Chapter 49

The city of Atria surrendered shortly after my naval taskforce arrived outside of its open port.

The battle opened with the Revenge and the Black Dragon shelling the port with rockets. The rockets arched over the open water and fell on the waterfront amongst small craft pulled up on the beach, as well as on administrative buildings, warehouses, brothels, and bars. Within minutes the whole port was ablaze. Then the Windrunner headed in towards the shore and it opened up with its bow mounted ballista. The gunner lobbed grenades into any target of opportunity and soon explosions filled the air. The grenades blew up fishing boats and buildings alike and it sent the populace of the port scurrying towards the city gate and what they thought was safety. That was when the Revenge and the Black Dragon opened up once again with their rockets. The rockets slammed into the walls and flew over them. The ones exploding off of the walls threw stone and brick and mortar into the air and added to the chaos that already existed in the port. Those that flew over the wall showed everyone that nowhere was safe.

By then Tobias and his men were standing outside the gates of the city. They stood far enough away to be outside the range of any archers on the walls of Atria. Fortunately they were still in range of the bows carried by the Wu Chin archers that I had sent with Tobias. The archers formed up before the city gate and at Tobias' command they launched a flight of fire arrows into the gates of the city. Most of the arrows struck and while the powder charges on the arrows weren't enough to blast the gates down when they went off, the cumulative effect of so many charges in one place were enough to rip chunks of timber out of the gates and to startle the men guarding them. When a second flight struck and exploded and an actual hole in the gates appeared, the men on guard in the city started to worry. That was when Tobias offered the prince of the city terms. Amazingly the man surrendered without protest or the further need for my people to demonstrate our strength.

At Tobias' insistence the prince raised a white flag over the city so that the taskforce would cease its assault. When that had happened, the prince opened the gates of the city and rode out to physically surrender to Tobias. With him came his advisors, his military commander and the captain of the guard and behind them marched the soldiers of the city. Tobias accepted the prince's surrender and his sword in my name. He also ordered all soldiers stripped of their weapons. Once that was done, Tobias detailed the captain of the guard to return to the city with his men and to restore order amongst the populace and to put out the fires in the port and the city. Finally Tobias put on one more display of our power. He ordered all the discarded weapons to be transferred onto one of the transport biremes. The prince and his advisors gasped with surprise when the piles of weapons just blinked out of existence and disappeared into thin air.

The next few hours were busy for most of my force. The taskforce weighed anchor and sailed into the harbour at Helios where they were greeted by Dork and his men and women. Tobias entered the city of Atria and set about stripping it of anything worth taking. In Helios I had ordered the same. The military advisor to Prince Ajax was put to work with a party of released soldiers. My orders to them were to clean out every temple in the city and every villa of note, and to pay special attention to the merchant's guildhall. The truth of the matter was that the guildhall was the equivalent to the national bank on Minos and its basement contained so much wealth that I had to send slaves to help shift the treasure to my ships. Naturally the slaves were another issue that had to be dealt with and that matter fell to me.

I ordered all slaves to gather before the walls of the keep so that I could speak to them. I gave them my standard speech about what Game World was all about and what I was doing here. I offered every man and woman who wanted to leave Minos and to be free a one way trip to Izmir, Blue Harbour, or in the case of any outworlders, Oak Hall. Not surprisingly, the majority accepted without reservation. After that I left the matter to Mai Woo and Miranda Scott to manage. I needed some sleep.

Nimue took over for the afternoon and everything went well. Of over three thousand slaves in Helios, twenty-eight hundred chose to leave. Thirteen hundred went to Izmir and thirteen hundred went to Blue Harbour. The remaining two hundred were all outworlders and they went to Oak Hall. Of these, four turned out to have come from Miranda's Earth and while only one of them held a skill that I thought useful, I found the fact interesting when I was told about it later. As for Atria, Tobias liberated twelve hundred slaves there of which fifty were outworlders. Those fifty were sent to Oak Hall while the others were split up and sent to Izmir and Blue Harbour.

The 'magic' demonstrated throughout the day, with the disappearance of slaves in a flash of light and the explosions that I had demonstrated in the morning kept the citizenry of Helios quiet. That night I met with Prince Ajax, his wife, and his advisors, and with Prince Cletus of Atria with his wives and advisors. I gave them the same speech that I had given the Prince of Kenos, knowing full well that it really meant nothing to them. Still I wanted the networks to get the picture of me playing king. The princes and their wives and their advisors all swore their fealty to me as I had expected they would. Afterwards I had them all marched down to the dungeons and I had them locked in for the night. I think that really surprised them. When the two princes started to protest I just told them that it was for their own safety. That night I marched my men out of the keep and down to the harbour. Then under the cover of night we set sail, leaving Helios and Atria behind.

