No More(Chapter 9) (Patreon)

Chapter 9: The Ritual of Adulthood is sacred among all of Mankind.

Driving was an experience I did not realize how fun it could be, until I was already behind the wheel. I felt the engine purr beneath the wheel, felt each and every swerve or gentle course correction.

It felt powerful, it felt mighty, it felt right.

“Mighty is the steed which is beloved by its master, and lucky is the master which finds a steed worthy of itself.” Father’s echo rumbled from behind my eyes.

It’s gotten more talkative lately, often times offering advice unprompted.

I also got better at noticing it. I was now capable of feeling the small sliver of gold my father implanted in me and I felt that I could easily remove it whenever I wished or simply stop feeding some of my psychic power to it and let it slowly wither. I decided to empower it instead.

Father’s echo had surprisingly good advice and served as a counterbalance to uncle’s craziness. It may speak in a way that feels impersonal, but it speaks in things that make sense, as opposed to uncle’s alien weirdness.

“ ‘Unlimited POOOOWER!!’ shouted the Dark Sorcerer as it turned the tables on the honorable Masters of the Light!” Uncle shouted

He was regaling Azar and I to a dramatic retelling of an old human story starring the evil Sorcerer Insidious whose evil was so great he brought down civilization on a galactic scale thanks to his intellect and the machinations of his forefathers.

Father’s echo learned to grumble as uncle was speaking and kept complaining about glorifying what was the villain of the story.

Uncle decided that since he is not driving, then that means he must provide entertainment, because silence on one end will inevitably be filled with noise from another. I decided not to question it, especially as the other occupant of the vehicle seemed to appreciate it.

Azar listened enraptured at uncle’s performance while I was keeping one ear on it as my focus was on driving.

The Great Beast of the Sands as I took to calling it until it earned a name was a joy to drive. Trees fell beneath it’s wheels, stone was crushed to sand, and it left behind clear compacted dirt that was flat enough one could comfortably walk upon what was once a forest.

Uncle called it an improvised vehicle, father called it a mighty beast and I called it mine.

An alert appeared on the dashboard, one that I haven’t seen before.

“Uncle, what does the alert mean?” I asked him.

The alien man was in the process of explaining how the sorcerer’s apprentice knelt to him now, but stopped and came forward to look over the alert.

“A small aircraft has caught a weapon’s lock on you for a few seconds. It is no longer locked on you it seems.”

That was fast we’ve just exited the forest and started seeing red sands.

There was a cloying smell to them, a smell of violence and bloodshed that was almost faint enough to miss, despite it being visible to my eyes… somehow. There was a soft red haze around me, as if the very air refracted light differently in the desert compared to everywhere else.

Uncle called it psychic trash, my people are incapable of cleaning properly, while father’s echo was strangely silent on it and refused to comment even when I tried to prod it.

“Should we be worried?” I asked.

“No, upper left corner, look at the color and symbol.” He instructed.

There was a symbol for a sword glowing a sickly gray.

“Gray meant lightly armed, but a sword? I don’t think we covered what it means.” I said.

We didn’t cover it or I would remember, but using words like ‘I think ‘ and ‘maybe’ softened the meaning of a sentence.

The colors however were expanded upon by father as a threat system. Black means unarmored, Gray is lightly armored, red is about as armored as my steed and green was heavily armed

“It’s a technological estimation indicator based on the ratio of energy generation to size. Flint means primitive and unlikely to bother us due to generating little energy compared to size. Sword means primitive but a threat, Gun is equivalent to this craft’s technology, fist is more advanced.” He explained.

“So a lightly armored primitive design?” I asked.

“Yes, that doesn’t mean you should not be wary. Check the board, it should give you the size of the vehicle.” He instructed me.

I proceeded to do just that. The writing was in high gothic and I needed some time to parse the large amount of data points into something coherent and useful. I could have trimmed the data that reached me, but I could parse through it in seconds and more data couldn’t hurt.

