“My name is Mara Edgerton, and I was born in the Old World over four hundred years ago, before the Final War. I was a soldier in that war, and then something happened, and I was placed in…a long sleep, let’s say. Then, a few days ago, this man,” she pointed at me, “woke me up…”
“Like a Princess in a fairy tale?” Evelyn asked.
“Yes, but with a checklist and a lot of stored power instead of a kiss,” Mara replied, “and Bonchance is no Prince.”
“I have to agree with that,” I added.
“So I was awake and trying to figure out what happened to the world while I slept, with Bonchance’s help, of course, and then I spied your troubles, and we had to help. Slavery was a very bad thing back in the Old World and seems to be only popular on the fringes in this new one. So we took care of those scum, and then I saw you guys, and I couldn’t just abandon you, so I brought you up here.”
“What is here?” Lisa, Cal’s wife, asked
Mara tapped the globe patch on her shoulder, “This is Bunker R-34, a last-stand bunker of Combined Defense Operations. The Cee Dee Oh, or Ceedo as we called it, was set up to stage guerilla operations against potential Hi-Side occupation forces…your history calls them Hivers.”
“So you’re not really a Duchess or a Lady?” Lisa asked.
She grinned, “Do you know how somebody becomes a Duchess or a Lady…or even an Empress or a Queen?”
“They’re born to it?” John replied.
“Nope. Two ways. Somebody else says they are and can make people believe it, or they say they are and can make people believe it. I’m saying I’m a Duchess and a Lady, and Bonchance there is a Lord. Coming from this far out, who’s going to say I’m not? We’re well past the Empire now, aren’t we?”
“The Duchy of the North Star might argue, but not much,” I agreed. “It sounds like his forces are in trouble with a lack of manpower.” I looked over at Peter, who nodded in agreement.
“So why?” Cal asked. “Why do you want to be a Duchess?”
“It wasn’t intended, you started saying it, and I didn’t argue, but there is something I need to find in the Empire…and having some kind of political standing could help.”
Peter looked at her, “What?”
“There might be more…” she looked at Evelyn, “…Princesses and Princes like me, still asleep.”
“More people from the Old World? Is that possible?” Peter asked.
“Maybe? There weren’t many like me, but if there are any survivors, I need to find them.” She stood up, “But, building a small enclave up here that is absolutely not Old World comes first, and along with that, keeping my Old World origins secret goes hand in hand. There is no reason for giving away any advantage…especially since I am getting the impression that the Emperor is not the kindest of individuals. Being somebody that has a Secret or Security Police is always a giveaway.”
She looked at the planks and the crates of tools, “Bonchance, you had said you were a builder…”
“Not a guildsman, but yes.”
“Plan out a stockade and tell me how many posts you’ll need and where you’ll want the holes for them. I’ll show you how to use some of the survey tools we have. I’m no engineer, but I do know the basics. After that, we can start setting up a barn for the oxen and the carts and some housing to look good. Peter, you and your family can hang out…rest…while we take care of this.”
“Are you certain, Lady Mara?”
“I’m certain. You got abused and need your rest. Which reminds me…before I head East, I need to deal with the Dark Land Warriors. They are far too close to my Duchy for comfort…but let’s get that palisade up first.”
Mara showed me how to use a survey transit that had a laser in it. Those had been recorded in some of the surviving texts as a precise and focused beam of light. I had trained on regular survey transits and poles before, and borrowing Evelyn to hold the pole for me; we got to work. The laser calculated the distance, and Mara showed me how to enter the information on one of the Old World platters while she was felling trees with the Ape and trimming the branches with the amazingly fast saw on its arm. By the time I was finished, she had a stack of thirty good-size trees and was cutting them down to equal-length logs of about twenty feet. After those were cut, she went down to the treeline to get some more.
After measuring and staking where the barn would go, I, with the assistance of Cal and John, began using the excellent electric tools that were in the crates to start cutting the planks to size for framing. Mara had told me she would handle post-hole drilling as soon as she had finished cutting down the next batch of trees, but we had the time and materials to start prepping, so why not?
