here lie the summaries of episodes gone by. it’s sort of like a “previously, on dry” intro in case you feel like reading the series but are already a bit behind.
it goes without saying, but there are obviously spoilers here below. if you want the thrill of voraciously reading gripping chapters of fiction, instead of having all the punchlines just thrown at you, read the damn episodes. : )
119: elements part one (“water”)
Leah begins to acclimate herself to Poridan, familiarizes herself with her surroundings. it begins raining, and she finds refuge in a coffee bar called Warriwan Liquids, in the Poridan city of Cal. she measures the place, figures that it would be a place she would enjoy, and, more importantly, a place where she might meet someone going to Klin. instead, she finds a crying boy outside the shop. she takes him in, learns that his name is Perry. she orders him hot chocolate, and tries to get his story. she first learns a bit of mythology that he beleives in, but she finds that his mother has passed away, and that he is looking forward to seeing her after he dies, except that he does not want to go there because her mythological afterlife is a rainy city, and he hates the rain. eventually, Leah learns that he is the son of a very drunk man that she had been observing the whole time she was there, a man who had been drinking ale and whiskey aggressively in the half hour she’d been there.
meanwhile, Hermialis Mason, the eldest of the Mason brothers, visits a historian in the Ring. after dealing with his secretary, and meeting a few of his academic friends, Hermialis is able to learn that his youngest brother, Terras, the one they are all looking for, has changed his name — and the historian seems to know what he changed it to.
while all this is going on, Cillian wakes up deep on dayside. daywalkers, the same strange red creatures that attacked Issac when he first crash landed on Klin, are on Cillian’s neck.
118: the list, part three (“a man become software”)
Ordella lands on dayside, observes the rubble of Gorshen Plant first hand. she must wait for her KlinComm photographer, but is excited to have the time to do some observation on her own. she is shown around the remains of Gorshen Plant by an over-eager haz-mat agent who hopes to get a job at KlinComm. then, by change, she meets Furlia Tocts, one of the “mourning wives.” after a bit of conversation, Furlia mentions that her late husband, C’moy, was involved with a man named Sorensen. Ordella is surprised by this coincidence.
later, she looks for a hotel room to stay in at Gorshen. she tells the innkeeper that she’s friends with Sorensen, and he gives her a special deal. though the hotel is far from luxurious, she is able to sleep, believing that more information about the story is on the horizon.
meanwhile, Cillian and Issac meet with Lambrix. although a bit of distrust is expressed between the parties, Lambrix begins listing information that he should have no way of knowing regarding the rebels’ friends and colleagues — just as Vize had done. then, he gives a list of names of people loyal to the rebellion. he begins to mention one name, but Cillian, sensing where he’s going, cuts him off, denying him the chance to say that name. Lambrix then states that he knows that Leah is on her way to Klin. both Cillian and Issac are upset by his knowledge. the old man goes into convulsions, but begins listing the names of other rebels that he somehow knows of. Issac finds this list credible because of all the other information Lambrix seemed to know. inexplicably, Cillian attacks him, orders him to stay alive even as he dies of a mysterious affliction. as he dies, Vize comes into the room and points one weapon at Cillian and another at Issac. she orders them to leave, but they refuse. she fires both weapons, sending both of them into unconsciousness.
Issac awakes much later in a place unfamiliar. before he is able to regain his bearings, he is addressed by a strange old man that seems to know him. the old man mentions that he knows Cillian, which further unsettles Issac — furthermore, he states that Cillian is only involved in the rebellion in order to gain more personal power. Issac initially dismisses these claims, but the man gives him cab fare back to Gorshen, and Issac accepts. the man gives Issac information on where he’ll be if Issac wants more information. disturbed, Issac sets his mind on getting back to his new home.
