Cavalier's Gambit 2 -ch 17-

Chapter 17

Wayne had looked to Anissa and found that she was wearing pants and the knees down were covered in shit.

“—rather terrifying,” Anissa said into the satelite phone. “Though I’m… grateful they sent you to rescue me.”

“They didn’t,” Wayne said immediately, watching the mini-map as they moved at a more sedate pace across an open field with trees here and there. “They sent me to get Todd and Mikaela.

“I heard your voice on the encrypted line while I was rescuing your cousins. Then I asked Mikaela if it was her, she said no. I played it for her, she said it was you.

“Then I went and tracked down the jammer, blew it up, contacted you. Then came and got you.”

“Ah,” Anissa said, staring into the cockpit again. She’d been looking off to the side up until that moment. “In other words, you’d rescued a prince and princess, and rather than finish your mission, you heard me, and came for me.”

“Yep!” Wayne said with a chuckle. The conversation had been carried out oddly, between the four of them, but it’d been carried out relatively well. “I’m not sure anyone even knows you’re here. If they were, they might have sent me after you? I don’t know.

“But I diverted off to come fetch you, Princess.

“Oh! Perfect. A river. How do you feel about becoming a tea-bag, princess? I uh… if we get you partially scrubbed down, maybe get your pants, shoes, and socks off, you could get in the cockpit for safety. My pants probably won’t fit you at all, might as well be a dress probably, and you’ll need to go through decontamination with the rest of us, but it’s better than no pants?

“As well as being clean inside the cockpit? Up to you. I think it’s worth making you into a tea-bag. Or a water filter. Water tester?”

Anissa’s face smoothed out into a blank response, followed by a wide and amused grin, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him through the Steel-Glass.

“Steep away, Lord Cavalier, steep away,” She said into the phone and then looked over her shoulder to the river they were approaching.

“Oh, I suppose I should move over a bit shouldn’t I,” Mikaela said and went from sitting sideways across Wayne’s lap to being perched atop one knee. “Though you’ll have a hard time seeing.”

Wayne wanted to point out that one of them could crawl into the side of his cockpit, but he was the one who had suggested both get in. If that meant both of them taking a seat on his lap, then so be it.

He wasn’t about to contradict two princesses.

“This is so cool,” Todd blurted out.

“I don’t know about that, little dude. I’m usually half terrified of dying and the other half is shrieking at me that I’m an idiot,” Wayne muttered as he walked up to the river. Then he gently peeled Anissa away from the cock pit.

Delicately, he quite literally dunked her into the river. Her lower half up to her knees getting a thorough wash in the moving water.

Anissa squealed and it came through his speakers. It sounded as if she couldn’t decide if this was hilarious or too cold.

Wayne lifted her up and down several times. Quite literally making her a princess tea bag.

Then he gently patted Mikaela and helped her up to stand on either side of the interior of the cock pit after setting Anissa down in front of Patchwork.

“I’ve got it, Lord Cavalier!” called Anissa before Wayne could start stripping out of his pants. She’d produced a knife from somewhere and had turned her rather fine pants into capris. They were cut now at the wet point and she was more or less dry.

She was also barefoot.

“Well alright then,” Wayne said and pushed open the cockpit after unlocking it. It swung open. He reached out offering her his hand. “Come on up then princess.”

Anissa grinned, shivered, then took his hand and stepped up to the lip of the cock pit.

“It’s a bit tight in here, sorry,” Wayne said and sat back down. Getting his implant more firmly settled. Before he could speak, Mikaela plopped down on his left leg and leaned to the left. Anissa did the same on his right. He had a decent enough view, though it looked like the two princesses were mildly uncomfortable. “Sorry.”

“Heavens no,” Anissa said with a laugh, though it sounded forced to Wayne. A mask polished to a high sheen rather than the woman under neath. Given the situation, he couldn’t blame her. “Mikaela and I grew up playing together. This isn’t uncomfortable other than my rear is a bit bigger than it should be. I suppose this is a nice eye opening event.”

