Chapter 1

Fallen Sky

Northern Wastes - 897 (present day)

Maia’s boot slammed against the metal plate, dislodging it from its frame. The plate fell down a long shaft, clattering and banging the entire way down. Maia winced at the sounds. Uh oh, ba’s not going to be happy about that.

“What in the hell’s was that?!” She heard her father's voice crackle over the comm in her ear.

“Wasn’t my fault!” Maia chirped. “The plate came loose just as I stepped on it.” She lied.

“Be more careful, these ruins might have some unwelcome lodgers.”

“Nothing we can’t handle, eh baba?” Maia replied, securing her rappel line to a pipe on the ceiling, then tugged it hard to make sure it was secure.

“Don’t get cocky, Maia,” her father—Matthias—chided. “I think I found the energy cores. Comm channel will probably get interrupted once I go in there, if you see anything dangerous, don’t approach it. Wait until I’m out, you hear?”

“Of course,” she said with a small touch of bitterness. She wasn’t stupid, she was sixteen years old, practically an adult as far as she was concerned. She leaned out over the shaft and felt air blowing up from far below.

“And don’t play any recordings here, you need to stay focused.”

“Who do you think I am?” She retorted.

“Alright, I’m heading in.” There was a crackle of static as Matthias’ line was cut off from the channel.

A mischievous smirk crossed Maia’s face, and she raised a hand to her overlays control behind her ear. She pressed a button on the device and a track began playing in one ear, she wasn’t so reckless as to block out sound in both ears. It was slow jazzy piano, with a steady drum beat.

[Playing: Losu track 11 - Reactor Lofi]

The notification appeared in the bottom corner of her vision overlays. She loved this tune, it had the crackle of being played on old vinyl records. Whoever Losu had been, they’d probably recorded the song from a record player into its current format.

She started bobbing her head to the beat, then released the lock on her belt rappel. The initial drop made her stomach lurch and she gasped as she fell back. The rappel reeled, then gradually slowed as she descended through the shaft. It was completely dark inside and she adjusted her head to point the algae-light of her head torch to point downwards. She generally loved rappelling down heights but there was no fun in it when you couldn’t see how far up you were. She also had to go slow because she had no way of telling how deep the thing was.

She continued slowly descending for a few minutes, grateful for the music to keep her entertained. And then the bottom appeared, the plate she’d kicked through lying bent and busted up, reflecting the light of the algae-light. Hers was a teal blue. A common enough colour. There were four base colours for algae-lights—derived from the colour of the colour of the algae that emitted the light. Vibrant green, teal blue, magenta and golden yellow.

There was a crackle on the comm line, and she heard her father’s voice say something discordant but couldn’t make it out.

“Can’t hear ya, Ba,” Maia replied, she clicked a latch on her belt and the rappel line disconnected. She’d leave it there to climb back up if she couldn’t find another way out.

“Foun—jzzt… looks—jzzt… on.”

And then a second later, dim glowbulbs along the shaft illuminated in soft yellow. Verdant ruins always had these cool glowbulbs that didn’t hurt her eyes when she looked at them. They didn’t use algae-light, they used some other mechanism for producing light that Maia didn’t understand.

“Nice one, ba,” Maia said, she could see now, the exit from the shaft to her side, she stepped through into a hallway. The whole ruin’s power had been restored, so the lights were already on. Makes things easier. She clicked off her headtorch, no point in wasting the power.

She walked along the corridor, her shoulders moving in cadence with the melody playing in her ear. The ruin was a fallen Verdant skyship and many of them that Maia and Matthias had delved into had followed the same pattern, like they’d all followed the same blueprint. This hallway should lead to the central docking bay. That was where the salvage was that they came here looking for.

She arrived at a sealed metal door. Damn. She tried kicking it but it didn’t budge. Then tried prying it open with the base of her blade. Her weapon was made from salvage and was in part, both firearm and dagger. The base of the handle, however, also made for a good crowbar. The best tools always had multiple uses.

