I went to meet with Emil and Tiber instead of helping Ellie with archery the following morning Lord Reginar of the Realm was with me as my advisor. We met with Lord Eugen and Lord Doru. They would be taking over the Baemardis and Crisan Brugraviates.

I let Lord Reginar ask most of the questions and wished he'd been here yesterday when we'd made these decisions. Lord Nelu wouldn't arrive until lunchtime at the earliest, so we'd all meet again after lunch. The feast was already scheduled for this evening, ostensibly for the arrival of the Realm, but they wanted to squeeze this in.

Lord Reginar didn't seem unhappy with the choices, which was a plus. He pulled me off to the side at the end of the meeting.

"Lord Danus says there seems to be some radio chatter to the north...digital. It's directional signals coupled with a one-way live video."

"A drone?"

"It appears to be. One station airborne, the other fairly stationary on the ground."

"So what do we do?"

"Danus went up the dome this morning with a contingent. A spear and soldier's armor should disguise his direction-finding equipment. When he gets a proper placement of the base unit, what do you want to do?"

I could feel my chest begin to tighten.

"Capture whoever they are...alive, if possible. Maybe the Aussies from the other day aren't finished with us after all. Where has the drone been going?"

"Hang on," and he started muttering for a moment. After about a minute, he nodded slightly to himself. "The drone's patrolled over the keep, town, and dome and along all of the roads."

I nodded, puzzled about how he was doing this.

He grinned and lifted his hair from where it hung over his ears. I saw a thin wire running from his ear canal down to his collar.

"Throat mike," he said. "Retransmission from a tight-beam antenna system on top of the keep here."

So we did have electronics here.

"Oh, and it appears to be making a beeline back to base. Either it needs a recharge, or the base is moving. Base is on the low dome north of town."

I nodded. I knew where it was, a crumbly granite dome overgrown with brush and cacti. I'd thought about climbing it but never got around to it. It appeared that was about to change.

"Reginar, we need to move...try to get there while it's on the ground."

"Wait a minute, space cowboy," he said. "We need to set up a plan."

"Yeah, but quickly...before they move or leave."

"They're not leaving any time soon. Danus hasn't detected any Transcomp signals. There's not even any electrical signal where they're at that indicates they have a Transcomp set up. That's not a simple undertaking, so wherever they have it, it's not nearby."

"Transcomp?"

"You really are clueless, aren't you?"

I sighed.

"Lauretti said you were, that they'd kept all this hidden from you and your sister. And your friend Nathan, too. All because you're in a technological world unaware of us, and we'd like to keep it that way. John seems to forget just how quickly things go out of control when you let go of the reins. You've already found that out the hard way."

"So what do we do?" I didn't like being schooled like this, but he seemed willing to share.

"Let's gather a few others first. They're at the archery range, aren't they?"

"Ellie's good at hunting, and Nathan is decent in the woods, from what I remember."

"Bring that Maid Sinense, then. She needs to understand what life is like here."

I groaned to myself. I wanted to stealth our way to the location. She didn't seem like she had the skills for this.

"If she's in the rear," I said. "I don't want her alerting them."

"So, what's your plan?"

"I want to go see what's going on, preferably without being seen. If it's a small group, we capture them...or at least one. If it's too big, then we back out and regroup."

"You up to that?"

I shrugged. "I've done a good bit of paintball over the years, and we rarely lost."

"Why not just send a few contingents?"

"Why are you here?" Didn't he understand? Didn't Lauretti tell them what went on? "They were tossing grenades all over the place. The men wouldn't have a chance if that happened. They don't even have any fucking archery training because of some coup attempt years ago where the old regent got wounded by one. I thought they weren't going to attack because we stopped their first attack, but maybe I was wrong. Do we have a drone?"

"We do, but if they have the tech anything like we do, we don't want to give our tech away. Old fashioned is the way for this, so long as that drone stays down."

"Fine," I said. "Let's do this."

"I need to grab a few things from my room."

"Me, too." Sword belt, bow and arrows, and a few gas pills like Lauretti had used on Sorina and Oana. The truth-drug part might be handy if we could capture some of them.

I beat Reginar back down. Ellie and her gang came into the great hall about the same time he arrived.

I gave them a quick briefing, then saw Oana fingering her knife.

"Oana, gather up the little ones and take them upstairs. You and Mara take care of them."

She gave me a dirty look, but nodded, grabbed Teo and Eliza by the hand, and led them toward the staircase, followed by Mara.

Gabriel stepped up to me. "I...I'm your squire, so I'm supposed to be with you, Milord." He sounded like that was the last thing he wanted to do, but as he squared himself, I nodded. Stefan stepped next to him, and I nodded before he could say anything.

"Doina, if you could stay back and check on Zoe?" Ellie asked.

Doina turned and followed Mara and the little ones.

I looked at the crew. Nathan, Ellie, Sorina, Gabriel, Stefan, Sinensi, Lord Reginar, and myself. It felt like too many, but it could be not enough.

