“And we’re absolutely sure of this?” Thane wanted to ask. He did not, because that would be an insult to the scribes. They were the best in their field and did not need his second guessing. The standards of the Kinsworn demanded as much.
“Very well.” He said instead. “Please put this data on lockdown until I can converse with lord Harir.”
The senior scribe in front of him nodded and set to work, her fingers manipulating the data with a grace and purpose he could have never matched. The woman was old; she would be lucky to live another decade, even considering the life-extending treatments that came with her station.
This woman –Igrit, her name was– had been born and raised on the flagship, trained to perform administrative duties from the moment she was old enough to read and write. Most of her life had been spent in service to the Oracle, and now her own children and grandchildren were in the process of donning the great mantle of her responsibilities. Such was the life of those who pledged themselves to Lord Harir.
After One-hundred-and-twenty years of loyal service Igrit was, without a doubt, one of the most senior people aboard the Exemplar of Valour. Yet Thane remembered when Igrit was but a tyke running through the ship’s sprawling corridors like it was yesterday.
The senior scribe may be old, but he was well and truly ancient. He found it disconcerting how his perception of time had shifted as he grew far older than what a normal lifespan could– and in his opinion; should– be.
When asked about his long life, Thane often said that years had started to feel like months, but perhaps that observation was obsolete by now. Not years, but decades felt like months to him nowadays. He wondered if his experience of time would stretch further yet. Would he live to see the day where he experienced centuries as weeks? Thane expected he would not, or perhaps he simply wished so. Mortality was not something he’d ever thought he’d long for, yet–
“–Ahem.” Igrit interrupted his musings. “Lord Equerry?" She asked for what Thane now realized was not the first time.
“Pardon me, mistress Igrit.” He said, straightening his back. “I was lost in thought. These readings have given me a lot to think about.”
“I do not know what readings you speak of, my lord.” Igrit said with a deadpan voice. “I have sealed the documents you requested. Is there anything else I can be of service for?”
Thane nodded thoughtfully, carefully observing the woman’s features. Her eyes, normally clear and focused despite her age, had a strange gloss to them and her lips twitched sporadically. The signs of a freshly implemented mental lock were written all over her face. Looking behind her, Thane saw the screen she worked from now displayed confirmation that the datasets were hidden behind the highest orders of encryption. A level of security that even Igrit, with all her experience, wasn’t cleared to access.
He sighed, allowing his armor to hide the expression of emotion. “Thank you, mistress. That will be all for now.” He said, then turned away. The practice of sealing away information, going so far as to forcefully encrypt memories, was one Thane was deeply averted to. Still, he couldn’t deny its effectiveness.
When Thane had entered the ship’s administrative center there had been clear agitation among the scribes. He couldn’t blame them, not when what they had seen carried such grave implications. His presence did serve to alleviate some of the worst unrest. As the immortal right hand of Harir himself, Thane recognized he was a symbol as much as he was a warrior. An everlasting pillar of virtue and duty that inspired the crew of the Exemplar as much as it did his soldiers on the battlefield. As much as he appreciated the effect he –or the symbol he represented– had on people, he knew that it alone was not sufficient to maintain morale.
While him being among the scribes had reduced the unrest to mere uneasy tension, the mental lock that now affected any that had seen the information had more or less restored the status quo.
“A useful tool, yet a terrifying one.” Thane muttered under his breath. It was an unnecessary precaution. He could have shouted the words at the top of the lungs if he so wished, the armor he wore would have caught up on his intentions and filtered them out either way.
“Good morning, my lord.” A young scribe who found himself in his way said, beaming up at him. Thane looked down and instantly recognized that this youth, too, had been affected by the data lockdown he ordered. When he’d entered, not ten minutes prior, the boy had been nervously fidgeting with his fingers at his workstation. He had reminded Thane of a frightened animal, perhaps a rabbit, cowering in fear of a predator. Now that his knowledge had been taken from him, he seemed carefree and upbeat. The same rabbit hopping along a sunny meadow. Only the wolf was still there, hidden in the tall grass.
An old saying about blissful ignorance surfaced in Thane’s thoughts, though he pushed it down with force. He could never allow himself to think along those lines, he could never think like a tyrant, lest he would become one. If the mental locks had not been Igrit’s own suggestion, he would likely still be opposing the decree.
