6. Maggie’s Revenge

Herb Withers watched in horror as Jeremiah raised his hitherto unused pistol. The barrel was pointed right at Herb’s chest, and before there was any chance to react, a deafening thunderclap rocked him backward. He wondered for a brief, confusing moment if he had been struck by lightning, but the warm sensation flowing from his back said otherwise. Shock and confusion ran through him in waves as he tried to keep his balance on his horse. If he could just stay upright, maybe they could get him back to town and do something about it.

Darkness surrounded the hill, closing in on all sides. He looked up at the ominous, bloated sky above him. “I just wanted to see that man hung.” Blood bubbled from his mouth as he said it, choking him and making the words barely audible. In a snap, any and all sensation was gone and he was floating midair next to his horse. Staring at him were two men, both with hangmen’s marks around their neck and one with a neat bullet hole in the middle of his head.

“Where the hell am I?!”

Otis, still in shock from the events unfolding, shrugged. “You’re dead, but I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem for long at the rate she’s going.” He pointed a finger toward Maggie who was already recovering from her run-in with the barrier and headed back toward the fray.

The horsemen spun around wildly, drawing their guns.

“What the hell have you done, Jeremiah?” asked Reggie, with more annoyance than anything.

“I-I don’t know. It just—”

Reggie cut off his explanation by shooting Jeremiah in the head.

“NO!” shouted Jeremiah as he appeared midair. His hands stretched out, still trying to block the shot that had sent his body flying backward off his horse. The damp desert floor soaked up his blood greedily, happy for the extra moisture.

“Jeremiah, you son of a bitch!” yelled Herb. “Why’d you go and shoot me like that for?!”

“I-I don’t know what happened.” Jeremiah’s eyes were wide. “Am I dead?”

Maggie streaked past them, trying to enjoy the newfound chaos in the spirit realm and pointed herself at Reggie’s right-hand lieutenant. He held a repeating rifle and had good positioning on the other two men. His name was Hugo, and Maggie shuddered at the idea of sharing a body with him even for a second. She swallowed her disgust and shot forward. Like before, there was the elastic pull and sudden disorientation.

The first thing she noted was the sourness of Hugo’s breath and the soreness radiating from his lower

5. Thunder on the Horizon

Adam’s idea of a training regimen wasn’t much. Day after day, he told Maggie to ‘focus her anger’ or ‘really think about it’. Finding her rage was not as easy as it had once been. Over the years, she had found ways around it, trying to come to peace rather than continuously dwelling on the past. As a result, she had let go of the stronger emotions that possessed and guided people like Adam.

Fall came, quickly followed by winter, and the hangings slowed, so they had plenty of time to practice, and even more for Maggie to be frustrated at the lack of progress. While Adam was able to summon his spiritual flash almost on command, she had gotten nowhere. The process was demoralizing and helped none by the constant presence of Otis chuckling to himself and giving tips like: ‘put your back into it’ or ‘focus comes from the mind’. All things considered, they were six of the worst months Maggie had spent at The Hanging Tree.

Training took time away from her rest, and for the first time, Maggie felt tired. The idea of floating down into the dirt didn’t seem so bad after all. Of course, her body was non-existent, so physical exhaustion wasn’t a concern, but her mind felt like old wood, bent near the point of splintering. Focusing so much on her rage reminded her why she had been hung in the first place, and the injustice of it all.

She could still taste the stale desert air and feel the heat on her back as they marched her up the hill. Reggie had ridden beside her, keeping a personal eye on the proceedings as he always did. He had only been back a few times since, but it seemed he never let others do his dirty work. At least the man had principles to balance out his complete lack of morality and empathy. If someone was going to be hanged, he was going to be there for it. That day, he had even gotten off his horse to tie the noose and give an explanation.

Reggie had told her she was ‘bad for business’. That’s how simple it had been. Maggie blinked, trying to come back to the present moment. For years, she had drifted back to her death daily and it had nearly driven her insane. The key was to stay calm and stay present, but everything about ‘training’ with Adam had thrown that out the window. To be truly angry, she had to dwell on the past. Despite the mental gymnastics, Maggie hadn’t managed more than a slight glimmer.

