The slopes leading out of the crater can be arduous and taxing for those who are unaccustomed to these kinds of hikes. Lara treks upward along an incongruous set of switchbacks toward a ridge that overlooks Crater’s Bluff, stopping intermittently to rest with her hands on her knees.
She gazes at the foreboding sky as she takes long, controlled breaths. A gray cloud approaches above Crater’s Bluff in the distance, an ominous wind bringing it rapidly from upstream. Where once Lara would see other asteroids and a backdrop of stars, instead she sees a dark, smoky opacity creeping overhead. Purple streaks of lightning roil within the dark cloud.
She braces herself for the final stretch of the hike and proceeds along the jagged slope. She reaches the ridge of the crater and continues along the level ground toward the hulking mass of metal that landed outside of Crater’s Bluff just a few hours earlier.
The heavy, inelegant construction is unlike any other star-faring vessel she’s seen or read about. Those on Agulon resemble conventional sea-faring ships that have been modified to allow flight along the skies and stars. It’s known that the corsairs from Ibuk-Ei pilot sleek, slender vessels which often take on aesthetic avian forms.
This ship, by contrast, has a bulky metal shell at its center. On either side of its base are four sets of tall, wide wheels that allow enough space between the vehicle and ground for a mechanic to crawl beneath easily. The ship also has two pairs of wings that defy all odds each time the thing takes flight. A glass bubble at the helm indicates a cockpit.
There are three people stationed around the ship. A man with broad shoulders and grease-stained overalls hammers a section of metal paneling. The other two are much younger. They stare upward at the incoming dark clouds and bicker about the portends they entail. The three heads turn to face Lara as she approaches.
She waves as she walks toward the crew and calls, “That’s a marvelous craft you have there.”
“Thanks,” says the one with the hammer. “The Scarab is Eckert’s pride and joy. I’m sure he’d—”
“Torch!” calls a voice from beneath the vehicle.
The man sifts through a cluttered tool bench as he continues addressing Lara.
“I’m sure he’d like to hear some words of praise from a stranger such as yourself. We mostly get strange looks when we land to—”
“Torch!”
“—resupply and get a little rest in before dodging asteroids and the monsters that call them home.”
A man with a shock of graying hair and a wiry frame crawls out from beneath the Scarab. His frown is just one of many lines that creases his weathered face.
“Damn it, Arden, where the hell is my torch?”
“I was just getting it for you,” says Arden as he hands a contraption to the old man. It’s like a small raycaster, but a thick coil connects the bottom of the device to a cylindrical canister that is mounted to the tool bench.
Eckert snatches the torch from Arden and bends down to crawl beneath the ship again when he finally notices Lara.
“What do we have here, a visitor? Hope you don’t mind if we’re short with you, but we have a lot of work to do and very little time to do it. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Wait,” Lara says. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I’d love to learn more about the Scarab. Maybe an extra set of hands would help you meet whatever deadline you’re working toward.”
The man’s dark eyes glint and become narrow.
“Is that so? The Scarab usually repels strangers rather than bringing them in.”
“She was saying that the ship is marvelous,” Arden informs the old man with a coy smile.
“In a way it is,” Lara adds. “In that it’s a marvel you can get such a colossal clunker to take flight at all.”
The conversation among the two others cease as they overhear this slight. Eckert guffaws and slaps Lara on the back with enough vigor to cause her to stagger forward.
“You got that right! Ain’t another soul in the Meridian Sphere who could pull off a feat like making the Scarab fly. But I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again. If only I can get this damn thruster relay to synchronize, we’ll be back in action before the rains come down.”
“Thruster relay?” Lara asks. “You have more than one thruster?”
“You have to if you hope to generate enough lift to carry the Scarab among the stars,” Eckert says. He gestures to the metallic wings that loom overhead. “Each wing has its own thruster. They must each act in harmony if the vessel is to soar properly. While we were charting our course, we got snagged in the web of an asteroid arachnid. I’ll spare you the details about that little setback. Suffice to say that while we were throttling the thrusters to escape, we scraped the bottom of the Scarab against the surface of an asteroid. We’ve been having trouble keeping the Scarab off the ground since then. Doing hull repairs and looking for the break in the thruster relay to patch it up.”
“Fascinating,” Lara says as she inspects that unorthodox construction of the machine. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you were inspired by the artificers from Brinnak, but they’ve never crafted a fully functioning star-faring vessel before.”
Eckert raises his eyebrows in surprise and grins.
