***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Astra***

“Astra? Are you awake?” Magnus asked softly.

“I am.” I opened my eyes and scooted further away from his chest so we lay face to face in the bed. It was still early in the morning, so I had pretended to sleep in. I preferred to cuddle with him for as long as possible instead of facing the day right away – knowing there was unpleasantness ahead.

He pursed his lips. “So... I figure today is going to be a political slugfest?”

I sighed. “I guess so. Once we reach the central living spaces, my parents will be waiting there and they will require explanations. The other leaders of the various stratas might also try to throw their weight around. There will be some kind of debriefing for sure. At least we will have a few more hours until we get there. Just make sure you and your sister stay with me until the political chest-beating is over.”

His expression hardened. “Do you think they would do something to Ivona because she was with the Thich?”

I nodded. “I am not going to lie. There will be those who'll try. We have to make sure they know I was serious about granting them amnesty.”

He chuckled. “So you are a princess after all. How else would you be able to make such a claim?”

“By explaining everything to my parents.” I smiled and cupped his cheek with a smile. “Don't worry. Mother is a reasonable person. Once I explain, everything will work itself out.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “I notice you excluded your father.”

“Well, you are boning his 'daughter dearest' without his consent,” I pointed out. “That will go against his political agenda – I've mentioned my intended. Not to mention he is a little old-fashioned.”

“Wonderful. I remember your extensive tutoring. What was his name? Hector?” He rolled his eyes. “I will be the guy without means who dared to touch your dad's precious.”

I giggled. “I will tell Dad that you have plenty of means. And congrats on remembering your rival's name.” It wasn't like I hadn't recounted Aerie's leadership daily so Magnus would know what he would be getting himself into.

His memory was atrocious when it came to names. There was no hiding it.

Magnus turned serious. “There is something I have to tell you, but I don't know how helpful it will be. And the knowledge probably shouldn't make the rounds unless we can utilize it somehow.”

I waited, wondering what Magnus had held back.

“I've already told you about the organization. Well, when I departed on my quest for revenge, I did so in haste, but not entirely without preparation,” he admitted like a child who had been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. “My people came up with some things that could help before I ran off.”

“So you prepared? What?” I urged him on. Everything that helped with convincing my parents I would gladly take. A woman couldn't have enough cards up her sleeve.

“We had no clue what would await me on the other side,” he explained.

I nodded. It was a well-known fact that Earth's government enforced a complete information lock-down since they abandoned the colonization efforts of Tirnanog and decided to use it as a penal colony instead.

He continued, “There is one thing my people found when they hacked some old government servers. The info was some centuries out of date, so they likely loosened the security on it. Which allowed us to get in. We got some sparse information about the colony setup and the equipment that was sent through the gates. There were some interesting things on the roster. Particularly, the colonial computer systems.”

“I still don't get where this is going,” I admitted to my chagrin. “I already told you that Earth's government was very petty when they withdrew their support for the colonies. They locked the central computer systems when some colonists refused to leave. The only stuff that was still working was personalized equipment and isolated workstations. Heck, in the Hochberg's case, they even abandoned the colonists with no questions asked. They just shut down the gate! Because it would have cost too much to retrieve them. Which is hilarious, considering they are sending convicted exiles now.”

He nodded. “Though, it has to be said: They are using us as lab rats. This isn't just exile without benefit for them.”

Magnus shook his head. “Let's get back to the topic. Since I came here as an exile, I couldn't take anything with me. At least not much. But the organization managed to implant a sub-dermal chip in my left upper thigh. It contains a library of all the important knowledge the organization could scratch together. It doesn't solve any resource problems, but everything necessary should be there to boost Tirnanog to Earth standards.”

I held my breath. “That's great, but Magnus... I've already told you the computer systems were locked when Earth abandoned the colonists. I don't think we still have anything that can interact with a storage chip.”

One of my hobbies was the collection of old technology. A functioning music player was my most prized possession.

