The Falcon and The Turtle

by Luigi Esguerra

The year is 2015; Crimea has fallen to Russia recently, the United States is about to enter an unusual election, SpaceX has become an Internet sensation, and the good author has passed on...and, wait, is that a big turtle carrying four elephants on its shell and a big flat world going across the skies?

6. Chapter 04 - The Dragon and the Turtle

The Dragon capsule made the Apollo capsule look ancient, like comparing a smartphone to a stone tool, it was a lander and a space capsule all in one but it was just slightly bigger than the Apollo capsule, imagine if the Dragon was available during the Apollo missions, they would not have needed to build the lunar lander!

We suited up and went through the pressurized passageway, but instead of going all the way to the end, we exited through a hatch in the middle which led to the vehicle bay, where Dragon Two was docked right beside Dreamer, I wanted to fly the Dreamer but the Dragon was more well suited with landing vertically, good if you have no clue as to how your landing zone might be, it may be too rough, rocky, or if we're just damned lucky, as smooth as the salt plains, in fact Apollo 11 had to change landing zones because the planned area was too treacherous.

As we did our ocular inspection of the craft, we suddenly heard Valentina's voice go through the intercom, "Captain, may…I have a word with you?"

We adopted an open comm policy, why did she want to have a personal word with me, "Can't you say it on the line? We do have an open comm policy…"

"No, you forgot something in the common area, and the last thing I want to do is float too far from the bridge." said Valentina.

I reasoned that it was a legitimate reason, "Alright, I'll be there." before telling the other two, "Excuse me gents, but our pilot needs to speak to me."

I floated back to the common area and found Valentina at the side of the window, holding a handlebar, "Valentina, what have I forgotten?" I asked.

She removed her helmet and motioned with her hand to do the same, I trusted her and so I removed my helmet, the first ever breach of the open comm policy, it's not because we did not want privacy for the crew but we wanted discipline and also to dissuade any private talk, we're astronauts first and foremost, not holiday goers.

She removed a necklace, "Captain, it's for you."

This was not a cheap necklace, it looked like a heirloom, it was a necklace with a ruby gem on it, a rare type I think, "A present?" I asked.

"No, it's my lucky gem…I'm sorry Captain, I mean I know we have to be professional and all…but with what happened to the Buran crew-…may I speak to you as a human and not as one of the robots you wanted to bring into this mission?" said Valentina.

That had hit me hard, throughout the whole year we spent together in space I had been a little strict on private life and professional life, mainly because it was what I know was enforced in the Navy, and in the Merchant Marine, and I just wanted to maybe enforce it strictly in what has now become humanity's most lengthiest and epic missions.

"Permission granted, Val."

"Jack, I love you."

That had hit me harder than it should have, I mean I know we're not teens but as a guy who was or could be mistaken for a psychopath for only caring about flying and fighting, "Valentina, I also love you but…we can't just-..look at the Buran Commander."

"Yeah, but…can't we…when we go back to Earth…"

"Val, thanks, really, no one has told me that they love me." I smiled, it's that silly thing called love that took over.

"I mean we trained for years and I have never met a guy who's as daring as you, or actually as daring as me!" Valentina smiled, "And the thoughts that death is not so far…well, I decided to tell you now rather than see you die without getting the chance to tell you."

I took the ruby necklace, "What's with the inscriptions?" it had runes on it, this may be as old as the Germanic tribes from the Classical Era.

"That was my family heirloom, it had been with me since I was a young lass and…I kept it with me until now, it helped me through the tense dogfights I had with the enemy over Iraq-"

"Don't over dramatize it, the Iraqi air force was incompetent." I sort of barged in.

"But it did not feel like it in the middle of an aerial dogfight!" said Valentina, "Look, if it had kept me alive, even after ALL the STUPID things I've done - and it's not just in war but in love also - then maybe it would keep you alive as well." she then added, "Look, my mother sort of believed in runes and still believed in the old pagan religions and those things and…well I think it's just nice to know that somehow, just somehow, we're safe, either by our hand, or by a god, or both."

I smiled, "It's the thought that counts, thanks." I said, our spacesuits luckily had small pockets that allowed for trinkets like these to be kept, I placed it in one of the pockets.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Valentina closed in and kissed me on the lips before saying, "Take care now, Jack, I mean Captain." I am not a poet, though I wished one was there to witness us kissing with the view of space behind us, I'm' talking about Saturn being a visible speck as well as the Buran and the Discworld, that was far more different than a kiss in Paris or in New York.