“You have a good eye. I’ve worked with the Exalted Artificer Ulgurf Tonshan in the past—his work has been an inspiration to me, but those Brinnakians only care about burrowing further and further into their planet. They haven’t gotten a taste for star skipping like the rest of us.”
Eckert sees that Lara is more interested in examining the construction of the Scarab than listening to his speech.
“Anyway,” he says, “I’ll tell you all about it after we’ve fixed this relay system. You’re more than welcome to lend a hand.”
Eckert gives Lara a pair of goggles with black lenses to prevent the torch’s flames from harming their eyes. They both don their protective gear and crawl beneath the metallic beast to investigate.
After spending some time inspecting the underbelly of the mechanized flying machine, Lara helps Eckert to identify sections of thermal tubing that were rupturing after a few too many scrapes and collisions. Some of the crew bring them bundles of wire and replacement tubing, which are promptly welded into place.
The two mechanics crawl out from under the vehicle, wiping their brows of the sweat and grease that has built up during the course of the repairs. Lara notices a light drizzling coming down from the dark clouds above.
“Looks like the storm will be coming soon,” she says. “I’d better get back and check on my husband and our kids.”
“I understand,” Eckert says, “but we hate to see you leave so soon, especially since the fun has yet to even begin.”
“That reminds me. You mentioned earlier that you wanted to repair the ship before the rain comes down. What exactly are you planning?”
A crackling spark alights in Eckert’s eyes as he hears the question.
“You’d think I’m crazy if I showed you all my cards right now. But a voltomancer like myself sees the incoming tempest as an opportunity as well as a hazard. If you tag along with me and my crew for the day’s operation, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Lara turns her attention to the black clouds that drift overhead. The asteroids that are upstream have been completely consumed by the fiercely pulsating mass of tempestuous energy. Purple lightning flickers within the black mass and strange, tentacular flesh protrudes from the clouds intermittently.
“Sorry, Eckert,” Lara says, “but it sounds like you’re asking me to go on a suicide mission. My family needs me.”
“I hear you,” he says, ”my apprentices had reservations before their first storm chase. But you’ll find that each of us scrapes by despite the danger. Again, if you come along I’ll make it worth your while. I might just have an extra thruster or metallurgic stabilizer back at the factory that I could part with if you’ll lend a hand.”
This bait catches Lara’s attention. Her family’s biggest obstacles preventing their return to Agulon come from a lack of resources. They don’t have the money to purchase the parts needed to put a ship together. Even if they had a ship that could be modified to sail among the stars, they’d lack these most crucial and expensive components.
Lara weighs her options. They can spend several more months trying to survive in the hazards of the Nomadic Belt, at which point she and her family could meet their unfortunate end from a myriad of other causes. Or she can wager her life on a bargain from this voltomancer.
“I don’t like the sound of it,” Lara says. “But we could really use the parts. Wait here–I’ll be back before the downpour begins.”
Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach, Lara hurries to the camper to explain to her husband where she’s going. She fights with all her might to contain the fear and titillation that stirs within.
***
They soar around the edge of the black clouds to the dark side of a nearby asteroid. Beams of light are cast from before the Scarab’s cockpit, illuminating a series of jutting, artificial structures on the asteroid’s surface.
“This is it,” Eckert announces as he flicks a few switches and pulls a lever to slow the vessel to a halt. “We’ll be breathing life into this abandoned factory one storm at a time.”
He and Lara rise from their seats in the cockpit of the Scarab. Eckert leads Lara into the ship’s common area at its center. The room’s smoke-stained metal walls are covered by various plants and tangles of vines. A hatch is in the room’s floor with a door on either side. An apprentice waits for the sign from the voltomancer before pulling the switch that opens the hatch and causes a ramp to descend to the surface of the asteroid below.
“We won’t be gone long, Arden,” Eckert announces to the room. “Make sure Keenan and Ludorf don’t venture too far from the ship.”
“No problem,” Arden says as he waters the trough-like pots of soil that line the walls.
“Come along and I’ll show you what we’re working with,” Eckert says as he grabs a blue cylindrical crystal and leads Lara down the ramp. He utters a word to the crystal and a cone of bright blue light illuminates the way. “Here, you’ll want one of these,” he says as he offers Lara a weather resistant hooded poncho. They don the crinkling garments and descend onto the surface of the asteroid.
