STEALTHY GUARDIANS OF GULLSPORT 'In the fourth year of the first worldwide war, when Imperial Franchenia, and the powerful Balfourian Empire struggled for control of the seaways, enemy agents tried, without success, to ferret out the secrets of Gullsport, chief Marine base of the northern Home Isles. Time and again they sent their nascent Underwater Boat Divisions, north to their target. Sometimes they even came heartstoppingly close. However they never realised that many of the islets were in fact sea going craft, so well camouflagued were they with bulbous panels, seaweed and other natural materials. The underwater chains, anti-underwater-craft nets, and the electrically fired, floating sea mines, often in the shape of cunningly disguised giant clams, or seeming to be boulders, caught most of the raiders. The Rathlynne Islanders, recruited for their underwater swimming skills, as deep pearl divers, were the second to last line of defence, working alongside their partners, the Dark Dolphins of the SeaBarony. As for the final line of defence, there are rumours that the Scryers and Seventh Sons and Daughters of the island breed, worked, at that time, hand in hand with their Imperial masters, in return for a measure of freedom at home, and a blind eye turned to their contacts across the Swelling Ocean and the Free States of Nova Orkadya. Notwithstanding their lack of success, the Franchenian Navy and even their fledgling, and ill resourced, Aerial Corps tried for long, long years, to pierce the grey northern waters, trying to catch the Northern Fleet and Marine at a disadavantage, in order to cripple the grinding Balfourian naval war machine. All their efforts, as we know, failed, and many are the stories that even now, some one hundred and seventy-four years later, cannot be told, although they can be heard among the islanders talking with their kin, near at hand, and fartelling across the wide oceans, in their inpenetrable coded mouth music. That often misleading island talk, handed down for thousands of years, still makes them the first pick of the recruiting officers of the Imperial Telegraphy Corps. Integrity, secrecy and Loyalty are paramount in that hallowed service.' Dylan, Devlynne, Mackormack and Hamilton Eds., THE FIRST WORLD WIDE WAR AND THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM, Moraye Press, Eideann's Burra. Well, another step forward in time, in the story of Auld Dariata, as it becomes an integral, if fairly autonomous part of the sprawling Balfourian Empire. Using a recalcitrant VUE 7 Complete program, that now refuses to recognise many of its resources, I put together this cold seascape. It has a disguised sea-clam-boulder mine in the foreground, an almost impossible to recognise Naval gunboat covered in seaweed and giant bulbous camouflague in the midground, and the gey grey cliffs of Auld Eagles Coast in the background. The history and technology are definitely being sketched out as this alternate world evolves. Perhaps I should map it more fully. My grandson is always wanting more and more stories, but I never seem to have the opportunity and the proper mindset at the same time. If you have read this far, and humoured me, I thank you. If you have not you are still included in my thoughts and prayers as night approaches in these uncertain times. God bless you all and all your loved ones, John.