By Whatever Means

By Whatever Means

Kaelen entered the Navigation Hall wearing one of his father’s older council cloaks.
He disliked borrowing the authority represented by its silver wave clasp. He disliked even more that it worked.
The research clerk looked at the clasp, then at the four assistants behind him.
“Name?”
“Kaelen Thorne. Crystal resonance study.”
“Application papers please?”
Kaelen handed him a forged document that gave permission supposedly written by his father. The clerk examined the registration sheet. “I do not have a reservation under your name.”
The clerk stopped writing.
“Thorne?”
Kaelen felt everyone behind him become quieter.
“Ren Thorne’s son?”
“Yes.”
“My supervisor studied maritime engineering under your father.”
“That is fortunate.”
“It is?”
“For your supervisor.”
Tajan made a sound that might have been a cough.
The clerk smiled. “I heard you were one of the few who got to study in Kefar. Pays to know someone eh?”
“Are you implying that I was placed based on familial relationships and not my own merit?”
“Well your father is a councilor in the capital and I just assumed?”
Kaelen was incensed and very defensive. “How dare you I’ll have you know......”
Before he went on. Drue whispered into his ear, “Adaptation is Survival”. Kaelen paused and breathed realizing how he could use the insult to his favour.
“I think I should have a word with your supervisor.”
“Oh no need for that.. You know I was just saying how the system works for...” he stopped and thought of a different tack. “I mean that I know good people who never got to ...” he paused again but more flustered.
“So I am not good, is that what you are saying?”
“Oh my Veyl, I am sor.. I am mean .. can I see your paper work?”
The clerk bowed his head completely at a loss of what to say and examined the registration sheet. “I do see a reservation under your name now, you won’t have to call my supervisor, I think you can go in now if you like, sorry.”
Once inside the group looked as out of place as a fish out of water
“A crystal loading supervisor saw them and walked over to ask some questions.”
“I wasn’t aware of any extra crystal charges today.”
“My arrival was unplanned.” Kaelen moderated his voice. “My father sanctioned the experiment but is not involved in the experiment. It concerns research conducted independently of his council duties.”
“Then I will require your academy credentials.”
Kaelen did not move.
Behind him, Blena whispered, “This is going well.”
Tajan stepped forward. “The experiment concerns navigational disruption following the Amaryn earthquake. Councilor Thorne has not been informed because the results may affect regulatory decisions in which he has a direct interest.”
The clerk frowned. “A conflict of interest?”
“Precisely.”
Kaelen understood what Tajan was doing and disliked how plausible it sounded.
“If you contact him,” she continued, “you will involve a council member in research from which his office may later be required to remain independent.”
The clerk looked again at the silver clasp.
Kaelen realized the danger fully.
If they were caught using his father’s name to steal regulated energy, no one would believe Ren Thorne knew nothing. His council position would be threatened. His mother’s cartographic contracts could be reviewed. Their home might be searched.
He thought he should stop.
Alster stood close enough that Kaelen could feel his presence. He thought of Alfer and the time he bought us and he stood his ground.
“We really don’t have all day.”
The clerk reached for a key.
“1.0 time,” she said. “Calibration Laboratory Three. I will record the authorization as pending.”
“Thank you,” Kaelen replied.
They followed her into the hall.
Blena leaned close to him. “Your father is going to hate us.”
“He will never discover this.”
“That is an unusually optimistic thing for you to say.”

