The Needletail fighter shuddered, alarms sounding, and Drake's console erupted in a sea of bright red and orange indicators. The craft's nose dipped as it plummeted towards the sea kilometres below.

'Dammit!' Hauling on the joystick, Drake tried to pull out the dive. He glanced at his rear camera monitor as his enemy, the wingman of the craft he'd shot down minutes earlier, settled hard on his tail. Swearing, he jinked to starboard, hearing a couple of thuds as enemy fire punched holes across his port wing.



'Flying like a pig; no point in trying to fight the bitch!' Swinging his fighter around, forcing it even steeper than when he'd first been hit, Drake dived to just a kilometre above the water before almost levelling out. The tactic worked, the enemy Raptor losing sight of his no longer stealthy craft.

'At least for the moment!' Drake muttered as he searched for somewhere to bring his craft down. Glancing to his right, Drake saw a small island, maybe a kilometre across, smoke pouring from near the centre; the remains of the fighter he'd brought down occasionally glittering through the dark fumes.

'Didn't see him eject!' Drake guessed the Raptor's pilot hadn't escaped the crash but couldn't be sure. 'If I get this baby down safely, I'd better take my gun.'

'Fuck!' He swore again as his defence computer started beeping. The enemy Raptor had found him again. 'Got maybe thirty second to put her down or the bitch is gonna splatter me all over the sea!'

Women made better pilots than men. He didn't know why but he was one of relatively few, a mere thirty-five percent, to make the grade. The trainers said it was something to do with reaction time and the ability to withstand high-gee turns. He thought he'd been lucky when he'd come across the pair of Raptors flying easily in formation. Attacking in full stealth mode, he'd taken the first Raptor by surprise, a radar blind spot, and stitched a line of bullet holes right up its fuselage, heavily damaging a wing and almost separating it from the craft.

'The wrong one, it turns out!' Luck of the draw and he'd hit the plane flown by a man.

'Maybe that's why he couldn't eject? Maybe the wing was bouncing around so much it made it near impossible to escape?' A brief glimpse at the struggling pilot, and some sixth sense about the way he struggled with his doomed craft, told him the pilot was male.

'And the way his wingman shot away and manoeuvred that bloody thing back to get me, tells me she ain't! Christ! Needletails are supposed to be way better than Raptors but you wouldn't believe it in her hands!' The way his new enemy flew was incredible, massive bursts of acceleration, spins and turns he could barely imagine. He didn't stand a prayer!

'Yep! She's a woman!' Drake muttered, 'and you know what they say about women!' He didn't but right at that moment it felt like he did.

'There!' As islands went, the one Drake spied was large, maybe fifteen kilometres long. He forced his fighter down to just a hundred metres above the surface.

'Landing gear isn't working and I'm not sure I could land on sand anyway, so water it is!' As the enemy Raptor lined up to take a shot at his still fast-moving fighter, he deployed his flaps, slowing his craft to just over a hundred in just a few seconds, grinning coldly as her Raptor shot overhead.

Aiming for the sea just by the island's coast, where the water would likely be just a couple of metres deep, Drake forced his craft slower. Dropping her speed to less than fifty kph, he deployed a pair of drag chutes and dropped her into the water. The Needletail did her best to flip but didn't quite manage it, settling back into the sea, water hissing around her still incendiary jets. The enemy Raptor overflew his downed fighter turned sharply, waggled her wings then shot away to disappear over the horizon a few seconds later.

'Let's see what we have here then.' Releasing a pent-up breath at his narrow escape, Drake raised the Needletail's canopy, grabbed his gun and climbed from the cockpit. He waded through shallow water to the sandy beach a hundred metres away and looked around.

'Jesus, it's hot!' His soaking uniform had dried within minutes of his exit from the sea and starting around the island. A few hours later, he found it.







'An old outpost?' Drake stared across the clearing, neat rows of huts arranged around all but the seaward side. Approaching from some scrub close to the sea, he did his best not to pass too near the huts on one side. Many of the huts had plants and benches outside, not dissimilar to those people might have at home but also different, primitive yet more practical. His gaze flicked towards the centre of the clearing, to a much larger hut.

'Jeez! That's a big fucker!' Impressions of the village drifted across Drake's mind as he tried to make sense of the buildings, of their relationship with each other. 'Maybe some kind of church? Maybe that's where the boss lives?'



There were people, women and children. No men so far. The people worked, helping each other as necessary, moving from hut to hut and, as they walked past the large central building, they would bow their heads reverentially.

'A church then!'