“Twelve meters long, ultra-light aluminum alloy. No armor… armed with a small lasgun? Unmanned.” I repeated the conclusions the sensors came to.

The thing was armed with a single lasgun, It would barely be able to kill a normal human in a glancing blow judging by the energy readings, which was impressive for a handheld weapon. For a vehicle however? I didn’t need father’s echo to tell me it was underpowered.

“A scout, Azar do you recognize the design?” Uncle asked and deftly pulled up the image of the flying scout.

“I don’t know how it is called, but that is the symbol of Desh’ea on its belly. I am not seeing a house symbol though.” The older man said

“Are they usually side by side? Maybe it’s on the other side.” I asked.

The blue and silver mountain was painted on the belly of the aircraft and we hadn’t managed to see its back before it disappeared behind the clouds.

“Maybe, I’ve never seen these scouts, but the land vehicles did have the city symbol in the front and the house symbols on the sides. Maybe aircraft have the house symbols on the back?” Azar opined.

I grunted. A scout, scouts on behalf of someone else and that someone else would probably be far better armed than the light vehicle.

Our vehicle was armed, but it was not meant to fight. Instead it was meant to act primarily as a transport.

“Do we change course?” I asked uncle.

I did not like the fact that the scout ran when they spotted us, because I wouldn’t have. A lightly armed scout is disposable, so you could use to find out what your target wishes to do so that you can react.

The only reason you wouldn’t is because you’ve already decided.

“Are you detecting any communications?” Uncle asked me.

I checked, the radio continued to be silent.

Father’s echo wished to say something, but the whisper of of a loaded gun whose blade was pressed to one’s head stopped it. I turned my head towards uncle. It wasn’t a physical sound and yet I could clearly hear it and the gold behind my eyes dimmed slightly in silent acceptance.

“Uncle?” I asked

“This is your mission from now on Arzhur, you make the decisions and I assist.” Uncle instructed gently.

I nodded, that made sense. Uncle wanted to make sure I can think and act for myself and now was the time to prove, to both him and more importantly to myself.

I considered the course of action and my available resources. The comparison to the game uncle called chess came to me. Two players, one board, each individual limited in their missions by the pieces they have available.

‘What would the one across the board do?’ I wondered.

An armed vehicle of unknown design was moving across my territory. My scout showed me it was moving towards my capital but I did not recognize the design.

The first move would be to try and establish communications, if they refused to talk I would go from there. I needed to flip the script to one where I controlled the game.

I brought the radio close to my mouth.

“This is Arzhur of the provisionally called ‘Great Beast of the Sands’ speaking. We’ve noticed your scout spotting us before it retreated behind the cloud cover, we mean no harm, please respond.” I spoke clearly, my voice deeper than I’ve ever known it.

Azar told me that each vehicle had a name it could and should be called by, and those the size of my steed even more so than most. Introducing myself by local customs was meant to to assure the others, as respecting one’s customs and acting in a familiar way almost always relaxed people.

The signal strength wasn't too high but it should still reach anyone in a few kilometers, however the radio waves remained silent. I checked the radio and saw that it was open, the static continuing to come from it in a way that told me it functioned.

I let the radio microphone back in it’s holster.

“We wait until they contact us before we change the course. Are we still headed towards the city?” I asked simply.

Uncle was not smiling, and the sight was still as disturbing as it was the last time he stopped. He was always smiling, and when he wasn’t things were rarely well.

“We are, we should start seeing it in a few minutes. I am surprised we haven’t been able to find a road if I am being honest.” Uncle replied airily.

“There aren’t any to the west of the city. All of the trade routes are to the east and south, so the roads are there. Whenever we wanted to go there we would have to walk with one the caravans or take one of the rare aircraft rides.” Azar said, his voice now far more subdued than before, his instincts telling him he should be very careful around us.

The next few minutes passed in silence and then the cameras started showing us the city. The left half of the ‘windshield’ light up to show the others a hologram of the city as we’ve reached the top of a large dune.