You know the saying, or maybe Internet saying, that when a woman loves truly she acts motherly, when a man loves truly he acts like a child, well I felt like acting like an excited child, but it doesn't have to be now, it cannot be now. "I will, Val." I said before wearing my helmet.

Valentina wore her helmet and floated back to the bridge, while I floated back to the pressurized tube. They were ready by the time I came back, in fact they had been waiting for me.

We entered the Dragon capsule, instead of bulky buttons and switches, we were greeted by smooth touchscreens, and also it would be interesting to note that these capsules can hold five people, compared to Apollo's three or the Orion capsule's four, and also our Dragons, as per our defense plans, would have hidden gun compartments with weapons in them for the EVA team.

"Alright, we're going through start up procedures." announced Jeb.

"Say, how do you fly this thing?" wondered Bob.

"Touch screens." said Jeb as he jabbed his finger on the touchscreen in front of him, "Alright, Captain, do the call outs."

"Hypergolic Engines?"

"Go."

"RCS Thrusters?"

"Go."

"Life Support?"

"Go, Captain." interjected Bill, "I'm seated where the engineer is supposed to be."

"Docking mechanism?"

"Go." said Jeb.

"Shut the hatch, get the doors opened, and let's decouple this bad boy." I said, somewhat excitedly.

There were these oval shaped windows running around the Dragon, we could see light seeping into the vehicle bay as the doors slowly opened, and then we heard Jerry's callout, "Dragon 02, you are go for undocking, godspeed!"

Jeb pushed a button on the touchscreen and we heard the docking mechanism go off with a 'clonk', and then slowly we found ourselves reversing away from The Falcon's vehicle bay until we were outside of the bay and we saw humanity's first true spaceship in all its glory from another space vehicle which at the time of launch was getting antiquated and was going to be phased out by the B.F.R.

"We're going into a retrograde burn in ten minutes on my mark….mark." announced Jeb.

"This is Houston - Flight, you're good for de-orbiting burn, however make sure you know your landing zone."

I had a photo of the geographical area of the Disc which the cameras of The Falcon has taken, shared the photo to Jeb through the visor, "Jeb, do you see that speck of land there?" the thing about these visors is that we could share screens, meaning if I opened a photo and drew a circle or a dot on the photo, I could share the photo to everyone else.

"What place is that?" asked Jeb.

"Agatea, should be a safe place, given the possible scenario that I think had happened." I said.

"What is it then, Sherlock?" asked Bill.

"Either two scenarios, something went wrong in the timeline, or something after the last book." I said, "But I cannot say as to which one."

"Captain, I'll share a visor window with you." said Jeb.

A window popped up on my visor, it was the N-body physics simulator program we were to use when the Trajectory Flight Controller can't help us, mainly when we are manually piloting a spacecraft. Based on our present telemetry and velocity, we would be hitting the atmosphere somewhere over the island of Krull in a near horizontal vector, given that the atmosphere of the Disc is similar to Earth, we would land somewhere in the island Agatean Empire, the Disc's version of the Chinese Empire, that is if all goes according to plan.

When we struck the atmosphere, we could feel it in our seats, we felt this sudden thump which was followed by a series of smaller thumps, it was a lot like driving on a smooth road when suddenly we struck a large road hump before suddenly finding ourselves to be driving over a dirt road.

For the next ten minutes or so, we were cut off from the outside world, just like in our world, any spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere of the Disc would suffer a communications and telemetry blackout.

Once we had cleared the upper atmosphere and was going at less than Mach 01 - or in Disc terms, just under the speed of light, their light - we regained communications as well as telemetry with The Falcon and Houston, in fact that's when we found out that something was slightly wrong.

"This is The Falcon - Jerry, Captain, the targeted landing zone that you floated around to our networked visors, you're going to miss the huge island completely, you're going to overshoot to a group of small islands to the coast."

"Oh that's alright." I said, I only aimed for Agatea because I know that something is wrong within the main continent, with the epicenter of this 'wrong' being either somewhere within Lancre or The Chalk, or both, and I guess I'm the only one in the team who gets it.

Based on our orbital photographs of the Disc with cameras of The Falcon, the map as imagined by artists on Earth was one hundred percent correct, in fact I'm using the artist-drawn maps reference in navigating on the Disc.

"We're going to start killing our horizontal velocity now, Captain." announced Jeb.

