Crime

After dropping Coll at his house Lyris and Zerrad Skeet found themselves a comfortable hotel on the classier side of town.

Zerrad Skeet brought the Runabout to a halt parallel to the Tram Stop and his brother Lyris leant out of the window and shouted “Captain Musak! Is that you? My God it is! As I live and breathe” The sound of the shouting brought Coll back from his self-pitying reflections and he looked up to see a Runabout parked in front of him with the passenger window down and a familiar face looking down at him from the window.

With the Tornado grounded at Cranack port on Eirkos for repairs and Captain Merionwen Strong two systems away from the Eikon Cluster in the Messengis System visiting Andraxis with her newly acquainted cousin Dwynwen, they were at a loose end after completing their share of the chores.

Downshire is a relatively small English county but like a pocket battleship it packs a lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port, the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the Downshire Downs, the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye can see from the Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the Downshire Light infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s, Roespring and Tipton in the north but our story takes place in the southern town off Abbottsford which was the biggest in Downshire, its administrative capital and the seat of the Downshire government.