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"If I could risk kicking it," Wears-Only-Ropes said to Ra'Jirra,"I'm sure it would give way."

"Yeah, but I'm sure that guard would hear it."

"Not much of a guard. Hell, he might not even be there for all we know."

"True, but I'd rather not risk it. Maybe a thunderstorm will come up or something."

"It is pretty common in the afternoons around here. Can we wait that long?"

"I don't think so actually. My best guess is that the Hammerfell ship will be coming along before then. Hell, I don't even know what time it is without any windows in here."

Wears-Only-Ropes nodded. "Yeah, I think we need to..."

And then an alarm went off. It wasn't the same sound as the klaxon that had gone off when Ra'Jirra had tripped a ward though. The two looked at each other, and Ra'Jirra nodded.

Wears-Only-Ropes waited till the siren was at its peak, then kicked. The plank they'd been working on bent outwards, but made no significant sound at all.

"Dammit, we could have done that an hour ago!" Wears-Only-Ropes complained, but Ra'Jirra was already poking her head through the space.

"No one here, and the doors closed. Come on!" she said as she wriggled through.

Her bikini caught for a moment, doing yet more damage to the frayed garment, but she made it to the other side and helped Wears-Only-Ropes squeeze through. The door had no window, so they couldn't see what was happening in the hallway outside, but they heard shouting and feet running past. Ra'Jirra risked a peak through the outside windows. Argonians were running in the direction of the dock, though. She waited till they'd passed, then unlocked the latch and slid the window up as quietly as possible.

"Are you thinking what I am?" Ra'Jirra asked Wears-Only-Ropes.

"The Hammerfell ship has been spotted," she said.

"I think so too," Ra'Jirra nodded. "Okay. Go through the jungle and swim to Argonia as fast as you can. I don't think I can stop the ship directly, but I'm going to see what I can do with the CAT. I might be able to drop a mine on it before it goes deep."

"The CAT?"

"No time to explain. It's a very fast little boat I moored on the other side of the cove. It has shallow water timed mines made to stop pursuers, but they don't go deep. Come on, there's no time for this."

Wears-Only-Ropes put her hands on the khajiit's shoulders and looked at her seriously.

"Ra'Jirra, I'm going with you."

"Dammit, no! Even if I fail, you can still stop a goddamned war! I'm just an Elsweyr agent. Nobody would believe me!"

"We're going to stop that ship before it kills more sailors, Ra'Jirra. You AND me."

"Fuck it, I haven't time to argue, Ropes. Damned if I know what good you can do, but let's get the hell out of here."

They climbed out of the window and peered around the wall of the building. All the action was at the ship. They sneaked back the other way and then raced through the jungle towards the CAT as fast as they could.

The alarm stopped as they crossed over the hill and descended towards the open sea where she hoped the CAT still waited. It took her a few minutes to find her way back to the rock shelf, and she lost the bikini bottom totally when it scraped against the side, but she had no time to worry about that.

The CAT was still floating where she'd left it.

"Okay Ropes. Here's how you can help. Under the seat is where the mines are. They are set to go off 15 seconds after I drop them, but there's a dial on top where you can change that. If we can get in front of the ship, make an estimate of how long the mine should wait before it goes off based on our speed and the speed of the ship and set the timer, then set it back into the rack and tap my shoulder and I'll launch it. We only have four, so we don't have a lot to work with. Better to take a little time and get the estimate right first. Got it?"

Wears-Only-Ropes took out one of the mines and examined it, then put it back on the rack under the seat. "Got it."

Wears-Only-Ropes cut the rope holding the CAT to the rock, pocketing it. Ra'Jirra was going to ask why she did that, but she'd already fired up the engine and had no time.

"Hold on tight, Ropes!" she called. "This thing MOVES!"

She felt the argonian's grip around her waist. Good. Nice and firm.

Then they were off and sailing across the waves, gaining speed rapidly. Once at full speed, the G-forces leveled out and she felt the argonian's hands release her waist. She was doing something with the rope back there, but Ra'Jirra had no time to worry about it. She was looking towards the sea. On the horizon, she saw the Hammerfell ship.

Then they passed around the corner of the cove and saw the Dominion. It was already under way and she turned towards the open ocean to intersect it's path. There were three Almer on a raised tower that hadn't been there before, apparently piloting the ship. They were looking out to sea towards the Hammerfell ship and hadn't spotted her yet. The Dominion was fast, but no where near what the CAT was doing.

Then Wears-Only-Ropes tapped her shoulder and she turned around.

"LOOK! IN THE COVE!"

Ra'Jirra shifted to look directly behind them. Hundreds of argonians were rising out of the ocean into the complex. Too many to have been Dominion employees. She smiled. She couldn't be certain from this distance and with the motion of the CAT, but one of them looked an awful lot like Geeus.

But she had no time to worry about that. She was almost in the path of the Dominion. She turned back and saw that on her current course she would intersect very near the bow of the ship. She turned right slightly to end up farther in front of it.