The four hypergolic engines of the Dragon ignited, it was like staging all over again, I felt being pushed hard into my chair, however that soon disappeared when our horizontal velocity was nearly completely canceled out and now we're going down vertically, now it just felt like we're free falling

I accessed my touchscreen console and switched to the cameras hidden underneath the heat shield, I had the covers over the lenses disengaged since we were now in the landing phase of our lander operations, I saw that we were landing among a group of islands, my best guess is that it was the not-so-explored BangBangduc, a country that was based on Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines however the author died before getting the chance to set a proper story there.

"We're conducting our propulsive landing." announced Jeb.

The engines fired continuously until we felt one final thud beneath our seats, "Alright, we've landed!" exclaimed Jeb.

I unbuckled my seat belt and stood up to the window, I saw that we have landed in the middle of a park somewhere on the island, the moment I saw the architecture of the buildings surrounding us, I was sure that we were at BangBangduc.

BangBangduc, or the little we know of that place, had plenty of references and parallelisms to South East Asia, given its location to Agatea - that unusual situation where Agatea is a super power while tiny BangBangduc was not - and the name itself ('Bang' could refer to Bangladesh or Bangabandhu, the founder of modern Bangladesh) as well as their food and self-defense technique, which by the way has references to the martial arts of Malaysia and the Philippines.

I removed my helmet, our sensors show that the atmosphere composition was exactly like that of Earth's so I'd gather that there is not much risk of breathing the air of the Disc.

I removed my helmet, chucked it into my seat, and opened the hatch while the other two were trying to get their head around the fact that we're on another planet, a weird flat but somewhat Earth-like planet, that is if you would not count A'tuin or the four elephants or the flat disc.

When that hatch opened, I saw a line of soldiers holding what looked like a crappy version of a musket, you know those old Chinese muskets that Europe fell in love with and improved until we've gotten the muskets used by the armies of Britain and of Revolutionary America and of the other European imperial powers.

The uniforms of these soldiers resembled that of the old Philippine and Indonesian military uniforms during their respective revolutionary era against their own masters, I've visited South East Asia plenty of times and I have read a lot about their histories.

They were shouting something in a mix of Tagalog, Indonesian, and Bahasa Melayu, fun fact though, those three languages shared a lot of common words, so much so that all I had to learn was the basic universal words and pronunciation and I was able to communicate with the locals of all three countries, albeit with very basic words.

I decided to say, "Wait, does anyone speak Morporkian?" that was the 'English' of the Discworld.

"Oh, you speak Morporkian?" one of the soldiers said, by the looks of it, he had the highest rank of his squad.

"Yes I do, in fact I am fleeing from the main continent." I decided to run a huge and long bluff, if they bite it, then we're free with these guys, "This here is my flying house, it's my house and it's also a vehicle to flee…uh…the main continent."

The same soldier then said, "Oh, so you're fleeing from the failure of the witches?"

"Uh…yeah, yeah." I said.

That soldier then turned to one of his subordinates and said in their weird language, 'Kunin mo si Presidente' which I guess translated to 'Go get the President'.

"Presidente?" I asked.

The soldier turned to me and said, "You landed within the ground of Malaki-iyan Palace, the official home of the President, unlike a majority of other nations, we have a Republic."

"Oh, so you're the Presidential security people then?" I said the obvious.

"The Presidential Security and Secretive Service Group." said the soldier with pride, "I think you know the problem as well as we do."

"The witches have failed, but what do you guys know about this failure?" I asked.

"We don't know much other than reports of chaos around Lancre and The Chalk, and all the areas of the Hub." said the soldier, "We've been receiving refugees for nearly the past two years and there's no end in sight, all because something bad happened to the witches, which pretty much meant a good chunk of the Ramtops, but trust me when I say that the States of Genus are having a far much worse time."

"States of Genua?" I asked, "Forgive me but I thought they were under Baroness Ella Saturday?"

"You really think that some people like stories and all?" the soldier shook his head, "Only the city of Genua remained the fairy tale spot, the other states surrounding Genua had formed a brotherhood of nations, especially with the failures of the witches." he added solemnly.

I saw the Malaki-iyan Palace, indeed it resembled strongly the palaces of the Presidents of the Philippines and of Indonesia, however it was leaning towards Malacanang Palace of the Philippines, but with some Indonesian-esque touches to it, I can tell because I've been there during my time in the Air Force when we were stationed in the Philippines, however that was way before Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, I think their President was an ex-Army general, that guy with large glasses, Fidel V. Ramos I do believe.

That's also when I saw the flag, oh boy, the flag of this country had the Sea-Lion from the Presidential Seal of the Philippines, however instead of just holding a sword, it also held a Fasces on the other paw and an anchor wrapped around its tail.