“Good morning lad.” He said, knowing that it was not. For a short two seconds, Thane dug through his memories, matching the boy in front of him with the extensive family trees of those who resided on the Oracle’s flagship. “You are Merkys, correct? Second son of Aryn and Imere? Great-grandson to mistress Igrit herself?” He asked, reasonably certain that he got everything right. It would be easy to pull up the ship’s manifest and retrieve the boy’s identity from there, but Thane took simple pride in knowing every one of the sixty-thousand faces on the Exemplar by name.
At the mention of his name, Merkys’ beaming smile grew wider still. Thane was well aware of the game the youngsters of the ship liked to play with him. Merely getting him to address them was a highlight of their day. Even if he couldn’t answer with a smile of his own, seeing theirs was something he never grew tired of, and one more reason why he would never cheat the game.
“Yes I am, Captain-Emissary Thane.” The boy grinned. “Turning fifteen standard soon.” He added, his voice laden with bravado. “Ah, so that’s what this is about.” Thane thought. Merkys’ mention of his age, as well as the use of Thane’s official title, signaled to the Equerry that the lad in front of him harbored ambitions to join the armed ranks of the Kinsworn. With that knowledge in mind, Thane unconsciously considered the boy’s physique, judging whether or not he could be worthy to ascend to the Tidebreakers.
His trained eyes quickly garnered that the boy had potential, and he made a mental note for himself to expect and approve his application some time in the near future.
“Very well, lad. I hear you do your kinsname proud. I will be expecting great things from you.” He said, reaching down to ruffle one armored gauntlet through the boy’s scruffy hair. The very same gauntlets that had killed more sentient creatures than the boy had ever met.
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Kill, Came a distant and unwelcome whisper, the voice which muttered cold like the void and unpleasant like nails scratching on a board of chalk. Thane pulled his gauntlet back at the sound of it, the harsh movement plucking a few strands of hair from the boy’s scalp, though Merkys didn’t seem to notice. Or, if he did, he simply hoped to prove his worth by showing no reaction to pain.
Thane absently shook his gauntlet free of the hairs that clung to it, his thoughts dwelling on the readings only he and a select few others on the ship still remembered.
“Move along now, lad. I have duties to attend to” Thane said, his attention returning to the dull glaze in Merkys’ eyes which was only now starting to clear. Important as they were, he could ill afford the distraction such interactions brought with them. Especially today. Especially when the voice was lurking so close around the corner.
He stepped past the aspiring soldier and left the administrative centers behind. His armor adapted to the increase in movement, shifting its leaf-like panels away from his joints and towards his upper limbs and torso to increase his freedom of movement.
He felt the urge to break into a run, making for Lord Harir with all haste. An urge that only grew stronger as the doors closed behind him and he found himself in an empty corridor.
He could make the trip to Harir’s chambers without being seen. He longed to sprint there, let his body act on the same impulses that his brain felt. It was an animalistic desire, so he shut it down. A significant portion of Thane’s job was to exude calmth and discipline. If he let that falter simply because there was no-one there to witness it, his example would become a falsehood.
The Exemplar was a large ship. Even following the most direct route, it could easily take someone on foot two hours to traverse her from bow to stern. While that was a trip Thane did not normally mind taking, today he was glad that the administrative centers and Harir’s personal dwellings weren’t located quite so far apart.
He took the stairs two decks up and passed through the Exemplar’s central spine, moving toward the ship’s stern. He came up to an amidships bulkhead which separated the civilian workstations from their accommodations. The ship was divided by six such bulkheads, each individual section serving as a self-sufficient holdout in case of emergencies. Through each bulkhead ran only two entry points, no pipelines and nothing more than the bare minimum of cabling. Even if one section was boarded by enemy forces or suffered catastrophic damage, the ship at large would remain uncompromised. The Exemplar was a warship, city, and bunker all combined into one.
Thane approached the keel-located gate in the third bulkhead now, spotting the two armored Tidebreaker marines currently stationed there on guard duty. They were not alone, though. Two more figures stood with them, these ones not in uniform. They were engaged in conversation nonetheless.
