The ash twisted in the wind as Sheppard descended into the town, the soot had already stained his Commander's robe. His men stood before him, only sixteen were left. They stood in line waiting for his judgement. Standing next to them, a soldier was on his knees under the guard of two others, his helmet had been taken off as he sobbed into the coal that was once Gol. The smoking husk of the old man, former Captain Lor Dimitri curled up on the ground. He had been burned.
“We lost nine in total, Commander” he hated Smik for always needing to say something, as though stating the obvious kept him relevant somehow. Sheppard stood, and like he was taught, allowed the silence to hang, only the rippling of his cloak in the winds of the broken town.
“Commander, we…” It was a swift hand gesture, all that was required with the tech that Sheppard had been given, he felt the warmth of it beneath the skin on his upper right chest under the exo-suit. Blood sprayed from the Captain's neck, through the suit, it didn't need to penetrate any shield as he did not have it up. The captain gripped his throat, trying to clamp down on it. Sheppard had already disengaged all of their suit safety protocols before descending. He would die in agonising minutes, he would allow the rest of the troops to watch him struggle. The soldier with his helmet off sobbed harder. This was the price of failure in the Dorlec, this is how weakness was handled.
The soldier fell to the ground. Sheppard applauded that he did not run for help, or try to escape. The rest of the soldiers knew not to either.
An old man and a boy did not do this. They couldn't have. Sheppard looked at the soldier without his helmet on and moved to him. He had said that former Captain Angela Lawrence had said the name, Meno. if that was true, it meant that the old man had been by himself. He had succeeded in getting the boy off of the moon with a Pillar looming overhead. Sheppard’s mind had been locked in this thought loop since hearing the news.
“You allowed them to escape,” he said without emotion, without judgement. The man had managed to place a tracker on the ship before he had been jettisoned off. That had been good work, but Sheppard knew what he needed to do, he knew the standards of the Dorlec. Standards that he himself would need to face with Lord Valentine. He was in charge, their failures were his own. The ship had been picked up moving into Yelean space, which to Sheppard's surprise, was seen as ‘fortunate’ by Valentine, who had then handed orders to Sheppard to make his way to the system where he would join with another Pillar on the outskirts of the Yeley. Sheppard didn't know what this was yet, but Valentine assured him that he would have his chance to redeem himself. Sheppard clenched his fist, he would now be under the purview of another Commander though. It was not a mission that Sheppard believed could be failed. A simple collection on a planet with no military presence. A boy.
He stood before the rest of the soldiers,
“Who else was here with him?” he was met with silence.
“Your Commander has asked a question” screamed Smik in a practiced enforcer's voice. A soldier stepped forward,
“We did not see anyone, Commander,” he said, standing straight and at attention, “We had three fall as we entered the town, the casualties stopped when the old man fell. We believe that he had an accomplice”
“Who left once he died,” Sheppard said looking at the charcoal corpse of the old man. Sheppard knew that this was true now, but he needed to understand how someone got here, or how they got away. They would be infected now. Who would do that, how would they do that? It wasn't one of the guards, all had been accounted for, only one of the suits had been missing which they had seen on the security footage being used by the boy, Meno to get himself onto the ship.
“Fall in line,” he said to the soldier” until they had more answers, he would delay any punishment. From what Sheppard had seen, this seemed organised, perhaps even professional. They had not had any idea about anyone else being in the town, they had not seen the boy leave the town, and they did not see anything coming with the pilot. There were too many questions that needed answers before judgment was handed down. He may accidentally kill one of the spies who had answers. The Seer had been notified and would be investigating each man as they made their way back into the Pillar.
Sheppard closed his eyes behind the comfort of his helmet, why would they go through all of this for the boy?
“We move to Yeley” he said turning to Smik, he would give the Lieutenant the honours of giving the order, more from fatigue than anything else.
