At night, the exhausted Crown Prince hurried onto the bridge of the Origin Vanguard in his royal pajamas, protected by his guards. His fatigue came from lengthy discussions with the leaders of various factions at a meeting organized by the halfling steam lords. Given Chardo's complicated political situation, the still-young Crown Prince had to take matters seriously. But although he still looked half asleep, his expression was grave.
Something had clearly gone wrong!
"What happened?"
The Crown Prince looked at the busy staff working on various devices and asked General Bhopal, whose face was grim:
"I heard our communications with the homeland were cut off. Who did it?"
"We can't confirm that yet, Your Highness. The news has been kept under wraps. Only the personnel on duty and the commanders of the sun ships know. But all communications with the homeland have entered a state of dangerous failure."
The old general furrowed his brow.
"Our instruments are working normally, but the signal beacon in the royal city of Ptolemy is shut down. Right now, all communications have gone silent except for the signal feedback from the Holy City of Creation. Worst of all, we haven't been able to contact the other sun ships either.
"We can only suspect something has happened back home and His Majesty has ordered a nationwide communications lockdown. But honestly, I can't imagine what could have happened to make things this bad so quickly.
"Cleric Berdinos is currently contacting the Holy City through the secret methods of the Church of the Blazing Sun. We may hear something soon."
"But even if Father ordered the signal cutoff, the important regions across the empire—and especially the sun ships, our national treasures—would still maintain encrypted communications within safe limits. Being completely unable to contact anyone, as we are now,