The next city we hit was Sapura and it proved to be as easy to take as the other three had been. My taskforce struck it late in the afternoon of the next day and it took only a half hour barrage from the ships to cause the prince of the city to surrender. The city guard was relieved of their weapons well before dark and I and my men were in control of the place with very little opposition. That night I slept in the bed of the prince while he spent the night in his dungeon.

The next day was the same old routine. We sacked the city of anything worth taking including foodstuff and we liberated another two thousand odd slaves of which another hundred ended up in Oak Hall. I then made the prince and his people swear their fealty to me and then we packed up and left. That was it. Once we were out to sea I let out a sigh of relief and told everyone that was it. We skipped Lufkin as I knew that it wasn't really worth the effort and I decided that trying to storm the capital was just plain crazy and remarkably everyone with me agreed. Once that had been stated, we headed home.

Our return to Oak Hall occurred in the same manner as our trip to Minos. One second we were off the coast of the island kingdom and the next we were sailing into the port before Oak Hall. The sight of the place put a smile on my face and that of everyone else. The majority of my people were exhausted from the last few days of combat and the stress of the raids. All of us were very happy to be home. We were even happier knowing that there were people in place waiting for us on the waterfront and the jetty who would take over offloading the ships and replenishing them. It would allow me to dismiss the majority of the crews and send them home to their families and friends and it would allow me to head up to the keep and get some rest myself.

The next morning was busy. At breakfast Lord Barnabas, Elsa, and Dupree wanted to know all about the raids. Elsa particularly wanted to know about our casualty rates and she smiled happily went I informed her that we'd gotten off lucky again. In total we'd lost nine men and a woman and none of them were from amongst men who'd been pirates with her. Additionally we'd taken a dozen wounded who'd needed to be evacuated home but that was it. Compared to the Minoan casualties we had nothing to complain about.

There were however complaints. These came from two sources. The first was Josh and Hugo and their team of administrators. Their chief gripe was the number of ex-slaves that I'd sent back to Oak Hall. While they had been forewarned and told to be prepared, they hadn't been. The influx of almost four hundred new citizens that needed to be housed, fed, and babysat proved to be overwhelming. I expressed my sympathies to their plight, but as I told them, there wasn't much I could do besides encourage them to recruit more help and to lobby for more resources from Lord Barnabas and his governing council. As I pointed out to them, the problem wasn't going to abate any time soon. So long as the networks kept importing outworlders, I was going to rescue them.

The second party who raised complaints were my trio of unwanted guests. They met me after breakfast and after I had spoken to Josh and Hugo, and they didn't find me as receptive to their concerns as they had hoped.

"The ratings from the raids aren't as high as the consortium had hoped they would be," Mai Woo told me bluntly.

"They weren't?" I grumbled back at her and her companions.

"Yes, my lord, they weren't," Mai Woo repeated herself, this time in a tentative manner. "Overall the ratings were very good, however your personal numbers dropped. Analysts on my Earth have determined that a growing percentage of viewers are becoming dissatisfied with your personal performance. While a percentage accepts you in a leadership and command role, a large portion of the viewing audience wants to see more blood and guts and individual action like they witnessed in your early days on Game World."

"They do, do they?" I said with exasperation dripping from my voice. "Well, I'll have to see what I can do about that once I pack up and take off on my mission. I'm certain once I'm away from Oak Hall and back to dealing with smaller groups of men, I'll be able to keep your pathetic viewers happy."

My manner and my response shut them up for a moment or two. They could tell that I was angry, but they still didn't get the reason why and I wasn't in the mood to explain it to them one more time. Instead I changed the topic. I asked about Miranda Scott and how she was settling in.

"Miranda is doing well, my lord," Mai Woo responded in a reassuring manner. "Lady Felicity examined her and she was given a clean bill of health. I've spoken to Lord Barnabas' chamberlain and he has provided Miranda with clothing and quarters. At the moment she is still resting."