In front of the church, slightly to one side, there was a stone table, an altar, a statue, humanlike, stood behind it. Flowers were strewn across the altar and a woman, older than most of the others, made her way towards it with more.

'Flower power? That's reassuring!' Drake mused. 'Maybe they're some kind of forgotten cult from the twentieth century? Where the fuck are the men? I need to be better prepared.'

Drawing back into the bushes, he made the long journey back to his fighter.

The weather had been kind, the sea not so much but the wrecked Needletail still lay in the metre deep water where he had crash-landed it. Small waves lapped against the craft's hull just ten centimetres below the closed cockpit hatch. Drake glanced towards the crash site of the other fighter. It wasn't burning anymore but a heat haze lay above it and some light smoke drifted from it. Nothing else and, he was pleased to note, no sign of the other guy's wingman. Glancing upwards, he saw distant vapour trails crisscrossing each other, evidence of the ongoing fight high in the very blue and cloudless sky.

'Time to get what I came for.' Touching his hand to the breast of his torn uniform, Drake watched the cockpit of the Needletail grind open. Clambering up the side, the craft rocking towards him to bring the cockpit edge down to almost water level, Drake reached in to grab his gun, a locator beacon, first aid kit and binoculars. Checking, he made sure the gun had a full clip, twenty-four slugs, and secreted items around his body. Hauling himself closer to his old pilot seat, he searched for anything else of use.

'Ah, food pack!' Worried about the water now pouring into the cockpit, he grabbed the small pack, fell back with a splash. The fighter rolled back and stabilised itself again, still above the waterline but no longer as far as it had been.

'Ain't gonna take much to sink the old girl now!' He mused as he sloshed back to shore.

Again, his uniform dried quickly as he made his way back to the clearing to see if anything had changed. Taking out his binoculars and placing its wireless audio bead in his ear, he scanned the clearing, examining both women as they worked and children as they played. 'Nope! No sign of a man anywhere! What is this place, some kind of fucking Amazon women's paradise?'

Drake opened his food pack, picked the first item that came to hand, took a bite then spat it out again. A quick glance at the wrapper confirmed it was supposed to be edible. 'MRE Chocolate Biscuit? Looks like cardboard. Tastes like cardboard!' Throwing the remains of the part wrapped "chocolate bar" into a nearby bush, Drake returned to the task at hand, watching as women and some older children gathered in front of the large hut. They sat cross-legged in front of a frail-looking woman who was talking to them.

'The older woman who was carrying the flowers earlier?' As he focussed his binoculars on the woman, the audio pickup kicked in and he listened intently. Peculiarly accented, some of what she said to her fellow villagers was strange and even his audio buds sophisticated translation algorithms couldn’t decipher them. Seeming to speak an archaic form of English, Drake understood fragments. His audio buds translated others but some words simply eluded him.

"The gods continue to fight in the... above. Two of them fell to... last night. One landed on the Isle of…" Drake assumed the word spoken was their name for the island where the other fighter had crashed. "Our hunters have discovered the chariot of another god who fell... sea near…" The woman uttered several long sentences that missed him completely. "Servant of the god it... disappeared into the... near…"

'Servant of a god? Are they talking about me!' Drake focussed on the woman he'd subconsciously nicknamed "The Elder".

"Come out! Come out, servant!" Drake crouched lower as the Elder called out. "Show yourself, servant!" No one showed, the Elder brushing past her failure to resume haranguing the villagers. "Pray to the... goddess! Arawelo!"

'Who's Arawelo?' Drake asked himself.

Falling to her knees before her brethren, the Elder cried out. "Only you... Arawelo, can guide us and... your friends," she paused, her voice dropping ominously, as if directing her words at him. "And enemies!"

"Ay!" A child, seemingly a little bored and staring around, suddenly fixed her gaze on his hiding place, pointing in his direction.

"Damn!" Drake realised the child must have caught a glint of his binoculars. As others turned to look, he hissed under his breath but, realising he'd been exposed, lit a flare, a shameful attempt to impress, and walked out of his hiding place directly towards the group.

The wind was up, blowing in from the sea, and a long plume of orange smoke trailed towards the onlookers. Cries of fear and amazement arose as several of the group edged away, one child crying fearfully and running away as he approached but the Elder warily stood her ground. She was accompanied by another woman, tall and muscular, her right arm crossing her body to grasp the hilt of a short wooden sword secured at her waist. The Elder's bodyguard, Drake assumed.

"Malin Drake!" More villagers emerged from huts as he stopped a few metres short of the two to announce himself.

"M'lindrak?" If she was in any way afraid, Drake could not tell; stepping forward, she announced his name to the villagers, following it with a question. "Arawelo or Biqay?"