*
Meno lay in bed for a while before getting up. He knew that Angie had left the quarters some time ago, he had been awake since then, but he didn't want her to know that. He wanted some time to himself. Some time to reflect. He was caught between feelings, and felt guilt on either side, he was happy that he was getting a chance to go and explore the galaxy, something that he had always wanted, which made him feel guilty that he was excited about that rather than having to leave his home and Mr. Dimitri. He had not been there for the old man in his final moments, which, according to Paba and her science mambo jumbo, had not happened yet. His head was a mess.
He exhaled deeply, recognised that he was completely out of his depth and sat on the side of the bed, knowing that the more he thought about it the less he would have a grip on it, which at the moment was tenuous enough. He needed to move.
He was still in wonder at how comfortable the bed had been, the pillows too, the sheets. It was something that he had never even guessed would exist. A bed that pleasant. He wiped his face put the jumpsuit on, and made his way through to the mess where he could hear Paba and Angie were speaking,
“...buried about thirty-odd of them himself” he heard Angie saying in hushed tones. Meno stopped in the passageway. “Lor Dimitri, the one I told you about, was the last one in the town, he was probably closest to him” he heard Paba sigh at this. He didn't want to hear them discussing him, it felt rude, so he cleared his throat before entering the room,
“Meno?” Angie’s voice came through. He entered the room with a broad smile and acted as though he had not heard anything, he bid them both a good morning before he added to his spinning head whether time, like that, existed where they were now. He would ask Paba, maybe. He probably wouldn't understand the answer.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Paba said in the most delicate tone Meno had heard from her yet. He nodded with a smile, he didn't want her to feel sorry for him, but he noticed her eyes lingering on him with pity.
“I’m sorry, I overheard you when I was coming in, I dont want you to worry about me, I’m fine, it was the best childhood I’ve ever experienced” he said, more to Paba than Angie
“We weren’t speaking behind your back” Paba said, her usual tone back, “Punk” she added, holding a silver cylinder in her hand.
“It’s fine,” said Angie with a humorous glance between the two, “I was just filling Paba in on Gol”
“Ah, yeah…” he took a seat at the table and Paba passed him a cup that she had just poured from the silver cylinder. It smelt so rich, so strong, he held the sides of the cup and felt the warmth come through, it was strange he hadn't noticed that he had been cold. He took a sip and smacked his lips. It was somehow bitter, sweet, comforting and jarring all at the same time. It seemed to make both of them smile.
“I’m glad you're up, Meno,” said Angie, “We need to run over Yeley. We dont know what will happen there and we need to have a plan” Paba moved over to take a seat, Meno thought that they must have already discussed that this was going to happen and so she was ready for it. There was a datapad in the middle of the table that Angie tapped, from it a hologram of a planet emerged, sending light into the room. The sphere rotated above the pad. Meno was still in wonder at this marvel. “Yeley has been in the news recently. There have been some disputes between the people on how they are being treated, it seems to stem from new regulations on food manufacturing coming from the Houses” she started, all of a sudden, all business.
“It’s always the bloody houses” grumbled Paba. Her reaction interested Meno.
“The Yeleans believe that they are getting screwed over, to put it politely. The new regulations require Yeley to produce more but to lower prices as well, on top of that the shelf life of the products has been brought down, meaning that they cannot send products to sit on shelves, and on House planets, even if the food is still okay, it must be discarded. Basically, the people of Yeley are taking it out on the Planetary head, Pac Traes” The hologram from the datapad shifted to the face of a handsome middle-aged man. He had thick blonde hair, pushed back and it fell to his shoulders. He had a proud look about him, with a strong nose, “And his wife Eher Traes, who is more of the people's leader than Pac himself, who handles more of the administrative duties” Pac Traes’ face left and it was replaced by a woman, tall, middle-aged with fine blonde hair and a kind face, with empathetic eyes. “They have pushed back against some of these regulations, and have lost the contracts to supply two planets already”
“Surely, pushing back against the regulations is what the people would have wanted then?” Meno said,
“There's no pleasing people, even when you do what they want,” said Paba
“A contract for a planet is large, it creates enormous farms and Yeley is basically a giant one. Them losing a contract means that people's jobs are gone, which creates an economic issue, that means…”
“Blah, blah, blah, what do we need to know?” Angie steadied herself after Paba’s interjection.
