Chapter 75

Alade
Earuu Resort, Earuu Mountains
05:49 Local Time
September 14, 2019

Although my friends and I had skied or snowboarded many times before, never had we had such an amazing experience. It was always fun, but it sucked having to wait for a ski lift to take us back to the top. Even if the ski lift was enclosed to block out the worst of the wind and any potential snow, it still took several minutes before we could once again hit the slopes.

That wasn’t an issue whatsoever here. There was no waiting around in a line waiting for your turn, and as soon as you reached the bottom, you could immediately be back up at the top. Such was the power of portals. Functionally, they seemed to be identical to the ones back at the Scyftan base back on Earth, but the anchors were just made out of different materials. For the one back at the Scyftan base, that was steel or some other type of metal, and here it was just chunks of stone.

There were dozens of such portals placed all over the place, with some of them leading to the same run, just at different elevations. For instance, one of the longer runs had four separate portals leading to it, with one exit at around two kilometers in elevation, and the remainder at lower elevations. On the harder or more advanced runs, it meant that one could start at the lowest elevation and then move up as they gained more experience and confidence.

Just like Earth, different runs had different difficulties for beginners, intermediates and expert skiers or snowboarders, but there was another one. According to Tessa, it was the ‘professional’ difficulty, but most people just called it the ‘insane’ difficulty. That is because runs with such a classification spanned the most perilous parts of the mountain, with most having jumps, rails and the like. Some, but not all, actually had portals incorporated into the run to increase the difficulty of the run even further for competition purposes.

Though there wasn’t really any danger of us getting hurt as our stats continued to rise, it still wasn’t something that we wanted to tackle right off the hop. For one thing, all three of my sisters were completely new at skiing or snowboarding, but the rest of us were only intermediates, at best. Because of that we started on the beginner hills and worked our way up as the triplets progressed. It was something that they proved to be adept at, as they were ready for something a little more challenging after a mere forty minutes.

So for the next four hours or so, we continued to hit the slopes and take in our surroundings. While the view was amazing from within the valley, that was nothing compared to the view from the top of one of the tallest mountains in the Earuu Mountain range. Even after the sun had set on this part of Alade, it was still more than bright enough to see what was beyond.

There was what seemed to be an endless sea of the massive trees, only parting to reveal another small mountain or a frozen lake, but everything was covered in the brilliant white of undisturbed snow. Well, mostly undisturbed. A few sets of tracks could be seen here or there thanks to the superior vision when I shifted my eyes, but there was no sign of whatever had made them. All we knew for sure was that whatever had made them was quite large indeed.

There was some very heavy snowfall expected for the next day, so we headed to bed early just to make the most of it. Now, snowfall isn’t an uncommon occurrence on Alade, even going back several hundred years, scarcely a day could be found where there was at least some precipitation of some sort. Even if you were able to find one of those days, they were few and far between.

But while snowfall was a common affair that thanks to the high quantity of geysers and hotsprings to the south, blizzard-like storms were less so. In fact, the region only saw one or two of those storms every month, but when they arrived, they dumped meters upon meters of snow. The upcoming one was no different, however Abi let us know that it would be much more severe than the Alade weather service was predicting it to be.

That was thanks to her sophisticated sensors and the ability to run more simulations and run them faster than even the most advanced supercomputers. Her sensors, computing power and detailed readings from the past three months indicated that the winds would start blowing north and would remain blowing north for as much as twelve hours.

The hot springs located nearly six hundred kilometers south of the Earuu Mountain range were responsible for just under 80% of the entire continents snowfall, and that was credited to the sheer quantity. There were hundreds of them that varied in size from small pools to large lakes, but they all contributed in sending steam up into the atmosphere. That paled in comparison to the steam geysers, however, which propelled hundreds, if not thousands of liters of water into the air each time they erupted. Most of that water fell back down and helped fill the pools, but a good portion was carried high into the sky by the heat generated below.

All that water stayed up in the atmosphere until the wind blew it somewhere, but it was a rare event when the wind blew in a particular direction for more than a short time. Usually, the wind would blow in one direction for a few hours, and then it would change directions. That would be it for snow for a while at least, but not this time.

It was just poor timing on our part, because storms such as the one that was on it’s way don’t usually close down the resort for more than a day. It only takes a short time to remove the snow so people can more easily get around, and the only thing that needed to be taken care of were any potential avalanches. With a few dozen meters of snowfall, at least one avalanche was a guarantee, but avalanches were very easy to trigger overall.

