The Adventures of Tess Whitcroft

I guess I ended up being the "son" that daddy never had. He met mother when he first arrived at The Inverness Poly-technical University and they married soon after.

Before I was even one year old Aether was discovered and father was assigned to the Aether Research Team (ART). They made the first major advances in the use of aether as a source of almost limitless energy but this kept father away from home, at the lab, often for days at a time. He had little time for either mother or myself and when, just after my ninth birthday, mother ran off with that detestable banjo player from Kentucky in America, the shock made him realize his familial responsibilities.

For the next few years father took me everywhere with him, even on the famous arctic rescue expedition in the first large, but still quite experimental, aether flyer.

Being around all that science certainly had an effect on me. During my formative years, when other young ladies were learning sewing, etiquette, and mastering the harpsichord, I quickly mastered the intricacies of aether and even dabbled in steam and electricity. With small but deft hands I learned the ins and outs of clockworks.

I'll never forget that eventful April day when father arrived home from the ART lab to be greeted by my tiny working model of his nearby aether flyer. His surprise and joy turned to shock as the toy landed in his hands and he realized that this model was too heavy to be powered by any aether drive that would fit in so small an object.

Leading him into the kitchen, to the small meal I had prepared, I had just started to explain the principle of the aether flux capacitor when we heard an explosion from the harbour. It was soon followed by more explosions and by the crackling of electric discharge and the bitter smell of ozone.

It was that fateful day that Baron Nattstal's Neo-vikings struck and the First North Sea War was thrust upon a world unready for a war, against a foe seemingly without a homeland, without a city or capitol. A foe that could strike at will, undetected, on any coastline in the world.

To be continued