With the combined thrust of the Propulsion Array and the efforts of the 11 Tartans, the Sunchaser soon reached its target speed of about 90 kph.
A mature Tartan could maintain a speed of 120 kph for several hours when fully loaded, while the Sunchaser's optimum cruising speed, the speed at which it most efficiently used World Qi from its Spirit Crystals, was just over 100 kph.
90 kph was obviously a fair bit slower than either of these speeds, but it was the best that could be achieved under the current circumstances.
Increasing the output of the Skyship's Propulsion Array, or adding more Tartans to the towing team, might have boosted this speed further, but after a series of tests and calculations, Lucas, Celestina, and Vanessa determined that this would ultimately be counterproductive.
More World Qi would be used up, and the Tartans would tire out more quickly, resulting in fewer evacuation flights overall, so 90 kph was the final speed chosen.
Between loading and unloading people and supplies from the Sunchaser, and traveling back and forth between the town and city, a single round trip was expected to take a little over 2 hours. This meant that 5 evacuation flights could happen each day during daylight hours.
Running evacuation flights at night was considered by the leaders in Redwood Town, but with most of the passengers being old, injured, and children, the idea was quickly discarded. These people weren't professional soldiers and would surely have great difficulty moving around in the dark.
Additionally, no one knew how well the Tartans would hold up under these unusual circumstances, so factoring in time for them to rest was also necessary.
Working within these limitations, 20 evacuation flights were planned for the next 4 days, ferrying some 2,000 people from Redwood Town to Herald City.
As for the remaining 4,000 refugees, they would be sent to Herald City in 2 batches of 2,000 aboard the ships Steward Warren was procuring, starting 3 days from now.
If all went well, the entire town would be emptied out within 4 days. This schedule would surely push both the beasts and the people to the breaking point, but everyone had agreed that this goal was worth aiming for.
All that was left to do now was execute.
With the first group of evacuees on its way, the second group was already being organized, this one consisting of children.
While only 73 seriously injured patients had fit aboard the Sunchaser for the first flight, 120 to 130 small children would be crammed into the second. It would hardly be the comfortable joy-ride the kids had been anticipating, but it would get the job done.
The third flight would consist of roughly 100 elderly and disabled adults, while the fourth would be another group of wounded, and the fifth would be more children.
There was no particular reason for this kind of rotation, it was just how things had worked out in the end.
…..
Back at the Manor, Lucas was busy organizing some of his friends, as well as a number of the young kids who he had been looking after the past few days, into a wagon which would take them down to the military camp.
By now, some of the older kids had caught onto the fact that this wasn't just them taking a trip on the flying ship, but seeing all the serious looks on the faces of the adults around them, they kept their mouths shut and did as they were told.
It was here that Eris and Christina really came in handy.
It was hard for anyone to raise a fuss when two pretty girls were the ones directing them around, especially when these two were among the strongest of the younger generation and didn't hesitate to use their fists to 'persuade' others when words didn't work.
The two girls were both born leaders, though their styles differed greatly.
Eris took a 'lead-by-example' approach, riling the kids up to follow her around.
On the other hand, Christina had a kind of noble bearing that made people unconsciously obey her when she spoke, allowing her to easily direct the children, especially the older boys who, by now, had become completely smitten with the beautiful princess.
As the kids were piling into the wagon, a loud whistling sound rang out from the west, accompanied by a bright green light shooting up into the sky.
Catching sight of this, the various leaders around town breathed a sigh of relief.
Since yesterday morning, the number of attacks had decreased dramatically, but the greatest worry was still that powerful Wild Beasts hiding in the Great Western Forest would emerge and charge into Redwood Town.
The missing pack of Saberclaw Raptors was of particular concern seeing how their Alpha was strong enough to fight on par with Celestina despite being injured.
After much debate, it was decided that waiting around, hoping the beasts wouldn't appear while they were in the midst of evacuating, wasn't a reliable plan. So, for the first time since her arrival, Celestina decided to switch from defence, to offence, sweeping the surrounding forest to root out any Wild Beasts.
