***Tirnanog, Aerie, The Fleet***

***Magnus***

The days following the fleet's arrival at Hochberg were strange, to say the least. Everything happened with urgency, but still not fast enough for my taste. Freeing Evanne felt closer than ever and was yet so far away.

Fortunately, Aerie’s fleet departed quickly once the elders struck a deal with the matriarch and picked up additional troops from our allies. The plan was for our joint forces to head almost directly to the Old Camp.

There was a small deviation I wasn’t sure how to feel about. It was a move born from the knowledge of news travelling slowly on Tirnanog – something I wouldn’t have thought of coming from Earth where the internet was ever-present.

Vanya had suggested checking on a small clan called Tros. They were an established and relatively stable community with strong trading ties to the two larger clans.

Their settlement was situated right at the edge of the large forest region Jeng claimed as their own. They made a living by farming crops and hunting the creatures which dominated the nearby lake. Incidentally, the lake was fed by the Sanguine River which was also Hochberg’s lifeblood.

The matriarch’s reasoning was simple enough. If anything of note had happened since the end of the winter, news from Jeng should have reached Tros by now.

So a small stopover to gather information wouldn’t add too much to the fleet’s flight time, while possibly giving us some news from Jeng. It was reasonable to assume that Thich had dispatched another team of diplomats to them, causing some uproar.

Meanwhile, I had to split my time between Isaac, showing my face at the flagship in an official manner so nobody would get suspicious of our whereabouts, and assisting Gilbert with his research.

Isaac had suddenly made this whole father thing very real for me. Having the boy around still felt awkward. Somehow heart-warming and terrifying at the same time. The former because I never expected to find myself in the role of a father. The latter because I wasn't certain whether I was capable of being one.

I was nonetheless determined to give my very best as a parent.

Thankfully, Astra had somehow managed to persuade 'grandma' Maria to assist us as a babysitter, which took a huge weight off my shoulders. My wife was adamant about not talking about the price for such a service, but knowing Maria it had to be a steep one. Judging by the interactions we had I was convinced she would do a good job as a role model for Isaac to look up to. And she was also someone Isaac already respected, so I approved of the arrangement.

Not to mention that we had no other candidates capable of doing the job. By Gaia's jiggling... ahem...

I quickly abolished the thought – no need to play with fire.

There was already enough on my plate to worry about who was looking after the kid when Astra and I were otherwise occupied.

I wasn't sure whether skipping the whole baby stage with Isaac was a blessing or a curse. I just couldn't come to terms with the boy being this big already. On one hand, I shouldn't complain about not having to change diapers. Isaac was extraordinarily fast at learning new things and more importantly he could use the toilet if someone helped him.

On the other hand, the brat was a handful. None of his mishaps were meant maliciously, but his curiosity was constantly getting him into trouble. Astra and I had already gotten first-hand experience of his boundless energy when he somehow managed to remove the grating from one of the ventilation shafts in our quarters so he could ‘go explore’ – with his frame just small enough to squeeze through the small opening.

Thankfully, Astra’s filaments had been long enough to fish him back out before he got out of her reach. It was the first time we could test our skills at reprimanding the boy, combined with a very colourful set of new curse words from Astra.

Afterwards, I had to talk with her about bringing Isaac up with manners, which meant not overly exposing him to bad language. It was a good resolution on my part, but knowing myself it would be hard to follow. I too tended towards bad language when I was upset.

In the end, I couldn’t truly blame Astra for her choice of words.

Sticking her filaments all the way down a dusty ventilation shaft wasn’t something to enjoy, given the necessary clean-up afterwards. And what if Isaac had gotten stuck in there? Getting him back out would have been a nightmare.

Isaac tugging at my filaments brought me back to the here and now.

“Read story!” Isaac hopped in place on my lap, demanding for me to continue reading the picture book with him.

I sighed, obliging for now even if I was boiling inwardly.

This cursed picture book was the reason why my thoughts had derailed in the first place.

Whoever made up this story should be thrown out into the snow next winter. I knew actual paper books were valuable on Tirnanog, but I had the firm resolution to burn this one as soon as Isaac didn't pay attention.

For now, I kept reading because simply stopping in the middle of the story would surely leave me with an upset child.

Still, the main character was a whiny bitch who got constantly outwitted by everyone he encountered while he was on a quest to return home. On top, he wore his emotions on a silver platter. There was more, a lot more to complain about, but to make the story short, I didn't want something like this to shape my son's ideas of how society functioned. Or how any person with self-respect should behave.

What happened to the good, old classics like Grimm's stories to frighten kids into behaving? I knew my family had always been a bit weird with their education, using stuff from centuries ago, but stories such as the one I was reading right now had to put a dent in a child's psyche.

No wonder most adults nowadays couldn't stand seeing an animal slaughtered, or apathetically accepted anything the government decided for them. Seriously, it was no wonder Earth’s population was largely made up of mindless drones who followed whatever was the media’s dictated topic of interest.