117: the list, part two (“Vize”)
Ordella, a Ring news reporter, wakes from a troubled dream, in which she remembers a past interaction with a dayside miner, to find that her boss, news director Gavin Hoyt, is calling her in to work for a special project. she is to cover the explosion at Gorshen plant for her company, KlinComm. after he catches her up on the events at Gorshen, and informs her that she is the point reporter on the story, she hurries to a skycar that has been sent to pick her up.
at Gorshen Plant, Sorensen continues his work on his radio despite the fact that the plant is supposed to be clear of workers and civilians. after being temporarily alarmed by the passing by of a StarEx hazardous materials team, he continues his work and recieves some far-off transmissions from what he believes to be a nightsider.
meanwhile, Cillian and Issac continue to follow their lead on the man called Lambrix. Cillian remembers the many and varied versions of the Lambrix myth among Klinian miners. despite their diverse iterations, they all have a common theme: a man with extraordinary powers who remains hidden from all he choses to remain hidden from.
Vize reveals that she knows many details about both Issac and Cillian, including Issac’s relation to both Lathan and Mellor. she states that she knows these things because Lambrix has chosen that she know them. she leads them to a room where an ancient man, attached by cables directly to a matrix of processing units and monitors, awaits: Lambrix.
during Leah’s trip, she and Afnen decide to land in an industrial center, a city named Cal. he drops her off, and, regretfully, lets her go. before they part ways, he gives her a small package, the contents of which Leah does not know. then, she is alone on Poridan.
116: the list, part one (“Lambrix”)
in orbit around Klin, Captian Drekkor, commander of the PF Guardian, pride of the Klinian fleet, detects the rebels’ new ship attempting to leave orbit. his crew is ready to destroy the ship, and could do so easily, but Drekkor tells his men that he has gotten specific instructions from Sentuel himself to not destroy the ship, and so Joyn is able to make a jump safely.
on the surface of the planet, members of the rebellion gather at Cillian’s father’s establishment, and are attempting to come to a conclusion as to their next course of action. they believe that the Gorshen explosion was a deliberate move by StarEx to disrupt the rebels’ actions and to possibly smoke out other cells by encouraging otherwise disparate and only loosely-connected rebel groups to coalesce, thereby revealing themselves. after some discussion, Cillian decides to take Issac to visit Ash to see if he has any ideas. while there, Cillian suggests that, even though StarEx will be expecting them to meet with other rebel groups, they should do so anyway, as long as they are very cautious. Ash suggests they see a man name Lambrix, who is considered a mythical figure among miners — most don’t even really believe he exists. Ash reveals that this Lambrix actually contacted him recently, and Cillian and Issac agree to meet him. after taking a long, circuitous route to the place this Lambrix supposedly resides, they are greeted by a young woman. Cillian demands that they let him in, but the woman responds kindly by saying that Lambrix has been expecting them.
meanwhile, Sorensen gets his first signal on his makeshift radio, and believes that it is someone from nightside. this causes him to remember a woman that he had once loved and lost. he decides to visit Furlia to extend his condolences. she is unhappy to see him, however, and blames him for Tocts’s death. she forces him to leave despite his best attempts to explain.
Leah and Afnen, who are slowly becoming close despite the nature of their relationship, converse as they dine on the mediocre cuisine of their spaceship. Leah announces her intentions to go to Klin and find Issac. Afnen is torn between wanting to protect her and wanting to help her as atonement for what he did to her. he states that he does not have the skills to take her to a distant world like Klin, but could pilot her to a nearby trading world called Poridan (POUR-eh-dahn), where she might be able to find a connection to Klin. Leah likes this plan and, despite some reservations, Afnen agrees to take her.
meanwhile, in custody, Tocts is interrogated by Sefrin. Sefrin goes easy on him at first, hoping that time in solitary confinement will help bring him to the point where he will provide accurate information. however, after he is put in to his cell, it is revealed that while all miners carry a small razor blade in the sole of one shoe, Tocts carries one in both. the Ringmen had removed the first, but had not found the second. knowing that the safety of the rebellion is more important than any one individual life, and not confident that he could keep from talking, Tocts makes the decision to use the blade on himself and take his own life.
at Gorshen, the crew is dropped off from their newly-appropriated ship. Joyn takes the ship off Klin in hopes that they can keep it from being found by StarEx. Issac is upset, believing that once the ship was stolen he would be taken home. Ash encourages him, saying that the miners are beginning to trust and respect Issac, and that his time will come soon.
later, while Sorensen is going over some of the mine’s figures, he notices that the reactor is having problems. moments later, the entire plant begins to melt down. Cillian is in the reactor room, and he believes that he can prevent the reactor from melting completely, but the situation continues to grow worse. as ventalation and electrical equipment begin to explode, Cillian is knocked unconscious. fortunately, Issac is able to reach him before the reactor melts down completely, and they safely exit the the plant just before the entire structure explodes.
