Wherever I Am

Chapter 21 - Part 3

I went to meet with Emil and Tiber instead of helping Ellie with archery the following morning Lord Reginar of the Realm was with me as my advisor. We met with Lord Eugen and Lord Doru. They would be taking over the Baemardis and Crisan Brugraviates.

I let Lord Reginar ask most of the questions and wished he'd been here yesterday when we'd made these decisions. Lord Nelu wouldn't arrive until lunchtime at the earliest, so we'd all meet again after lunch. The feast was already scheduled for this evening, ostensibly for the arrival of the Realm, but they wanted to squeeze this in.

Lord Reginar didn't seem unhappy with the choices, which was a plus. He pulled me off to the side at the end of the meeting.

"Lord Danus says there seems to be some radio chatter to the north...digital. It's directional signals coupled with a one-way live video."

"A drone?"

"It appears to be. One station airborne, the other fairly stationary on the ground."

"So what do we do?"

"Danus went up the dome this morning with a contingent. A spear and soldier's armor should disguise his direction-finding equipment. When he gets a proper placement of the base unit, what do you want to do?"

I could feel my chest begin to tighten.

"Capture whoever they are...alive, if possible. Maybe the Aussies from the other day aren't finished with us after all. Where has the drone been going?"

"Hang on," and he started muttering for a moment. After about a minute, he nodded slightly to himself. "The drone's patrolled over the keep, town, and dome and along all of the roads."

I nodded, puzzled about how he was doing this.

He grinned and lifted his hair from where it hung over his ears. I saw a thin wire running from his ear canal down to his collar.

"Throat mike," he said. "Retransmission from a tight-beam antenna system on top of the keep here."

So we did have electronics here.

"Oh, and it appears to be making a beeline back to base. Either it needs a recharge, or the base is moving. Base is on the low dome north of town."

I nodded. I knew where it was, a crumbly granite dome overgrown with brush and cacti. I'd thought about climbing it but never got around to it. It appeared that was about to change.

"Reginar, we need to move...try to get there while it's on the ground."

"Wait a minute, space cowboy," he said. "We need to set up a plan."

"Yeah, but quickly...before they move or leave."

"They're not leaving any time soon. Danus hasn't detected any Transcomp signals. There's not even any electrical signal where they're at that indicates they have a Transcomp set up. That's not a simple undertaking, so wherever they have it, it's not nearby."

"Transcomp?"

"You really are clueless, aren't you?"

I sighed.

"Lauretti said you were, that they'd kept all this hidden from you and your sister. And your friend Nathan, too. All because you're in a technological world unaware of us, and we'd like to keep it that way. John seems to forget just how quickly things go out of control when you let go of the reins. You've already found that out the hard way."

"So what do we do?" I didn't like being schooled like this, but he seemed willing to share.

"Let's gather a few others first. They're at the archery range, aren't they?"