Author's Note

light content warning: faked suicide as a ploy in an escape attempt.

Extra long chapter as a christmas present. Hope it's not too long. I do want to aim for 5-6 thousand per chapter, but I just found that dramatic action chapters tended to go on for longer before resolving themselves.

12: Overboard, 1926

Belloq stepped out from the launch onto the weather deck of the Eleanor, the cables that had hoisted his boat back onto the ship jangling behind him. The Captain waited nearby, having a smoke as he watched his sailors disembark.

"Mr Jones's friend is in the brig, as you requested. The horse is sealed in its cabin and under guard," the Captain said, eyes following the other man as he dusted the sand off his boots.

"Let's get out of here," Belloq ordered, squinting and looking over his shoulder to the island in the distance, "He's well and truly trapped, but I'd rather not take any chances."

"You didn't kill him?" the Captain asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and strolling over to the side.

"I wanted to give him some time to think at the bottom of a pit. Even if he gets out, there's no land for miles and nothing on the island to sustain himself with. Get the anchor up and get us underway, vite!"

"I would not recommend it, sir," the Captain retorted, holding out his still smoking cigarette towards the ship's superstructure, "We have received a radio transmission. The good doctor wishes to see his cargo, he is heading to us aboard a seaplane."

"We can pick him up while we're on the move," Belloq insisted, kicking his boots against the railing to get the last of the sandy muck off of the tough leather.

"No can do," the Captain gestured towards the clouds, blotting out the setting sun, "Storm's coming. Sea's going to be fierce. Even with the natural break, the water's going to be hell to try and fish a seaplane out of. It will be impossible to do if we try to grab a seaplane in the deep ocean."

Belloq bit his lip, looking back out towards the island. Small droplets of rain hit his jacket and calls went out from the ship's officers to batten down hatches.

"If you're really that nervous, why don't you just go back there and make sure the job's finished?" the Captain asked, pulling down his cap and stepping back from the railing.

"I'm no savage to shoot a man like that like a caged animal," Belloq hissed, walking towards the superstructure with a glance towards the Captain, "As soon as we are able, cast off from this accursed rock. I am going to have dinner, then I will have a chat with Mr Jones's bodyguard!"

The Captain sighed, tossing his fully burned-out cigarette overboard and following closely behind, the rain picking up in greater and greater droves.

Indiana Jones sat in complete darkness, body aching from the fall, and nothing but the sound of rain and dripping water to accompany him. Bones creaked and cracked underneath him every time he shifted his weight, moisture clung to the back of his jacket from where it connected to the wall, and the overwhelming scent of dirt and brine. For several minutes, he sat, hands sunken into the bones underneath him, stunned into inactivity.

Belloq had seemed so... friendly. So generous, so accommodating as he showed him around Paris and around his vineyard. They'd made money together, Indiana had gotten a taste of adventure that he'd sorely missed throughout his college years. He had thought they were friends; he'd known that Belloq was a fellow materialist, but not to the point where he'd sell out his friend so easily.

Had he been planning this all along? Surely not, or else he'd have just had Indiana killed in his sleep and tossed overboard long ago, the crew were obviously on his side. This must have just been a last minute change in plans, a better offer given... given from that damned client. He'd seen the way Mariette had looked at Anna back in Panama, it all seemed so obvious now.

Surely, Mariette could not have had any love for Anna. What fate awaited her? Was she to be caged like a zoo animal, treated like a pet? Was she to be studied and split open to have her organs harvested?

Indiana's face twitched as a mixture of self-loathing and anger came over him. These were the exact things Indiana had wanted to prevent when he adopted that girl. Visions of her crying in the library came back to him. Maybe she might've forgiven him in the moment, but he knew full well from experience how much it blew to have his father turn his back on him. He'd lost sight of how much light she'd brought into his life, and now she was being taken away.

His hands retracted from the bones beneath him, his weight shifting as his lips tightened. A finger brushed against the rim of something cloth, something with a familiar texture. The brim of a hat, the one that had fallen off when he'd been pushed into the pit.

That wasn't going to happen, not if he could help it. His hand clenched around the brim, and he pulled it down over his head.

His next immediate thought was to assess the situation. He had his whip, a few archaeological tools, his canteen, and the rest of his clothes and equipment. For once, he cursed his abstinence from tobacco, or else he might have been prone to carrying a lighter with him. Any source of light would have been a lifesaver. Though, fortunately, he had a fairly good image of the pit's dimensions in his mind - it hadn't exactly been the largest ancient structure he'd explored.

The opening of the pit was around ten meters above him. He was very lucky to not have cracked his head, and that the blunt sides of the spiked poles had broken his fall. However, those same spiked poles were going to be a substantial obstacle. They had obviously been installed specifically to prevent the dead from rising and climbing back up to the mouth of the pit and would prevent his ascent as well, not that he particularly trusted his climbing skills in the dark.

