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So Spain is starting to become a dangerous enemy for our Scottish friends, well I am glad to see the King understand that and that he is planning to agree to peace for a colony, because then you can use your armies against the French and crush them once and for all!
 
"Good news Sire, we have won a splendid victory over France. They assailed our positions near Bordeaux, but we've beaten them back."
"I'm glad Spain accepted peace and even granted us a poor province in Middle America. Now keep a hot pursuit on the French army, and siege the provinces behind them. As soon as they offer a province, we'll accept. The Dutch seem to be dealing well with the Austrians."
 
Sounds excellent. Peace with Spain and some gains on top of that was just what we wanted. Now you can focus on the French and destroy them once and for all!
 
It took her two seconds to realize who this could be. She sissed:
"James! dont make a fool of yourself!"
He grinned:
"You wanted to show off your skills - so try it!"
He had intended to attack first, but her lightning fast first stroke nearly penetrated his defence. Gradually he regained some confidence as he thwarted attack after attack and was able to launch occasional counterattacks.

Then Betsy seemed to realize her routine skill would not prevail, and switched to more advanced tactics. During their training together she had noticed that James had enjoyed excellent training in Scotland, and he had picked up her Japanese founded skills quickly, though he still lacked the months and years of excercise needed to perfect the moves.

They darted through the circle, driving each other back when one of them retook the initiative from the other. She felt tireness setting in, not surprising, as she had been fighting intensely for nearly an hour. How long could James hold out? She felt that her condition would be better than his, she had trained for years. But she still fought, and the automated movement of her sinews and muscles crossed their swords in nearly perfect moves. But she'd need to better than that. She dug deep in her memory and came up with some moves she had practised in Japan, and never with James. Yes, one trick might be worth trying. She feinted a move, folllowed by a second feint, and on the third move James short sword flew out of his hands.

She nodded politly to him.
"Pick it up, the match isnt over"
Being galant would make good impression, and James skill certainly deserved a second chance. A thought struck her: perhaps James would only ask her if he could beat her? To satisfy his 'manly pride'? Should she loose on purpose? No, she decided, that would not do.
As James picked up his sword, she noticed he also seemed to pick up a handful of sand. Certainly he wouldnt want to trick her with that age old trick of blinding her with sand?
 
Well, well so our two heroes duel, not surprised to see this, but it shall be interesting to see who will win. I think Betsy might be right and that James will only come to sense if he is able to beat her, but time will show I guess… as long as the one who wins win through a fair fight I think everything is good. And I sure hope James will open up his eyes soon because he and Betsy seems to be the perfect couple :)
 
Lord E,
You can guess my ideas far to well after reading my episodes over all these years. ;)
 
She saw the move with the sand coming, and turned her head away. The sand flew harmlessly by. As she turned her head back, a fine powder entered her nose and itched. She couldnt help sneezing, and one sword flew out of her hand, skilfully hit by a wtisting move of James sword.
"You pig!" she cried "Such tricks are below the honour of a true warrior!"
James grinned:
"In war and love, my dear, everything is allowed. The true warrior knows that and is prepared. Pick up your sword."
She picked up her sword, but soon noticed that the sneezing powder had entered her helmet, she fall beck, and opened the visor of her helmet. James opened his visor and they looked at each other. Than James walked towards her, sword lowered.
"We are fools" he declared. "we should do this instead"
He quickly kissed her on the mouth. Surprised, she let it happen, then embraced him and returned the kiss. The crowd was stunned by this unexpected end of the match, but then applauded and cheered.
With James arm around Betsys shoulder, they returned to the side of the arena, where their friends and families awaited them.

Dick spontaneously offered Betsy the prize he had received as the winner of the tournament, but she refused. Dick had won the tournament, she declared, het match came after the end of the tournament.
It had grown dark, the crews returned to their spaceships but the students moved to a campfire nearby.
 
Great to see James understanding what we have all known for a long time. James and Betsy is the perfect couple so I am glad to see the two of them are now a couple. So are we approaching the end now that things seem to be going so well?
 
Probably around Christmas - but it wont be a Christmas story :)
 
On a far away world called earth, a king of Scotland looked satisfied at the paper saying: "Peace treaty between Scotland and the Republic of the Seven Provices on the one hand and The kingdom of France on the Holy Roman Empire on the other hand."

The Dutch republic gained one german province from The Austrians, while the Scots received the rich wine producing province of Bordeaux from France.
 
WOW!

I just spent.... i don't know how many hours reading all this from the beginning!!! It's the most fantastic AAR i've ever seen!!!!! SUPERB!!!!!
 
Sounds like a fine peace I think. Bordeaux will be nice for Scotland, there is always some nice taxes to be collected and wine to be exported and drunk :)
 
ProffessorEGADD said:
WOW!

I just spent.... i don't know how many hours reading all this from the beginning!!! It's the most fantastic AAR i've ever seen!!!!! SUPERB!!!!!