114: the operation, part three (“the hangar”)
we begin by meeting the three sons of Mason, the Patriarch, present at his palace as he grows progressively more sickly. Aphrodam is the most vocal, but Arestian and Hermialis both seem to have designs on the throne. everything changes, though, when their father asks for Terras, the fourth son who is not with the others.
meanwhile, the eight miners are being held captive by StarEx troopers. much to their surprise, Issac’s old torturer Kantor Sefrin appears at the hangar, and begins questioning the miners, though he does not notice Issac immediately. Issac notices that the workers at the hangar conspicuously pretend that the troopers and the miners are not there, though they seem fairly obvious. when a taxiing ship crashes into one of the hangars’ doors, Tocts takes advantage of the situation and snatches a particle detonator from one of the troopers. knowing that Tocts has his hand on the dead-man’s trigger, and that killing him would result in the deaths of the StarEx troopers as well as the miners, Sefrin allows the rest of the miners to exit the hangar, and Tocts surrenders the detonator as soon as they are gone. Sefrin sends his troops after the fleeing miners, but they are unable to catch them before Sorensen, Cillian, Ash, Joyn, Dewn, Lareth, and Issac find their way to the ship that Ash had said would be there. Joyn is able to pilot it away from dayside and, despite the fact that Tocts has been left behind, the miners have accomplished their mission.
113: the operation, part two (“surrounded!”)
we begin with the second batch of miners on their way to the Ring through the tram. after poking fun at Ash for his unusual surname, the rest of the miners arrive in the Ring and exchange stories with Issac’s group. after they leave the tram station, they meet up with Yandrake, whom Issac is pleasantly surprised to see. they pile in his groundcar, and he drives them to their destination, a town called Wessex.while en route, Issac has a dream/memory of the period of time in which his mother grew very ill. the dream takes place at his parents’ house, and it is revealed that Mellor had actively rejected methods of modern medication in favor of spiritual forms of healing, allowing his mother to grow ill from a disease that was nearly extinct in the galaxy and both easily preventable and treatable.
once Yandrake drops the group off in Wessex, the miners make their way through a vacant building and into a gravlift that leads them to a dark and unoccupied space- and aircraft hanger. once they arrive, however, they find that StarEx troopers have been waiting for them, and the miners are surrounded by them.
it is also explained that in the Ring, each child his born into the care of not only his parents, but the corporation they are contracted for. generally, that child grows up in said corporation, and is trained for a particular job based on his or her particular skills, a job which that child will likely work for the rest of their life once they are grown.
112: the operation, part one (“the tram station”)
we begin at Gorshen plant, as Issac overhears a conversation between Tocts and Cillian that he does not understand, but takes from it that Tocts needs some kind of help from Cillian. he then finds out that Cillian and Sorensen have a deep disagreement about whether or not to follow Ash on his mission — Cillian is for it, but Sorensen rejects it on the grounds that Ash has betrayed them before. the disagreement comes to blows, but Issac is able to calm them down, and they soon decide that going on the mission is the best solution.
later, the trio plus Tocts meet up with Ash and three of his men (Dewn, Joyn and Lareth) at the entrance to the same secret tram that brought Issac to dayside after Cillian and Sorensen rescued him. they split up in to two groups of four, and Issac, along with Sorensen, Joyn and Lareth, go through the tram together. when they arrive, however, they are unable to send the tram back because of mechanical problems with the tram’s braking system. Sorensen, using electrical skills, is able to repair the tram, but it nearly runs him over. at the last moment, Joyn dives at an unaware Sorensen, protecting him from the tram, and saving his life.
meanwhile, the Patriarch calls in Sentuel, the head of StarEx security, and offers a simple plea that Sentuel be merciful in his dealings with the miners. the request seems to have little effect on the steely Sentuel.