Her muscles strained trying to pry the door open but no luck. She looked up and saw a vent above her head. She shrugged then jumped up, her fingers grasping the bars. As soon as her weight pulled on the vent grate, it was pulled free from the ceiling. She yelped and fell to the ground, the grate clattering on the floor. Whoops.

She looked up at the hole in the ceiling, and grinned, then jumped up, pulling herself inside. It was a tight crawl but she was still small enough to shuffle through. She moved forward to where light was pouring up from another grate ahead. As she’d expected it let down just beyond the door. It was always reliable way past a door that couldn’t be opened.

She pushed down hard on the grate, sending it down and following after. Her boots landed hard on the floor.

“You’re making a lot of noise,” her father’s voice sounded in her ear, now clear. He must have finished up in the power room. “I can hear you all the way from the other side of the ruin,” he chastised.

“I think you turning on the lights would’ve signalled to any squatters that we were here, eh?” she shot back.

“Fair point,” he conceded, “have you made it to the docking bay?”

“Just dropped in.”

“You’re listening to music,” Matthias said, displeased.

“No I’m not!” she retorted in offence, and subconsciously reached up to lower the volume on her overlay. He wouldn’t be able to hear it, regardless of how loud she played it. How could he have known that she was listening?

“There’s a lot of stuff in here,” Maia whistled as she looked about the docking bay, she still swayed her shoulders in beat with the music. The docking bay was large, the size of a warehouse. Rows of vehicles were arrayed. Nice haul.

“I definitely think we’re going to be coming back here for a few more delves. How’s all this not been salvaged already?”

“We’re pretty deep in scuttler territory,” Matthias responded tightly, she could hear in his voice that he was climbing through a small space, likely a vent. “Most people are smart enough to not come here, and the scuttlers have no use for tech.”

“More goodies for us,” she grinned walking along the rows. The vehicles seemed to be all Verdant-made, which was disappointing as the Verdant had completely indecipherable encryption locks on their vehicle tech, making them utterly unusable by anyone else. But they could still take them apart for components.

“We should be able to salvage a good haul of pulse rings.”

Pulse rings were by-and-far one of the most valuable components in most Verdant engines, they were incredibly expensive to make and damn hard to salvage working ones, but they gave your vehicle some push when you needed it. The vehicles on Maia’s world were all combustion engines that ran off algae-fuels, but many had been adapted to work with Verdant pulse rings.

“Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in years, there’s dust on—Oh!” she gasped, followed immediately afterwards with a scream.

“What! What is it?! What’s happening?” She could hear fathers concerned voice on the other side of the line.

“You are not going to believe this, Ba,” she replied with awe as she scrambled over some junk to make her way to a large navy truck.

“They’ve got a V4 here. Oh hells, ba it looks perfect! I don’t think it’s ever been driven.” Making her way to the front of the truck, she excitedly rammed the butt of her blade under the hood and pried it open. Inside was a pristine, unused engine.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Engine is immaculate!” she yelped.

“Hells, girl, don’t give me a scare like that again,” Matthias said but Maia wasn’t listening.

“Oh shit! It’s even got a cell inverter, Ba, they’d rigged this beaut up to run off their energy cells.”

“Really? That’s pretty impressive.”

“Yeah it is! Better yet, we can use all of this.”

“We’re not taking the whole engine Maia,”

“What?! With this we can keep the Dame going for at least another decade.”

She heard a banging noise, and her head immediately swung to the otherside of the bay. A door leading to a different part of the ship shuddered. She gripped her blade and ducked behind the truck, peering over. The door swung open, and she saw Matthias stride through.

“Who’s giving who a scare now, eh?!” She shouted across the bay. Matthias gripped his hand to his ear, grimacing as her voice carried over the comm at high volume.

“Ah,” he grunted, muting the channel on his overlay. “I didn’t say we weren’t going to salvage the thing,” he said, making his way over to her. He had a large canvas sack over his shoulder that clinked and jingled as he walked, like it was full of loose glass bottles.

“We’re just not taking the whole engine. The Dame’s engine is fine, but that cell inverter… ” he peeked at the engine as he approached.

“Well, that’s definitely coming with us,” he sucked in a breath, “along with those pumps and those air filters.”

