The Marine

Standing beside a huge Beetle, a young teenager checked and rechecked her gear.

In her rucksack there was the emergency flares, flash grenades, a pouch of tacks, rope, knife, water canteen, and five small bars of hardened sugar bread that was the standard loadout for all the Marines in her company.

She didn’t have a rifle but figured that was because she had Boss to accompany her.

Yoko knew full well that Boss was stronger than almost everyone else around, and in addition to the war hammer hanging off her belt figured that not having a gun was a small matter. After all, she herself was faster and stronger than most of the adults; even having the most success with the Iron Body and Meditative Pushup techniques that she and the other Special Operators had learned.

Yes, Yoko felt good. This was the day all her hard work was for. This was the day she would finally punish those evil men who murdered, who robbed, and who laughed all while doing it.

They were at a place called Hannabal Island; this island was a famous pirate-friendly port where dozens of pirate crews would gather to spend their stolen monies.

They would gamble and whore and fight and do everything else that Yoko despised them for.

‘But that ends today.’ Said the girl to herself, unconsciously touching her right hand down to the hammer on her side.

After all, no matter what, with Bill here she felt nothing could go wrong.

Sure, there was also Uncle Ranse and Aunty Fia, and she wouldn’t ignore them, but with Bill here, Yoko knew in her heart that the days of ‘freedom’ was over for these murderous pirate scums.

And this thought made her smile again.

*Eh hem*

Turning her head to the familiar voice, Yoko saw it was just Akisu.

He was two years younger than her but the two had become friends due to them both being the only Chore Boys in the Department, of course, that friendship was only after she had beaten the boy enough that he didn’t want to be the “world’s greatest thief” anymore.

A few good punches to the stomach each day for months was all it took. She made sure these hits hurt but didn’t leave any marks, and since she was doing it for the sake of Justice, Yoko thought she was right to do so.

She was further blameless in her mind when even after getting hit the boy kept coming back, and so she forgave him and then they became friends.

“Where’s your rucksack?” she asked, ready to give instructions to her young friend.

Having sat in all the strategic training meetings that ‘fat face’ Nelson had been the head of, she knew the battle plan like the back of her hand.

Hannabal Island was a dormant volcanic island. This was normal, but what made the island especially unique was that underwater currents would force sea water through the volcanic chambers and the island was constantly ‘erupting’ sea water as a result.

The outflow of this eruption was conveniently beside the towns harbor, and so while ground forces infiltrated the island to round up the pirates, the Victory and Frontier Run would sit in the harbor ready to blow up any pirate ships that tried to flee.

What made this invasion unique, according to fat-face Nelson, was that the Beetleborgs would be stationed on the Victory and would only act if the ground forces met with formidable resistance.

One flare called for support from the Special Operators – who equipped with the Pulse Boots could scale the up the mountain city quickly.

Two flares called for a staggard retreat and for the back up of one of the Lieutenants, who in this operation was either Ranse or Fia.

Three flares signaled the most serious danger and called for a full-scale retreat. The only options then were to wait for Bill to personally come and resolve situation.

That last signal was not going to be used, Yoko knew. Since Bill and the Bounty Hunter were going to infiltrate the island and arrest the traitor Marine Gasparde at the same time the ground invasion started.

With all of this in mind, Yoko was prepared to tell Akisu what to do when he replied: “I don’t need a rucksack, I’m staying on the Victory and will be assisting the mortar teams.”

Nodding her head to this, Yoko thought this was a good idea. Akisu was smart and he could act brave but having an eleven-year-old fighting wasn’t something Bill would do.

‘Bill probably just told him that to not hurt his feelings.’ She thought approvingly, but before she could reply a large shadow was cast beside her.

Turning her head, a smile spread across her face.

“Bill!” she said excitedly, ready for her assignment.

Her doubts were washed away when he came over and put a big hand on her head and adjusted her Marine hat.

