The Marine

Being a mere week’s sail to Alabasta Kingdom, where he had hoped to secure the much-needed merchant contracts to keep them financially afloat, he was told that the proposal was withdrawn.

Bill still couldn’t quite believe what he had heard from his Lieutenant Commander.

Ranse had described to him an odd situation where he had the rest of the crew were immediately being expelled from the kingdom by the captain of the Royal Guards himself.

“After he told us to leave the man started twirling around like a ballerino!!”

 It was very strange, Bill thought, but at the end of the day what could they do?

The fact was that they had no authority to demand a meeting with King Cobra, and they had been refused by other kingdoms simply out of hand.

This put him in a bad way, currently his Procurement Department had about 35m Beli in hard cash, but they were paying out just under 7m Beli per month in salaries.

That number was even worse than it seemed because not only was he paying the factory workers half of what they deserved, at the end of the year the Science Division would expect to start seeing their yearly revenue from him.

Sitting in his office, Bill sat back and thought of what to do next.

His expenses far outweighed his income because he had expanded his operation too fast; he realized this long ago but what was he supposed to do?

When Clockwork Island was destroyed, he felt partially responsible and so couldn’t just leave those people do their own ends.

Those people may have been slaves to Bear King, but Bill had been determined to give them the option of a new life and started that by paying a wage.

Thinking this when he got the news from Ranse, it had been decided to weigh anchor at a nearby island instead of turning around.

When he had given the orders to his confused Navigators, Bill didn’t go into detail and instead only spoke about it freely with Nelson, who had told Bill that he needed to stop dallying and go collect bounties.

He knew that it was the only immediate solution, but it stung because his vision of himself wanted to believe that he could build something great with him mind instead of resorting back to his fists.

Bill knew that the truth of it was if it hadn’t been for the few small bounties Sasha and Ranse had caught, in addition to the King Cannon sales, he would have already been in debt.

They didn’t know where they were headed but if Borodo followed the Log Pose then he was sure that they would be able to reunite the two ships.

Taking a deep breath, Bill left the office and continued the next couple days as he had before. Yoko, and the Beetleborgs trained Iron Body and Boss would fly around the ship.

It wasn’t until the third day after Ranse’s message Bill and the others saw land ahead.

There was no island in sight but seeing large pillars dot the horizon was the tell-tale sign that they were near.

As the ship entered the pillars, it required all hands-on deck. The M.S.S Victory was a massive galleon and even a light bump would wreck one of the sides.

For Bill’s part, he stayed hovering above the ship ready to intervene. He laughed to himself that his plan was push the ship to one side or the other if need be.

Most of the time he didn’t think about how strong he’d become, like when he ripped up a portion of the seabed around New Haven, it was just ‘work’. It tended to be the small things that would make him stop and think, when he pulled a tree up by the roots or held a pallet-sized block of stone.

He was joined in the sky by Yoko who was riding Boss. Bill didn’t really mind the constant company, but the buzz of the beetles’ wings did get annoying after a while. To make matters worse they were so loud that Yoko had to scream just for him to hear her.

Thankfully it didn’t take too long to cross through the pillars and landing back on the ship Bill discarded his annoyance thinking: ‘Well, that’s life.’

Standing at the bow of the ship, he was the first to see the town.

The place seemed to be made of stone and was built crawling up the side of a mountain. Off to the side of the town stood a huge tower, far larger than what any lighthouse would have been.

As the ship neared the harbor, Bill noticed that the docks were little more than wooden jetties and because of this decided to weigh anchor before getting too close.

After several weeks on the open ocean his men were eager to touch dry land, but first he needed to see if the water was deep enough to bring the ship to port.

So, after quickly arranging his people, he set down with one of the ships rowboat accompanied by Yoko and four of his Beetleborgs.

