The Lost Star's Sea

by C. Litka

  02

  Daffa Island, as it was known, lay several hours beyond Kaliza by small boat. Trin's crew consisted of two hearty men, one of whom greeted me like an old shipmate. SevCar was his name, and according to him, we'd been next to each other in a line of sailors on the Redoubt Island quay transferring rocket cases to the Indomitable. The other was a Cataria Island native, a relative of SevCar's wife. The small boat was propelled by wide bladed oars piloted by Trin. Py and I offered to relieve the men, but they laughed - said there was a knack to it, and that we'd get to the island faster if we left them to it.

  Daffa Island was a thin chip of an island - two flat plains, top and bottom edged with a narrow cliff. It was part of a string of small islands strung together by vines which stretched out in either direction into the haze of the sky. Several more such strings were visible - necklaces of flat stones, strung together with flowers and bright green jungles. The farm had been carved out of a jungle on one side. This "upper" half was laid out in neat rows of daffa berry bushes under carefully thinned and pruned fist trees left to protected the workers from sudden attacks by any passing dragons. Old habits die hard, and so when there were workers in the field, there was also a guard keeping an eye on the sky as well. The jungle on the other side was still being cleared to expand the fields, and from the distance we could see the lazy plume of smoke drifting into the wide sky, as they turned the jungle into charcoal to fire the distillery's boilers. As we neared the island, I was surprised to see dozens of people working in the berry fields. All told, the island's inhabitants numbered nearly fifty people.

  'How is it that you established yourselves so quickly?' I asked Trin, as she swung the boat around to come alongside the dock on the cliff edge of the island where it was honeycombed with caves that were linked by terraces.

  'Land ownership in the Catarias depends on working the land. Un-worked or abandoned land is free for the taking. This island was just jungle and became ours once we started clearing the jungle. Once my crew, like SevCar here, started marrying into the local families?'

  He grinned.

  'It gave us access to a lot of unemployed or underemployed members of those families to help us out - whether we wanted them or not.'

  'The Captain whipped them into shape,' SevCar added, with a grin to his brother-in-law. 'Even the laziest of them.'

  His brother-in-law returned an easy grin.

  'So with XinDi's skill, plenty of help in the fields, and some financial backing from our new relatives, we've been able to rapidly expand. And since our success benefits half a dozen local families, we're now as well entrenched as a Kaliza business.'

  XinDi was delighted to see me again. He proudly showed me around his growing distillery, the little island's village set in caves on the edge of the island, and the well tended berry-bush garden. All the old Cimmadarians remembered Captain Litang as one of the outsiders and they too were amazed and delighted to cross orbits with me again - we were all old shipmates, even if I'd forgotten their names - though likely enough, I never knew them by name, or even sight. Still, I was a link to that brief optimistic episode in their long careers.

  I was rather leery of how the Cimmadarians would treat Naylea. She had been, after all, an agent of their enemy. It seemed, however, that they'd all put their past life as Cimmadarian rebels astern, perhaps because they were enlisted sailors, whose participation in the counterrevolution was more a matter of being under the command of someone who was devoted to it rather than their own fiery allegiance to the old regime. Happy in their new lives, Naylea's role in the affair didn't seem to matter to them.

  We spent a great deal of time recounting our various adventures. Trin had little to add concerning the fate of my old shipmates. The fleet set sail for the Cimmadar space station, but soon encountered the Empress's fleet, consisting of a dozen space ships, each about the tonnage of the Rift Raven. It was slowly approaching the region of Redoubt Island in three squadrons, no doubt tipped off by Naylea's reports. Vinden wanted to attack them immediately, arguing that his warships were powerful enough to destroy each squadron before help arrived and by doing so, win the war in the one bold stroke he favored. However, more cautious heads prevailed, and the rebel fleet withdrew into the atmosphere and islands of the Pela. Here their greater maneuverability vs the rocket driven spaceships would come into play, plus they could use the islands for cover, and so, fight with a great advantage - if the Empress's fleet followed them in.

  It did not. Apparently negotiations of some kind then ensued. After half a dozen rounds of inaction, TrinNatta and the Cimmadar crew of the Rift Raven were turned out and replaced by Vinden's crew, Vynnia, Admiral DarQue and Min. Then, under a truce agreement, they went out to the Empress's fleet, in the hope of swaying them to the Rebels' side.

  TrinNatta's Rift Raven crew, plus half a dozen other sailors were reassigned to the supply fleet, which the warships had under tow. They were ordered to take the supply ships deeper into the Pela to keep them out of harm's way in the event of a battle. As a result, TrinNatta knew little of what transpired next. From what she could gather from a few brief radio reports from the flagship, several more rounds of negotiations ensued before Vinden radioed Captain Lil'Dre, in command of the fleet, to come out and join the Empress' forces which had agreed to turn against her. Lil'Dre, being no fool, insisted that the orders be delivered in person by Admiral DarQue or the Empress Min. Apparently that didn't come to pass and Vinden's orders turned to warnings of dire consequences - which, did come to pass.

  A battle was fought, and lost by the Rebels. A round later half a dozen spaceship boats arrived and began shooting up the supply ships with their anti-meteor missiles. TrinNatta ordered the fleet dispersed, but being unable to outrun or outfight the space boats, was forced to flee inwards with her surviving crew in a small launch.

  My brief hope that Trin had preserved one of the Cimmadar boats with its electric drive and endless power from a micro-reactor was soon dashed. Like us, they had experienced a strong serrata, perhaps the same one. Taking shelter on an island, they had saved themselves, but the boat ended up being crushed and blown away in pieces. They then had to build their own boat to sail inwards until they reached the first of the civilized islands, the outward most of the Catarias, some 100 rounds and adventures later. They made their way here, found daffa berries growing wild, and started distilling them into brandy, at first just to make enough coins to eat and then to build a livelihood out if it.

  While I was in no great hurry to leave, Naylea remained eager to find a way back, and Py, even off his leash, still retained a sense of duty, and/or a desire for more danger and adventures, so we decided to push on and arranged to hitch a ride back to Kaliza with the next shipment of brandy.