Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Chapter 259 258 - The Interpersonal Politics of Piracy

Emily chuckles at Wilder's colourful description but shakes her head.

"Maybe later," she says, pushing off his chair and stepping back. "I've already committed to going with our Captain to offload some cargo."

The pilot's expression barely changes as he nods in understanding, but Emily doesn't miss the slight scrunching of his nose and downturn of his brow when she mentions the ship's cargo.

"Aye. Maybe later then." He turns to face his fellow pilots, asking them to join him instead, as Emily leads Pod off the bridge.

They head towards the same entrance they used to board the ship, meeting up with a few groups of their crewmates doing the same and falling in step with them. Emily only nods to them in greeting without initiating conversation, and not a single one tries to speak first, leaving them in companionable silence with only the ringing of shoes on metal filling the space.

They find the door already open when they reach it, with a set of floating metal steps leading down to the floor below. Emily takes a scan as she descends towards the group waiting at the bottom, marvelling at the interlinked electromagnets holding the floating structure firmly in place, balanced perfectly against the artificial gravity pulling her down.

"Are you joining us?" Silvia asks as Emily steps onto the ground in front of her.

"Yes." Emily nods, glancing towards Yorn, who sent a message to the workshop several hours ago to invite her along.

He briefly acknowledges her presence with a nod and a grunt before returning to a conversation with a chimaeric hound Emily doesn't recognise. She's quickly able to guess their identity as the hounds' pack leader, though, thanks to the pulsing vitality of a sixth phase martial artist emanating from them.

"I'm glad," Silvia purrs, drawing Emily's attention back to her. "Dealing with this business can be so dull. Once we're done, I can show you around the station if you'd like. I know a few spots I think you'll be interested in."

"Sure," Emily agrees. "Though I doubt you'll be able to take me where I'm really interested."

"Oh? And where would that be?"

"The station's gravity barrier generator. I've looked at The Mothership's, and it's already hard for me to fully wrap my head around - this one feels so much stronger."

"Ah, yes. You'd be right in assuming that's inaccessible. Access to core facilities like that is usually limited to the groups that own them unless they're very proud and very confident in preventing enemy mechanics from interfering. The misers who run this place may be proud, but they're far from overconfident in their strength."

"Who owns Xlanax?" Emily questions, sending out an unseen wave of machina to ping the station's network node with another data request that gets denied yet again. "There was nothing about the station in Federation Network space, and I haven't managed to get a response from the Network here yet."

"The Bloodcoin Merchant's Association," Silvia replies with a sneer of distaste. "Not one of my favourite merchant groups, and their leader's a real asshole. Eighth circle prick who specialises in mental magic and likes trying to buy princesses for his collection. Also, that'll be because there's only a BlackNet connection here. Don't ask me for the details, though I'm sure you'll happily look into them yourself, but it's a more heavily protected branch of The Network, maintained by The Guild's higher-ups and used for illicit trade across the universe. The Terminal I gave you should have a browser specified for it, but you'll need some form of Guild identification to use it."

"Guild identification?"

"Yeah, we can get you a piracy mark while we're here by registering you as a member of our crew. I'll take you later."

Emily nods and turns her head to fully take in the hangar as the last of the crew's ships land. There are just over a hundred vessels in total, though she doesn't see a few of those that escorted them outside and assumes they've gone back to waiting among the asteroids. They vary wildly in size: just over a dozen match her Cutters; but most fall somewhere between Calypso and Elisime. Only four come close to The Mothership's colossal form, but they're still only twice the length of Elisime.

"How many are in the crew?" Emily asks, turning back to The Mothership as she senses her children approaching, walking down the floating steps among a pack of chimaeric hounds.

"We number just over three thousand," Silvia replies, raising an amused brow when she spots Mensacus hunched over on countless splayed limbs, walking among the group of quadrupeds as if he were one of their own. "Granted, a vast majority of those are unawakened, but we're still one of the larger pirate groups within The Guild."

"Momma!"

Emily blinks in surprise when a cheerful, high-pitched voice chirps from her Translator as Silica yips and bounds out of the group of hounds to greet her. Her tail wags back and forth happily as she stands on her hind legs, pushing her face into her mother's chest and begging for ear scratches. Emily obliges, ignoring Silvia's stifled laugh, and turns her attention to the hounds staring up at her instead of approaching their pack leader.

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"It appears you've made more progress than I was expecting. Thank you," she says with an appreciative nod.

"No need to thank me," Rotlith replies, shaking her head and looking at Emily with an expression she can't quite read. "She's a pleasure to teach, and a fast learner at that. She's still got quite a limited vocabulary, but we'll continue our lessons later. For now, though, we have some business to attend to on station, and I need to have a little conversation with our leader, so I'm returning her to your care."

With a final resolute nod, Rotlith turns to huff a breath at a few of her packmates before trotting over to wait beside her leader. Most of her pack follow her, but the few hounds she singled out position themselves at Emily's heels, taking up silent guard positions as Mensacus rises to his full height and places himself at her side. Emily looks at her son with a questioning brow raised, and he wordlessly extends a thread of mental mana, establishing a private link when she lets it in.

