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

===Shit Gets Real===


Below, Alex idly cast his line again.  A sudden tug on the end brought his attention down to the water.  “Hey, I got something!” he said.

Freya leaned over.  “Yeah, you do!”  She set her own rod down.  “Reel it in!”

Alex stood, bracing himself against the rough rocks.  “It’s huge, whatever it is,” he grunted, pulling the line back in.  He nearly toppled over as the animal on the other end pulled back.

Freya moved over behind him and wrapped her arms around his midsection, anchoring him.  Alex reeled up the line, inch by torturous inch.  Venus stood and walked over to watch the spectacle.  After a few more minutes of reeling, a distant white blob broke the water and splashed back down.

“Looks like you nabbed a bladefish,” Freya grunted.  “Good eats.”

“Think we’ll let it go, though?” Alex asked through clenched teeth.

“Probably.”  Freya reached around him to grab the handle of the rod over his own hands.  “All right, reel it up!”

Alex hauled on the handle, pulling the distant fish up another meter.  “Get over here, you scaly little fuck,” he growled.

“The hell are those?” Venus suddenly asked, pointing out over the water.

The tone of her voice grabbed Freya’s attention.  She tore her gaze from the battle of Alex versus bladefish to follow Venus’ pointing finger.  A distant blob of grey was moving around in the water, nearly a kilometer away.

Freya’s eyes went wide.  She grabbed Alex’s rod out of his hands and stepped aside, and he nearly stumbled from the sudden loss of balance.  “Freya, what the hell?” Alex asked, panting.

“Quiet!” Freya snarled.  She stared into the distant grey blob and listened carefully, drawing deep breaths of the fading wind.  “FUCK!  Call the gunship, Venus!” she snapped.  She reached up to the fishing line on the rod and snapped it with one bite.

“Freya, what’s happening?” Alex demanded.  Venus scooped up the recall beacon from the crate and tapped the button.

“Krakenspawn are coming!” Freya said, tossing the rod into the crate and running over to their campsite.  “We are packing up and LEAVING!”

Alex paled.  “How long do we have?” he asked.

“Maybe ten minutes,” Freya said.  She dropped the rods into the crate and rolled up the tarp, chucking it in.  “Come on, come on!  Venus, go get the others!” she over her shoulder.  “Alex, break camp!”

“No arguments here,” Alex muttered.  He ran over to the metal pan and rubbed the fish goo out of it with a cloth.

Above, Venus hurdled a few low rocks until she was within sight of the other two, still up snapping pictures on the hilltop.  She inflated her lungs and screamed.  “GET DOWN HERE!”  Her superhuman voice carried up to the other two, startling them both.  Remilia stared down at where her cousin was urgently waving.

“Uh…” Jake said.  “Sounds like an order.”

Remilia looked over to where Freya and Alex were frantically packing.  “…Time for a dust-off,” she muttered.  “Jake, how much do you trust me right now?” she asked, turning to face her friend.

Jake stared at her.  “Uh…a lot?”

Remilia slid her arms under Jake’s shoulders and pulled backwards until the taller man fell back against them with a startled gasp.  She shifted one arm below his knees and threw herself off the hilltop, landing on the ground beside Venus nearly thirty feet below.

“Sorry,” she said tightly, letting Jake back to his feet.

“No, no, it was quite…heroic,” Jake said weakly, easing back up.

“Krakenspawn, inbound fast,” Venus said, concern for their wellbeing overriding her amusement at the look on her lover’s face.  “Gunship’s inbound, get down to the camp and help us break it down,” she said, already jogging off.

Jake and Remilia followed her, stopping to help Alex pack up the camp.  Venus rolled her sleeves up and brushed the lingering embers aside, extinguishing the flames.  Alex and Jake manhandled the few other pieces of equipment they had brought with them into the crate as Remilia and Freya opened the mil-spec case up and extracted the autorifle inside.  “Hoped I wouldn’t need this,” Freya muttered, slapping a magazine home and chambering a round.

Remilia brushed her cousin aside and withdrew two small stub pistols, tossing one to Venus.  “ETA on the gunship?” she asked.

Freya grabbed the recaller from the ground next to the case.  “Eight minutes.”

