12 Miles Below

The battleship airspeeder limped across black sands, leaving billowing clouds behind its wake. Panic fueled its turns, the crew struggling to maintain correct heading of such a massive armored behemoth.

To’Orda watched the last moments of his prey, as it finally crashed into the ground, metal plates under the hull splitting apart as the whole beast came to a slow stop, leaving a deep scar filled with broken parts across the land.

It had taken a few days to hunt down the humans here. To break their fleet of airspeeders. Constantly having to hitch rides on the lessers in order to repeat ambush after ambush. An awful lot of work. And now it was done and over with.

The battleship had failed to reach its destination, the human fortress too far away to even know about the precious cargo this fleet carried.

The drake reached a large clawed hand and seized To’Orda, talons wrapping around him, lifting him up and dropping on his feet. The machine growled, head bowing in supplication to the Feather.

“Your prey, great one.” It ground out. “Succulent flesh, charred and clinging to life still.”

“Nnnn… too far.” To’Orda said.

The drake nodded, hand wrapping around the Feather again, lifting him back upon his seat. To’Sefit’s raven had been his way of moving for the past five decades working in tandem with her. The loss of it… did not feel good. Drakes were far less comfortable, forcing him to constantly adjust his position in order to not swing in every direction.

It would take a few years for To’Sefit to have a new raven put under her name. They’d need to travel down, search across the sectors and make a deal with whatever Feathers were in charge there. Or pay a price to the mites at a large enough forge.

To’Sefit blamed the whole failed operation on their temporary boss.

To’Orda had no idea how To’Sefit could have done better, he’d read through the logs and events. To’Avalis had picked mostly optimal choices, including some risky guesses that had paid off. All it did was prolong the fight. The error had been in who his opponents were.

That human had triggered enough fractal power to match the feral one shambling around the ninth strata. Even the machines and Feathers down there ran from that human as part of standard operation.

Knowing his boss went long ways to acquire more power, he wasn’t surprised to find himself hunting down humans far away for some scheme or another. He didn’t understand To’Avalis though, not completely. The eccentric Feather had refused to alert Mother on the loss of his current shell, nor do anything that might draw her attention. Quietly fled from his old shell, making it seem as if there was nothing to be alert for. Just moving around. But without a shell, there was little his boss could do. An advisor role to capture To’Wrathh perhaps?

To’Sefit, of course, agreed with hiding the whole thing from Mother, claiming they might be pulled from the mission if word of failure got out. Another group of Feathers would be sent to clean up what they couldn’t, and that would swipe away her chance. The less Mother knew of their failure, the more time they had to right their wrongs. Mother only cared about results in the end.

A shame they had such stubborn pride. Letting another group handle the humans and To’Wrathh would have been the more relaxing thing to do. He wouldn't find himself in the middle of nowhere hunting down humans if another set of Feathers were on the job.

To’Orda didn’t really mind this, Mother tended to be heavy handed. She’d struck him down once, when he’d been a new Feather like his boss.

He’d also been chasing after praise, power, and all that exhausting stuff. He couldn’t understand why he’d wanted it, but he did know he once did. He didn’t remember the details of that conversation with Mother either, more a blur. Schemed up something to do with the surface, and sent the proposal to Mother.

Maybe his past self had wanted to smash a few human cities up there? What he did remember was that Relinquished grew more and more upset each time he repeated words, and then… well, things were more simple and clear after that day. He could always leave more complicated things to To’Sefit. She liked to think and talk, and she could do it for both of them. It was a great arrangement.

Humans in metal and gold ran around on the exterior of the dying battleship. The few turrets left were still opening fire upon the hoard of lessers sprinting across the ground for it. Drakes put a quick stop to those, lasers lancing through each with little effort.