Time passed at an uneven rate. Before Maggie knew it, winter was gone and spring rolled in. She had a vague memor

Faction:

Royal Navy

Class:

Thunderer-class Superheavy Battleship (Modified Type L2 Battleship)

Background:

HMS Thunderer is the Tier X Premium battleship in Wargaming’s World of Warships, officially released on 16 September 2019 with Patch 0.8.8. Thunderer in-game is a hypothetical post-World War II modernization of the L2-class Battleship developed in the 1920s. The L2 was a design scheme developed by the Royal Navy using lessons learned after World War I in general, and the Battle of Jutland in particular. This design in turn would lead to the development of the G3-class Battlecruisers and N3-class Battleship (had the latter been built, it would’ve likely been known as the Saint George-class) before their cancellation in accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty.

Thunderer’s post-war design features Lattice masts, which reflect post-World War II architecture, while sporting eight 457mm/45 (18”) Mark II guns in four twin turrets, with secondary and Anti-Air armament composing of sixteen 5.25” (134mm) dual Purpose guns in eight twin Mark II turrets (the same gun type used as the main gun on the Dido-class Light Cruiser), 104 Bofors 40mm guns in various configurations, and eight 20mm Oerlikons in four twin turrets, making her a formidable opponent to face from sea and airborne threats.

Namesake:

Thunder is the sound caused by lightning.

Historically, five warships commissioned by the Royal Navy bore the name of Thunderer. The first, a Hercules-class third-rate Ship of the Line launched in 1760, took part in a naval action on 17 July 1761, where it fought and captured the French ship of the line Achille and frigate Bouffone off Cadiz during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763).

The second, a Culloden-class third-rate Ship of the Line commissioned in 1793 would take part in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792-1802, 1803-1815), taking part in the Fourth Battle of Ushant (also known as the Glorious First of June), the Battles of Cape Finisterre and Trafalgar, and the Dardanelles Campaign.

The third ship to bear the name was a Canopus-class second-rate Ship of the Line launched in 1831, who took part in Europe’s response to the Oriental Crisis of 1840, during the Second Turco-Egyptian War (1839-1841). She would be renamed HMS

HMS Thunder Child destroyed two, possibly three tripods during a suicidal attack while protecting refugees. Relevant part of the story.

Obviously the USS Iowa would fare much better, and I have no doubt it would destroy the three tripods without any trouble. The Martians then make destroying the battleship an increasingly important priority. They start with 4 tripods at once, then 5, 6, 7...

Round 1: Iowa as of 1943:

• 9 × 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns
• 20 × 5 in (127.0 mm)/38 cal Mark 12 guns
• 80 × 40 mm/56 cal anti-aircraft guns
• 49 × 20 mm/70 cal anti-aircraft cannons

Round 2: Iowa as of 1984:

• 9 × 16 in (406 mm)/50 cal Mark 7 guns
• 12 × 5 in (127.0 mm)/38 cal Mark 12 guns
• 32 × BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles
• 16 × RGM-84 Harpoon Anti-Ship missiles
• 4 × 20 mm/76 cal Phalanx CIWS

Depending on ammunition available for the guns I actually think Round 2 Iowa might fare worse after it runs out of missiles. Each one is probably way overkill for a single tripod. There are other benefits to the refit but once the martian numbers start increasing I think the ship will miss having dozens of AA guns...

Bonus questions:

• Weakest naval vessel (present, past, fictional) that could solo the three tripods in the story and survive? Thunder Child might have done it but was destroyed in the process.
• Vary the number of tripods attacking at any one time (only in waves of 3, one at a time, many all at once right from the start?)

Hello World

I have done a Scifi adaptation of War of the Worlds and as it is Saturday, I’d like to give it a whirl on Reddit scifi. [Announcement] The Last Days of Thunder Child (By C.A. Powell) is set in the alternative history and universe of 1898 Victorian Britain and the reader sees the story unfold from the crew’s perspective aboard the ironclad as she sails towards her terrible destiny. Its a good old fashion type scifi yarn and I think it would appeal to WOTW fans and steampunk readers. http://thelastdaysofthunderchild.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/last-days-of-thunder-child.html

A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment. When his eyes were clear again he saw the monster had passed and was rushing landward. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.

She was steaming at such a pace that in a minute she seemed halfway between the steamboat and the Martians--a diminishing black bulk against the receding horizontal expanse of the Essex coast.

Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians.

They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship's side like a white-hot iron rod through paper.

A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the other

Is there thunder HM in pokemon prism? If yes, where is it?