Another fall could mean he could hit a spike on the way down and get seriously injured, and his blindness meant that he could very well stumble and ram a spike through an eye socket. Even if he got to the mouth of the pit, the stone used to cover it had taken several men using pickaxes for leverage to move. He doubted he could get a stable enough hold to push the stone out of the way, let alone gather the strength needed to shift it.

A frown. That was it, wasn't it? It wasn't like they would've made some sort of secret, back exit to a plague tomb. He was stuck.

His boots planted into the bones as he carefully felt around himself, fingers touching the ends of spikes. Grabbing ahold of one of them, he righted himself in the center of the room. Bones snapped and crunched underneath him, and his spine tingled as he felt the dead grasp of a skeletal hand push up his pant leg and brush against his right sock. Rain pattered against the top of the stone overhead, making Indiana hope that the pit wasn't prone to flooding.

Who was he kidding. It was a stone pit in the middle of a rocky coastal plain, of course it was going to be prone to flooding.

Widening his stance to grant him better stability, Indiana began to feel around. Bricks surrounded him, and his fingertips felt the grooves between them, where mortar glued the stones together. Yet...

His brows furrowed. He withdrew his left arm and touched his cheek. There was definite, cold moisture on that hand. He withdrew his other arm and touched his cheek. That hand was soaked. He squinted, despite it not making a difference in the light, and carefully turned towards the wall.

A slow trickle of water ran down it. Perhaps it was rainwater, flowing through a microscopic crack between the rock covering and the side of the pit? A quick taste test left the sting of minerals and high salt content on his tongue, though admittedly there was likely also salt water moisture clinging to every single wall of the pit that was contaminating the taste test.

Still, it showed that, in whatever way, the pit was compromised somehow. Perhaps he could leverage something open, if he could find the source. It was better than sitting and rotting, or waiting for the water to rise.

His hand grasped one of the spikes again, and he worked his way up the pole carefully to the place where it met the wall. The wood had held up well, but it was moist and old. Clumsily, he took a boot out of the bones, steadying himself with both hands against other spikes. Then, he slammed the boot against the side of the spike several times, a satisfying crack heard on the third strike.

He picked the broken spike off the floor. It had come apart to be about two feet long, with a pointed edge - a pointed edge that would be perfect for applying some leverage. Licking his lips, he reached out again and felt the walls, finding out exactly how wide the wet part of the wall as. It seemed that thirty degrees of the wall of the pit had the trickling coming down it, and he could feel the flow tapering off the higher up the wall he felt.

Taking out his whip, he fastened the spike around his torso, in order to free up his hands. After making sure the pole was more or less secure, Indiana began to climb up the wall slicked with water, using the spikes as handholds and footholds.

It was difficult going, requiring a massive amount of grip strength from his hands to keep a hold of the slick, angled spikes. He planned to investigate the source of the water, if he could find it, and failing that he would go to the top to attempt to shift the stone.

His nails dug into the wood, and he felt splinters and grime dig in under them. More than once, he lost grip on a hold, every single step upwards bottoming out his lungs and causing his muscles to roar. Even worse were the times when he had to free up a hand to feel around on the wall, depending on a single arm and his two feet, which had significantly less traction than his hands, to keep him stable.

About halfway up (at least, by his estimates), Indiana's hand finally found where the water ended. A tiny, smooth crack in the wall separated where the water started and ended. His eyes widened at the discovery, and he reached down to his whip to untie it and release the spike. With its pointed end, Indiana clumsily jammed the spike into the wall and pushed. If anything, it would loosen some bricks and allow him a stable place to put his legs so that he could give his arms a break.

Bricks fell away from the wall, and suddenly the sound of water grew louder. Indiana frowned, before a loud CRACK nearly started him into losing his grip. A jet of water suddenly shot out from the wall, spraying him directly in the chest, the sound of stones shifting and splitting growing louder as water rushed into the pit.

"Crap. This is going to be a dumb way to die..." Indiana said to himself, reaching out a hand to lamely attempt to stop the flow.

Instead, his hand found that the water pouring through the gap was coming from a hole that was forever widening. No sooner had his fingertips found the edge of the hole did a much louder crack resound from the rock, the jets of water turning into a continuous waterfall, pushing the water growing in the room up towards the ceiling faster and faster. Soon, Indiana no longer found the need to grip to the wall, as water rose around his boots, quickly rising towards his belt and torso.

In his last available moments to do so, Indiana took several quick breaths, clearing any residual air from his lungs, before taking the biggest gasp he could, just as the water overran his chin. He could extend his breath be swimming to the top of the pit, back above the water line, but the water would soon completely flood the room. He doubted he could move the stone and free himself before he ran out of air.

The salt stinging his eyes, though, confirmed a theory that had flourished in his panicked mind. The water flowing through the hole had to have come from the ocean. His hand was still on the edge of the hole, and with it, he hauled himself through the water towards the hole.

He got his head through the hole, and one of his arms. His other shoulder, however, was just too wide to fit through the hole. There was a faint light in the water, but it was not enough to see anything more than the sediment floating directly in front of his eyes. The fact there was light could only mean one thing - the surface was near.

