spread the tarp out over the stones and weighed it down on the edges and corners to keep it from tugging free in the wind.

Venus set the crate down and cracked it open.  “So…do we get to know what this is, Freya?” she asked, pawing through the plastic bags inside.

Freya grinned happily and pulled forth a narrow metal pole.  “Fishing gear!  Dad used to take me fishing on this island every week like clockwork when I was here last.  We’d sit here and fish the schools that circle the island until sundown, then bake the fish over an open fire and chow down.”

“Cool,” Remilia said.  “Are there five rods?” she asked.

“Seven.  Thought a few of the guys from the crew might want to join us, but they got called away,” Freya said with a shrug.  “Oh well.”

Andrew tugged out a massive mil-spec plastic box from the crate.  “Hell of a tacklebox,” he grunted.

Freya giggled.  “Open it.”

Alex palmed the latch, but the box didn’t open.  He glanced down at the panel.  “Uh, I can’t.”

“Oh.”  Freya palmed it instead, and it beeped.  A moment later, with a hiss of pneumatics, the box swung open.

“Is…Freya, what the hell?” Remilia gaped.  Freya was extracting a Kardil-4 pattern autorifle.

“In case the fish fight back!” Freya said happily.

The others exchanged worried looks.

“They never do, not in all the years I came here,” Freya soothed them.  “But better to have and not need than need and not have, eh?” she asked, slapping a magazine into place.

Alex stared.  “…And for those of us who do not wish to risk life and limb, what’s today’s activity?” he asked bluntly.

Freya’s grin drooped a bit.  “You don’t like fishing?”

“Never tried, but…fuck.  You’re not making it look safe,” Alex accused.

“Bah, this is a precaution!” she said, setting the rifle down.

“Against what?” Alex demanded.

“Krakenspawn, primarily.  Don’t worry, I can smell or see them coming two knots off,” Freya said.  “And the Thunderhawk is close.”

“How humans survive on this rock, I’ll never know,” Jake said, fingering his fishing rod.  “The hell does this work?”



Freya set about instructing the others in how to bait and cast the tools, and soon enough the turbulent waters outside the rocky shore had five little plastic bobs floating in them.  The wind died down to a whisper as the sun crawled higher.  Alex and Jake found the temperature still quite unbearable, and wisely elected to retain their thermo kit.

“All right, I admit,” Alex said as he cast his line out again.  “This is actually pretty fun.”

Jake shielded his eyes against the glare off the water.  Even through his sunglasses, the light was overwhelming.  “What are those arrow-shaped things in the distance?” he asked.

“Dactyls,” Freya explained.  “Giant reptiles that eat fish.”

Jake stared.  “Too cool.”

Freya nodded.  “Biggest one ever recorded was half again the size of a Stormbird.”

Remilia took a drag from her water bottle.  “You sure there are actual fish around here?” she asked, glancing over the water.

“Of course!” Freya said.  She tapped her temple behind her eye.  “I can see them through the water.  We should just be casting closer to shore.”

Jake did so, casting only a few feet away from the rocks, careful not to let the line fray on the sharp volcanic stone.  Sure enough, within minutes, the line was jerking.  “Uh, what do I do?” he asked, pulling on the rod.

Freya gestured at the handle on the side of the line.  “Turn that when the line loosens!” she said.

Jake rose to his feet and started reeling.  He nearly pitched back down to the ground as whatever he had hooked pulled back.  “Gah!  Little help?” he asked, planting his feet and cranking at the line.

Remilia stood too and gripped the rod, helping him balance as he reeled.  Something white broke the surface for an instant where Jake’s line had entered the water.  Jake gripped the handle tight and reeled in as the line went slack, as the others pulled up their own lures to watch.

After nearly five minutes of panting effort, Remilia and Jake hoisted their prize aloft.  Jake gripped the thrashing fish with both gloves and tried to weigh it down, but it twisted until it nearly broke free.  Remilia grabbed a knife from her kitbag and plunged it into the fish just behind the skull, ending its writhing.  Jake gingerly released it and slumped back.  “Thanks…Remilia…” he panted, sweat pouring off of his face.

The blond athlete nodded.  “No problem,” she said roughly, wrenching the knife free.

“And to the victors go the spoils,” Freya said, walking over with a peeling knife.  “You wanna do it, Remilia?” she asked, offering up the blade.

“Nah, you can do it,” Remilia said, rubbing her hands clean on a towel.

Jake slumped back against the rocks.  He stared at his gloved hands.  They were visibly shaking from the exertion.  “I’ve never gotten into a full-contact wrestling match with my food before,” Jake noted.  He peeled his hat off and shook the sweat from his hair.  “Whoof.  That was hard,” he panted.

Venus set his water bottle next to him on the stone.  He grinned up at her, still a bit shaky.  “Thanks, babe.”  He opened the cap and downed a few gulps as Freya set about busily dismembering the fish.

“Trick is not to cut too deep, but not so close to the skin that you wreck the knife on the armor scale,” Freya muttered, tongue clenched between her lips.  She was trying to peel the skin of the animal back with the little knife she had packed, with little success.  “Fuck.  Wish I had brought a chainsword,” she said.

Remilia slid her own knife into the fish’s gills and held it there as Freya finally made some headway on the skinning.  Alex watched the gruesome display from his own perch on the rocky shore.  “Remilia, where did you learn how to skin a fish?” he asked.

Remilia paused her eviscerating to reply.  “Last time I went home to Inwit, we went ice-fishing on the In-gui-teh glacial rivers,” she said, blowing a drop of sweat off her nose.  “I mean, it was eleven years ago, but you never forget,” she said, going back to it.

Venus crouched next to Jake and rooted through her bags for a firestarter.  Jake capped his water and set it down, cracking his knuckles under his gloves.  “Oof.”  He wiped some fish slime off of his jacket with a tissue from the bag.  “So, you ever had fish cooked like this?’ he asked.

“Nope, this will be new,” Venus said, lifting the little plastic device.  “Ah hah!”  She slid it in her pocket and stood back up.  “Hey Alex, help me grab some driftwood and we’ll start a fire, huh?” she asked.

Alex obligingly rose from his seat and started gathering some of the sun-and-ice-bleached drifts of wood around them.

They stacked them in a circle as Jake wobbled back up.  Freya and Remilia hacked the rest of the scales off of the fish and started boning it as Venus stuffed some leaves into the middle of the wood.  “Jake, can you grab the cooking bits from the crate?” Freya asked over her shoulder.

“Sure,” Jake said.  He walked over to the crate and lifted a wide metal pan from the crate, glancing over the sky as he did.  Aside from a few more dactyls in the far distance, the weather was as clear as could be, without a cloud in the sky.  He looked back to the contents of the crate and grabbed a few metal forks with long, slender handles as he did.  “This all of it?” he asked.

Freya glanced over.  “Yeah, bring it over to me,” she said.  She drew her knife back and sliced a thick slab of white meat off of the fish.  Its watery blood sluiced down into the cracks of the rock beneath them as she hauled it free.  “All right…put it down there,” she instructed.  Jake set the pan down and Freya dropped the piece of fish-meat onto the metal surface with an audible *splat.*

“All right,” she said with relish, glancing over at where Venus was applying a little fire to the wood.  The bone-dry wood erupted into a roaring blaze in under a minute, and Venus slid the lighter back into the bag.  “Remilia, grab the plates?” Freya asked.  She sank into a crouch near the blaze and let the warmth seep into her chilly fingers.

“Yep.”  Remilia dug around in the crate and extracted five metal kitbag plates, and a few handfuls of cutlery.  “Anyone running low on water?” she asked.