Chapter 15 - Resurfacing

Chapter 15

Starborn Mountains, Imperial Mining Complex

Mining Hub

The skeleton barely had the time to turn, before flying apart as the bolt of incandescent plasma vaporized its chest.

"Definitely gonna need some defenses here." Said Sapphiria as she checked her scanners, before ordering the hauler forward.

The cross between a rover, a truck and an all terrain vehicle rolled out of the tunnel, the bulky vat secured in its large cargo bin, and two folded up service robots attached to its sides like crates.

It could fit in the tunnel, its entire point was to be able to follow a lot of places a human could go, but several of the turns had been cutting it far too close for comfort.

The skeleton had been wandering aimlessly in the hub, and Sapphiria looked with interest at the collapsed skeleton. Whatever was holding it together was, without question, inside of its chest. Where, precisely, she had no idea, but it was interesting.

She gathered a few more samples, before taking the lead once more.

The hub had a few more tracks moving through, but nothing major. Interestingly enough, one of them had been moving back into the hub from a tunnel. Maybe they weren't random wandering undead, but some kind of slow trickle of mapping units? Reporting in to some hub somewhere, and completely disconnected from the original detachment guarding the hub.

If so, she needed to stop the flow fast, before they realized her particular tunnel swallowed every recon unit like a black hole.

Besides, even if that wasn't the case, if they wandered back up her defenses would just eventually clear the entire network of undead.

Not an absolute certainty of course, but it was a nice bonus.

She moved across the hub, the cargo bot in tow, scanning her surroundings constantly, before relaxing as they entered the tunnel that lead to the surface. No trace of anyone since she last came in, and though it wasn't exactly 'safe', according to her discussions with Kalia there should be extremely few, if any wandering undead in that area, and the creatures here didn't go underground.

Which wasn't necessarily reassuring since animals, however mutated as Kalia had described them -it was unfortunately usual for colonists to label 'monsters' the evolutionary offshoots of terran imports on a new world-, only refused to settle somewhere if they had evolved not to, which usually meant there was something deadlier than they were in that area.

There was now, of course, but Sapphiria didn't fancy competition. Especially not when said competition was a proven (in so far as previous records went) danger to her squishies.

Wait, when had she started thinking of them as 'hers'? Damn it.

She was happily leading the way up to the surface, bouncing messages and schematics back and forth with Cia when her sensors pinged her.

She was flat against the wall and the cargo bot had frozen before she'd even processed it.

There were...tracks, on the ground. Several, in fact. A fireteam of people had come here, and then pulled back. She may suck at interpreting the data but there were some pretty clear boot prints she could see in the dust.

But those were people. Not skeletons. Unless they bothered to wear shoes, but then what was the point? Resources better spent making armor. The only ones she'd seen so far with footwear had been those legionnaires. Not necessarily the most promising of omen, but it was more likely that the squishies had sent a party back for some reason.

She gestured, and the cargo bot backed away, slowly, as the two service bots unfolded and formed up. They'd be useless compared to her android but they could still throw themselves at the enemy to buy her time to escape.

She advanced, cautiously, scanning her surroundings meticulously, and she came to a halt as her audio receivers picked up sound.

Voices.

She crept up until she was near the bend that would then lead to the surface. She really needed to make some programs to use all that recon gear better, because she was terrible at it.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Right, that thing still worked. She wasn't sure if it was annoying, endearing, or inspirational. Her aunt had been through a lot after all, yet she still came out on top, and so could she.

The voices finally refined to something she could decipher.

"-that doesn't make it useless. Yes, we're guarding a tunnel while we're low on troops, but that woman is the only damned good news we've had so far. Kalia isn't about to let some monster or undead collapse the only way we have to get to her or ambush her on her way out." Said the voice, female, with the unmistakable patient yet gruff tone of an NCO explaining something to bored and unruly subbordinates.

...Squishies it was.

She had a brief burst of paranoia, after all she had seen an undead speak, even if a friendly one, but she dismissed it. There was a point where one could be too cautious, and you could get locked up seeing legions of foes in every shadow.

Sapphiria ordered the cargo bot to resume its route, and simply walked out.

"Hello." She said as she burst into the sunlight, and saw three guards...who immediately leapt back as if they'd been shot. Why- Oh. She turned off her camouflage, seemingly materializing out of thin air for them. Good to know the blasted thing worked on someone at least, since the skeletons didn't seem to give a damn. "Oh, my apologies. It's me, I wasn't...expecting you."

The guards exchanged looks, as a fourth one emerged from the bushes, sheepishly putting an arrow back into his quiver.

Her sensors had tagged him, and noted that the arrow he'd nocked was emitting exotic particles. Or rather, the arrowhead was. Interesting.

"Apologies, we weren't expecting you either, well, not so soon." Said an older woman, who gestured for her people to stand down, as she cleared her throat. "Huntmarshal Tramistres Glevan, my lady."

"I'm Sapphiria. Just Sapphiria will do. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"The please is all mine, believe me." The huntmarshal bowed. "May we enquire about your return?"

"I come bearing gifts." The marshal titled her head, and Sapphiria coughed. "Well, not me personally, I have a vehicle coming to deliver said gifts."

"I see. Shall we...wait, then?"

"Only for a bit."

Thankfully, the awkward silence only lasted a minute or so before the cargo drone came rumbling down the hall. Sapphiria wasn't even sure where the rumble was coming from, the entire thing was basically fresh from the fabricator and it was, well, electric. No noisy combustion engine to speak of. Which reminded her, she'd have to give detailed instructions to Kalia about the recharge cycles of the service bots.