Outside of the Scarab, the crystal’s light reveals clusters of tall metallic towers, squat square structures, and large machinery. Sheets of cold rain course across the beam cast by the crystal like a meteor shower. Lara studies the surroundings with wonder and confusion, unable to guess who could have crafted this place and with what purpose. They seem to walk the streets of a ghost town deserted by forgotten artificers.
“What is this place?”
“It’s hard to say. Here’s what I know: this was once a functional factory of some sort. Now it is in a state of disrepair and decay. The factory itself has sustained many structural damages, but the skeleton is still there.”
“What did they make at this factory?”
Eckert shines the beam of crystalline light at a piece of debris in the distance. The debris resembles a deformed rectangular prism.
“My guess is that these structures were being manufactured.” Eckert offers. “You’ll see quite a few elongated metal boxes like these. They measure about three meters in either direction, which leads me to believe that whoever operated this place was working on a series of walkways or some such transit system which could link together asteroids.”
Lara marvels at the desolate structures as their boots splash into one puddle then the next. She tries to imagine what the place may have looked like when it was operational.
“That’s a sensible hypothesis,” she shouts, hoping that Eckert can hear her over the rattle of rain hammering on the poncho’s hood. “And it’s an interesting goal if an inter-asteroid transit system really is what was being built. It would be tricky to create tunnels that have enough elasticity to account for the occasional ebb and flow of orbital currents caused by other heavenly bodies in the Meridian Sphere. The distance between any two asteroids is almost never uniform as time goes on.”
“Precisely,” Eckert says. The path before them descends as a slick staircase leads them to a large set of double doors. “This project would be a logistical nightmare, but beyond that even the idea of planting infrastructure on these asteroids simply tarnishes the beauty of the Nomadic Belt entirely.”
“How so?”
The double doors have no handle or knob. Eckert walks to the side of the doors where a panel seems to be engraved in the wall. He places his right hand on the panel. Lara blinks and almost misses it–crackling purple energy leaps from each of Eckert’s fingertips and strikes the panel. The doors shift and begin to slide open.
“The Nomadic Belt is just that. It’s a place for wanderers, adventurers, brigands, and outcasts who don’t feel that they belong when bound to a planet. To implant infrastructure in the Nomadic Belt is to express your intention to colonize the asteroids, bringing all the hubris and dread of civilization to a landscape that does not wish to be colonized.”
They enter a wide hallway with a tall ceiling. Dark corridors and closed doors line the hall on either side. Lara watches her step, carefully avoiding abandoned tools and scattered debris. She hears rain trickling down fractured parts of the ceiling in the unknown reaches of the facility.
“I see how the Nomadic Belt could be seen as a symbol of some squatter’s idea of freedom, but didn’t civilized people ascribe that name to it? Your notion implies that the asteroid belt itself doesn’t want to be colonized, when in reality the societies on the planets in the Meridian Sphere are often what drive these outlaws to the asteroids. Not everyone in the Belt is chasing some anarchist paradise. Some of us are just wanting to get home. Personally, I’d take some comfort in finding a place with some infrastructure and security to lay low until my family makes it home to Agulon.”
“Yes, I see,” Eckert says as he leads Lara through a couple winding corridors. “But the more time you spend among the stars, the more places like this you will find. Evidence that someone tried to set up some permanent roots in the Belt. Evidence that some brave soul tried to unite the squatters under their banner to survive in unity. Without fail, these factions meet some grisly end. I can’t tell you the cause of it, but I can say with confidence that the asteroids themselves do not wish to be tamed.”
Eckert opens a door and leads Lara into a room that is cluttered with scrolls, metal rods and sigils, baubles, and other arcane ornaments. Pushed against the walls are overturned desks, shelves, and chairs. Lara’s attention is drawn to the floor at the center of the room, where one metal ring sits inside of another larger metal ring. Both of these sit in a pool of dark, shallow water.
The voltomancer wordlessly approaches these rings and sits cross legged in the center of the smaller ring.
“Observe if you’d like, but keep your distance.”
A low growl creeps up from Eckert’s chest and into his throat. It is expelled from his mouth in a thunderous utterance as he begins to chant and recite some foreign liturgy. The pool of water that surrounds him becomes animate. It bubbles and boils and ripples with the cadence of the voltomancer’s incantations. Droplets of water rise and dissipate into vapor until a cloud rises above him and disperses to fill the room.
Eckert’s incantations grow sharper and more pronounced, each enunciation awakening streaks of lightning that pulse through the cloud above Lara, casting streaks of blue and white and purple along the walls. Droplets fall like rain from the clouds to the floor. Lara notices that the chanting has ceased though the guttural humming growl remains. The voltomancer opens his eyes and studies the formation of the tempest.
