Chapter Text
Eramis stood on the raised platform of her quarterdeck, leaning against the railings overseeing the navigators. Despite it being nine weeks prior that she had last stood there and watched over her crew, it felt like an eternity.
Suspicions about Increased human activity had been proven correct. For a heavily fortified city of twelve million residents and counting, more than two thirds of which were militarized, it was hardly a major concern, but still one worth monitoring. Unless humanity discovered the means to use their lost machines and outsmart Devil ingenuity, they were akin to flies buzzing into windows. Harmless, yet exasperating to watch and deal with.
Warlords and Lightbearers, however, were major problems. More had been brought into existence by the Great Machine, much to the collective disdain of the House. Killing them was difficult. Unlike the average human, they seemed impervious to the harsh winters of London settling in for the season. And ultimately, they were beings of near equal intelligence to Eliksni. They learned, and traveled in groups after the loners were picked off. They bought weapon parts from unsuspecting traders in the city outskirts, assembled their own guns with whatever they could collect by the end of the day. Their proficiency and natural ability to create weaponry was alarming at best.
As concerning as the recent developments were, there was an unspoken agreement held throughout the city that there was a lot to be learned from humans. London wouldn't exist without their assistance, and Earth was their home planet. Wethraks and his friends had the right ideas in choosing to monitor over actively engaging with them, but the problem couldn't be ignored any longer. Lightbearers needed eliminating.
Ursaviks, for a reason she hadn't attempted to understand, put her in charge of locating any newcomers. She accepted the assignment with grace at the time, pleased to be able to bypass Rhensik's restrictions and return to piloting the Devilship . Privately, however, Siriks pointed out it may have been intended as a means of putting her back on track. She wasn't inclined to disagree..
Assisting the mechanics in her crew with fitting new targeting systems into every ship in her fleet kept her occupied, alongside duels and training to hone her skills. She was starting to feel like herself again, down to capturing and toying with lone humans like a cat with a mouse, much to the crew’s amusement.
Locating and attacking human ships was trivial, a game for pups compared to infiltrating other Ketches or Skiffs. Humanity had neither the skill nor the understanding of their own lost technology to defend themselves appropriately. Oftentimes it was as simple as tricking them with one of their own ships. Sending out distress signals usually made humans waver, fewer still ever checking the legitimacy of the calls. Once they realized they were surrounded by Skiffs and all wasn't it what it seemed, they would give up quickly.
Some would fight. The tension and betting about what their choice would be was what kept her engaged, on top of the opportunity to add a new ship to her fleet. The concept of facing a Lightbearer again gave her pause, though. Waking up knowing that she could return to work was enough to put a spring in her step, but it did nothing for the nagging worry that she was risking losing more than her last two eyes in accepting the assignment.
In the face of that knowledge, there were only two solutions - hide like a cowardly Dreg in the depths of the Ketch, or face the ghouls head on and give them no chance to retaliate. She preferred the latter.
She was pleased with her own progress to reach that point. Defeating Siriks during their training sessions had become a regular occurrence, and she had ventured into orbit with him at her side. Rumours spread quickly amongst the House, in spite of its massive population, and she was certain that word of her accomplishments had filtered back to the Lair. Other Eliksni had inquired as to her methods, but their requests had gone ignored. Most were long retired veterans, but Eliksni talked, and in a twisted way she enjoyed being the sole member of the House in her position. Her only competition was herself.
The only one ahead of her was the Lightbearer. He appeared to have grown wise to the crews sent out to track him down. Every lead or supposed sighting led to nothing, or uncovering a previously unknown individual. Suspicions began to circulate that he was at the head of the organised human efforts to 'fight back' and attempt to claim some land for themselves, but finding someone who could gain enough intelligence to confirm it proved challenging.
Nobody was willing to entertain Wethraks's ideas of trying to recruit another human into their fold to get the information, either. Although he was undeniably successful with his first charge, nearly 30 years prior, the climate was different. Allowing a human into the inner workings of the Devils while trouble was brewing sounded like an overwhelming recipe for disaster.
