Eli McGraw was well known in the Colony of Dusk. A local hero, and brother-in-law of Field Marshal Jeremiah Strykker, it was with a full fan fare that he set forth southward. The people were proud their native son was going to take on the official expedition, with an expedition of his own.
Independently funded with support from the EEF, the Banking Guild and the Five Families of Deldoroon, the McGraw Expedition set forth weeks later from the island of Mag Buskt. Three freighters named Lies, Fear and Hate left with the tide one morning, and began their trip south around the Bay of Holys. Weeks turned to months at Sea, and food supplies and water supplies were well tracked and recorded.
Eli was sick and tired of being at sea by the time they finally reached the waters of the Lost Colonies. Part of him was itching for a fight, and when his spotters told him there were Veskan Robot Armor pilots approaching he almost fired first.
But he waited for them to approach, and got the green light from the VofV Comission. The Veskan Robots would be pulling back across the coastline to give the three freighters a wide wide berth. Eli wondered if his trip was turning around. Enjoying a nice sleep in his cabin, he had strange dreams of snow and yetis with eyestalks. A storm rolled in, and Eli tossed and turned in his sleep.
His nightmares were interrupted by the sound of smashing steel, crashing wood and water rushing in. Eli raced to the deck, and saw the freighter Lies had a huge hole torn in its side by the battering ram of a massive vessel made from wrecked ships lashed together. There were Cambion Pirates leaping from onto the freighter. Some grabbed merchants and sailors, and Eli feared it would be their fate to be sold as slaves.
Eli knew his plans had kept him safe from Pirates on the western coast of Vima, and Port Unen was swarming because of his rumors. But rumors passed along there had no way of reaching the Sea Kings’s Pirate servants here on the Western Coast. And the pirates attacked in force, tearing Lies apart before Eli’s shocked eyes.
To his luck, both Fear and Hate survived the storm and the Sea Kings did not track them further north. With a new healthy respect for the dangers presented by the Sea Kings, Eli was doubly hard on his sentries. The sailors were not allowed a moment of lax behavior while on shift, and Eli would not be surprised again by the blue skinned aliens.
It took another few months to reach the shores of the Glacial Wastes. Eli was on the deck of the freighter Hate, when he got his first view of the shore. It was a small sandy bay, surrounded in both directions by dangerous rocky shoreline. While for miles in either direction, the waves and icy cliffs seemed sure destruction for any boat whose crew were foolish enough to come close. But this bay was the perfect place for the McGraw expedition to land.
With Fear and Hate safely moored in the bay, and the first settlement set up at the bay, Eli took a Doro Tracked Hauler and set forth deep into the Glacial Wastes to find the Research Facility. Months at Sea, gave way to a week long journey across the frozen terrain.
Eli had never been so cold in his life, and frankly, he was ready to tell the Banking Guild and others to go take a long piss up a rope. He arrived at the Main Base Camp and was pleased to see that Lurtor and Grim had set up a well defended camp in the midst of the icefields, a mere hour’s hike from the entrance to the Research Facility.