Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 99: Major Pittman Anchors

Major Pittman and his team of twelve soldiers sailed their military vessel toward the shores of Phillip Island.

"We’ve been at sea for six days now Mr Rutherglen," the Major snarled at his civilian tracker, an indigenous man whose people were originally from the Mainland. "You’re not living up to your reputation, man."

"Major Pittman," Bill Rutherglen replied evenly, "there are a myriad of places those girls might have decided to go ashore. I’m banking on them having made sensible plans for their escape, but we can’t even be certain that they made it across Bass Strait. We’ve tried the Port of Melbourne and Sorrento. As you know, I’m suggesting we try Phillip Island before we head west towards Lorne. If you have a better idea about where they might have landed, I will defer to you. You’re the leader of this expedition."

"Time is ticking Mr Rutherglen. The Emperor is not known for his patience."

"I’m acutely aware of that, Major. My life depends on it."

A call from the soldier at the bow diverted the two men from their argument.

"There’s a boat moored ahead, fine on the starboard bow!"

"About fucking time," growled the Major.

Bill Rutherglen wiped his sweaty brow. Thank God. That was the hard bit over. Now that he had their trail it would be easy from here on in.

The private in the bow pulpit peered through his binoculars.

"There’s a soldier on board Sir; he’s waving at us."

The Major held his own binoculars up. There was a man standing on the deck of the boat waving them in. This would be interesting... There didn’t appear to be anyone else on board.

"Moor the boat alongside him," he ordered his crew.

They anchored their military vessel alongside the prince’s pleasure craft the guards had been given for their mission.

The man on the deck had already lowered a dinghy and was motoring his way over to them.

"Permission to board?" he called up to the Major, who was peering over the stern at him.

"Permission granted, climb aboard soldier," the Major called.

Bo tied his dinghy to the military craft and climbed aboard the stern and up onto the deck.

He saluted. Major Pittman was known to him after his years in the military; and he wasn’t hard to recognise with a deep scar running down one side of his face.

"Major Pittman, Sir, Private Ren Bo reporting for duty, Sir."

"At ease private. Do you go by Ren or Bo?"

The old Chinese manner of naming persisted in the families with Chinese ancestry. The first listed name was the family name, and the second name was the familiar name you were called by your friends and family. Local practice had seeped in, to the extent that the formality of calling someone by both of their names had dropped away. Bo would either be Bo, or Mr Ren, depending on the social situation.

"Bo, Sir. Ren is my family name."

The Major grimaced. "Was your father Ren Fabin?"

"Yes Sir. You knew him Sir?"

"I did, just slightly. I fought against the Meng Rebellion too."

One of the things Bo had neglected to tell Feifei, was that his father had been in the military and had been killed in an earlier rebellion. A famous one lead by the Meng family which had gathered quite a head of steam.

"How old were you when he died?"

"Thirteen, Sir."

"Hm. Not an easy age. My father wasn’t on the scene either. Toughens you up. Makes a man out of you."

"Yes Sir," said Bo impassively.

"Come and join me in the cabin for a briefing. Any more of you?" he called back at the man as he strode off.

"No Sir."

The Major nodded. It was as he’d expected. This trip might end up being a brief one.

Luckily Bo had spotted the ship coming in quite some time before they had spotted him, so he’d had time to figure out what he planned to tell them.

He knew they would need to see bodies if he said everyone was dead, so he’d decided to take a different tack, assuming there weren’t enough of them to pose a real threat to the HQ. On a quick calculation, he had only seen ten men.

The Major poured them both a cup of coffee from a pot he was keeping warm on his desk.

"I bet you’ve missed this stuff," he said, passing a steaming hot cup of coffee to Bo.

"Desperately, Sir."

He had had plenty of coffee up until he left the silos, but he’d certainly missed his coffee on the road.

"Tell me all of it. Where are the rest of the guards? The women?"

"I think they’re all dead, Sir, but I didn’t verify it with my own eyes."

"Go on," he gestured.

"We spotted the court ladies’ boat here at Phillip Island. We were never far behind them. We came into shore, but they’d already left. We sank their boat to make sure they couldn’t double-back and sail off."

The Major nodded approvingly.

"This island is protected from most of the tubiàn because the bridge to the Mainland has collapsed, so there are cattle and horses living here. The women arrived half a day ahead of us and got themselves some horses. They crossed to the Mainland via the sand bars at low tide. We caught ourselves a bunch of brumbies to chase them down, and we had visuals on them on the other side of the Bar, but the tide was against us and night was falling so they got a good head start on us." 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

The Major grunted with disapproval. How a bunch of palace whores could get a jump on the Emperor’s Honour Guard was beyond him, but he’d never rated Prince Alton...

"Next," he said peremptorily.

"They rode like the billy-o. We had a near miss catching them at Stockyard Point but one of our men let Loveday Espey slip away. She drugged him with a sleeping draught."

The Major snorted with laughter. "Oldest trick in the book. She probably honey trapped him, did she? I hear all of these women are off-the-scale lookers. That’s why our Lord wants them back so badly."

"She did. Exactly so Major."

"What a dickhead to fall for it. Who was it?"

"Private Baer Becker."

"I know Baer. Nice enough fellow but not the sharpest tool in the shed. Never knew how he became a bomb tech. I wouldn’t trust him with a bomb... He would fall for something that simple," he nodded at Bo to continue.

"We caught up to them properly on the outskirts of Melbourne, in Packenham. They were completely surrounded by a nest of tubiàn red bellied black snakes and on their last legs fighting for their lives. There were vast numbers of the devils. We rode in to help, but it was pretty desperate.

I was knocked unconscious by a tail whip that threw me into the bush. Hit the back of my head on a rock. That’s what saved my life.

When I came to the next day it was all quiet. Still a few snakes in the area, but I managed to sneak away. I did a perimeter check but I couldn’t find any tracks indicating anyone else had made it out.

My guess is they were all killed and eaten. There were a lot of snakes, more than a hundred. I lost my horse in the fight, so I’ve been on the road for days walking back here and trying to steer clear of the tubiàn."

Bo had unsaddled his horse and set it free back where it grew up, on Phillip Island. He hoped it wasn’t silly enough to approach these men.

The Major searched his eyes, looking for the telltale signs of a lie. Bo looked back at him emotionlessly.