Warin
The fleet had been reinforced with a newly built Taryn class frigate to join it’s sister ships from the small Moonlight Yards in the Newholm System. It couldn’t match the strength of his flagship the ‘Ice-Hammer’ but the ‘Ice-Hammer’ had cost twice as much as a normal Taryn class frigate.
Warin had struggled to find crew he trusted and measured up to his own standards for the craft. Three hundred and twenty men and women under his command. They had named the new ship the ‘Umbrian Pride’. The ancient Furse Kingdom which fell to the Skoll and was reborn in the Dragon’s Head Nebula by his own ancestor Kenrick Ice when he conquered the Bloom Sector and united it with the Holderness Sector.
Then his father granted him the old Escort class starship ‘Ironfist’. It’s crew of nine hundred was almost three times what Warin led, and he knew he would never be able to fully trust those onboard. There would be spies from his father as well as other lords of the Sectors and likely from outside the sector as well.
His father had meant the ‘Ironfist’ to be Warin’s new flagship. It might have stood a chance against his ‘Ice-Hammer’ if it were a new ship made in the last century but even then Warin had his doubts. The ‘Ice-Hammer’ was small but powerful, and above all it was filled with men and women who Warin could trust without doubt.
It pained him to do so but he had made the decision to grant command of the ‘Ironfist’ to his right hand Ozma. The women who had protected him since childhood. There was no one he could trust more and yet he felt like he were sending her into a den of vipers.
Ozma had only smiled and thanked him for the honor. She knew better then he did the risks of surrounding yourself with those who could not trust. She had taken a handful of trusted members from the ‘Ice-Hammer’ and other ships of the fleet to act as her senior staff. Some of them had served on his own security team with Ozma for years.
Five warships and a score of smaller transports would make the journey from the Holderness System down through the Fabian Gateway to the Bastion System. The most populous system in the Commonwealth and capital in all but name.
An upset to remaining on the ‘Ice-Hammer’ was that those delegates joining them for the forthcoming wedding would be onboard the ‘Ironfist’ and it’s larger living quarters. It was something else Warin would have to make up to Ozma, although she had always been better with people then he himself had ever been.
Two and a half weeks of travel between the Fabian Gateways was better then the six weeks it would take to reach the Bastion System from the Holderness System if they were forced to used their light speed jump engines. It would be the first time that Warin had been outside the Holderness Sector, and he was looking forward to the great world of Bastion even if he had to suffer a royal wedding.