Soon enough their President showed up, you know how if you look at the historical photos, maybe between the 1900s to just before the war, of Malaysia, The Philippines, and Indonesia and you noticed that their leaders all wore suits? Maybe the additional garb like their traditional hats but they all wore suits, well this guy seemed to resemble those pictures.

The security bodyguards stepped aside and snapped a crisp salute to this guy, "Gentlemen, what had just landed here?" he asked, he had a pair of large round glasses and had a bald spot on top.

"Sir, we have another refugee, but this one had a flying house." said the soldier in Morporkian.

The President looked at the Dragon Two and nodded, "Interesting, are you a student of Leonard De Quirm by any chance?"

Well the fact that Leonard built the Disc's version of the Saturn V and was able to execute a space and lunar mission, then we're better than him, "I was a student but I have supplanted my master ever since."

The eyes of the President grew, "So why did you leave the main continent? I mean don't you have any inventions that could maybe help save the witches from It, Him..or is it now Her?"

"My name is Jack Dudley, sir." I said.

"I am Joshua Antares, the President of BangBangduc, these group of islands located off the coast of Agatea and close to Genua had become the last refuge for some." he then looked me up and down, "Are you a soldier? Is that some kind of armor?"

"Sir, I was part of a voluntary army to defend our town from whatever may come, but we're kind of desperate enough to use this cheap stuff." I said.

"Well then, Mister Dudley, I do hope that you can help us with anything that you know, I mean I know a trustworthy person when I see one, and whoever your superiors are they seemed to have made a soldier out of you." said Joshua.

"I just need some things confirmed in order to…make my theory hold true, or whatever I know based on what I've observed." I said.

"Well, the witches have fallen two years ago, as in out of the blue their most powerful upstart witch, Tiffany Aching, disappeared-…actually my ambassador told me that the situation at the Chalk was grim; their Baron had died, and interestingly enough his son, Roland, was to marry after his father's funeral, but something happened after the funeral and before the wedding."

The face off with the Cunning Man, but she won that battle didn't she? As in the whole thing with burning what was probably the worst of the worst of the bad guys of the Discworld, and wasn't she helped by her future self? But then, if she failed then that means this is another timeline where there is no future Tiffany Aching, or any future witches for that matter.

But, wait a minute, if Tiffany had lost to the Cunning Man then what happened to the fifth book, you know the book that I waited in line for just before I was hauled off by the C.I.A?

"Wait, the elves." I said.

"Ah that, my spies tell me that Queen Magrat was said to have had nightmares, visions, of the elves returning, and based on what we know about those elves, they are nasty and they once ruled the entire Ramtops." said Joshua.

"But you're far from that place, why are you so vested into the witches?" I asked

"National interest forces me to actively try to solve this problem, our harbors are filled with refugees, there are warmongerers in Congress demanding an invasion, or 'liberation' as what they kept on calling, of The Chalk from the control of the Cunning Man.

They were wrong, the Cunning Man was not human, it was not even a dictatorial figure any human can easily fight against, it's a poison that clouds the decision of the person, it is the rough music - or that moment when the first stone from the mob is thrown against a window or another human being - and it hunts down the most powerful witch and tries to possess her, all witches would burn if he would be ever successful in possessing one witch, the most powerful witch.

"But the Cunning Man is a matter of the witches, I mean do you think you have anything in store that could match this opponent?" I asked.

"We know that the Cunning Man causes mass hysteria and general breakdown of society, it had swept all across the main continent, including Ankh Morpork, we heard that the owner of the Boffo joke shop, who was a witch, was mauled by a crowd." said Joshua.

"So what are your plans?" I asked.

He looked around rather theatrically and sighed, "You know, I know that small villages decided on things through direct democracy, but we decide…well first one should contact their Representative, who in turn would forward it to the Plenary, who then would assign a Congressional Committee to look into the law, and three readings, with plenty of modifications and at least a vote in between, later the bill would be passed to the upper house who would repeat the whole process, and then their version of the bill and that of the lower, or upper, house would have to reconcile their differences through a Bicameral Committee and then they would submit the bill to me."

"So, your plans to fight the Cunning Man?" I prompted.

"There's a joint bill signed by the majority leaders of the House and the Senate to send in the Buwis Buhay Externis, the armed forces of BangBangduc." said Jack, who then smirked, "If you can't speak our language, there's a small joke to that, Buwis means Taxation, Buhay means Life, and Externis means external or outside."