The green light soaring above the forest was produced from a simple type of Spirit Tool commonly used to send signals. It had a fancy, over-the-top name that seemed to aggrandize its purpose, a common problem with Spirit Tools invented by eccentric craftsmen, but when Lucas instinctually called it a 'flare', everyone immediately agreed to call it by that name from then on.
A green flare meant Celestina had completed her initial sweep of the vicinity and not found any threats. She would now dive deeper into the forest.
This was a good sign, if not a little confusing, but at the moment, no one was complaining about being too lucky.
…..
2 hours after the Sunchaser initially left, there was still no sign of it returning.
2 and a half hours…
3 hours….
Finally, 3 and a half hours later, the Sunchaser touched down in the military camp on the eastern outskirts of town. The initial estimates were that a round-trip would take only 2 hours, so this first voyage taking almost twice as long was a worrying sign.
Seeing the ship land, Lucas, who had been anxiously waiting nearby, ran up the gangplank and asked, "Captain Gage, did you encounter some kind of issue in Herald City?"
Over the past 5 days, all of the soldiers under Celestina and Vanessa's command had become familiar with Lucas, the Marquess' First Disciple, so Lana Gage showed no awkwardness when the young boy was the one who first made this inquiry.
Frowning slightly, the pilot of the Sunchaser shook her head and replied, "There were some minor issues along the way, each of them delaying us slightly, but the real problem was getting the last harness. They said it would be ready this morning, but when we arrived in Herald City, it still wasn't finished."
Lucas also frowned when he heard this, but he quickly set the matter aside as a minor concern, "As long as we have the last harness, that's all that matters right now."
Nodding, Lana Gage followed up, "Agreed. The flight itself went relatively smoothly. We probably won't be able to make up the time we've already lost, but I don't anticipate falling further behind schedule."
"Good," Lucas breathed a little easier before straightening up, "Please see to it that the last Tartan is hitched to the Sunchaser as soon as possible. We'll handle the boarding and loading process on our end."
"Understood," Captain Gage saluted and walked off to see to her next task. There was no need for her to salute Lucas, but with him being the one basically in charge right now, it somehow felt appropriate.
With the first hiccup of the day taken care of, Lucas ran back to the waiting area that had been set up and started herding the children who would next board the Sunchaser towards the ship.
…..
As evening approached, and the sun was just beginning to turn orange, the Sunchaser departed for its fourth run to Herald City. They were still running behind-schedule thanks to the delay from the initial flight, but so far, no other major issues had occurred, which was an encouraging sign.
On top of that, no large-scale beast attacks had happened, so the evacuation was proceeding relatively calmly.
Some minor improvements had been made to the process itself over the course of the day as well, such as having the gangplank and stairs in place, as well as the next group of passengers lined up and ready to go when the Sunchaser was spotted on the horizon.
The biggest change made was moving the landing site for the Sunchaser out from the edge of town.
The eastern side of Redwood Town had the most farmland as it was facing away from the Great Western Forest and was thus the safest place to develop. Originally, the Sunchaser had landed as close to town as possible, where the military camp was set up, as this provided better security and easier access.
This worked well during the initial days when beast attacks were happening frequently, but with the situation somewhat calming down, Lucas decided it was worth the risk to move the Skyship's landing sight further east, all the way to the edge of the town's farmland.
The farmland's edge was a little over half-an-hour away by wagon from the original military camp, roughly 5 km. By setting up the departure point here, it saved the Sunchaser 3 to 4 minutes both coming and going from Redwood Town.
While saving 7 minutes per trip might not seem like much at first glance, considering the Sunchaser needed to make 20 trips in order to finish its part of the evacuation plan, this would ultimately translate to over 2 hours of saved time during the next few days.
Of course, this also required the new landing site to be secured, but seeing how it was a wide-open field with clear visibility on all sides, that wasn't too big a problem for the volunteer guards.
Together with a few other efficiency improvements, the average round-trip time for each evacuation flight had been decreased from close to two and a quarter hours, to just 2 hours, with Lucas and everyone else still looking for ways to further cut that time down.