He rises from his seat within the rings and stands next to Lara. He raises a finger to point at the weather patterns.
“You see this cluster of stars within the clouds? This represents where we are. And our target is right here.” He points to a mass of lightning that looms ominously in the cloudy depiction. One surge of electricity seems to spark another bolt of lightning which connects with yet another link in the chain.
“It’s like a cloud of lightning within the cloud itself,” she says.
“That is correct. These strange tempests harbor even stranger creatures which channel currents of lightning in a way that makes the work of a voltomancer seem insignificant and futile. These creatures are our quarry.”
Lara’s feelings of uncertainty and terror must be written plainly on her face, as Eckert follows up quickly by saying, “You need not worry for our safety. These creatures mean us no harm. They are not aggressive and the Scarab has a method for interacting with them safely. Now come–we need not dally in my scrying room any longer than is necessary.”
“Okay,” Lara says, though she has her doubts. “So you’re hunters of some sort? What do you intend to do with these creatures?”
“We’re not hunters in that we slay them. It’s more accurate to think of us as harvesters.”
He leads her through the winding passages once more. They arrive at a wide door which Eckert tosses open. He shines the blue light from his crystal into a large, open room that may have once been used to assemble large metallic components. He points a finger at a collection of smooth silver vats that are lined with intricate grooves of circuitry.
“The volts that we harness tonight will be stored in a container like this. That’s right,” he proclaims, “we’ll be harnessing the power of the tempest itself.”
“And what will the storm’s energy be used for?”
He turns to Lara with an ecstatic beaming grin.
“What won’t it be used for? The possibilities are limitless! For starters, we’ll get to manufacture thrusting devices, various improvements and optimizations to the Scarab and other starships, volits to sell to the rogues and cutthroats. Great Gurava, there is a storm of possibilities waiting to be unleashed once we’ve collected enough energy and ironed out our blueprints a bit.”
Eckert slams the door shut and trots down the hallway with renewed vigor.
“Now come along! We can’t waste a moment.”
Lara walks briskly to catch up with the voltomancer and matches his pace.
“Wait Eckert, I have a question.”
“Sure sure, fire away!”
“So you said that the Nomadic Belt doesn’t want its asteroids to be colonized. But how do you explain why settlements such as Crater’s Bluff can exist peacefully?”
Eckert says, “I’m not sure I can explain it. Here are a couple things to consider though: the settlement is young and unambitious. Because it lacks the destructive ambition of a colony that eats resources with reckless abandon, perhaps the Belt doesn’t wish to see Crater’s Bluff ruined. There are other settlements that are just eking by like this in the Belt. Furthermore, because Crater’s Bluff is young, it’s possible that its demise is simply in the works and the devastation has yet to be wrought.”
“I guess you have a point,” Lara says instead of arguing the issue further. “But if ambitious permanent settlements are doomed to fail, why do you bother to collect vats of raw energy here?”
Eckert cackles at her astute question.
“I guess you could say I’m just testing one of the infinite hypotheses that abound in the aether that sits between my mind and my reality. I’m just experimenting to see how close to the line I can get without crossing it.”
Lara follows Eckert out of the factory into the downpour. They hurry back to the Scarab and climb aboard.
***
Arden takes his seat in the cockpit and prepares to lift the Scarab off the surface of the asteroid. The voltomancer stands in the ship’s central chamber calmly issuing commands to his apprentices.
“Before we proceed, we must all don the protective garments. Ludorf, see to it that our guest is well-equipped.”
The apprentice nods and brings the gear to Lara. Thick, stiff black gloves that she pulls over her hands. They’re long enough to be pulled to her elbows, and they squeak with each movement. She is given boots made of a similar material. They are large enough to fit over the ones she’s already wearing. Like the gloves, these seem exaggeratedly long, reaching just below her knees. Finally, Ludorf helps her into a black cloak, its hood hugging tightly around her ears and hair. She feels fifty pounds heavier when all the precautions have been taken.
“I know it’s uncomfortable,” Eckert says as he and the others don the protective gear, “but I’ve found these garments to be the best way of halting the spread of invasive lightning.”
He addresses his apprentices once more.
“Keenan, I’ll need you to raise the pod and standby to open the starward hatch when I say the word.”
