Rat Race II: Unilaterally Assured Destruction [Austritaria]

[Grand Britaria]

Prologue
Soranto Hall was indeed an elegant place.

The workplace of the President of the Republic was built in the mid-19th century during the First Britarian Republic to house the Chancellor and his staff. It had been used as a personal office and apartment complex by the monarchy during the Second Britarian Empire but had largely been abandoned by the turn of the century. In the weeks before President Laurent took office, the government had ordered Soranto Hall renovated and re-established as the epicentre of the presidency. In just two years the building had been transformed from a shell clinging to life in central Illirea to a bustling administrative and political hub. Laurent was nothing if not efficient.

Beautiful paintings adorned the hallways that were highways for suits. Spacious waiting rooms appeared at the end of certain corridors. Offices clinging to the corridors provided workplaces for civil servants. The exterior belied the true size and scope of the building; the warren of offices, hallways and waiting rooms would prove incredibly confusing for a first-time visitor. One could easily find themselves lost and walk straight past the entrance to the President's private solar and office, just like Anton had.

He knocked on the door to the Presidential office with a sharp rap. "Come in," he heard, and Lieutenant Anton Lemaire entered.

The office was surprisingly minimalist compared to the rest of Soranto Hall. A large mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room yet it was not covered in papers or clutter; Laurent kept a tidy office, that was for sure. The man himself was stood by a window drinking from a glass of water. His ashen hair complemented his grey suit and his trimmed beard. "Lieutenant Lemaire," he smiled as he shook Anton's hand. "Please take a seat. Would you care for a glass of water?"
"No thank you sir," Anton sat before the desk."
"As you will. I admit I've heard rather a lot about you in recent days, Lieutenant. Can you wonder why?" Laurent must have noticed Anton's brow furrowing since he chuckled and perched himself on the end of his desk. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. It's nothing bad."
"I couldn't think why, sir," he replied. "I'm quite unremarkable."
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, you see. You are infact quite the opposite. Your superiors have called you a rising star in the Marine Service."
"My superiors are too kind, sir." Anton replied modestly, yet Laurent was not wrong. He had joined the Marines at a young age and had earnt his officer commission quickly with a string of promotions following that. Lemaire was widely regarded as diligent and loyal, a true soldier with integrity.
Laurent smiled again, a charming and wry smile. He sipped his water. "Tell me Lieutenant, have you ever heard of a man by the name of Etienne Marchand?" Anton racked his brains but could find no answer. He shook his head. "Marchand was a junior diplomatic assistant to a man named Jacopo Dandierri. Does that name ring a bell?"
"Dandierri..." Anton mused. "The official imprisoned for murdering his mistress a few years ago?"
"Precisely the man, Lieutenant, though Dandierri went to prison for many more charges as well. He'd been running a drug smuggling ring situated in Weralt, abusing his position as ambassador to the Korousean government. Yet when the authorities found out, Dandierri managed to shift the blame to someone else working at the Britarian embassy in Heiden."
"Etienne Marchand?" Anton enquired.
"Yes, Lieutenant, Marchand! He went to prison for four years until he was released early."
"Four years for drug smuggling isn't very long, sir," Anton pointed out.
Laurent nodded. "Marchand was released early because Dandierri was able to get him an early release."
"Why?"
"He struck a deal with Anne-Marie Marchand, the wife of our poor prisoner. She would become his mistress in exchange for Dandierri using his political clout to secure Marchands release. She agreed, though I imagine it was reluctantly. Though as a mistress of Jacopo Dandierri I'm sure she enjoyed his protection and wealth. For a time, at least."
Suddenly, Anton realised. "The woman that Dandierri had killed was Marchands wife, wasn't it?"
The President nodded ruefully. "Etienne never knew about the affair. We have reason to believe that he left the country not long after his release to go pirating in the Euxine Ocean under the name of Garrett Flynn." Laurent finished his water.
"Does Marchand know? That his wife is dead?"
Laurent shrugged. "We don't know. What we do know, however, is that their daughter Eleanor went missing not two weeks past. It's likely she's been abducted, perhaps by people in the employ of Captain Flynn."
Lemaire lowered his head respectfully. "That poor girl."
The President stood and smoothed down his suit. "Quite," he said. He opened a draw in his desk and took out a folder which he handed to Anton. "I think it's high time we put a stop to Marchand's piracies." Anton opened the folder. He found a mission brief and a letter addressed to Etienne Marchand which he took out the folder. "I haven't the faintest idea whether or not Marchand knows about his wife's death or about his daughter's disappearance. What you hold in your hands is an official pardon for the crimes that he did not commit. Accompanying it is a letter informing him of the events I have just informed you about. Should he accept the pardon, he will return to Grand Britaria for a trial."
"I don't imagine he's going to just submit himself to a trial for piracy, sir."
"Neither do I, yet should he accept I'm sure the judges in his trial would give a verdict in light of both his family tragedies and his false criminal history. I have said as much in the letter to him."
"So I am to find Marchand and offer him this?" Anton asked. "Is this pardon known about publicly?"
"It isn't, and that isn't your mission in its entirety. Ideally, you would find Marchand, he'd accept the pardon, come home, stand trial and be given a lenient sentence and that would see the matter closed. Yet I am not naive. This man is a hardened raider. Last year he destroyed the private villa of a very wealthy man and has consistently pillaged ships for nigh on eight years.
So what I task you with is this: find Marchand's daughter. Bring her to him. Convince him that taking this pardon is in the interests of his daughter and, if Marchand appears unwilling to accept it, kill him and put an end to his piracies once and for all."

