12 Miles Below

Cathida purred like a cat spotting a pipe weasel. “Right on the gold, deary. There’s still five signals being sent, one from each of us. Not software either, signals seem to be separate from the armors.”

“How did you miss an entire set of signals being sent out?” I asked, “Only the real Cathida gets to say she’s too old for this scrapshit, you’re part-armor.”

“Well, if you have to know, the data signatures are forged as relic armor metadata, the kind that Journey was set to ignore. There’s lots of outdated info in this software, do you really need to know the soil density and mineral composition of the surrounding bricks? Or the local alpha meter readings? Or maybe you’d like to know their potential value in dollars and cost assessment of the complex ore surrounding us?”

“What the gods is a dollar?” Windrunner asked a second before I got to doing the same.

“Why are you asking me?” Cathida said. “It’s just a number on the system under the column ‘value.’ Could be the keys to the goddess’s kingdom for all we know and I’d miss it for pretty sparkle. Value’s extremely vague and nobody’s left anything else to work with. I’m not your golden saint with all the answers.”

“We do not have the time for this.” Kidra cut in. “Focus, Keith.”

“Right. We’ve got to deal with a backstabbing sneaky calculator first. Journey, can you highlight where the source of the signals are?”

“Now that’s a question it can work with.” Cathida grumbled, complying. The HUD changed, outlines showing on all armors, isolating where the signals were on each of us. We found Kidra’s first. Hidden under a fold of her dress, looking more like a small clump of dirt, magnetized to stick on the armor.

Her relic armor hadn’t noticed one loose signal from all the others being communicated between the group.

“This is too clean.” Windrunner said, finding his own bug slipped between armor plates. He didn’t find just one either, there were three in there, two dormant while the third did the work. “This is specialized tech, how did he come up with something like this in a few hours?”

“He didn’t.” I said, recognizing the simplicity of the design as Journey’s scanning brought out reports on the dirt we’d found. This sort of tech wasn’t made last second. “He’d need trial and error to figure out exactly what data he could send that relic armors would ignore. This wasn’t made to handle us. This was made to handle any relic user he’d run into. Tracking where people are isn’t something he came up with to deal with us, it’s his default tactic.”

I took a closer look through the soul sight, now that I knew what I was looking for. Machinery inside came into focus, the concepts simple and clear. My regular eyes would have had a hard time focusing on the tiny things, but the soul sight was very different. Concepts didn’t have different sizes after all.

The little bugs looked like small pucks, with one side flat while the other had a randomized rock like surface, making it look like a speck of dirt. And the flat surface was strongly magnetic.

Everything else inside the tiny robot was made to help transmit the signal. The only thing it used to hide was its size and keeping the signal hidden among the junk.

To’Avalis must have spent some time designing this and using it against other relic armors in the past. Which made him the first Feather I knew about to use things like this.

Wrath, I called out. Do Feathers normally use tools like this?

No. She sent back immediately. Although I only have surface understanding of other Feathers. There may be more that deviate from standards.

Windrunner cursed under his breath. “When did he get this stuff on us?”

“The tunnels.” Kidra said. “Consider it. We all have more than a single transmitter around on our armor, they're clearly mass made. To’Avalis could have put hundreds scattered across a few different chokepoints.”

“How did he know we’d even use the tunnels?” Windrunner countered. “That’s one giant leap. If We didn’t have Kei…” He stopped, then turned to look at me. “Before you kept to yourself how you knew about the tunnels. Was that information deliberately leaked to you? Is your source planted?”

Did Abraxas set me up? That coward of a machine kept watching over To’Wrathh and I for days on end. Why turn traitor on us now? Not to mention I had to force it out of him.

“No. Can’t see any reason why my source would be a setup. I think he took a lucky gamble.” I said, “He didn’t know if we’d use the tunnels or not, but he set up everything so that we’d be forced to.”

Putting To’Sefit at the centerpoint forced us to consider alternative options, like a surround.

And in doing so, we’d either run into the tunnels ourselves while setting up, or we’d run into something he’d plant to draw us into the tunnels one way or another.

Windrunner looked up, muttering. “All gone to hell faster than any other expedition I’d been on. It’s fine, we’re still alive and we have time to make a plan.”

I raised a hand. “I’ve got a suggestion for the bugs. I say we reuse - and recycle.”

