“I don’t know.”
“They are in range.”
“Very well, fire at will.”
“Fire!”
Instantly, dozens of cannons from multiple ships fired into Solon’s fleet.
“My God! What is that?”
“I don’t know, Sire, but we are seeing ships on fire and exploding!”
“Get us out of here! We cannot fight that!”
“Turn the fleet! Retreat! Retreat!”
“They are turning away, Admiral.”
“Very well, let them go. The King has directed we follow them after we finish with this island.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“My God, Tabitha. We lost thirty ships in only a few minutes. What happened?”
“I do not know, Sire. It was as if they threw fire and rocks at us using fire! I can’t explain it.”
“When we get home, we will need to raise the army and prepare for a siege. I am certain they will follow us. If they have machines that do this on land, we will be unable to defeat them.”
“We will find a way, Sire.”
They went straight to Azulon, the strongest castle in Quadlibet. “We know our ships are useless against them, so take them around to the west side, gather the army from Immoria and bring them here. We will make our stand in this castle. Once you deliver them, keep out of the way. If it goes bad here, sail with everyone you can to find Edric and Kare. Helen, go with Tabitha. There is no reason for you to stay here trapped in a castle.”
“Solon, I choose to stay. I choose to stand and fight. I will be no help on a ship leaving the fight. These are my people too.”
“Very well. You take charge of preparing for the siege to come, while I gather the army and prepare for the fight.”
“Yes, Sire.”
55.355.14
They sailed up the river and rounded the corner where the Holdren village was located. The Chief and many of the Holdren were excited to see them and stood on the sand by the river waving to them. Once they disembarked and rowed to shore, Edric began.
“Hail, Chief!”
“Hello to you! Why have you returned?”
The Chief was now surrounded by hundreds of Holdren, listening intently.
“Chief, we need your help. There is a large device in the mountain we need to bring down. We need you to help repair the road all the way to the mountain, that is all. We will not ask you to help us in the cave or touch the device we bring out. But it is important for our survival that we do this. I need your help.”
The Chief looked around and then called for the witch. “Witch, you heard their request. What is your response?”
The witch looked at them all, and asked, “So, once you remove this device, will the cave be free of demon influence?”
Kare said, “Yes. There will be nothing left of the demons you fear.”
“Then we do this.”
The Chief said, “Okay, we will do it.” He turned and began yelling orders to people and they started gathering tools, food and water and marching up the trail.
Edric and the rest followed. Eventually they found themselves standing outside the cave. Randolph crawled inside, with several of this team. Edric and Kare followed.
“My God! This is exactly the power supply we need. There are also some other items here. This looks like the computer navigation system. This is priceless!”
Edric chuckled, “Well, Randolph, I am just glad we met so we could pull this together. Okay, how do we get it out?”
“We will disconnect the systems, so they are smaller and easier to move. However, I think we need to break open the cave all the way, so the exit is easier.”
They went to the cave and discovered it was layered brick. They then systematically disassembled the small tunnel, leaving a large easy walking tunnel. Once the trail was repaired and the individual pieces separated, they gathered their team, assigned pieces to carry, and walked them down the mountain to the ship.
The voyage back to the Reivers island was uneventful. They unloaded the equipment and went to the building with the craft.
“Okay, I want to make sure we get this just right. There are things called phasers, we have never seen one work, but theoretically, they are very powerful energy beams. We do not want to accidentally fire one of these in the building.”
They spent two days, but eventually they plugged everything in. As soon as the power supply was plugged into the ship, the entire ships consoles came alive.
“Now what?”
Randolph said, “I don’t know. We’ve never been here before.”
Edric said, “Well, if you think it can fly, I suggest we get it outside this building and see if it can.”
The Reivers pulled the walls back, and then pulled the craft outside.
“I wander what flying feels like?”
“I have spent hours watching birds, but I don’t think that will be the way this feels.”
“Who should do this?”
Kare said, “I will. I do not have seasickness, movement does not bother me. Just tell me, what you think I should do.”
They had a long discussion on the control mechanisms in the ship. There was one button marked “PHZR F”. As they were sitting talking, Edric reached over and pressed the button, and the phasers in the front of the ship fired, blowing up an empty building in front of them.
“Okay. Don’t push buttons. I believe I should have been able to tell what this meant. It is shorter cryptic notes for actual words. This toggle is likely the phaser aiming toggle, to fire where you want to.”
“Edric, why don’t you figure out the weapons systems. Randolph, try and figure out how we navigate. I am going to try and fly this thing.”