111: riot! part two (“dreams”)
we begin by participating in one of Afnen’s dreams, a dream that upsets him greatly. in fact, in combination with some of the things Leah said to him recently, Afnen has a change of heart and realizes that though the Aurorist message is one he believes in, Mellor Devers has taken the movement somewhere it was not supposed to go. as a result, he goes to the chamber where Leah is being held, neutralizes the Illtikar (Aurorist soldiers) that guarded her, and frees her.
at the same time, the riots outside the planetarium are becoming more and more violent. three people have been killed in the riots, and the mob becomes more and more incensed with each death. in fact, they are now raying Nosraut Probel, the man most recently killed, above their heads and are charging the planetarium in a mad rush.
simultaniously, Police Chief Nevert is in negotiations with Mellor, who has demanded a ship be delivered to the planetarium by water so that he can escape the planet. Nevert agrees, hoping that giving in to Devers’s demands will delay any further innocent death. however, the mob breaks through the police barrier and the Illtikar open fire. at that moment, the satellite systems are turned off, and when the Caulmenian police return fire, Nevert is unable to call them off.
in the midst of the bloodshed, Afnen and Leah escape the planetarium and find the ship that has been delivered for Devers. they arrive before him and commandeer the ship for themselves. Afnen is an amateur pilot, and since the satellite systems are down, he is able to escape the atmosphere safely. he gives Leah the projection disk that he took off her when she became captive, and she sees that it holds one text-based message. it is the message that Issac sent from Yandrake’s establishment. she and Afnen must not decide what to do.
110: riot! part one (“satellites”)
we meet police chief Nevert’s group of close advisors: Mishhail Tawhn, and old and trusted friend; Myrnian Selt, the CPD’s media relations officer; and, lastly, Efnemian Brule, the liaison to Caulmen’s mayor. this group attempts to come to a conclusion regarding the best track to take with the Rockhewn Planetarium hostage situation. Nevert decides to call in additional support troops, despite some objections from his advisors. later, the riots near the planetarium increase in intensity, and Nevert speaks with the mayor directly. the mayor applies further pressure to Nevert to end the crisis, and the police chief grows more willing to adopt extreme measures.
in the planetarium, Leah is confronted by Mellor Devers. he suggests that he and Leah are really after the same goal, and reiterates his position that is she became one of them, her immediate situation would become better, and she would become part of a powerful movement. he mentions searching for Issac on Dulvern and asks is Leah knows of his whereabouts. she reveals that he’s not on Dulvern, and Devers is surprised by the news. later, she interacts with Afnen, who has become a major part of her captivity, and makes him think twice about the service to Devers that he is providing.
at the same time, Nevert learns that Leah is in fact held captive in the planetarium. his employee who discovered the information agrees to keep it a secret, but Nevert is thrown off by the news.
meanwhile, an odd but highly educated and intelligent couple of recent graduates work at Caulmen’s main satellite control station, which actually operates the majority of Dulvern’s satellite systems. when their guards are called away per Neverts edict, Aurorist soldiers find their way into the satellite compound and take control over the two workers and their ability to direct the world’s satellites.
Leah follow Afnen, her recently made friend, to the Rockhewn Planetarium, which is a museum of ancient cultures. Leah is surprised that she has never heard of the Rockhewn despite her interest in old things. after Leah hesitates a bit, she decides to trust Afnen. they ride on something called an “elevator” down to a large hall below the surface Caulmen’s great lake. Afnen shows her several exhibits on nearly-forgotten aspects of Dulvern and, indeed, many worlds around the galaxy.
Leah is most impressed by the observation areas of the museum, which provide large, underwater windows into the great lake. she has an existential experience with the roaming sea life, and is finally pulled into an auditorium to hear what Afnen suggests is going to be an interesting and engaging speaker.
it turns out, though, that the scheduled speaker has “fallen ill,” and that Mellor Devers, cleric of the Aurorist movement, has taken his place. he begins by suggesting to the audience, who has been made uneasy by the appearance of such a controversial figure, that they in fact hold the same beliefs as the Aurorists; the only difference is that they have not accepted this truth. as the presentation reaches its climax, Mellor reveals that the Dulvernian government has banned the Aurorist movement and that, in response, they are taking the Rockhewn Planetarium hostage. a rush of Aurorist troops flood into the auditorium and restrain the fleeing visitors. Leah is taken by Afnen, who brings her to Mellor. it is revealed that Mellor had planned for her to be there, and that he hopes that Leah and Issac might still be married, but once the Aurorists had discovered and resettled earth.
