12 Miles Below

I mulled over what Atius had told me, shortly after we’d climbed back aboard the airspeeder. The box containing Talen’s journal stayed firmly in my hands, where I could see it at all times.

Nobody knew how warlocks created the occult items they peddled, only that they had grown rich from it and were very choosy with who to initiate as new members. The pilgrims had hundreds of conflicting rumors about how one was chosen to become a warlock - anywhere from sacrifice and dark magic to the more mundane such as analytical talent.

Whatever their methods were, the secrets of the occult had remained well and truly locked within their guilds, as far as I knew.

Naturally, Atius had seen… opportunity with this discovery. The clan lord had tasked me to find out more about the occult. And anything I discovered, I would report directly to him. Not strictly what Tsuya had in mind per se when she gave me the book, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue with the scrapping clan lord himself. Besides, I trusted Atius to manage the information well. The warlock guilds had survived Relinquished’s wrath up to now, Atius could certainly find a way to leverage the occult book into uplifting the clan.

If we could create occult weapons, he could sell them by proxy, and earn quite a bit without anyone tracing it back to our clan. I wondered just how many occult items were sold in such a way.

I was already foaming at the mouth to open up the metal box again and start rifling through the inscribed plates, but there was still a good distance to cover between here and the clan gates.

And of course, there had to be a roadblock.

It began with a shrill alarm in the cockpit, Teed instantly tapped a few buttons, silencing it. “We’ve been pinged.” He said, now fully knocking my thought process back into the present. “Get on sensors, fire it up and figure out what’s got eyes on us, kid.”

My movements went from lazing on the seat to instantly alert. I grabbed the keyboard and moved the mechanical arm holding it. Normally, the sensor module remains in low-power mode during transit, left awake enough for exactly this situation. A few button taps and the screen blinked back to life, the system booting up to full. “Sensors online.” I reported, falling back into operation training. Teed and I were all business now. Getting pinged was never a good sign.

“Diverting power to sensors.” Teed responded, flicking a few switches to turn off less important systems in order to feed the hungry module. He’d know what the ship could afford while I could be flicking off the wrong systems without full knowledge. My job was to send the wave and interpret the results, I let him pick how to power it all. I tapped away a series of commands, seeing green across the board. The module was fully working without issue. Teed kept a tight ship.

“Charging confirmed... Complete. Sending wave now.” I reported, tapping a few more keys and locking in the parameters. The ship rumbled, a deep sound rippling through the ship. “Wave away. Tracking… five notches... ten notches….” The display reported information and I converted the numbers as the wave spread out.

Teed held his breath. “Oh gods in heaven, please let it be some submerged derelict. Something nice and simple we can ignore and keep on ridin’ in peace.”

“Twenty five notches… thirty notches… Impact. Impact at thirty three point one eight notches. Response ping…” I felt my heart drop as the screen showed the dots scattered around in a clear formation. “Seven unknown contacts. Twelve degrees down starboard.” I crunched the numbers further, reading from the report, skimming the details and putting together the story.

“Missiles?” Teed asked.

“No. Mass points to class C intercept frigates.”

“Slavers.” Teed breathed out. “Fuck. Send another ping to see how fast they’re going.”

“Already on it.” I reported, locking in the next set of parameters and smashing the enter key. Again there was a rumble that vibrated the airship. “Wave away. Tracking… Twenty five notches… thirty notches… Impact. Impact at thirty three point one one notches. They’re gaining on us, fast. Report shows around one ninety an hour”

Immediately he flicked on a few more toggles. “Countermeasure suite... online and green. Good. Shutting off non-critical systems. Least they aren’t being coy with us and playing sensor games. But class C, at thirty three notches away… scrapshit, don’t think my girl here can outrun them. I can pull off around one eighty five an hour max if I recycle the shoots and burn off the extra at best. Not sustainable though. She’ll be screaming to stop three hours in, let alone past the night.”

I knew what he was thinking, watching his own hand hovering over the yellow and black striped box at his side console. I grabbed the lid and flipped it up for him, revealing the red switch inside. “We’ve got to declare an emergency, no running from them.” I said. “Let’s be real, best we can do is buy half a day throwing every trick in the book before they eventually overtake us. Clan territory is still four days off.”

Teed gazed off to the side window. “There’s a mountain on the port side, seven degrees up. We could beat them to the punch there and lose them in the canyons.”