Lungs beginning to burn and mind racing at a million miles an hour, his free hand went to find purchase. It gripped around a piece of rock on the other side of the hole, and using whatever traction he could find with his legs, he willed himself forward through the hole, even as his shoulder stabbed with pain.

A loud pop echoed through his skeleton, and Indiana involuntarily gasped, allowing water to flow down his throat. This action, of course, was followed by instinctual coughing, letting all the rest of his air out of his lungs. Yet, with his shoulder dislocated, he could finally fit through the gap, his hips scraping very closely on the sides of the hole behind him.

With water in his windpipe, lungs devoid of air, and a large amount of pain going through his body, causing his heart to beat faster, Indiana's world was fading fast. With only a single arm functional, and his legs, he desperately kicked towards the surface as he began to instinctually attempt to inhale.

His head broke the surface, allowing him a single gasp of air around a mouth full of water and a compromised windpipe, before he sank again. Surging upwards, he broke the surface once again, coughing and spluttering as his working arm frantically searched for something to cling onto. His hand slapped painfully against flat, hard stone, and he clung on as he worked to clear the water from his respiratory system and breathe.

Rain fell from the sky in a hail of sharp, fast needles. The water around him boiled with the impacts of the raindrops, and only a bare minimum amount of moonlight got through the dark clouds overhead. The sounds of waves were the only other thing audible in the embrace of the night. He could see the stone covering of the tomb that had nearly become his grave nearby. He had escaped into a tidal pool that neighbored the pit, one that had likely eroded its way towards the pit in the century since it had been dug.

Something bumped against Indiana's back. Eyes stinging and irritated, he turned around to see his fedora, floating on the water.

Richard looked out through the misty glass of the porthole, streaks of rainwater coursing down its hazy pane. A shadow moved past it, in the shape of a boat. On it, nine men, missing one. He suspected he knew who the missing man was, and he pursed his lips as he thought through his options.

Indiana had likely been taken for a nice, clean execution job out on the island. Richard had clearly been framed and locked up to prevent him from raising a fuss when his friend failed to return from the expedition. Why they hadn't just shot him and thrown him overboard was another thing, perhaps they had some conscience left? Perhaps they were waiting for later?

Either way, in his mind, Richard knew what this had to all be about. If selling Anna was going to make Indiana a very wealthy man, the same logic would apply to anyone. From what he'd seen, the Frenchman in charge had an attitude of complete apathy towards the girl. There would be no loving relationship from that.

He had to get off the ship, go get help, before someone decided he wasn't worth the trouble. Fortunately, it wasn't his first time behind bars...

A set of standard iron prison bars separated the cell from a small compartment on the other side. There, one of the sailors watched him closely, revolver on the table beside him, nightstick on his belt, and a keychain on the board beside him. There had been another guard, but he'd excused himself to go and refill his pipe. The time to move was now.

Richard walked over to the small cot in the brig, disregarding the sailor's eyes as he boredly followed him. If they'd wanted him dead, they'd have just shot him and thrown him over the side an hour ago. Even as the guard watched him do it, he began to tie the sheets on the cot into a makeshift rope.

As he did his work, the sailor grew increasingly nervous. He kept glancing towards the bulkhead on the right side of the room, likely looking for the return of his companion. Calmly, Richard threw the rope to a pipe that crossed the ceiling, tying it off securely, before tying the other side into a noose.

"Hey!" the sailor said, standing up and grabbing his gun.

Richard kept his stone cold face, not looking towards the guard, as he stepped onto the toilet and looped the bedsheet-rope around his neck. It would never work, of course, the rope was too long and the sheet offered too much support to his neck. Clearly, though, the guard did not know that. Lucky fella.

The keys jangled into the lock as the guard kept his gun trained on Rich. The man himself stepped off the toilet seat, dangling from the ceiling. His feet brushed the floor, and all the sheets did was make it slightly hard for him to breathe. Still, he pretended to go limp, hurrying the guard's actions as the cell door swung open, shouting for help. He kept his eyes closed, and waited to hear the sailor come within reach.

Richard flexed his abdomen, legs lashing out just as the guard stepped into the cell. The first kick was to the guard's gun-wielding hand, which sent the pistol scattering across the room, and the second was to the chin. The man staggered back into the bars with a loud clang, allowing Richard the time to slip out of his own noose and land on the floor with a grunt.

The guard reached for his baton and wound up for a hit, only to be slammed in the nose with a single haymaker. The sailor's legs wobbled as blood gushed from a broken nose and a telltale daze settled over his eyes. With a gentle push, Richard toppled the sailor over backwards onto the ground, who settled in for a trauma-induced nap.

Lightning struck inside, thunder rumbling through the ship. The sound of rain was audible through the hull, along with the rising grumble of the ship's engines. They were keeping the engines running, likely ready to depart in the near future.