The Captain, the Reliable, north-eastern Idderan Ocean
"Fuck." He muttered, stroking his goatee.

They'd lost her.

The Reliable had spent the last year and a half thundering across the waves of Austritaria in pursuit of one particular warship. They'd caught her trail as the prize made her escape across the Euxine. The prize ported in Punta Asul and again in San Huwan, forcing the Reliable to break off the chase or risk capture in Mon Balvedos. Sending men to infiltrate the town, the crew discovered that the warship's cargo had been transported overland to Kaisena so they departed for that Icrumese harbour, whereupon they learnt that the cargo had been shipped onto a fast vessel to make the escape back to El Dique Seco, off the coast of Rio de Fuego. The Reliable took several prizes between Kaisena and the Vanetian coast before arriving at the ruined villa of one Nicolas Fernier. Upon finding the cruiser there, the new prize ship fled and a fierce chase ensued that led them through the Uvallan islands and eventually into the Idderan Ocean.

Yet now the trail had gone cold and the Reliable had lost their prize.

"You're certain we're not picking up her signals?"

“Nothing,” his quartermaster said bitterly. Tarquin Smolitt’s flinty eyes looked out over his aquiline nose. He still wore his old naval uniform. “Absolute fucking nothing. We’ve lost the bitch.”
Lieutenant Tarquin Smolitt had been one of the Igorian officers who supported Flynn’s captaincy of the Reliable after the untimely death of the previous captain, Edouard Krysyuk. Smolitt’s support of Flynn came at the price of him being made quartermaster. It would not be proper to have a Britarian captain presiding over a predominantly Igorian crew, after all. Upon his ascension to captain, Lieutenants Arbogast and Blondt, blue-blooded Igorian sailors to the bone, deserted with swathes of disillusioned Igorian crewmembers. Whilst his crew was still sufficient, it had certainly depleted Flynn’s force.
“Fuck,” the captain cursed again. He clenched his fist and slammed the desk in frustration. His cabin was more spacious than his quarters aboard the Belladonna. When he took up residence, the desk was bowed out of shape, the chair was broken and the austere cabin was devoid of any books. Flynn had since replaced the desk and chair, added ornaments such as a standing globe and filled the shelves with literature.
“We could continue on our present course, captain,” suggested Smolitt. “She might have slipped away through the Centulan Passage and into the Tyrophelian.”
“Quartermaster,” Flynn said. “There are a dozen routes that ship could have taken to elude us. She may, as you suggest, have sailed through into the Tyrophelian. She may have turned north to port in Vaeroxia or Nobique. She may have turned south to hurry along the coast of Sakuma. She may have headed north to Britaria or Korouse or the goddamn Cratic Oligarchy. We don’t have the provisions to follow her down the Sakuman Coast, nor do I intend to risk our capture by sailing to close to Centulas or Weralt.”
Smolitt snorted. “So we’re to sail through the Centulan Passage then? As I suggested?”
Flynn stared at him coolly. He did not appreciate Smolitt’s tone. “We’re in dire need of resupply. We’ll sail through the Passage and dock at Egal Cove. There we’ll refit, gather provisions and head out again.”
“But we have no idea where she’s gone. How are we going to be able to find her again once we leave New Kipaz?”
“I’m going to see Leonid Glavnyj. He helped me before, he’ll help us again. There are few men I’d trust more than him to help us in this endeavour.” Smolitt began to speak in protest but Flynn raised a hand. “Quartermaster Smolitt, I hope I don’t need to remind you of your duties and I’d ask you make ready preparations to head for Egal Cove. Quickly, if you please. Once you’ve seen to that, send Mr Sauverre to my cabin.”
“As you wish,” Smolitt said curtly. “Captain.” He closed shut the door and left Flynn to his thoughts.