while Sorensen fiddles with an experimental communication device he is building, Cillian fills Issac in on more details surrounding the rebellion. Among the information Issac learns is that of a man named Torganimus, the leader of the last rebellion, which was squelched after he was killed. Issac also discovers that the dayside miners know little of nightside, except that social conditions are relatively similar and that there are rumors of a rebellion there, as well.
later, takes Issac to a nightclub that he owns called Bywel. While there, Issac discovers that Cillian, in addition to being the leader of the rebellion and an operator at Gorshen plant, is a talented musician. he and his musicians play intense and caustic music, themed by oppression and anger.
after Cillian’s group has finished their performance, a man unknown to Issac enters the bar and accosts Cillian, demanding a share of the guns. Cillian and this new man, Ash, head to a back room for negotiations and Issac, who is drunk for the first time in over a year, follows them.
Issac learns that Ash is the leader of another cell of the rebellion, and that he has a tense relationship with Cillian. however, Ash claims that he has details for an operation that will deal a significant blow to StarEx and aid the rebellion greatly. in exchange, he wants half of Cillian’s guns. though Cillian does not wish to give in to Ash, he is intrigued by the proposal.
meanwhile, Leah and Afnen leave Elttaes in a taxi, bound for an unknown destination.
Leah awakens the morning of Issac’s departure. regretfully, she watches him go, foregoing one last opportunity to bid him farewell.
later that day, Leah meets her parents for lunch of a local eatery called The Greenhouse. the discussion is dominated primarily by Leah’s mother, who recites endless details for Leah and Issac’s upcoming wedding. the conversation depresses her, and she is reminded of how she felt at a difficult time in her family’s history, a time her parents are more than willing to ignore.
after departing from her parents, Leah is stood up by a friend, Rinca, who had promised to meet her. feeling her mood slip further, Leah heads to her familiar pub, Elttaes for a glass of her favorite ale, Skytinsle. while there, she is noticed by a young man named Afnen Uvnor. he comments on her page-and-ink book, a rarity in modern times. she is flattered by his attention and impressed by his interest in antiques — old and outdated things have always been a favorite of Leah’s. it is revealed that Afnen knows Issac’s father, the Aurorist cleric Mellor Devers, and by extension, knows of Issac.
meanwhile, on Klin, Cillian takes Issac to his establishment, which he shares with his alcoholic and verbally abusive father. it is revealed that Cillian is not a native of Klin, and, additionally, that he is illiterate.
106: the war has already begun, part three (“to dayside”)
after arriving on dayside, Cillian and Sorensen introduce Issac to a group of miners in their employ. the miners treat Issac with great deference and respect, and one miner, C’moy Tocts, invites Issac to his home. Uneasy about the cultural traditions, Issac obliges.
the trio dines with Tocts and his wife, and Issac is given a glimpse into the poor but proud life the impoverished miners of dayside lead. he is impressed by their resilience and begins to grow angry about the oppression they are forced to endure.
after stumbling through a few more unfamiliar rituals, the trio departs from Tocts’s establishment and make for deep dayside, and the wreck of the Lathan Devers. after a short search, the trio finds the ship. they discover the corpses of the crew — including that of Gamne, the female space traveler who had flirted with Issac on their journey from Klin, and whom the torturer Sefrin had claimed he had captured and killed before Issac’s eyes.
after a short search, they discover the Lathan Devers’s hidden cargo: guns. though the weapons are old, projectile weapons, they are weapons nonetheless, and Cillian and Sorensen believe that they will be a great help in completing the rebellion’s first mission: obtaining a spacecraft.
as they are about to leave for Gorshen, however, they are attacked by a strange creature. an enourmous, carniverous plant emerges from the ground, thrashing at them with whip-like stalks. just as the stalks are about to strike the group, Issac inexplicably creates a field of energy around them, staving off the attack. he loses consciously immediately after the event, but the group is saved, and Issac’s remarkable power is discovered.
though Issac desperately wants to return to Leah, he is confronted with the dual facts that the rebellion needs his help, and, perhaps more importantly, he has no immediate method for leaving Klin. he agrees to stay with the rebels, at least through their first mission.