Reaching down, Rich grabbed the nightstick, keys, and gun from the downed guard, shoving them all under his belt and into his pockets. As he walked to the door, he turned the revolver over in his hands a few times. He'd never held or fired a gun in his life, but he figured it couldn't hurt to at least carry it.

Stuffing it in the back of his belt, he stepped out into the hallway just in time to look up and meet the eyes of the second guard, filled pipe in his hand. There was a moment of shock.

"Don't scream," Richard advised as he took the nighstick out of his belt.

"UH-" the sailor started, before a loud, wooden THWACK echoed through the compartment, the sailor bowling over backwards and hitting the deck with a loud slam.

Grabbing his shoulders with both hands, Richard threw the man's limp body through the bulkhead hatch. Then, taking the second guard's nightstick, he closed the bulkhead and sealed it shut, looping the nightstick into the mechanism to solidly jam it. They would wake up eventually, and on the off chance that their cries of distress had been absorbed by the noises of the storm and the rattling of the engine, Richard would prefer they did not escape immediately to raise the alarm.

Giving the wheel for the bulkhead's locking mechanism a few attempted turns, finding the mechanism locked tight, Richard turned and casually began to walk down the corridor back towards the stairs leading up. There was very little room to sneak around, especially with his large frame, so his best bet was to look as confident as possible, in case there were still sailors aboard the ship that were unaware of his status as a detainee.

As he reached the hatches leading out onto the weather deck, he heard the voices of sailors echoing down the corridors towards him. Surely enough, one of them pushed past him, jogging up from below decks with a raincoat on and a loop of rope around his shoulder. Rich tried not to show his shock as the sailor continued on towards his duties, completely ignoring him.

"James! Leeroy! Get to the crane and start it up!" shouted a male voice from elsewhere.

"The motor won't turn over, boss, we're trying to find a spare plug!" another responded.

"Then hurry up! The boss will be here any minute! Mr Belloq wants him out of the water and us underway as soon as possible! Need I mention the bonuses we have on the line for our timeliness and discretion?"

"Aye boss!"

Richard spared a look down the hallway, to where driving rain poured through a set of open hatches leading out onto the weather deck. Lightning flashed, illuminating the three talking men. Rich camly and swiftly took the next set of stairs leading upwards.

The cabins of the ship's officers, as well as Jones's and Belloq's were just up on the next floor. However, his ascent was paused as he observed shadows being cast down the stairs from the next level. His eyes were particularly focused on the long, skinny, cylindrical set of shadows wielded by two of the figures cast by the orange glow of incandescent bulbs. Armed men, likely guarding the cabins for a very particular reason.

Richard licked his lips, turning around and looking back out over the forward-facing portholes, looking out over the rain-washed weather deck. The crew gathered around the ship's port side, operating a large cargo crane and sets of floodlights. The crane's motor ran and the boom arm swept out over the ship's side, the weight causing the ship to list ever so slightly.

His vision swept to the right, where rows of ship's boats were mounted on cranes, swaying from side to side as the ship rose and fell with the waves.

"HNNNNNGHHH!" Indiana grunted, coming down on the side of the tree once again. Straightening back up, shoulder held by his other arm's hand, he took a few, tight breaths before slamming back down against the trunk again.

With a loud, ear-ringing pop his shoulder came back into place. The muscles and tendons surrounding the area were in great amounts of hot, stinging pain and his fingers tingled. What his arm needed now was a sling to keep it stable so it could heal properly, but that wasn't going to happen. Not out here. He could move his arm again, which was all he needed. Any permanent damage he was going to suffer paled in front of the consequences of that ship leaving with Anna aboard.

Through the rain driving down upon the island, he could still see it, right where he left it. Spotlights on the sides swept the ocean, and the ship's bulky silhouette hadn't moved since he escaped from the pit. It was going to be a long swim, definitely a longer swim than anything he'd undertaken before, but he had very little choice.

Kicking off his boots and socks and stuffing his hat under his belt, Indiana ran towards the waterline and dove in.

The water was cold, cooled down from its pleasant temperature earlier in the day by the storm. The waves were high, making the simple act of escaping the beach of the island a tough chore. It wasn't exactly the first time Indiana had been in the water, though, and quickly began to strongly stroke against the waves, breaking out into the open seas.

Lightning struck, briefly reminding Indiana of the one time he was told to abandon his task of swimming in a lake when a lightning storm rolled around. That memory revealed just how insane the stunt was. Professional swimmers swam in good weather, and also weren't weighed down by a full set of clothes and equipment. The water was disorienting, and while the swells weren't nearly enough to compete with what he'd be experiencing in the deep ocean they decreased his ability to keep his eyes on target.

It was as his arms began to tire, especially the one that had been recently dislocated, that Indiana began to panic. As soon as his arms gave out, his clothes and muscle density would drag him straight underwater, which would be a rather terrifying way to die. What definitely made the situation worse was that, when he looked back towards the island shore, he saw the sand almost invisible in the distance against the sheets of rainwater.