“I think we should take the cylinder too,” Maia said, reaching down and running her hand over the cool metal, “I’d like to have a spare.”

“Those are easy to come by in Port Cervantes,” Matthias shook his head, “nah, nah we’re loadin’ up the sled as much power cells and pulse rings as it’ll hold. I don’t want to weigh it down with this big lump of machine.”

“We’ll need to take the fuel injector too I think,” Maia pointed out, “look, that’s definitely custom made to work with the power cell inverter.”

“You want to take this apart?” Matthias gave her sidelong look.

“Can I?” she straightened.

“Yeah, sure. I trust you. I’ll comb the rest of these for pulse rings.”

“Yes!” She jumped up and down, then hopped up on top of the engine, careful to only put her weight on the parts she wasn’t planning on taking out.

They both got to work. Matthias began methodically popping the hoods off the vehicles, and checking for working pulse rings. Maia had some tools on her belt that she pulled out and began working on removing the pieces. The first—and most important—was the cell inverter.

It had been over a year since the Dame had been able to move. The fuel she needed just couldn’t be found anymore, no one was producing old-world fuel. The stuff was too toxic to people that accidentally got it on their skin, it was also incredibly explosive. Even the fumes can kill you if you breathe them for too long.

Before the war, there had been fuel refineries across the planet, massive pressurised vats of algae working to convert regular water into engine fuel. Those had been among the first targets when the Verdant had invaded. Massive craters still dotted the landscape where those refineries used to be. After the war, people realised that the stuff was just too dangerous to keep producing. That, and the modern energy cells that the Verdant had brought with them were a lot more efficient—and far far less catastrophic when something went wrong.

Their truck—the Dame—didn’t predate the Verdant’s invasion, that was half a century ago, but she was probably produced not long after. The discovery of the cell inverter was probably the best find they could’ve hoped for.

Maia worked delicately, carefully disconnecting the cell inverter and putting it aside, then got to work on removing the other parts that would be beneficial. Generally, she loved tinkering with engines and other tech but when the Dame was concerned she was resolved to be extra careful. She was too important to risk.

About an hour later she was finished up but Matthias was still working on collecting pulse rings. Maia brough the salvaged components to him for approval and he dropped them into the sack.

“Nice work, you wanna help me clean up the rest of this?”

“Do I have to? I was hoping to check out the central control room, take a look around for some data archives.”

“Not a bad idea,” Matthias continued to work a wrench at a stubborn pulse ring. “Keep an eye out for anything relating to Verdant scravs. Anything that can help with our Fatebonds.”

“Will do, baba.”

He likely knew that her goal wasn’t to find data archives. She had her own motives, ones that had nothing to do with uncovering information on scravs or Fatebonds. Slipping away from the docking bay, she made her way through the dimly lit, debris-strewn corridors of the ancient craft.

The ruin itself was a relic of a bygone era, a colossal metal carcass that had crashed on this desolate region long before Maia was even born. Its exterior bore the scars of re-entry, the fiery descent that had brought it to its current resting place.

As she entered the control room, Maia was struck by the eerie silence that enveloped her. Dimly flickering lights cast long, shadows across the rusted and corroded panels. The air was heavy with the scent of decay. This was not her first fallen battleship that she had delved into and the layout matched the last one, so she found the central control room easily.

She pried open the door to the room and, carefully, began to explore inside, her eyes scanning the control panels and the remnants of holographic displays. In her search, she was drawn to a set of controls on a dusty console.

Her overlays highlighted the console in yellow and she began following the instructions from her overlays, guiding her blindly through pressing buttons that didn’t mean anything to her. She trusted in her overlays to know what they were doing. There was a successful ding from the console and the yellow highlight shifted to blue.

She had no idea how any of it worked but she understood enough to know that her overlays had just taken control of the consoles in the room. As she activated the ancient technology, holographic interfaces blinked to life, revealing data and records long forgotten.

Throughout the room her overlays highlighted data chips in a soft blue, letting her know that they still contained salvageable data. Objects that were locked from her access or too damaged from age were highlighted red.