Calibration Laboratory Three contained a single legal charging cradle mounted within a circular stone housing.
Blue light travelled through channels in the floor from the city’s primary crystal below. The energy was regulated by the metal in the floor and stone around them after years of experimentation. The lower power entering the cradle, prevented a crystal from shattering and it was made for exactly cut crystal of a precise size to stop researchers from drawing more than their permits allowed.
Anderix closed the door.
“1.0 Time,” Tajan said.
“.56 time,” he corrected. “.04 time was consumed reaching the room.”
He opened his pack and began assembling the secondary cradles.
Blena stood watch at the door. Alster arranged their depleted crystals upon the worktable. Kaelen examined the stone housing and the magnetic markings carved around it.
Anderix attached the first length of salvaged wire.
It reached the nearest secondary cradle.
The next did not.
“I planned for a closer assembly incorrectly,” he said.
Blena looked back. “You?”
“The plan did not include the distance from the main cradle to input magnet stones in the housing.”
“So we do it slower, said Kaelen,
“Then .50 time will only charge 2 crystals.” Anderix complained. “Wiat..”
Anderix removed another instrument from his pack. He opened its casing, unwound the copper-coloured filament inside and added it to the line.
“What was that one?” Alster asked.
“A physiological pulse monitor.”
“You dismantled a medical instrument?”
“It would not have diagnosed any condition you could treat without charged crystals.”
“I really need to get to the Mechanum Ascendancy and study medicine.”
Anderix connected the final wire.
Three secondary cradles now surrounded the legal one. Each consisted of a lower magnetic stone, a crystal bracket and another magnetic stone suspended above it by a crude metal frame.
He placed one grey crystal between the stones.
“It should work.”
“That sounds less certain than I prefer,” Kaelen said.
“It would be more certain in Mechanum.”
“We are not returning to Mechanum for copper.”
“I did not suggest we should. I expressed a preference for superior materials.”
Anderix activated the eyepiece. Lenses rotated across his vision.
Kaelen released the charging control.
Blue light entered the legal cradle, travelled along the salvaged wire and reached the first secondary frame.
Nothing happened.
Anderix adjusted the upper magnetic stone.
“The poles are misaligned.”
“You placed them,” Blena said.
“The surrounding stone contains magnetized mineral deposits. They are distorting the field.”
“Can you correct it?”
“Not with the available magnets.”
Kaelen placed one hand against the circular housing. A crystal in his pouch glowed faintly.
The stone answered reluctantly. He felt its mineral structure, the iron buried within it and the competing pressures passing through the cradle.
“You can see the field?” he asked.
Anderix rotated another lens over his eye. “Yes. The upper pole is drawn seven degrees east. The lower field is dispersing into the housing.”
“Tell me when they align.”
Kaelen closed his eyes.
He thought of his father and mother and the time they had just spent. He remembered Alfer and people who wanted them to succeed. Then shifted the iron-bearing grains inside the stone with a command. The movement was smaller than sand sliding beneath a boot, but sweat appeared along his forehead. The housing groaned.
“Three degrees,” Anderix said. “Two. Stop.”
Kaelen held the stone in place.
Anderix tightened the frame.
Blue light snapped into the grey crystal.
Its colour deepened.
“It works,” Alster whispered.
Anderix connected the remaining cradles.
One by one, Kaelen altered the surrounding poles until the magnetic fields aligned. They loaded every depleted crystal into the frames.
“Begin,” Anderix said.
Power flowed.
Blue travelled through the wires in bright pulses. The improvised frames shook, but held. Grey crystals became pale blue, then darker.
Kaelen felt the draw increase beneath his hand.
“That is too much,” he said.
“The parallel connection reduced resistance,” Anderix replied.
“Can you slow it?”
“Not without disconnecting the cradles.”
The light from the main crystal dimmed deep in the lower areas of the building.
“Someone is going to notice that.” Tajan said to everyone.
A warning bell was rung once by someone far below.
Everyone stared at the floor.
“Give it as long as we can. Blena, watch the door. Tajan, a distraction outside would be excellent about now.” Kaelen issued commands with ease and could feel the right words moving through him.
Tajan and Kaelen had already made contingency plans and Tajan knew what to do. She went up one flight of stairs to the roof. She closed her eyes for a moment longer than a blink and sent a ball of fire that drew fuel from the air itself down into the tree opposite the main gate. The tree erupted into flame and within a minute a bell was heard again but this time for a very different reason. Tajan monitored the action outside and after .10 time she went back to the lab.
“Looks like they have that under control so we have to go.”
Blena collected the charged crystals.
The bell rang again.
Tajan surmised ..“That appears to be for us as that fire is almost out.”
Footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Blena looked around the room for a makeshift weapon or object to block the door and opened a storage cabinet beside the worktable. Inside, dozens of charged research crystals lay packed in soft hay.
She stopped. “Woah!”
“Leave them,” Alster said.
Blena looked from the crate to the crystals in her hands.
“If this mission is as important as the Veylborn claim, we cannot continue running out of power.”
“They do not belong to us.”
“Neither does the problem we are trying to solve, but it keeps becoming ours.”
“Blena.”
She lifted the entire upper tray from the crate and pushed it into her pack.
Tajan stared at her. “How many did you take?”
“Enough.”
“For what?”
Blena pulled the straps tight. “Whatever comes next.”
Something in her voice frightened them more than the bells.
Kaelen understood the thought behind it. If failure carried greater costs for everyone, then any means might be justified.
But any was a word without an edge. Once they accepted it, it could contain anything.
The laboratory door shook beneath a fist.
“Open this room!”
Anderix began disconnecting the cradles.
“No time,” Kaelen said.
“My wire—”
“Leave it.”
“The devices I dismantled....”
“Leave them!”
Anderix hesitated only once before abandoning the last pieces of his former equipment.
Blena opened the window.
Wind struck the room.
“We are three floors up,” Tajan said.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a second observation?”
“No.”
The door opened behind them.

