12 Miles Below

Book 2. Chapter 5: Enemies today, allies tomorrow

Ankah looked over fondly at her new gauntlet. Raised up in the air, light glinting off the scarlet edges. The bright red didnt fit House Shadowsongs traditional theme, but the armor would be more fitted once she returned. They werent hard to modify cosmetically at least.

Calem and Locke were also similarly busy donning their own pair of armors. I would swear on my gravestone Atius deliberately had the shadowsongs wear the new plate directly on the other side of the ex-owners. The pirates watched with mute anger.

We had escorted the three pirate knights onto the ship at sword-point, where the interior section had been reheated with the recent end of hostilities. Tradition made it pretty clear who gets these armors. Shadowsong, being the highest rank on the airspeeder at the time besides the clan lord, naturally folded the armor under his house. He had candidates on board that could wear the armor while the other houses didnt.

Three knight relic armors all at once was a massive haul, and the Shadowsongs would pay quite a bit over time in order to secure their initial claim of the armors. Of course, the prime took that deal without hesitation.

Why in the twelve hells are you even in this region? Of all fuckin places and all fuckin Deathless. Its godsdamned hundreds of miles off yer territory, you prick.

Atius shrugged, leaning back on the table chair. Ahead of him, the pirate captain sat, legs crossed following suit with her own arms. She was not amused. Least, tell me exactly what had you barking around here for?

Our clan lord shrugged casually. Thats the splendid part about winning - I dont need to answer questions. I get to ask them, lass. Hows your grandmother? Been a few years since the last time I saw her.

The pirate spat on the table at that. She curses your name and the day each morning on sunshine and curses the day again fore she sleeps like a lullaby. Everyone and her dogs heard her tale o you. Always thought it to be a funny tale growing up. Not so funny now that Im living it. She shot a particularly bloodcurdling glare at Ankah.

The Shadowsong heiress ignored the scowl as if it was beneath her attention. Instead, she took slightly longer to make sure she had properly attached her gold jewelry to the right places. Moving slightly slower than needed. It almost didnt look deliberate. Almost.

Another crewmember came by with a sponge and began to clean off the spit from the table without word.

So your grandmothers still alive? Perhaps next time Im around the market, Ill see if I can have tea with her and chat about old times. Atius said.

Oh, shes alive all right. The pirate laughed. Though I think seeing your ugly mug again would finally send her straight into the coffin.

Apparently, our clan lord had a reputation among the pirates for doing exactly this. One of the big reasons they all avoided our clan territory like the plague. Never know when a simple convoy could pop out a Deathless hidden inside ready to pull a No, you.

Bad for business, that.

pose Ill get one more story in common with dear ol grand mum. So, what happens now?

Atius smiled widely. Why, you and your officers travel with us as hostages. Cant ignore the chance that youll open fire on my ship from a distance as some kind of petty revenge and then run. One of your frigates will escort my airspeeder home to the clan, and once weve arrived, you and the officers will use that frigate to return home.

Exactly how grand mums story went. The pirate wilted in her seat. Yer robbing me blind here. Mercy, please, mlord. I need those armors, my crew depends on it.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. He shrugged. I find it rich youd expect an appeal to emotions would work on me, from a pirate no less. Please, Im an old hat to dealings. You knew this would happen eventually and planned for it. Perhaps not by a Deathless, but certainly by a bait ship filled with knights. Thats what separates the good from the great. He lifted her hat in the light, rotating it to see all the different angles, that synthetic red feather bouncing around. And a pirate dynasty leading a small fleet of frigates doesnt come around by mere luck. How about you drop this act and we move onto the real part?

The pirate captains demeanor changed like a lizards. One moment, it seemed like she was about to burst into tears of pity and rage. Now she looked like she was about to broker deals. Im assumin the armors a lost cause, aye?

Aye. Lets not waste time there. He agreed. Ill let you keep the hat for free, however. Out of the goodness of my own heart.

Fakin cursed ass thing. I should burn it in the engines and find a new brand. Grand mum wore it, and she gets robbed. I wear it, and I get robbed by the same gods cursed man no less. Rotten miserable thing has the reek of the occult upon it.