“They’re better in tight corners, class C airspeeders are built for this. And even if we somehow lose them, what then? It’s just flat wastes in every direction, they only need to camp and wait for us to stick a foot out. We’re right back where we started.”

He grit his teeth, looking again through the windows, searching for anything else in this wasteland that might give him ideas. Nothing. “We’ll keep that as a backup plan, in case things go to scrapshit.” His hands reached out to the red toggle and flipped it. Red alert lights lit up with alarm all throughout the ship interior. Next, he turned a rotating wheel slider and connected to the ship comms. “All crew, contact twelve degrees down starboard. Repeat, contact twelve degrees down starboard. Sensors confirm seven class C intercept frigates on approach.”

I could almost hear the chaos happening behind the cockpit door as everyone scrambled to lock up goods, double bar possible ingress points and even close the hangar doors which were usually left open on the sides. The shipmaster was already barking on general comms, calling out orders. “Get your gear on boys and girls! Time to pay the rent! Man turrets, lock munitions away from the walls, suit up and deheat the upper deck! Clan lord’s watching, don’t embarrass me you gods damned mutts!”

Status screen on my left showed the gun turrets being powered on and manned, the rifles being spooled up and given a test run to shake off the loose snow. We’ll want everything as ready as possible when the enemy arrives. Deheating request was already being sent, everyone on the upper decks being given warnings to get into their environmental suits.

“Time until they cross us?” Atius’s voice came over the comms.

“About eight hours minimum, m’lord. Engines can be overclocked to one-fifty percent, but that’ll only buy us time to sunset at best and damage the engines. We’re no where near the clan territory.”

“Understood. I’m not worried pilot, and neither should you. Do remember we have six relic knights aboard alongside myself. Most raiders don’t even expect a single knight aboard a lone airship.”

Teed’s skin instantly gained some color back. “Aye, m’lord. You’re right. Just on edge is all. They might still be petty dicks once they find out they ain’t winning an easy one. Plenty o’ damage they can do without directly engaging us and then leaving us.”

“Focus on keeping the course steady. You need only worry about one item at a time. Leave the enemy to us. That’s what we’re here for. And talking of that, Keith, I know you’re there in the cockpit listening in. Time to get down here and earn your new salary, lad.”

I gave Teed a look, which he returned. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew, kid. I thought you’d bit the white two weeks ago. Don’t do me dirty twice now.”

“It’ll be fine.” I said, knocking on my chestplate three times for luck and picking up my helmet from the dashboard. “Clan Lord had a point. Nobody wants to mess with knights if they can help it. Even less a Deathless. Get in your suit, leave the rest to us.”

The cockpit doors opened and I slipped past another crewmember making her way up to replace me, dragging two environmental suits.

Combat up on the surface was a numbers game. A single bullet shot was usually not fatal, field kit glue did a great job at small tears like that. So long as someone wore their metal over the environmental suits in the right way, most vital parts were protected. Not comfortable to wear or move around with the added bulk, but usually people had time to equip them right before fights. Stalemates were quick to happen, which meant whichever side had less people usually surrendered early if the option was available. Otherwise, it would be a long drawn out thing.

The real shakeup came with relic knights. They were simply impervious to small caliber bullets. It took specialized guns to even trigger a knight’s shields. The type of gun that took two people to carry around. And by no means guaranteed to stop a knight from reaching said pair and making their day go from bad to terrible. Not to mention carrying such a weapon would paint a massive target for every knight on the field to aim at first.

And relic knights could be horribly fast when they wanted to be.

One sprinting at full speed would make it past an entire battlefield within seconds, not to mention the shock factor the defenders would feel on seeing a fully armored monster making a direct line to them with a repo plan in mind.

There was almost no stopping such a tank barreling into a defense line. Best one could do is stall with grenades and area of denial. And I say stall, because of course knight armor fully tracked any grenade tossed out and the warrior inside would be well alerted to every detail from trajectory to expected detonation range. All colorfully presented with clear-cut visuals on where to not stand.

Once there weren’t any more grenades to use, it was lights out for anyone unlucky enough to be around. Relic armor could outright punch through steel. The metal sheets scavengers wore as armor would stop small caliber bullets but act more like moldy fabric against the fist of a knight. Right through to the squishy human behind, and that was only their fists. The weapons a knight carried tended to be just as deadly and inescapable.

