"Yes."
"Why? I don't know anything about fighting or much of anything really!"
I patted her shoulder in a fatherly gesture, "It's a good time for you to start learning. You're one of us now Christina. I know you're scared and I know you doubt your capabilities, but you're wrong to do so Christina. You are a strong young woman and I wouldn't be having you come along with us if I didn't think you were up to it."
She straightened under the weight of my hand slightly and I didn't say anything more for a while.
Lost in the fog the Celestia's Prize forged onward.
I was proud of my ship. All the abuse it had taken and yet it was still together in one roughed up piece giving me all it had. A man couldn't ask for more from his boat. 'Graceful degradation' I believe was the terminology for it.
Graceful degradation was the term used to describe how much damage and loss of operating systems a fighter jet could suffer and still remain in the air and be operable. The Celestia's Prize wasn't a forty million dollar fighter jet, but she was still floating and under power ready for the next adventure.
The fog was starting to break up and I prepared myself for the view of an island crowned with an imperial city populated by Atlantean giants. With baited breath we pulled free of the last of the fog and the island was revealed.
There was no grand imperial city dominating the mainland. All I saw was a lushly forested island that had crop fields here and there. Some deep part of me relaxed at the sighting of no ancient city of advanced technology, but I re-tensed at what I thought for sure to be the signs of agriculture upon the land.
The Southern treasure fleet really had made it here and set up a colony. Was I about to be made over into a slave?
Time would tell on that one. I did know one thing. If white plantation owners were still enslaving people of my color then I was going to do something about it. What that would be was still a mystery, but God had brought me here for a purpose and if He wanted it done then it would be done.
It appeared to be a large island, but not the island continent of ancient fables. Perhaps it had broken up into smaller pieces when it had fallen through from the world above.
Maybe it wasn't Atlantis at all, but the lone volcano spout lifting above the tall forests of the island seemed to testify to the fact that this was the remnant of the landmass that had been Atlantis at one time.