Would you like me to take care of that for you? He said, occult pulsing across his arms, reaching through in wisps to the feathered hat. I happen to be an expert. Ill offer my services at a discount.

The pirate captain snatched that hat out of his hand.

Dont fuck with me. She half snarled. I worked too damn hard to earn this fukin hat, hell if I let it get burned by a glorified snowmount in the way. Grand mum got back on her feet after she ran into you, I can do the same.

As you wish lass, hat is yours to do with as you like. I quite like this tradition, personally. Im looking forward to the next Amaris I run into.

She shot him a glare of absolute malice. And once more it was quickly overtaken by a look of greed. Actually, Im thinkin I might have just the thing thats worth all me armors back.

Atius tilted his head slightly, then leaned forward. Oh? Do you now? Please, Im all ears. I have a nice stretch of ice out in the white wastes to sell you next.

Laugh it up Deathless, I heard from a little pipe weasel something of great value to you. The right words can be just as expensive as a kingdom. Not all is quiet on the Other Side. Ill sell the starting bits in exchange for keepin me current goods. Wed been out here for weeks now, I aim to return home with at least some haul to start covering this mess.

Surface dwellers split into two dominant cultures. The clan cultures were massive close knit things, often competitive with one another, but usually civilized with certain rules everyone followed and a shared heritage.

Then, there was the lawless side of the world, which was far more fluid and often a mix of both the underground and the surface. Or at least the rejects from both. Exiles of all kinds ended up within that circle. Othersiders.

I dont know much about the Other Side, except for stories of how lawless their culture is, no true leaders, only large factions snipping away at each other. At least, thats the popular gossip about them.

Atius considered the word of the captain, turning to look at me. Keith, get me the logistics tablet from their officer, and do a quick rundown for what their most expensive haul is. It looks like the fleet master here might have an offer for me.

I gave my clan lord a salute and turned to make my way out of the airship, passing by Ankah and her minions. They all glanced at me like birds showing off new feathers. Clearly they were savoring the moment theyd joined the ranks, and not worried about the captains renewed attempts to weasel that armor back.

The shadowsong prime hovered by them, pointing out to certain parts of their armor. I couldnt overhear what he was saying since they were on their own comms, but it looked like their old man was already teaching the finer points of relic knighting.

Kidra was outside the airship, keeping a hand on her rifle and otherwise looking imposing while the workers shuffled around, moving supplies back into our airspeeder while the pirates pulled theirs out of the holds. Reminding them all who was in charge now.

Have you brought word of whats happening inside? She asked as I stepped up to her. Ive been growing curious, I admit.

The clan lords getting more than just the armors. I said, pointing a thumb behind me. I think he plans on squeezing the pirates for every bit he can get from them.

I would expect nothing less. I find it rather odd that were allowing these pirates to live. Theyll certainly ruin someone elses day if we leave them to escape.

I think Atius must have some kind of understanding with the pirates. Its not the first time hes done this, thats for sure. I turned and began to walk to the seven landed frigates. They were scattered around the area, in a rough semi-circle around our own airspeeder. Kidra fell to my side.

Clan lord sent me to go shake down the pirate logistics officer, get a full list of their goods to see what we aim to take home with us. Besides the armors I mean.

Their logistics officer is holed up in this ship, last I heard. Kidra said, pointing at one of the further away ships. Im rather surprised Atius isnt ordering these ships home as well. Theyre all worth a mint, I am sure.

Airspeeders werent exactly rare, but they were difficult to field, store and upkeep. All the parts were interchangeable with a bit of tech know-how. The problem was that nobody had all the printing files required, there was always some core parts that couldnt be replaced or reprinted and had to be bought from somewhere if they failed. And of course, clans kept a very tight control over the files that they did own as that was their means of trade.

Even if we didnt have the hangar space to store and maintain new airspeeders, these pirate ships could always be stripped down into parts and stored for later use. Since Atius hadnt sacked the ships themselves, there were probably more reasons I didnt know about. While smug with the pirate fleet master, there still seemed to be some sort of civil respect granted to one another when the captain and Atius had spoken to each other. He wasnt planning on leaving them stranded out here with no food for one.

Maybe theres another reason we arent seeing. Do you think Atius has ties or alliances with the Other Side? I asked, now curious.