Drue heard the first warning bell from the roof of a chandlery.
Dasher raised his head.
The second bell sounded. Decorative Crystal in Dashers harness had flashed and glowed and Drue thought he might know why.
“That is them,” Drue said.
Dasher spread his wings.
“No, wait.”
A line of city signal ropes ran between the harbour towers. Each controlled flags, bells on lines to signal and direct vessels during in the harbour. Guardians were already hoisting a signal for distress to rally more hands towards the Navigation Hall.
Drue climbed into Dasher’s saddle and launched into the wind.
Dasher dropped before rising, his wings fighting for purchase in the cross-current. Drue leaned close to his neck and guided him between two observation towers.
Below them, guards emerged into the square. Knocking over bystanders and sending the scientists into a panic.
Drue drew his riding blade and cut the first signal line.
Flags fell across the street.
He hovered near the second and wrapped his arm around the long line and then cut through it too, causing the thick rope to be free from any structure. Then with a cry from Drue, Dasher circled the Navigation Hall.
Blena leaned from a third-floor window.
“You took your time!” she shouted.
“Grab the rope!” he yelled down to Blena.
The calibration platform outside the window was too narrow for them all to get on, and the headwind pushed him away from the building.
Drue uncoiled the long rescue rope from behind his saddle.
“Everyone is going to hate this,” he said.
Dasher screeched agreement.
Drue tied one end to the saddle and threw the rest towards the window. Tajan caught it.
“Secure it!” he shouted.
“To what?”
“Something that won’t move!”
Blena wrapped it around the stone base of a weather instrument.
“That moved when I touched it!”
“Something else!”
The laboratory door burst fully open.
Kaelen seized the instrument’s base and smashed it through the bottom of the platform. With a hole now in the wooden platform Blena passed the rope through it and tied it up.
“I could have done that.” she quipped then she yelled up to the hovering Dasher, “Ropes’ secure,”
Tajan climbed onto the ledge. She gripped the rope and stepped into open air.
Drue pulled her against the saddle as Dasher dropped beneath the added weight, bringing an open piece of rope to the ledge.
Anderix followed, holding onto the rope with his tool case strapped to his back. Alster came next. The door to the room was broken open and two guardians from the Navigation Hall burst in. Blena refused to release her pack until Kaelen realised there was no time and they both jumped out and held on for their lives.
Dasher dropped a full 3 meters as he and Blena committed their weight to the rope.
Dasher beat his wings to the point that Drue was concerned for his life long partner.
For one breathless moment, they did not rise.
Six people hung from the Griffon, saddle and rope. The city wall approached. Guards ran along its upper path, reaching for them.
Drue looked towards the sea.
Wind struck the cliffs, curved upwards and lifted spray high into the air.
“There,” he told Dasher.
The Griffon angled towards the cliff edge.
They dropped.
Tajan’s stomach rose into her throat. Blena collided with Alster. Anderix’s tool case tilted down and a few tools spilled out but he bumped it with his hip and corrected the angle.
Then the rising coastal wind struck Dasher’s wings.
He surged upwards.
They cleared the wall by less than the length of Kaelen’s boot.
The guards disappeared behind them as Dasher carried the company out over the cliffs.
Drue guided him towards a sloping patch of grass below. They struck the ground in a confusion of wings, rope and people. Everyone rolled except Dasher, who remained upright and looked offended by their lack of coordination.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Tajan began laughing.
She pushed herself from the grass and threw both arms around Drue.
“You impossible, brilliant idiot.”
Drue laughed with her. “I had a plan.”
“You tied five people to a Griffon.”
“Six.”
“You were already on him.”
“I counted myself.”
Tajan held his face between her hands and kissed his forehead.
It lasted only a moment.
Anderix saw all of it.
Drue saw Anderix see it.
No one said anything.
Dasher lowered his beak into Blena’s open pack.
She struck it away. “Those are stolen.”
Dasher tried again.