When Mara returned, she walked the Ape into the SURFACE level and came back out with a massive auger fastened to one arm of the machine. Starting out, she dug the holes for the corner posts of the barn and, one-handedly, took the wooden beams we had cut for that and held them perfectly straight vertically as we shoveled dirt in to hold them in position until we could attach the crossbeams. As we nailed them together with an amazing electric hammer, Mara began drilling holes in the stone for the palisade posts and jamming the cut-down logs into them. Since the ridge was nearly a sheer drop on three sides, we only needed one wall, and she soon had the posts in place. Returning inside, she reattached the saw and finished carving the remaining logs into lumber. With the assistance of the Ape as a lift to place the highest framing, we soon had the rough structure of the barn completed by nightfall.
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The next morning, as we sat inside eating in the dining area, she looked at me and asked, “How much longer?”
“A day for the gate, two more for the barn…If you can help with the Ape.”
“Sure…Fran,” Mara sounded embarrassed, “I know this is going to sound kind of sexist…but do you know how to sew?”
Fran looked surprised, “Of course. Don’t you?”
“Just enough for buttons and small tears and rips,” Mara admitted. “The reason I’m asking is I’m going to need some clothes that blend in. These utilities,” she pulled on the sleeve of her coveralls, “are great but a little anachronistic.”
“What?”
“They don’t look like they match this time.”
“No, they don’t,” I agreed. “Some of the Imperial troops and a lot of mechanics wear outfits like these…but a noble or any average person never would.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
Millie, one of Peter and Fran’s daughters-in-law whose husband had been killed by the raiders, looked up, “Do you have fabric and thread? I’m good at embroidery, too.”
Mara picked up her tablet and tapped away on it. “Maybe, could you come with me?” She looked over at me, “We’re heading down to the warehouse.”
“Alright. I’m going to make sure the oxen are fed and watered.”
“I’ll go with you,” Cal said, and I led him to the stairwell next to the elevator while Mara and Millie headed down to the warehouse.
“Who are you?” he asked as we climbed the stairs to the SURFACE level.
“Me? I’m just a traveling mechanician who got into trouble and managed to find this place by accident. Then, still fumbling around, I woke her up…also mostly by accident.”
“So you really aren’t from the Old World like she is?”
“Hardly.”
“Then how are you so comfortable with all this?”
“Like I told her, just because the structure of the Old World society and civilization was gone doesn’t mean everything was eradicated and all knowledge was lost. The Academy I studied at has a library of texts from before the Final War that survived. We may not be able to duplicate all their miracles of science, like the Ape or the material the food bags are made of or their electrics…but it doesn’t mean they’re not potentially understandable. Enough people survived that there was some continuity…I learned that in one of my history classes.” I opened the door to SURFACE, “They’re just machines developed by people like us.”
“I suppose, but…it still feels so strange.”
Mara had run a hose from the bunker’s water system and filled one of the now empty cargo crates so that the oxen would have something to drink while they ate the scrubby grass up here. Now, Cal and I led them down the road to some fresher greenery.
“It would help to have a fence down here,” he said. “Set up a pasture, and the soil’s good for farming on the flat. We’d need some seed for planting, though.”
“Let me check with Mara…Mara, is there any plant seed in the warehouse?”
“I don’t think so…but I’ll look…” there was a long pause. “Nothing in the inventory.”
Looking back at Cal, I shook my head, “We don’t have any in the bunker.”
“How can you talk to her?” Cal asked.
I tapped my glasses, “There’s a radio built into these.”
“So small? I thought radios were huge?”
“Not Old World radios..” I leaned against a tree. “A lot of the Old World things are like the ones we have now, just smaller and more capable.”
“So she was a soldier?”
“Yes. She was in the Final War…but it sounds like she had started as a soldier before that happened.”
Cal shook his head, “It’s still hard to believe.”
“That’s fine. I woke her up, and I still find it hard to believe,” I agreed.
He shook his head again, “Two weeks ago, I couldn’t have imagined it.”
“That’s fair,” I looked at the oxen, then pulled off the glasses and looked at them. “A slight disconnection, I have to say.”
“You’re well educated; how did you end up out here?”
