Chapter 48

We were out to sea and heading westward when I finally had Miranda Scott brought to me to have a chat. By that time we'd recovered all our troops and I had heard from my lieutenants. All three had been very successful in their missions and none had taken any serious casualties. Surprise and overwhelming force had ruled the day and I was pleased to hear it. Of all of them, Dork had had the hardest task considering the situation that I had put him in. At times his men had been forced to confront fleeing refugees on two fronts. Thankfully the vast majority of the refugees were unarmed and leaderless and they fled the instant they found their road blocked by Dork and his men. Of course any who tried to press the issue and force the road towards the capital ended up dead. The big guy was very happy about his day.

Miranda Scott did not look as glamorous as she had the first time that I had met her. She looked thinner and a little more tired and there was an edge to her that hadn't been there before. She wasn't the worst looking slave that I'd seen since coming to Game World but it was clear from looking at her that she'd had a rough time.

"So we meet again," I said to her in a cavalier manner when she was finally brought into my presence aboard the Black Dragon.

"My lord," Miranda replied humbly, bowing her head in submission.

"So tell me Miranda," I continued, "how you ended up in the situation that I now find you in and more importantly, can you tell me why I shouldn't just throw you overboard and let you swim for shore."

"Please," she started to beg, dropping to her knees as she did, "don't reject me my lord."

"Reject you!" I exclaimed with disdain in my voice. "I have openly rejected you and your people and everything you stand for since my arrival on Game World and much, much more so stop you're whimpering and speak to me. Why are you a slave on Game World and why should I care about it."

"Because I failed to retrieve the pistols that you and your mate carry," Miranda stated in a trembling voice, "and because my failure embarrassed powerful men my lord and you should care because the men who banished me to Game World are the same men who have actively tried to kill you since your arrival on the planet and they are the men who have no desire to see any change in the way Game World is run."

"The networks?" I muttered questioningly.

"And the politicians who march to the drum they beat," the woman replied without hesitation, "and more importantly, the executives who run the corporations that feed my Earth's economy."

"I thought that your corporate base was supported by robots and not humans," I stated in a questioning manner. "Why would they care about me?"

"They care because they use the networks and the politicians to keep the masses happy," Miranda replied without hesitation. "While the corporations are fully automated and the bulk of the workforce is robotic, there are still plenty of people working at the upper management level to become alarmed at the possibility of change."

"Not all change is bad," I said in reply.

"Tell that to people who live in fear," Miranda sighed in response, "and to those whose minds are controlled by the leaders of my Earth. These men like the way things are on my Earth and they don't want anyone rocking the boat."

I sighed at that and shook my head in disbelief. I remembered what Victoria had told me about the other Earth and how it sustained itself by plundering and exploiting the resources of other planets. Their addiction to Game World was only one aspect of their culture that I'd like to change if it was ever possible. Unfortunately, for the moment I knew that wasn't possible. Clearing my head of those thoughts I continued with my questioning of Miranda.

"I thought that you needed to sign a voluntary agreement to travel from your Earth to Game World," I said to her bluntly as I pressed on with my questions. "So how is it that you're here."

"My immediate supervisor forged my signature on the documents needed to send me here," Miranda told me in a low voice that was edged with resentment. "Of course once I got here I learned that it hadn't really mattered that he'd done it. Since coming here I've learned a secret or two that my Earth has lied to the citizenry about."

"And what secrets would those be?" I asked with interest.

"I'm not the first person from my world to be banished here," Miranda replied in a very cold voice. "Since coming here I have met others who have been here for a long, long time. They were sent here for other reasons and they have met others from our Earth. They told me that people who were undesirable or who had embarrassed someone important like I had done had routinely shown up on Game World. Most do not live out their first day here. I was lucky. I was pretty and desirable and men wanted me. I was raped and abused but I lived and survived and now I am here telling you what I know."