A few hours later, they believed they understood the systems. Randolph had his team move away from the ship. They all three strapped in. Kare placed her hands on the yoke in front of her, and reached over to flip several switches, cuing the ship to shudder. She pulled back on the yoke and the ship raised up from the ground. She then pushed the yoke forward and the ship moved forward. She experimented for a while until she felt she understood how it worked. Then they flew around the island, getting a good feel for the ship. Edric managed to aim the phasers where he wanted to hit various targets. After a while, they landed.
“Very well. It appears we have a ship that can fly in the air.”
“Yes. They also built ships that could fly into space.”
“Space? You mean out there into the stars?”
“Yes, that is what I mean. I don’t believe this ship could do that, but there might be one somewhere we have not looked.”
“We don’t have time to look right now. Right now, I believe we need to go back to Quadlibet and see Solon. There was a fleet of ships from an unknown island. We need to go make sure everything is alright.”
“Sounds good. Why don’t we depart at first light?”
“Okay.”
55.366.09
As Solon was working to position his army for the defense of Castle Azulon, a rider arrived with news. “Sire, the enemy has landed and is marching towards Castle Flintholm.”
“Very well. Continue the work, we must be ready quickly.” He then left with his personal guard and rode with all speed to Flintholm. What he found was not reassuring. The enemy had seven large siege engines moved up to about one hundred yards from the walls. They had hundreds of horse and thousands of soldiers.
As he watched, a horn sounded, and all seven engines fired. The smoke, sound and fire were enormous! But the walls! Oh my God! The walls were hit and fully the east side of the castle was exposed by one volley. A few moments later, they fired another volley, and the eastern wall collapsed completely. The castle was, for all intents and purposes, destroyed.
He then watched as the soldiers simply marched up and i
nto the castle, looting as they went. At least he knew the castle was empty of people. But imagine if people would have been there. They would all have been killed.
He turned and rode hard back to Azulon.
“Are there many of them, Solon?”
“Yes. Too many. They have siege cannons we cannot stop. They destroyed Castle Flintholm with only two volleys of their weapons. It is only a matter of time before they make it here. We will be destroyed.”
“Is there no hope?”
“None that I am aware of. Once the fighting starts, I suspect we will be destroyed in very short order.”
“Do we surrender, Solon, or do we run now, while we can, across the mountains in the north and try to fight elsewhere?”
“No, Helen. If we are too die defending our homes and our people, so be it. But we will never surrender. Fleeing will only postpone the final fight. We cannot defeat them. All we can do is stand firm and fight them as best we can.”
“Well, if we are to die, then let’s go out in a fight that shows our true colors!”
“Yes. Let’s go encourage the men.”
56.010.13
“Sire, they will have their weapons in position in a few hours.”
“Helen, I wish you would have departed with Tabitha.”
“Solon, it was not meant to be. I am proud to be standing here with you, in our final fight defending our people.”
“Well, let’s give them what we can. Archers! Prepare to volley!”
Circling high overhead, out of sight or sound of those on the ground, the three flyers saw the massed ships of the enemy fleet by Flintholm and saw that the castle had been devastated. They saw the tracks of the movement of the army and saw they were nearly ready to attack Castle Azulon.
“Fire!” A volley of arrows flew towards the enemy.
BOOM!! BOOM!! Two cannons fired on the castle, breaking down one entire wall. The soldiers of the enemy also began firing arrows at the castle. Solon was forced to have his soldiers take cover.
“We will be destroyed, Solon!”
At that time, a new sound was heard. The sound was from the firing of the phasers blasting the enemy’s weapons and ripping through their fighters. Edric only fired as needed, trying to avoid death to these soldiers, but needing to make sure they understood they were defeated. He hit each weapon and destroyed them all. After only a few minutes of this onslaught, the enemy surrendered.
King Johansen immediately realized this new weapon was more advanced than anything they could withstand. It was to him what his cannons were to King Solon.
“Your Majesty, I surrender.”
“Do you renounce your title and swear fealty to me?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Very well. We will need to discuss why you attacked us instead of talking to us. But for now, I will accept this as a symbol of goodwill between us.”
“I am going to hover and keep us in the air until I see the surrender complete.”
“Good idea.”
They watched as the enemy king knelt before Solon, then the conversation after. Once the surrender was complete, they landed the craft in an open field outside of the castle. Solon and Helen, as well as the king he defeated, walked out to the craft. The door opened, and Kare, Edric and Randolph emerged.
“Kare!” “Solon!” The twins ran to each other and hugged.
“What is this?”
“Everyone, may I have your attention?” Once they quieted, Edric continued, “We have learned a lot in the past few weeks. The most important thing we have learned is that we are all descendants of a group of people who settled these stars hundreds of years ago. We came here as one people. We need to educate ourselves and realize we are still one people.”