“And the fish?” Remilia asked, staring at the growing grey blob.

“Kraken.  And eight minutes,” Freya said.

“Fantastic.”  Remilia straightened up and slid a magazine home, tucking a few more in pockets.

Venus clamped the crate shut and hefted it with Freya, carrying it up to the flat rock they had been using as a landing zone.  Remilia dropped the gun case on top of the crate and stood behind it, eyeing the water.  “What were you saying about the trip to the village not having any interesting wildlife encounters?” she asked drily.

Freya managed a tight laugh.  “Funny.”  She sighted down the rifle and leaped up on top of the four foot cubic crate.  “All right.  Krakenspawn are all mouths and tentacles, but they can cross short stretches of land if they’re trying to.  Just aim for center of mass and remember to triple-tap.”  She sighed.  “I should have asked the gunship to stay, damn it.”

The group went quieter as the grey mass of waves and foam grew closer.  “Can you tell how many there are?” Jake asked, nervously wringing his hands over his waist.

“Forty?  Fifty?” Freya said, staring into the water.  “Too many.”

Alex grimaced, anger at his predicament spilling into his voice.  “Got any more guns?”

“I wish, baby,” Freya said softly.  Her fingers tightened on the gun as her predatory instinct flared up.  Venus arranged a few magazines of ammunition for her pistol on the crate-top beside her and balanced the weapon on her palm, feeling it out.

“Wish I’d brought the hardware that came with the formal uniform,” she said under her breath.

Remilia chuckled through her tension.  “But we already had cooked fish today,” she reminded her.

“Mmm, pan-seared sea monster,” Venus said.

A distant ripple presaged the front of the swarm of monsters.  A few creatures roamed out in front, their passing churning the blue water white.
Jake shivered.  The prospect of hive living was suddenly much less unappealing.

Alex crouched beside him, slowly flexing and relaxing his hands.  “How big are these things, Freya?” he asked, his throat tightening.

“Depends on age.  Five to twenty meters before they molt…” she said, flicking the scope open and sighting it.  “Maybe a hundred meters when they’re older.”

Jake’s heartrate spiked.  “…And you can kill them with a rifle?” he asked, trying not to sound distracting.

Freya bared her teeth.  “I can.  You just need to know where to shoot.”

“And where’s that?” Venus asked.

“Seven or so centimeters above and between the forwardmost eyes,” Freya said.  “Soft spot in the cartilage.”  She breathed in deep, scenting the monsters.  “I’d say…forty five or so.”  She gripped the rifle until her knuckles turned white.  “Guys…I’m sorry.  I swear this has never happened while I was here before,” she said, somewhat bitterly.  “Just my fucking luck.”

None of the others felt the need to say anything.  Remilia sat down with her side to the crate, looking into the water.  The small fish they had been seeing, and the larger bladefish that had been eating them, were gone.  They had fled the coming kraken, and Remilia couldn’t blame them.

Jake scanned the shy with hopeful eyes, wondering where the gunship was.  “What I wouldn’t give for a teleporter.”

Venus met his eyes through her glasses.  “Don’t give up, Jake,” she said softly.  “We can hold them until the gunship gets here.”

His face was a mask of nerves and fear.  “Not how I pictured this going,” he said tightly.  “Tell me you can shoot that thing.”

Venus slowly raised one eyebrow.  “I can,” she said flatly.

“Of course,” Jake said.  “Sorry.  I’m just scared,” he admitted.

Venus squeezed his shoulder.  “So am I.”

“You don’t look it,” Jake said.

She stared out over the water.  “I’m just good at hiding it.”

Remilia suddenly jerked her head up and stared at the horizon.

The rumble of engines in the air alerted them to their approaching salvation.  The gunship appeared, flying over the wavetops from the opposite direction as the krakenspawn.  Freya lifted the recall beacon and pressed the button on the end, and the small flare in the other side started spewing red smoke to mark their location.  She tossed the beacon behind them and sighted down her rifle again, hoping that the pilot would realize the gravity of the situation.

It seemed he did.  The engine sound suddenly grew much louder as the pilot realized what was happening and opened the throttle wide.  He shot forward, racing towards them.