“Yeley is not a happy place right now. There have been threats of riots, riots lead to violence, violence leads to us needing to run away again” she said succinctly looking at Paba, who smiled with her head cocked. “I don’t know why Worrec is sending you there,” she said, not adding any more.
“Maybe to hide within the chaos?” Paba said, whose face was now resting fully on her hands, squishing her cheeks.
“He made it sound like it was a test,” Meno said,
“Well if that’s the case, let’s learn everything that we can so that you can pass” she said. He found it interesting that she wasn't adding herself to anything that she was saying. ‘They’ were being sent to the planet, they needed to pass the test. Meno didn't press the matter but continued listening to Angie.
She continued in a reminiscent style to Mr. Dimitri about the entire situation. Yeley was in the middle of three regions, two official regions, being Dorlec space which Paba showed by expanding the hologram to see beyond just the planet but to the entire system, then to clusters, and then they were looking at the galaxy to the point where the Yelean solar system was just a speck. There were faint lines drawn in space that showed the divided space of the Houses. Dorlec space only intersected near the Yelean system, on the other side was the Artelis House, their space seemed to be a long curving line that went across Yeley’s system. The third was a small pocket of space that sat in a spot between the two, far off from Yeley, but it tapered like a water droplet from the system and itself. This was the Eshara, which Angie explained housed the centre of the criminal underworld,
“And they just know about it?” Meno asked,
“It’s one of those things that people just don’t bring up, nothing will change it”
“Criminals are useful to the Houses,” said Paba, staring into the map, “They can do things that are illegal for the Houses to do, they use the Eshara quite often”
“It’s said that the Eshara also keep things in order” explained Angie, “They control the other crime empires in the galaxy and hold them to account” Meno didn't really understand how that made things any better but again, did not press the issue.
It seemed that Yeley provided agricultural services to twelve different planets, as Angie stated, which was the right way to put it. Five of those planets were under House control, the rest remained independent. Angie commented on the fact that this area in the galaxy had a much larger ratio of independently controlled planets than most others. From what she was saying, it seemed to be because House Artelis was not that concerned with having planets ‘belong’ to it, as long as those planets did not cause a threat.
“The Artelis are led by Lord Louis Matise”
“Matise? I thought there was a House called Matise?”
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“There is, this is the son”
“He calls himself Sonny, and he is scrumptious” Paba said now leaning forward on the table, giddy and giggling, this was the most attention that she had paid the entire time. It seemed that she hadn't met him, but she assured them that he preferred being called Sonny and that she knew this because she had watched every interview he had ever done. Ever.
“He rose to some prominence during the war. He’s no longer just Rene Matise’s son, but a House Head in his own right” said Angie nodding as well.
“Was he the one that helped you and Mr. Dimitri?” Meno asked remembering a story where a young soldier had come and saved their ship. They were to be deployed to a planet where, according to the old man, they had no chance of survival. Angie nodded. Angie also stopped Paba from energetically asking a question,
“I never met him, never even saw him”
“So…” Meno started wanting to know more about the region and the planet, “With all of this happening around Yeley, there could be some major trouble to come?”
“It seems that way. Though I doubt that the Dorlec would pick a fight with Artelis, and the Eshara wouldn't fight with either, their understanding with the Houses would be at risk”
The rest of the conversation was filled with speculation as to how things could go wrong on Yeley, with one House getting in the way of another, the Yeleans choosing sides, the people of Yeley revolting against the Planetary heads, the Eshara doing criminal things. Meno tuned it out after a while. It was mainly just Paba and Angie arguing. He couldn't break his thoughts from how exciting it was just to be going to another planet, going to a planet he thought he had only ever been on a moon.
