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==Chapter 8 - A Toreel Wizard in Prince Davion's Court==
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===Sight Seeing on very different world===
Euschelus, Taurian ConcordatOctober 14th, 3025~Approximately five days later~
"It's not much of a settlement," Trisha, the crew member that had appointed herself their "guide" said. "Just a mining town of about twenty thousand people."
Chim didn't bother mentioning that that was more than the largest city in the Sapphire Islands back home. In fact, it would probably be in the running for the largest city anywhere on Toreel. 
They had a pretty good view of the town and the surrounding area from where they were, standing in line waiting for their turn to be "processed" by the clerk at the small building by the gate. The not quite but sort of stone pad their ship had landed on sat on a rise looking over a very large valley, with most of the town stretched out below them, built into the descending slope. The valley beyond the town seemed split down the middle, half of it scarred with giant open pits gouged out of the ground. The other half seemed to be covered with some sort of vast forest of strange looking metal trees.
"What are those?" L'heo asked, indicating in that direction.
"Moisture farm," Trisha replied. "Those condensers draw in moisture from the air to supplement the water supply."
That was surprising. The farm was huge, easily much larger than the city itself. Chim couldn't imagine the amount of metal and work that had gone into its construction. All that for water?
"They don't have better sources?" L'heo asked. "The planet has an ocean, and they have to have groundwater, even out here."
Trisha shrugged. "I don't know, maybe problems shipping water out this far, maybe they have problems purifying it."
Chim was already doing the math in her head. Three decanters of endless water would be enough. Bury them up to their spouts in one of those pits and just let them run at full blast. That would be enough to meet the whole city's water needs, as long as they set up something to collect it. 
They had six decanters with them (they were just so handy to have). They could solve that problem right now. Maybe keep solving it elsewhere, as long as they could find the right reagents and other materials...
She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up, only to see L'heo quietly shaking his head. He was right, of course, they couldn't just go around fixing every little thing, and they specifically weren't supposed to be drawing attention to themselves. Still, she stuck her tongue out at him.
As part of not drawing attention to themselves, they'd taken a few precautions. Both L'heo and Celia wore borrowed clothing, something that wouldn't stand out as obviously unusual. The crew didn't have anything properly sized for Chim, so she had to improvise with magic, borrowing the hat of disguise from L'heo's bag. Their outfits wouldn't cover Celia and Chim's ears, but those were something they could hopefully pass off as just natural where they were from.
If they ever got the chance. "Does it normally take this long?" Chim asked.
"Here, with us?" Trisha asked. "Totally. Most ports like this will just wave you through without much hassle, but the local officials have a permanent burr in their asses whenever a Fedsuns flagged ship comes through. They'll let us through eventually, but they're gonna go through the whole book with each of us first, just to annoy us."
"That seems pointlessly counterproductive." L'heo said. 
"Oh, there's a point." Trisha replied. "They're saying go away, we don't want any. As long as we're paying and they can't find a legit reason to, they won't kick us out, but we need to be on our best behavior while we're stretching our legs." She shrugged. "You get worse on other Taurian worlds. Nobody's shot at us, and the regular citizens are a lot friendlier than anybody in uniform as long as we don't do anything stupid."
"And if we do?" L'heo asked, apparently out of pure curiosity.
Trisha sighed. "I'm told they teach shooting and bomb making in primary school around here. Let's not find out."
Chim had read everything she could find on the way here, if only to stave off boredom. It had been sparse, but she'd gotten some small understanding about the history of these Taurians. From what little she'd read, their history consisted of mostly being ignored until they suddenly, violently weren't, with the texts mostly painting them as ungrateful savages who refused to accept the benefits of foreign rule by their betters. Chim had seen and personally overthrown enough tyrannical monarchies to read the subtext there.
Still, the particular tyranny they'd endured would have been centuries ago. Most dragons didn't hold grudges that long, much less humans whose grandparents wouldn't have been alive when they happened. 
Most everybody else in the line looked even more uncomfortable than Chim felt. Not particularly surprising. The sun was high in the sky, its light reflecting off the... ferrocrete? To add to the heat. And the air was dry. The kind of dry that sucked the moisture out of you (which Chim supposed was literally true in this case). Even the land around them looked arid and dead, like it hadn't seen water in hundreds of years. 
For a moment that thought distracted her, making her wonder if that massive moisture farm in the distance was actually making their environment worse, but she shook it aside to focus on the present. 