What Miranda told me took me by surprise but not for the reasons that Miranda would have thought. The thought that the corporations, the networks, and the politicians of her Earth would routinely dispose of their citizenry on Game World wasn't that surprising once I started thinking about it. In a way it actually made sense. It probably cut down on the cost of keeping prisons running on their Earth. What was surprising was the fact this was the first time I had heard of it. I quickly pointed that out to Miranda.

"You know how much you despise my Earth and my people," Miranda stated in an icy manner. "Do you really think a person from my Earth would admit who they were to another person on Game World? It would be suicidal, especially since your arrival. You've been telling everyone who is an outworlder the truth about this planet and the vast majority of them now hate us as much as you do."

I admitted that she had a point. Still I was concerned that I hadn't heard about this from my trio and I quickly pointed that out. I also summoned Mai Woo to chat about it.

"I have never heard about this my lord;" Mai Woo replied when I had told her what Miranda had said to me, "although I must admit that it is possible considering the attitude of the networks and my government."

"It is more than just possible," Miranda growled in response, "and I'm the proof of it. Unfortunately for you, you're in the same situation. Your network might still be in communication with you because you're their liaison with Charles, but the truth is that you're now banished here just like I am and if something were to happen to Charles they would abandon you in an instant. They certainly wouldn't want you back on our Earth so you could tell people of your adventures here. That would be too risky for them."

Mai Woo said nothing in reply to that and from the look on her face I could see that she felt the same way.

"But we're talking about this right now," I pointed out to the two women, "so isn't this going out to every viewer on your Earth. Have we just exposed the networks and their puppets in your government or am I being naïve?"

"This is an exclusive to the consortium," Mai Woo stated in a hesitant manner, "and technically all feed from Game World goes out live and unedited. Still there is a chance that it may or may not go out to the public. The consortium will be in a rock and a hard place situation here. They will want the ratings this discussion will garner, but if they are supportive of this policy they will want to control the dissemination of the information. Either way we will never know if this discussion made it to the airwaves. After all, the consortium could lie to us."

"They could," Miranda agreed, quickly jumping into the conversation before I could say anything, "but I think it will go out. The corporations and the networks and the politicians believe that the population of my Earth are so complacent that no one will care so long as they keep getting fed and they get to watch Game World."

I found the whole matter disheartening and I admitted it openly. I still had six months left to win the bet between Victoria's Earth and the bastards on Miranda's Earth and from the sound of it; I was fighting an uphill battle. If the people of Miranda's world were so detached that they didn't even care that their own citizenry was being dispatched to Game World to die or to live as slaves then would anything make them wake up and demand change? I had to wonder.

I let the matter go at that. I told Mai Woo to take care of Miranda and to see to her needs for the remainder of our trip. I assured Miranda that I'd speak to her some more, but for now I had bigger concerns. My taskforce was quickly rounding the western end of Crete and by daylight, if all went well, it would be entering Helios Bay and I would be going into action once again. Of course before that could happen I had a few preparations to make if my attack was to work and on top of everything I needed to get some sleep.

The big issue was the fact that Helios was a bitch to attack. The city stood at the bottom of Helios Bay. The bay was formed by two long narrow peninsulas that jutted out into the Sea of Crete on the northwest end of Minos. The bay was 'U' shaped and it was huge. The mouth was at least forty miles wide from peninsula to peninsula and it was over sixty miles deep from the mouth to the shore where Helios lay. A taskforce coming from the sea would be seen long before it even got close to the city and to make matters worse, unlike most cities with ports and harbours that I had seen since arriving on Game World, Helios had stout walls and tall towers barring entrance into the harbour and there were defensive weapons mounted on the walls. The city of Helios was protected by trebuchets that could pound any vessel that approached its walls without an invitation. Additionally, the walls were manned around the clock by a garrison that outnumbered the force currently sailing with me.

