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hen BDA Tr#ska fell the High Knight Econonic was Dara Meh, and she was of course executed. Her daughter Colena and grandson Kalan were also killed hy the Deletian invaders. But Kalan Meh had a young friend, a boy of seven named Dynsal Moucahter-Maynemeh. Dynsa was overlooked when the Meh home was raided, and a minor assistant in the Knights Economic managed to get the boy off-planet safely. Dynsal was raised in a tiny enclave of the Knights Economic on the capital world of the Duchy of Mel. By the time he was fifteen he had raised enough money through trade to purchase a secondhand starboat and cargo tenders. At age eighteen he returned to Ermina with a brand-new starship from the Vermis shipyards; he organized a crew of Knights Economic and set out on a trade route that touched most worlds and settlements with refugee Trgskans in the population. When he was 22, the same year the the Deletian Monarchy was conquered, Dynsal held on R Staran the first Assembly of Tr#skan Families since BDA Tr#ska fell. A little over two hundred delegates from various surviving families attended. The business of the Assembly had much to do with inheritance disputes, but before it adjourned Dynsal passed resolutions to hold new Assemblies every ten years, and to ensure the continuity of the Tr#skan race. There was also some discussion of the possibility of getting Tr#ska back -- but the Assembly did not take Dynsal seriously and he bided his time. When Dynsal was 26 there was a serious conflict of inheritance between two Tr#skan families claiming the precedence of the Meh family; the Galaxy's Tr#skan communities were polarized until Dynsal forced the summoning of an early Assembly to deal with the matter. At this Assembly, he and his crew were granted permission to lead an occupation mission to BDA Tr#ska. Dynsal's crew was beaten easily by the Post-Deletian Empire, and Dynsal lost a good portion of his personal fortune. Still, by the time of the Third Assembly (this time with over two thousand attendees) when he vras 32, Dymsal had regained all that he'd lost and had started building a trade fleet of six ships. By this time the Tr#skan Trade Union was definitely finished. Even the designation of traders as "Knights Economic" had begun to fade. But Dynsal retained the title as he retained all the trappings of the Union. The Fourth Assembly granted Dynsal, at his own request, the old Meh Family title of High Knight Economic. In his 43rd year High Knight Moucahter-Maynemeh led a 27-ship assault force against BDA Tr#ska and established a camp on Tr#skan soil. It took the Post-Deletian Empire three years to throw him off the planet. Over the next five years the Empire made constant efforts to keep Dynsal and his followers away from Tr#ska. Finally Emperor Bertilleffar I ordered BDA Tr#ska made uninhabitable; in part, Bertilleffar said, "I do not want my great-great-grandchildren to have to deal with a strong BDA Tr#ska, so now I will destroy a weak Tr#ska forever. " A ten-year program left BDA Tr#ska's atmosphere poisoned, her temperature rising under a greenhouse effect, and her seas boiling away. Dynsal was now 61 years old and had in his lifetime made and lost several fortunes. All he had left was a ship and some expensive cargoes -- he sold them all to hire a Borshallan investigative team to come to BDA Tr#ska and estimate a price for terraforming the world. The figure Dynsal was quoted was far beyond a world's ransom...it was, in fact, slightly more than the total profits from the Tr#skan Trade Union during its entire history. At the Sixth Assembly Dynsal presented this finding, and asked that the Assembly begin a program dedicated to raising the money and the military forces that would be necessary to reclaim the Tr#skan homeworld. But by now there were few had ever set foot on Tr#ska, and although they had a feeling of racial commonality, the Assembled Families voted not to begin Dynsal's program. Dynsal gathered a few faithful about himself, styling them all as Knights Economic. Then he bought a small ship and hit the trade lanes once again. By trade and investment Dynsal built his capital, and by the time of the Seventh Assembly (when he was 72), he arrived in a kilometer-long ship modelled after the ships of the Independent Traders. At that Assembly Dynsal announced his formation of Independent Trade Ship Kalan Meh, with the chartered purpose of raising funds to buy back BDA Tr#tska for the Tr#skans. Dynsal died at 91, just weeks before the Ninth Assembly. At that time, the Kalan Meh had not even paid off its original debts. But Dynsal's dream did not die, and the Five Hundred Twenty-Eighth
Assembly opened seven years ahead of schedule on BDA Tr#ska in
the year AD 9743, at which time the Kalan Meh was finally removed
from service and made into a monument to the man who had bought
a world back, Dynsal Moucahter-Maynemeh. |
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| A Troubadour's Song |
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