"It's pronounced Goss" explained Gunther
Seb looked at him mystified, "How?" he asked
The pair were looking at a map of the Sunset islands which detailed the entire region and all of the tiny islands strewn around the two main groups of three large islands shown on this map. On the map attached here, the isle of Rycb is the large middle one directly above the 'l' in the text St. Palamedes.
"Anyway" Sebastian added, "How on Holy Terra do you know that?"
"I just know that alphabet is all" Gunther said sheepishly
Thaygan was the next one to emerge from the pair of bathroom's they had found. His hair was wet from the hot shower. He tossed the vending machine towel into his bag and said "The girls still not ready?"
"They are, they are gossiping about us I think." said Gunther
Seb gave a broad grin of praise, "Hey, Gunther. Full of surprises today, that my friend was 'tact'"
Thaygan furrowed his brow in confusion. "So have you figured out where we need to be on Rye'cobb" he asked struggling with the cyrillic island name
"It's pronounced Goss" corrected Seb
Thaygan paused for a moment, then checked the map again. "how?" he asked
Seb and Gunther both started laughing, which put Thaygan's nose out a little, but he covered it well. A moment later the girls emerged from the bathroom wearing clean and dry clothes. Soph had changed her hairsyle to a more loose dreadlock tied half way down with a ribbon. She died it yellow this time too. In the bright fluorescent lighting of the flitter terminal the unusually pale skin of Soph was visible, the bright lights meant that her goggles were down protecting her eyes from the light.
"We need to find this town's hall of records." opened Zoe, "We are looking for a bar called the 'Salty Parrot'."
"On which island?" asked Gunther
"I can't remember, 'Salty Parrot, Sunset islands' is all we have." responded Zoe, then she added "I'd have thought my Dad would have come up with a better name than that. Something more, him. But hey ho, that's what we've got."

The flitter terminal building was in the shape of a chevron. They had been dropped off at the far North end, around 100m from the entrance, which was why they were soaking wet when they got into the building. They followed the signs to the way out, which meant that they had to walk all the way into the middle, up some stairs and then back up the the building on the floor above the one they had entered. By the time they could clearly see the shuttle again they had found the facilities, a few vending machines and the map. Now they continued into the centre of the building and followed the signs to baggage claim. The group stopped again at baggage claim.
"We should have smuggled something." said Gunther
Zoe and Seb chuckled
"Where is everyone, this is getting me worried" said Zoe seriously

The group exited baggage claim on the first floor and headed down stairs to the ground floor. They were in a very long narrow corridor which was two storeys high and had glass walls from floor to ceiling. The 'way out' sign pointed down the other spar of the chevron. The group descended the stairs and headed that way, but by this time had drifted so they were single file and a few metres apart.

As Zoe, who was in the lead closed in on the large revolving doors on the Southern end of the chevron. The large glass wall to her left suddenly shattered.

The weather poured in and the group had to shout above the wind to be heard. Gunther at the back was yelling something, but Thaygan and Zoe at the front could not see it. Zoe caught a glimpse of Gunther, he was waving her towards a counter on the other side of the room from the smashed window, and he himself was behind a piller. Zoe ran for it and dived behind the pillar.

Thaygan had elected to run towards Zoe, and when she ran away from him he stopped and turned his back on the howling wind and the open window. He was puzzled by Zoe's action asked her what she was doing. A strange noise beside him made him turn his head suddenly, so he missed Zoe's response. The noise was a sort of 'zchlep' and a bit like a whip crack. Zoe popped her head up only to wave at the wall opposite the broken window. Thaygan squinted under the lights, and took a couple of steps forwards. He could see two burn marks on the wall, about 30cm apart. Suddenly he was bowled over.
Gunther yelled "Get .. Down!" as he tackled Thaygan at the shoulder and the pair careened into a desk a couple of metres away.
Thaygan tried to stand, pretty annoyed at Gunther.
Gunther grabbed him, pulled him back down and shouted "They're shooting at us you fool!"
Thaygan looked back at the wall, and noticed Zoe was pointing at it again. This time he realised there was a third burn mark. "Oh" he said, and kept his head down.

Seb shouted for the group's attention and waved a brilliant white blazer. Zoe ran over, took it and put it on the end of a mop. She stepped bravely out into the rain waving the white flag.

