Endless Horizons Sagas - Season One - World Without End

episode two - Center of the World

Janali took in the fine lines showing the new islands and ran down all the neat rows of star readings. Another puzzle piece dropped into place seeing the neat LM initials next to all the position readings. "Lieutenant Metallo is the navigator."

Captain Rienvo looked away. "We..." His voice trembled then broke as he flexed his hands, making fists and then relaxing them.

His reactions seemed over the top. "Was he more than your frater?" she accidentally blurted out. The look on the captain's face made her instantly regret the innuendo that Metallo was possibly a lover instead of just a fellow commune-brother, it was none of her business and she was out of line for asking.

"Mistress, yes..." The captain took a deep breath. "He was far more than just a naval commune brother. I know I should feel equally about all my commune fratres. But..." He took a breath and lost his steam.

Oh urd, he was more than just a naval commune frater. Could they have been lovers? Why can't I stop my tongue? She gave him time to regain some control of his emotions about his fellow frater being taken by the Perlustration by continuing to look through the sextant readings and running the positioning calculations in her head. All men joined communes when they came of age, unless they were in some way truly valuable to the family in which case they were offered incentive to stay. The communes, if they accepted the man, provided training in their area of expertise, and the men eventually considered the commune their family, a special brotherhood formed that was recognized by imperial law.

"Mistress, Metallo was my apprentice. I've watched over him since he was accepted to the naval commune at the early age of twelve."

Oh not lovers. Still a very close family bond. I'm surprised he was able to hold it together this long.

Pointing at a chair, Janali said, "Sit down, breathe, and tell me what happened from Aedon. We already have detailed reports on your voyage up to that point."

He didn't sit, but he did take a few deep breaths. He nodded. "Mistress, we were caught in a storm just out of port Aedon. The tide was going out. I ordered the engines to use the tide with your new propellers and engines to make a run for open water. The deep trough waves and our low water line put us closer to the bottom than I anticipated. We struck a reef, breaching the hull, and the engine room was cut off. Only a few men remained alive there. They thought we needed power and valiantly fed the boilers, keeping them stoked. But, we'd lost our rudder to the reef, and the main and secondary engine control compartments filled with water. The storm lasted a full two days. It took us two more days to get to the boiler rooms to stop the engines."

He sat down, shoulders slumped. "Once we stabilized, we took readings. We'd lost our rudder, but the engines weren't damaged. However, one prop was non-functional, and we were listing at ten degrees, about an eighth of the ship was flooded, and we'd lost a few good engineers. Your new engines were more than we expected. Through a combination of storm, engines, and bad luck, we were 3,000 miles northwest of Aedon. We tried to rig a new rudder, in the mean time we were in a strong current that was sweeping us further west-northwest, and the winds were blowing that direction as well. We'd traveled another 1,000 miles adrift before we had some control. But we only had one screw working. The jimmied rudder couldn't take the strain to hold our course at a speed that could resist the current we were in."

She'd been doing math in her head. "You were really close to the edge of the world and past the imperial edge safety limit."

"That was what our readings told us, too. But, all we could see in every direction was water."