Thank you, EGADD. Welcome, glad to have another fan :)
 
James looked around at his classmates. many of them could gain a "good position" in one of the government organizations. He also looked at Betsy besides him. She looked happy and he felt a very warm feeling inside. Yes, she was a girl with whom he would gladly share his life.

But what life? None of the job prospects he had heard looked very challenging.
He asked Betsy: "What are your ideas for the future? What are you gonna do?"
"I dunnow" she replied. "I've already got offers, but i already ran my own security agency on our planet. I was my own boss. I dont like the idea of working for someone else. And i think many of us feel the same."
Dick seemed to have overheard that remark, for he jumped in :
"Do you know of any really interesting jobs? It doesnt need to be big, as long as i dont have to answer to other people."
Jack interrupted: If you dont want to write reports, you shouldnt be in management.
"Bullshit" Cheryl said. "True management is about getting things done, not about organizing things according to the manuals."
"Whatever it is," Isabella threw in, "I want to be independant. Isnt there a new mine to be setup, somewhere in an isolated spot?"

James catched the look of Jack, and rising, gave a signal with his head. Betsy followed James, and Cheryl followed Jack.
James went ahead to the school, and walked to one of the rooms from where they had made their trips back in time. The "bathtubes" had gone. The planet seemed to be earnest about dismantling the time trip fascilities.
James had arranged some chairs, and invited them to sit down. To his surpise he noticed that Daneel had also come. Or rather, he realized that he should have felt surprised but somehow wasnt. Another mystery, but he dismissed it for the moment.

James looked at Jack:
"Are all the fascilities being dismantled?"
Jack answered:
"As you can see: the bathtubes have already been removed. The central computers, the system that calculated all the formulas, isd also being taken apart. Its memory has already been wiped and most of the data storage has been reformatted."
James asked:
"Are all the formulas and designs destroyed?"
Jack shrugged his shoulders:
"The formulas for the time travelling were on the datastorage. When the datastorage is formatted, the formulas are gone forever."
James continued:
"But are all designs and all formulas destroyed?"
"If you mean if there are any printed copies or such, i can answer truthfully that all the formulas for the time trips are destroyed. Neither I nor my fellow workers have any backups of them, on paper, or whatever storage medium."
James insisted:
"Still I repeat:Are all the formulas and designs destroyed?"
Jack looked at him with a blink of surprise in his eye:
"What do you mean?"
"I think you know full well what I mean."
 
We are approaching the end I see, the plans and the computers are soon destroyed once and for all. But I suspect that James wants to know if there are some plans left so that he can travel back and BE king again;)
Shall be interesting to see how this will end. Oh and by the way Merry Christmas CP, it is great to see this story is still running :)




Edit: Post 3800 :D
 
James used the force of silence, waiting for the other to respond.
Jack looked at him with considerable interest.
"How did you find out?"
James replied
"I am asking the questions here."
Jack raised his eyes, giving a clear signal that he wanted to think as well as avoid direct eye contact. Not a good sign, James thought.
He felt no objection on using his management training to read the body language of Jack. It had become second nature to him. He had constantly used this aspect of management training on earth, and it had proved very valuable.
Jack looked at him with amusement:
"OK, I'll tell you. But you must tell me how you found out."
James reassured him:
"No problem"
"Let me first stress that I did not discover this. It is the work of Harnald here. But it came in very useful, as we needed to contact the minds of the people that would be your hosts."
Betsy intervened:
"What are you guys talking about? Can you be more specific?"
James turned to her:
"They developed technology to read minds, my dear. I want them destroyed. People should be able to think what they want to think. I dont want a thought police set up."
Jack admitted:
"We did indeed. As I said, we needed it to contact the minds of the people on earth who would be your hosts. But we never used it on this planet. If we had, you couldnt have outsmarted us."
James smiled:
"I am glad you had the decency to abstain from using it here. But I want it destroyed too, like the rest of these apparatus, and the theories on which they are based. "
Jack wanted to know:
"But how did you find out?"
"On my last trip, I didnt arrive as the head of state of Scotland. But the people whom I soon after met were intend on making me the head of state. I did a lot of thinking, and i saw only three explanations. One was that you knew the future, which seemed pretty unlikely. Second was that you could calculate the actions of individual people and nations, That also seemed farfetched. The third was that you had devised things to read the thoughts of those people. It also seemed farfetched, but as you had already put my mind in theirs it looked like the most probable of the three."
"You were quit right. I feel a grerat respect for your ability to deduct this without the formal scientific training. We'll destroy the designs, the physical stuff and everything. Everything except what the three of us have in our brains."
"Good" James rose, and the others followed his example. To Betsy he added:
"Let's see if our fellow students have been able to come up with a challenge for the future. After saving the universe, I feel we can do anything"
She grinned and took his arm into hers, as they walked back to the campfire.
 