Flynn took a book off his shelf, The Life and Adventures of Lucius Gaspius, seated himself behind his desk and immersed himself in the literature. Yet he could not help but think of his family. The prize they were hunting was Levoneau’s Last Piece, a semi-legendary painting that disappeared centuries ago soon after it was completed. The artwork was unimaginably valuable and finding it would allow the weary captain to reunite with his family.

The captain was engrossed in his literature when James Sauverre entered his cabin without a knock but with a swagger. His flowing blonde hair had been tied back into a tail similar to Flynn’s, though his war much longer. A lining of light stubble graced his jaw and his bright blue eyes shone. “The Snake sent for me,” he announced dryly. Sauverre had taken to calling Smolitt ‘the Snake’ after the former Lieutenant had been given Flynn’s support for quartermaster over James himself.
“Stop calling him that.” Flynn motioned for him to sit.
The younger man kicked his feet up onto the desk as he seated himself, much to Flynn’s distaste. “I don’t say it to his face,” he said. “I know what that man can do to them he doesn’t take a fancy to. He brushed a stray lock of sandy hair out of his face. “How can I be of service to our most illustrious dread captain?”
“We lost the prize ship. She’s slipped away,” Flynn replied through gritted teeth. Sooner or later the men will need to be told but we cannot risk a mutiny.” Flynn had poor luck when it came to the morale of his men. Though he was respected and feared, few loved him. Sauverre had often been the man who bound the crew together, his wily and easy charm making him friends everywhere he went. “We’re returning to Egal Cove to resupply and I’ll make contact with Glavnyj to plan our next steps. They’ll expect some time in the town but every day we waste is a day that our prize slips further away. I need them to be focused and on board with this endeavour. I need you to get them on board with it.” Sauverre snorted. “Did I say something you find amusing?”
“I’m getting quite tired of playing this game, I’ve got to admit. Tame the crew this way, tame them that way, stop them from being pissed off when they’ve still not been paid, convince them that your vision is in their best interests, and on and on and on.”
“This is in their best interests. It’s in your best interests. The money we’d get from that prize is beyond count. You know that.” Flynn was growing irate with the inability of his officers to follow simple orders. Sauverre began to talk but Flynn interrupted. “There is no doubting this, there is no questioning this. We have lost her for now but we will find that ship, and when we do you and every other man on this ship will be richer than their wildest dreams. You don’t get to live the dream without a bit of self-sacrifice. Count yourself lucky that the only sacrifice you’re making here is that you feel tired.”
Sauverre’s cerulean eyes darkened. “As you wish, captain.” He gave a mock bow and left the cabin.

Flynn buried his head in his hands. I am beset by fools and dissidents. Ire flashed and the glass on his desk was cast to the floor to shatter into a thousand pieces. The crimson dregs of wine crept out of the wreckage of the glass along the floor. As he watched the wine spread, he couldn’t help but think; Blood will be shed for that painting. Blood beyond count.

[Igoria]

The Reliable, Idderan Ocean

Smolitt sat, bolt upright in his bunk, and realised that his cabin was full of water. He gasped in mute shock, fish-like, and immediately felt his throat seize up and his ears pound, and he knew that he was drowning. He sat there for several minutes, limbs numb and motionless, his muscles seemingly having atrophied out of senseless, irrational fear.
Several minutes more, and his wits returned to his mind before feeling had returned to his body. He couldn’t be drowning. After all, he could not have held his breath for ten minutes. Cautiously, almost timidly at first, Tarquin Smolitt took his first conscious breath and immediately expelled it with a sigh of relief. Air, nothing but cold, pure air, or as cold and pure as air could get down in the bowels of a large warship.

