Shaken by the fact that I'd actually forgotten the whole story line with the kidnapped children, I'm appealing to people with an obssessive grasp of Dante continuity to give us a time-line or the story so far? Maybe a dramatis personae as well?
Here's a relevant extract from the concordance I created for myself before [hype-alert] writing my Black Flame novel Nikolai Dante: The Strangelove Gambit...
Hell and High Water Progs 2003, 1322-1328
1. Katarina Dante controls Escondida with a reign of terror. She and first mate Marguerite escort young Nikolai through the streets, taking him to a convent and leaving him there. 'I'm sorry, Nikolai. You've grown too heavy for me to carry any more,' his mother says. When Nikolai runs after his mother she has Marguerite punch him in the head to make the message clear.
2. Years later Dante drifts at sea on a raft constructed from the shattered remains of the crashed hovership. He sees pirates attacking a smaller ship and intervenes, arriving too late to save a woman from the pirates, known as Reivers. Nikolai slaughters them. Then the dead woman's children appear, a girl called Mina and a younger boy, Karl. Mina says their father is the Kraken.
3. Next day Dante bonds with Karl while Mina visits her dead mother. Afterwards she says her father is Lord of the Reivers. He destroyed her mother's island years ago and took her as his wife. They ran away because Kraken was beginning to look lustfully at his pubescent daughter. They were heading for Escondida, hoping to be safe there. Dante says he spent time there as a child. They are attacked by Kreelers, amphibious human hybrids grown in unregulated Pacific Rim Genepools. The Reivers use them for reconnaissance. Dante kills the Kreelers but the Kraken's ship looms in the distance, on an intercept course?
4. The Kraken gives orders Karl and Mina are not to be harmed while Dante is to be broken but taken alive. Nikolai kills a flurry of Reivers, so Kraken offers him a job. Dante refuses. But the Reivers are themselves attacked by flying gunships of the Black Dragons.
5. The Reivers are forced to retreat, but Kraken vows to tear out Dante's heart and eat it when next they meet. The Black Dragons, governors of the Pacific Rim and the thousands of islands within it, are a treacherous alliance of Yakuza societies chaired by the Sagawa Clan. The Dragons were a threat to the Tsar until the Cataclysm of 2621 devastated Japan with earthquakes and tidal waves. So the Dragons created a new powerbase in Pacifica, an oceanic city-state and the largest of several fortresses constructed around black smokers. The Dragons remained neutral during the war and the Tsar has ordered a purge of their ranks as punishment. According to legend Akita Sagawa had herself delivered naked to the Tsar in a life-sized gold dragon as an act of appeasement, with her father's severed head in her lap. Assassination is the traditional form of accession in Yakuza societies and Akita is a master of the art. Dante is presented to Akita as a prisoner, his alleged war crimes listed along with the 50 million roubles bounty on his head - 75 million if he is delivered to the Tsar alive. Anyone harbouring him will be executed, their property confiscated and their families made destitute. Dante suggests it would be more fun to kill him alive and around than handing him over to the Tsar. Akita's enforcer says he was a comrade of Count Pyre and demands vengeance through trial by combat, throwing Yakuza law into the mix. Dante kicks him unconscious with one blow.
6. After a wash Dante visits Akita's bedchamber. She is naked and covered in tattoos, semi-sentient and empathic, the work of the world's foremost bio-artists. Dante and Akita jump into bed. Karl and Mina are drugged. Akita says Pacifica is constantly under siege from Kraken's Reivers and the pirates of Escondida. The Tsar secretly channels aid to Akita's enemies to keep the Black Dragons occupied. Akita compares Dante's lovemaking style to the Tsar and offers Nikolai the chance to help her seize control of the Empire. Akita ups the stakes, saying her enforcer Murakami will decapitate Mina and Karl unless Dante helps her. He reluctantly agrees?
7. In Escondida Marguerite worries her captain is getting soft. The pirate queen ponders retirement until she gets a call from her ship, the Marauder. A wealthy aero-skimmer just left Pacifica unescorted. Called the Jacaranda, it is owned by Britannia publishing magnate R. W. Sutherland. The Marauder halts the Jacaranda and Katarina leads a strike-squad aboard. But the ship seems empty - except for Nikolai sat on the bridge waiting with a bottle of champagne.
8. Marguerite is ready to shoot Dante, believing he has become his father's son. Nikolai swats her aside with one blow, payback for how she hit him years earlier. Dante claims he escaped Pacifica. Katarina says it cost her almost a year's profits to rebuild the convent Dante burnt down as a boy. He says that was almost an accident. The Jacaranda is badly holed by a Black Dragon gunship, with more coming in to attack. The Empress Akita ordered the Pacifica Air Force to make the assault look convincing as possible but to let her agent escape. Lord Murakami overrules that order, tells the gunships to blow the bastards apart. The Marauder returns fire and tears the gunships to pieces. Dante rescues his mother and shoots down Murakami's gunship. Murakami and Dante confront each other, Nikolai refusing to be in the thrall of the Black Dragons. He murders Murakami, then joins his mother and the Marauder as it sails into the sunset.
The Sea Falcon Prog 2004
Lord Flintlock and Spatchcock have stowed away on a cruise liner awash with Imperial troops as it sails the coral atolls of the Pacific Ocean. They are about to be discovered when a familiar voice shouts from a single sail vessel alongside the liner - Dante! Two days earlier in Escondida, Nikolai's mother gives him the boat as a Christmas present. The laws of Escondida state new captains must recruit their crews from outside the fleet. Dante boards the liner and begins robbing the passengers. Unfortunately for him, one of them is Lulu. She did escape her prison as the Tsar foolishly gave her male jailers. She calls Dante a traitor and blames him for the Tsar getting the access codes to the Winter Palace. Lulu has decided to terrorise Imperial society and take revenge on all those who turned against the Romanovs. Lulu's little monsters devour the liner's bridge crew and the ship goes out of control. Spatchcock and Lord Peter try to help Dante, feebly as always. The liner runs aground and Dante escapes in his boat with two new crewmen - Spatchcock and Lord Peter. The Rudinshtein Irregulars ride again?
Hope that helps!
davidbishop
Ahh, Mr Bishop...Can we have the rest of your concordance...please?
VERY useful, thanks so much! I wonder if it would be at all possible to get holdof the rest of the concordance?
bump