A holographic display in the centre of the room revealed a large flickering sphere. It was her planet. Her home. Although the landmarks and cities detailed across globe display were all very different to what the world was like now. The display showed cities that had since fallen during the war, entire mountain ranges that had been levelled, swaths of forest that were now expanses of desert. Oceans that were now exposed wastelands.

She’d seen all of this before. It was common enough in other ruins that she and Matthias had explored. No, she was looking for something very specific. She began checking over the data chips, tapping them with her finger, small holographic displays appeared showing lists of data archives. She’d scroll through with her finger, quickly skimming over the file names.

Most of it was all useless to her; plans and outlines for the invasion that would’ve been incredibly valuable a few decades ago, now utterly worthless. There were some design schematics for tech but nothing she hadn’t seen before. She and Matthias had already replicated almost all of them and sold them in the past. There were some encrypted archives that she found that looked like they might be related to Fatebonds so she copied all that across to her overlay but there was no one that she knew that could break into those files. After about an hour of searching she finally spotted what she was looking for.

[Personal Files: Contractor NMW4 [name redacted]: codename: Losu]

Bingo! Whoever Losu was and whatever his job had been Maia didn’t care. All she knew was that she was grateful that he had come to her planet and that he had left behind this legacy. Excitement builded in her she opened the data archive and began copying all the files from the directory into her overlays.

She didn’t have time to comb through them now but she could check them all out later. She knew already that it contained hundreds that she’d not found before. Once they were all in her overlay, she tapped a button on the overlay control and a new song began to play in her ear.

[Playing: Losu track 53 - Those Who Fight]

It kicked off in a high tempo piano tune and she immediately loved it. Losu’s data caches always had the very best tracks. She danced over to another glowing blue data chip, her head bopping in beat with the music. She had just started scrolling through its contents, when something caught her eye.

To her right was a console that was flashing yellow. That’s odd. Holographic overlays rarely flashed like that unless it was really important. As she neared, she could see the text box above the console alerting her in Vessian—The language of the Verdant. The symbols were alien and incomprehensible but once she got close enough, the harsh angles and lines flickered and translated into the flowing, rounded script of her native Arkis language.

[Power source online… containment pod activated. Pressure rising… 89.3%]

Containment pods were common enough on Verdant skyships. Behind the console, embedded in the wall was a cylindrical glass door. It was completely dark inside. It likely got turned on when Matthias turned on the energy cores. They’d broken into a few in the last one and found only skeletal remains of humans and other creatures.

[Power source online… containment pod activated. Pressure rising… 89.4%]

“Rising pressure doesn’t sound good,” Maia muttered to herself. If it blew then the blast might reach the energy cores and then the whole ruin could explode.

“Hey bops,” Maia flicked on her comms, “got one of those containment pod-thingies.”

“Waste of time,” Matthias replied over the comm, “ain’t never anything good in ‘em.”

“I think it might blow if I don’t open it though, mind if I divert some of the power from the lights to release the pod door?”

“Shit,” Matthias grumbled, “can’t have that thing poppin’ on us. The energy cores are unstable as it is, this whole place will go up.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“Do what ya need to do,” the static cut off, letting her know that he’d closed the comms.

Maia tapped the console and holographic buttons appeared overlaid the existing controls.

“Right, just got to decrease this,” she started dragging a holographic bar down. The lights dimmed as she did so, deepening the shadows.

[Power source online… containment pod activated. Pressure rising… 90.2%]

Good thing she’d noticed this when she did, this thing would probably reach max in a few minutes.

[Containment pod pressure critical. Reserve energy levels now high enough to either open or seal the pod.]

Maia could see two options presented to her. Both were clear what they would do. Obviously I’m going to open it. Where would the fun be in just sealing it up forever? She tapped the “open” option and was greeted by the immediate hissing sound of an airlock being released. She looked up at the containment pod door and watched as it smoothly opened.

The control room was a lot dimmer than it had been before, but she would’ve expected some of the lights to illuminate the inside of the pod. It remained completely black.

Well that’s creepy.