Elinor
Elinor downloaded information from the net of Grimmbridge on Grimsly. She hadn’t gone through half of what she had downloaded on Bastion. None of what she found was useful so far. Her shifts on the command deck were something she often looked forward to.
The ‘Skreap’ stopped in the system long enough for the ship to take on new supplies and allow the quartermasters to trade off other cargo. It had also been joined by several ships from Task Force Alpha.
The Crown Prince spent several trips off ships. On the world of Grimmbridge itself with the System-lord Firestorm. He had even ventured to the small world of Ely, where the almost two thousand year old temple had been destroyed by Furse raiders and abandoned for two hundred years before being rebuilt by the High Bishop of Daxholm.
Ely was considered one of the richest Fabian Temples in the Commonwealth of Drala, and the minor world it was built on was far richer than the much larger world of Grimmbridge. Pilgrims came from all over the Commonwealth and even from Kaledon and Walhaz space.
The Fabian Monks of Ely lived a lavish life style, and Elinor knew that it was no wonder they had been targeted by the Furse who sought targets of quick and easy wealth, and the Grimmbridge System had offered them all that in an easy target.
Elinor didn’t know the business that the Crown Prince had with the Monks of Ely or the Bishop. She had taken great pains to learn that Bishop and those close to him who had been arrested were still in custody on the ‘Skreap’. She had thought the Bishop would be transfered at Bastion but it seemed the Crown Prince wanted to keep the hostage on hand.
The Crown Prince was a devout member of the Fabian Faith, a fact that Elinor respected. If rumors were true it was the Fabian Order of Drala which had caused the ‘Ansgar’ Incident that almost ended the Crown Prince, and her father’s life. That ancient order that had spread the Fabian Faith throughout the Dragon’s Head Nebula.
Elinor didn’t know how she felt about the Fabian Faith in truth. She believed in it’s values. She followed their ways and went to Temple when required, but it was hard to believe in a long gone alien race that was the sworn enemy of the Skoll, and been chased from the Galaxy of Mann in fear of defeat. The god like angels known as the Arcals had settled human slaves from other galaxies and settled them on the world of Fabia, where they were freed and on the disappearance of the Arcals, granted the whole galaxy as their own, even if most was still unexplored more than ten thousands of years after the Arcals were said to have left the galaxy.
Stories of two ancient alien races at war with one another made for good legends, but Elinor didn’t believe any of it. She didn’t believe the Arcals were real gods, any more than she believed in the wolf like Skoll which had enslaved them from their homeworld in some far off galaxy.
No Mannkind had spread throughout the stars, and the Fabians rose and created their own creation myth like most worlds, and like the major powers outside Fabian Space. The Qin, Baatar, Bolgars, Kermot, Bulan and others that made up the wider explored space that made up the Settled Worlds of Mann. Fabia wasn’t even the oldest of them Rumar Space claimed the oldest settled worlds.
The worlds of Rumar Space, along with Kermot, Pamba, and Katos, along with many others were said to be almost twenty five thousand years old. Even the old Tutha worlds were nearly that old while the Fabia was merely ten thousands years old.
Elinor knew that like happened throughout the history of the Settled Worlds, some people used their religion to met their own needs. To conquer and do evil in the name of good. There weren’t angel like gods looking down on them from some other plane of existence.
Still, Elinor was impressed by the Crown Prince for his faith. It seemed to give him strength.