They hid among sea caves until darkness.
Anderix counted the recharged crystals upon a flat stone.
“Our original supply has been restored,” he said. “Blena also removed fourteen research crystals.”
“Fourteen?” Alster repeated.
“They were in a tray.”
“That does not make fourteen fewer.”
Blena folded her arms. “We need them.”
“We stole them,” Alster said.
“We had already stolen power.”
“The energy taken by our crystals might be repaid. Those belonged to specific researchers.”
“They belonged to Marinth Bay.”
“That is not better.”
Tajan looked at the crystals. “If we return them now, we will be arrested.”
“So an unjust warrant makes us criminals and theft acceptable?” Alster asked.
“No,” she replied. “But returning them does not undo the theft. It only prevents us from using them.”
“Being accused of crimes we did not commit does not give us permission to commit new ones.”
Blena picked up one of the blue crystals.
“We are trying to stop something affecting every Crestrealm. We have ancient machines waking, trees changing and the very system that allows all power crystals to recharge in Aethoira , the Heartwell itself becoming unstable. If the mission is truly that important, we may have to use whatever means are necessary.”
The cave became quiet.
Kaelen looked at her.
“Whatever means?”
Blena’s expression hardened. “You know what I mean.”
“No,” Anderix said. “That is the difficulty with an unlimited category. We do not know what it means.”
“I mean like stealing crystals.”
“Today,” Alster said.
Blena looked away.
Drue sat beside Dasher near the cave entrance. “We nearly died because we did not have power. Those crystals could prevent that next time.”
“They could also belong to people attempting work as important as ours,” Kaelen said.
“Do you want to take them back?”
Kaelen looked towards the distant lights of Marinth Bay.
His father’s name would already be in the record. By morning, officials might contact Zouken. His family could lose everything because he had used their reputation to enter the laboratory.
He had wanted to protect them by keeping them ignorant.
Instead, ignorance would make them appear dishonest.
“No,” he said. “Returning now would only ensure that everyone’s sacrifices achieved nothing.”
Alster’s jaw tightened. “Then we are thieves.”
“Yes.”
No one attempted to soften the word.
Kaelen took out his field journal.
“We record every crystal and every measure of power we took. If we survive, we return an equal charge or compensate the researchers.”
Blena exhaled. “That seems optimistic.”
“So does repairing an ancient network across Aethoria.”
Alster sat beside him.
“Write down the wire,” he said.
Anderix looked up.
“The equipment he dismantled came from Mechanum,” Alster continued. “It belonged to him, but it was lost because of this.”
“It was not stolen from Marinth Bay,” Blena said.
“No, but costs should still be counted.”
Kaelen opened to a blank page.
Fourteen research crystals. One unauthorized draw from the Marinth Bay primary crystal. Three dismantled Mechanum instruments. Damage to signal lines, laboratory equipment and one weather instrument.
Blena sat with her back against the cave wall. The certainty had gone from her face.
“I did not mean anything,” she said quietly. “When I said by whatever means.”
Tajan sat beside her. “That is why it frightened us.”
Blena looked at the stolen crystals.
“What if she was right?”
“Who?”
“The Veylborn. What if failing really does cost everyone more?”
“Then we make difficult choices,” Kaelen said. “But we make each one. We do not decide in advance that everything is permitted.”
Blena nodded.
Anderix placed the crystals into separate cloth wrappings.
Near the cave entrance, Tajan thanked Drue again for the rescue. Her hand rested briefly upon his arm.
Anderix turned his attention to packing the crystals with unnecessary precision.

They left the coast before dawn.
Behind them, Marinth Bays warning bells and Blackbirds carried descriptions from tower to tower. Kaelen heard his own name among the calls before distance scattered the words.
In his satchel, the restored crystals answered one another with a faint blue pulse. Fourteen more travelled in Blena’s pack, their stolen light hidden beneath food and clothing.
They had power again.
They also had another crime to add to warrants that had once been unjust.
Alster stopped at the top of the eastern road and looked back towards the ocean. Somewhere beyond it lay Virielia, his family and a northern road from which no message had yet come.
Then he turned away and followed the others.
Alfer had bought them time. They would not waste it.

Thy Quest: Where Should the Company Draw the Line?
Explain why the phrase “by whatever means” frightens the company. Use evidence from the cave discussion to evaluate the rule Kaelen chooses for making difficult decisions.