12 Miles Below

Past books sometimes came with pictures of how the world once was. And a smaller but highly coveted selection of books were stories made from nothing but pictures. This is how we knew what old era architecture looked like. There were some beautiful art pieces of homes and buildings.

That was a different time.

Today, beautiful architecture existed only in those pictures or the odd video file viewed on a monitor for a few coins. Still, some people would describe the clan fortresses and bunkers up here to be works of art - in their own way. A representation of the struggles a clan would go through, a sort of lived history passed down from people to people. Clans might not remain in one place forever, but the impact each clan made on their home remained.

Outside, the colony look fairly nondescript. Large, overlapping domes with blocky structures, all made of heavy metal and usually half buried in rime and snow.

Signs of who the fortress belonged to were found on the broadcast frequency to anyone near enough to receive it. The harsh winds would strip anything that wasn’t durable, and the snows following in those winds would cover up decorations of any kind.

If there were such a thing as exterior decorations, it would be the welding scars that appeared all over the structures, exposing an ancient history. Where parts of the building had failed to hold up against the elements. Repairs was the second most common task the Reachers would be doing up here.

I had never given that much thought about how these fortresses came to be in the first place - before any clans moved in. Now however, my trip underground had changed how I saw the colony homes, of which ours was rapidly approaching. Appearing as a distant speck on the airspeeder windshields.

Teed clicked a few commands at my side and synced to the general comms with one last toggle flip above him.

“ATC, home-clan airspeeder Nostradamus and additional non-clan class-C intercept frigate codename Taker, is south of buoy seven, inbound requesting docking hangars with information zulu. Notam, Taker is hostage. Repeat, Taker is hostage.”

As always, pilot speech was a language of its own, though this one was mostly filled with common words. Earlier he had me tune in to a broadcast of absolute gibberish he told me was for information on weather and other details to expect closer to the clan home. Today was apparently windy but otherwise sunny.

The cockpit filled with static for a moment before a man’s voice sounded on the speaker. The air traffic control officer sounded like he’d missed his chance for a cup of coffee three hours ago and still hadn’t been able to ferret time for a new one. “ATC, roger. Left base, report by buoy three for Nostradamus and Taker.”

Teed chuckled, then toggled the switch again. “Reporting by buoy three for Nostradamus and Taker.”

“Wonder how they’re taking us coming home a week early with another ship in tow.” I asked.

My friend shrugged. “Probably another Tuesday at ATC. A hostage ship isn’t usual, but it's happened before. They know how to handle it.”

The pirate ship was indeed flying off on our left, the words Taker inscribed on the sides of the ship. The windows of the airspeeder gave me a pretty good vision of their rather morose pirate pilot, with Ironreach fully armored and lounging on the copilot’s seat, legs kicked up on a console. He turned his armored helmet to give us a casual nod. Teed returned a salute while I settled with a wave. Clan Lord Atius was aboard that ship along with his bodyguards, keeping a proverbial sword at the pirate throats. Only Kidra and I remained on Teed’s beloved Nostradamus.

Massive rail cannon stations were already appearing in the distance as our two ships charged above the snow. These were forward defense posts that served more as intimidation than actual weapons fire. I don’t think our clan ever saw them used before, and given that some of them were salvaged and dragged here across a few thousand miles, I wasn’t sure how many were in actual working shape. They all looked different from one another.

Some of them came from old dreadnaughts, or wrecked airspeeders. Others were found on derelict buildings that had sprouted from the underground. Model difference wasn’t the only factor, the different turrets came from different eras as well. The result was a melting pot of different weapons, each requiring a different touch to keep them active and working.

Guess those stations are probably going to be seeing a lot of foot traffic real soon, given the recent news.

The pair of airspeeders passed by the massive encampments without contest, billowing snow trailing behind our wake. The turrets remained frozen and lifeless, slowly passing by from our perspective.

Our clan had the fortune of being scary by reputation, since we had a Deathless and the theoretical attackers would not. So the clan lord had focused more on bringing housing online compared to defenses, something he was likely regretting right about now.

“Nostradamus, for traffic make a left turn at buoy three and fly northbound to gate four. Taker to follow for gate five. Land outside, I’ll let you know when proper taxi is setup. Be aware, knights called up for Taker in gate five.”

Teed clicked to respond, confirming the orders. “ATC, Nostradamus making left turn at buoy three and flying northbound to gate four. Taker will mirror for gate five. We’ll both land in front of our gates and wait for taxi. Out.”

He flipped another toggle and connected to our sister pirate frigate. “You boys heard that?”

