Beyond?

“We are deeming that the small archipelago in the southern oceans would be a perfect place to set up a military base. This base would prove priceless as a bridgehead towards the second continent. From there we could organize strikes against their cities and supplies for our army.

For that purpose it would be necessary to completely take over at least one of those islands. What the locals think about such an act might have to take a back seat in light of what's at stake.”

-Military report 887-00-B2.

***Free City States of Nict, Capital***

***Azir***

“It's so cool that you're giving us a tour through your research facility.” Padma is totally overwhelmed by my facilities and starts dancing through the corridor. She requested to see it some time ago, but I never had the time to show them around. To ensure that her friends aren't left out of the fun she brought the entire clique from Dwem with her.

That includes Adala, Nikita and Eliot. Saana decided to retreat from service because of her old age. The incident of being under the influence of enslavement magic caused great distress to her and she opposed to being sent on another mission to Nict. Right now, she is living in her own domicile in Dwem and enjoying the benefits of being old.

I speak from experience, I was old too once. Though I would never trade this body for my old one now.

Our exchange students from Dwem, on the other hand, decided to use their granted stay to its fullest. So the four of them are still around for me to meet them from time to time. Their prolonged stay and our good relationship with Dwem makes it unnecessary to have them followed by a guide all day long.

Olivia and Annice are still available for them in case something which requires our help happens. Karsen and Talia also joined the tour since they didn't have anything better to do.

I eye the child in Talia's arms. “So you finally moved into your own house?”

Karsen nods and smiles. “Yes. Explaining the situation to my family was an ordeal since I somehow forgot to mention my relationship with Talia.”

“A wise decision.” She growls. “I was completely hysterical and feared for the worst when I was grounded.”

“Yeah, but after they understood, it wasn't a problem to join Talia's family. The Anja and Zait are in a good relationship with each other. I am glad that Valda and Tanja's relatives weren't too angry about my omissions.” Karsen tries to downplay the situation.

Indeed. Getting your girlfriend pregnant by accident without ever having mentioned her to your own family doesn't put you in the best light, my poor friend. I don't want to know about the scolding you had to listen to. At least they can be together now.

“What's that?” Padma points through one of the windows which are placed along the main corridor of the facility. Behind the windows are rooms with various projects and my employees who are working on them.

I take a look to see what Padma is referring to. “That's a new design for a safety belt which uses gravitational magic. You can charge the artefact with energy and give it to a normal soldier. Then he is dropped out of an aerial carrier like the transport drones or off of our fortresses. The belt has enough energy stored up to stop the fall before you reach ground level. It's very convenient for dropping troops into enemy territory.”

“How do you produce enough of them?” Padma asks baffled.

“The magic circuit is fairly simple and it's nothing more than a deceleration device. It doesn't allow free flight. That means that they are very cheap in production. Although we have already quite a few of them I have to admit that we won't be able to fit the whole army with this equipment. It will remain a tool for our special forces.” Louise's voice echoes down the corridor.

I turn around and wave towards my head researcher who is approaching us. Sometimes I am afraid that Louise could take this new toy of mine for herself. She is spending a lot of time at this place. “Louise, so you are still here. You should try to find another hobby.”

She shakes her head and spreads her hands. “This is everything I ever dreamed about. The knowledge, the resources. I would never get any of this if I were to do something else. And if we hit a bottleneck we simply have to ask the prodigy for a solution.” She nods, blatantly admitting her own laziness. Go and invent something on your own! It's not like I am a magic mirror which gives you all the answers.

“I see. We wanted to end our tour with the light sculpture of our planet.” I explain.

Louise nods and gestures down the corridor. “That's right. You kept the best part for the end. I'll accompany you to get a look at their faces.” She smirks and leads the way towards the hall with the light sculpture.

We follow her to the big room and I get to enjoy the surprised noises from the group as we enter. I have to say myself that the light sculpture truly looks magnificent by now. Louise hired a few people from her clan to improve on its interface. It turned out to be more like a piece of art and the displayed light show truly deserves the name sculpture by now.

We are even able to walk through the light sculpture and manipulate it any way we like.

Louise is so nice to explain the functions of the light sculpture while I single out Nikita to ask her a few questions. “So how is your recovery going? I heard that you are back to your prime?”

She nods happily. “Yes. It's all thanks to you that I am still alive. My recovery took a long time, but I finally have my powers back. The poison was really nasty, I don't understand how any civilised person could use something like it.”

I smile reassuringly. “Don't worry. They are paying for their crimes as we speak.”

My words couldn't be truer. Nict's aggressive change of stance is slowly taking effect. Helen started a massive military build-up program to stop our enemies in their tracks. I don't have to bother with visiting the front lines, but our first five flying fortresses are creating havoc in the southern nations as we speak.

They are using the fortresses to strike at important trading routes and economically important cities. It's essentially nothing other than wildly lashing out at the enemy's economy. But as long as we have the technological advantage it would be stupid not to use it.

On top they already strongly reduced their civilian population in that region by using them as cannon fodder. Forcing the remaining civilians to leave the area may be harsh and cause hard feelings towards us, but it's better than having them used against us.

The aim is to clear out a neutral zone between us and the southerners. We don't advance beyond a certain point, forcing their remaining civilians to retreat to other vassal states further down the coast.

Lucas has the most experience with the southerners and according to him this is the most promising course of action. We are practically hoping that the states which are the closest to us are responsible for the aggressive stance of the southerners. There is no way that we would be able to control their lands with our soldiers.

Since the southern nations are so big and luckily not unified they have as many rivalries with each other as with their neighbours.

The most beneficial outcome would be for them to be more interested in their own quarrels.

According to Lucas there are most certainly three factions among them.

First, the ones which were at the borders of Nict who launched regular attacks at us. Secondly, the ones who are neighbouring Quinn and rallied against them.

The third faction consists of the countries who are located along the southern coast. They are enclosed by the Eastern Plains to their north and the sea to their south. To their west and east are only other small city states. Since they don't have a strong neighbour like Nict or Quinn close to them they shouldn't be interested in joining the fight of their brethren.

We are playing a dangerous game, but the chance that it works out is high. Everything depends on not scaring the third faction. As long as they remain in a mindset of 'what goes around comes around', everything is fine. The same goes for Quinn and their adversaries.

Once our military has established the safety of Nict, we can think about dealing with the Master.

“What are those red dots supposed to mean?” Eliot's voice draws my attention and I take a look at what he is pointing at.

Eliot is pointing at the light sculpture, which is displaying a three dimensional image of our world as it is perceived by our satellites.

Large parts of Quinn and the second continent are still represented by dark, blurred spots, but the blurred out parts of the world grew smaller in the recent months as our abilities to do reconnaissance increased.

The most drastic changes in that regard happened at the second continent, where Helen's special agents are taking the first steps in infiltrating the enemy's society.

But what's approaching us from there is actually worrisome. The cloud of red dots is actually increasing in size as it leaves the blurred out area. I gesture for the light sculpture to zoom in on the detected anomalies. The room turns immediately silent.

“Are those black ships?” “How are they flying?” “There are so many!”

.