Turning back, fear propelling his arms, he began to swim back. Driven in circles by the current, his progress was slower than his journey out due to his quickly dwindling energy. He was pulled under a few times, and struggled to surface before his breath ran out.

Thoughts flooded with anxiety and fear, he had very little time to do much but realize just how lethal his situation was. Land was still far away, and minutes more would spell a watery fate.

"SKIMPY!" a voice bellowed over the rain and the water. A light passed over Indiana for but a moment.

Indiana's head immediately went under from a wave, before he kicked back up to the surface with a cough and splutter. Nearby, a boat bobbed up and down on the waves, a man's shadow standing atop it. Indiana could scarce respond, having as much trouble as he was keeping his head above water.

A rope came from the boat and slapped down into the water near him. He grabbed for the lifeline like... well, a drowning man. Another wave pummelled him under the water, but the rope quickly began to retract, pulling him along behind it.

Bursting from the water and grabbed around the collar by a strong hand, Indiana's stressed lungs took in air once again as he was hauled over the side onto the boat. A hulking figure stood over him, face shadowed, and hand still clenched around the back of his collar. A flashlight was laid in the hull of the boat, the bulb on but illuminating very little from its position.

"What the hell were you doing in the water!?" Richard asked.

"What the hell are you doing on this boat?" Indiana retorted, between gasps for breath.

Richard grabbed the flashlight and switched it back off, "Going over to the island to make sure they killed you before making a break for the mainland."

"Did you- what about Anna?" Indiana shouted, righting himself in the boat. He was beginning to shiver.

"She's being guarded. I didn't have too much time before my own wardens woke up and raised the alarm. I figured I'd go and tell the coast guard!" Richard shouted, shifting his weight carefully as he went back to the outboard motor mounted at the back of the boat.

"We need to go get her!" Indiana insisted, "Turn the boat, we have to get to the ship before they start moving!"

"How do you suppose we do that?" Richard asked, the boat beginning to move as the outboard revved up.

Clutching his hands around his arms, Indiana looked back towards his friend, "Nobody on the mainland's going to help! What are we going to tell them? A small equine with wings who is my adoptive daughter has been kidnapped? At best they laugh at us, at worst they throw us in a sanitorium! We gotta go back for Anna! I'd rather die trying!"

"I didn't think about that!" a pause, "...They'd have to have noticed I stole the boat by now! I don't know how much you know about the maritime, but you need the cooperation of the ship's crew to get back aboard a ship at sea!" Richard yelled, though he began to turn the boat nonetheless.

Indiana's eyes fixed on the canvas, once used to cover the top of the boat when it was stowed, still bundled up in a ball in the corner. Then, he looked at the spotlights scanning the sides of the ship, "Do you think we could make a fifty meter swim or so, in these conditions?"

"Probably, it'd be tough!" Richard said, "I'm more worried about you, you were struggling."

"I'd be fine for that distance," Indiana dismissed, reaching over to grab the canvas, "We'll distract the crew with the boat and climb up the anchor chain!"

"Then what!? The port for the anchor chain leads directly into a winch. I don't think your body will enjoy being winched like a chain!" Richard warned, gunning the motor as they made back for the ship.

"I'll figure something out as we go along!" Indiana proclaimed, taking the canvas with both hands.

"We swept the entire ship, sir! No sign of 'im, but one of the boats is missing. We think he bailed."

Belloq gave a hot snort from his nose, arms on his hips. He would've thought human beings with an average amount of intelligence, being paid an above-average amount of money for their deeds, might've been capable of keeping a single man behind bars for a few hours. Apparently, that was just not possible.

Dr Mariette came up the stairs behind Belloq, the armed gunmen in the compartment taking their eyes off Belloq as he approached. The latter man turned towards his employer, taking off his hat, "Sir. Your package is in this cabin, as ordered."

"Good, good," Mariette smiled, rubbing his hands together, "Give us some time alone, please..."

"Of course," Belloq said, stepping aside as Mariette made for the cabin door. It was opened, then shut behind him with a click. Lips firming up, he turned to his men, "Tell the Captain we are leaving immediately. Get us out of here!"

"Aye aye!" they said, one turning and running for the stairs to head up towards the bridge.

Anna looked up, fearfully, towards the strange man that had just entered her room. The light reflected off his glasses, and he walked with a certain, cautious cadence towards her, boots clicking on the metal flooring.

"Do you know where Daddy is?" Anna asked, voice small as she lowered her head, staying where she was on top of her bunk.

"That man?" the stranger gave a sorrowful look down towards her, "Daddy sold you. You were holding him back from his career as an archaeologist."

"W-What?" Anna asked, ears flattening against her skull and tail tossing.

The stranger continued to close the distance, finally crouching as he reached her, "You weren't being a very good girl, he said. You weren't worth the trouble."

"Daddy wouldn't say those things..." Anna said, looking around the room, "What did you do with him? He should've been back by now!"