This line wasn't all that big. What was taking so long!
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===Trouble on the Horizon===
"Five minutes until we're over the horizon," the helmsman reported as the pirate dropship screamed through the atmosphere.
"Very well." The captain said. "Low pass over the town, rattle their windows on the way up, see how many houses we can cook with the exhaust. Not too fast though. Give the boys on the guns plenty of time to spread around the love before we pick a landing spot."
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"Name and nationality, please." the disinterested official in the box said. It had seemed to take forever, but it was finally their turn to go through the processing que.
"L'heo M'Garty," L'heo said. "Of the Kingdom of Vaslen." The decision to let him do the talking was obvious. Nobody would believe Chim was anything other than a short adolescent, and Celia didn't speak the language or have the temperament to pretend to be in charge.
This actually got the official to look up from her screen. "Vaslen? I've never heard of that." She was briefly startled when her gaze shifted to Celia and Chim.
"We're... pretty isolated," L'heo acknowledged. "These fine people discovered our homeworld recently and agreed to transport a diplomatic delegation so that we can broaden our understanding of other cultures.
"Heh," the clerk said. "You must have something they want a lot. The woman and her child are with you too?"
That stung a bit, and Chim didn't know how well she kept her offense hidden. Celia would have probably protested out of reflex if she spoke the local tongue.
"Yes, L'heo said. "They're part of our diplomatic party."
The clerk looked back at her screen to enter more information. "Their names?"
"Celia Kh'ybler," L'heo said. "And the little one is Chim. "
"Okay, you're in the system," the clerk said. "Few things. We don't issue diplomatic credentials here. I don't know what sort of promises they made to coax you on their ship, but you're expected to follow the law during your stay."
"Certainly," L'heo said. 
"And I should tell you," the clerk added. "Keep an eye on the child and that cat of yours. We can't be held responsible if they run off on their own."
"Don't worry," L'heo replied. "They're both very well behaved."
From his position draped over Celia's shoulders, Polly opened one eye in what was clearly an annoyed look. For her part Chim was resisting a powerful urge to pout. 
"Then that's everything," the clerk said as the gate raised in front of them. "Enjoy your stay on Euschelus."
Chim almost said "That's it?" in surprise at how quick and painless it all was, but she was cut off by a sudden wailing sound echoing through the air.
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===Taking up Arms===
The defenders were a bit on the ball at least, their raid sirens going off before the pirate ship had even gotten into view of the city proper. Still, it wasn't enough warning for the garrison to actually do anything before the dropship buzzed over the city at what would be considered treetop height, if they had any trees. Laser beams and clouds of missiles lanced out from the ship indiscriminately, tearing into streets, buildings, and those unfortunates caught outside and in their paths alike.
There was no real strategy behind it, no grand tactical advantage, and the damage done wasn't particularly significant. All this was just a way to instill a bit of fear in the locals, so when the main event started, they'd be less likely to put up a fight. 
It did make an impression, though perhaps not the one the pirates had hoped for.
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Chim watched the vessel soar overhead, feeling the pressure wave generated by its passing wash over her. "Who are they?" she demanded.
"Raiders," Trisha said. She'd been waiting for them on the other side of the gate when the attack had started. "Probably pirates. They'll land outside of town and send troops to attack." She extended her hand. "Come on, the locals will have a shelter where we can wait out the raid."
"No," Chim said. "I'm not waiting anything out."
"Chim," L'heo said with worry clear in his voice. "This isn't our fight."
"They don't have an afterlife!" Chim shouted. "No heavens or hells, no final judgement or reward, maybe no way to bring any of them back. When they die they're just... gone." 
She could feel tears in her eyes. Somehow she'd never thought about that implication before, until just now. These people had to live with that uncertainty, that fear that whatever they did, whatever they might have hoped for, one day their lives would just... stop. "This is the only fight that matters."
"You didn't prepare for this," L'heo said.
"I prepared an opening move, just in case," Chim replied, then pulled a wand and rod from her pack. "And I have these. The rest I'll have to improvise."
Behind Chim, Celia began chanting out a spell as a suit of armor materialized around her, to the shocked gasp of the clerk watching from her booth. Chim smiled and reached into her pack again, drawing out the paladin's sword to the sound of another gasp.
"You get used to it," L'heo said to the clerk, before looking back to Chim. "So what's the plan?"
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