Magnus held up a hand. “We thought about it. It's a standard nanolight storage device. It's just glass with nanodots on it and I know enough to decode it. If need be, we could read the raw data with a sufficient microscope. Might take years to get all of it, but better than to start re-inventing everything. My people just dumped text files with everything they could find.

“Another possibility is this: I know for certain that all of the colonies received a photonic supercomputer array with industry specification Type III. This means it is an almost indestructible black box except for the peripherals. If your people didn't use brute force to destroy it, then it has to be around and functioning. Those things were built for eternity. All we have to do is to link it up to a power source and we can access all the knowledge we could want.”

“But Earth locked the systems,” I had to repeat myself.

He smiled. “And my people got the master passwords for all the colony computers. They happened to be neatly filed away with the data we stole.”

“Oh.” I blinked. “Ooh!”

The Aerie hadn't fallen back into complete barbarism. Despite Earth locking the colonists out of their computers, enough books and theoretical knowledge remained to maintain a civilisation. But I would be lying if I said that we weren't struggling. There were holes in our knowledge. There might be a complete guide on the latest computer system lying around in our libraries, but we were missing the one thousand little steps which weren't mentioned just to get to a basic computer chip.

Nobody had expected to be denied access to the colony's most important storage medium when Earth triggered the lock-down via a wireless command through the portal.

“What does this industry computer look like?” I asked, not wanting to celebrate just yet.

“A large black monolith,” Magnus answered. “Should look like a giant transport container. Three metres in height and three wide. About ten metres in length. The surface is black ceramics. The thing was intended as the brain of deep-sea mining platforms, but they re-purposed it. Apart from intentionally destroying it, it should be built to work forever.”

I thought about it for several long moments and huffed when nothing came to mind. “The only thing that comes to mind is the elder's podium in the hall of law. Up in the first strata. But I don't see how that thing could be a computer.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “They turned it into a podium?”

“I said it comes to mind,” I hedged. “Not saying that it is what you are speaking of. It's a large block of obsidian as far as I know. It only came to mind because I often sat in on the meetings with my parents. And the hall of law isn't exactly a place where you run up to the speaker to study the platform from which he is holding his speech. I never got close to it.”

“Is this hall of law at the centre of the colony?” he asked. “It would make sense for the colonists to put it in some management area with relatively public access. Those things were meant to function as the main administrative tool to keep track of all the colonists. And if your people forgot what it is, then they might've simply decided to build around it.”

I smiled and hugged him against me. “If not, then we just need to build a proper microscope, as you said! This is still great news!”

“Finding the colony's main computer would nonetheless be interesting,” he pointed out. “We might find out why Earth suddenly abandoned all colonization efforts. I wouldn't bet two cents about the propaganda being true.”

“One wonders why they don't simply colonize the rest of the solar system.” I squirmed my hips a little against his.

He chuckled. “Oh, they are trying, but something always goes wrong. Colonizing an environment that's hostile to human life always sounds so easy in Sci-Fi novels, but the reality is so much harder. Not enough gravity? All the women miscarry. Some micrometeorite punches a little hole into your closed environment? Bam! Half your colonists are dead. You finally have a small colony up and running, suddenly people start getting cancer left and right because of cosmic radiation and require permanent treatments. It's the same problem we are having with Tirnanog. Just a thousand times worse, even if there are no rabid predators.”

“So... there is no getting around adapting humanity to different environments,” I concluded. “Much like they are trying to do with Tirnanog?”

“Likely.” Magnus grabbed my butt and kissed my neck. “And I realize what you are trying to do, but I am spent. Out of ammunition. You did a number on me, Astra.”

I sighed sadly when nothing got hard between the two of us. “I guess then we have no choice but to get up.”

We got up and packed our things. Magnus was glad when I told him he could wear some nicer clothes this time around.