No sooner had his fear abated, and feeling flooded back into his limbs, then another jolt of fear wracked the naval-lieutenant-turned-pirate-quartermaster’s body with the force of one trireme ramming another. His cabin door, barely visible to him through the murky gloom of the deep sea, had slowly opened. A figure stepped through, dressed in black. Not a terribly tall figure, it was stocky, with thick, heavy limbs and little neck. An old naval captain’s cap was jammed onto its head. The figure moved sluggishly, its movements slowed by the weight of fathoms of seawater, as it pulled up one of Tarquin’s chairs and sat down opposite him. In the dim light, Smolitt could barely make out his own fingers a foot from his face. The figure was seemingly bothered by this, and, reaching into its pocket, it produced a glow stick, which it cracked once, producing a dull green light. Letting the glow stick slip through its clumsy fingers, the two of them watched the stick settle gently to the floor before Tarquin had the courage to look the figure in the face.

What he saw sent another jolt through him. The skin was milky pale and bloodless, swollen as only the face of a corpse buried at sea could be. Yet despite its horrific state, Tarquin could recognise the face of Edouard Krysyuk anywhere.
His old friend’s ruined visage was contorted with a grim smile. “Tarquin Smolitt,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Smolitt said nothing at first. At last, he spat out, “You’re dead.”
“Aye,” Edouard nodded melancholically, “that I am. You killed me,” he added, indicating his ruined throat, the very throat that Smolitt had sawed through when he had ambushed his friend that night, right after the battle.
“I had no choice-“ Smolitt began, but he caught himself. He’d had a choice, and he had chosen greed over loyalty. Mustering his resolve, Tarquin answered coolly, “I did what I deemed necessary.” For the good of the crew, and the ship, he would have added, had he not known how pathetic and hollow it would have sounded.
“That you did,” Edouard said, knowingly, “It’s what you always did, and it’s what I should have done long ago.”
“Done what?” Tarquin asked.
“Done you in,” Edouard finished, with a pained smile. He continued, “I should never have trusted you. Hindsight is always twenty/twenty, I had been told, and that saying is true in this case too. What I regret most is that I had always known not to trust you, I just ignored the numerous, repeated hints. On top of that, I wasn’t you. I just didn’t ‘do what needed to be done’. That’s what I envied about you, Tarquin. But I also pitied you.”
“Pitied me?” Smolitt asked, incredulous. He couldn’t believe that the man would drag himself out of his cold, watery grave to tell him about pity.
“Oh, yes. Pitied you. Pitied you for who you were. For who you are. For your greed. For your love of killing. Tell me, Smolitt,” Captain Edouard Krysyuk said, leaning in over to Smolitt, “did you find it so sweet ever since you stuck that knife in her?”

A rage boiled up suddenly, one that Tarquin had known to have been there all along, laying dormant. Gritting his teeth, he snarled, “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” as he moved to wrap his fingers around Edouard’s throat. But here, many fathoms under the surface of the sea, he moved as through jelly, and Edouard was much quicker, pinning his former subordinate down with one meaty, blotchy, swollen hand as he raised his officer’s dirk to Tarquin’s throat with the other.
“I do what needs to be done,” the departed captain said with sorrow as he made his deft cut.

Light years away, the real Tarquin Smolitt awoke. The digital alarm clock by his bunk flashed 4:43 AM. Making sure that he was, in fact, still alive, Tarquin looked about his small cabin. Freed from the deep-sea murk of his fevered dream, the cabin had not become all that much more homely. It remained austere, the walls undecorated, the shelves empty. His small writing desk, standing by the wall beneath the porthole, was home to the only piece of decoration. It was a small, framed photograph, depicting a young, fresh-faced Tarquin Smolitt, in a new, crisp naval uniform, standing side by side with a shorter man in a grey, pinstriped suit: his elder brother, Ippolit. It struck him then how little thought he’d given to his brother’s fate: it had been Ippolit’s arrest for his role in their little drug-smuggling operation that had prompted Edouard Krysyuk to flee with the ship a year and a half ago, knowing full well that the Ministry of Crown Security would be on to them before long. That, and misguided ambitions of seizing Asad Egal’s nuclear arsenal. Smolitt smirked at the thought of his brother in prison – an emphemeral thought, for Tarquin knew perfectly well that his brother, ever the talker, and an unscrupulous weasel to a fault, had no doubt made a deal of some sort, most likely selling out his clients and associates. Though Tarquin and Ippolit may not have been very much alike, they did share a knack for self-preservation.