This felt stupid.

I didn't want Sinensi here. She didn't have a clue. She looked even more uncomfortable about this than Gabriel. Someone had at least made her wear her sword belt, though she claimed not to know how to use her blades. I didn't want Sorina along, but that was a non-starter, and she and the boys had knives on their belts. At least everyone had bows.

"Looks like I'm not late to the party," echoed in the great hall. Lady Cornelia had just passed Doina coming our way, her sword belted on and a bow in her hand. One more too many, or one less not enough?

I signaled for us to leave. Out the main gate, then toward the rough area between the town and the dome. It should give us enough cover in case the drone took off again, though reports from Danus said all was quiet on that front.

Ellie was right behind me, trailed by Reginar and Nathan. Lady Cornelia took the rear and kept Sinense with her. Still, I could hear the occasional grunt and mutter from her as she slipped her way along. This was a long way from the manmade landscapes inside her domed cities.

That whole setup was weird. Not the domes...I could understand that. Their world was recovering from an asteroid strike that caused a nuclear winter wasteland that lasted because of the continued volcanic eruptions across the planet. They first lived underground, then came out and built domes on the surface. The first ones were small, then larger, though even then, the largest dome was maybe a tenth of a mile across and perhaps a hundred feet high. These sounded more like way oversized greenhouses inside an otherwise frigid world.

She said that all that stuff was before her time...she only remembered the domes. The hierarchy was interesting. Her dad was a baron, and he had knights, but this was more in an industrial rather than feudal way. He was responsible for the integrity and maintenance of all of the fifteen domes in his county, and his knights each had a specific dome they were responsible for. No weapons or martial training. They were engineers and technicians for this particular set of trades, so he was the facilities engineer over this area or something like that.

At least there was a trail here. Rain from the dome made the area lusher, giving more cover but lots more thorny plants and trees, too. And it wasn't empty. We passed occasional kids and adults roaming, who would back off the trail and watch us go by. I wasn't sure if they knew who we were, but their guesses were probably correct.

Then we were at the base of the small dome, and at least whatever electronic radiation was there hadn't moved. I surveyed a way up but didn't like it. Too much broken granite to be quiet.

Ellie tapped my shoulder and pointed farther right. Different trail, longer to the top, but less slope and quieter. I pulled my armored balaclava over my head, nodded, and started up.

We froze a couple of times when I dislodged some small rocks, but there was no response. Was nobody here, or were they completely stupid? I would've had a couple of guards out, but I was close to the top, and there was nothing.

I saw movement when I got to the top. A man, maybe, sitting. He looked younger than me and sick but had a sword pointed at me.

"You put that down," I said, "or you'll be missing an eye."

He just stared at me.

"If he misses, I won't," Ellie said from behind me, and he dropped his weapon.

"Open your vest slowly," I directed, and he did—nothing there but loops on the inside lining.

"You...you're dead," he finally said.

"Not even close, mate," I replied. "You're the drone operator."

Reginar moved off to my right as he nodded.

"Roll onto your stomach and put your hands on your head."

He did it, and his right hand was dark and swollen.

I palmed one of the blue beads and crushed it under his nose, using my body to hide my actions from everyone except Reginar. I stepped back. Now to see how well this worked.

"Sit back up and take off your shirt and undershirt."

He did that and was soon bare-chested, giving me a somewhat vacant stare that I recognized from Sorina and Oana when we returned from that other world.

He looked even younger, but he was the one who detonated all the grenades, then threw his own as he rode through town. I wanted to beat his brains in with a rock.

"Why are you here?"

"We were supposed to kill the king and all the other nobility we could, then wait for troops to be sent to take over. But we didn't even kill you, mate. I thought we had."

"Not even close." I didn't know if he had anyone listening in and didn't want them to know just how close they had come. It was creepy how he said all this, in not quite a monotone, but with no emotion to speak of...not even the feeling you'd get about the weather.

"But why are you still here?" That was the crux at this point. If they weren't coming, why didn't he leave?

"They left me, mate. Said they weren't sending a force so that they couldn't get me back. I was expendable. They said I should kill myself." There was some emotion there but muted. I'm sure he would've been on a rant if he weren't drugged.

"Rattly sort of snake bit me," he continued, "and now I'm all swollen up." He was, too, well past his wrist. "I stonkered myself. Last grenade I dropped...slipped outa my fingers. Got the horse, but he got me out of town before he dropped. Popped my knee. Swollen, too. Can't hardly walk. I got up here on adrenalin, but now...."

"Speaking of which," Lady Cornelia said. "We want everything here for analysis. That includes his clothes."

"You heard the lady," I said. "Strip down, but keep talking."

"Like Leon," he answered as he untied his pants. "Keep talking, and I keep living. I should've pushed the button when things went south at the start. Then they would've come, and I'd be back home instead of freeing my willy like you did with him."

"Why you and your buddies?"

