~ ~ ~ • ~ ~ ~
420807 — New directive, NAU227.
420811 —Dispatched, NAU227.
420814 — Objective completed. Count 4.
420817 — Objective completed. Count 9.
420821 — Objective incomplete. Count 3. Wounded, inconsequential. Proceeding.
420823 — Final Objective completed. Count 22.
420912 — Dispatched, NAU227. Objective unspecified.
420915 — Objective complete. Imperial loss. Count 12.
420915 — Secondary objective complete. Count 3.
420928 — Return, UCI000
421010 — Dispatched, NAU227. Objective open.
421013 — Objective complete. Count 23.
421124 —Objective open.Count 18.
421231 — Return, UCI000. Ojective incomplete. Imperial withdrawal. Count 31. Wounded, inconsequential.
430221 — New directive, NAU163
430223 — Dispatched NAU163, expected.
430225 — Objective complete. Count 9.
430226 — Objective complete. Count 5.
430228 — Objective complete. Count 18. Wounded, inconsequential.
430303 — Final objective complete. Count 24.
430306 —Return, UCI000
430328 — Dispatched, HII281
430402 — Objective complete. Count 11.
430406 — Objective complete. Count 8.
430414 — Final objective complete. Count 44.
430417 — Return, UCI000
430630 — New directive, KIA028.
430706 — Dispatched, KIA028.
430710 — Objective complete. Count 12.
430713 — Objective complete. Count 18.
430718 — Objective complete. Count 34.
430725 — Final objective complete. Count 16.
430901 — New directive, NII014.
430904 — Dispatched, NII014.
430911 — Final objective complete. Count 43.
431101 — New directive, HOI283.
431104 — Dispatched, HOI283.
431108 — Objective complete. Count 6.
431111 — Objective complete. Count 14. Wounded. Consequential.
431112 — Final objective incomplete.
431114 — Return, UCI000
“Great. So what the Hell’s all that mean, Silk? That a journal of a spy or something?” Welsh asks, sitting on the deck of the senior runabout as it plows through the rolling swells of the South Pacific.
In the distance, an emerald island peeks over the horizon, sitting against the dark backdrop of a larger sibling lurking under dark clouds blowing in from Papua New Guinea lying somewhere over the horizon to the west.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia replies from her seat with a baleful look at the dark skies. She takes back the email printout sent to them from their Vancouver office after Karl Kucharski ran the cypher key on the first few pages of the journal.
Sylvia gives a wave at the clouds to the west. “Are those going to be a problem,” she asks their boat pilot. The middle aged dark-skinned Melanesian man studies them for a moment, then shakes his head.
“I don’t think so, Lady,” he says, his accent thick with Solomon’s Pijit, the local lingua franca bridging from the native tongue to English.
Sylvia looks back to her business partner. “The numbers and codes were causing havoc with the cypher keys — and I almost gave up on this particular one.”
“Great. And now we goin’ into the middle of nowhere because you think you got it all figured out,” Welsh grumps. “Let me get this insanity straight in me head: that book was found on Bougainville Island like in the ‘80s after some Asian Histories geeks out of Cambridge thought to dig up the not-so-glorious war-years of Guadalcanal.”
Sylvia nods. “In the remains of a Japanese bunker fortification.”
“Sure. And they couldnae make shit out of it. Just a bunch of senseless kanji. Hell, like nobody in dweeb-school could get anythin’ at all from it for like thirty years before it ultimately ended up in the paws of this Koo-koo-roo guy.”
“Kurosawa...”
“Whatevers. And somehow magically you figured it all out.”
“Well, in the 1980s, they didn’t have the computers capable of running such cypher software. After the researchers’ initial difficulties, the book was put to the side for a later examination — and forgotten. From what I understand, it was found in a forgotten basement vault. All I had to do was find the right key.”
“Great,” Welsh says, then adds. “And the numbers are dates.”
“Quite. Once it was apparent they were running sequentially. The first, ‘420807’ would be August 7th, 1942 — the date of the US landings on Guadalcanal. 421010, October 10th, was when the US branched out and secured the Russell Islands where our resort is. 430221 in the following year was the Marines’ invasion of New Georgia after the Japanese retreat from Guadalcanal. And 431101 is the Bougainville landings where the journal was found.”
“Except you’re missing, ah....” Welsh looks at the sheet of paper again, now damp with the ocean spray off the bow of the boat. “April 28th and September 1st, in ‘43.”
“Quite. Those I know nothing about. However, once I had the locations correlated to the dates... the codes were easy. Just letter-number designations of the various islands from a central point, which I would assume to be this UCI000. NAU227 likely means nantou, the Japanese word for ‘south-east,’ with a distance of two-hundred and twenty seven kilometres. Bougainville is HOI283, or hokusei, north-west, at two-hundred and eighty three kilometers. And New Georgia is KIA028 — therefore kita, north at twenty-eight kilometres across the Blanche Channel.”
Welsh crosses her arms, frowning. She spares an absent upwards glance at the distant murmur of a high-flying helicopter heading towards the northwest off their right side — likely a tour helicopter out doing its rounds.
Welsh would much rather be up there than taking in a three hour boat ride across the nearly open ocean — but Sylvia insisted they be as surreptitious as possible.
“Tracing back the distances,” Sylvia continues, “would put the central location on either Rendova or Tetepare Island. There is nothing close and directly west of Rendova, I would surmise UCI000 is Tetepare — and the likely location of our acquisition.”
“And now we’re headin’ to some empty, deserted island because you think you’re a smart cookie...”
Sylvia smiles slightly at the rekindling of their earlier argument.
“Well, it was quite elementary once the cypher key was determined,” she says. “And all the pieces do fit.”
Welsh waves her off.
“Yeah, yeah. A little too neatly if you ask me.”
Sylvia smiles again, holding her hair back from blowing in her face. “I do apologize for the exactness of my work, my dear, I know it can be a burden to you,” she says with only a hint of facetiousness. “We cannot always flit our way around by fortune and happenstance.”
“Whatever. Nice and neat means only one thing — the shit’s goin’ to blow up in me face like it always does...”
As if answering the redhead’s bold proclamation, the distant clouds ignite in the late morning light — flashing against the horizon with internal lightning.
Sylvia really hopes their pilot is correct, and that storm will pass them by...
Thank you.
Thank you for reading this month’s Tales of the Arcane short story anthologies.
It is our hope to bring you a selection of short stories and longer chapter serials each month.
Tales of the Arcane is a collection of works by members of an online community, The Arcane Light; and endeavors to promote the written word and story-crafting by giving those wanting to develop their own writing style an outlet for their creativity — or who simply just enjoy the opportunity to create worlds and stories.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this boo
k with friends