Kidra considered it. Deathless are immortal. And while I dont support being civil with outlaws, I could see the importance over time to keep some kind of diplomacy alive.

But you still dont like it. I chuckled.

She pointedly didnt answer that. My sister always did have a strong sense of justice.

Kidra and I boarded the airspeeder frigate, walking up the ramp to go find the quartermaster that was supposedly hiding somewhere inside. I could see the pirates scramble out of the way anywhere we stepped. To them, I was a crusader being escorted by a surface clan knight. Not a combination anyone wanted to deal with.

Inside the lit decks, I got a first-hand peek at Othersiders and how they lived, or at least this little slice of the world. Entire decks were filled with hammocks, all tied down for the long haul. This was a pretty stark contrast compared to how surface dweller expeditions worked - we would sleep in large groups inside heated tents during the night, outside the airspeeders. But that was mostly due to having far too many people to cram within the speeders. Our expeditions didnt need to be fast.

I hadnt noticed any metal shelving outside these frigates either, so the ship wasnt overbooking crew. This was made for speed. There would be great power savings for having to heat up only one interior space rather than a few dozen large expedition tents. That would let these ships chase down prey for a lot longer than the prey could run.

Kidra and I passed by rows of water tanks, growing small herbs of various colors, brightly lit with violet LED lights shining down on them. Nothing to the scale of the aquaponics and insect farms back home.

This mini-farm the pirates kept looked mostly made up of flavoring plants, likely to be dried out and crushed into spices for their food. Not enough to feed the entire ship, rather it looked more like a side venture. My guess is that they would be living off a diet of frostbloom primarily, and use the limited space to grow a small batch of crops to give themselves some more options. Frostbloom was pretty bitter, but its not impossible to make it taste better with the right ingredients.

All in all, I got the impression this group of ships was more than just their fleet. They lived here.

Perhaps Atius wasnt sacking the ships themselves for more altruistic reasons. You can steal the plate and food from a mans house, but stealing the entire house might be leaving the man with no choice but violence.

The pirate quartermaster was found inside the heated sections, nursing what looked like a mug of something alcoholic. He glanced up as we entered, his face somber. Suppose youre here for the inventory? He asked, waving a computer slate at us.

I flashed him a thumbs up. First time being on the other end? I asked him.

He nodded slowly. Knew itd happen no matter how careful she was about her targets. First for me personally since I joined her crew though. Stings like a pipe weasels bite. He simply skidded that computer pad across the table to me. I cant rightly complain given we do this all the time to others. Never thought an Imperial Crusader would be sent to do admin duty, arent you a bit far from home?

In a way. I answered noncommittally. It didnt sit right with me to impersonate a crusader, but this was a pirate. Let them gossip.

I take it you know how to use excel? He asked.

Excel? I was handy enough with that, sure.

I nodded, grabbing the computer slate and looking into it.

Journey did me a solid and automatically scanned the document, parsing it out and recreating it over my HUD in an easier to read format. I swear, maybe relic armor should be used by functionaries, they might have just as much impact to the clan on the long run. Unless Atius already did so.

The thought of the coveted armors being secretly used by the Logi caste behind the scenes to do the administration work made for a funny picture in my head.

The pirate cache turned out to be rather large. Theyd been lucky intercepting traders, smugglers, other looters - and the odd surface clan airspeeder caught at the wrong place and time. Their hoard included anything from interesting parts recovered from dig sites to drugs of every kind and color. The latter was taken from smugglers. Frankly, I was a little surprised at how much stuff they carried. These ships didnt seem big enough to carry all that, and it would make them slower and slower.

We bury caches and then dig them up when we swing by with a real hauler. More efficient. The quartermaster said, taking another swig of his drink when I asked him.

Smart, though greedy. Anyone else on the white wastes could uncover their caches, but then again Tsuya had hidden a book on the Occult up here. Im sure the pirates had their ways of hiding their treasures.

Logs of events gave a more colorful history. Some smugglers looked to even be part of some coalition, in which showing proof of membership meant the pirates would simply let the smuggler carry on with their goods back home. Guess the othersiders were organized enough to even have outright insurance for their illicit goods. Maybe the Other Side was more civilized than we suspected, only in a different way.