“Coulda fooled me. You look amazing. Wouldn’t change a damn thing,” Wayne muttered and pushed the cockpit door shut with Patchwork’s left hand. “Do I teabag the general or just leave him shit covered. You’re the noble with the highest rank here, princess Anissa.”

“Ah? Ah… d-dunk him. Please,” she stated.

Not waiting for further clarification, Wayne stuck the general into the river. He wasn’t as delicate with the man as he had been the princess and moved a bit faster. No sooner than he seemed fine, then Wayne started off running again.

Pushing ahead once more into the strange open lands surrounding much of the cities of this planet. Wayne found it somewhat reminiscent of home, he just didn’t recognize any of the trees or plants.

“This is Cavalier, calling out to Pack Horse,” Wayne said into the comms once again. “I repeat, Cavalier to Pack Horse.”

He’d been repeating this once every three or four minutes as he moved ever deeper into what he believed was Bertson territory.

“— Pack Horse,” came a faint reply.

No sooner than Wayne’s system picked it up, then his AI took over and gave him a firm waypoint.

“Well there we go then,” he murmured and took off at a dead sprint.

Anissa turned to look at Mikaela and blew out a breath.

“Think mother and auntie will slap me silly, Micky?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Yes, Nees. They’re going to… slap you silly,” Mikaela agreed, giving her a grim smile. “And the general…”

“I don’t want to talk about him. Ever,” Anissa said, shaking her head, her brows lowering partially.

“We’re about twenty minutes out,” Wayne told them even as he kept them moving. He just had to get them to the end now.

Which, given where the dropship was, it left him feeling as if everything would be alright.

If it was as close as it was, even without proper radio frequencies working, then they were far enough away from combat zones that they could fly without getting knocked out of the sky.

***

Groaning Wayne stood there as the Confed medic continued to hose him with a high velocity water hose.

“Alright you dickbag! You’ve taken the top layers of my skin off!” Wayne shouted. “Are we done? Miri sent you just to fuck with me didn’t she!”

The medic ignored him and continued to spray him down. The man merely stood there, a grimace on his face, power-washing Wayne’s skin.

“Fuck you!” Wayne said, covering his privates with his hands and enduring it. “Tell me you’re not doing this to the nobles I brought back!”

“They’re not, Wendy said, stepping in from a side door. “They’re getting decontaminated, as is Warhorse and Patchwork, but not like this.

“Unfortunately given how long you were away, how long it’s been since you were exposed, this is what we have to do. Sorry, Wayne. It’s the fastest way and most likely to get the best results.”

Wendy didn’t sound pleased even as the medic continued to spray Wayne.

“With a fire hose!?” Wayne shouted.

“Well, honestly, this is a bit overkill, but I’m not risking you,” admitted Wendy with a shrug. “It’s not water you’re being blasted with but treated water to get everything off of you. I also have a monitor below you in the drains looking for any chemical residue. It’s why you’re standing on drains.

“Once you get down to a certain parts per million… you’re safe. Until then, until the fluid has bound itself to as much as the chemicals on you as we can, then you remain.”

“Oh fine!” Wayne said and turned around, putting his back to the medic. Trying to speed the process up a bit. In turning his back to the medic he wanted to just try and get it all over with. “Fine! How’re the princesses? Anissa and Mikaela. I’d ask about Todd, but he just seemed excited the whole time.”

“They’re fine. All three of them,” Wendy replied. “The two princesses are recovering. Anissa more so than Mikaela is shook up, obviously.

“Sounds like she was… hiding… in that location for a few hours. She’ll need to go get some medical work done to make sure there’s no lasting affects.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Thankfully it only came up to her knees,” Wayne offered with a chuckle. “Not the worst situation.”

“Agreed. They’re both well for everything that happened. Nothing too terrible. Both have asked about you,” continued Wendy. “I let them know you were fine but undergoing your decontamination.”