"He doesn't want to see you anymore," the stranger said, reaching out to stroke a finger across Anna's collar, "You belong to me now," his thumb came forward and pressed down on one of the buttons of her shirt, "What kind of tricks are you capable of?"

"Stop!" Anna cried, pushing his hand away with one stroke of her forehoof, before scrambling away towards the bed and sliding under.

A boot came down on her tail, putting stress on her tailbone, before she was roughly yanked back out into the light. Two hands grabbed her by the wings, more forcefully this time, hoisting her out in front of the stranger as she weakly slapped against his arms.

"You are my property, you understand!?" he spat, "You are nothing but a worthless animal, abandoned and alone. I am the only one who will be able to care for you from now on, understand!?"

Anna's eyes began to well as she stared up into his eyes, feathers bunching up around the man's fists and legs flailing.

A gunshot echoed through the ship.

Five more gunshots filled the air as the crew opened fire on the empty motorboat, punching rifle bullet-sized holes through its wooden hull. The covering on top, flashlight beam peeking through it, was all that the crew seemingly needed to dump every bullet their rifles could hold into the motorboat.

Indiana Jones gripped onto the anchor chain, heart thundering from the burning fire in his muscles and lungs twinging with pain under the stress. Richard was close behind him, below, as they ascended the chain from the waves.

"Now we're here, what do we do now!?" Richard asked, pleadingly as they climbed.

"I'll figure something out!" Indiana said, putting one hand over the other as rain slicked down the length of the slightly rusted metal chain.

"You keep saying that! What's the plan!?"

"I don't usually have those!"

All of a sudden, the chain began to violently shake. The vibrations rattled his knuckles and stimulated the tingling feeling in his hand. After a moment, Indiana realized that he was ascending, despite staying still. The anchor chain was rising from the water, the ship was about to shove off.

Sooner than he expected, the hole where the chain disappeared into the hull grew closer, along with the no doubt bone-grinding gears that ran the winch system. When in doubt, there was but one thing for him to rely on.

The whip cracked through the air, fastening itself around the railing along the side of the ship's prow. Indiana let go of the chain at the last minute, climbing up the whip towards the deck and towards safety.

Richard, also clinging to the chain, reached out towards Indiana, only to be waved off with the response, "No! No! Climb down the chain! Down the chain!"

Nodding furiously, Richard began to climb down as fast as he safely could, only barely keeping neck-in-neck with the rate the chain was being pulled into the ship. Indiana clambered over the side of the boat, before holding onto the whip as Richard, the much heavier of the two of them, abandoned the chain and grabbed on.

The higher amount of tension on the bullwhip was immediately evident as Richard began to climb up towards the railing.

Then, the whip slipped, sliding completely free of the railing. The only thing preventing Richard from falling straight back down into the ocean was the whip's popper, which slid down and jammed itself between Indiana's hand.

Indiana immediately lost balance, jamming his bare feet beneath the railing to keep from being pulled over the edge. The skin on his hands burned and bled with the effort of keeping hold of his whip as Richard made the last few steps towards the railing.

Just as the popper was about to slide right through Indiana's palms, Richard's hand grabbed onto the deck, his muscles visibly rippling as he supported his own body weight, allowing Indiana the leeway to re-affirm his grip on his whip, looping the leading edge of it around one of his hands and pulling Richard up the rest of the way.

"That goddamn thing is handy!" Richard wheezed as he pulled himself up over the railing, "Where'd you learn to use it!?"

"Circus," Indiana said, collapsing onto the floor with his whip still looped around his hand, having once again depleted all the stamina in his lungs.

Lightning flashed, illuminating someone's shadow across the deck. Moments later, thunder rumbled as the man who cast the shadow, a sailor in a raincoat and boots, pointed towards them and shouted, "OI!"

Before Indiana could muster the strength to surge to his feet, Richard had bounded to his feet and crossed the gap, grabbing the man by his face and smashing his skull against a nearby ventilation pipe. The sailor fell and didn't get back up.

Indiana, getting back up and hauling in his whip, eventually staggered towards the downed sailor and began to unbutton his raincoat. Richard initially looked confused, before widening his eyes in realization as Indiana quickly donned the sailor's coat and boots.

Many of the sailors on deck were out by the spotlights, looking overboard. A few of them had rifles, aimed out towards sea. The crane had moved back into its default position, though new cargo sat secured to the deck next to it - a seaplane. The aircraft was covered with canvas and tied to the deck with steel cables, its windows dark and empty. Indiana quickly ushered Richard behind cover as his eyes tracked another form moving towards the side of the boat.

Another man in a raincoat moved forward towards the crew with rifles. The others turned towards him, and some indiscernible speech was audible over the rain and the thunder. For a moment, the man in the raincoat turned towards one of the spotlights, illuminating his face.

"Belloq..." Indiana muttered.

"Why didn't he just shoot you?" Richard whispered almost directly into Indiana's right ear, staying crouched next to him.

