The Banquet

The Banquet

--- The fact that we bought two boats was talked about all over at the banquet an hour later, New Sweden Maritime insisted on paying for the festivities.

The two men of the Greifswald Werft found me and Sid Winslow simply took a seat across me at the table and said with a smile on his face. “She is a beauty and well maintained. There is nothing wrong with her. I suggest you let us update the reactor though. It’s nearly at the end of its lifetime and if you use the flight modus it will take much energy.”

“What flight modus?”

He laughed. “You are joking of course. You must know your Poseidon is fully flight capable and if you want to replace the missing Isah Pods. It is fully space-worthy with very old but still good shield generators.”

His partner Piotr shook his head.”I wouldn’t recommend that, the FTE’s and the torpedoes are not legal. Down here no one cares but that is still serious military hardware, being 500 years old or not, you would need a license.”

“It can fly?” I spurted out.

“Of course, and why not? You can add Arti-Gravs as option to any boat and sub. Your old sub however was meant to fly from the start. The Markan Wars are over for 550 years now but still famous in terms of war ship building.”

“I never heard of these wars.”

“It was a local thing between two Ocean rich twin planets. Most of the conflict was fought in and on the planets oceans, it reached the apex as they nuked the shit out of Markan One and Union forces ended it by arresting the King of Markan II on Genocide charges. Most wars are now fought in space or on planet surfaces with equipment that can operate in any environment. But dedicated naval units, real ships meant to operate in water are rare nowadays. Your Poseidon was meant to fly between those planets as well”