A voice piped up from the deck and brought her out of her thoughts. "Baroness! Could you come and look at this?"
Eramis perked up, glancing across the room to the Dreg that called for her attention. 'What have they found? A settlement? Another ship gone too far?' she wondered, pushing back from the railing to walk to his workstation. 'Imagine if it was him.'
As she came up behind, the Dreg pointed to the display. Her stomach dropped, and she let out a choked sound of disbelief. A Kestrel Class ship drifted on screen, traveling in a slow arc a mile from the city walls. Nudging him aside to take the control pad, she zoomed in on the ship and squinted at the feed. Through the blurred, yellow tinted image, she picked out the scorch marks scarring its hull, distinctive as the day she first spotted it.
"The Lightbearer," she snarled.
"How should we proceed?"
Growling in her chest, she swiped across the screen and brought up the tracking information. The Kestrel and its sole pilot had been scouting the area for a half hour, likely searching for a landing point to infiltrate from. "Stand by. He's mine."
She took off in a sprint from the quarterdeck, running through the winding corridors and down into the belly of the Ketch.
Pushing past a gaggle of Dregs hauling cargo, she entered the hangar and locked on to her choice. 'Nequin', a swift Echo class race-ship. Sprinting over to it, it disengaged from its position on the wall at the click of a button, scattering the crew beneath it Eramis dragged a ladder across in the same movement, throwing it against the wing the moment the ship came close and scrambling up it.
A hand grabbed around her ankle. "Where are you going?" Siriks's voice came from below, bewildered.
"We found the ghoul! The one who blinded me!"
"I'll gather the fleet-"
"No!" Shaking him off to crouch on the wing, she chattered down at him. "He's my prey. You come if I call, and not before then. Clear the hangar and disengage the forcefield."
He met her eyes, expression twisted. Although hidden by his helmet, she could see him grappling with the idea of chasing the Lightbearer alone. She willed him not to press further, her whole body itching with anticipation.
Backing away, he nodded firmly. "Then make sure you come back alive."
She nodded back to him and leapt across the wing into the pilot's seat, unbuckling her shock blade from her side and throwing it into the back. Performing the pre-flight checks as fast as she could while commands were barked and those gathered in the hangar dispersed to their posts, her heart raced as the purple-ish rippling at the hangar doors dissipated.
Pulling the canopy down and locking it as the engines whirred to life, she ducked her head to one side to watch the Dreg at the far end of the hangar, waiting for his signal. At the wave of his hand she sped away from the Ketch, the force of the acceleration pushing her back in the seat. It sent a thrill into her veins that she had almost forgotten, darting through the clouds like a bullet.
On the far horizon, the Kestrel popped into view, just a dot in the distance. She flicked the stealth drive on and pitched sharply upwards, gaining height to tail it from above. Cloaking drives evaded unmodified jumpship radars entirely, and the Lightbearer's ship appeared to be no exception. If he was aware of her closing in, he showed no inclination to respond.
She slowed when the defined shape of the ship appeared, keeping her prey to her left side. Her lower hand reached out and adjusted the reticle of the targeting system until it hovered over the ship's form. A tinny, robotic voice sounded in her ear, '700ft vertical to target. Altitude 6000ft, steady.'
Her stomach churned as she readied the weapons, confirming and locking in to the Lightbearer. If she was spotted, one evading barrel roll would turn the Kestrel out of her sight. She'd never see any retaliation coming, and dogfights were never her strength even when she possessed all four eyes. The thought of relying solely on what machines and sensors said made her hesitate.
Her crew had taken great delight in firing blanks at one another to test the system extensively in weeks prior on every single ship. Every fault had been corrected, every bug eased out. Failure rates were as close to zero as they could be, and Nequin was the most reliable of them all throughout.
"You wouldn't be here without them. Trust the sensors, trust the measurements," she murmured to herself. Yet staring down at the Lightbearer's craft and following its path, she hadn't felt so uncomfortable since her very first flight lessons.