105: the war has already begun, part one (or: “to dayside”)
still at Yandrake’s, the trio of Sorensen, Cillian and Issac begin to plan their next moves. it is revealed that the Lathan Devers could not have been detected by anyone in the Ring, and that its location is still certainly secret. Sorensen and Cillian, though, received a coded transmission from the ship alerting them to its location.
Sorensen and Cillian discuss the fact that their rescuing of Issac has surely alerted StarEx and its security forces that a cohesive rebellion movement exists. they also hint that Issac may have special abilities, the nature of which are not known. in addition, Yandrake explains “the wall.”
“yeah. the wall. it all started at the dawn of time,” Yandrake said, a bit of sonorous melody mixing with his usual rough tone, “back when we decided we were going to be rich and they were going to be poor. at first, we were just paying ‘em to mine the stuff–” he was referring to dry, Issac knew– “but they’d sometimes get in their mind that they could just wander over into the glory of the Ring. every now and then, one of ‘em would get the idea that he could marry one of our women, take one of our jobs. well, we couldn’t have that, could we? no. so we began the largest single project that this world has ever seen.
Issac asks why he is helping the rebels if he is a citizen of the Ring, and Yandrake responds that he isn’t exactly just another member of the Ring.
before the trio leaves Yandrake’s establishment, Issac dispatches a hyperwave message to Leah from the host’s illegal hyperwave transmitter. he is uncertain whether or not the transmission will go through, but believes he has to try to at least let Leah know where he is.
finally, the trio depart Yandrake’s and take a secret underground tram to dayside.
104: the war has already begun, part one (or: “Sefrin”)
Issac awakens in the escape pod, disoriented and confused. he is attacked by strange, vaguely-manlike creatures, the nature of which he does not know. just as they over power him, they are chased off by masked soldiers. Issac passes once again into unconsciousness.
the next thing he is aware of is the green light of his prison cell. a brutish man named Kantor Sefirn tortures him and interrogates him in an effort to discover the people whom Lathan Devers was working for. it is revealed that Issac is in fact Lathan’s nephew and, perhaps more importantly, the son of the mysterious Aurorist religious cleric, Mellor Devers.
after further abuse, Sefrin brings in a bound and shrouded Gamne, who he says was extracted from the wreckage of theLathan Devers. he threatens to kill her if Issac does not give him the information he wants. in a moment of desperation, Issac creates a fake name to give Sefrin. though Sefrin now believes he knows who Lathan Devers worked for, he executes Gamne before Issac’s eyes.
moments later, though, the door to the cell crashes open and two unknown men enter. the room fills with gas, and Issac and Sefrin loose consciousness.
once again waking up disoriented and confused, Issac finds himself in the back of a groundcar. though he does not know who they are, they attempt to reassure him that they are taking him to a safe place. he learns their names to be Sorensen and Cillian, and they take him to the home of a man named Tarshall Yandrake.
103: the last voyage of the Lathan Devers, part three (or: “eternal July”)
the Lathan Devers prepares to make its journey through the wormhole to Klin, their planet of destination. Devers explains how the ribbon drive works. essentially, he tells Issac, it’s a device that uses the substance dry to create a wormhole in the fabric of space and time, allowing a ship to traverse an immense distance almost immediately.
Devers had mentioned the beauty of the journey itself, and as the wormhole opens and the Lathan Devers enters it, Issac has an experience whose origin is somewhere between memory and religion. the text of that experience follows.
suddenly, Issac saw something. it was on the view screen, he knew, but somehow outside of it at the same time. and for a moment, the nature of what he saw was as transparent as the atmosphere of an airless world. he saw his life transpire in a moment — a phenomenon that was supposed to occur to some in the instant of their death. he knew this was pure fantasy, obviously, as no one could have reported such an experience, but for a moment he believed that he saw it. there was a growing radiance, and it was a blue-white that perplexed Issac. it was blue, to be sure. blue, he saw, like the lake by his fathers’ house, the one where he had moved in his teenage years shortly after his mothers’ passing, the one where he learned hate. and blue like Leah’s eyes, the ones that had looked deeply into his when she said “yes,” the ones where he had learned love. at the same time, and without contradicting these truths, it was white, pure, unadulterated white. white like the flash of raw light at the end of his recurring dreams, the ones where he learned death.