Isaac didn't necessarily have to know how cruel the world was yet, but a certain realism of how things worked had to be expected no matter the age. This book was something conjured up from Earth's darkest extremist political left-wing, designed to indoctrinate future workers into meekness and obedience.

How had it made its way onto this planet? I had no idea.

On impulse, I skimmed ahead three pages. Then I decided to risk upsetting Isaac when the main character took, yet again, the wrong fork in the road, promising yet another cringe-worthy encounter which would end with him ‘helping’ another traveller in need. Though, ‘exploited’ would be the better term judging by how the story had played out so far. Of course, the main character would be such a goody-two-shoes that he was perfectly fine with it.

“Why don't you let me tell you a story?” I tested the waters and closed the book. “Do you want to hear how your daddy arrived in this world and encountered the evil fluffballs?”

Isaac seemed wary of my story-telling capabilities but nodded.

Till he fell asleep, it took me an hour to educate my son on how his bedsheets were made. Fleeced gutter fur was the preferred material for most textiles on Tirnanog. Though for now, I didn't mention that fleecing living gutters was practically impossible.

For the sake of innocence, absolutely no gutters were hurt in this slightly edited version of events.

Before the fleet left for the Old Camp, I also had to facilitate a very strange meeting between Gilbert and matriarch Vanya. I finally had come around to inform the mad scientist about Thich's communication device.

Once the elder heard about it, there was no holding him back.

Gilbert practically forced his way into Hochberg to have a look at the device – and attempted to ‘confiscate’ it.

Which didn’t go down well because the Hochberg had their own experts researching the device. Ultimately, the elders had to negotiate cooperation between the two clans to facilitate a joint research operation on the Thich’s usage of cores.

Maybe Gilbert’s astounding success with the wormgate – yes, the nickname stuck, to my chagrin. Anyway, his success had me a little too optimistic about receiving immediate answers.

Gilbert was no magician and had to carefully analyse the device if he didn’t want to risk destroying it. The only thing he could do on the fly was to confirm what I already suspected after having a look at it myself.

Yes, the communicator was made from cores and definitely wasn’t intended for a human hand. Though, Gilbert couldn’t tell yet whether that was owed to the necessity of cobbling together different cores like building blocks or because this device was never truly intended for human use.

Our leadership was more accepting of the possibility than I had hoped for. Though, as I knew now, this wasn’t because they anticipated a truly ‘alien’ influence.

A few days later, late at night, Astra finally joined me in bed, looking a little bit troubled. She had been taking up her job as her mother’s scribe and was very busy whenever the elders had one of their meetings or something came up requiring our strata’s attention.

I waited till we were snuggled up beneath the bedsheets before I decided to ask what was wrong. “You look like your day didn't go so well.”

“No. I actually had a fine day,” she replied, sounding slightly frustrated. “It's just Isaac.”

She sighed.

“What about him?” I asked. “Did he do something again? Like running off into the treemonae grove?”

I shuddered slightly at the thought. Astra had shown me the place once and I had no desire to go back there. The treemonae were anemone-like trees with looked like weeping willows from afar – though they were more like animals in truth. They certainly were capable of uprooting themselves to migrate to better hunting grounds if they wanted to. One of the things was creepy enough, but being surrounded by an entire grove was not my idea of a good place to be.

Driving past the grove with a carriage was bad enough.

“What? No!” Astra was also horrified at the thought. A treemonae would have no issues snacking on a child like Isaac. “Maria taught Isaac about the seasons. And naturally, the topic came up that people can freeze during winter if they don't have proper clothing and shelter. Summer is warm and winter is cold and such...”

“I see nothing wrong,” I commented, wondering whether Isaac already understood the concept of freezing. He was a smart kid and grasped things quickly with a steadily widening vocabulary. At times it was eerie when the toddler suddenly blurted out a complete sentence far above what a normal human of his age should be capable of.

Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure whether he grasped the true meaning behind certain concepts. Especially when he had never experienced what it meant to freeze for himself.

“Yes, um...” Astra waved a hand. “And then he asked me whether fleeced gutters wouldn't freeze to death if they were left out in the open? How do you reply to such a question? And how would he ever get the bizarre idea of anyone risking his neck to fleece a gutter?”

“Yeah, ahem.” I cleared my throat, remembering a certain bedtime story which quickly became Isaac’s favourite.

“I have no clue,” I added unhelpfully while I did my best to keep a grin off my face. The lights were out but our bioluminescence was more than enough to read facial expressions.

“I would probably have told him that a shelter is enough for them.”

The next morning, we woke up to be summoned to the flagship’s war council.

What we arrived to was a room filled with Hochberg’s and Aerie’s political leadership.