After a while the two decided to take a break, and Angie moved to the kitchen to make some more food, to Meno’s sheer and absolute delight. Paba made her way to her room, ensuring that they all knew she was going to the ‘Captain's quarters’. Meno grabbed the data pad and repeated the action of spreading one's hands to expand the map, he kept pulling and pulling until he saw the entire region that the Houses occupied within the galaxy. To his surprise, it was not the entire galaxy but a region within the spiral, a third of it, but not the entire thing, as he had always thought. He thought that he was probably a bit foolish to think that it had been every inch of it.
He saw the lines dividing the space between each region and saw that some were much larger than others. For example, the long curving line that he thought the Artelis House was, was just a portion of their territory, and their region acted as the border of space, wrapping around all the other regions, except one, which was outside of it.
“You can see why High Lord Matise wanted his son in control of that House, can’t you?” Angie said as she noticed Meno running his hand along the ring of House Artelis.
“Where are you from?” he said without thinking if it was a sensitive question or not. She moved over with a smile and pointed to a darker region, it didn't have as much light or systems as the others.
“Around here somewhere. I was born within the borders of the Hulfean Empire, so was Mr. Dimitri” she said with a sad smile. She was pointing at the only region that was outside of the Artelis border, though it was closer to the border of the Artelis. He had heard quite a bit about the Hulfeans, and their leader, the war god, Emperor Locne. It was said that he was thousands of years old and was the most powerful man to ever exist. Hellen had always told Meno that he was a myth and that the Hulfeans pretended that he was real because it made them sound powerful. Meno had heard Mr. Dimitri pray to Locne, and so had always known him as a symbol of their faith, a deity in their religion rather than a man.
“Why is it so dark in comparison?”
“Fewer systems. The Hulfean Empire is old, might even be the oldest, and it’s been at war pretty much since it started, hence Locne’s nickname, the war god. Some of the systems were destroyed, but it’s mainly because of who the Hulfeans border” she said pointing to a region on the outskirts of Hulfean space, this was the darkest region in the galaxy, Meno had assumed that nothing was there.
“What’s there?”
“The Masma were there,” she said, “The old god Emperor Bel, the one that we went to war with” she said, harshly, “The entire region is now a wasteland. The Hulfean are said to watch that area of space, to make sure that they never rise again”
“Was he that bad?” Meno said, hearing it out loud, he thought it was a child's question.
“It needed all of the Houses combined to stop him,” she said sadly, “Even then, we didn't know if we would win” he thought of the stories that Mr. Dimitri had told him and Swan. That’s when the last of the Sha-En arrived.
“Did you ever see the child of the Sha-En?” she laughed as he said it,
“No, I don’t know if he was real or not, if that’s what you're asking. I heard of him though, everyone did. The boy that stopped the Kryptea and started the war with the Masma” he looked back at the map, in wonder. There was so much there, so much history that he didn't know anything about.
“What about this area? It looks like there are three Houses all together?" The region was the brightest of all the galaxy, and in the centre, it had three Houses which all held a third of a large circle.
“That’s Amorim, the Centre of Power in the galaxy. The Autarchs planet” she said clarifying, “those three Houses are the Royal Houses, they control the rest of the Houses and work directly with the Autarch, they are part of the Royal Family” She pointed at the individual thirds, “The Serifine, led by Anna Serfine is here. The Nissar-Ra, I don't know who is in control of them, their last head died during the last war, and finally, the Matise, headed by Grand Head Rene Matise, he’s the one that’s really in control. The three Houses are meant to rule together for the Autarch, but Matise has the most powerful House in the Galaxy, it’s effectively the Autarch’s military”
“It looks amazing,” Meno said, looking at all of the light in the region, all of the trade routes and the planets, stars and everything.
