Flagship Sumer One Eight Seven, the largest and fastest of all Sumer spaceships, could accommodate up to three thousand people and travel through space at low speed for as long as three years. No wonder the Ziggurat hesitated to destroy such a valuable asset in the Sumer treasury. It was a wise decision to let it go and take time to formulate a strategy to reclaim it.

  Queen Nammu changed out of her prison clothes and walked among the twenty-five crew members. Each of them was essential to the operation of such a massive ship. The crew and General Urla greeted the queen respectfully.

  "Queen Nammu," General Urla said, bowing slightly. "Welcome aboard. We are en-route to Ars Pheria, and no Sumer ships are currently tracking us."

  “Thank you, General Urla,” said the Queen. “And thank you to all of you aboard this ship today. You’ve risked your lives for me and for the future of Sumeria. Today, I am a part of this crew, just like each of you. We will work together, stand together, and fight back against the Ziggurat and their twisted plans. I promise you that I will find a way to defeat them.”

  The crew members cheered for Queen Nammu. She was surprised to find that her people were ready for revolution far sooner than she had anticipated. With a quiet breath, she removed her mask.

  “No masks or capes required on my ship,” she declared.

  One by one, the Sumer crew followed her lead, peeling away their masks to reveal their faces, beautiful, unguarded, and full of bright smiles.

  Queen Nammu and General Urla made their way to the bridge for a more private conversation.

  “General, tell me, how did An arrange all of this?” the Queen asked. “How did she contact you?”

  “My Queen, it was not An who arranged your escape. It was your son, Ka.”

  “Ka? My son!” Queen Nammu gasped in astonishment. “But he’s only sixteen.”

  “He has been training with the defenders of the Ziggurat and earned their trust,” General Urla explained. “Ka told me that nearly half of the defenders don’t believe you’re responsible for the High Priestess’s death. Many of the younger men among them are frustrated by how they’ve been treated by the priestesses. They want change, they want equality with women. They believe you could bring that change.”

  The Queen’s eyes widened.

  “They helped Ka arrange your escape,” Urla continued. “Fortunately, we were already one step ahead. The Flagship was ready to depart at a moment’s notice, as per your previous orders.”

  “I had no idea,” the Queen murmured, her voice thick with disappointment. A wave of regret washed over her as she reflected on her blindness. Not only had she failed to recognize the trust her people were willing to place in her, but she also hadn't seen her own son, Ka, for who he had become. “I was so focused on An that I didn’t see Ka growing up to be a hero.”

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  “My Queen,” General Urla continued, his voice firm yet respectful, “you know all the hard work in the Ziggurat and the surrounding communities is carried out by the men. Yet, they never receive any recognition. They are denied entry to the Ziggurat schools, excluded from the privileges granted to the priestesses. It's not just the women who need liberation from the Ziggurat's hold, men too are longing for change. They want to be treated as equals, to play a vital role in society, not as second-class citizens."

  “General Urla, I understand your words, and I agree with them. I only wish I could turn back time, to act sooner, before all of this transpired. But now, it seems I am too late.” She admitted quietly, her voice heavy with regret.

  “My Queen, we must focus on the future now,” General Urla said. “We need to plan how we will approach Ars Pheria.” The wisdom in his eyes and calm tone of his voice were steady as always.

  The Queen’s brown eyes widened with hope as she looked toward the view of the vast expanse of space ahead. “Can we communicate with Ars Pheria?” she asked.

  General Urla hesitated for a moment before answering. He had been thinking about the same question since the moment he decided to take on this mission. The Sumer Space Agency had contacted Ars Pheria through the spy spheres all along, but the channel between the spheres and the Space Agency was only linked through the Agency's protected information stream. The Flagship was not prepared to interfere with this channel. If General Urla had had more time to prepare the ship, linking the spy spheres would have been one of his top priorities.

  “Unfortunately, we have no direct means of communication with them. The best we can hope for is to intercept their radio frequencies as we approach. But we have no way of knowing if they have such devices or if they’re monitoring them.”

  “They may or they may not. They make interesting choices. They use solar-powered construction machines to build massive structures, yet they lack production capacity for their daily needs. It’s hard to understand the logic behind their lifestyle,” the Queen answered. “Can we send spy spheres ahead of us?”

  “Even if we did, our current speed would outpace any spy sphere.”

  “Then we will wait until the last minute.”

  “My Queen, I suppose Ka will look for an opportunity to warn the Ars Pherians,” said General Urla. “But if he cannot, we should be prepared for a hostile welcome.”

  Queen Nammu could bet that the Ars Pherians did not have any means of defense capable of rivaling Sumer technology. The spy spheres had not revealed any kind of arsenal on their planet. Yet, King Sephianos' attitude radiated such confidence that Queen Nammu was certain he was hiding something, perhaps a weapon the Sumerians had no knowledge of. He was concealing a secret that gave him this confidence. Or maybe he was simply a great actor.

  On the second day of their space voyage, Flagship Sumer One Eight Seven received an incoming communication from Sumeria. It was a warning:

  “Flagship Sumer One Eight Seven’s captain and the entire crew are expected to surrender to the Ars Pherian defense units immediately upon arrival. The flagship will be destroyed along with the crew unless all members arrive on Ars Pheria in unarmed shuttles, ready to surrender.”

  That was expected. The Ziggurat would follow them to Ars Pheria with extra fuel to collect the Flagship. To carry the extra fuel, they would have to travel slowly.

  “How long do you think it will take them to reach Ars Pheria?” asked the Queen.

  “Not less than fifty days, if they want enough fuel to bring the Flagship back,” answered General Urla.

  “We will have almost a month on Ars Pheria if they don’t kill us,” said the Queen. “That should be enough time to convince them.”

  “Convince them to what, my Queen?”

  “To give us the liquid gold,” said the Queen. “We will have to secure a deal with them, so we can return to Sumeria and reclaim our planet.”