And the story keeps going on and on and on! Van Tudor is now a Master Peacemaker which gives him a lot more authority than he had before. Fortunately, he has Perry, the AI bird, with him to explain and detail all the new power that he can use, if necessary.
But, first they have a lead on a place that Van wants to checkout for the future. It’s an Earth-like planet far from the normal travel lanes that is very peaceful and unblemished by civilization. Van thinks the might need a place like this someday, not right now, but someday so he’s going to check it out.
They named this new planet “Shhh” which alluded to the fact that it was very quiet place, very peaceful. That began building some facilities for living and were going to invite Adayluh Creel and her Father, Filic to come live her so she could continue experimenting with fast growing food crops she has already developed. Tudor and his crew sat up a twist comm unit so they could always maintain communication with the planet and also to ensure they always knew its location if they had to get there quickly.
With that done, Van decided he needed to get his Moonsword fixed or at least start looking for the twins. He had some leads but nothing solid and he didn’t know if he should really be spending his time on something that was more personal than a necessity. Yet the Moonsword had come in handy on several occasions and since it was handed down to him by his Grandfather, he felt a responsibility to getting it whole again. Yet, as always, some other things come up.
This time they got a request from the Ferals for a meeting to negotiate some differences. Of course, Van Tudor didn’t trust these Ferals one bit, so, using his new Masters powers, he put out a call for a gathering of other Peacemakers so he could have a show of force at the meeting and possibly thwart any kind of ambush. What they found out was that the Ferals were splitting apart with some of them now scared of the other faction that was now going totally rogue. What that means is that instead of just robbing people, they were now just killing victims for no real reason. This was definitely something Van was going to have to look into and put a stop to their actions.
But first, he had to make sure Earth was still being protected. The reason for his concern was from the reports he had just received about Fort Cantullin being attacked. By the time the Fafnir got back to the Fort, the attack was completely over and several tons of debris was floating in orbit around the Fort. Van sent Torina, Rab, Icky and Funboy to the Fort to check on the damage there. He was dreading they might find a lot of the Conoku dead or seriously injured. That wasn’t the case. Due to their excellent preparation, the Fort had hardly suffered at all and no one was seriously injured or killed. Now, Van needed to find out who was responsible for this attack.
He got a lead from another Peacemaker name Blustumol, a Gajur. The only problem with this lead was that this Peacemaker wanted to deliver the information in person. Van also got the idea that the information wasn’t going to be give freely and that was something he detested from another Peacemaker. Anyway, he met with the Peacemaker and his Second aboard the Fafnir. Surprisingly, this Peacemaker wasn’t that bright. When Van demanded the information and declared he wasn’t going to pay a dime for it, the Peacemaker and his Second actually tried to draw their weapons on Master Van Tudor! This was really dumb since they were surrounded by the crew of the Fafnir which didn’t take much to put an end to their attempted violence.
Still, they found out that the rogue Ferals were being lead by a Tsarina and Polite Citizen or a.k.a. Kiki Treasure. Of the two, Tsarina was the stone-cold killer while Kiki Treasure was a violent psychopath in her own right. These two had to be brought in before they caused any more bloodshed and especially because they were for some reason interested in Earth.
This is the same kind of stuff that Van Tudor seems to always get involved in. Even as a Master, he’s still out in the field chasing the bad guys. Unfortunately, this chase will cost him the life of one of his friends, but there will be new life along the way. This book was very interesting all through it and that’s amazing for a series that is already 19 books long. Book 20, “Point of Impact”, is available on Amazon right now.