A taxation of life for external means, what a great language they spoke to be honest, that's sort of true if a country has conscription, "So how about the internal forces then?" I asked.

"Oh the Watch? Or the semi-military version of the Watch, the Buwis Buhay Internis?" Joshua then shook his head, "We're digressing, I have to meet with the top brass of the Army and the Navy, look it would be great that you come with me, I mean you just came from the area and you must know of something at least."

I nodded, "Sir, I think there would be this strong possibility that the Elves would mount a huge invasion, I mean the witches are the guard at the edges of the world, and with them gone…"

The President slapped his forehead, "Gods! Why didn't we think of that? I mean we sort of had a suspicion but…is it true?"

I decided to bluff, "Yes, there were rumors that elves are going about by now."

Joshua suddenly looked serious, "Please come with us, oh and if you have any friends inside, please bring them with you."

"No, I think they should stand outside and keep guard of my house, the same way that you should get your guards to keep away from it." I said.

Joshua shrugged, "Fine enough then." he then motioned me to come with him, "Come on, follow me." he then told his guards, "Let the man through, he has vital information which we may need."

I was led into and through the Malaki-iyan Palace, its wooden walls were lined with portraits of past presidents as well as hints of their colonial past at the hands of - presumably - the old Ankh Morpork whose armies were under General Tacticus of all people.

We then reached this meeting room with a long table, think of the most generic Cabinet meeting wooden tables of all countries of Earth, which was surrounded by men in uniform, some wore green, some wore navy blue, some wore police blue.

"Mister President, who is this gentleman here?" asked another man in a suit.

"Oh, Vice President Joe Linden, this man here has just come from the main continent and he has vital information, very vital intelligence with regards to the situation there." said Joshua.

"Oh great, finally, with the clacks systems interrupted, we cannot get information from anyone else other than refugees who had been months away from the actual area of chaos." said a general, in fact he had the most chevrons on his shoulders and a lot of medals on his chest, "What is it that you know?"

I cleared my throat, "Your president told me of your plan to invade Lancre and the Chalk and impose order, well…the Elves are about to invade through the gates located at the Dancers in Lancre and at the Chalk." I saw the reactions of these military men, most of them were in shock.

"But without any semblance of a working government in The Chalk and in Lancre and the other Ramtops kingdoms and governments, who is to defend the area from the Elves?" asked another military man.

"Well, there is a government but they're all poisoned by the Cunning Man, and so they spent more time in killing off or chasing away their only line of defense against the elves; the witches!" I sort of exclaimed at the end because of how stupid that sounded, but it's what was happening…I guess.

"And this cloud of chaos spans from Ankh Morpork all the way to the Ramtops and nearly the States of Genua, right?" asked another general.

"Yes sir, that is the situation for a good chunk of civilization." I said.

The Generals all looked at one another before the highest ranking one of them turned to the President and said, "Sir, this committee, through this man who has officially confirmed what our spies have saw, hereby unanimously agree to declare Martial Law over the affected areas, now we have to ring up our allies at Genua."

"Wait, you don't trust your own spies?" I wondered.

"We do, but we wanted a third opinion from someone who's neutral, like you…wait, how were you not affected by the Cunning Man?" asked the Vice President.

"Well, sir, all you need is some military discipline and an authoritarian fist in your head." I answered.

"Fair enough!" boomed the head General, "We have ten Battalion Combat Teams waiting at their barracks, ready for deployment, but of course we'll need Genua to help us."

"You know, sir, you have a nice set of armor." one of the general commented.

"Thank you, sir." I said.

The President patted me on the back, "He served in his own town's defense against this enemy, but I presume that your town fell, right?"

I nodded, "Why else would I need to flee?"

"So, let's have a recap of the events, gentlemen." announced the Vice President, "Nearly two years ago, the witches fell to their enemy, we do not know how but it happened -"

"Tiffany Aching failed, somehow, she was possessed by this thing." I butted in.

"You-…you mean she's alive?!" exclaimed the head general.

"She's nothing more than a puppet I tell you." I said, "As you were saying, Mister Vice President?"

"Right, and then for the next few months after that, the authorities within the affected areas found dead bodies of witches and have noted mobs and witch hunts happening, and then Granny Weatherwax died two months ago of natural causes, and our spies have said that Nanny Ogg had died with an arrow through her head shortly after the burial of Granny Weatherwax. We can then surmise, gentlemen, that Tiffany Aching was to lead the witches, but then the most powerful witch had fallen, and now the elves are sounding the drums of war."

