ETTING   OME   O   LFANDRA

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Hespa's Story part 22 - First Attempt

Pyros (bearing Emma) and Cira take off and rapidly rise to the altitude they had used in their calculations.  They begin to make tight circles around each other to stay within the range of the space-folding effect.  "All right, Cira, it's up to you now.  If you need help, let me know...."

"Ok, thanks Pyros.  Fly as close to me as you can so I can make the fold smaller."

Pyros obediently flies closer, the two making tighter and tighter circles around each other until they almost touch.

Emma holds on even tighter, trying to decide whether she would feel safer or more precarious with her eyes closed.

Internal computers track the exact location of the fold's center relative to the surface of Alfandra and add minor adjustments to the main vector.  Once the main coordinates are locked he adds the compensation for the local space time ripples.  These ripples or anomalies where the source of previous folding catastrophes.  They are now accounted for by equations found in the Library.  Now that every known variable is being updated in real time, he initiates the fold.  A Sphere of white light expands rapidly from the converter inside him.  As it encloses us the whiteness is complete and nothing can be seen of the world outside.

The light recedes from us reveling a different world, but definitely not Earth.  The sea is gone instead a near endless desert stretches in all directions.  Far below us a barren wasteland of rock and sand is lower than where the surface of the sea was previously.  Stiflingly hot air washes over us as we leave the small bubble brought with us in the fold.

Cira is crest fallen and he stares down at the barren desert some 2000 feet below them.  He and Pyros jabber trying to figure out what went wrong.  All the numbers looked so good.

"Was it the multidimensionality of the Universe we missed?  Or that 'which Universe is this one' question?  The physical location seems to be 'correct' just not the correct dimension."

He scans the stars, though they are masked by the bright sun he has other ways of 'seeing' them.  But their positions do not match up with any location he has previously been.

"I have no idea *where* we are.  It isn't Earth or Alfandra."  *shakes head sadly*

"Hespa, are you still there?" asks Pyros.

**sure am....and thje fact that i'm still typing proves that you guys are still in a fictional world, i'm afraid!**

"OK, so we definitely didn't make it onto Emma's reality...well, we *did* work out the reverse equations, so I think we'd better return to the University to work this out."

"You're right.  I'll get ready to make the return jump."

Still looking down at the barren sand far below them he starts the processes necessary for the jump.  We fly South back toward the jump point and the afternoon sun.  Cira drops his head far enough to see their shadows trailing behind them.  Then he sees a massive black shadow trailing after them.  He whips his head around losing a good twenty feet of altitude in the first action which might tell Pyros and Emma something is wrong.

Behind them not more than half a mile is a sandstone fortress floating in the air.  Cannons mussels can been seen through Spanish style gun ports.

"YEee!  Let's get out of here!"

Pyros's eyes widen.  "Agreed, and quickly!"  He dives down to Cira.

Cira and Pyros once again make tight circles around each other, flying at the point where they entered this barren world.  Cira recreates the fold, a growing sphere of white light welling up to envelop them all.

Just as the first round of cannons fire.