"There. Now..." She went and unlatched the vat from the bot, as both service units began hauling it out. "We just need to get this to your home."

"Why not..." The marshal swallowed. "Why not use your autocarriage?"

"Sucks on rough terrain." Actually it was great on many varieties of rough terrain, but forests wasn't one of them. They were, after all, part of the tools supposed to help make the damned forests. Humanity colonized many worlds but generally they didn't wait a century after terraforming a planet to make landfall. Let alone the 'stars know how old this place is' thick forest she was finding herself in. "So, we go the old fashioned way."

"Of course." The marshal eyes the service bots. "Do your golems require help?"

"No, but I would appreciate a guide. No need to all go, if nothing else I'd appreciate someone guarding my...autocart while I'm gone." She couldn't remotely control it once she was a certain distance, and she'd planned to have it wait a bit inside the tunnel, where it was unlikely to be found, for her to return. She wasn't willing to take the risk of having it move home on its own before bolting a machinegun to it.

"Of course. Cassen!" The man with the bow came at attention. "Get the lady to Astralis."

"Yes, huntmarshal!"

The older woman turned back towards Sapphiria.

"We'll be there when you return, unless it takes long enough for us to be rotated out."

"Roger that. See you in a bit, huntmarshal. And I hope you'll have an uneventful shift."

They all chuckled.

"Thank you. Safe travels."

They exchanged nods, and Sapphira began following the guide. She didn't really need him but it wouldn't hurt and she wouldn't mind another pair of eyes when she had to watch over the bots and their...well it wasn't exactly delicate, but it certainly was vital, cargo.

Besides, they could make conversation, though she wasn't so confident as to try to pump him for information.

*****

"Welcome!" Said Malry as Sapphiria walked into the settlement. Clearly the sentry they'd encountered and sent scampering off to announce their arrival had gone for the first figure of authority he could reach.

Sapphiria wasn't exactly happy with his selection, but it wasn't like she was going to be able to avoid the representative anyway.

"Malry." The AI extended her hand, and the woman took it. "It's good to see you. I come bearing assistance."

"That's good to hear. To be honest, I wasn't expecting you so soon. Nor with...help." She looked at the service bots, over the android, which made the AI mildly annoyed. She hadn't realized just how frustrating it could be to use a short chassis until now. She'd always opted for something closer to her aunt's one meter eighty, not her mom's wide range, and finding herself a solid twenty centimeters smaller was...challenging, in some ways. Not that she was truly short by pre-starflight standards, but these people seemed as obnoxiously tall as modern humanity, which shouldn't be surprising since the only way to get here was through a faster than light colony ship.

...Ignoring the fact that a colony ship could have only arrived here four centuries ago, tops.

"They're not people, just...helpers."

"Helpers? You have your own servant golems and you..." Malry shook her head. "Nevermind. What are they carrying?"

"Nutrigel vat. Should help with your food production."

"That's...Good. Though, I hope you brought something to power it. We're not exactly replete with mana."

The AI patted the cylinder clasped to the back of her armor.

"Don't worry, I got that covered."

"Is that some kind of mana container or...?"

Sapphiria thought of lying for a second, but decided not to. If she could detect at least some part of their magic at a distance, they probably could too, let alone when having access to the atomic battery unsupervised. Besides, there wasn't really any point, they'd figure out she didn't use any magic sooner rather than later.

"No, it's a...I'm not sure how to explain it to you, actually, but it's a mundane power source."

"Don't worry, my eyes glaze over when Ramina starts a lecture. Still, I hoped..." Malry bit her lower lip. "Look, I was sent here because I'm a mage. You know, to avoid friction with the Magistracy. I know Kalia doesn't want to talk about it or ask, but...Do you have any mana to spare?"

"I'm...afraid not. Is it that bad?"

"However bad you think it is, it's worse. We're low on everything but mana...We had to use so much of it to keep the undead at bay and keep our people alive we're basically using our last reserves to heal who we can and keep a handful of autocarriages operating. We have no choice, if we want to keep stockpiling things for winter. I was hoping we could go for the ley line node, as it's the only source of mana for a thousand leagues but...well..."

"You were...going to extract mana from the node?" It was a bit of a logic leap but it did make sense, and right now she needed every scrap of data she could get. Plus...Wasn't that node the place Kalia had implied the 'monsters' came from?

"I know, I know!" Malry held her hands up. "We're already struggling to hold back the undead, we have no business trudging through the ice to mine mana crystals, navigate phenomena fields or fight monsters. But if we run out of mana..." She shrugged.

Sapphiria carefully noted down every single word, and grimaced, almost theatrically.

"Look, for what it's worth, I'm short on mana too." As in she had a grand total of zero. "I'll talk to Kalia, see if I can help in that department as well, but no promises."

Malry nodded.

"Thanks. That's much appreciated." She glanced down a shabby street, and nodded. "The countess is coming. I'll be off, I have duties to attend to."

"Even without mana?"

The envoy chuckled, patting her pouch.

"I was sent because I was a mage, but that's not my primary specialty. I'm an herbalist and an alchemist. I can't make full elixirs or potions but I can still make salves and medicine."

"Of course. Good luck then."

"Thank you. You too. I fear we'll all need it."

Sapphiria watched her leave, before turning her attention to the street Malry had looked down the length of. She had a sales pitch to make. And some things to process.