Zey waved away Kareet’s confusion and made signals that to Humans would be quite clear the comment was made in jest. The Captain then listened closely to Nellara, leaning against the gunwale and enjoying the breeze/sun combination. She chuckled to herself when it became clear that the Castigator wouldn’t answer exactly how many more brigades existed. It was always going to be a long shot.

Zey spent her time stuck on this barge pacing, talking with her crew, learning about what to expect in Arcaeda from the locals, and radioing the Jotunheim. Signal rapidly deteriorated once they left Ertisdea, with the boat putting a large mountain range between them and the ship. She never heard the distress call from the other group.

She kept active as well, jumping on the spot and practising kickboxing techniques she’d learned years earlier. This attracted the interest of some of the natives. Zey eventually realised that may not be a good thing and stopped.

Zey was chatting to the Glen, J’eon, when things went quiet.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, what are those scars on your back?”

She was listening to J’eon’s reply, taking it all in, when glancing around she got weird vibes. Things were quiet, and the soldier Tekeri were looking at each other all funny. Without really meaning to, Zey looked at the river around the boat. There was no other traffic to speak of, where previously they’d been surrounded by a bustle of activity.

Accessing comms, Zey murmured a warning to all the Humans aboard.

“Guys, something has the natives spooked.”

She watched Kareet stalk down the centre of the barge, her eagle eyes scanning the forest on either side.

“Be ready for anything.”

The sound of flowing water changed suddenly to one of…mud? They stopped moving as fast, and the natives sprung into action. It was only after a couple of seconds that Zey realised the river had changed drastically in consistency and colour.

“What the fuck?”

In the time it took her to wrestle the AR out from the webbing of her pack, the bottom of the boat had sprung an alarming leak. Black tar-like liquid shlopped all over one of the soldiers and was rapidly expanding.

Kareet started screaming.

“Abandon ship!” Zey shouted, slinging her backpack and shooting her gun in the air. It had an integral suppressor, but was still surprisingly loud and brought back memories of the hangar bay in Norway.

“Where are the life rafts on this thing?” She shouted, to no one in particular.