As such, the traditional counter to a knight was another knight, preferably a scarier one. And unless that knight came equipped with anti-knight weaponry, which was a whole logistics issue of its own, it would end up being settled in melee combat using occult weapons. Easy to carry, easy to use, no ammunition or storage costs - basically occult weapons were far too good to be held back by the short range. Which wasn’t that large of an obstacle in the first place considering the stupid speeds knights could reach while sprinting.

Occasionally, they’d carry metal kite shields as well. And if the knight was rich enough, those could be occult shields, as if the armor itself wasn’t a large enough fuck-you to the rank and file weapons already.

That’s why it came down to a numbers game when knights were involved. Whichever side had more knights or more money per knight, would eventually beat down their competition and then happily walk into the defense line on the other side to clean house. Unless you had skilled knights like Father who could take on two at once and still come out ahead.

It took about five minutes for the crew to move from leisure to combat ready. Another ten minutes to make sure everything was packed away and safe. Wouldn’t do for munitions to get shot at and exploded just because the box happened to be left in easy access.

The crew would then go to the next step, which was to rigorously test out the emergency systems. Teed would be wearing his environmental suit right about now along with all the off-duty crew, and the interior chambers would be chilled to match surface temperature. All heating turned off everywhere on the ship. It would be a nightmare if a hole opened up - the temperature differential could do nasty things to expanding metal.

Atius remained unperturbed, hand on the pommel of his old sword.

“Spare a shovel for your thoughts, my lord?” I asked him, standing among the other knights in the center of the scrambling scavengers.

“I’m waiting for confirmation on what the enemy is, lad. There’s a difference between slavers, raiders and pirates. Raiders would have launched missiles at this distance and done everything to scramble our means of fighting back. Only slavers and pirates are interested in leaving the crew alive, for different reasons. Slavers can’t be negotiated with, they’re two bit thugs. Pirates on the other hand, are business oriented. All they’re after is loot and getting it with the least amount of effort.”

“If they’re all class C intercept frigates, they’re not made to haul home slaves.” I said. “But this could just be the vanguard, and their real haulers will arrive after their prey is de-toothed.”

“Agreed.” He said. “Which is why I’m waiting for confirmation before I determine which action to take.”

We didn’t need to wait long. Teed’s voice clicked over to the knight’s channel, reporting his findings. “Seven ships as the sun shines, my lord. All intercept frigates. We’ve got IFF tags and visuals - they’re flying the black flag.”

“Pirates then.” Atius said, smiling like a predator. “Wonderful. Like a taste of old times. Increase speed above max for fifteen minutes, get someone by the engines and strap on a smoke grenade to the side, detonate it and reduce speed to forty percent. Let them think we broke our legs trying to run. Give their lads something to drool over.”

Teed gave a verbal salute over the comms. The crew remained around, fiddling with their weapons, preparing for the worst, though they all seemed mollified by the number of knights we had aboard and that the clan lord clearly had a plan in mind. One way or another, the pirates weren’t going to win this one with our firepower. The question was how much damage they’d do to us before we broke their backs.

Fifteen minutes later, our left engine had a plume of black engine smoke trailing from it, while the ship lurched from sprinting speeds down to a limp. It didn’t take long for the gleeful pirates to catch up.

Comms distance closed in, and a woman’s voice picked up. “Airspeeder hauler, turn off your engines, land somewhere and prepare for boarding. Y’all tried and ye fucked up clearly. Take it as a sign from the gods to politely give up. Bring out all items of value and we’ll be on our merry way with nobody hurt. Try to fight or hide the goods and you’ll be questioning that decision real hard on the last, and longest, moments of yer life. Y’all know the drill. If ye shipmaster be an idiot that needs to be strung up, now’s the time to mutiny and we’ll offer a fair trial on the ice, on our word.”

“Trial?” I asked, more curious. The expeditions I’d been with had been short stops near the clan home. Never ran into any sort of mishap there. This was my first time with pirates.

“Aye. You heard right, pirates offer the crew a chance to air grievances.” Ironreach shrugged to the side. "Makes the shipmaster second guess themselves about ordering the crew to repel instead of simply throwing the towel."

Atius chuckled. “As I said, lad. Business oriented. They make it extremely easy to surrender.”

“I thought they tortured people.”