Contrary to popular belief on Earth, an avalanche can’t be triggered by someone’s voice or by gunshots. You could yell for hours or fire off hundreds of rounds, and the snow wouldn’t budge at all. That’s why some of the most popular ways to trigger them on Earth is to quite literally set off an explosion on the mountain, or fire tank or artillery rounds at the mountain until the snow and ice starts moving. For example, the Canadian military routinely fires off artillery rounds to keep Rogers Pass in British Columbia free of snow, allowing vehicular traffic to continue relatively unimpeded.

The Pygmaeans had a much more sophisticated way of dealing with avalanches, which was basically the use of an extremely powerful ultrasonic weapon. Inaudible to humans and many other species, the machine generates and sustains a highly-focused sound wave at the target area. When the sound wave hits snow, it causes the snow to quickly vibrate and separate, triggering an avalanche almost instantaneously.

It’s amazing all the random things you learn when you converse with a being with literal encyclopedic knowledge.

We weren’t staying long enough to rent one of the cabins or mountainside dwellings, so we all headed back to Menseio Station for the night. With everyone returning to Alade the next morning, it didn’t make sense for everyone to go to the rooms on the station assigned to them. Besides, there were now so many amenities onboard that there was no real need to go anywhere. Not unless you wanted to take a little bit of time to go shopping, at least.

“Did something happen?” Ben asked before sipping his coffee.

“You could say that,” I replied between bites. “Abi helped someone out last night, and it turns out that by helping them, she also helped us.”

“What do you mean?” Anja asked.

I relayed the part about Mizu Tuvanto searching for his missing sister, Kaera Tuvanto, explaining how Abi had narrowed down the search area considerably. Not only had Kaera Tuvanto been found relatively unharmed and quickly recovered, but so too were hundreds of young women, and even a few young men.

“It turns out that the blindspot in Abi’s sensor network was home to a syndicate with some serious ties to the criminal underworld in this region of the galaxy. Drugs, weapons, people ... you name it, they were involved in it. Probably still are actually. Those four cargo ships I mentioned? Each one led Mr. Tuvanto’s forces to what was pretty much a distribution center for the surrounding system. At each location they found dozens of women that were clustered in small cells, garbed in nothing but inhibitor collars. It’s obvious that they would have soon been sold into slavery, but that’s not all that was found. You can bet that a certain jotunn is not very happy right now.”

“Jotunn?” Sonja asked. “You’re talking about N’ardil Vilos, right?”

I quickly nodded. “One of her teams was found when the Fa’iir strike force stormed the facility on Ginuthea, which is one of the most populated planets in the Qhaalian domain. Six of the ten members were actually killed in the ensuing battle, but the other four ended up surrendering and were handed over to the local police.”

“Killed? I thought they’re supposed to be these elite squads or something,” Mason said.

“Some are, some aren’t, but it wouldn’t have mattered if it was Illia’s team that was there. The Fa’iir dropped off a device that works like an inhibitor but on a larger area before they went in. From there, ignoring the numbers the Fa’iir went in with, both sides were on relatively even footing. Military training and teamwork is almost always going to win against a disjointed force, though.

“So, three teams down, how many more to go?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “A lot, but that’s not all...”

With breakfast over with, we headed down to the landing bay to catch our ride back down to Alade to play some hockey. There was still some preparation to be done, but it wouldn’t take too long to set up, and there would be no need to take everything back down when we were done. That was part of the agreement made with the owners of the resort because we were taking up so much room on the lake. When we were done, the boards and benches would remain behind, along with a detailed set of rules so other visitors could play if they wanted to.

Although it had snowed for a short time the night before, the section of the lake that we had reserved was completely free of snow, leaving behind a sheet of relatively flat ice. I say relatively, because while it was mostly flat, there were still a few rough patches here and there; signs of whoever had used it before us.

The first order of business was to install the dasher boards so we didn’t constantly lose pucks in the deep snow, made substantially easier thanks to Abi’s engineering. The boards themselves were made out of polyethylene, each outfitted with at least two fifteen centimeter steel spikes that would help anchor it down and prevent the boards from moving. In addition, each board had two grooves that allowed the individual sections to lock together, increasing the strength even further. Though it would probably remain non-contact, it ensured that the boards would be as durable as possible, while still remaining easy to take down as the need arises.