“Hope that you never find yourself there,” she said watching him carefully, he turned to her not understanding, “Firstly, you are on the run, and that is the centre of power, it’s in the name, and secondly, that place isn't for people like us, that’s for the rich, the powerful. The outskirts of the galaxy will do us just fine” she finished with a smile. “Now, what did Lor teach you about tech and how to handle it?”
“Well, that tech allows people to use energy in different ways, Professor Swan tried to explain it to me once about how it works, but I never really got it. He never really told me how to handle it specifically, just that I should be wary of people that have tech” She nodded, and something told Meno that she knew she had a ton of work ahead of her.
“Primers?”
“Just that they have natural abilities, like tech but they were born with it, he never said anything special about them,” Meno said slightly questioningly. It almost seemed like Angie was treating these as two different things. He knew that the major difference between them was that tech users, had advanced technology embedded in them; small generators that extracted energy around them, and then an energy signature that energy was fed into in order to create a desired outcome. You put the tech in and you suddenly have the ability to throw fire, if you were compatible. Simple. Primers, to his understanding, were people who could do this naturally without the need of tech. They were the first to develop the ability to generate energy within themselves. Hellen had been taking Meno through this training, though he had never been any good at it.
“Primers are not the same” Paba said shaking her head from the doorway, she had come back in and been standing at the door. Angie looked at her and enforced her opinion,
“Lor never liked them, had a stupid grudge against them. That's why he didn't like the training that Hellen was giving you” she said casually, but Meno felt oddly strange that she knew about the training and was acting as though she had been part of it, like she had been in the town with them. She seemed to notice this reaction, but pushed on in spite of it, “They have a natural gift for it, he got that right, but because they can draw energy themselves, they dont have to worry about the tech's limitations, meaning, they are always stronger” she said with finality, “They also don’t have your usual tech gifts. Tech that makes you stronger and faster is generic nowadays, there is tech that can help you push out energy but it draws a ton of power, and the generators are only so good, very few people have an affinity for using tech well”
“So a primer can draw on more power?”
“And they can do crazy shit,” Paba said with her eyes bulging. “Like alter gravity, or teleport, or phase through shit, shoot lightning from their hands, or…”
“Okay,” Angie said with her hand held up, “Thank you, Paba. She’s right though, they are different, and they can do ridiculous things. During the war, we basically just supported them”
“You think that we are going to run into some?”
“It’s possible, we just need to be prepared for anything. They are pretty rare, like one in one thousand rare. You managed well against two tech users, but that was basic tech, strength, speed, you have some tech now but it seems just to be comms” she said and Meno noticed that Paba after hearing this pulled a strange face, as though realising something, “We need you to be ready for if we face something more”
“How can I tell a Primer from a tech user?” he saw that Angie approved of him taking this seriously.
“Tech users are going to have generic abilities, and it will be limited, like the soldiers in the cargo bay, they can be managed, some have shields that they can use, they are normally implants in their arms, if you see them, try and cut their arm off”
“Angie” Paba said with her face screwed up, but Angie didn't respond,
“Tech is usually implanted in the body where it is most effective, your tech for comms, behind your ear, to use a shield in the forearm. Now” she said standing, Meno could see that she was getting into this, “Not all tech is made equal, some tech is better than others, but they aren't going to give high-end tech to goons, so if you see higher ranking soldiers, expect them to have better tech, more suited to them, it will be more effective. If you find them, get out of there” Meno sat in awe as he listened to Angie run through everything that she knew, he had been taught about some of this by the people on Gol, but this was different, this was so much more. He learned that tech users were often chosen for their affinity, some with high perception became seers, users that could penetrate the mind and figure out secrets and see if you were telling the truth or not. Those who were naturally fast or strong got tech that enhanced their muscles, and there were even some that had an affinity for tech that could give them the ability to teleport or to walk in a crowd and not be seen.