And speaking of that, practically everything was measured and weighed by their quartermaster with clear intelligence. They had rules setup for when to track down an airspeeder and when to ignore it. Law of averages ran these fleets.

Pilgrims and undersiders were largely ignored and left to go do their own thing. Pilgrims because that would bring the surface clans to hunt them down religiously, and undersiders because those folks never came up without a small army of knights. Undersiders were generally clueless on proper use and upkeep of environmental suits, so only knights would be sent up here.

Funny enough, there was even a section on the possibility of encountering a reverse trap, in which the prey carried far more relic knights than expected. Being caught in one was factored into the numbers, and estimated to happen once every seven years of careful operations. This crew had gone almost two decades without being caught by such a trap, and the one time they had ran into a knight, theyd come out of it with one more armor since they outnumbered that lone knight two to one. No reports of bloodshed either, hed gone out without a fight. The streak of good luck was likely because their captain played the game far more carefully.

Surface dwellers were on the prey list, but with an asterix. Usually they would be part of large expeditions of multiple airspeeders, which made the whole thing more dangerous. Often times there would be knights among them. And surface dwellers were more likely to fight back, out of sheer zealous idiotic honor according to the logs. Their words, not mine. Anything more than three speeders was strictly off limits. Two was stretching it. One was okay to go after.

Up until today at least. Terrible luck. I weep for their losses. Truly.

The issue I was having is that they didnt log where they put their loot. You have a separate map for where these caches of yours are? I asked.

The pirate grinned back, Aye. Useless to you, though. Your Deathless isnt going to travel around looking for possible pirate caches. What we got aboard these frigates is the best you can take. Whole point of the caches.

Folding my hands on the table, I leaned in. Guessing what the clan leader would do? You seem to know something I don't. Mind telling me?

Think about it. He said, tapping the cup. Clan lords are not in the business of tracking down shipments across the wastes. Especially since theres a hundred and one ways to give you all the slip. We gots the faster ships.

Fair point. If we asked for a map, they had no reasons to give us the real one. And by the time we found out, it would be far too late. The more I thought about how to pin down and recover all these caches, the more I realized it was a lost cause. There were too many ways for the pirates to slip the noose.

Around five years ago, the logs started showing a different picture. I saw mentions of loot being transferred over to a mother ship instead of caches. Which made me wonder what event happened that caused them to give up on that method. The rest of the fifteen years back all showed the mother ship being used. It offered full farms for both insects and vegetables, repair stations, a hospital wing and a safer location to keep loot. They would leave the ship behind when chasing down targets, recover the goods and return to the ship. It seemed they all just ditched the mother ship with no explanation on one random day roughly five years back. Odd.

Its when I investigated the food consumption that I became more suspicious of this whole cache story.

Meals served showed items I hadnt seen on my way up here. And while those plants and crickets could have been housed in a different intercept frigate, something didnt add up. There was too little frostbloom usage and too much actual food. The more I looked, the more things made no sense.

Or someone had been steadily deleting all records of the mother ship and this was the point where theyd run out of time to keep up the work.

I looked back up at the logistics pirate, who relaxed on his chair as if nothing in the world could have happened.

I take it, you've recalled the mother ship already, yes? Id like to see the rest of the loot. I asked sweetly.

Oh the mother ship? Nah, We ditched that hunk of junk years ago. The officer answered, again with perfect acting.

Fine. If he wanted to play hard ball, two could play that game. I considered his last actions, and put myself in his shoes. Frantically covering tracks, deleting entries and possibly forging numbers where things wouldnt add up. It had to be a rush job, which meant a high chance of overlooking something. Its been twenty years since theyve run into issues, they would have eventually started getting lazy about keeping a plan ready for this event.

Journey, pull up the edit history of this document. The armor complied. The pirate still looked relaxed as ever, as if he were spacing out and waiting for me to finish.

There were no edits at all for today. Not even the typical entry log for fuel spent. Almost as if all revisions for the day, no matter how real, had been hastily deleted en mass. There was no undo button to come to my rescue.

He raised his mug again to take another casual sip of his drink.

Where do you keep your backups? I asked him.

Backups? Whats that? He asked sweetly.