Eramis wracked her brain for the safest means to attack. 'I have one chance. I'll have to use a gap in his shielding. ' Kestrels were given their name for a reason, they were quick and hard hitting in combat, but fragile and seldom had functional shielding drives. Close to every one she had repaired had glaring gaps in the shields towards the engine intake. A single well timed shot would blow up the ship from the inside. How humans traveled to other planets with such a critical fault in their engineering was lost on her.
Nequin's weaponry was pin accurate, to a point. Unlike the devastating power of a Skiff's long range energy cannons, the race-ship was best suited to drive-by style attacks, like a Pike. Getting close to a target and unleashing a volley of energy in multiple passes could do plenty of damage in the right hands. The difficulty lie in distributing the energy equally across the ship, which meant disabling the cloaking. Evading the Kestrel enough times to succeed in downing it if she missed the engines, all while visible to a fully sighted Lightbearer, was where her thoughts stuck.
Turning her head, she squinted into the bright morning sun and the solution dawned on her. 'An ambush. Like he did to me.'
Not giving herself time to overthink, she braced herself and pushed the yoke downwards, hurtling out from the sunlight towards the ship. Screaming closer to the Kestrel until a split second from passing it, she disabled the cloaking drive and skimmed over its hull, pulling the trigger.
Arc energy coursing through the guns thrummed through the floor, unleashing a rain of bullets into the Kestrel's engines. A deafening bang cut through the air, pushing her ship forwards with the sudden turbulence.
'Which of us was that?!' She yanked the flight stick back and to one side, turning the ship sideways and into a wide U-turn. Alarms blared, warnings flagging up on the holo screen about her speed and angle. She felt the wings flex, creaking in complaint at the force of the maneuver. ' Don't even think about stalling! Not now !'
Eyes wide, she looked up through the canopy and saw nothing, the sky darkened with thick smoke. Twisting to check over her back, her lower hand instinctively hovered over the throttle. Her mind raced, 'How did he see me? Why did I think that was safe?' Echo classes were not built for surviving crash landings, and miles of thick forest and half demolished buildings were terrible for gliding to safety.
Flicking her primary eye back to the front of the screen while her right hand dropped to contact the Ketch, she froze at the words on screen.
'All systems operational.'
Noise of a failing engine filtered through the glass of the canopy, stuttering and rattling itself apart. Tilting her head back to where the Kestrel was, she found the smoke took its place. A ball of fire plummeted past her to the ground like a stone, breaking up into pieces in the fall.
"Yes!" She couldn't hold back a roar of triumph, her hearts soaring as she levelled out and slowed down to begin her descent in a wide spiral. Her crew would be celebrating as soon as she returned, the urge to collect every Dreg on the ship up, squeeze them tight and let the Ether rations flow free almost unbearable.
'You're all mine to hunt now,' she thought, adrenaline burning through her chest. Barely able to keep her hands steady, she eased the race-ship over to circle above the snow covered trees, calculating the ghoul's potential escape routes from above. An industrial settlement nearby flagged in her mind. Plenty of places to hide, potentially holding more humans to come to his aid.
Not that they would be capable of much, given how piteously easy it would be to call.for backup and raze it to the ground before they knew what was happening.
An explosion erupted from trees below, flames shooting higher into the air. She snorted to think of how spectacular his death was. 'Undeserved for scum like him.'
Spotting a small clearing close to the crash site, she directed the ship into it and lowered it down in place until it hovered off the ground. Autopilot would allow it to land safely nearby and send out a beacon for a Skiff to join her. Salvage was salvage, and even sweeter when it came from the ship she was blinded on.
She pushed open the canopy and disengaged from the controls, reaching behind the seat to grab her sword. With a quick scan of the immediate area, she hopped down to the ground. Although the wreckage was a half mile away, Lightbearers moved quickly upon resurrection. He could be watching her, but she didn't care. What weapons humans had were no use against her armor, tried and tested. She couldn't picture a bigger waste of life than allowing herself to be shot dead.