“Good to see you’re being thorough with your gear, checking twice now can save you a lot of grief later.” He said in a stated tone.

Of course, she knew this before he said so, but readily agreeing she said: “That’s what I was thinking!” then after showing him how she arranged her rucksack she was praised again.

After this, Yoko felt good and asked: “So, which group I’m I being assigned to? I was thinking the one that followed the channel since that’d give Boss some space to move around.”

Seeing Bill nod and slightly smile, instead of being happy she was suddenly struck with a vision of him saying no. She tried to discard the thought, but he spoke first: “That’s a good idea, but for this plan to work we’re going to need you and Boss to stay on the Victory.”

“Huh?” she said inadvertently, but he kept talking: “If the cannons miss any ships, we’ll need to rely on Boss to sink them. Furthermore, having you assist with the mortar teams will speed up their rates of fire quite a lot.”

“B.B…” She stammered, and in this moment, she was back on Clockwork Island… and she was back on Little East Blue.

“B…B.” she stammered again before exploding: “b.But that’s not fair!”

“Bill! You can’t do that!” She said, stomping and gritting her teeth as she spat: “I have Boss to back me up! I’m faster and stronger than almost everyone else… y.you… You can’t do this to me!”

By the end she was shouting out loud, not thinking twice about who could hear, and tears started welling up in her eyes.

She remembered being sent away the last time she had seen her father, and she remembered being told to wait with Miyagi.

But she had trained so hard for so long. She didn’t go and play like the other kids like Akisu did; she spent all day every day with the Special Operators or around Boss. She had worked so hard for this.

Seeing Bill not answer her, she spoke what came to her mind: “This… this isn’t Justice!”

Looking at the girl in front of him Bill wanted to tell her that justice was not a phrase to throw around whenever she didn’t get her way but, seeing that Yoko had really expected to go onshore, he couldn’t bare being too harsh and instead said:

“Now, don’t make a scene and just listen.” When he said this, it looked like Yoko remembered something and turned slightly to Akisu, but not minding it too much he continued: “Boss must stay on the ship and guard the harbor from escaping pirates, and I am ordering you to stay behind to direc...”

Before he was able to finish his sentence, the thirteen-year-old turned and ran away, taking the stairs down towards the women’s bunk rooms.

Of course, Bill knew just how strong Yoko had become. If all that mattered was physical ability, then she would be going onshore with the assault teams. However, he would not put a kid in harms way and seeing her act this way made him question whether or not he had been wrong to allow the Chore Boys off New Haven.

But there was nothing that he could do now, and after saying some encouraging words to Akisu he turned around to Boss.

“Now listen here.” he spoke seriously. Bill knew Boss was smart enough to roughly understand human speech and so continued to say simply: “You’re not going to fly around irresponsibly. Don’t stray from the ship. If you see any pirate ship getting close just set it on fire, don’t try and ram it.”

Seeing the car-sized Beetle nod and lay down, Bill felt it more or less understood and then he went to meet with the leaders of the ground assault.

This special military operation would primarily feature twenty teams of fifteen Marines each. These teams would make their way up the mountainside city and subdue anyone who resisted.

The twenty Beetleborgs would be groups of four and be held in reserve and would respond to the flares as needed. Given their Pulse Boots and Gloves, Bill suspected that they would be able to more or less hold on even against dangerous pirates to allow the regular troops time to fall back.

The final reserve troop would be his Lieutenants, who Bill had total faith in.

Command of the two ships and their crews was given to Nelson, who had surprised Bill when he came up with the general strategy and had really taken the role seriously. Nelson would have a total of eighty Marines, and his primary role was to anticipate where and when to deploy them.

By the end of the meeting the two ships had been in Hannabal harbor for roughly two hours, they had sent word to the island authorities and informed them of the special military operation.

After everything had been laid out the team leaders knew their duties while Bill, Bascud, and Borodo were lowered on a small single-sailed boat.