After that long winded summary, I said "What about Queen Magrat precisely? I mean I do not know much about Lancre I'm afraid, but I do know that it would be our best hope in getting something done, I mean at least stabilizing the situation first."

"Lancre is under siege, given that Nanny Ogg has been killed by a witch hunter, as for Queen Magrat we know nothing of her current status but we presume her as dead anyhow." said the Vice President, "This leaves us with a big area to police, populations and governments under the control of the Cunning Man which we have to take back."

"Ankh Morpork is safe at least." I added.

"That's good, but how about the affected areas?" asked a general.

"We have plans, under Martial Law, to shoot anyone who plans to cause any chaos." said the head general.

"Okay, but can you really police an area that big?" I asked.

"With the help of the Genuan Army, we will." said Joshua, "And there will be a top secret conference of leaders to be held at Ankh Morpork in three weeks time, we will get that support."

I shrugged, "That will be your decision, however I believe that my work here is done."

"Thanks for your help, Mister?"

"Jack Dudley, sir, Mister Vice President." I answered.

"Well, Mister Dudley, we'd like to hear more from you however we have some policies to get signed." said Joshua, "You may return to your flying house now."

"Thank you, Mister President." I nodded a curtsy before leaving.

No one stopped me as I left the palace and went back to Dragon Two, none of the soldiers and guardsmen patrolling the vicinity knew of their fates, of what was to come.

When I reached the vehicle, I found Bob and Jeb standing there waiting for me to emerge through the doors of the palace, "Captain, we sort of heard the conversation through your wrist touchscreen communication module, what happened to the heroes you've been going on and on during our way here?" asked Bob.

"Story's changed, in fact it had been derailed quite horribly and we're in the middle of it." I said, "Maybe the same could be said for the Buran lander."

"But you sort of described the Cunning Man as basically the worst thing ever in this planet…" Jeb said weakly.

"Yes, and he's winning! And so as the other worst thing of the Discworld, the elves." I said, not only that but with this floating time bomb so close to Earth, or at least within the same solar system, I sort of said to them that the Cunning Man might end up ruining our own world, but there was no evidence to support that, or rather there might be eventually be evidence, our world would be that supporting evidence.

"So what do we do?" asked Jeb.

"I want to see the situation for myself, we're in a very tight spot to be honest." I said.

"What if we just leave this planet and maybe focus our resources to exploring Titan before going back to Earth?" suggested Bob.

"But what if this turtle decided to go into the inner solar system like it did during 2018?" I asked, "Remember what I told you about how the Great A'tuin behaves, it would swim to the inner solar system for reasons unknown, but if it does it again with the Cunning Man alive, and the elves too, no one knows when or where the elves would suddenly try to invade Earth."

I know the elves would fail, regardless of whatever country they open their first portal in, they will be destroyed, it's only a matter of time, but what if the Cunning Man was in allegiance with them and simply uses the elven invasion as a decoy, whereas the REAL invasion would be him spreading hate and anger in our planet; think of how the Nazis came to power in Germany, now upscale it to the whole world, there might be a mega-genocide against an entire group of people, maybe by religion..

Bob nodded thoughtfully, "Then we'll have to stick around and resolve this situation, we have the technology to help these people, but what will we tell our folks back home?"

"I think by now they know, our open mic comm policy, remember? Even our wrist computers have communication modules, I mean we would switch it on during landing EVAs, like this one but, we kept it off in The Falcon to save battery, but you get my point." I said.

"Okay, but how about for us now, what do we need to do?" asked Jeb.

"We would ideally have to wait for the alliance to meet up in two weeks, now I know we could just fly there and maybe solve the problem ourselves but that would be a bit risky, I mean we're just part of this story now, we can't just shape it or re-write it like gods." I said.

"Maybe we should solve the problem, Captain?" asked Bob.

"I don't know how to solve this problem, I mean if the Cunning Man has taken over…I have no idea how to defeat that sucker." I said, "But we will find a way or they will, but either way we are just observers and small time helpers for now."

"So what do we do for the afternoon?" asked Jeb, he wasn't too far off with the local time, it was sunset more or less.

"Go roam around?" suggested Bob.

"You two go with that, I'll keep an eye on the Dragon." I said.

"Okay." said Jeb in agreement.

As I saw them walking away to the nearby street, I went back in to Dragon Two, got my helmet on and said, "This is Dragon Two, Mission Commander Dudley speaking, Houston…I know that you know of the grim situation here, please get me into contact with the President as soon as you can."