I hope to post the last part of the story on dec 31
 
Good to see that James is clever enough to understand all the dangers and to make sure these dangerous machines are destroyed once and for all.
Looking forward to more, and I think posting the last part on the 31st of December is a very nice way and day to end this!
 
Thank you, Lord E.
It will be a long isuse, but I uhh, couldnt think of any good cliff hangers in between.
 
Around the campfire the mood at first seemed pretty good. There was the sound of laughter, and a bottle was passed around.
But as soon as the five people had returned, the discussion was about their future resumed.
"James, what are you gonna do after the holidays?"
James confessed:
"I haven’t got the faintest idea. Were you able to come up with anything?"
"Isabelle will pull her fathers leg about setting up a mining town on the other site of the planet. Thats about as far as we can get away from here."
James grinned. The words of Isabelle had tickled his brain, and an idea was lurking. It was still dim, but definitely there.:
"I am afraid that the other side of this planet is not far away enough. would like to include jack and Cheryl in our plans. They had hoped to leave our planet after this adventure." That was not entirely true, he knew, Jack had, but Cheryl would go with him. He continued:
"Is there anyone "with good relations on other planets? I have seen earth, I have seen our own planet, they are not bad planets, but I'd like to see more of the universe."
Protest sounded:
"Impossible!"
"Way to expensive!"
"Are you mad?"
"No planet is waiting for us!"

James waited till the protests died down.
"Of course no planet is waiting for us. I don’t say it will be cheap, I don’t say it will be easy. No, I assure you it will be nearly impossible. Chances are heavily against us. And on this attempt, I don’t want any one with us who sees only problems. I want people who are fighters. Not born winners, but boys and girls who will continue when all odds are against them."
A silence fell.

After a while, someone asked:
"Do you have a plan?"
"At the moment the only plan I have is to use your brains. I want to use your relations for our common goals. But don’t mistake: though I will listen to what you say, I will take the final decisions. This is my project"
He gambled high, he knew, but he wanted to establish his leadership right at the start. Again a silence fell, but this time a shorter one.

"Why would you be the leader?" someone asked. “John-Paul had better grades in class. And so had Dick."
"Yes, Dick won the tournament"
James explained:
"They may have better results in school, and you are right that we have all been trained to be managers. We have all been taught how to lead. But this is my project. The project of Betsy and me. You can take part of it, and accept me as the leader, or stay here."

"But what can you offer? Do you know a planet we can go to?"
"We will find one." he assured. "My first question is: do you want to join us?". He looked at Betsy besides him. She nodded, he hadn’t expected anything else. Cheryl nodded.
Jack confirmed:
"I'll go with you"
Dick also acknowledged:
"If you see a possibility for a good future somewhere, I'm your man"
Those words warmed James feeling. Dick had proved an excellent friend, and he would have hated to leave him behind.
One after the other, the people affirmed. Some still had hesitations. But the mood had shifted.

"Good" James concluded. "As the question is now settled about leadership, we can proceed to question two: where do we go to? There are many planets to choose from. Does someone have friends anywhere? How can we contact them to see if we are welcome?"

At this moment Daneel intervened.
"Allow me to interrupt you. For those who dont know me: My name is R. D. Olivaw, representative of the government of Aurora. I was invited to your planet because of some discontent. You surveys showed many people were dissatisfied with the government. I was called in on this and something else which does not need to concern us now.
It seems to me you are proceeding one step to fast. You seem to take it for granted that you will move to one of the already colonized planets of our galaxy. I want to point out that there are also uncolonized planets."
He took some time to let his works sink in. James expected objections to come, and they came:
"But that’s even more expensive!"
"Even more risky!"
"How do we find a spaceship going there? There are no interliners!"

James waved with his hand.
"All valid objections", he declared, even though personally he felt some of them were nonsense. "But if you want to live a life of ease, stay here and write a thorough thick management report every week. I am sure it will be appreciated by your superiors." There was just the right amount of irony in his voice, and his classmates recognised it and laughed.
James continued:
"Mr Olivaw, could you please elaborate on your remark? I feel you have more to say on this subject."
"Actually, I have" Daneel admitted. "As the information which I received while still on Aurora indicated widespread but largely still latent discontent, I laboured for a possibility to bring people who wanted to leave to a new planet. That would be ordinary people. Techs, you would call them. But to me they are people. People who like to be their own boss. People, who would like to be free. People, who are your equals."
He waited for a moment.
"You can accompany them, if you like. You are good at organizing things, it is what you have been trained for. Put yourselves at their service. At the service of the people who want to leave this planet. Who will leave for a new home. On a new planet."

Someone asked:
"How can we get to a new planet?"
Daneel opened his mouth, but Betsy guessed:
"There are the spaceships! Will they bring us?":
Daneel seemed to smile, even though his face remained unmoved.
"You guess well, Betsy."
James asked:
"You already seem to have a planet in mind, I think. Can we see it? Does it have a name?"
"You cant see it from here, but it is much close to the centre of our galaxy. And yes, it does have a name."
"What is it called?"
"Trantor"