It was primarily for Azar’s benefit, my own eyes being capable of seeing the details just as well in the small square on my screen, and uncle probably didn’t need it as he could interact with the car mentally and without any interface.

Great spires of metal and glass rose up into the sky and some of the even touched the cloud. Other lesser spires were arranged around the great ones like supplicants in front of their masters and all of the formed an endless maze of metal and glass the seemed to grow larger and more complex the further one was from it.

We started moving down the dune and slowly the city became less and less visible as other lower dunes started obscuring our view.

A large ship started descending from the sky as it broke the cloud barrier and gently lowered itself into the city. It was a massive thing of sharp angles and bulky armor and based on The Great Beast’s sensors was well over five kilometers in length. It was a mighty behemoth of steel that had no right to fly and yet it did in a clear act of Defiance of Mankind against the Universe.

I stopped driving to allow us to watch the spectacle.

The ship was lowering itself into the city based on the trajectory my mind came to as it saw how it descended. Shortly after, my calculations proved correct as the ship lowered itself beyond the glass and steel barriers and away from sight.

Once it was gone from sight I started to move once more.

“Hmm… the city has a space port, how interesting.” Uncle mused.

“What is it so interesting about it?” Azar asked.

I was curious too, the scene was awe-inspiring but uncle has been among the stars before, he can even make ships from nothing and turn himself into a ship according to his claims. Why would a ship landing in a city be interesting to him?

“Most ships move in the same way aircraft move and leave giant trails of heated matter behind them. For starships, said trail of heated matter is sometimes longer than the ship itself and can melt most metals and in atmosphere most ships would leave behind a giant heat wave that would make the area significantly warmer and affect local weather. There are ways to prevent it and allow star ships to land, but actually taking off, from inside a city? That takes skill that goes beyond mere technology or tricks and veers into mastery of one’s technology as opposed to mere possession of it, which means that Nuceria is technologically advanced in a way few human worlds are anymore.” Uncle explained.

“Nuceria is renowned for it’s technological might and mastery in most of local space.” Azar declared proudly.

“What do you mean by anymore? Also is it truly that hard?” I asked.

Uncle chuckled and somehow I could feel the sadness in it in a way that went beyond my psychic abilities..

“It is an impressive achievement by any standard, as it requires a city to be able to guide kilometer long behemoths from the atmosphere all the way to ground and back, as allowing a ship to make the trip on it’s power risks the city, and a single mistake or enemy action could kill millions. Also this used to be a common sight across the vast majority of human worlds some five thousand years ago, before the old Federation died in the Warp Storms and Madness that followed the Cybernetic Rebellion. Now, what was once common became noticeable in how rare it is.” He continued.

I wanted to ask for more questions but multiple weapon locks started hitting the hull of the Great Beast.

“This is Arzhur of the provisionally called ‘Great Beast of the Sands’ speaking. We’ve noticed your scout spotting us before it retreated behind the cloud cover, we mean no harm, please respond.” I declared again on the radio.

Only static met me.

I started considering to open up the weapons and defend ourselves. Five aircraft were targeting my vehicle, and all of them showed a Sword technological rating, with the largest one of them showing a red color even. The ‘Great Beast of the Sands’ measure it, as half as long as it and heavily armed with crude missiles and two lascannons of similar size to those it too had.

The other four gray sword aircraft were scouts of the same design as the one we’ve recently seen.

“This is Raptor 36, I repeat this is Raptor 36 on all airwaves to the large black vehicle moving towards Desh’ea. Identify yourself or be fired upon, I repeat identify yourself or be fired upon.” A female voice demanded of us in Low Nucerian.

“This is ‘The Great Beast of the Sands’ Raptor 36, we are a trading expedition, we come in peace.” I repeated back.

Wait airwaves? As in there is more than one?

“Uncle, how many airwaves are there?” I asked the older man playing a prank on me.