'Who the hell is Biqay? For that matter, who is Arawelo?' Time was clearly of the essence, evidenced by the stern but expectant look on The Elder's face. Feigning confusion and seeing a smile twitch on the face of the Elder, Drake moved fast. Before the bodyguard could even twitch, he'd grasped the old woman, locked her in a neck embrace and aimed his knife directly under her chin, ready to pierce her tongue and brain if anyone moved.

"Who's Arawelo?" Drake demanded, then shouted. "And it's fucking Malin Drake. My name is Malin Drake!" The villagers fell to their knees, bowing low and placing their foreheads on the sandy ground.

"Arawelo! Arawelo! Arawelo!" A chant arose.

'Almost!' Drake saw that The Elder, and the woman he now thought of as her bodyguard, remained standing. The bodyguard's face was expressionless but held herself ready, clearly ready to explode into action should the opportunity present.

Backing off, Drake released the old woman and drew his gun.

"Over there!" Gesturing with his gun, something he hoped would be universally understood. It wasn't! Staring hard at the old woman, he received only a sceptical but slightly mystified look.

Selecting explosives Drake pointed his weapon just over the woman's shoulder and pulled the trigger, the resultant bang and wash of heat making her jerk backwards in reaction. Shock mixed with fear, the old woman staring furiously back, as if she'd seen through his chance choice of gods for the grasp at control he knew it to be. Anger fading back to scepticism, the woman finally spoke.

"I am Murihi. Carawelo." At his look of confusion, Murihi spoke again. "Carawelo. High Priestess." Seeing yet more confusion, she clarified. "Sanaag. This place. This…" she pointed to the bodyguard, "…Habr."

Unsure what was expected, Drake nodded, "Murihi... Carawelo... Sanaag…" then looked at the bodyguard, "Habr." He nodded, "Got it!"

Murihi twitched her head downward in acknowledgement but Habr remained stolidly impassive.

"Habr?" Murihi gestured to her bodyguard who somehow achieved the simultaneous task of turning her head to listen to the priestess while keeping her full attention on Drake. "Prepare some quarters for our guest."

Habr turned her head to the gathered villagers and spoke so quickly, Drake couldn't keep up. Two women and an older child dashed off.

'About time too!' The villagers returned about ten minutes later, which was a relief to Drake, as very little had been said to him, Murihi and Habr both regarding him with suspicion, a mood that seemed to infect the villagers.

"Follow!" Jumping at Habr's voice, the very first time she had spoken in his presence. Trailing, almost but not quite running, Drake struggled to keep up but couldn't help notice the bodyguard was entirely comfortable with the pace she was setting.







'Ten months!' Habr entered his new hut, better than every other in the village except for Murihi's, 'and hers also serves as the village temple.'

Losing civilisation hadn't been as painful as he'd thought. Almost a year, time enough for all of his tech to stop working. Power failure or just endless island sand.

'Even my gun!' Drake mused. 'Some power but no more ammo.' He'd used the last of his ammunition, simple kinetic slugs, just days before hunting "hoppers". Small, rabbit-like, rare and not much meat, most of which was stringy and, if he was brutally honest, pretty unsatisfying. His electro-kinetic pistol still had power, almost a half-charge, but, despite recovering many of his slugs from animal carcass's, sometimes he'd only injure it and the animal would escape to die elsewhere, usually taking the slug with it.

Aware the day would come, Drake had exercised, fought and hunted with the villagers and learned to use various wooden knives, becoming proficient with the primitive crossbow they used. He'd even bested Habr in practice combat and they'd regularly hunted as a team, sitting outside their hut, drinking the foul brew favoured by the villagers, celebrating the day's successes.

'Damned shame!' Drake reflected. 'Dumb fucking villagers are easy to impress. One reason I'm in this house although Habr helped…' his smirk morphed to something of a snarl, '…unlike that bitch, Murihi! But Habr…' he grinned lasciviously.

Habr was precious little like her cold-hearted priestess who did little but "guide" her village.

'Carawelo! I should use the proper term. Bosses them about, more like!' Drake growled but deep down knew he despised her because he wanted what she had.

The Carawelo lived a comfortable life and, to Drake's mind, didn't have to work for it. Giving her gifts of food, vegetarian primarily, she didn't have to forage or farm as the villagers did.

'Even the children! Lives in absolute luxury! Bet she controls the men as well.' He'd seen a few men around the village and those tended towards youth. 'Maybe a separate compound somewhere?'