After a little while a 30cm diameter sphere hovered on invisible thrusters towards them out of the night. As it reached them it's cyan, white and chrome colouring, and its single golden wing indicated that it belonged to House Alecto. It had camera lenses and long antenna. "Cool drone" Zoe opened, then explained that they were civilians who had just landed from a passenger ship in orbit, she explained that they had tried to contact the tower but had not been able to get through. A tinny voice from inside the drone invited them to approach the control tower.

They arrived at the flitter port control tower, drenched from the rain, pushing a baggage trolley piled high with their luggage. Zoe had a backpack and a spacer's duffel bag. Thaygan a knapsack over his shoulder, and a small holdall containing his spare clothing which he had borrowed from Sebastian's appartment. Soph had a large black man-purse, also borrowed from Sebastian's appartment. Gunther had no luggage, but had some clothing borrowed from Zoe's mother's attick room in Zoe's backpack. Which he often carried for her. And Sebastian had a suit-carrier with plenty of room for other objects, a pilot's case and a medium sized suitcase.

The occupants of the control tower were 8 traffic control civilians, and 6 soldiers. The commander of the soldiers was a man with short black hair. Zoe noted that although he was wearing half-plate he also wore a shield. Gunther recognised that the officer was an equivalent to a Major, to help the reader understand where that fits in I have included an Appendix below.
The noble introduced himself as Robyert Eduard Bratislav Alecto. And asked Zoe what they were doing at the flitter port. Zoe explained that they had just landed, and Robyert waved his hands so that the soldiers behind the group lowered their weapons. He then explained that the island was overrun by giant furry creatures that he had never seen before and Li-Halan soldiers. That they had captured the coastal fort, built high into the hillside on the far side of town. From there the Li-Halan had activated a jamming signal which was undetectable and undefeatable, it was preventing him from contacting the Alecto forces in Rasa, Narva and Urchev. Zoe could still use her TL8 commlink to communicate with the Shuttle, but it had no range beyond that (max a bit less than 1km). She then helped the tower to contact the shuttle on their own system. The shuttle pilots were more than willing to accept cash from the Major for a secret mission, but were warned to remain inside the shuttle as the giant beasts with swords and bows were around and may attack them. The pilots agreed to wait the storm out in the dark. Then the Major asked his sniper, a woman called Vashah to secretly monitor the shuttle from the roof and gave her permission to shoot if the shuttle was attacked.

The group then rode out the storm inside the small control tower, Soph sat with Vashah on the antenna access platform on the roof, and the pair discussed the operation they were on and similar senarios which Vashah had experienced. Soph learned a great deal from the woman. She had a very long laser rifle with a night scope and a rain cover over her black light plate armour. And had been the person who had shot at them. She said she had aimed at Zoe, but missed. Then took a pot shot at Thaygan when he walked in front of her sights, though his eratic movement saved his life. Her final shot had been on him too, but Gunther had pushed him out of the way that time, also saving his life.

Zoe chatted with the Major a fair bit, she also talked with the control tower staff and the drone pilot.

In the morning the group decided to travel light, they reduced there baggage to: Zoe - duffel bag, Gunther - backpack his stuff only, Thaygan - knapsack, Soph - no bags, Seb - suit-carrier only. This meant leaving behind many items which have sentimental value, trinkets from the Graceful Wanderer and excess clothing. The Major promised their stuff would be there if they returned, although the group were prepared to leave it for good.

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The morning greeted them with a full change of weather. It was bright sunshine, something which Soph had never seen before. Although Gunther informed her that because it was late autumn, and because this planet was colder than most other planets the heat she was feeling was gentle.

The group stole a small electric vehicle (a golf cart for want of a better term) from the flitter port and rode into town. They noticed that the storm had damaged most of the town, but the people were not coming out to tidy it up or to fix the damage. There was no visible sign of combat, at least nothing the party could detect, but there was a sense of fear in the air. The people were staying in doors and out of sight for a reason.

As the cart arrived at the public hall of records they encountered their first sign of what was scaring the townsfolk. It was nine feet tall, had six limbs with poisonous claws on each paw and carried a pair of giant swords and a bow on its back. The thing looked at them, drew its weapons and directed the group to exit their vehicle. It was clearly intelligent, although it did not seem to speak Urthish.

Zoe stopped the cart and they all put their hands up in surrender. The beast examined Zoe, sniffing her face. It then moved to Seb who was sat behind her and did the same. Things then went badly in what may one day be thought of as a misunderstanding between two armed groups.