"Twisted code of honor," Indiana said, before turning towards Richard and gesturing towards him, "I need you to arrange our escape plan."

"You thinking of taking the plane?" Richard asked.

"I got bad luck with seaplanes. Besides, there's no launching mechanism on this ship, there's no way to get it in the air," Indiana explained, pointing to one of the boats instead, "Pick out a boat. Maybe one of them that has a sail you can set up. If I'm not back, try and get some supplies. We'll need a lot of water to make the mainland from here."

"Got it," Richard nodded, though he grabbed the tails of Indiana's raincoat just as he was about to leave, "Listen, Skimpy..."

"Yeah?" Indiana asked, turning around.

"You're a good father. You made a few mistakes, but a good father busts his ass to make it right," Richard said, smiling as he reached up and squeezed his shoulder. Then, he reached for the back of his belt, taking out a revolver, "I think you'll be able to use this better than I could."

He hadn't held a piece since the War. He could see the cylinders filled with bullets - likely all still functional due to the revolver's simple design and the small amount of time they bullets had been in water.

"Thanks Rich," Indiana said, managing a smile as he took the revolver, "See you in a bit."

The ship swayed from side to side as Indy moved across the weather deck. With the anchor hauled in and smoke billowing from the stacks, Indiana realized they had begun to move from behind the natural break. Waves came in from the deep ocean, smashing against the hull and releasing spray over the sides. The crew were retreating inside as the deck became a more and more hazardous place to be, floodlights remaining on and illuminating the ocean and deck - likely as a safety precaution.

Keeping his hood up, Indiana sprinted towards one of the hatches, ahead of the main body of crewmen. Finally out of the rain, the sounds of the storm became muted behind the deck plating and metallic walls of the ship's superstructure. Water slicked off of his raincoat and dribbled onto the floor as he moved towards the stairwell. His first stop was his cabin, where he'd last left Anna for a nap.

He mounted the stairs and headed upwards towards the second floor of the superstructure, one level below the bridge and radio room. Turning a corner in the stairwell, he was quickly forced to hesitate and move back around the corner at the sight of three armed guards standing around in the corridor above, holding casual conversation with each other.

"Who was that?" one of them asked, breaking up their chatter.

"I 'unno," another responded.

Indiana, back flat against the wall back around the corner from the guards, pursed his lips. A million possibilities of events ran through his mind as he hesitated, before he took a deep breath and stuck his hands underneath his coat. As confidently as he could, he turned the corner and began to stride up the stairs.

"Hey!" one of the men, leaning against the left wall with a rifle, "You can't be up here."

The other two also turned. One with a pistol, the other with a double-barrelled shotgun, the former being on the opposite wall from the rifleman and the latter being farther back in the hall. Indiana looked between them all, face illuminated by the electrical lighting, "Want to see a whip trick?"

"Huh?" the one with the rifle asked, gun still aimed towards the floor.

The bullwhip curled out above Indiana's head, before striking out with a supersonic crack towards the man with the shotgun, cranking the gun out of his hands. With his other hand, Indiana emptied a round of his revolver into the pistol-wielder's face, then threw his weight with his shoulder into the rifleman's rifle. A hot gash of pain smeared across Indy's back as the rifle went off, though it was likely it was only the hot gas escaping the rifle's muzzle as the bullet pinged off the deck plating behind him.

On the bridge, the sounds of idle chatter, the rain hammering against the windshield, and the distant rumble of the engines were all suddenly overcome by the sound of a whip's crack and two gunshots from below. Belloq looked up from the map table as the ship's officers also raised their heads in confusion.

"...Jones," Belloq hissed.

Indiana smashed the rifleman over the head with his own rifle, before turning and using his momentum to smash its stock straight into the head of the disarmed shotgunner, who was on the floor reaching for his weapon. Standing in the midst of the room with one man, dead on the floor, and two other men unconscious next to their discarded weapons, Indiana had little time to think over his situation as the sounds of boots scampering above and below him urged him to action.

Turning, his wild eyes landed on his cabin door. Turning the bolt on his rifle, he ran up to the door and aimed straight for the bolt, squeezing the trigger.

Sparks flew as the locking mechanism on the door burst open, allowing him to kick the door open with ease, pulling back the bolt with trained precision as he stormed in. Another shot met him as soon as he came in, scratching right over his left shoulder and impacting the doorframe behind him. Indiana barely had a moment to register the figure of Dr Mariette, standing next to the door with a pocket pistol in hand, before he instinctually turned and squeezed off another round into his stomach.

The pain of being shot in the guts caused the white-suited man to stagger, causing the next two rounds going through his semiautomatic to hit the floor as Indiana charged him. With the now-dented stock of his rifle, Indiana smashed Mariette in the chin, causing him to collapse to the floor, bleeding from a perforation straight through his intestines.

"Anna! It's me!" Indiana said, in perhaps a bit of a manic state as he glanced around in a panic.