Almost imperceptibly, Thane increased his pace and stuck to the edge of the ship corridor. Tasting his intention, his armor shifted in color and texture, melding together with not just the shadows but the lights and shapes too.
Thane’s power armor truly was unique: A design dating back since before the erecting of the Veil. Only a handful of true relics made by the ancient Ruvos still remained, and he was wearing one of them. No Runoran-made armor, not even those suits specifically meant for stealth, could have snuck up on his Tidebreakers. Even if they were visually indiscernible from their surroundings there would always be some passive hum from their actuators, clutter on the EM-spectrum, surface heat discrepancies, or other minor imperfections to give them away.
His own suit passively hid or prevented every single one of these aspects, but it didn’t end there. Thane was not even accompanied by the sound of his own footsteps or breathing. His armor dampened it all, surrounding him in an air of eeriness he hadn’t completely gotten used to even in his five millennia of wearing the armor.
It was perfect for sneaking up on his unsuspecting troops, though.
“Six ancestor-forsaken months of taking Veil-readings, that’s an… ancestor-forsaken Keepie’s job, doncha thunk?” Valk slurred, clutching a bottle in one hand. It was nearly empty, Thane noted, feeling a twang of shame. Valk was part of his own strike team. She should know better than this.
Accompanying her was another young tidebreaker, though she seemed at least somewhat sober. She held her head in her hands in embarrassment. The two guards stood impassable, performing their duties as best as they could as one of the highest-ranking Tidebreakers was shouting her own intoxicated frustrations at them.
Valk twirled around, miraculously keeping her balance, then leaned against one of the guards, who was doing his best to ignore her. But the young woman was so caught up in her drunken rant that she paid little mind to what was going on around her. She just needed an audience to hear her words, irrespective of if they were actually listening or not.
“I swear… and I mean it!” She began again. “If I was in charge of this ship, I would–”
“What would you do, Reductor Prime?” Thane asked sternly, stepping out from the struts on the wall as if he’d been part of the ship. His sudden appearance spooked the guards and Valk’s companion, but not Valk herself.
“You are off-duty, Valk. What are you doing here?” Thane asked sharply, stepping closer to his direct subordinate.
“Ahhh, cap’n eminency!” Valk blurted, casually butchering his title. “Me an’ the boys was just wondering when we was getting fightin’ again.”
“You’ll hear your orders once they’re announced. Now get yourself to Mella and have him scrub your blood.” Thane said, coming face to face with the shorter woman. “Bring shame to my team like this again and I’ll have you on the first shuttle back to Hermentes.”
He spoke matter-of-factly, his reputation being more than threatening enough. Valk knew he would follow up on that promise, even if she was among the best warriors in the Tidebreakers. The young woman pouted, threw a skewed salute by hitting herself in the face, then turned around and marched through the gate, the guards stepping aside to let her through. Thane saw how they physically relaxed now that Valk had left and shook his head, wondering how long she had spent here.
“Corporal Alex.” He said, turning to the nervous young woman Valk had been with. “Explain.”
“Yes sir.” She said, awkwardly clacking her ankles together. “The Reductor prime wished to exhaust the ship’s supply of tolerated intoxicants and thus trigger a resupply run. As you may have heard she’s eager to return to active deployment”
“So she was drinking herself half to death.” Thane said with a nod. “What did she want here, where’s there no booze to be found?”
“When civilian bar keepers decided to stop serving her, she tried to reach the storage in section four, only to get distracted during the transit.”
“Thank you, Alex. I’ll see to it that she’s properly disciplined.”
“Um, my Lord?” The young woman asked, not yet relaxing her posture.
“You’re a Tidebreaker now, Alex. I’m just sir or captain-emissary to you.” Thane said, smiling a comforting smile he knew Alex couldn’t see.
"Yes sir" She said, looking up at him. “Cases like this are getting more common. The crew is itching for a fight. I don’t mean to sound impatient, but is there any indication when we’ll be back in action?”
Thane hesitated for one moment, his thoughts briefly returning to what he had seen: A terrifying prophecy on the verge of fulfillment, one that spoke of Demons and the end of the Veil, all stemming from the Sindrion system.
“We’ll be fighting before you know it.” He said, then passed through the gate.