Nelson was finally mobile enough to get himself around, but Bill had thought it better to leave him on the ship just in case. He hadn’t yet considered Nelson one of his Lieutenants, but the man’s tactical skill was undeniable, and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

They didn’t bring along any rivet rifles. Bill had decided that going armed on an unknown but apparently civilized island was too risky, and so only allowed Pulse Boots and Gloves, even Yoko had to leave behind her war hammer.

As the rowboat was lowered into the water, Yoko asked Bill why they were doing it this way since he could have just flown over, and he answered her by saying: “There’re two reasons. First is that you should always keep your cards close to your chest. Second, we want to make a good first impression with the locals.

If I dived down to see how deep the harbor was and then flew over to announce that we’ve arrived, the people here may still act friendly, but in their hearts they would either be fearful or suspicious.”

The girl nodded that she somewhat understood, and as his four Special Operators rowed Bill tried to explain to her the importance of first impressions.

With four rowers it didn’t take long before the boat pulled up beside the pier and as two Beetleborgs tied it off and stayed behind, Bill and the others went forward.

Looking around Bill thought this was a nice town. He hadn’t been on very many non-Marine islands, but the variety of construction was always interesting to him.

As he looked around with the others, he heard footsteps coming from his left. This wasn’t surprising, considering the huge Marine galleon must have caught somebody’s attention.

?: “Halt!”

Though he had noticed them, Bill turned slowly and was met by two dozen men wearing purple and burgundy uniforms with gray-steel helmets and carrying some form of rifle that Bill had never encountered.

Leading the group was a red-haired young man with thick sideburns. He was perhaps Bill’s age and seeing that he had their attention started shouting about them either paying a harbor tax or getting arrested.

What the man was saying wasn’t very clear to Bill, who couldn’t imagine being treated like a criminal after just stepping on to an island, but the longer he was silent the more the red-haired young man seemed to get carried away with his threats.

As the man continued, Bill heard the two Special Operators he had left at the rowboat start walking up from behind. Thinking that they must had seen the commotion and come to provide support, Bill knew he had to stop the guy from getting too carried away.

Seeing that this young man apparently didn’t need to breath, Bill just cut him off by starting with a: “Woah, woah!”

This seemed to work, and so he continued: “You have a harbor fee? We’ll that’s understandable, my men and I had just come to se…- “You FOOLLL!”

This time it was Bill’s turn to get cut off as an older red-haired man ran towards the two groups.

Startled by the shout, the young man turned around just in time to get put in a headlock.

?: “Use your brain you fool!!”

This went on for several moments, and feeling Yoko nudge him, he heard her say: “Bill, I think something’s wrong with these peoples’ brains… we should find a new island.”

?: “No no! not at all!”

Releasing the younger man, the older one continued to speak: “My name is Flip, this is my son Lake, and we welcome you to Ruluka Island!”

Nodding his head to this, Bill said that he was to understand that there was a harbor tax, to which Flip replied: “No no! not at all! It’s our benefit to have Marines such as yourself here!

Er… but I do have to ask, why are you here exactly?”

After that Bill explained that he planned to stay in town for a few days while he waited for one of his Lieutenants and wanted to know if the harbor was deep enough to bring the Victory to port.

On the face of the request, Flip had been gracious enough to welcome Bill and the other Marines, but there was one issue when he said.

Flip: “Unfortunately, the harbor here is shallow! The largest ships that don’t run the risk of grounding are just smaller frigates.”

‘Father needs to know about this, we can’t have Marines snooping around! Damn, don’t we pay the tribute on time?!’

Thanks to years of interactions with Nelson, especially during those early days, Bill had trained himself to listen to people’s true intentions.

He wasn’t a lie detector, but when a known falsehood was spoken, he could hear the incongruity between the spirit and the real body.

On Earth his mother had always told him that ‘lying without repentance and forgiveness leads to the second death’, and because he had believed, he had just taken that on faith.

It was only now after being reborn into a strange land that he knew it to be true, that lying really did seem to disrupt whatever the connection was between the real body and spirit.