“You would know if you bothered reading any of the books on topic I gave you nephew.” Uncle said, his voice flat.

You speak in a device and people hear it, you don’t need twenty books to describe it! At least so I thought. It seems I’ll have to actually read the boring things.

“How do I respond back in a way she can understand?” I asked uncle forcibly.

Now was not the time for a lesson!

“Press the red outline around the radio symbol. Inform them you were waiting to be approached, as you were not familiar with the local frequencies for trade and did not mean to disturb things, especially around such an important event like the landing of a cruiser.” Uncle instructed.

I did as he asked, and the radio interface tinted red to show that I was speaking ‘on all airwaves’, whatever that meant.

“This is Arzhur, of the provisionally named ‘Great Beast of the Sands’ on a trade mission. We are sorry for the tardy response, but we do not know which local frequencies to use to communicate on and decided we’d rather not disturb the landing by using all frequencies. The landing of a cruiser is not something we wanted to interfere with.” I said, my voice clear of any emotion.

“A child? Boy is this some sort of joke? Give me one of the adults I don’t need to to talk to some slave brat some up-jumped merchants think is can talk to a warrior of the skies!” The woman demanded harshly.

My fingers started going towards the weapon’s button, before uncle stopped me. I looked at him in annoyance as he stopped me from shooting the arrogant woman down from the sky.

“Let me handle it, you did well nephew, but some rude women need a more firm touch.” He instructed in high gothic and took the radio from my hand.

His voice turned back to low-nucerian, but it wasn’t the guttural low-nucerian I knew. It was an even harsher tone that somehow flowed when low-nucerian stumbled. Where normal low-nucerian hit one as if it was an axe cutting into flesh, the way uncle spoke flowed slowly, like molten metal into a mould.

“This is Bessar Agail, Master of the ‘Sharp and Valorous’, and no this is no joke you low-born trash. My nephew is having his first trade mission and I will not have some halfwit born out of a hooker’s crack think it a joke! Treat it as seriously as you would treat any mission before I have you whipped to death with your own family’s entrails.” He demanded in a tone I’ve never once heard him speak in.

Behind me Azar froze in fear, his soul turning silent like what my father’s whispers called a whipped animal.

“Apologies High Ones, protocol dictated to me by my betters demand that I speak to an adult.” The woman said meekly.

Gone was her arrogance, all that was left being the meek subservience of a creature long since devoid of will. I hated it, I hated it more than than when she was looking down on me. I could respect her disdain for me, especially as it burned brightly, but this beaten creature could barely be called human.

“You will present yourself to me once we reach the city and disembark. Protocol is protocol, but that is no reason to shame the nephew of a ship captain on his first mission meant to earn himself his adulthood and his steed a name. I will talk to your superiors too, as I have business with them.” Uncle declared.

The woman’s voice turned even meeker.

“Yes, High Ones.” She said hollowly.

Uncle turned back towards me.

“Introduce yourself again Arzhur.” He instructed in high gothic.

I knew he was playing a role to help me, but in that moment, I hated him. I hated him for what he turned one of my people into but the hate left me before it could take hold. I had other things to focus on.

“This is Arzhur of the provisionally called ‘Great Beast of the Sands’ speaking. I am here on a mission of trade to sell mainly furs, cured leather, trinkets and copper-wood.” I declared firmly.

“Understood, do you have a means of receiving the path I am transmitting?” The woman asked emotionlessly.

I received the ping of information, but the vehicle’s computers could not make heads or tails of it, the language and encryption of the data not being one uncle programmed into the vehicle.

“Negative, we require another way.” I replied.

“Understood, one of the Sky Eyes will guide you to your destination. Please follow it and do not deviate.” She instructed us and I silently obeyed.