Then we left our quarters and I informed Thalia that we would depart soon while Magnus went to get Ivona and the two Thich who I granted asylum to. I also gave the outpost's administrator a heads up that we would be on our way and returned to the guest quarters where I found the rest of my people waiting.

“What about the others?” Magnus asked when he realized there were only the six of us.

“They are going with the next trip in half an hour,” Thalia informed him. “The carts have a weight limit.”

“Carts?” Magnus kept wondering.

“You will see in a minute,” I assured him and led the way while I explained. The railway system was three levels down beneath the outpost.

“This outpost is one of the access points to clan Aerie. It's also a trade station for the nomadic tribes. They are the reason why we entertain a transport system from here to the central settlement. The tribesmen wouldn't be pleased if they had to climb Mount Aerie just to visit us.”

We descended a flight of stairs until we reached the underground railway station. It consisted of a large, brightly lit room. Unlike in the rest of the compound, the light in here was provided by the glow-moss which grew on the ceiling. It was a convenient cave plant that had the only downside of needing a lot of water to grant its generous bioluminescence.

Seven carts stood on a railway, each a metre in width and two in length. It was more than enough to transport us and our equipment. The rails disappeared into a dark tunnel that was about twice as wide as the carts.

A clansman was at the front cart and busy with adjusting a lantern that would illuminate the tunnel.

There were three more tunnels parallel to ours. Two were for incoming goods and two for outgoing. The redundancy provided assurance in case one system failed.

“Holy heck! It's a haunted ride!” Magnus ran up to the front cart and peeked into the dark tunnel. “Do you have jump-scares too?”

The two railway operators who awaited our arrival looked at him with mortified expressions.

I smiled apologetically at them and mouthed 'sorry'.

Then I gestured for Magnus to get in. “Take the second seat behind the driver. Ivona, Kastor, Dafna, please get in the middle and don't leave my side from now on.”

The two pardoned Thich nodded gravely and got into a cart of their own.

Magnus and I also stored away our equipment and weapons.

“I will go last,” Thalia informed us.

Once everyone was in, the two railway operators got into the miniature train with us. One took the front position and the other got into the last cart with Thalia.

The men operated some levers and hooked the carts into the steadily advancing cable which led into the tunnels. It was kept close to the ground between the rails and turned on a wheel that was sunk into the ground behind us.

The wheels screeched a little before the carts slowly started moving and then we were on our way – a little faster than a normal human would've been able to run.

“How does this work?” Magnus asked the lead driver. “Do you still have enough electricity to operate this?”

The man laughed and shook his head. “Certainly not enough to operate the railway! This is waterpower all the way. Beneath the transport tunnels is a service tunnel with a pipe system. The water comes down from the mountain and turns the water wheels. Each wheel operates about two hundred metres of rope before the cart automatically hooks into the next one. We are here in case something goes wrong.”

“It will take us all the way home without any nasty monsters,” I added.

I leaned back and allowed Magnus to talk with the operator about the mechanics of the railway system.

It took a little longer than expected, but eventually, the journey through the tunnel lost its novelty and Magnus left the man to his job.

There wasn't much to see aside from the endlessly repeating hewn rock walls as we travelled, so I used the chance to review the elders' information with Magnus. The noise from the rails didn't make it easy, but we managed.

After three hours we took a small break at a way station and continued as soon as everyone had relieved themselves.

The railway was much faster than walking, but it still took us over seven hours to ascend Mount Aerie in a winding pattern as the tunnel bent almost imperceptibly. At last, the tunnel made a final curve and we descended directly into the mountain.

When we finally emerged from the monotone tunnel, I had to smirk when I saw Magnus gaping at the central living cavern.

Our people dug into the stone for centuries, resulting in a magnificent habitat that protected the clan as a whole. A feat that was only possible because of Mount Aerie’s makeup. If the mountain wasn’t a single, massive piece of granite, we would have probably had to worry about structural issues.