Loosening the lower half of her helmet, Eramis scented the air. Jet fuel filled her nose, mixed with burning hot metal carried by a fresh breeze. Beneath it came the distantly familiar smell of a charred human. Scoffing at it, she clipped her helmet back together and set off, sword drawn.
A classic stalk through the old growth forests never went amiss. She shivered as she entered the dense cover, unsure and unbothered whether it was from the anticipation of the chase or the bitter cold. England's woods were nothing compared to the lush jungles of Riis, but they scratched the itch she held to hunt and run free. Eliksni were made to race through trees and undergrowth and catch prey, or they wouldn't have been bestowed fangs, claws and six limbs.
Smouldering branches dropped ash on to snow the closer she got to the ship, turning the ground into a greyish slush. The burning Kestrel came into view through the trees, fires that would have set bark alight snuffed by fallen snow. Dropping down on all six, she scuttled closer to the edge of the crash site, circling around it. The Lightbearer could try to spot her if he had stayed, but humans were terrible at picking out strange shapes in unfamiliar territory. Or at least, they were until it was too late for them.
Closing in on the cockpit, she investigated the scene of the Lightbearer's struggle. Snow scuffed into a mound, disrupted by handprints and churned mud leading off into the treeline that showed his desperate attempts to flee upon resurrection. Blood trailed along his escape route, only turning to footprints at the first sturdy trunk. 'His drone didn't heal him. He won't have gotten far.'
Standing back up and walking at a brisk pace, she followed the footprints in parallel. The tracks were clumsy, staggering, veering back and forth along their chosen path and towards the abandoned settlement.
A high fence loomed ahead, covered in tangled barbed wire. The Lightbearer had dithered, red tinging his footprints in the time it took to decide how to approach it. They led towards a small hole in the chainlink, shreds of cloth caught on the cut wires. Eramis bent down and crawled through, sidling up the alley opposite.
Tall, flat roofed office blocks with broken exterior panels and bullet holes through the walls lined a paved cul-de-sac at the end of it, holo-signange of human corporations flickering on most. Painted red and black symbols near each doorway showed a raiding party had travelled through the area and picked off any humans taking refuge there, and recently. ' Excellent, nobody can come to his aid. '
Confident, she emerged from the alleyway and into the road. Frozen mush where the crew had searched the area obscured any new footprints, but the fresh blood remained on top. Pacing beside it, the distance the Lightbearer made it before disappearing into a building surprised her. The trail led to a brick building, to a door wrenched open against its hinges.
Before she could approach, a bullet whizzed past the top of her helmet, impacting into the snow. She ducked down, spinning around and scanning the windows. A flash of movement caught her attention from the second floor of the building, and she ran up to it.
A shadow passed overhead. The Lightbearer hurled himself from the window, firing at her as he fell and landing hard.
Eramis dove out of the way, digging her claws into the ice for traction and launching herself at the Lightbearer as soon as he landed. She wrestled him down to the ground, upper hand fighting for the gun while her lower arms pinned him down. He gripped tight to the rifle, firing a bullet into the air before she wrenched it free and threw it clear to the other side of the street.
A boot smacked into her stomach, winding her. Gasping, she collapsed down on top of him. The Lightbearer scrambled out from beneath her, sliding on the slick ice as he stumbled.
Although dazed, she shoved her arm forward and held tight to his leg, unsheathing her shock dagger and using him as an anchor to drive it into the back of his shin where cloth met leather. He cried out and kicked back, bucking her off.
Breathing hard, Eramis surged upwards and swiped at him with her sword, switching the arc energy on and reveling in the crackling electricity sparking through the air. He flinched away, a split second too late as she pushed forward. Shifting her grip on the hilt, she stabbed the blade through his stomach.
The human howled in pain, and she laughed triumphantly, driving it deeper as it met resistance. "Now you know how it feels!"
Burning heat suddenly shot up her sword. Letting go of it with a hiss, she lashed out with her other hand at him, registering the fire engulfing the arm that blocked her far too late. Solar energy leapt up from the human's hand, grabbing on to her face.