I haven’t even entered Desh’ea and I already hated it for what it did to this prideful woman. Uncle only changed his tone and the woman’s resistance just broke, and if one could do that to warriors, then how were the common people treated?

~~~~~~~

“Uncle, you won’t actually whip her to death will you?” The noble brat innocently asked on the airwaves.

Whatever its uncle wished to say I would not hear as the connection was cut. The silence of a grave, my grave followed, as the crew of my Falcon continued to silently do its duties.

For the first time in my life I did not care for other people’s lack of faith in me, because I too lost it.

“Report, is ‘The Great Beast’ following the trajectory we have given it?” I asked, my voice devoid of the fire that once came naturally to me.

I was still a Falcon, I was Raptor 36, this tone was unbecoming of me but it was the only thing I could manage for now.

“Yes, we’ve also received a response from the nest. The Colonel will meet the Captain of the Sharp and Valorous. The ship appears in our logs.” Lira said and with her words sealed my fate.

“What type of ship is it?” I asked numbly.

It didn’t matter. The captain spoke in no language I recognized, which meant that it was at the very least a frigate one kilometer in length. A captain of a cold ship half that size could demand the death of my bloodline if it felt like it.

“It is listed as a military support ship carrying medical supplies, three and a half kilometers in length.” She said, her voice now mirroring mine.

Three and a half kilometers... that is a Void Cruiser. One of those giants landing in Desh’ea was an event that would be commemorated with a Giant Spectacle in the arena, it’s master a noble among nobles for as long as it remained in system and now I had just insulted the family of one such individual.

I… I am too tired to be scared.

A Warrior of the Skies and master of a Falcoln is an educated individual that knows more than most soldiers. I know exactly what it means when foreign military vessels, even if they are support ones come to Nuceria. It means politics and politics gets you killed or promoted, depending on who wins and there is no High Rider I knew that wished to fight this battle.

For a moment I considered ending things and just falling into a building and taking as many as I could with me, but the small Sky-ship was robust and could ensure its occupants surived waves of enemy rockets and munitions, as trained specialists for Falcons are more time-consuming to replace, if less expensive and so craft’s design prioritized our survival more than anything else. A rarity among Desh’ean designs and all pilots know it.

I will not bring dishonor to my peers, not like this, and not due to fear of the consequences of my own mistake. If I am to die then I die with whatever shred of pride I can.

“Inform the Nest of the coming of a foreign dignitary into Desh’ea. Inform the technicians to prepare a record of our conversation for any official of the High Riders that will come to pick it up as well as the fact that said foreign dignitary has requested my presence.” I ordered my subordinates.

“Yes ma’am!” My crew responded.

“Hashir! What do you make of the vehicle?” I asked the man behind and to my left.

It would be prudent to be thorough if nothing else, perhaps the Nest Master would try and talk with the foreign captain and ask for clemency in my name if we managed to offer him an advantage in the conversation it will have with this lord Agail.

Hashir was my Falcoln Eye, his instinct and mastery of sensory technology making him a hard asset to acquire for my retinue, but one that has never failed me in my years as a Falcon Master.

“The sensors don’t recognize the material. On visual sensors the closest match is Bronze of all things which I assume is paint or a thin plating, but all of the other sensors are reporting gibberish. I can confirm that it has some sort of self-healing properties though. I managed to catch on camera how a rock scratched the paint in the front of the vehicle and the next second the scratch was gone.” He reported.

“Weapons?”

“Two twin-linked lascannons of unknown design, but that are the size of our own. The vehicle does have a massive energy generator, judging from its heat signature, but the readings make no sense to me, I’ll need to consult with others at the Nest to make sense of them.” He explained.

“They don’t make sense how?” I demanded.

“It produces too much energy. I am assuming it does so intermittently to fill in capacitors before it powers down, because otherwise there is no way for something that small to use ten times our own energy constantly, but I don’t know of any energy generation technology that can do that without a massive cooling process, and using the energy generated to power said cooling would not give me the readings I’m seeing.” He explained.

“Continue watching the vehicle, and start writing down your report, have it done and presented to me and the Nest Master’s digital address by the time we touch the ground.” I ordered.