A few weeks into his forced residency, Habr had made her move. Softer, more conversational, nicer all round and, just weeks after their courtship had begun, they'd moved to a newly built hut. It was, by Sanaag standards, rather magnificent and the two of them had slept together for the first time.

'And every night ever since!' Drake smirked. He didn't love her. Why would he? But she was well built and kept herself in superb condition. 'Makes up for a load of sins!' Desire was strong but he knew that wouldn't keep him here if a rescue party arrived.

'Fairly sure she's into me. No one can fake that much passion!' Convinced she'd leave with him should a miracle occur, Drake felt sure that, stay or leave, she was his.

'She started things between us.' Formerly resigned to staying on Sanaag for as long as it would take to find a way off, Drake was now at ease with his new life.

'Maybe even happy?' Surveying Habr's gently curving belly, he smiled. 'Soon to be a father, a married man and a citizen.'

Looking forward to the celebration in his honour, it was the first village feast Drake would attend.

Citizenry was important to the people of Sanaag. Avoiding his early questions, Habr had gently explained to him that only citizens could take part in such celebrations, hinting to him that all good things came in time. Eventually, he'd stopped asking; children weren't allowed to attend either so maybe it took time to prove your worthiness. Drake sort of got it and besides, the villagers mostly seemed wary of him and that suited him just fine.

Still unsure if Sanaag was the name of the village or the island, Drake had learned to ignore such things. With breathtaking views across one of the most beautiful parts of the island, the hut's unusually outward facing windows mostly made up for his not being allowed to attend such festivities.

'And now Habr is carrying my child.' Pilots rarely lived long enough to see their own children and often had sperm and ova collected so that useful genetic traits were preserved. 'Not even a child... children!' Pregnant with twins, possibly triplets, Habr wasn't sure and no one else seemed certain.

The marriage ceremony was, Habr had told him, long and involved with festivities lasting three days. With the first day a kind of warmup and the second the actual wedding, it was the third he was most looking forward to. On the third day, the day of the final feast, he became centre of attention and that, the grandest day of all, was something anyone would look forward to.

'And it all starts tonight!'

The first day of the ceremony started simply. Habr and Drake sat at the head of the wedding table and were served food by the female adults.

"So the food is all vegetarian?" Advising patience, Habr nodded, suggesting they'd get some simple meats on the second. Sitting next to Murihi, not unusual for the Carawelo’s bodyguard, Habr spent a great deal of time talking to the priestess.

'While I get served by a bevvy of tasty young maidens.' Keeping such thoughts to himself, Drake sighed, 'but what I wouldn't do for some meat!' With meat so scarce, he wasn't about to create waves by demanding it. Habr had told him there would be meat aplenty on the last day, the day of the final celebration.

There were songs, accompanied by some kind of high-pitched wind instrument and some basic percussion. The day dissolved into singing and dancing, many of the younger, scantily clad villagers pulling him out of his seat to dance. Habr danced with him several times but, although she joined the celebrations, Murihi kept her distance. Even sitting the dances out was entertaining, something Drake was quite happy to watch, especially when drinking. The locals brewed a potent wine from the fruit of a local apple-like shrub, which was far superior to the brew he'd drunk after hunting. It was consumed in large quantities by most of the revellers however Drake did his best not to get too drunk.

Spying Habr watching him, Drake tried to analyse her expression. Not jealousy, perhaps a little pity, something the exhausted Drake could sympathise with. Unsure what it meant, he only knew the festivities went on to the early hours and he was wiped. Habr pulled him away before the end, making passionate love to him in their hut while revellers partied just outside.

Formally wed on the second night, Drake sat through several speeches he mostly didn't understand. He'd yet to fully grasp the complexity of Sanaag culture or language, as so was happy when the food arrived. 'Mmm! Hopper! Better'n nothing.'

Once again, Habr pulled him away and Drake lost himself in the delights of her body.

Celebration night arrived and Habr plied him with more of the strong wine, so much that, although the night was young, he passed out to lie unconscious on the floor.

"Wonderful party!" Murihi's tones were warm as she attacked the large rare steak before her. "You should be happy."

"I suppose." Playing with her food rather than eating, Habr mused thoughtfully. "Is it wrong to wonder why marriage has to end this way?"

"Don't be so squeamish!" Murihi admonished, taking another bite. "This is the way it's always been done, the way it will always be done. And anyway, if we didn't what would we do with them?"

"I suppose that's true. I just wonder…" Habr admitted before trailing off, unable to stop a small tear running from her eye to drip silently on to her plate.



Drake watched both women silently from the altar, his sightless eyes staring accusingly at the villagers tucking into steaks carved from his body turning slowly several metres away on a spit over an open fire.