Dropping a huge rock on something on Earth from outerspace pretty much will destroy anything underneath that rock. And that’s exactly what happened to the Equal Grasp’s Nexus-like facility. It was out on some remote island and the population anywhere near the place was given 3-days to evacuate. So, while Van Tudor didn’t know if the Equal Grasp’s own people had left, those in the area certianly did. Loss of life was minimal or none since none were reported. Of course the Equal Grasp had their own spin on this attack. They touted that if Van Tudor could drop a rock on them, then he could to do that anyone. Except, of course, Van Tudor didn’t hate anyone else as much as he hated the Equal Grasp and their leader, Yotov.
Yet, Van and his friends had already been attack by the Equal Grasp. They had hit the plane Helso with a vicious attack that just about succeeded in killing his immediate family including his wife, Torina, and his in-laws, the Miltons. Most everyone was injured in that attack although not seriously. Yet a lot of the Helos Defense Force (HDF) military had died. Van had barely made it back in time to save his wife and her mother from being deadly casualties. Now everyone was recovering and things there were being put back together. The defense of Helso was now being beefed up with more of the Schegith ships and defense platforms being moved in. Although it was previously thought that no one in their right mind would attack Helso, it had been done, but any future attackers were definitely going to have to pay a higher price.
Van knew that he had to start gathering more allies in his war against the Equal Grasp. His ultimate goal was still targeted on killing Yotov, but he also knew that he was going to have to tear down and rebuilt the Peacemaker Guild. They were obviously now under Yotov’s control and that couldn’t stand. As of yet, none of the normal galaxy-wide powers had committed to support his efforts, but some of the lesser but powerful groups were doing so now. One of which was the Surtsi, the species know to Van’s crew as Funboy. While conversing with a Surtsi could be very interesting, Van felt that it would be better to appoint Funboy, a.k.a., Cheerful Enthusiast, as his ambassador to the Surtsi. Funboy was more than happy to take on this role as long as it didn’t detract from his Earthly pursuits as a mega-star!
The next thing Van needed to tackle was to make sure had the necessary bonds to do what needed to be done. And that was going to require some dicussion with Dayna Jaskins of the Quiet Room. Dayna had already told Van that she had the galaxy-wide banks backing because they were actually using the proceeds of a former criminal. But, Van had been spending bond prodigiously and wanted to make sure he still had Dayna’s backing. The only problem with this was that Dayna had come up missing. Her last know location was on Spindrift. After some careful checking with various sources on Spindrift, Van found out that the Peacemaker Guild had ordered her taken into protective custody. They gave no reason for this action, but Dayna was now sitting in an empty room somewhere on Spindrift.
It didn’t take long to locate her. She was being guarded by the local police authorities known as the Cloaks, but they didn’t really want to get in Van Tudor’s way. What did attempt to stop the rescue was a new Peacemaker name Potholis and his Auxiliaries. This Peacemake seemed to have just popped up and probably wasn’t trained in anyway and probably knew nothing of enforcing the laws. He was there to do the Guild’s dirty work and that meant grabbing Dayna and taking her to Anvil Dark. That wasn’t going to happen.
After the rescue, Dayna told Van that she had been looking into the finances of the Guild and had found some considerable irregularities. One of which showed about fifteen million bonds going missing annually from the Guild’s coffers. Van wanted to know how that could happen, but Dayan said people knew, but they also knew to keep their mouths shut. The corruption was running very deep in the Peacemaker Guild.
Still, Van had another important item he had to attend to. This was kind of dictitated by Torina since she was the one carrying their about to be born twins! Van and then entire crew of the Fafnir, Van’s Mother and his Grandmother were all awaiting the day of delivery. Van finally got the call from Tornia that told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to get there immediately. So is this going to be a blessed day in the life of Van Tudor and company or will something evil rise it’s head again. Evil in the form of Totov is still around and nothing is beyond her evil thinking.
So, the ending of this book is something you’ll want to get to, but it’s not really the end. There is more for Van Tudor and the crew of the Fafnir to do and they’ll be doing it in book 23, “The Enemy Within”, now available on Amazon.