There was a dresser, one Indiana knew wasn't bolted down due to its tendency to fall over whenever the ship went through rough seas. He grabbed it, the adrenaline in his veins allowing him to throw it against the door, jamming it shut once again just as the sound of boots came to their level.

As soon as Indiana turned around, his eyes saw Anna, hidden where the dresser had been sitting just moments ago. Her shirt was unbuttoned, wings ruffled, and her forehooves were clamped over her eyes. A single rose-colored eye peeked out from under one of her hooves, before she suddenly leapt at Indiana, wrapping herself around his torso, fur immediately wetting as the moisture from his raincoat soaked into her.

Indiana looked towards the bleeding body of Mariette as he fumbled towards the pistol on the ground, causing him to simultaneously cover Anna's eyes from the sight of the bloodied doctor and kick the pistol away into a corner. As soon as the pistol clattered away into a corner, though, a gunshot rang out.

A hole was punched through the front door of the cabin, hitting the porthole exactly opposite it and cracking it open, missing Indiana's head by a few inches. Anna screamed and Indy ducked out of the way as more gunshots ran out, perforating the room with blind fire from the other side.

"NO WAY OUT MR JONES!" shouted Belloq's voice from the other side, his taunt punctuated by further retorts from the muzzles of guns, filling the room with lead. Soon enough, the door was going to be in enough pieces for them to fire freely through it.

"Hang on to me, Anna, hang on real tight!" Indiana shouted, taking the butt of Richard's revolver and going over to the porthole, trying to make himself as small as possible while shielding Anna from the gunfire. With the wooden handle of the revolver, he knocked the glass shards out of the porthole.

Light spilled into the from the door as Indiana stepped on Mariette's head and propelled himself through the window, tiny remnants of glass on the outer rims of the hole scratching himself and Anna up as they fell out onto the small slice of the poopdeck that lay behind the ship's superstructure.

Landing hard on the shoulder, gashed from Mariette's small caliber pistol round, Indiana rolled and wheezed as he slowly got to his feet. Belloq and his men weren't far behind, though, crawling through the shot-open gap in the door towards the windows. A rifle poked out of the smashed glass shortly afterwards, causing Indiana to surge to his feet and sprint away as a bullet streaked through the air behind him, chewing open a hole in the railing.

Anna, all the time, grabbed around Indiana's ribcage, screaming her lungs out in fear as loud noises, long falls, and danger surrounded her on all sides. Her father sprinted across the deck, heading back upwards towards the middle of the ship, where no doubt Richard was preparing a boat for launch. The dark rear parts of the ship turned into brightly lit midships as he came into range of the floodlights.

A sailor stepped out in front of him, still pulling on his raincoat with one hand as he held a revolver in the other hand. His eyes widened for a moment, though Indiana was faster to the draw. A burst of gunpowder caused Anna's ears to ring as her father's revolver went off inches from her head, but the bullet imbedded itself into the sailor's neck and put him down on the floor before he could pull back the hammer on his single-action.

Indiana, arriving on the right side of the middle deck, took a moment to look around for any sign of his friend. Fortunately, the big guy wasn't that hard to miss, especially as he hurriedly pushed a launch out over the side of the boat. Unfortunately, he was on the left side of the deck, the opposite side from Indiana.

Doubly unfortunately was the arrival of Belloq's crew from the main hatches, right between Indiana and his destination.

The hook of the crane that had been used to pull in the seaplane dangled just above them, swinging slightly with the sway of the ship.

Belloq's eyes went skyward as a whip's crack echoed through the storm. Indiana swung overhead, clinging onto his bullwhip, body covered with rain and silhouetted by the bright floodlights mounted to the front of the ship's superstructure. His former companion was the first to raise his pistol skywards and begin shooting, bullets streaking through the air and hitting the crane arm as Belloq's untrained marksmanship soon allowed him to lose control of his gun to its recoil, spraying bullets erratically.

Better trained thugs raised their guns soon afterwards, but it was too late. Indiana undid the hold of his whip, plummeting to the deck right next to boat and rolling. His ankles still roared with pain, but it was enough to carry his momentum forward into the boat just as Richard also scrambled inside.

Before the thugs could pull the bolts on their rifles, Indiana aimed his revolver skywards, shooting first at the pulley holding one side of the boat up. The launch proceeded to upend itself, though not before Indiana got another shot off and snapped the second rope, sending them falling into the ocean below.

They hit the water with such a crash that ocean sprayed up and over the sides and into the hull. Richard, Indiana, and by extension Anna, all hit the ground with just as much force as the boat hit the water, expulsing air from lungs, cracking bones, and causing shouts of pain. The launch quickly began to bounce around in the waves, hitting the ship's wake and getting carried by it even further away from the Eleanour as it carried on its course forward.

A few bullets hit the waves behind them, but the distance was too much and growing too rapidly. There was a brief moment where Indiana felt Richard grab his collar to pull him out of the water covering the basin of the boat, but soon after that he felt no more, head having smacked off of one of the beams of the boat.