“Hah, oh, hey, does this mean I was wounded in combat? Technically speaking I was, wasn’t I?” Wayne asked with a laugh. “Do I get some type of decoration for my uniform? Who gives it to me?”

“Wayne… you just rescued three royal family members. By yourself,” deadpanned Wendy. “After killing two Assault Walkers and a Titan. Then ambushing a special forces group and forcing them to give their hostages up.

“It’s… all on camera, as it ever is. Your external camera is always on anymore because we’re always looking for footage. This is another one of those moments, Wayne.

“Where you were caught in your own feed, as well as other feeds.

“That special forces group had a camera man amongst it’s numbers to document the taking of Princess Mikaela and Prince Todd. That footage already leaked.

“I don’t know how, or even why, but it did. For all I can figure is one of them shared it with someone else just to show what happened. Immediately got out.

“Given the time stamps, I think it was leaked even before you’d gotten on the dropship.”

“Maybe they wanted to showcase just how bad Bertson is?” Wayne asked, thinking about that. “I mean, if they had to call on the Mirkil Cavalier, that looks bad, doesn’t it?

“That and… ugh… I don’t even want to think about how bad that general was and his forward base. It was a shitshow, Wendy. They hadn’t even fired their artillery in their own defense.”

There was a loud beep and the medic turned the hose off.

“Thank you technician Frey,” Wendy murmured with a nod to the medic.

Who nodded back and began walking away with the hose in hand, winding it back up as he went. Putting the hose down near the door, the tech left with the door closing behind him.

“Thanks, Wendy,” Wayne said, turning to look back at her and gave her a tight smile. “Any chance at a robe or… something?”

Raising her eyebrows at him, Wendy smiled, her eyes moving down to his hands covering his privates. She looked back up to his face, smiled, then clicked her tongue.

“Yes, I did… I pre-prepared. This is actually a hangar bay to spray down Walkers and ships. Hence the grate,” Wendy said and walked over to a locker nearby. She pulled out a rather fluffy looking robe.

“Oh you’re the best Wendy,” Wayne said coming to stand next to her at the locker.

“Yes, yes, turn around my dear Cavalier,” murmured Wendy with a warm chuckle.

Once he turned around she helped him into the robe and then settled it on him.

“As to the general, yes. It was… quite bad,” she answered directly. “The Confed is going through your footage of course. It’s likely that the Bertson house will request it and the Confed is making sure nothing they wouldn’t want leaked, won’t be sent.

“Be thankful I made sure the internal cockpit camera was off. It was, before you ask. No, I won’t tell Josephine where the two princesses were, but we both know she’ll assume given her own rescue.”

“Haha, yeah. I had a princess on each knee. Not a camera view I want shared,” he admitted. “I get any of those generals by the way? Did fire right at their stupid little vanity tent.”

“Very likely, yes,” Wendy confirmed while patting his back. “We’ll know more later.

“All in all, great work Wayne. You did… you’re just… you’re amazing. I can never know what to expect with you. You always go far further than my expectations ever put you.”

Wendy’s hands pressed to his back and he felt them moving back and forth across his shoulders.

“You’re amazing, Cavalier Hesh,” she continued. “You are indeed officially wounded though, which means you’re off the line for a month or so.

“That’s also about how long it’ll take to make sure all those chemicals are out of your system. While you could theoretically get right back into the thick of it, you should take a medical leave.

“Which is fine, Tink wants to work on your personal squad’s Walkers and after the Bertson station got blown up… well… they’re looking into that report we sent them now.

“The report they ignored and then had to send you in to save some of their family, which if they had read the report you sent up, wouldn’t have been needed.

“Then there’s the general… which is an entirely different problem all on it’s own.

“Most of what’s going on down there is a find and grind for any survivors and that’s bloody and awful work.”

“In other words, I get a month off, whether I like it or not,” Wayne said after thinking about the situation for a few seconds. Then shrugged. “Fine. Pretty sure it’s paid time off given that I was ‘wounded’ but whatever.