Four spiders stalked forward, slowing down in confusion. Their targets had gone silent, no more sounds of sprinting footsteps on water. Maybe they thought we’d stopped to talk again, and so they all scurried around to take a position.

And then a wide range ping was sent out, the same scan as before. The spiders knew we’d spotted them once already, so they were again prepared to fend off.

Two knights leaped straight up, landing on the ruined wall, right into sight. Staring down at the spiders.

Both knights lifted grenade launchers and aimed. The spiders did what spiders do, shields flaring into life on their arms, lifting them up to protect their main body from whatever it was those humans were about to fire down with. Their shields could handle any kind of human weapon.

Unfortunately for the spiders, knightbreakers were on a different level. Both rounds launched, expanded, and ripped into the stationary machines, shields and all. I couldn’t have asked for better targets.

The remaining two knew they were in trouble. They booked it, only to be pincered in by one more knight in teal colors, a blade twirling out.

Behind the two spiders, were the two knights in red who’d opened fire on them, namely Kidra and I, already jumping down to tackle these leftovers. And ahead of them was the lone teal knight with only one sword out.

They picked to take their chances against Windrunner. One knight was a better bet than two. And I'm sure they had some sensors that let them notice Windrunner was filled with broken bones and muscle contusions. Surely he couldn't post that much of a threat to them, they must have thought.

Works for us. Instead of chasing after the fleeing targets, Kidra and I went to recover our spent knightbreaker shells. Those had been engineered to be reusable. We just needed to wiggle them out of the dead spiders.

I have no idea what the two spiders would be thinking of this time, watching the humans fishing around the cut up guts of their packmates as they ran off in the other direction. If I had to bet, I’d say they were rapidly more occupied about a specific knight in the teal heraldry of House Windrunner, the very same knight they thought could be shoved aside and left behind.

The spiders ran right into him, like rats running directly into the open claws of a waiting cat.

Windrunner blurred with unnatural speed, unhinged laughter spilling out of him as he slipped under the guard of the first spider, neatly stabbing his sword into a weak spot of some kind. The spider’s lights went out, but not before Windrunner vaulted from under the belly. Using a hand to swing himself up, flipping halfway until his feet were on the upper shell. From there he kicked off like a rocket, directly as the other fleeing target, blade flashing out.

The spider realized it wasn’t going to escape, turned and swiped out for the gleeful knight. Windrunner twisted like a cat in midair, free hand grabbing hold of the swinging leg. The spider took a few hesitant steps backwards, waving the captured leg frantically, as if it were trying to flick a disgusting insect off its fingers.

Windrunner let go. It just wasn’t in the direction the spider had hoped for. Instead, he flew right at the spider’s main body courtesy of the spider’s own misguided attempts to knock him away. His feet skidded on top of the smooth surface, a blade plunging down into the shell at the same time, leaving a blue trail behind.

The spider screeched in panic. It instantly retracted all legs, flopping onto the floor with a thud, while six reversed arms all stabbed out wildly above itself, trying to knock the knight dancing around on top.

He dodged three in quick succession, slipped under the guard of a fourth, vaulted over a fifth, and chopped a path through the sixth, ending with him sliding down the domed shell of the spider, blade flashing down for the front. His boots hit the ground, his helmet glared up, waiting.

The spider shrieked against the damage, scrambling up and away, every leg it had digging at the stone ground to push itself further away. Which was exactly what Windrunner had been waiting on.

An easy exposed target on the belly.

He threw his blade like an arrow, where it sank directly on target. The spider’s lights flashed out, its momentum causing it to roll over on its back, legs frozen in their final movements.

“That was cathartic.” He said with a satisfied sigh, slapping his hands free of non-existant dirt, walking over for the hilt of his discarded sword. “Feels good to move as fast as they do now. Even the score out. Now, onto the next part of your plan kid?”

“Right.” I said, catching up. “Journey, toggle on the countermeasures.”

“Done.” Cathida said. “Annnnd.... looks like it worked out exactly as theory said it would. Gold for gold, deary.”

I’d spent a few years of my life trying to get internet working on the surface, or at least a prototype version of it. Signals and comms were part of the technology I was looking into, trying to find a way to create a net of broadcasting buoys.

That plan was doomed for failure of course, but the knowledge didn’t go to wastes. Signals were ultimately waves when all the math was boiled down. And waves could be nullified with an equal and opposite wave.