"Pulled us out of lockup, gave us some sleep training so we could speak the language and use the blades. If we did this well, they'd pardon us, fix us with passports and one-way tickets to wherever we wanted. I was for Denver. About as different from Perth as possible. Or maybe Edinburgh. It's been well rebuilt now."

"Rebuilt?"

"You're from Texas? Part of the Greater US, right?"

"No, or not called like that."

"Australia's not part of the Greater, mate?"

"No."

"Another different world, then."

"When did that happen?" Reginald asked.

"V-1s smashed London," he continued complacently, "followed Churchill to Edinburgh and nailed him there. US took full control, then dropped the bombs on Japan and Berlin. Stalin got snooty a couple of years later, and Moscow was cratered and radioactive. Same with Peking, then the world became peaceful...kinda. The sun never sets on the Greater US. America got dropped because it was too limiting." A slight smile creased his face. Even in his drugged state, he seemed to enjoy our disbelief.

"Makes sense," Cornelia said. "World War Two would definitely have been a watershed event for the timelines. It probably created a few splits, but this is the first one we've heard of."

I stared at her, and she smiled. "We will talk about that later."

"So you're part of this Greater US government?" Reginald continued.

"Oh no. They weren't government people at all, mate. Some sort of corporate Joes."

Reginar continued his questioning while I moved away. They weren't from our world, anyway. I still wasn't sure exactly what all that meant, but I was relieved.

I scanned off toward the north, then to the town, though it was well hidden from here. I saw where the vultures were coming up and down, probably from his horse. The other three had still been outside the keep. I just wasn't sure what to do about him.

"Why are you keeping him naked?" came next to my ear. I'd heard her come up but thought it was Ellie or Sorina. Instead, it was Sinense.

"Cornelia wanted all his stuff," I replied, still watching the vultures.

"You could give him a scarf or something. We shouldn't have to look at that."

"You seem to be the only one who cares," I said and looked at her.

"He should care. What did you do to him?"

"A little trick I learned from Lauretti," I replied. Yeah, learned like thirty-six hours ago, if that. "He'll come out of it when I'm ready for him to."

"And what are you going to do with him?"

"He pushed the button that killed over a dozen people in the keep two days ago. He killed my squire and my valet. He almost killed me. Then he rode through town tossing grenades and killed at least that many more. He's going to die. I'm just not sure how."

Her mouth dropped open as she stared at me.

"If they knew that I was lying unconscious and Ellie was the only other Realm person here, they probably would have sent their army here to invade for whatever reason. Uncle John did that here a couple of centuries ago with Lauretti riding at his side, so I guess it's a thing. Only our presence kept that from happening."

"And you're going to kill him."

"I'm sure there's some process for this, or maybe he'll do something stupid, and I'll have to do it myself."

"Can't you put him in jail or a work crew or something?"

"Maybe, but why?" I wasn't even sure we had a jail or dungeon. However, her questions were giving me some ideas. Maybe one of them would work.

"That seems so violent."

"You don't have violence where you're at?"

"There was an uprising in one of the other counties when Lady Lauretti took me here, so yes, we do, but we're not starting it."

I'm sure that was the official line there, I thought. She'd been so protected and naïve. She'd have no reason not to believe it, either.

Reginar was through with him after a few minutes, and I had him lead us off the dome to the road. I kept Sinense with me, helping her down while he fell several times, trying to walk on his bad leg. He wasn't oblivious to the pain or to all the extra scrapes, thorns, and cactus spines he acquired, but he still seemed to follow my orders without hesitation.

Sinense acquired her own share of spines and scrapes and obviously wasn't wearing her armor, but I bit my tongue about that. The shelf of a Barbie-doll buxomness was more annoying. So obviously fake, and she didn't seem to understand that, just like her two-inch nails. I was pleased to see she'd broken a couple of them on this little foray. Maybe that would mean she'd file them all down to a reasonable length.

She seemed fascinated by our prisoner's nakedness. She'd look away whenever he turned toward us but made missteps because she was watching him instead of her feet. I was thrilled when we reached the bottom and the road where things were level again.

I stopped everyone at the edge of town, tied a slip knot onto a length of rope, and looped it around his neck. Pink bead under his nose, and he quickly became aware of everything and froze. We were beginning to attract the attention of a few townspeople.

"Walk," I said and prodded him forward.

He hobbled into town with the rest of us following behind until I came even with a couple of the townswomen.

"Stop," I commanded, then turned to the gawking women. "What would you do if I gave you the man who caused all the death and destruction here?"

I don't think they recognized me, but they did know I was at least nobility, if not Realm, and gave deep curtsies. Another woman caught one of them who would've fallen over from a bad leg. They then looked at my prisoner without speaking.

"I'm Lord Protector Kevin of the Realm. This is that person, and I give him to the women of Baemardis to do with as they wish." I waited until everyone around quit genuflecting, urging them to stand back up, then handed the rope to the more able woman.

"Mi-milord?" Her voice quavered as she spoke. "What should we do with him afterward?"

"There should be nothing left," I replied.