The pilot aboard the Taker answered back affirmative, repeating the instructions and Teed punched in the new locations, the airspeeder banking slightly. We were already passing the railguns and other listening posts. Most of these were unmanned and unheated, but they certainly looked intimidating. It would be a scramble to power these defenses back online and still have enough cells leftover to upkeep current heating. I know Atius kept a buffer for emergencies, I just didn’t know how many cells that buffer was made up of.

The colony up ahead wasn’t all a single unified piece. The heart of the structure, now that I truly gave it thought, was probably mite-made. And as the inevitable first clan to find it took over, they overshadowed the inhuman construction, covering it up with tapestries and new inner buildings. The exteriors also had the same story, additions would sprout around the core, slowly over time.

At first it would be runways and land markings for the airspeeders traffic to make use of. And then those would slowly evolve into non-essential storage, and eventually housing once it was safe enough. It was always a race. How much material could be collected and used to build up and maintain housing against the population increase. There were strict rules on children for a reason.

A good part of the colony was underground, although go too far deep and the pathways were intentionally collapsed. Homicidal toasters bent on murder and destruction made for complicated neighboors. Nobody wanted to dig too deep, lest the machines pay a visit.

So the actual colony looked squat to the ground, the architecture wind resistant and any sense of artistry was all mathematical optimizations to keeping heat inside. We hadn’t yet filled up all the pre-existing rooms the previous clan had constructed, there were still dozens upon dozens of corridors and buildings on the outer radius, kept mothballed until we had more power cells to reheat those sections. The clan before us had been at least twice our size given what we found.

The single number that ruled everything on the surface was the total power cells tied up to heating the colony. Any way to expand outwards while keeping that number sustainable was the name of the game up here. There were only a finite number of power cells and a finite amount of time those cells could be recharged over and over before they broke down. The surface was a constant struggle to outpace that degradation.

Atius’s sword proved to me that even the occult would degrade over use, since he warned me there were only a few more charges of that soulstrike back when I’d touched that blade. And considering I now had a ‘book’ filled with occult knowledge, I might ask to go touch his sword some more to see if I could figure out how it ticked.

I’ll ask nicely of course. My kleptomaniac past was a distant memory, I swear.

Talking about aggressive borrowing, Atius had wisely picked the cover story for the cache we recovered as a failed tax-evasion attempt. Some smuggler from a different clan had contracted pirates to pick up a delivery of occult knives, only the pirates never came to pick up the knives for some reason. He didn’t need to be specific. The time period could have been decades or centuries ago. No one would question the story.

And if I cracked the secrets of the occult, I might very well be producing those knives, which would come full circle.

The clan hanger came into view, one of many doorways into the structure, our speeder began to decelerate, the force pushing me slightly out of my seat. Teed expertly banked the ship on course, keeping an eye on the local traffic around us.

Nearby, another airspeeder was making a final approach for its own hangar, dragging a massive cube of ice behind it, hauled on multiple hover spikes wedged into the sides. Meltwater mined out of far frozen dig sites, to be introduced into the clan hydrosystems, replacing the water that slowly escaped the system one way or another over time. No matter how hard engineers tried, there were always leaks in the system.

Our airspeeder continued forward with a slow trot, and then came to a stop, hovering still in the air a few hundred meters away from home.

Even safe in our airspeeder, the growl of the hanger doors ahead of us was still slightly audible. Large hexagonal teeth at the bottom made the doorway mirror a yawning giant. Sheets of snow were knocked off as the doorway rose up. Inside the hangar, a small gaggle of suited up engineers remained at standby, tools at the ready to start maintenance and the inspections.

Gate five’s doorway was equally opening up. The pirate ship had carefully come to a stop in front like we did, blue flares of thrust appearing on the sides of the ship chaotically. Those would be the maneuvering thrusters, keeping the ship perfectly steady against the winds. Our own ship would be doing the same, all automatically run. Airspeeder tech that was complete gibberish to the rest of us. It couldn't run on windows, that was for sure.

Strolling out of the hangers and plowing directly over the snow were a smaller set of vehicles with massive tank treads. That would be our taxi.

I’d gotten to ride on one of these once, they tore through snow like nobody’s business and the heavy winds here couldn’t tip them over even if it got strong enough to toss a scavenger around. Plus those massive treads kept excellent traction on the snow. Teed clicked a few buttons and one of the screens on the center console flickered to view the undercarriage, just as our own taxi passed by our view, riding to the underbelly of our ship.

There, a few scavengers were coordinating with the taxi to attach a sturdy clamp from the small vehicle to our much larger behemoth.

Teed kept up communications with the small crew, alerting each other of their status, actions and expectations. Pilot talk was about half gibberish this time.