To top things off Helios was not the only city dotting the shoreline of the great bay. Helios stood on the western side of the bay, backing onto the rugged peninsula and the rolling hills that lay to the west and the south. To its east, some sixteen miles away, lay Atria. While Helios hosted a population of twelve thousand, Atria was much smaller. It lay on the eastern curve of the bay dominating the road the led from Helios to the east and then up into the mountains beyond. The city had only six thousand citizens and it was the second smallest of the cities of Minos and unlike Helios it was defended by only a single defensive wall that did not protect its harbour. The question was which of the two cities should be attacked first. Alone each presented a major effort on the attackers part and together the combined military force would be unbeatable even with the technological advantage that my soldiers had at their disposal. Only surprise and subterfuge and a lot of luck would win the day for them...

We landed on the beaches that lay on the west coast of Minos. It was just after nightfall and luckily there was a bright moon rising in the eastern sky. It would give us light on our trek across the peninsula. The landing took a bit of time. In total it took four waves using the smaller craft to transport us from the taskforce to the shore. When the operation was over I had three hundred fully equipped fighting men waiting upon me to give them the order to move out.

I had stripped the ships of the taskforce leaving them with the minimum of crew. It was necessary if my plan was to succeed. Still I left enough men on the fighting ships that they could deal with any unexpected complications. Hopefully none would arise. I left Tagus in command, giving him a schedule to abide to while I and our fighting men marched across the western peninsula. Thankfully the stretch of land was reasonably narrow.

It was however rugged and we needed to take care while we pushed inland. Initially we were faced with sand dunes and tracts of coastal plains that were overgrown with brush and tall grasses. Behind that we came upon rolling hills that were covered with olive trees. Eventually the hills gave way to a long ridge of rocky land that stretched down the length of the peninsula and upwards into the mountains that dominated the western part of Minos. It was here that travelling became more difficult. Even so we reached the outer walls of Helios well before midnight.

The wall surrounding the city of Helios was just as stout and tall as the wall that surrounded the harbour. It had a single gate in its landward side that opened onto the road that led to Atria and beyond. This gate consisted of a drawbridge over a dry moat, two towers on either side of it and two portcullises. There were also square shaped towers in each corner of the landward defensive wall and smaller round towers spaced along the walls that led from the shore to the harbour and its defences. The gate was closed when we arrived and guards could be seen wandering the ramparts. There weren't many but there was enough to keep watch and deter any attempted attacks. Fortunately we had a couple of aces up our sleeve that we could use to get us in that didn't rely on the consortium helping out.

Elves can climb and they move very quietly. Thus Nimue and Goiania led our attack by slipping down from the hills that we were hiding behind. They did it without being spotted by any of the sentries. After slipping through the dry moat and up to the base of the western most tower, the pair paused for a moment or two and then they started to climb. Quickly and stealthily they ascended the stone wall, keeping in the shadow where the tower jutted out from the main wall. Somehow they found finger and toe-holds in the stone walls that could bear their weight and within a couple of minutes they made it to the top. Once there they struck before any alarm could be raised.

The sentries never spotted them until it was too late. Nimue went over the top of the tower first, dropping to the roof of the tower like a feather falling from a bird. As she did, she pulled a knife from the top of her boot. The two men standing guard were facing away from her. Both were chatting in a low voice while they stared out into the darkness of the night. As Goiania dropped to the roof of the tower, Nimue struck.

Nimue rose up from where she was crouched and quickly stepped up behind the man closest to her. The man was of average height for a local and thus he was slightly taller than Nimue. Still this proved to be no deterrent for my little elf. Nimue just stepped up behind the man and tapped him on the shoulder. The startled man jumped as did his companion and they both turned to see who was there. Nimue reacted immediately. With one hand she reached out and grabbed the man about chest high and with her other hand she drove her knife into the man's throat before he could react. The blade sank deep and when she drew it to the side, cutting through the man's windpipe and flesh, blood splattered everywhere. The man's companion gasped with surprise and horror and instinctively jumped out of the way. As he did, he brought his spear down in a menacing manner. Of course by this time Nimue had turned the body of the man she had killed towards the other man, using his collapsing body as an improvised shield. She really hadn't needed to do it because the other man never got the chance to use his spear. The man had jumped towards Goiania without knowing it and he turned on Nimue, Goiania simply rose up behind him as the man moved to take on Nimue. One of her hands slipped around his face and clasped his mouth shut as the other brought a knife up and across his neck. The man died starring wide-eyed in disbelief at Nimue as she pulled her blade out of the other man's neck. It took only a couple of minutes.