We knew what the transmitters were sending off. So I had Journey and the other armors study the patterns, and setup an exact counterpattern to transmit. I could have gone through and squashed all of these into actual dust, but I had plans for these little critters.

Almost predictably, he gave us a call the moment he realized he no longer had any eyes on us. “Continue to resist, and I will hunt down your separated brethren and eliminate them.” To’Avalis said over the general comms channel. “I have the skill to do so. Even if I can’t track you, I can track them.”

“You didn’t show your face with To’Orda, and you didn’t come to help To’Sefit. I’m starting to think you're not here at all, are you?” I said. “You know what all this adds up to? A bluff.”

“Then you gamble with lives that aren’t yours. Does that sit right with you, human?”

Windrunner shook his head. “Have to hand it to him, he really pulls out every dirty trick in the book. Moment he starts losing, he’s already going for the backup options.”

“Avalis, can I call you Avalis? To’Avalis is a mouthful you know.” I said.

“Call me what you want, Winterscar. I only care to recover To’Wrathh, alive or dead. You’re a curiosity but not my objective.”

“Get a feeling I'm about to be upgraded from curiosity to nuisance. Now I’m going to hang up, because I’m quite sure you’re trying to keep me talking as a last desperate attempt to keep track of our general location while you scramble out some kind of response. See you soon buddy. And Wrath says hi.”

I shut off the comms, ignoring whatever message he’d sent back. Likely one trying to goad me into talking scrapshit with him some more.

Wrath, ever the patient saint, decided not to let me know I wasn't being honest with Avalis about her warm regards. She stayed in the sack, waiting with Sagrius and Atius nice and safe while we were squashing the spiders.

"You okay with us fighting off spiders? Not that we have much of a choice." I said, lifting up the sack and hooking it on my back.

I feel sorrow that they had to be eliminated. She said. However I understand reality. A commander needs to be prepared to lose their own units, and these are enemies.

"So long as they don't come back as Feathers looking to smite me, I'll take whatever kills I can get." Windrunner grumbled, reaching Atius and lifting him carefully onto his back. He was hacking out black blood a lot less, wheezing instead. His lungs must be clearing up. Hopefully that Deathless constitution of his would get him back on his feet soon, he was a large part of our team's damage and utility.

Kidra wordlessly took hold of Sagrius and followed procedure. On his front, Sagrius hadn't improved, still comatose, and the armor was still in command of his body. It hadn't talked much at all, other than answer basic questions. Incredibly eerie. Father was doing his best with the other knights under his command, we had to trust he'd figure it out.

As for the rest of us, we had our own show to handle. “Journey, open up the map and give us directions.” I ordered.

The armor complied, a green arrow and highlighted line showed up superimposed on my HUD.

Despite Kidra telling me it wasn’t the time to ask Journey a bunch of questions, we still had to map out more of the area before we could find a good ambush spot for the spiders. During that time, I found out a few more things about all these disabled and abandoned settings that were still running due to hardware rather than software.

Relic armor had excellent sensors embedded into the helmets, capable of full spectrum composition analysis in micro situations, and it had wide spectrum analysis with less detail for the macro situations. No idea why random features like this ended up in the armor, this was just one of many niche features the armors ended up with. I could imagine a few Reacher all working together and slipping in different things they thought could be useful. And when field testing came around, the Reachers would opt to turn off and mothball the extra features as it was easier than removing all of the junk directly. Not like a few extra pounds would make any difference to a relic armor.

The wide range scanners were passive and helped out mapping the surroundings as we’d run through it. They did more than map, they were running analysis on the wall composition, alluvium levels left by all the water, and all kinds of other random datapoints that had next to no worth in the battlefield.

But there was one bit of data that I found interesting. The scanner portions that let relic armors figure out exactly how deep the knights had been buried when To’Orda showed up and ripped the tunnel apart. That could tell density of land - and pockets of air further past the rock.

How’s that useful in combat? Generally it's not. But in this particular case, we know there was a basement level under us somewhere that was accessible through the center of the temple, where the mite forge was located. So I’d asked Journey to narrow down the place where the floor is structurally thin enough to get through with some creative fenangling: We’d make our own stairwell down a level, and leave him looking around for us in the wrong area.

If To’Avalis was going to play this out like a rat bastard, he’ll quickly learn he’s not alone.

Next chapter - Interlude - Clan Knights

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