Once the clamps were secure, Teed let the small machine scurry away and guide the airship into the hangar in a far more controlled method. With treads on the ground, there’d be no accidentally drifting into a wall.

Soon enough, the hanger swallowed us whole and the door closed behind. The clamp was disengaged and the airspeeder rumbled, landing gear touching the flat metal ground with a deep thud. Reheating would take some time to cycle through a large space like this, so people generally equipped the environmental suits until a taskmaster called out the all-clear and more intense repairs and retrofits could be performed.

I gave Teed a slap on the shoulder which he returned with his traditional flare. “Now that my best mate’s a knight, you’ve got some pull right?” He asked.

I stayed still for a second, looking at him. “Perhaps.” I left in the air ominously. “What boon shall I bequeath upon you, my poor plebeian?”

“Well, m’lord. There’s this woman you see, but she’s also a knight now, which kind of ruins my plans at the moment.”

I laughed at that. Laser focused. “I might be willing to pass your name along to my esteemed colleague, the lady knight. It seems however that my throat is oddly parched, which makes it very hard to say anything, sadly. Whatever shall I do.”

“You taken real fast to being a knight.” He chuckled back.

“You know what they say,” I gave him one last look before leaving him to his cockpit and duties. “There’s only the quick and the dead.”

I could tell Kidra outright that Teed had a thing for her, but that would put pressure on my sister in ways I wasn't willing to do. She'd see it as a duty to go out with at least one date, since I had brought it up. However, what I could do was put him in situations where he had the chance to ask. After that it would be up to him.

Scheming was in my blood after all. If Teed and Kidra happened to end up with a chance to be alone, well, perhaps that might not have been by such coincidence.

It would be a scandal like no other of course, but that wasn't going to stop anyone.

Kidra and I walked into that hanger like kings returning from battle. Already the general scuttle was moving around, the engineers on deck here pausing only for a moment at the unexpected pair of knights. They recognized the Winterscar emblem, offering the traditional salute of deference, but they didn’t quite know what to do with me.

Many gave me the deference for a high ranking imperial, which was odd at first until I realized how Journey looked to others. This was armor once worn by a crusader. And while a lot of the ornaments such as paper scrolls and kilt had long ago broken down, the gold remained behind.

A familiar environmental suit approached, hunched over slightly and making his way forward with a cane. Four other Reachers walked dutifully behind him, all taking a kneel in front of us as the one with a cane came closer. I could tell from the emblems, charms and other flairs just who this was. Of course he’d be here to oversee the repairs on Teed’s ship. Friends stick together.

“Pleased to meet you, lord crusader.” Anarii said, once he was within courteous distance from me. “Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Clan Altosk! The airspeeder you arrived on wasn’t quite expected to return so soon. I regret to inform you, we're not quite sure how best to provide hospitality. To help better accommodate your needs, please let me know what business you may have among our clan, and I’ll see to it that it is swiftly handled.”

Not planning to spoil any surprise, I wordlessly pointed past the hangars, in the direction of the airlocks leading away. Then lifted and tapped the box that held Talen’s journal. To seal the deal, I flicked my neck in a follow-me gesture as I walked past the old man. Kidra scoffed and followed behind as an escort. I knew her enough to practically see her eye rolling to the back of her head, but she played along. I’d only get to surprise people once in my life with armor like this before word of mouth ran ahead of me, I wasn’t going to miss it.

A part of me was itching to get back to my workshop and open up the metal box I carried, and another part of me wanted to simply relax for a moment with friends again. The latter had won out. So long as I kept the box in hand, it wasn’t going anywhere.

Anarii took it all in stride, marching quickly up to the front and opening the airlock doors for us. He wordlessly signaled his four servants to carry on with regular duty with a quick hand signal for all clear and I’ll handle it.

The three of us passed without issue, where Anarii continued with the lead, taking off his rebreather and hood now that we were indoors.

Ahhhhh. Home sweet home. Had Journey not been filtering the air, I’d be smelling the tint of wet metal. Around the hangars, it was unavoidable and marked the domain of Reachers, specifically the sub-caste that was in charge of airspeeders and their care.

Not even a few steps inside, and it was already a straight mess of metal walls, with a catwalk right above us. Those were the domain of the Logi caste, and I could see one of their runners speed right above. Zooming on their hoversleds ferrying cargo to and from places in the clan. They’d race at ridiculous speeds around tight turns and twists which was only possible if they knew nobody would unexpectedly be in their way. As such, foot traffic like ours was delegated to walkways just under the Logi catwalks. Since two of our small party of three were Relic Knights, other people walking by gave us a wide right of way, bowing deeply as we passed, or offering a quick nod if bowing would halt foot traffic.

