Veronica Stone

Pt. 11

"DE F#%@!? HAMID I TELL YOU DO SAIN WID DE BLASTED SHARK YA JOHNNY!?", Veronica screamed. She was really upset at Madness but she didn’t even comprehend that herself. 

"I THOUGHT-SH@#!!!", Rayyan was interrupted by a charging overdoser and stopped his explanation to stave it back with shots from his assault rifle.

"THE CALVARY IS HERE BAYBEE!", a voice carrying an accent that reeked of too many Tom Mix films called through the intercom. 

By the time Veronica realized it was Ahmed the overdoser was already bathed in a violent torrent of blue flame. Ahmed kept the flamethrower trained on the overdoser, grimacing at the scorching air blowing back onto himself.

Veronica unlocked a new echelon of "upset". 

"AHMED YOU HEAD ADDLE!?", She didn't even have it in her to call him by his last name. 

"I AIN TELL YOU LEFF DE RASS@#$%& FLAMETROWER AT DE BASE!? I AIN TELL YOU SO?" 

One could see Veronica's crazed hand-motions all the way from the ship. Ahmed dropped his terrible mock accent but remained just as cocky.

"And aren't you glad I brought it?", he shut off the flame triumphantly. The overdoser had melted and fused into the now red hot and warped metal floor. Threat neutralized. 

"MY MAN YOU KNOW HOW MUCH DAT FLIPPING GAS COST HOW DE HELL I GINE EXPLAIN DIS TO DE BOARD YA JOHNNY AS YOU COME BACK I SUSPENDING YA RASS...wait…"

The line had gone silent. Veronica stood there dumbfounded. This couldn't really be happening. She wouldn't put nonsense like bringing along unauthorized weapons past Ahmed, but to cut her off like this? She was trembling with cold sweats. The disrespect sent her into shock. This was insanity. The blur of a woman wouldn't even look at her, she felt the sheer disgust radiating off of her. 

No...f#$% no...f%$@ sh#$ NO! I-

She didn't even know how she could excuse all of this. Her men didn't respect her, she couldn't even get simple maneuvers done without some sort of chaos, she was sleeping with one of her officers. She was nothing like her mother and her lip curled questioning herself on what on earth convinced her that she could ever hold a candle to that woman. How could she be so stupid?

F@#% this.

Shame grew into rage.

"KHALID TELL THAT ONE AHMED WHEN I SEE HIM I-"

The line was silent.

"OHHHHHH SO YOU TIRED OF ME TOO NUH? YOU HAD ENOUGH AH YOU INCOMPETENT PIECE AH SH*TE COMMANDER NUH! F@#% WUNNA F@#$ ALLA WUNNA!!"

Veronica's face was pouring, from her eyes to her nose. Memories of Rochelle harassing her flashed in her mind. She crumpled mentally and physically. 

Come on, you need to at least finish the mission.

Veronica sniffled and tapped the intercom for Trevor.

Look at me, coming crawling back to them. 

"T-Trevor... I just I can't take it I ju-"

Silent line. 

She tried Madness.

Silent line.

She could see them hopping across the containers, stopping to pick off any stragglers. They had had enough of carrying her weight, enough of the disappointment. Veronica held her head in her hands, fingers gripping into her skull with enough power to crush.

"Mum I so sorry... I fail dem, I fail you I fail dem I-I-I-"

PEW!!!

Veronica’s head flung up to watch a smokey orange dragon soar from the ship's deck into the clouds. Her heart fluttered in one way and tore in the other. She saw Shamsiah with the smoking flare gun discussing something with the others. She remembered Abdul and the left wing. They'd gotten to the jammer. 

If I did just…

If she had simply helped them out this wouldn't have happened. She knew they needed her support and she ignored them. There was a sense of relief that her men hadn't blatantly ignored her, but Veronica didn't feel any less of a failure. None of this should have happened. Not with a worthy commander. 

The blur of a woman backed her, now fuzzier and more unclear than ever. Veronica felt her presence mainly from how it stabbed her in the chest. 

Abandoned twice.

She wiped the snot away from her lip and whistled for one of the sharks to come. She had messed up time and time again but she had no choice but to have hope. The jig was up, she truely was a failure from the start. But she owed them too much, she had to become more for once at least. She had to keep trying. 

The men were on their way to the wing to deal with the jammer, Veronica watched on anxiously, fiddling with the whistles on her neck unconsciously. Her body ached to dive in and meet the shark half way but she fought it. Commanders were not rash. She glanced at the blur of the woman. Back still turned. She had lost her cool so many times on this mission alone. Veronica promised herself to get it right one last time. 

"Officer Persaud, come in! I repeat-"

No luck. If they hadn't restored communications at this point then the jammer must have been well hidden. Veronica reached into one of the tough boxes for the Vickers as well as some tracer rounds. Desperate times called for desperate measures. There was a chill in her fingers. Was she messing up again? This WAS taught to her in training, but was it appropriate? She looked to the blur of a woman again. Still nothing. Veronica swallowed hard. Of course she wouldn't pay her any attention, a true commander moved with confidence. Veronica steeled herself and loaded up the machine gun ammo and coolant with a new vigor. The best thing for everyone to do now was regroup, they were winning, they only had to watch for the desperate few pirates in hiding, it would be safer for them to gather themselves when communication was down. 

It took a minute for Veronica to remember her Morse but soon she was firing. Green flashes darted up into the air in a flow and then stopped and then started again and then stopped then the rhythm changed and then there was a long stream of shots and then an equally long pause before starting back again. The first message was to get their attention. Veronica looked around with Mansa Musa's scope to see who had noticed. She spotted men peeping out behind crates or through windows or waving from atop a container. There were enough that had noticed. They could relay to the rest. Veronica breathed a sigh of relief, and continued shooting her message into the sky. 

[-and gather in my sight.] Veronica's message ended. 

She could see the shark's fin slicing through the water in the distance. She placed down the Vickers and gathered frags, stuns and other tactical odds and ends to carry for her men. By the time she looked up from the tough box the space where she'd commanded the shark to meet her was empty. The patch of seawater just stared back at her dumbly.

Before she could finish her thought she noticed a swarm of shark fins tearing through the water away from the ship.

Trevor?

No, some of these fins belonged to Madness’s dolphins too. What were they doing?

She whistled for the sharks to stop. She whistled the command three times and by the third time the school had swam past her as if she were invisible. Her heart hammered. They were trained with these whistles since birth, if she were cruel she could order them to starve themselves and they would, she'd seen other witches do it before. Something was very wrong. 

At that moment, Veronica felt her gut float up to her chest and her body teeter over. The whaleshark was diving, and diving fast. She scrambled for her whistle as her knees sank under the water and called for it to stop. Yet she found herself treading the water to stay afloat. The whaleshark swam off. Veronica took a break from her panicked hyperventilating to holler.

"WHAT DE F-"

And then it hit her. It held her in a murky grasp and in an instant she understood.