“Anything else I need to be doing for the month I’m off? Anything that I should be doing at least?”

“No, not that I can think of. Though honestly it’d be better if you spent the time away from Bertson,” Wendy stated, rubbed his back for a little more then patted him once. “Otherwise there might be some people trying to get you to comment on everything that happened. Both with the information we sent up and the mission after the fact.

“I need to go though. Miri and Josephine are trying to keep everything on the PR scene relevant and in our favor. I’ve got all the footage and data so I have to help with it.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah I’m fine. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just run down. Tired,” Wayne admitted. “Too many adrenaline spikes and not enough down time in one go.”

Wendy patted his shoulder one more time, then walked away, he listened to the sound of her boots clicking across the grates.

“Clothes in the locker, be sure to get dressed in them. They’re treated to help with the after-effects of your spray down,” Wendy advised. “Just make sure you put them in the wash after using them once.”

“Right, right,” Wayne said and started to rummage around in the locker.

There was a door pop followed by a click, except, the sound of boots didn’t fade. They grew louder.

Looking to see what Wendy had forgotten, he realized it wasn’t Wendy at all.

It was Cara.

“There’s my perfect Warrior,” he said, grinning at her ear to ear. “I didn’t put a single scratch on Patchwork, promise. Though… do you even want Tink to build you your own Walker, or did you want to keep Patchwork? Because I’ll be honest, I knew how to run Patchwork, but it didn’t feel like… mine anymore.

“It felt like Cara’s Patchwork. And that’s perfectly fine by me and I get it.”

“I want Patchwork,” Cara said immediately with a firm nod of her head. “Tink and I are working on upgrading some things and Wendy said we had a month off. This’ll be a good time to push for my plans.

“Tink wants to spend the whole time head down in Walker guts. I want to take you home.”

Wayne’s eyebrows went up at that.

It was an interesting idea. He just needed the translator AI. That was supposed to arrive in a day or two. It’d probably take that long to arrange full-burn transit to Dashi space.

“Can we even make a trip like that? In a month? That feels like it’d take longer than a month,” Wayne said, unsure about making the journey in the time they had.

“It would be… ah… the travel time would be longer than the time we spent there. Perhaps it’s not a good idea,” Cara said, looking down at the ground. “Maybe… a week and a half one way? A week there at home?

“It’s-it’s not worth it. It’s too short. It’d be almost the entirety of your time off on a trip.”

Wayne thought on that, then shrugged.

After seeing the pictures in Patchwork, Wayne could understand wanting to go home.

Even if the time there was short. Shorter than the time it took to get there.

“We’ll go,” Wayne said with a grin, looking at Cara. “Book it. Make it happen. In fact, see if we can push the MDF or the Confed to get us there quickly.

“Tell them we’d like to go on an informal diplomatic mission. You and Lord Hesh. Straight to the heart of Dashi to offer a chance to speak a bit.

“They might even be willing to put us on one of those fancy ‘it’s so expensive to make these ships we have only ten’ kind of things.”

“I’ll ask,” Barbie asked from the doorway. Wayne hadn’t even noticed her there. “I’ll ask because I’m going with you. There’s no way you’re going there without me. Not a chance in hell. Cara and you are great Walker pilots, but you don’t have a chance in hell in martial combat.

“I’ll be there, I’ll make sure I can protect you, and that’ll be that. I can also ask for special permissions. Since I know the right people to ask. That and Miriam and Wendy are busy.”

“Sounds like a plan then,” Wayne said with a chuckle.

“Cara… if you don’t mind… was that you and a sister I saw in the pictures?” he asked quietly, looking at the pretty red-haired warrior.

“Ah? Ah… uh… yes. My sister and I,” Cara said her face taking on the same hue of her face. She had clearly realized that he’d seen her photos.

Which meant he’d seen her photo of him.

“I’d like a copy of the one of us,” Wayne said, then girnned at her.

“Yes,” squeaked Cara, sounding terrified for the first time since he’d ever met her.