'What's with the guard dogs?'

'They've taken a liking to the little one and want to show their stance,' Mensacus reports dutifully, a hint of smug pride bleeding through their link as he continues. 'Rotlith never said it explicitly, but I've been watching them, and the hounds seem to have limited interaction with the rest of the crew. I decided to speak with them about you and your exploits, without revealing your magic, and I could taste their approval growing as I did. The guards are there because they know we're new to this place, and because they don't trust that strong one.'

A subtle mental nudge with his words pushes Emily's gaze over to Yorn. Though she can't read Rotlith's body language nearly as well as she could most humans, she can still tell the hound's staring at their Captain with an alert posture, her ears pricked and her tail completely still.

'I see. Well done.'

Mensacus preens under her praise, straightening his back and pushing his cold metal chest forward.

"They've finished preparing the cargo for trade," Yorn barks, reading a message off a handheld Terminal before sending it into one of the storage rings wrapped around his fingers. "Let's go."

Rotlith and her pack leader slink away with their pack, disappearing among the crew's docked ships, and Yorn strides towards the rear of The Mothership. Emily expects Silvia to fall into step beside him, but she chooses to trail behind instead, walking at Emily's side as her children take the other.

They reach the rear of the ship, where a large ramp has deployed to the ground, and see the two sixth circle mages that Emily saw when she first met the crew standing at the head of a large crowd of collared slaves. One is abnormally tall with pointed ears, and the other is short with a face full of wrinkles. Emily's recent stint on The Net allows her to quickly pinpoint their base races: elf and gnome.

"That's Elwaine and Perinith Hardyfold," Siliva whispers into Emily's ear using a silent sound transmission that's unheard by everyone near them. "Both mages, and both unwilling to give me a good spar."

Emily resists the urge to roll her eyes at the wistful note in Silvia's voice, remembering clearly the number of broken bones the vampire's given her since they started sparring.

Her attention drifts to the weaker awakened members of the crew, mostly first or second level, standing with guns and blades drawn, surrounding the prisoners. Most of them maintain neutral masks on their faces, refusing to let their opinions show, but a few are looking at the cargo with open disdain. There are a few stronger members scattered among the guards, and Emily's gaze is drawn to a fourth circle creature holding what looks like a metal disk covered in runes and crystals. Their head is a familiar mass of writhing, worm-like limbs, and a glance at their hands shows them to be the same, though the tendrils are wound tighter together with hard-to-spot cracks in between.

'Son,' she says through their still-stable mental link, feeling a sinking, foreboding feeling in her gut as her recent dream rises to the forefront of her mind. 'Can you tell who's enjoying their duty right now, or are there too many here?'

'If I get close, yes, but otherwise the taste of despair is a little too strong.'

'Keep a record of any you notice.'

"They're all accounted for?" Yorn says, directing his question to the gnomish mage.

"Yes, Captain." Perinith nods. "All but the bounty targets."

"I have them," Silvia says dismissively when Yorn turns his head to her.

"Good. Move out: we have an appointment to keep."

The Captain sets off towards the station's far wall at a steady march and, while Elwaine joins Emily and Silvia in trailing behind him, Perinith moves back to lead the head of the slave procession. At first, no one speaks, and they walk in an uncomfortable quiet with only the deep rumbling of feet against metal and faint groaning from the collared prisoners.

"So, Elwaine," Emily says, as they approach a closed double-door large enough to fit a Cutter through. "What branch of magic do you study?"

Instead of giving an immediate answer, the elf turns their head to take her in. They're walking with their hands tucked behind their ramrod-straight back and their chin turned up, but the passive disdain on their face thaws a fraction as they gaze down at her.

"The arcane," they finally respond, returning their eyes to Yorn's back as he pauses beside the doors, pulling a small token from his ring and holding it up to a scanner. "I have a distinct interest in spellcraft, and have found it the path that gives me the most freedom in that respect."

"A pure arcanist?" Emily's eyes light up with curiosity. "Do you still draw on the elements for combat, or can you get by with only attributeless spells?"

"Although I undoubtedly work with neutral runes the most, a lot of my spells still have aspects rooted in the elements. Drawing on a conflicting element is the most effective way to best a fighter reliant on one, and I'd be a fool to throw away my versatility."

The double doors slide open to a wide corridor that climbs to the right at a near-forty-five-degree slant. There are creatures of all shapes and sizes moving in both directions as if on flat ground, wearing an eclectic mix of clothes, from polished metal armour and robes to full-body protective suits. There are even a few, both bestial and humanoid, who walk around completely nude, in some cases showing off complex magical tattoos wrapping their skin.

Emily takes the sudden influx of sights in her stride, following Yorn out into the hallway with a ceiling tall enough to comfortably accommodate the twenty-foot-high stone golem that lumbers past. The moment she sets foot onto the slope, she feels gravity shift around her, changing the slope to flat ground.

"You know, it's odd for a mechanic to show any interest in our ways, beyond how they can help improve their creations," Elwaine muses.

"I'm an odd mechanic."