The beats flipped the cart, Soph found her acrobatics were useful if you had a wakizashi stolen from a Li-Halan noble and limited skill in using it. Gunther revealed a great deal of combat experience. Thaygan backed them up, using the gifts of the Pancreator to give Soph somethign similar to an energy shield while Zoe and Seb (the two non-combatants) made a run for the Hall of records building and broke in.

The beast died, slumped over the cart.

The location of the Salty Parrot was found in the think machine records, it seemed that Midian had a working think machine network.

As they were leaving the body of the beast was discovered by two other beasts, some Li-Halan soldiers and a Li-Halan Noble. The group hid until they had spread out doing a search and then simply ran as fast as they could, accross the street and down some steps to the marina. The group then stole a small fishing boat and headed off to a small island a few km South of Rcyb (aka Goss).

Although the sun was high, the temperature was only around 21c. Soph keeping her goggles over her eyes tightly did her best to relax, she lay on the top of the wheel house at first. She tried to lie still and enjoy the relaxing journey, but ended up exploring the tiny boat, dipping her hands in the sea and feeling the fresh salty water (for the first time), and generally dashing around from here to there.

The others chucked their armour, which was sodden from their sweat on the prow to dry and simply lay back and enjoyed the slow boat ride. It took 4 hours to reach the island in the end, although Zoe confessed that it took her a while to find the small village where the bar was. She toured up the beach and passed it before eventually stopped at a jetty.

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A quick aside on the organisation of the armed forces in the known worlds. The following structure is considered common in most of the armies in the known worlds, although they each use a different set of titles the structure is roughly the same. The usual structure names are:
Squad (3-10 serf troopers, + 1x corporal, + 1x sergeant or staff sergeant*),
Platoon (3-4 squads, +1x Ensign or Lieutenant*),
Company (3-4 platoons, +an HQ unit including 1x Sergeant Major, 1x Captain or Major*)
Regiment (3-6 Companies, +an HQ unit including a comms and an admin platoon, +1x Regimental Sergeant Major, +1x Lt.Colonel or Colonel*),
Battalion (an amalgamation of battle-line, the same level as a Regiment, although a battalion may contain platoons from many regiments)
Regiment / Battalion (may include a tactical company, an may include a transport and technical company),
Brigade (1-6 Regiments/ Battalions +an HQ unit including +1x Staff Sergeant Major, +1x Brigadier),
Division (1-10 Brigades +an HQ group including +1x Major General),
Corps (2-6 Divisions +an HQ group including +1x Lieutenant General),
Command Group or Army (2-6 Corps +an HQ group including +1x General),
Host (2-6 Command Groups +a Court including +1x Count or Baron**),
System (2-6 Hosts, +a Court including +1x Duke),
House (1-4 Systems, +a Court including +1x Prince)
NOTE *: at least 1 but not more than 50% of the structure above, ie. a platoon of 4 squads may have 1-2 staff sergeants and 2-3 sergeants
NOTE **: The highest noble rank in a minor house is Baron, for the larger houses a Count is a usually the ruler of a continent

The usual serf ranks in order are:
Private,
Private First-Class (awarded after a two combats)/ Specialist (awarded after receiving special training),
Lance-Corporal (addr:Corporal),
Corporal,
Sergeant (alias:sarg),
Staff Sergeant (addr:sergeant, alias:sarg),
Sergeant Major (addr:sergeant, alias:sarg, role:leader of all Sergeants in a Platoon),
Regimental Sergeant Major (addr:sergeant, alias:sarg, role:leader of all Sergeants in a Company),
Staff Sergeant Major (addr:sergeant, alias:sarg, role:leader of all Sergeants in a regiment),
NOTE: addr is the title used when addressing a person of this rank, if different from the title. alias is the nick-name

The usual noble (commissioned) ranks in order are;
Ensign/ Second Lieutenant (addr:Ensign or Lieutenant),
Lieutenant,
Captain,
Major,
Lieutenant Colonel (addr:Colonel),
Colonel,
Brigadier (addr:Brigadier or General),
Major General (addr:General),
Lieutenant General (addr:General),
General,
Count (addr:see etiquette. Member of a large House, also rules a continent)/ Baron (addr:see etiquette. Ruler of a minor House),
Duke (addr:see etiquette. Member of a large House, also rules a Star System),
Prince (addr:see etiquette. Ruler of a large House which is also a member of the laandsracht)
NOTE: addr is the title used when addressing a person of this rank, if different from the title.