"Well you can put her to work once we're done here today," I told Mai Woo bluntly. "I want her to meet every outworlder living in Oak Hall. She is to speak to everyone and when she is done she is to identify any who are from your Earth. Assure Miranda that I do not intend to expose these people or to punish them in any shape or manner; however I do want to meet and speak to them. As I see it, at the very minimum these people can be used as a propaganda tool against the networks and the politicians of your Earth. Naturally that depends on whether or not the consortium broadcasts these peoples stories. Do we know whether the consortium aired my talk with Miranda?"

"I've been assured by my contact at the consortium," Mai Woo informed me, "that yes they have and that they intend to continue to do so. Unfortunately, my contact has not been able to learn what impact the meeting with Miranda had on the viewers. There has been virtually no response from any news service on my Earth or from any politician, and all social media streams have been silent. My contact believes that people are afraid to talk about it."

"Well," I said thoughtfully, "maybe it's time that the consortium put a little more effort into this arrangement of ours. The networks that make up the consortium must have a few politicians in their pockets and it is time to get those politicians doing their job. I think that more noise made about what is going on both on Game World and on your Earth will stir up opinion in our favour and it will put more pressure on the other networks to join us. I suggest that you make that a priority the next time you talk to your contact back on your Earth."

"Yes my lord," Mai Woo acknowledged, bowing her head submissively as she replied. "I'll do that."

Personally I didn't think it would do us any good but I didn't tell Mai Woo that and I certainly didn't mention it aloud. I wanted anyone listening in to think that I was hoping for support from their political system and I wanted them either wondering how they could exploit that or how they were going to block my efforts. From what Miranda had told me and from what I had gleaned in my conversations with Mai Woo, I knew that their political system was corrupt and ineffectual. Industry controlled everything from the networks to the politicians and if industry didn't budge then nothing happened. The question was how to make industry budge. More importantly was the question of how to get them to budge in favour of what I was doing. That was something that I needed to figure out.

My problems didn't end there. I learned later that day that Lord Omar was not happy. I'd sent Asana and Samira to Izmir following the raid on Minos to pop in and see how things were going with the ex-slaves that I'd been sending him. From what Asana told me later in the day, things were not going very well. Lord Omar had not prepared himself or his city for the sudden influx of all the new people and to make matters worse, the new people were not happy with how they were being received. I just sighed and shook my head and promised her that I would go and see her father.

Truthfully the situation was the same in Blue Harbour as well. Even with warning that I intended to liberate as many slaves that were willing to accept the offer, and even some suggestions made during my conversations with both Lord Omar and Lord Tailem about how to manage the influx, neither man took the issue seriously. While Josh and Hugo were complaining to me about the people I had sent to Oak Hall and the people I still intended to rescue, at least they had a plan in place as to how to integrate the new people and how to support them and they had a team of volunteers ready and willing to help them. Lord Omar and Lord Tailem did not.

I let the matter lie for a day and then I decided that I needed to go and deal with it. By then my people had sifted through all the treasure that we'd liberated and they had divided it up into the appropriate piles for further distribution. In total there were five piles. There was one pile each for Lord Barnabas, Lord Omar, and Lord Tailem. There was also a pile for me and there was a pile for the men and women who had journeyed on the raid with me. That pile was the largest. I had insisted on paying the men and women separately and Lord Barnabas agreed with me. Of course the second largest pile of treasure went to Lord Barnabas since all the men and women in the taskforce had come from Oak Hall, except for the men who had manned the two transport vessels. Additionally the bulk of the vessels in the taskforce belonged to Oak Hall. In the end, I received the smallest portion of the treasure, but as I told Lord Barnabas, I didn't really care so long as the men and women fighting for me were happy.

Since Lord Omar was the man making the most noise I went and visited him first. This time I sailed there in the Windrunner. The weather had begun to change and we had rain and strong winds during our passage but privately I felt it was a nice change to having the consortium teleporting us about the planet. Of course I was one of the only ones who saw it that way. I brought Kola, Caitlin, Asana, and Samira with me on the trip and of the four only Caitlin faired well in the rolling seas. Thankfully it was only a day trip and we were able to make Izmir well before dusk on the same day.

A palanquin chair for Asana and Samira was waiting at the quay by the time the Windrunner had tied up, as were horses for the remainder of my mates and me. Teasingly I reminded Tagus not to wander too far and then I left him and the Windrunner under the protection of Tobias and his force of men. From the quay we followed a guard of honour up and out of the harbour and on towards Lord Omar's palace. The ride didn't take too long and we were warmly welcomed by our host. Surprisingly the man met us on the steps of his palace.