Pilgrims always said that stepping into a clan colony felt like they were aboard another airspeeder, a far more cramped and busy one at least. Can’t say they were wrong. Space was a premium here, so it wasn’t ever wasted, though there were exceptions for clan morale such as the public garden, animal pens and the central bath.

“Follow me please,” Anarii said. “There’s a ready room made for privacy nearby. I am the ranking Reacher for this hangar, if there are sensitive matters to discuss I will take them, or you, to the proper location. If you require any food or drink, please let me know and I’ll have a servant dispatched to fetch some for you right away.”

I remained wordless, following behind dutifully as the old man led me through the structure. Soon enough, we were in a small nondescript room with a table and chair. A projector was provided here along with other tools a small briefing might require.

In the last clan habitat that we had left, I remembered rooms like these had doubled as places to sleep, but back in that habitat we were seriously hitting the limit on how large a population could be sustained. New rooms, heaters and additions were constantly being worked on, and that was far more dangerous than simply fixing up and re-heating sections pre-build long ago.

Sitting down, Anarii folded his hands in front, neatly on the table. “Now, you wished to discuss?”

I looked to Kidra. She shrugged and took the lead, taking off her helmet. That caught the old man by surprise, which was quickly schooled.

“I take it the armor you wear is Winterscar prime?” He asked.

She nodded. “It is. I have inherited it.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss. I know your relationship with him was often… hard. I only hope there was a sense of closure for you.”

A pang flared in my heart and I did my best to keep it down. It was easier now that weeks had passed, but a part of me still felt raw about it. What helped dull the pain was the knowledge something of him remained behind within Winterscar. Once I’d learned enough about the Occult, I hoped to solve that mystery.

“I’ve paid my time.” Kidra said. “My relationship with my Father was complicated. Thank you for your consideration, I appreciate the thought.”

A polite way of saying she didn’t want to talk about it.

Anarii nodded, understanding her message. Then he took a glance at me. His eyes went back and forth for a few seconds between us. “If I may be so bold as to ask a personal question before attending to the Lord Crusader, Lady Knight, what of your brother Keith? Is he…” He licked his lips nervously. “Is he all right?”

Kidra turned to me, and I took my cue.

“Well, if you have to know. I’m doing pretty good, all things considered.” I took the helmet off, setting it down with a thud on the table and leaned my elbow on it, flashing him an impish smile and thumbs up. If surprise had caught the old man previously, this one gave him a heart attack. He gaped, jaw slowly going loose, mind frantically trying to piece together what was going on.

“Feel like a changed man.” I said. “Brought back a new look, even. What do you think? Like the gold?”

He went through a small journey of emotions before he settled on a cackling laugh that had him bend over a bit to hold his stomach. When he straightened back up, he’d brought out the cane. “You little ratshit! I should strangle you for that!” The old man coughed, half yelling half laughing, taking that stick of his and whacking away at me across the table. Journey’s arm guard easily took the blows without bothering to trigger any shields.

“Do you know how worried I was just now?” He said, whacking away at my arm as he did so. “Knew there had to be something bad happening for Kidra to be wearing that armor! And here you are acting all restrained and somber! Listen here you little scrapshit! I’m too old for this! Too old! I will whip you a new one, Gods above they’ll drag me to the stockades for assault!”

When Anarii had finished laughing, pouring his pent up aggression by cane, and wiping away his eyes, he turned up to her. “Take it you found a small trove of armors. But why are you in your Father’s armor? Shouldn’t you be wearing one of the new ones?”

At that, Kidra shook her head. “We only discovered one armor, and Keith is wearing it.”

“Then... Oh. I had hoped for a moment.” He went quiet for a moment, then took a long sigh. “Death is an unfortunate inevitability for all of us and there can be no running away from it forever. The lady of the deep comes for us all.” The atmosphere in the room dropped a few degrees, but Anarii picked it right back up again. “However, you both have had long enough to think about such dark thoughts on the way here. Don’t let me ruin a moment of celebration! Keith, my boy, you must have one tall tale to tell little old me about this. Gods. A knight! My boy’s a knight!” He broke into another fit of laughs. “I’ll buy you two a drink on me, the top shelf bottles for sure! Moments like these are the ones we save up for.”

“Was really the blessing of their sun goddess," I told him. "Led me right to it.”

Kidra’s lip twitched in a slight smile she fought to keep under control. Admittedly, I was being a little cheeky there.

It’s good to be home.

Next Chapter - In which Keith has a wholesome day off

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