“Oh, they do.” Atius said. “They’ll torture anyone that fights back and leave everyone else untouched. Best way to profit is a straight surrender. As such, all pirates are gunning to maximize that chance with any stick and carrot. If the crew surrenders, they won’t touch a single rebreather on anyone. If the crew fights back… As she said. Last and longest moment of your life. Unless you’re one of the few spared so that you can spread the word on return.”

The clan lord turned, looking right where the cockpit would be. “Pilot!” He barked out. “Land the ship. There’s some treasure that’s been courteous enough to drive itself to me, and I intend to collect.”

It only took minutes before the pirates reached us once Teed had turned down the engines and landed. I could hear the engines of all seven of the pirate ships rumbling around. Out on speakers, the woman's voice sounded out again. “Good boys! Now, open your bay doors and start unpackin’ Don't try anything funny. We’ll be grabbing the goods and be on our merry way. Everyone’s happy, ‘xcept maybe the rich scrapshits that sent you out. I doubt they pay any of you enough to lose your life over their slice of cake.”

“Wait until they’re all landed and set up before we show our hand.” Atius said to us. The knights and I all hid deep in the cargo hold, behind crates, obscured from sight as the bay doors opened up. The crew began to dutifully comply, bringing out the supplies and making no motion to fight. “I want them on the snow and too tied down to up and leave spooked.” Atius said.

Journey fed me a viewpoint from the bay camera. The seven ships had all landed, a flurry of pirates all jumping down and setting up shop. A few were already pitching up tents, since organizing all the new haul would likely take some time. Like a lazy predator taking a nap after a full meal.

There were still a great many still setting up defenses, the gun turrets all ready to open fire and locked on our ship, but a sense of complacency was rapidly spreading. These pirates were old hats, they knew the drill and could tell when a crew wasn’t planning on fighting.

They were right that our crew wasn’t planning on fighting, but for the wrong reasons. Fifteen minutes later and Atius considered the pirates to be fully entrenched. If the ships tried to haul away, they’d be leaving half their crew behind, possibly too much of their crew to continue operations.

A man with a few logistics tools was tapping away at the keys while he inventoried the different crates and supplies the pirates would be taking, walking between the goods. At his side was a rather striking knight. Bright red armor with a large feather’d hat and other ornaments adorned her, of which even the frozen rime didn’t cover up the color. That must be their leader. Or a decoy, though I doubted that. There wasn’t a safer place than inside a relic armor. At her side, two other relic knights idled by, also marked red, though far less eye-catching than the first.

Atius laughed when he saw the hat, a dark chuckle he kept under his beard. Though he didn’t answer what had him so amused, instead giving orders. “All right lads, time to make our entrance. Open fire only if needed, though I doubt it’ll come to that.”

We made our way out of the bay and into the open air, casually walking in a V formation, behind the clan lord, who was already wreathed in the occult, the display misting off his arm, face exposed brightly under the sun. Any doubt he wasn't a Deathless was just about delusional.

Movement around the impromptu camp slowed as more and more noticed our approach. Silence on the comms. A look for smugness in the stance and glances of our crew, and one of silent horror on the pirates as they all started to notice. Imagine being a pirate, dealing with only the rank and file for years up until this one lone airspeeder out in the middle of nowhere. And out of that hanger walks out a demi-god glowing with power and six relic knights bodyguards trailing behind, one of which was an imperial crusader - at least as far as Journey would appear to them.

Sounds of metal clicking into the ice littered the air. All the pirates immediately tossed their weapons away the moment they noticed, taking hasty steps backwards and sitting down with their hands held up behind their necks. They knew the way the wind was blowing.

Atius had been right. It didn’t matter what the pirate captain ordered now. No sane man wanted to pick a fight with six relic knights. And even worse, a Deathless. They all knew their chances at victory. Frankly, they were probably all wondering what sort of mythical story they'd happened to stumble into. They clearly knew none of them were the main characters at least.

The pirate knights spotted us walking to them, both bodyguards taking a step back, one reaching for the pommel of his weapon for a half second before curling up his fist and raising a hand away from the weapon.

The center knight, the captain of this fleet, turned to check on the commotion and froze.

Atius grinned. “Why, if it isn’t an Amaris. I see your family obtained new armors since the last time I met you folks. Would be a shame if something happened to those. Again.”

The pirate leader looked around her, watching the rest of the pirates already sitting down, weapons tossed a few feet away, every single one of them raising hands. Even the ones in the turrets were powering them off and scrambling away.

“Fuck.” She simply said.

Next chapter - Enemies today, allies tomorrow

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