A small crowd had formed even before we finished installing the boards and the two long benches for players to sit on between shifts, and the twins went around seeing if any of them were interested in trying a new game. While they were doing that, a hole was drilled into the ice outside of the new rink and a pump was lowered down into it, allowing us to flood the ice to achieve a more uniform surface.

Normally for an outdoor rink this would be done over a series of nights, and at a temperature a little bit warmer than the -22 degrees Celsius that it was, but we had a few tricks up our sleeves. The water froze in very short order, creating a surface that would be unplayable, but when we were almost done with the flood, Selalea, Linvalma and another Gray dragon went to work.

It began with Selalea projecting a sustained jet of flame across most of the length of the rink. It was my first time ever seeing a dragon using their abilities in their human form, and rather than breathe fire, she actually formed it between her two outstretched hands. The heat from the fire was enough to melt some of the ice, but it wasn’t good enough, which was where Linvalma and a young female gray dragon came in, with each of them taking control of the weather in a local area. Linvalma got the wind moving quickly in a long oval, which fed the fire with more oxygen, while simultaneously spreading that fire and heat around until the entire ice surface within the dasher boards was turning back into water. To prevent the dasher boards from being melted or damaged by the heat, the young Gray dragon formed a thin vortex of her own around Linvalma’s, which created a barrier, keeping the heat in, and the cold out.

Within two minutes or so, the top 2 to 3 centimeters of ice had turned to water, and the two gray dragons eased up. Selalea continued projecting the jet of flame and elevated it to allow the water below to freeze back into ice, but just slow enough so that it wouldn’t become brittle by freezing too quickly. While that was going on, everyone else got ready.

It seemed that the twins hadn’t had much luck gathering more players, but I knew that would probably change once we started playing. Grabbing my Beacon once more, I walked along a section of ice and held my hand out. Each time I stopped, a crate appeared beside me and my friends wasted no time cracking them open to see what was within. No one would be wearing a complete set of hockey equipment, but many of the important things were there; helmets, gloves, elbow, shin and knee pads, to name a few, all made by Abi who had been hard at work making everything possible.

There were two crates that were filled with skates of many different sizes, and even different types. You had the usual hockey skates, but also a modern take on the early ice skate that you stepped onto and then tied to your foot. They were just something that Abi put together in case we were joined by people with very large feet, as the regular hockey skates would likely fit everyone else. A Pygmaean or Scyftan could easily fit into a kids-sized hockey skate, for example.

The only people who would actually be using a full set of equipment were the goaltenders. In this case that was Ben and his dad. They were the only two people present that had any sort of experience, with Ben’s dad having played at the major junior level when he was younger, and Ben playing as a goaltender until he was 14.

Aside from all of the protective equipment, there was a 3 meter long crate that was entirely full of hockey sticks, as well as a smaller crate that held something else entirely. They were small devices with elastic bands that looked similar to a wristwatch, but were actually inhibitors that could easily be put on or removed. When they were worn, it would ensure that everyone was on a relatively even playing field, and there wouldn’t be pucks moving fast enough to seriously injure someone.

While my friends and I were getting suited up, a lot of the parents were going around to help out the kids and anyone else who wanted to try the game. I was expecting the dragons to be particularly lost, but I was surprised as Bonakr went from child to child and helped them with their protective equipment. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised as he is a White dragon and thus at home in frigid locales, but I didn’t think dragons would be interested in something like hockey. Under his supervision, all of the kids were suited up and given sticks suitable for their size.

The ice inside the rink was perfect thanks to Selalea, but the kids practiced skating around outside of the rink, as there was still one more thing to do before play could actually start. Donning the helmet for my suit, I grabbed a drill out of storage and then headed out onto the rink. With Abi helping me out, I drilled a set of two holes for each net, inserted the pegs, and then placed the nets down on them. It ensured that the nets would remain in place under most situations, but would easily come off if someone collided with it. With that done, Mason and I played rock paper scissors to determine who would pick first, before getting on with it.

Somewhere in Confederation Space
Storm Bringers’ Base - Unknown Location
September 14, 2019

N’ardil Vilos already had an irritated look on her face, and she’d barely had enough time to eat breakfast. She had been in a foul mood ever since she was forced to torch her base on Kuirilia and set up elsewhere, but things weren’t getting any easier. Already she had lost two of her teams to ‘that upstart’, and two more had ignored the recall order entirely. She knew they were still alive because their transponders showed them to be moving together until they suddenly cut out at almost the exact same moment. They hadn’t been seen since then, but it was clear that they had cut all ties with The Storm Bringers and had taken two of her ships when they did.