Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse

Delphi gave Commander Meyer a long slow bird with her left hand in a particularly obscene gesture, telling him exactly what she thought of him spying on them while they bathed.

He dropped the binoculars for a minute. Now that she had spotted him, the right thing to do would be to give them a chance to get some clothes on before he looked in on them again. He could already picture her telling the Emperor he had been watching them bathing…

"What are you doing Commander?" asked Wolf. "Why aren't you watching them anymore?"

"He's waiting for them to get dressed," Niko snapped. "Like he should have done in the first place," he muttered angrily under his breath.

"What was that, Lieutenant?" asked the commander.

"Nothing!"

"But Commander, they're riding off," Wolf pointed out from his perch in the paperbark tree.

Alton raised the binoculars back up in a hurry. Sure enough, they were already mounted and galloping back towards the highway.

"Let's go men!" he shouted. "They're not far ahead. Let's try and catch them before nightfall."

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Delphi galloped at the front of the group.

"Send Feifei up here," she called back to Loveday, who was close on her heels.

Feifei rode up alongside Delphi, their two horses keeping pace.

"We'll head to Stockyard Point," she said to the girl. "There's a headland there that's only accessible at low tide. If we can make it by five, six o'clock at the latest, we can hole up there for a night or two. With any luck they'll lose our tracks."

"Good idea Captain. We need to shake them somehow. They're getting much too close for comfort."

"At least we know their orders are to catch us alive not kill us. That won't be as straightforward for them."

"Hmf, let them try," Feifei nodded in agreement, dropping back to her rearguard position.

They arrived at Stockyard Point Lookout with at least an hour of daylight to spare. The tide was out and there was a huge sand plain on Little Five Rocks Beach, leading to a headland. There were a number of options among the headlands, all of which were only accessible at low tide. Delphi studied them through her binoculars.

"Girls, we need one of these headlands that gets completely cut off at high tide, so it'll wash away our trail and buy us some time. Preferably it should have a source of fresh water and somewhere we can hunker down on the ocean side, out of sight. We'll explore the largest options here," she pointed straight ahead. "Loveday, you take that headland there," she pointed at a small, taller rocky outcrop covered in bush over to their left. "Feifei, you take that one there." There was another headland to their right, smaller again than the one Loveday was heading to. "We'll meet back on the large one in the middle. Don't leave your run too late or you'll miss the crossing. If you can't get back safely, just stay where you are and stay safe for the night, don't risk a channel crossing at high tide," he shook her head. "We'll rendezvous on the largest headland tomorrow if that happens."

"Okay Delph," said Loveday. "Can you take my horse? He'll be a liability climbing over those rocks."

"Mine too," said Feifei, looking at the slippery rocks that had been exposed by the low tide, leading to the headland.

The two girls handed over their horses to Ruby and Winter and jogged off to start climbing across the rocky outcrops.

Delphi and the rest of the team galloped onto the wide sandy plain that lead towards the large headland, sticking to the surfside where their tracks would wash away.

Alton and the guards had discovered that the girls' trail left the highway, heading for the beach. He pulled out his map to see what might have caught Delphi's eye to draw her off the road.

"Well, they're either heading to the beach to look for a cave where their tracks will be washed away, or their heading for that headland," he pointed at Stockyard Point.

Niko trusted his commander's instincts. They were rarely wrong. He nodded. "What do you want us to do Sir?"

"We'll split into pairs and cover more ground that way. Baer, Wolf, you take these headlands here. Split up when you get there and cover all of them if you can. They won't make it easy to find them, so check in any caves and on isolated beaches with overhangs."

"Yes Sir!" Wolf saluted.

"Bo, Han, take this beach here and head south while you check them out. Cormac, Magnus, same, but head north from here," he pointed on the map. "Niko, come with me to the lookout and we'll see what we can see from up there. We'll meet back at the lookout. If it gets too dark and you need to sleep where you are, find yourselves somewhere safe. Just because we haven't seen any tubiàn today doesn't mean they're not around," he reminded them.

"On it, Sir," called Han.

The men galloped off in a bunch of different directions.

Baer and Wolf made the headlands in the last of the light. The wide sandy plain that the girls had used to reach the headland was now nothing more than a faintly visible sandbar under lapping waves.

"Shit," said Baer. "We've almost missed the crossing. Wolf, you take those rocks to the north. See if you can still make it across them. I'll take these ones," he pointed south. "Let's tether the horses here so they can graze. Meet you back here."

"Alright man. If I can't get back tonight, I'll see you in the morning," he gripped Baer's fingers in their training S Grip.

Baer made his way over the slippery rock formation and found himself faced with a narrow channel separating him from the start of the southern headland. He didn't hesitate, diving in and swimming strongly across, hauling himself out the other side. The rocks were even more difficult here, but he clambered across them. His military boots made short work of the sharp, wet rocks.

Another fucking channel he thought, as he cleared the rocky hill. He wondered if some of these might have been sand when the girls came through earlier. He dived in and stroked across. He picked his way over the next rocky island. This one was playing home to a dense colony of fur seals. Well, if he could dry his flint out, he wouldn't go hungry, he thought. The noise they were making was deafening. He considered killing a seal and taking it with him, but as he crested the rocks, there was a third channel separating him from the headland.

Bloody hell! he thought. This would have been infinitely easier at low tide… He squinted across the third channel and saw that there were seals on the headland. He would kill one over there, he decided.

He swam the third and final channel, pulling himself clear and clambering up onto the headland.

He was losing the light, he saw. He would definitely be sleeping here. Luckily it had some permanent bushland so it would stay above the waterline overnight.

He stomped up to a bunch of the barking fur seals and dragged one out, slitting its throat. He slung the dead seal over his shoulder, where its blood dripped down his uniform.

Nothing three good channel swims tomorrow wouldn't deal with, he thought cheerfully.

He would check the headland out briefly before settling down to skin his catch and roast it.

As he strode through the bush over the peak of the headland, the sound of his footsteps muffled by the crashing waves and the barking seals, he saw a pinprick of light on the other side of the hill.

Fuck! He moved behind a thick tree, peering out cautiously.

It was definitely a fire! He'd found them!

He dropped down to his belly and slithered through the bush, his seal still wrapped around his shoulders like a blubbery scarf.

He pushed aside a spiky clump of grass and saw a girl sitting on her own beside a fire. She sat with her back to him, staring out to sea while she roasted a fish over the flames.