Their goal was to cut the head off the snake and take out Gaspardes crew before they had any chances to wreak havoc or escape.

Borodo hadn’t been keen to join the small group, but Bascud didn’t have a lot of information on the pirate’s hideout Bill knew that Borodo’s quick thinking and resourcefulness would be critical.

As their single mast ship went ahead of the others, Bill looked back and saw teams of men boarding the rowboats and being lowered in the water and knew that his little group needed to be quick.

As Bill turned back around to face the island, he was being watched by many of the Marines who served under him and seeing their Captain lead the way was a huge boost to moral, even for the newly enlisted Ruluka Marines.

One such new recruit was a young man named Pearson, who having lived all his entire life on Ruluka Island could have never imagined that he would be where he was today.

Thinking back to when he joined the defense force, Pearson’s lifetime ambition was to get a nice cushiony job and even though he had never been accused of being very intelligent, at least he knew how to read a room.

On Ruluka Island the best job was undoubtedly the defense forces, sure there were times when they had to look tough against some pirate crew, but Pearson was an expert at appearing to be quick and brave when in actuality he would always end up in the rearguard.

He was so good at this in fact that before the age of twenty he ended up as one of the Mayors most prized soldiers. Pearson loved this role as he was paid very well and was able to spend copious amounts of time unengaged with anything besides whatever his interests that day were.

Sure, there were downsides like having to follow around the Mayors dumb grandson, but even that job could be limited by the excuse of him going to the shooting range or ‘inspecting the perimeter’.

Like most Ruluka islanders, Pearson didn’t love the Mayor, but so what? he didn’t need to love the man as long as he was paid.

The towns people complained about getting extra taxed at restaurants and bars, but they still had enough money to buy those things so what was the problem? If they really cared, they should have become soldiers too, Pearson thought.

‘Then it all came crashing down.’ Pearson thought irritably as he paddled just slow enough to ensure his teams rowboat didn’t hit land first.

The Marines came to town, and it turned out the Mayor was an old pirate!

Pearson had been there the night that the tall Marine Captain had confronted Wetton with his ‘elites’, and just thinking about that nightmare made his back wet with sweat.

The big man had peeled Wetton, his son, and the defense force captain out of their battle suits like he was peeling open a can of tuna.

Of course, before that, he had been ‘knocked out’ – or that was what he called immediately hitting the deck as the thunderstorm in human skin ripped through his witless comrades.

After that he was tied up, arrested, and barely managed to talk his way out of being labeled a pirate by showing his ‘sincerity’ about how much he ‘hated pirates’ and volunteered to join the Marines.

Grimacing as his rowboat finally hit the dock, Pearson thought that if he had known then what now he knew a prison cell wouldn’t have seemed so bad.

Looking over his team, Pearson was the only Ruluka islander who had any command in this operation. His reputation seemed to precede him and once he had been nominated out of a group of lazy-eyed raw recruits he had tried to humbly turn it down.

But unfortunately, the fat tactician wouldn’t take no for an answer, and thinking on his feet Pearson accepted the responsibility on the condition that his team was positioned nearest the city’s government buildings and naval batteries.

This had earned him more looks of adoration from the Ruluka islanders, and even some surprised looks from the more seasoned Marines, but in truth Pearson figured that the least fighting would be done by the island’s government headquarters.

Because even if this island was a pirate sanctuary, he thought the official government would not be so stupid as to shoot at Marines.

Once the last team had been rowed to the island the teams dispersed to their assigned areas. The pirate cove was located near the top of the mountain and that was their final destination.

Walking beside what appeared to be a courthouse, Pearson got the feeling he that needed to check his rifle and as he did, so he happened to turn his head to see a metallic glint from inside a large second story window.

‘By the…’ he thought at the same time he shouted: “MOVE MOVE MOVE!!”

His team, already on edge, became startled gazelle and jumped in all directions as the first gun fire rang through the air.