“We are made up of families who escaped a barren waterless world and stumbled onto a star system that contains nearly forty planets covered in water. Our planet is called, Pelapatia. This island we call Quadlibet, is the largest island on this planet. The island you are from, Trinity, is the second largest.”
“Randolph, here, is the leader of the Reivers, a family that has kept this knowledge alive. They have also kept the technology alive, and recently, after our experience with the Holdren, we were able to discover a power supply that helped fly this ship. Now we need to scour every island and find any other pieces of this technology.”
“We have found that we are from the stars. We should probably return there. But we can only do that if we have one leader. Today, King Solon is the leader of the known islands on Pelapatia. I would suggest that makes him King of Pelapatia. Does anyone dispute this?”
The assembled nobles did not.
“Then I say Hail, King Solon of Pelapatia!”
“Hail to the King!”
“Long live the King!”
Edric then knelt before Solon, and everyone else, seeing him take this step, also knelt.
“Rise, everyone. Thank you Edric. What you say is exciting and concerning.”
“Yes, Sire, it is. Perhaps we should take you to where we learned this and let you see for yourself?”
“I agree. But first, Johansen, will you agree to be Prince of Trinity, while remaining loyal to me?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Very well, I name you Prince Johansen of Trinity. I would ask you to sail with your fleet back to Shirfalla and help Princess Helen rebuild her island and assign men to help rebuild Castle Flintholm.”
He bowed, saying, “It will be an honor and a means to show our commitment to respect your leadership.”
“Very well. Helen, please accompany Johansen to Shirfalla and do what needs to be done. I will come there as soon as I am able.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Alright, if this ship is as fast as it seems, we may be seeing you very soon. Randolph, I am at your mercy.”
They boarded the craft as everyone stepped back from it. Edric and Randolph took their stations and helped Solon into a seat to observe. They showed him how to strap himself into the harness, as Kare took the pilots seat.
“What? You are flying this thing?”
She laughed, saying, “Yes, right now I am the only pilot in the fleet! Here we go.”
They lifted off the ground and did a circle around the field and castle, then departed for Reivers Island.
56.109.13
It took several months, but eventually Solon had every noble on the planet go to the Reivers training school and learn about their history and the technology that existed. At the same time, Kare, Edric and Randolph visited the islands and looked for everything they could find that may provide information to help in the search for the most advanced technology, space travel.
“Okay, we have traveled throughout Quadlibet, Holdren, Trinity and Shirfalla. We are still missing parts or a clue for a starship.”
Kare took out a map and laid it on the console. “Look, Quadlibet is here. South, Holdren; west Reivers; east, Shirfalla; southeast, Trinity. We have not looked further north. How about if we travel higher than we have flown before and look in that direction?”
“I don’t mind doing that, but I still have an itch that we are missing something from Quadlibet. If we assume these people settled this island first, there must be information available somewhere.”
“Did you go to Roselid Monastery?”
“Well, no, we’ve never been allowed inside.”
“Let’s change that.”
They departed Reivers Island and arrived at Roselid Monastery thirty minutes later. Kare was really getting good at flying this craft and Randolph was exceptional at navigation. They landed outside the monastery and walked to the door.
“Princess! It is good to see you! Please come in.”
“Thank you, Samantha.”
“What can I help you with?”
“We need to go to
the library. I remember from my visits with Bishop Ruthbriss that he talked about a lost door they could not open. Do you recall this story?”
“No, Princess, I have never heard that before. Perhaps there is some notations in his personal notes we have over-looked.”
“Let’s go see. Randolph, did you bring your detection gear?”
“Yes, if there is a door, we should be able to get through.”
“Very well, let’s begin the search.”
Edric and Randolph searched every wall within the library. They did not find anything unusual. They compared the outside with the inside and found no unusual bulges or spaces. They searched walls within the monastery that were adjacent to the library, still, nothing.
Kare and Samantha searched Ruthbriss’ personal records. They had been going through them for two days, when Kare asked where the book about the history of Immoria was located.
“What book?”
“The one Ruthbriss always had with him when we discussed our past, our history. He said there were things I should learn, but always said, ‘One day.’ It should be here.”
“Kare, I spent numerous hours with him, but I never saw a book like you mention.”
This got her thinking. “He only ever had it or mentioned it when we were sitting here, watching the fire. He would be sitting at his desk. That’s it! There must be a secret compartment in the desk!”
The two of them searched and tapped until at last, they found a hidden drawer behind a drawer. Opening it up, Kare found an old, leather bound book.
“This is it.” She carefully laid it on the desk, and they began reading. The story told much of what they had learned from Randolph, but also had one additional detail. The detail was the location of a room where objects from the past were located. Kare and Samantha got up and rushed to find Edric.
“Edric, we have found it!”
“Excellent! Where is it?”
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