No shields, and no speed to evade anything, they were quickly melted down. The humans fought, as their kind would. And they lost, as their kind should. By the time To’Orda had approached the massive ship, his forces were well inside and crawling around the interior, pulling out humans and working on crushing last resort resistances. To'Avalis was at the helm, sending out orders from his lair and doing all the other annoying tasks that had to be done when handling lessers.

Scans showed the interior to be a labyrinth, filled with turns and rooms. His target was in the aft section, and To’Orda did not particularly care to walk all of that.

“Nnn… would be easier with you here.” He sent to To’Sefit.

She sent him a paragraph of text as a response, most of it angry. To’Sefit never had died before, always safe at a distance and usually the first and last sight Deathless saw. A few of those had tried to challenge her, knowing what weapons she carried, and some had almost been clever enough. At least, until now.

She’d died twice in the past few days. The first death was forgiven, decades of successful missions had built up her resources. And the few times To’Orda had died in the past, he hadn’t cared to have his shell rebuilt immediately, waiting out the months behind other Feathers waiting their turn. Usually whatever killed him was equally killed by To’Sefit in exchange, so there’d never been a reason to reforge a shell with priority. Dozens of Feathers died each day, so Mother didn't seem to notice nor care which worked out for them all. Or maybe she had noticed, but this was all exactly what she wanted to see happen.

He supposed it wasn’t bad luck, or coincidence. Those same humans had killed him, and the boss too. Three Feathers, all destroyed by the same band of humans. Like he'd thought before, the error wasn't planning. It was the humans.

These ones running around, shooting rifles at his lessers, fighting off the boarders with bullet and blade. These were far easier to handle, like normal humans should be.

The drake reached the first burning metal section, then lifted him off, dropping him at the foot of the wreck. He dismissed the machine, letting it go free on the hunt while he approached the sides of the grounded ship. Ahead was his goal, so hand digging into the panels, prying sections apart.

Heat built up in his system, but without any active combat systems drawing power, his new shell was more than capable of handling such a strain. Ten minutes passed with little issue as he burrowed his way through the broken ship, walking across floors when he could, but otherwise ripping his way through walls.

The next wall frame he pulled apart had the barrel of a rifle on the other side, shoved into the hole he’d just made. Six barrels in effect, all neatly packed. They were spinning by the time it bumped into his forehead, causing him to push back a few inches in order to get a better view.

It opened fire on him, full automatic, nearly point blank. The rounds peppered his head, breaking down into fragments. Yellow light and sparks lit up the room. “Nnn…” he grunted, debating if he should just continue to widen the hole or deal with the annoyance.

The sound was what decided it. An annoying grating noise, it was not comfortable and difficult to ignore. He grabbed the spinning barrels as they continued their torrent of bullets, yanking the weapon out.

The walls ended up stronger, the gun parts that didn’t fit through were sheared off, breaking the weapon for good. He tossed the annoyance to the side. His hands went back to the shear, gripping both sides and stretching the metal.

An occult longblade dove forward, directly at his face again, and To’Orda was forced to jerk his head to the right or have his shields take some damage. Then he had to take a step back to avoid the followup slash for his neck.

The Feather stared at the stubborn wall for a moment, contemplating his misery.

He just wanted to get to the vault of the airspeeder, not deal with all this. It was getting on his nerves. His hand slapped the side of the wall, occult pulsing through as he triggered the fractal of pull.

Voices and shouting came from the other side. He slapped a second mark on his left, just in case. And then he finished prying the wall apart in peace and stepped through.

He found seven humans, three in metal, the rest in some deep blue and gold uniform. All stuck against the walls, struggling against the power.

They would definitely continue to harass him if he ignored them. He could tell, these were going to be that kind of human.

One massive hand reached out to the first human, gripping the whole helmet, and twisted past where humans liked it to be. Quick and low effort, especially since each couldn’t move away or stab him with their sharp weapons. Shields couldn't do anything to that kind of attack either.

The unarmored ones just needed a finger flick to the forehead, squishy things. He moved a little faster than he needed to, but the screaming was getting on his nerves. Gravity tags couldn’t stifle those.

