Book said Tristan was able to activate it twice after I left, but then for some reason, it would lock back onto the portal I went to. If you tried to ...ome back during the first ten years I was here, you probably wouldn’t have been able to. It took Tristan and me that long to get the silly thing to work properly again.”“Isn’t that about when Storm said that the three systems came back into sync?” I asked Crystal.“Yes, I guess having two Lord Wizards working on the problem must have had something. But this was his wife messing with me. I don’t think he knew how to handle that.Then Bonny bullied Dad into giving Estelle the same treatment she always demanded we get for swearing. It’s been a few years for me but I felt that hand on my backside a time or two when I was little. Dad never hit me really hard, of course – just hard enough to sting. But it took seeing a report about someone who really had been beaten and a description of all the bruising before I realised that he was going easy. To their surprise, Cecilia also agreed for she had enough of ridding in that damn thing and the roads would get worse the closer they got to York. She still had to get home before she could make her move. When they first got into town, Luke insisted that before they sell anything that the three of them explore the town to find out what all goods and services were available. Doing that took the rest of the day. Finally, they agreed on an inn that was reasonably priced and had decent food. . I need to have every ship you can put in space going every which way. Out to Thor 2, out to other asteroid belts, out to other planets – and back. Scoop gas from the gas giants; you've got four of them in the system. Go to your forts. The forts are mobile, right? Have them fire their engines, get them started to move closer to interpose themselves between the Bug armada and Arnis. Then plan a mass confusion of ships back to somewhere else. We should need about three or four days of confusion..