A logistics officer asking what a backup was. Har, fucking har. Gods damned Logi's were all the same no matter rank or tribe. Something about numbers going up on a stat sheet made people start thinking in strange ways.

He even began to sip his drink with a pinky out all while staring me in the eyes. The balls on this guy.

To his credit, I almost started laughing We both knew he was lying, so this was him being one hundred percent cheeky. The question was if I could catch him on it.

This version of excel was excel 95, slightly newer than the one the clan used.

In general, the further advanced the software, the more they started demanding licenses or accounts registered to entities that had stopped existing eons ago. The old world humans were straight up obsessed over digital rights management, and that had been the wall that stopped all progress past the late 90s tech for humanity today. There was a thin band of twenty-ish years of useable software, after that everything started getting complicated. Excel 95 was a pretty advanced version to have.

I flicked the comms to private. Journey, how good are you at bluffing?

Unable to process this request. Additional information needed on subject for meaningful answer.

Excel 95 doesnt have automatic backups, and this guy will know that. Im going to go for a different route, I want you to act as if you found something plausible when I ask. If you need to, generate something wholesale that would look like it fit.

Affirmative. Query within bounds.

All right, with that setup, the comms flicked back to my local area. You did a pretty good job covering your tracks, deleting the edit history. I complimented the pirate, giving a nod. Did you know windows XP has its own backup system separate from excel? Journey, find the last backup of the actual data."

I snapped my fingers for extra dramatics. Journey did not disappoint. Automatic system restore point detected as of one week prior. It chimed on the comms.

That got the pirate to cough his grog out.

Best partner in crime. I love my armor.

To be fair, I had absolutely no idea if XP even did something like that, but it's plausible. That was getting close to the DRM barrier, so it probably had a lot of neat features. But more importantly, if I didnt know, I doubted he did either. They should have stuck to Linux.

Jig is up. I said, pressing down on the bluff. Dont make me actually start having to pull teeth now. It's been fun up to now, but I do own a sword. If I have to dig between differences in two different files, Im going to be upset you made me do the extra work. My hand patted the hilt of my occult long-sword fondly, the threat implied.

The quartermaster gave one last cough, then shrugged, finally throwing in the towel. Captain told me to keep it hush-hush, always a chance none of you noticed. He drew out a small USB from his pocket and tossed it at me. Solid chance, I thought. But using the OS itself to sneak past all my hard work? Cheating. He chuckled.

I turned my head and stared at him expectantly, putting the computer slate down and folding my hands together patiently. He sighed and tapped the comms. Helmsman, call up the Blackbird and have er swing by. I got busted, they spotted the ship. Over."

I snapped in the USB and got to work again. The real file was nearly saved inside, dated to today.

It wasnt greatly different from the current one. Some numbers had been fudged, but hed clearly spent his time trying to hide the mother ship above all other priorities. Now that the missing piece was there, everything made sense. All the numbers checked out. This time, there wasnt anything hiding.

Job done, I sent my report over to Atius so he could see what could fit in our airspeeder and what would have to be left behind. We could also stuff the escort ship filled with some of this loot, but I had a feeling Atius wasnt planning on robbing the pirates of everything. Desperate people made desperate choices. If Atius was acting the way I thought, hed likely be leaving them enough loot to consider the expedition a success for the average pirate, and pay the crew off. With only the leadership bearing the real costs. That way he almost guarantees that the pirate crew have no reason to rebel.

I clicked over to the knight comms and found Atius brokering a deal with the pirate captain. Given my position, listening in wasnt going to put me in a hotspot, unless I started interrupting or making a nuisance of myself.

I see youve got quite the riches here. Atius said, likely looking over the report Id sent him. Congratulations, captain. Other pirates would be envious of your current success.

And theyd laugh at the current failure. She shot back. I take it we can keep the drugs without issue? You dont want those.

You are correct that narcotics are terrible for clan society and I dont want even a hint of them brought back on my ship. You are incorrect in your assumption that my disinterest leaves them safe in your hands, lass. Youll pay me for the privilege of letting you keep them in one piece. No free meals.

I heard her click her tongue in annoyance. Fine. And then she went into it.