Over the next few minutes, we had the doubtful honour to listen from the second row as the events unfolded. The fleet had closed in on Tros and Juliana’s drake-rider scouts had returned with breaking news.

“The settlement is burned down,” the rider in charge of the scouting party reported. “We could make out what looked like a burial site and a temporary encampment sporting a flag with Thich’s colours – white with a black fortress on top. We didn’t get too close, but I doubt we mistook it.”

She shook her head and gestured at a skilfully drawn map. “I couldn’t see any sign of the Tros. If there are still some around, then they are either dead, fled, or are no longer trying to resist the Thich’s occupation. Though, I want to point out that the settlement’s setup was inspired by Hochberg. Tros dug themselves into a large bedrock looking out from the surrounding grassland. The wooden fortifications on top were probably inspired by the Old Camp. They may be holding out in a deeper bunker system while the Thich hold the surface.”

Juliana studied the sketch while massaging her forehead with her index finger. “They attacked and subjugated one of the larger settlements between Hochberg and Jeng? For what reason?”

“As a staging point for a future campaign against Hochberg,” Vanya stated, sounding not surprised in the slightest.

Everyone in the room focused their attention on the matriarch who sighed in an aggravated manner. A young girl treating the rest of this gathering like a mother having to chew through the obvious solution for her child would have been a funny sight if the situation hadn’t been so serious.

“It’s obvious,” Vanya began. “Your assumptions about Thich’s intentions are closer to the truth than you might like. This is proof. Thich’s goal was to dominate Tirnanog and something we did triggered a military response. I already believed this would happen after you brought forth their recruiters as witnesses. They were slowly building up towards a military conflict and when they learned we are onto them, they saw no other way than to react at full force.”

“But this…” Juliana gestured at the sketch of Tros’s situation. “This means war. None of the great clans will stand for this breach of peace. The Jeng and the Vier won’t sit back. It will be all of us against the Thich. They can’t win!”

Vanya slowly shook her head. “I am sorry to say this, but the Aerie might be a little bit too far removed from clan politics since the treaty was established. A bold move like this can only mean a worst-case scenario for us. Thich forces being already at the edge of my clan’s territory means there must be more to the friendship between Thich and Vier than mere rumours. I already warned you about this.”

“If the Vier openly support Thich…” Teresa mused. “It would explain how they can be here already. The Thich wouldn’t have to fear fighting a war at multiple fronts. They could throw everything they have at us.”

Vanya gestured towards a larger map on the wall which showed all the clan territories. “Which is why I suggest we turn the fleet now and head directly towards Jeng’s mother tree. Maybe we can save some of them.”

Juliana raised an inquiring eyebrow and the matriarch sighed.

“If the scenario I proposed is true and Thich has a solid alliance with Vier, and they are convinced their machinations up until now could only end in a military conflict, then there is only one move forward for them. If I were in their place, and assuming Jeng isn’t already firmly on their side, I would concentrate all my forces on Jeng to strike them down as quickly as possible. If Jeng falls, it would be two against two, with Thich and Vier having Earth’s support.”

I stepped forward, inserting myself into the conversation of big shots. “You still have to take the Old Camp within the month.”

Juliana frowned. “I am sorry, Magnus, but the situation turned suddenly a lot more complicated. We will still do everything we can to get your sister back, but the Old Camp might be no longer a point of interest for us.”

Vanya tilted her head. “Why within the month?”

I looked at the two clan leaders, knowing this revelation might be taken badly. “Because when I first reprogrammed Aerie’s supercomputer, I used the connection to try some hacking at Earth’s side.”

Juliana pursed her lips. “You mentioned it. And the attempt failed, after which you cut the connection.”

I nodded. “The hacking program I transferred was supposed to scramble whatever was set up on Earth. But I still hold hope it at least fulfilled its secondary purpose.”

The elder narrowed her eyes and I sighed, knowing she wouldn’t like this. “It also transferred a message to my former organisation, telling them I survived and that the Tibet wormhole is safe. I never lied to you about my purpose or my goals. They are still the same. But the organisation will likely… attack the Tibet site and get as many people and material through it as possible. The plan has always been for me to be an advanced scout and for others to join me should I manage to get a message back.”

The baffled expressions of both Vanya and Juliana, as well as the other elders in the room, were priceless.

Astra was suddenly at my side and pulled at my earlobe. “And this is something you intended to tell us when exactly!? You didn’t even tell me!”

“Gentle! Gentle!” I cursed, fearing she would rip it off until I managed to free myself. “I am sorry for staying quiet, but if I can say anything good about the organisation’s modus operandi then it’s about how they do things. Everything is 'need to know', which is the only reason why Earth’s government has never managed to stamp them out.”

I turned back to address Vanya and Juliana. “Up until now, you were doing what was necessary. Whether I would have told you or not wouldn’t have changed your goal of taking the Old Camp. It would have only introduced the possibility of the information being leaked. Sorry.”