Then she heard the crack of a rifle. She'd heard that before. She didn't see where the bullet hit, nor how close it was to the CAT. It had obviously missed, but there would be more. Wears-Only-Ropes was unaware of the danger of course. Rifle and gun technology had a long way to go before it became mainstream. Her own gun was in the storage compartment, but with the amount of motion of the CAT, she didn't even bother.

"SET THE FIRST MINE!" she called as she turned the CAT farther right, now directly in the path of the ship.

"15 SECONDS LOOKS ABOUT RIGHT!"

"OKAY, HERE GOES!"

Ra'Jirra pulled the mine release lever, then hit the accelerator and turned sharply left out of the path and away from the Dominion. She looked behind her. One of the Altmer was doing something with the rifle, so she began turning randomly as she sped away.

And then the mine went off, raising a tower of water from where it floated just a foot under the water. However, she saw the Dominion plow through the explosion without slowing. Then it veered towards it's right, farther away from her.

The Altmer may have taken another shot, but if he did, it must have missed. But now the Dominion was heading away from her, so she turned back to intercept it again.

She risked a glance towards the Hammerfell ship. With it's own speed heading towards them, ad their speed heading towards it, it had already become much more than a dot on the horizon.

Wears-Only-Ropes yelled in her ear, "Look! The altmer are going inside!"

She nodded. Damn. The thing was going to submerge. She had to get to it before then!

She turned and headed at full speed again directly to where she estimated it would be by the time she got back to it. She saw it was slowly going under the water, but she'd gotten too far away from it. She wasn't going to make it.

As she got back to it's path, all but the tower was underwater and the tower was sinking fast. She slowed the CAT.

"We can still hit the tower!" Wears-Only-Ropes said, a mine in her hand.

She put her hand over the argonians'. "No, Ropes. It wouldn't cause enough damage. Put it back. We've got to hit it on the nose so the explosives inside go up. Otherwise they'll just take it back and repair it."

"But, we can't just let it go!!!"

Suddenly they heard a new sound. A ominous whirring coming from underwater. The Dominion was passing directly underneath them now, dark underneath the sea.

"What the hell is that?" Ra'Jirra said, looking at Wears-Only-Ropes.

The argonian's eyes were wide. "A sea-arrow! They've shot a sea-arrow at the Hammerfell ship already!"

Ra'Jirra turned back towards the other ship. It was still a good distance away, but there was an odd white line heading towards it at high speed.

"HOLD ON!" she screamed and pulled the throttle. Wears-Only-Ropes had managed to get one hand around her, just enough to stop inertia from tearing her off the CAT.

Then they were at full speed racing towards the speeding sea-arrow. It was fast, but the CAT was faster still. They were fairly flying from wave to wave and they passed directly over the sea-arrow. They could see it's shape, barely underwater, but Ra'Jirra continued on aiming for the Hammerfell ship.

"LAUNCH THE MINE!" Wears-Only-Ropes called over her shoulder.

Ra'Jirra pulled the lever a second time. It could have been no more than three seconds afterwards that the mine exploded, and with it, the sea-arrow as Wears-Only-Ropes had dubbed it, but the explosive in the arrow was incredible. The CAT flew high through the air, but Ra'Jirra didn't notice. She was flying in the opposite direction. She had no idea where Wears-Only-Ropes was.

She hit the water hard and came up gasping for air, looking around. She was not a bad swimmer, but now she was alone in an ocean that suddenly looked incredibly big. Yards away, she saw the CAT, still sputtering and amazingly upright. She started swimming towards it when powerful hands grabbed her waist and she began to sail through the water like a fish.

She looked back and saw Wears-Only-Ropes underwater but swimming hard back to the CAT. She climbed up on it and the argonian climbed up behind her. However, her shirt was gone. In its place, Wears-Only-Ropes wore her namesake. The rope from the CAT was now fashioned into a bra of sorts, but it was a quite long length of rope and it curled around her breasts and chest with knots and crossbacks that couldn't have been easy to fashion. The argonian was obviously skilled in creating such a "garment", if that word even worked.

Ra'Jirra thought momentarily about how impressive Ropes would be to an S&M aficionado. "Nice," she said.

"Better water-dynamics," she explained hastily. "I can swim faster this way."

"You know, between your pants and my bikini top, we make one fully dressed person."

"And one not-so-much," Wears-Only-Ropes laughed, but then her eyes focused on something beyond Ra'Jirra and she pointed back towards the island.

"ANOTHER ARROW!"

"Goddammit!" Ra'Jirra cried but was off again.

The Hammerfell ship was already getting damn close, though it was turning aside after having seen the explosion. The crew were probably getting some great views of her and Ropes too, but she had no time to worry about that. Another white line was speeding their way and the big Hammerfell ship didn't look like it was going to get out of the way fast enough.