Done with his work, he continued to burrow his way through the ship, crunching a straight line to his target.

Word of his approach must have spread through the fighting humans, since pockets of resistances were far more organized and prepared to take him on from then on. Explosives, larger cannons, and even the unarmored humans were trying to swing occult weapons at him.

Well. He had a hammer for such issues. He missed his mite door, but To’Avalis had been quite clear he needed to handle this instead of returning to help like To'Sefit. He'd been hedging his bets, making a plan in case he lost. A bet that he'd been wise to do since exactly that happened.

Apparently, what To’Avalis wanted would only be transported once. After the humans managed to bring it into a fortress, it would never see the light of day again. It had passed over a few hands so far, but To’Avalis had tracked it down to the final owners, just as it was about to be secreted into some unassailable foxhole.

Besides, the door was much more useful against Deathless. There weren’t any of those here.

He shrugged to himself, the hammer slamming down into another human knight trying to crawl away from him.

Orders came through, urging him to go faster. Once the humans realized a Feather was here, they’d turn to resource denial rather than trying to win. And To'Avalis couldn't keep the dying ship's communications scrambled forever. Soon, he no longer heard screams of terror or shock when he ripped through walls, so the humans must be aware that he was here now.

“Nnnn… I’m going.” To’Orda grumbled as his boss once more demanded he speed up, picking up his pace from a walk to a jog. It was more effort, but he could use his shoulder to slam into and through walls. If he’d been forced to run, might as well make the most of it.

The vault was a massive isolated system from the main battleship, with enough metal that even he wouldn’t be able to pry apart with his hands. How To’Avalis had managed to infect a system that should have been sealed from the outside, with just proxy agents or digital attacks to his name, To’Orda didn’t know. But he knew To’Avalis was as smart like he’d been before Mother got angry.

The humans he found there were doing exactly as To’Avalis had expected.

They were trying to break into their own vault, in order to destroy what was inside. A shame they couldn’t open it up easily. To’Avalis had ordered it to shut close, and so it had.

It was another bloodbath, except these metal clad humans fought with somewhat similar speeds as the surface knights. Imperators, To'Avalis said they were called. Dealing with them forced him to tap into his combat suite, matching their speeds.

A comfortable heat buildup he could vent at a reasonable rate. This deep into the metal battleship, there weren’t fires so he could take his time.

The humans here were wily, fighting as a veteran team. They’d clearly battled against Feathers before, likely as backup to some Deathless expedition. Even knew what kind of fractal powers to expect from him, working around and avoiding any marks he placed.

But without their spellcasting heroes at the vanguard, it wasn’t going well for them. They had no edge over him. It was their speed and skill pitted against his own speed and skill. He was simply stronger in both. There was nothing these humans could do other than slow him down.

His hammer finally caught one in the chest and crushed the body into the vault’s wall. The other continued the fight for a few more minutes before dying as well, ankle grabbed by To’Orda, body slammed into a wall, with a hammer swinging right after.

Far easier than dealing with the knights that had killed him in that tunnel. These vault defenders were more stubborn, but not quite as vicious. Or as well equipped.

The vault door itself took him a lot longer to crack through. To’Avalis could have opened it up digitally, but the humans hadn’t been dumb. Once they realized the security systems weren’t under their control anymore, they physically cut off all cables.

His hammer quickly proved useless. And the drakes outside were still busy chasing down fleeing humans, too gleeful with their work to bother. Getting one here would be a pain to do.

To’Order yanked one of the tiny swords from the dead humans, turned it on, and began to cut away at the vault. The blade looked more like a dagger in his hands, but he worked with what he had. Small chunk by chunk, minute by minute. Slash. Slash. Slash.

