The Wendalian Navy had its own ranks. They were based on the U.S navy and had their own pay grades. They were Ensign, Lieutenant Junior Grade, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain, Rear Admiral(lower half), Rear Admiral(upper half), Vice Admiral, Admiral, and Fleet Admiral. At level 20, I was promoted to Lieutenant. At level 30, you become a Lieutenant Commander. At 50, Captain and you became a Rear Admiral at level 65. At some point, Buke Bastion had convinced his brother Duke Felix to allow him to use two corvettes. He was assigning exploratory forces for establishing a zone for colonization. It was a Duke Bastion was going to put Suzie and me as the commanding officers. I was taking my crew to the new continent. I was also taking Martin with me because I was his only guardian. Caspian's parents would not be able to feed him. Because of the size of the ships, there was an equipped Battle mecha sqaudron and a shiny Elite mecha on each ship. We were going to leave in a couple of days.
My two days of preparations were spent on the ship getting everything ready. I was making sure we had enough fuel and food to get there. Finn visited me and I talked to him for a few hours. He did not bring up his confession and I did not touch on it either. He left and I went to bed. I wanted to be bright eyed and busy tailed for the trip to the new world. When I woke up, I helped prepare Martin for the trip. He was doing pretty well after he was fed. We boarded the ship and saluted the crew. They saluted back. I went to the Captain's quarters before reaching the bridge. We set off to sail the river right after that. The trip took a full week before we saw the first glimpses of land. Before the coast was what looked like a blockade made of wooden ships. We slowly approached and waited at the edge of the blockade. I could see several ships waving flags in order to signal us. I asked the officers if they had an idea what it could mean. They had no clue. Eventually, one of the ships left the formation and approached. "Arm the guns but do not fire until I give the signal." I ordered.
I walked to the deck with my son and waited for them to board. There was a party of five. They all had white hair, pale skin and red eyes. The leader looked at me and said "You are the captain of this... vessel I presume?" If it was supposed to be a slight, I ignored it. "Sir Davie Davids, Lieutenant of the Wendalian Royal Navy." I cooed to Martin as I looked at him. He looked perturbed. "What is your business here? I have not heard of such a navy, nor have I seen such a ship." he demanded. I said "We are one of two exploratory missions. We come from very far away and can exchange maps if you wish." The man looked skeptical for a moment and turned to his men. It was a simple order to bring a map and I reciprocated it. 10 minutes later, we exchanged the maps. It seemed this continent had a two peninsula, five major islands, and a large archipelago. The archipelago was a big cluster of ten islands. Each island was its own city state. We were apparently at the furthest one out from the archipelago edge of the continent.
Something did not sit right with me. "Excuse me, but why is there a blockade here? We are running low on supplies and we were hoping to dock and rest before continuing our mission." The leader looked up from our map and gave us a glare. "We Istofon are executing the wrath of our god. Talmin, Lord of the Sun. The heretics of this island, the Istolin, follow the moon goddess Yakiva in vain. We will take these filthy sinners and then move on to the dirty Sebin that worship the stars." he said. The other men certainly looked determined. I had to push back on that. "I'm sorry, but we must insist that we pass. My son needs food and so do my men, quite frankly. You understand as a captain as well, right?" The Istofon man looked at us and asked how man men we had. I told them. He said "You can dock and enjoy their hospitality if they give it to you, but when the battle begins, you will be on their side." I pretended to be worried. "That sounds... concerning. We will have to take the chance. Thanks for the warning. May I have your name?" I said. "Captain Jules" he said briskly before leaving for his ship. I wondered what the Istolin would look like as we were let through.