Eramis screamed, tearing away from the Lightbearer as the metal of her helmet turned searing hot. She heard the dull thud of her sword falling to the ground as she skittered backwards, then footsteps running away.
Blinded by the intense heat and brightness from the flame, she retreated back in the direction of the alleyway. Throwing herself and her helmet down into the ice to soothe the burning sensation, she felt around her face in a panic as her vision returned. 'No burns! I'm safe, he didn't get me again,' she sagged with relief, picking herself up from the floor.
As she regained her bearings, Eramis pressed herself against the wall and peered around the corner into the road, In their mutual panic, both the sword and rifle had been left on the ground. There was no sign of the Lightbearer, save for the bright red line of blood leading into the closer building. 'Easy pickings. So long as his drone is out of action.'
Glancing down to her helmet, she winced. Previously white metal was scorched black, melted and thinned in the centre but otherwise intact. The lens on the left side, however, was unblemished. She reminded herself to thank Rhensik when she returned for his foresight, followed by an apology for the need to refit it into a new helmet.
Wiping the condensation off the inside of it and slipping her helmet back on, she knew not to wait and give the Lightbearer more time. She moved towards the propped open doorway of the building he took refuge in, retrieving her sword and switching off its energy on the way.
Squeezing through the entryway and over the puddle of blood, she looked over the dark interior in case the ghoul was waiting. The atrium was deserted, scalped clean by Eliksni for wiring and any other human tech. Some of the larger instalments were marked for dissection, including the metallic staircase against the wall. Blood covered the tape lines up it, dripping off the individual steps.
'I've got you now.' she thought, lowering herself to slink up it as quietly as possible. The trail led two floors up to a long hallway, abruptly turning to slight spots lining a wide corridor.
The Lightbearer had all but disappeared, and as she shut the valve of her Ether tank to quiet the imperceivable hiss bouncing off the walls, she listened close. She could only guess at how clever he thought he was. Humans thought they were king in a world where they were once the apex predators, but her hearing was sharper, her vision stronger. Nobody had escaped hiding from her yet, and the ghoul wouldn't be the first.
Straining into the silence, she twitched at the sound of shifting leather. The noise of a drone revealing itself followed, coming from halfway down the hall.
Eramis crept forward, trembling. Stopping at the doorway, she held her breath when the movement came again. It sounded further away, at the back wall. Laboured breathing and the urgent, incomprehensible whispers between ghoul and drone echoed in the stripped office spaces. The human seemed to be urging the drone to do something, a heated debate between the two.
'He's hurt,' The longer she listened, the weaker the human sounded. Sensing that the game was over, she stood back up straight, seeing no need to continue a stealthy approach. 'There's nothing he can do now.'
Eramis stepped forward and stood in the doorway, brandishing her sword. The Lightbearer and his ghoul locked eyes with her, and the air grew tense. She didn't say a word, comfortable that the intimidation brought on by silence was more than enough to suffice.
Slowly, the drone rose up from the floor where its charge was. It spun the back half of its shell and narrowed its optic, almost inviting a challenge.
She sighed, clicking her mandibles in irritation. For such a little machine, it held the bravery of a Kell. Taking a step forwards into the room, she flinched as the drone burst into action, speeding towards her at head height.
Eramis threw an arm up across her face, shutting her eyes seconds before impact. Hard metal crashed into her hand, cutting into her palm, and on instinct she latched down on it. The drone locked in her claws, and as she blinked her eyes open she shared a look of panic and disbelief with it.
Without thinking, she slammed the drone against the concrete wall with all her might. Its shell buckled and snapped, releasing from it a blinding stream of energy in a bright blue light. She dropped it and flung herself back through the doorway, curling into a ball and covering her eyes with both right arms.
The Light burst forth in a shockwave, pushing her across the ground with its force even from behind cover. A pins and needles sensation pierced through her limbs, intensifying to a brutal sting before it stopped, as soon as it started.