Peeling back the covers, the former Lieutenant swung his long legs over, and, having planted his feet solidly on the cold floor of his cabin, thought silently on the dream he had just seen. It was not the first of its kind. For nigh on a year he had been plagued by these long-standing ghosts of his naval past: the friends he had betrayed, the honest men he had murdered, and her. He was confused and angry; none of the things he had done had ever bothered him in the slightest for close to fourteen years – after all, they had been necessary for self-preservation, and Tarquin Smolitt was nothing if not a survivor. Why now, then? Why was the killing of Edouard Krysyuk and the uneasy alliance with Garrett Flynn so (seemingly) different as to arouse something reminiscent of a conscience within him? Smolitt, for the life of him, could not understand, though he had admittedly not given it all that much thought, his mind having been preoccupied with the hunt for Levoneau’s Last Piece. It was for this very reason that Smolitt resolved to banish these thoughts. He could not afford to be distracted, particularly now that they had lost contact with their prize.

As Quartermaster, it fell on him not only to manage much of the day-to-day running of the Reliable, but also to maintain discipline among the multi-national and multi-lingual crew, which was no mean feat, as the language barrier, as well as certain long-standing national prejudices and rivalries, ensured that fights between different groups were all too common. The lingua franca on board the ship was Cratic, but the most sizeable ethnic contingents, namely the Igorians and Britarians, who together made up well over half the crew (with the Igorians outnumbering the Britarians more than two to one), could afford to keep largely to themselves and go on speaking their own languages. Smolitt was aided in his job by two things: his ability to speake Cratic and Britarian (in addition to his mother tongue, Igorian) with a relatively high degree of fluency; and his propensity to instill fear in those around him.
The fact that they had lost their prize would only make his job tougher: the crew had been chasing Levoneau’s Last Piece for a year and a half, and those that had been part of Flynn’s crew prior to his seizing of the Reliable had been after it for even longer. The news that, after an arduous chase, they had lost their target would not go down well once it finally broke.

What irked Tarquin was not the fact that he had his work cut out for him, but the fact that he would have to labour together with James Suaverre to successfully accomplish it. Oh, how he hated that fucking ponce, and he knew full well that the feeling was mutual. The two men were as different as could be, both in general and in their approach to taming the crew. Smolitt was a strict disciplinarian molded by harsh military discipline; he would maintain order through fear, handing out threats and punishments to the most outspoken crewmembers, and bribing the more malleable ones with cheap trinkets such as larger shares of plunder or extra rum and tobacco rations.
Suaverre, on the other hand, with his easy smiles, good looks and wily charm, would appeal to the crewmembers as a friend, and would win them over to his side with a smile and a jest.
Together, the two men were a potent force for keeping the crew quiet and, if not happy, then at the very least willing to follow their captain for a little while longer. Nonetheless, they loathed each other.

Smolitt got up from his bunk and stripped down before going over to his small wardrobe. Opening it, he instinctively reached for his old naval uniform, which hung neatly on a hanger. However, he stopped himself. He needed to leave the past, and all it brought with it, behind him. Instead, Smolitt reached for a lower drawer, and chose something else: a black turtleneck with khaki cargo pants, over which he fastened a utility belt with his holstered pistol and naval officer’s dirk, which he wore for close work instead of a combat knife.
He left his cabin and exited out onto the open deck. In the early morning breeze, the Idderan Ocean was a picture of tranquility, its waves gently lapping the hull of the Reliable as she ploughed towards Egal Cove at a steady 26 knots. Quartermaster Tarquin Smolitt stretched, yawned, and went about his duties.