The central cavern was about three kilometres in width at its base. The walls rose conically towards the ceiling until they almost met. At the centre of the cavern was a single, large column support for the ceiling’s stability. The column was a spiral covered in bioluminescent glow-moss. The spiralling waterway led the well of the Aerie river deeper into the mountain. Most of the light in the cavern came from this central pillar.

Over the decades, our people carved an entire city with walkways and promenades into the cavern’s walls. A vertical mega-complex, so to speak.

The railway descended at a slight angle along the cavern wall until we reached the station at the bottom.

A large group of grim-looking clanners received us.

I immediately knew that I would have to handle the situation when I didn't see my parents.

“Could you please carry my stuff too? It would be best if I handle this alone.” I begged Magnus and warped my filaments into a more gaudy dress with a split skirt. Then I flared my bioluminescence to make it shine through. Once I was sure to make a proper impression, I hurried to be the first to leave the cart.

A gruff-looking man stepped forward. “Lady Astra Frost, I am guard captain Eric Conroy. We were informed that you have Thich with you. The Council gave the order to take them in.” He blinked as he took me in. “Excuse me, but you look different than I remember.”

I smiled, showing off my teeth. “I hope so since I have found my partner and am now fully paired.”

Magnus stepped in behind me and placed his spetum audibly on the ground while he carried both of our backpacks on his shoulder.

The guard captain was quite obviously taken aback while he looked back and forth between me and Magnus.

I gestured at my stronger half. “This is Tulkas. He is my partner. And I am sorry to inform you that you can’t have these supposed Thich. They are under my protection. In return for their fealty, I granted them amnesty after their defeat in battle.”

He frowned and returned his eyes to me. “I am sorry, but-”

“But nothing,” I interrupted and pressed past him while I gestured for the rest of my group to follow. “These people are important witnesses and can’t be entrusted to just anyone. Certainly not to some guardsmen who weren’t even given the details of what they are handling.”

The guard captain reacted exactly like I had anticipated once I plucked at what he perceived as his honour.

He stepped into my path and reached out to stop me. “Now, look-”

“Don’t touch me!” I flashed my hand forward and placed my palm on his chest while I discharged the power I had stored up in anticipation of trouble. Simultaneously, I pushed.

Eric was flung backwards with a thunderclap and slid a good seven metres over the ground. My palm left a charred imprint on his leather chest-piece.

It took two seconds before he coughed and moaned. Which was to be expected, since someone without physical mutations would hardly make it into the guard.

I turned and raised an eyebrow at my companions. “Come. We have wasted enough time here!”

Then I strode past the other clanners, not bothering to even look at them. We had established I was a Frost. A simple guardsman wouldn’t deter my path. Now we had to get out of the station before they could gather their wits.

Sans their leader, the men didn’t dare to challenge us as we left the station.

I quickly made out two molerat-drawn carriages that sported my family’s crest and pointed. “Those carriages. Get in.”

Mentally, I thanked my mother for providing a quick exit, for I recognized the drivers as her direct subordinates.

Thankfully, the others were quick on the uptake and followed my instructions without questions.

I blew a strand of hair out of my face and quickly climbed into the lead carriage.

Magnus followed while he threw an interested look at the molerats, furry critters that the Aerie adopted as draft animals. Inspiringly enough, they looked like a mixture between a mole and a rat. Though, some people from earth said they had a little bit of donkey too.

“I take it this didn’t go exactly as planned?” he asked once he sat down with Ivona next to him and the carriage was on its way.

“Not exactly, but within expectations,” I answered with a forced smile on my lips. “I bet the Council of Elders intercepted the letter I sent to my parents. Or they got a hint from any of the other survivors. I should be hardly the only one who gave a heads up of our arrival to relatives. And now they are trying to put their spin on the situation. If my parents aren’t waiting at home, then they are bogged down in a meeting. We just have to get to our strata and bunker down until they can see us.”