“Not fully educated. I was in the Academy, then things happened, and I couldn’t afford it anymore. So I left it and started working as a mechanician. The Builders’ Guild does not like non-Guildsmen taking their work for less, so I had to stay on the fringes.”
“How could they do that? The guild chasing you away?”
“It’s the guilds; the Emperor supports them, no matter what, so they’ll support the Emperor when it comes to taxes or policy or anything he decides. The guildmasters have as much or more influence as any noble. The Surgeons’ Guild, the Builders’ Guild, and the Laborers’ Guild have the most, of course.”
“I’ve never been to any of the cities, nothing bigger than Rice, at least.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll get your chance.”
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We led the oxen back up the hill and tethered them just outside the framework of the barn to get them used to it. Now that they had eaten, they were a lot more content. John had already started putting up the rafters, with Mara using the Ape to lift him up as he nailed them in place.
“There you are,” he called down.
“Good land down there,” Cal called back up. “Nice and rich.”
“Oh? Room for fields?”
“Plenty.”
“We’ll talk to father about it.”
“What are they talking about?” Mara asked.
“Farming. It’s why I asked about seeds.”
“Farming is something I know nothing about. I was a city girl.”
“I know a little, but I also know I’m no farmer either.”
She laughed, “Then we’d both better listen to the experts.”
“So when are we going after the Dark Land Warriors?”
“Impatient? Not yet. We need to get you up to speed on all that the helmet can do, and we need to find out where their main base is. Are they nomads?”
“I don’t know, but the people who chased me into the bunker were part of that group, and now the caravan we stopped was going northwest. If there isn’t a town, there’s probably a large camp.”
“That makes sense; tonight, we’ll take a Howler up and have a look.”
“Howler?”
“But you need helmet lessons before that.”
John and Cal were starting to put the roof on. With the strength of the Ape and the tools from the Old World, it was going to be finished very quickly with simple overlapping boards. Mara had produced some kind of sealant from one of the crates in the warehouse, and they were painting it on the boards as waterproofing. Meanwhile, I was using a hand electric saw and an electric hammer to build a gate for the palisade. We would be using the Ape to put it on some hinges.
I finished and saw Mara walking over to me, “Time for lessons, follow me.”
She led me down to SYSTEM MANAGEMENT and the machine shop. There, she brought up a display showing the helmet visor.
“This is the Mark VII Tactical Combat System Helmet,” she began. “Those are words that mean absolutely nothing now. Okay, let’s begin with the menu system…”
_____________________________________________________
It was late, and we had eaten…well, those of us who ate had eaten…a while ago. Now Mara and I were in the elevator and going up to SURFACE. She had given me a pistol and a holster like hers because she said a rifle was not going to fit.
Crossing the area to another covered machine, she loosened the straps and revealed something about five times the size of the ‘bike’ we had used before. Going over to the wall console, she did something, and the mount it was sitting on began to move, rolling toward the outside door and stopping just outside; covers lifted up and revealed a pair of seats, the rear one set higher than the front.
“You have front; watch how I do this.”
There were little plates on the side which, when you pressed them with your toe, folded in, revealing a step. She also made sure that I knew where I could put my hands to climb in. It was very snug, and there was a harness that she helped me fasten, including connecting a cable to my helmet. Once I was secure, she climbed into the rear seat and secured herself. Then, the cover began to lower, and a low growl filled the air. The area in front of my seat became transparent, with all kinds of data being displayed on it, but it felt like the front end of this vehicle had just vanished.
“Okay, reach to your right and swing the board across.”
To my right was one of those control panels; I brought it across, and it clicked into place. Many of the switches on it were similar to the ones in the menus.
“There’s all your vision modes and the controls to swing the cameras. It’ll be your job to look for stuff while I’m flying…”
Flying? Was this like a balloon, or was it…an Old World truly heavier-than-air vehicle?!
“Keep your hands away from fire control. I have the system safed, but that’s no reason to take any chances.”
Looking down, I did see a section marked ‘Fire Control’ in glowing red, and resolved to keep away from it, “What vision mode?”
“Let’s start with THERM; people and animals will show up really well against cool ground…”
With that, the Howler showed why it was called that as it gave a quiet moan and took off from the ground. Now, we were actually flying without a balloon!