His mind really started to spin when she started to describe Primers though. They seemed a completely different species, people born with the ability to manipulate energy itself. She wasn't able to give Meno specifics on what they could do, simply because it was innumerable, some had the ability to disrupt the atomic structure of whatever they touched, making it unstable so that it would crumble when touched, or it would blow up as Paba added. Some had the ability to trap a mind in an illusion so much so that the person would have no idea that they were in one at all, and then if they were good enough, they could do this to multiple people at once.
“Who are the strongest?” said Meno, practically giddy at this point, this was the greatest thing he had ever heard in his life. Angie looked at him with apprehension, and he realised that he was probably not responding to this the way that he should be.
“The ones that can use fundamental forces,” Paba said with wide eyes, she seemed to be on the same level as Meno, “Gravity, weak and strong forces, Electro magnetism, they can break…reality!” she said throwing her hands from her forehead, “They crazy”
“Don’t worry about them, that's pretty much House Head territory, and even then I think there’s only a few that have that kind,” Angie said clearly not appreciating Paba indulging Meno. all he wanted to know, all he would focus on trying to figure out now, was, ‘How do I get this?’, but he wouldn't ask Angie as it seemed she was more worried about dealing with people like this than actually wanting to be one. Hellen had been training him in this, she had thought that maybe he could do it. He wasn't very good though, but maybe he just needed to keep trying. What powers could he get? “Meno” Angie said clicking her fingers in front of him, “You’ve had training on this” Paba’s interest suddenly peaked, “You were bad at it right?” Paba sank back into her chair.
“Yeah maybe I’m just not very good at it though?” she nodded,
“Keep training, it obviously did some good against the guards” she said sitting back down as though the lesson was done now. He nodded but couldn't keep his mind away from the possibility. These people must have been amazing.
“You dont want to be one anyway, they all think that they are better than everyone else,” Paba said her nose up in the air.
Meno continued to study the Datapad for hours, looking over the Houses and their territories, learning as much as he could. He struggled to believe the amount of data that he had access to through the Datapad, he could see the leaders of each House, each more impressive than the last, he saw their Sigil, their histories. He did find that every now and then there were stories or histories about members of the Houses or the Houses themselves that seemed inflammatory, and exaggerated, but he didn't care, he thought that all of it was amazing. Angie told him that this would be the case and that the Houses were not known for their modesty.
He ate his food, and controlled his reaction to it, noticing that Paba seemed to find it, ‘weird’, but it was amazing, a sandwich with something called cheese, that had been toasted. He was living a dream. Meno had been sitting for hours pouring over the holograms when Angie told him that they would be arriving at Yeley soon. He shook himself, somehow seeming to forget that he was about to see a new planet!
He made his way to the cockpit and saw that the blue light in front of them dissipated launching a heavy black curtain in front of them then Meno saw it, a great green and blue orb hanging below them, it had specks of white that looked like brush strokes across the planet. He had never seen colours like that, he marvelled at the sheer over the planet with the atmospheric shimmer coming from the rising sun. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life, that was a planet, that was Yeley.
Paba started with her now more familiar action of moving her hands through the holograms and the ship came to a stop over the planet. They were immediately hailed, and the face of a young and mildly bored man showed on the hologram,
“Entry codes” he said looking at Angie and Meno, lifting his eyebrow to them in greeting. Paba flung her hands around and then after patiently waiting, trying not to make eye contact with any of them said, “Alright, Port one” he said surprised, “Welcome to Yeley” and his face disappeared. There was a collective sigh of relief in the cockpit. Paba and Angie shared a look of relief and Meno had the distinct feeling that they had been more worried about this than they had led on.
Paba began to move the ship forward after Angie and Meno strapped into the seats on the side of the cockpit, and Meno watched as they descended onto the planet. He was trying to gauge how big it was, after leaving Gol, he had seen what a moon moving further away from them looked like, but this was incredible, it just kept on getting larger and larger. The size of the planet was beyond belief.