But, despite know the man was lying to him, Bill didn’t show it on his face and instead continued to speak normally.

“I see, well that’s a shame.

Listen, Mr. Flip, I have about a hundred Marines that have been out at sea for too long. They just received their pay and I’m sure would like to stretch their legs.”

When he spoke, Bill could see the older man’s mood shift. He clearly didn’t want any Marines walking around the island, but also, he seemed to want to money they would be bringing.

“So how about it, do you have any local restaurants or bars that you’d recommend?”

Flip: “Ehhh, y.yes of course… but perha..-

?: “Perhaps you’d like to accompany me while you wait for your Lieutenants.”

From behind the group of armed soldiers walked an even older red-haired man leaning on a horned red cane, given the similarities Bill assume this to be the young man’s grandfather and turned out to be correct when he introduced himself.

?: “My name is Wetton, and I’m the Mayor of this Ruluka Island.

I hope you forgive my son and grandson for their behavior if it’s necessary, we don’t get many visits by Marines, you see, and they’ve spent their lives on this island.”

So far Bill could tell that the man wasn’t lying, but he also heard dozens of metallic footsteps coming from behind the buildings all around.

Still not showing any knowledge of this, Bill patiently listened to the Mayor continue: “Because Marines are so rare here, I’m sure you’ll understand the need to have some of my men accompany them as… as guides around town.

We have several great establishments where they can be refreshed, if they have other more pressing needs, we have places for that too.”

Bill knew that during the Age of Sail on Earth, red-light districts were very common. Sailors would be out as sea for months at a time and when they came to shore, they wanted the company of a woman.

Funny as it was though, he hadn’t ever seen anything like that in this world and never really thought about it.

Perhaps it was because in this world about twenty percent of any random crew were women, after all in a world of superhuman, biological differences were lessened to a degree.

Shaking his head, Bill pushed that thought aside and replied to the Mayor evenly: “That’s understandable, we don’t want the town people to think there’s any problems requiring Marine aid.

I’ll go back to the ship first and tell the sailors, then how about you or your son guide me around town and show me the sights.”

Letting out a laugh to this, Wetton told Bill that instead of seeing their boring town he should come to the Mayor’s Mansion and relax after his long voyage.

Despite hearing Wetton’s true feelings, Bill agreed to this dumbly and after excusing himself he stumbled over as he got into the rowboat.

Although he didn’t say it, he was proud of Yoko and the Special Operators who let him do the talking without him having to remind them.

Once they got out of earshot, it was naturally Yoko who first spoke up: “Bill, what in the world just happened? We’re Marines, how come we need chaperones?!”

To this he smiled a bit, thankful that she hadn’t asked about anything else, and said: “There’s something going on in this town that the ‘good Mayor’ doesn’t want us to see.”

When he said this, one of the Special Operators looked at him offered a: “I thought so too, Sir.”

This wasn’t surprising, fourteen of the twenty ‘Beetleborgs’ were former Clockwork Island residents. They had lived as slaves under Bear King and were naturally sensitive to this kind of thing.

Yoko: “What is it, pirates?!”

After telling the girl to calm down, Bill said: “We’ll find out in time, for now we’ll just go in groups and be careful.”

Getting back to the Victory, Bill gave out the regulations for going ashore.

The Marines had to get together in squads of at least eight with one Special Operator in each group.

“Furthermore, do not get too close with those soldiers who are acting as guides. Do not go off alone with them. Go to the bathroom in pairs only.”

Bill hadn’t spelled out the situation to the rank-and-file Mates, but he had taken his group of twenty Special Operators aside and explained to them that they needed to stay on guard.

With their Pulse Boots and Gloves, they should be safe enough he thought, but if anything happened, they were to first see their group to safety then create a commotion.

Boss would be staying on the ship, and if something happened where Bill couldn’t see, the beetle would fly by.

Once everything was taken care of, the first couple groups got on an adjacent rowboat and following Bill they came to shore.

Wetton was still standing there waiting for him.