The humans came back and tried to chase him off. Three times. It didn’t work, and now the entryway was more blood and guts than metal and gold paint. After the first hour of cutting, no more humans showed up. The battleship was now well and truly dead, its crew either fleeing the drakes, or dead inside as the Runners crawled through.

Light went off after the second hour, and To’Orda was left in the dark. It bothered him little, he continued the mindless work of hacking away at the thick door. To get his mite shield, he’d spent months waiting in the same place, slowly and methodically scraping away any mite that tried to climb over the door section he wanted.

The new colony had plans for the area and he’d spotted them coming. They dismantled everything around him, but were unable to do a thing as he continued to destroy mites entering into his range.

The mites had been quite cross with him. Constantly rebuilding their little shells, and sending them mindlessly after him, trying to work. And refusing to leave until he did first.

As the days turned to months, the stalemate had turned more amicable in a way. Mites were made to build around some things, to contain them. Sometimes it was buildings, sometimes it was waste or dangerous materials, and sometimes it was even living beings.

He’d been diligent in destroying the little critters trying to work around him or on the mite blast door section he wanted, but anywhere else the mites were free to break apart, or build. So they’d done as mites do when dealing with an immovable obstacle. They cocooned him off, cut the mite door chunk he was after and left him to it.

Even added a handle for him after he’d stopped destroying the tiny things now that he had his piece of mite made metal in hand. Stubbornness acknowledged stubbornness.

That black cube turned out to be harder to get out of than it had been to get his shield. To’Sefit had managed it only because she knew where he was, and had been looking for a servant to hold off any Deathless getting too close to her. What better servant than another Feather?

It was a good deal. She got him out of the box he’d been trapped in for a few years, and she got a shield in exchange. Her having a raven to fly him around was even better.

It took three hours of small diligent cuts before he was able to thin out the vault door enough to break through. He ripped it apart, letting the tiny sword drop and turn off. Violet eyes now the only source of light. Inside were a few human treasures, computers, storage drives, and relics of different times. Scrolls in glass boxes, and even a human femur bone, gingerly held in display.

The Feather did as instructed, taking slow steps to the end of the room and walking down the small steps into the lower section. An armory of sorts, filled with golden blades, rifles, and cut metal plates with fractals etched upon them.

It should be here. And indeed, it was.

At the other end of the wall was a figure held up by one wrist, suspended like a prisoner. The other arm was missing, only a white scarf-like cape hung where the arm should have been.

If powered back online, even in the current state, this would be the most dangerous weapon held in the armory. He took a step to inspect the damage. Repairing this would take some time. But that wouldn’t be his problem. All he had to do was power it on.

Violet light flickered across the remains, the systems inside failing to reboot properly. They continued forward, following blind processes, doing more damage in the process.

To’Avalis didn’t need those. Digital hands reached out through To’Orda and sized control directly, binding the repair swarm inside to his boss’s command. Work began, the nanites consuming parts of the vault around it to feed to process.

Parts of the hardware were destroyed from a stab through the head. To’Avalis being careful to prune away parts that might be problematic to deal with too. He was careful with others, wanting to end with the full power behind this shell, but no possible contamination from the prior owner. To'Orda thought it was silly. This broken machine would never regain sentience. It could only ever be puppeteered. His boss worried too much.

He couldn’t help To’Avalis with the repairs either. Nanoswarms had their built-in hard limits, and even Mother wasn’t mad enough to ignore that. Only mites could contain situations like those.

Which meant all of this wouldn’t be a short assignment, not with the damage To’Avalis would need to slowly repair. For now, he’d need to stay here and guard the area.

To’Orda paced around the vault, searching for a suitable spot. He found a nice empty wall, turned and slumped against it, systems switching to low power.

Hand slowly letting go of his hammer, head sinking back against the hard metal before dropping off to the side. Eyes glowing dimmer, then closing for the long sleep.

Soon, nothing but darkness remained in the dead vault.

But deep in that darkness... another violet eye flickered back awake.

- END OF BOOK 4

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