While Goiania dealt with the two bodies and kept a lookout against any trouble, Nimue lowered a couple of ropes down the side of the tower. By then I had reached the tower with the people I needed to take the wall with and to open the gate. With me were Dork, Kola, Caitlin, Talbot, Danvers, my twelve men who'd accompanied me on my attack on Lufkin the last time I was on Minos, and five of my six men from Oak Hall. In minutes we scaled the wall using the ropes while Nimue and Goiania kept watch. Once at the top of the tower we did two things. We struck at the garrison below and we waited.

The reason we waited was because, while there were guards on the towers standing sentry, there were also guards walking the walls. These men would walk from one tower to the next and then they would turn about and walk back. The men walked slowly and it took the guards fifteen minutes or so to walk the rampart and to stop and check on the men in the towers. When Nimue and Goiania had struck, the patrolling guards had been half way to their respective towers. Since we had stormed the western most corner tower we had two patrolling guards to worry about. One was patrolling between the gate tower and the tower we were in and the other was patrolling from the tower we were in to one of the small towers that stood along the western wall of the city. Thankfully both men were at the middle of their patrol when Nimue and Goiania had taken the tower and they both had been heading away from the tower. Now they were heading back towards us and we were ready for them.

While we waited for the two men to get to the tower I sent the bulk of my force down into it. The tower was four stories high and it served several purposes beyond being a platform upon which guards could stand watch. The floor below the roof had arrow slits in the walls and it could be used by archers to defend the city without exposing themselves. Below that was an armoury filled with bows and a multitude of arrows. The next floor down was a storage room filled with food and provisions that could be used in a siege while the ground floor chamber was a guardhouse that housed the watch that guarded the tower. Each of the towers was laid out in a similar manner and each would have to be dealt with before we pressed on.

My men from Oak Hall led the way and they took with them the dozen men from the Windrunner. The lower floors were accessed by a flight of stairs that ran about the interior of the tower, with each flight of steps piercing the individual floors. The men went down and dealt with the garrison below while I and my party waited in the shadows of the tower's crenelated roof and walls for the approaching patrolling guards.

Both men arrived at the foot of the steps that led up from the ramparts to the top of the tower. They greeted each other with indifference. Their voices sounded tired. Then together they climbed the steps up to the top. The flight of stairs was no more than four in number and it took them only a couple of seconds to mount them. When they got to the top of the stairs they instinctively gazed to the far wall of the tower where the two sentries normally stood. Nimue and Goiania had propped up the two dead guards to make it look like they had fallen asleep on duty. It worked. Neither man looked anywhere but where the two men were propped up against the far wall. One growled angrily on seeing the two men and he moved forward to arouse the 'sleeping' sentries. The other man followed him, telling him to give the two 'sleeping' men a good kick. It was the last thing the man ever said. Talbot and Danvers rose out of the shadows and struck. The men had no chance to defend themselves and they were dead before they even knew it.

After that things went quickly. Dork and I donned the cloaks of the two patrolling guards and then picked up their spears. Then while everyone waited, Dork and I marched off towards our respective towers. It was a bit of a risk but I was counting on complacency and it worked. We didn't rush, but we didn't take our time either. We walked with a purpose in our step. Thankfully no one took much notice.

I arrived at the gate tower unchallenged. As I mounted the steps to the upper level, I let the spear that I was carrying slip from where it was resting against my shoulder so that it flopped into my hands by the time I hit the top step of short set of stairs.