They sat in quiet anticipation as Paba dropped the ship into the planet's atmosphere, and then dropped beneath the clouds. The planet, washed with greens and blues like Meno had never seen before, started to come into sharper focus and he could see the defining features of the farmlands below him, organised partitions of land neatly manicured and structured farms spread beyond the horizon. The mountains with their green-topped peaks and white stone cliffs stood in sharp contrast to the deep greens of the lands cut only by the deepest of blue rivers, sometimes turning black in the landscape as they fed the lands around them. Meno had to keep blinking with how bright the planet was, he had never been subject to so much sunlight, they were coming in on what must have been a perfect day.
They travelled along the planet for some time as he watched the pattern shapes of squares and triangles of different shades pass below them, some red and some purple mixed in with every tone of green, and then a mountain appeared ahead of them. Meno needed to take two glances at it before he could really understand what he was seeing, and when he could understand what he was looking at, he physically laughed. It was an enormous statue carved into the side of the mountain, a statue of a woman sitting cross-legged with her hands held out in the air, water passing through her hands, forming great waterfalls that were captured by aqueducts below, but mainly turned to mist before hitting the ground. She was remarkable, blindfolded, and beautiful with basic robes that had been carved out of white stone. Meno could see that it was old, but it had been cared for.
“Who is she?”
“Must be Det’em” said Angie who was also in awe of the view, “She is said to be the founder of Yeley”
The size of it was indeterminable at first; it seemed as though the white stone had been littered around the statue after its carving, but then Meno realized that this was a city, that spanned kilometres around the mountain, with tall stone buildings that were turned to face the great statue of who they believed was Det’em. The buildings were made from the same white stone as the statue and seemed to all have great Pillars that held their roofs.
The statue must have stood some five hundred meters tall and it had a great diamond-shaped frame that stood as the carved backdrop to the statue. Meno looked closer at the base of the statue and saw that it was, or had a building as part of it, with five levels, all of its floors sitting well above the city's tallest building. The waterfall coming from her hands fell over this, what Meno could only imagine was a temple of some kind. It was spectacular, it was as though she were offering the land water.
A great river stood between the farmlands and the city that fell at the foot of the mountain, with a grand highway that intersected the river and flowed into the city. Meno focused on the city and imagined that it must have spread for kilometres. Meno laughed again, holding his hand to his mouth. This place must have been bigger than the whole of Gol. Before the river and opposing the city was a large stone port with three enormous domes, each of different sizes. Meno could see that the port was itself enormous, stretching for kilometres within its own right. Great ships were docked there, with beautiful yachts that he had only ever heard of that were sleek and beautifully designed. He was struggling to comprehend the sheer scale of it all.
“It’s beautiful,” said Angie, more to herself than anyone, and Meno looked across to see that it was not only he who had been caught in the beauty of this place. He smiled and looked back out of the viewport of the ship. As they got closer and dropped towards the white stone port, Meno kept looking at the great statue in the mountain as its head rose above them. It was looking up towards the clouds with eyes covered, her hair flowing behind her. This was a special place, he thought.
As they came into land, Meno noticed a small congregation of people awaiting them, and that he was not the only one feeling the anxiety creep in, seeing both Angie and Paba begin to fidget and shift their feet respectively. He took in a deep breath and nodded to the other two.
Once they docked in port one, next to a magnificent silver, metallic yacht that dwarfed their freighter, they made their way to the back of the ship and opened the cargo door. They took a deep breath and steadied themselves, each checking the other.
The doors opened and they were met by three people, the first was an older man with what looked like a permanent smile etched on his face judging by the laugh lines, he was bald, hunched over and wore simple white robes that his wispy white hair suited. The other two were both in exo-suits, a man and a woman, him being tall and well built with dark hair shortly cut and a stoic expression, her also being tall but slim with blonde hair that suited her tan skin and a welcoming expression. The suits were similar to what Meno had seen before but they had a deep purple running through them and gold plating.
“I am Harold,” he said with a small bow, “Welcome to Yeley”