“Yes ma’am,”

“Sakina, any orders from the nest?” I asked.

The Falcon’s Ears did not respond at first, which probably meant she was now receiving them or was still processing the situation. Unfortunately I did not have the patience to find out which is which or allow the latter.

“My Ears, status report!” I barked, my voice as loud as a gunshot.

I looked to my right and the woman was as pale as a sheet as she was covering the vox microphone.

“The Nest Master has just personally i-informed me that he has been made aware of the situation and so were many in the High Rider’s Noble Council. He is requesting to speak with captain Bessar Agail.” She said, her voice threatening to break.

I am not surviving this am I?

“Pass him to me.” I ordered softly.

“Yes ma’am.” She responded and told the Nest Master she was doing just that.

The voice of the Nest Master now filled into my ears.

“Raptor 36, report, why am I not speaking with the foreign captain?” He asked smoothly.

Each flow of his words made my skin crawl, the softness in the way the High Riders spoke something all low-born learned to fear.

“Incompatible communications protocols sir. The only way we can talk with them is by talking all of the local airwaves. The captain has requested to speak to you once he reaches the city.” I reported, my voice clipped and professional.

“Why have you not set up a single frequency to use? Surely setting up a vox channel is not some impossible skill for void sailors?” He asked me.

He was testing me, probing for weaknesses, good thing I’ve already considered that question.

“The one in charge of the vehicle is a boy, apparently the captain having his nephew earn his Adulthood in a mission in what I assume to be a cultural practice. When I talked with him, captain Bessar Agail was quite insistent that all communication be addressed to his nephew until they reached the city and that he will speak to officials after he disembarks.” I answered promptly.

Left unsaid, was that I was a Falcon, I am a well respected Warrior of the Sky and educated specialist, but even then I do not have the authority to even suggest something to a Void Ship captain. If they wanted something then the only thing that can prevent it from happening were the words of one of the High Riders and the only one that could even suggest otherwise was someone of the Nest Master’s station.

“I see, far be it for me to interrupt the ‘cultural practices’ of my betters. You will temporarily serve as his minder until someone else will relieve you of your position. Also, my dear Falcon do try to not dig your hole any deeper with the foreigner. My superiors wanted to punish you themselves for insulting him, but I managed to argue that as the aggrieved party, a void ship captain would appreciate to handle such by himself and they found my logic pleasant enough to claim the very same to their peers.” The Nest Master answered.

Relief flooded me, my crew would not be harmed, nor would I face any official reprimand from my superiors. This put me even more firmly in the Nest Master’s and his faction’s political faction, but I was already there, now I simply no longer had the choice to change sides.

“Thank you sir, I will do my best not to.” I declared in my best parade-perfect tone.

The Sergeants would have been begrudgingly proud of it too and those misers are never happy.

“Se that you don’t Raptor 36, people of your skills are hard to train and loyal ones even harder to cultivate.” He said simply and then he was gone, the line dead.

I breathed a sigh of relief, something my crew of four quickly mirrored. They are now guaranteed to survive this at least.

My own survival is still uncertain, but at least my demise or worse is no longer guaranteed and I needed any silver lining I could get.

“We’ll get through this as well captain. It’s still not as bad as the last Audit” My Engineer Arbas said happily.

“The only thing worse than an Audit is War, Arbas.” I replied, my tone slightly amused now that the worst has passed.

One can survive Audits if they keep their heads down, but wars are another thing entirely.

The last Audit, or better said Purge happened when the Ministry of War’s reigns passed from one faction to another and they took any opportunity they could get to replace all prestigious positions they could with their own followers. The actual important positions were kept for actually competent individuals and those were off limits, but something like a Falcon Master? We were among the first positions targeted.

Five years ago I barely managed to avoid it by dint of not being strongly associated with the old Rider of War’s faction and not having any strikes on my record. Now? If the current Rider of War will be brought down then I am going down with him as well.

I’ll worry about it in a century or so after I am dead of old age, I have more pressing things to worry about for now.