Ears ringing, she uncovered her face and realized she was still alive. New cracks split up in the walls and broken glass littered the floor. A massive hole where the doorway was gaped, the force of the explosion blasting down through the lower levels and clean into the atrium.
She sat up, checking over herself. 'Arms are still there. Everything's okay.' Her hand buzzed where she destroyed the little machine, flexing her claws to force feeling to return. 'Where did that ghoul go?'
Eramis got on all six, crawling to the chasm splitting the building and locking eyes with the once-Lightbearer. His face was gaunt, hair plastered to his head with sweat and blood seeping through his leather armor. He tried and failed to get to his hands and knees, coughing so that his whole body was wracked by it. Yet still he kept fighting, and she growled at him with a strength she didn't know she possessed in a warning to stay down.
Propping herself up to stand, her first step was unsteady, shaking, but stronger than any of his movements. Jumping across the crater, she sauntered over to the human and pointed the tip of her sword down at him. "Remember me?" she hissed in English.
"Fuck you," he wheezed, lifting his head to glare at her.
"You tried to take everything from me. Did you expect me to come back and humiliate you like this?" She jabbed the sword into his chest.
"What do you want? A prisoner?" he snapped. "I'll never give in to you. You took my Light, but you won't take my life."
She guffawed at his empty words. The Captain-strength some humans showed in their final moments was always humorous, unaware of how weak their own flesh was. "I've dreamed of this since the wretched day I left the hospital. Ripping you apart and tearing your limbs off, posting you on a stake at our gates to wither away. I sleep well when I think of what I'd do to you."
Anger boiled inside of her, adrenaline rising in her chest. She paused, clenching three of her firsts to hold herself back from dropping the weapon and tearing into him there and then. Images of her dreams flashed through her mind in a bloody montage. All of them felt good, and so right in so many ways, but wrong for the task at hand.
Crouching down, she hissed, "You stole the Great Machine from us, and you waste its gifts on violence. You thought you had seen the last of me, and thought that you'd do the same to my brothers and sisters unchallenged. Yet here I am. A two eyed Eliksni who taught herself to fly again, and who killed your drone."
The Lightbearer remained defiant, betrayed by a twinkle in his eyes. Fear. A gaze she'd seen a thousand times before. All humans were cowards, deep down.
Eramis chuckled, raising her sword and leveling the edge of her blade at his cheek.
Arc electricity coursed along its length at the touch of a button, the blue light shining off his skin.
The Lightbearer swallowed hard, facing her in silence.
"You lost."
She plunged the blade into his face.
Sitting in the dim hallways of the hospital, Eramis fidgeted with the dead drone. Each rotation of its silvery faces gave a graunching sound, and broken glass from the optic collected in her hand. Given the bare minimum of cosmetic repairs,. It would make a fine centrepiece on the bridge. Not that many would ever see it. It was her personal prize. Much like the rifle and what remained of the Lightbearer's armor.
Her whole body still buzzed with a feeling like static, and she thought the least she could do was to pay Rhensik a visit before retiring for the day. The Light worked in mysterious ways, none of which she wanted to be a part of any longer. Whatever powers it held, it destroyed her armor over the course of the walk back to the Kestrel's wreckage. She didn't want to consider what it had done to her insides until it was confirmed by a doctor.
A Dreg carrying a data pad wandered out from the office, swiping through a list of appointments. "Eramis?" he looked up, glancing down the row of chairs until he met her gaze with a smile. "Rhensik will see you now."
Rumbling a thanks, she rose from her seat and walked off through the corridors, shrugging her cloak forwards to wipe the fingerprints off the drone's shell. Coming to Rhensik's door, she knocked and let herself in before he could respond.
"Who is it- Eramis? What brings you in today?"
Without a word, she went to his desk and took the drone out from behind her back, placing it down in front of him.
Rhensik's mouth fell open, blinking his frontmost eyes and then secondary set in disbelief. Picking it up between his claws, he tilted the drone in the light. "Is this…?"
"It is."
"Why have you brought it to me?"
"I'd like to discuss my flight clearance."