Frankly, it sounded almost like haggling at this point with both sides playing the typical mind games. Atius was steadfast in his demands, clearly knowing he had the upper hand. The captain tried to oversell how much she owed to each of her crew members, but it was rather difficult with the documents in hand.

Eventually Atius and the pirate came to an agreement, pending on the price of the information the pirate was offering. She seemed certain it was worth quite a bit.

So. He said. Lets see what this so called information of yours truly is.

The raiders and slavers are movin. She said, Theyre planning on sacking a few clans, and worse - your clans on the menu too. In fact, Im almost sure your clans the original target. All the other smaller clans are just the appetizers.

I find that hard to believe. Atius said, clearly not buying this. My clans wealthy enough to afford a strong defense line, in addition to my own weight. Were quite famous for that. Raiders attack smaller clans if they attack at all, mine would be too big of a fish without a pyrrhic victory at best.

I could almost hear the verbal shrug on her side. Think what you think, but they clearly did factor you in their numbers. This aint some covert plan. No hiding that big of a force. Its dozens of companies all banding together somehow, putting aside their differences in order to go on a full on crusade. Dont know whats riled them up like this, but theyre a comin your way.

Atius paused, likely pondering the ramifications. What is the time frame? I hardly believe such an army could be assembled and supplied within the week.

Oh, you aint gonna see the tip of their guns for a good while at least. She said. Word on the wastes is that theyre aiming for three months. They scramblin fast. Either somethings got them spooked with a blade to their neck, or they smelled somethin mighty tasty from your clan. Theyre seeing blood on the ice fer sure, and they pullin all the stops. Largest army of this decade put together, swear on me hat.

This information isnt worth armor. Atius replied flatly. An attack this scale would make waves, I will inevitably hear of this within the week. You only have the privilege of being the first of many.

Aye, you be right bout the information. But thats not what Im selling.

There was silence on the comms for a moment. You want the armors back in exchange for supplementing our defenses with your fleet.

Aye.

One armor. Atius offered.

The pirate captain exploded at that. The cost of fighting in this war o yours is far beyond one armor! One armor! One armor he says, can you believe the stones on this git? You think Im runnin a charity? Im already calculatin a few of my ships going down and half the crew being wiped off the manifest lists for this. If Im only gettin a single armor back, Id rather pay for it in coin myself and get gouged in my wallet. Better then bein gouged in my throat. All three armors and not a lick less. Frankly, you be lucky Im not joining the raiders in the sackin, thats another way I could get my armors back and then some, ye know?

You wont join their side. Remember, I live for a very long time. And carry very long grudges. Atius said, voice suddenly cold. There isnt a winning move for these raiders. If they fight and fail, theyll be dead. If they fight and succeed, Ill find myself with far too much free time on my hands and a long list of people to hunt down. Theyll live short lived lives of fear, hiding away the whole while like miserable dogs and still being plucked one by one. A thousand, two thousand, I couldnt care less. Theyre all dead men walking to me. Now, do you want to see your name written on my list, lass?

...Fine. Gods know youve been enough of a blight on my family already. She sighed, Im offering to cash in me favors and bring some of my fleet and a few others on yer side. All my armors back or I aint helping. Final offer, no negotiating.

The clan lord remained silent for another stretch, considering. So be it. He concluded. All three armors, in exchange for a pirate fleet of good size. These armors will be delivered after the battle is concluded. I look forward to fighting side by side with you, lass.

The captain laughed at that, a shrill cackle. Ye say that with a smile, all while robbin me blind of my money makers as we gods damn speak. Some ally you are! But fine, we got a deal. See you on the battlefield, Deathless.

There was a pause, just enough time for a handshake. Maybe it might be petty of me, but I would pay quite a bit to see Ankahs face right about now. Going from newly knighted to realizing shes keeping that armor on rent.

The logi pirate on the other side of the table cradled his head in despair, likely also listening in on his captains comms. What does she think I am? Some kind of miracle worker that can squeeze numbers out of metal? He grumbled under his breath. Fuckin thing is going to be a nightmare to organize.

I gave him a look. Guess were friends now, eh bud?

He looked up slowly, eyes bloodshot. Then nodded, raising a mug and shaking it. Drink? Gods know we both need it.

Next chapter - The war underground (T)