during the journey through the wormhole, Gamne visits Issac’s quarters. when she leaves, she is upset, and Issac is depressed. she arrives back on the bridge to the wrath of Devers, who has been attempting to summon her for some time. they have emerged from the wormhole, but are now being pursued by a group of what appear to be drone ships. the formation of ships fires a weapon that expands slowly and, Devers believes, will not destroy equipment but will merely take human life. as the weapon’s energy draws nearer and nearer to the Lathan Devers, Devers orders an emergency use of the ribbon drive. Pert notes that a use with such little information and such little time will be risky, but Devers orders it nonetheless.
the ship makes it into the wormhole, but exits in Klin’s atmosphere. the ship immediately begins to break apart, and Devers rushes Issac to an escape pod. just as he’s about to eject, Issac see’s Gamne through the pod’s porthole. however, he doesn’t know how to open the door, and, despite Gamne’s panic and desperation, and Issac’s desire to save her, he ejects from the Lathan Devers and floats down to the surface of Klin’s dayside.
102: the last voyage of the Lathan Devers, part two (or: “Gamne”)
Issac wakes in the ship’s sickbay, where he is tended to by the pilot-turned-medical-officer, Jaymon Pert. Issac expresses his frustration at not being taken better care of during takeoff, but begins to feel better after accepting some of Pert’s treatments. after checking up on Issac, Pert leaves, but activates the sickbay’s telestrator, on which Issac views the hyperwave reports.
the reports discuss the same religious cleric that Issac had seen on the magtrain’s telestrators. it is revealed that the cleric’s religion is called “Aurorism,” named after an ancient god of the dawn on humanity’s forgotten homeworld. the main goals of Aurorism are to vastly reduce the amount of technology in use by humanity; discover exactly which planet is humanity’s world of origin and take it over; and to compel all to worship their deity, the name and character of which are as yet unknown.
Devers enters the sickbay, and it is revealed that the cleric’s name is Mellor Devers: he is Lathan Devers’s brother.
Lathan and Issac go to the ship’s small mess hall to eat. Issac inquires into the identity of their pursuers further, but is given no answers. after an awkward meal with the crew, Issac finds himself alone with Gamne, who had moments ago insulted and belittled him in front of everyone. much to his surprise, she makes sexual advances towards him, leaving him confused and unsettled.
101: the last voyage of the Lathan Devers, part one (or: “LG4.1″)
Issac awakens in a strange, green-grey room. where is he? his memories begin to return.
earlier, Issac awakens again, only this time next to his fiancé, Leah. he leaves quietly, and boards a magtrain. on the magtrain, he sees a telestrator story about a religious cleric who is making the news with his statements of future doom. he also meets a strange woman with striking blue eyes, who gives him advice bout surviving on Klin’s dayside (Klin is a tidally locked planet, in which one side continually faces the sun and the other side continually faces away from it), despite the fact that she has no way of knowing where he is going. she leaves him with a cryptic statement: “the war has already begun.”
shortly, Issac arrives at the spaceport and meets the captain of the ship the Lathan Devers, Lathan Devers. Devers welcomes Issac onto what is supposedly a relief mission to the planet Klin, though Issac has his doubts about Devers’s character. it is revealed that Issac has little space travel experience, and that he is helping Devers on this mission to return a favor. Issac meets the ship’s crew, Syry Amnothewlian, and Jaymon Pert, and is particularly taken by Gamne Padshaw, the inflamitory but beautiful mass expert.
the ship takes off in a hurry, as if they’re being chased by someone. Issac has not found a secure place to sit on the bridge, and is thrashed about violently during the ship’s assent. the Lathan Devers escapes its pursuers (the identity of whom is unknown to Issac) in to space, but Issac is badly injured from the violent takeoff.
5.July.2010 at 3:07 am
[...] summaries [...]