Overboard

Shit.

I really should have known better.  I recognize that.  I didn't need Hal commenting on it.  But we were going to be jumped either way, damnit.  I...damnit.  Most of our overboard can be retrieved.  Rufus, though...damnit.  If I have to turn this fucking boat around to go find him, I will.  We can deal with Olympus without the Egyptians if we have to.  I am not abandoning one of our own because I was an idiot.  Anyone else who doesn't like it can have Hal carry them to Ra's boat.

This whole trip was a bad idea anyway.  I know where it went wrong, though.  This bloody insistence on shoring up Egypt's defenses.  That wasn't the goddamn plan.  The entire point of fighting in Egypt was to make sure Goras couldn't fight.  Not to face him on the open field.  I don't think anyone else knows or cares why I'm trying to make sure Greeks are the spearhead.  Anyone else's banner in front and it's another pantheon meddling.  Olympians in the vanguard?  It's their fight with foreign aid.  Ok, Fate might say this is my gig.  But that just means I get to fight that my way, and that starts with turning as many Greek loyalists against Zeus as I can.  And Goras would make one hell of an asset.  If I convinced Ares, I can convince him. But this bloody insistence on an open fight is madness.

And if it comes to an open fight, I won't be able to get him to switch sides.  It's not just him we need, but his people too.  The more we kill, the less likely anyone else is going to want to join us.  Oh, no doubt others will argue we wouldn't take the blame, or that we don't need Goras' troops, or him.  Or that hey, it's the Pesedjet that would be the focus of their ire.  But that's because they aren't, or haven't been, paying attention to Fate at all.  Andrew maybe, but he's going to be focused on his homeland.

But the rest of it doesn't matter.  The whole bloody mess is my doing anyway.  First from even letting the plan break from what I was trying to do, then with that stupid crap on the boat.  There may not be time to fix the first one - and no military campaign can be run perfectly.  But the second was fixable.  It was just a matter of getting the damn boat turned around.