Keenan nods and goes to the center of the room, where circular grooves in the floor indicate some hidden contraptions. He unlocks a few clasps around these grooves and uses a pry bar to lift a large circular jar from below. Lara notices a spring-loaded mesh net at the base of the jar. The jar’s glass is dotted with dull crystals. Keenen removes the jar’s metal lid by releasing a lever.
Eckert issues commands to the other apprentice as Keenan readies the pod.
“Ludorf, go to my quarters and get the ritual apparati ready. Be as clear as possible when etching the sigils–we need to minimize loose volts this time around.”
The other apprentice must have been prepared for this order, as he already has with him a small chest. He places it on the floor and opens it to produce four telescopic steel rods. He elongates each one with a flick of the wrist and places them at intervals around the jar, sticking them upright in small holes in the floor. Ludorf then finishes drawing a sequence of stellar, mystical sigils that wrap around the jar and convene at a large circle. Ludorf must have been working on these intricate scrawlings while Eckert was giving Lara a tour of the factory. Lara speaks up as Ludorf puts the finishing touches on the glyphs.
“What do you need from me, Eckert?”
“I need you to get Arden’s toolkit and standby,” he says.
“Is that all?” she asks. “It seemed like you needed me here for something urgent or essential when you were roping me into this outside of Crater’s Bluff.”
“Don’t take your task lightly,” Eckert admonishes with a furrowed brow. “We have made a habit of sustaining minor structural damages during the course of volt harvests. These can have dire consequences if they’re not treated properly, and the rest of us are spread thin enough without having to keep up with the repairs. Now, get the torch and spare paneling from Arden and get ready to weld if something breaches the hull.”
Lara nods and grabs Arden from his seat in the cockpit. He equips her with the torch that they used when they were doing repairs below the craft. A strap allows her to wear the power supply across her shoulder. She tests the torch’s trigger and nods as a thin, sharp gout of flame lights from the tip of the device. Arden then shows her to a storage room where jagged sheets of scrap metal of various sizes are kept.
“Now, to light the torch, just make sure the igniter is–”
“Thanks Arden, but I’m no stranger to this model,” Lara says. She turns on the power supply and ignites the torch. She tampers with a knob to modulate the heat and the size of the flame as a small demonstration. She fumbles over the controls a bit due to the stiffness of her protective gloves, but Arden doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
Arden smiles.
“Eckert did well to invite you aboard. Alright then, we’re going to be lifting off soon. Make sure to hold onto something when you can–it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Arden takes his place in the cockpit. Lara hears him flick switches and crank levers just before the Scarab lurches and lifts, causing a queasy sensation in Lara’s gut. The ship rises starward, its mass hurled against the ongoing torrent of rain. Though she can’t see it, Lara is aware of their approach toward the raging tempest as the thunder and rain grow louder.
“The drains, Ludorf,” Eckert says. He sits cross-legged in the chalk circle and breathes deeply. The apprentice rotates a wheel affixed to one of the walls, causing slits in the ship’s floor to open.
“Keenan, open the hatch above and prepare to cast the net.”
The apprentice applies all his weight to a crank. Then a pair of doors in the roof recede into the ship. Lara gazes upward through the circular aperture at the pulsating mass of cloud and purple lightning. She understands now that they are within the clouds, or at least at their edge, as a black fog seeps into the ship. A shiver runs up her spine and her hairs stand on end as she catches glimpses of dark forms whose shrouded bodies crackle with coursing electricity.
She flinches as the net within the jar is released with a snap. A long coil of thin chain rattles as the net is flung into the clouds. Keenan and Ludorf stand on either side of a winch, which they grab with both hands to reel the chain back in. The net returns empty.
“Don’t lose heart, boys,” Eckert says. He closes his eyes in concentration and says, “Arden, move us downstream.”
“Understood,” says the voice from the cockpit and the Scarab lurches again. The clouds pass overhead until the Scarab ceases its motion.
One of the apprentices releases the net again. It launches into the clouds and wraps around something. They begin reeling in the winch as Keenan says, “We’ve got one, Arden, but it’s trying to get away!”
“Lowering!” Arden calls out.
Lara feels dizzy and weightless as the Scarab descends, pulling away from the cloud and dragging their prey from its depths. Within the mesh net is a mass of squirming eels, their slick scales crackling with purple sparks. The apprentices reel vigorously until the net is brought into the jar.
“I’ve got it,” Ludorf says as he leaves the winch and throws the lid over the jar and snaps it into place. Rainwater and eels slosh around in flashes of blue and purple as the lightning surges forth from within. The colorless crystals that line the jar’s glass become charged with surging energy. Eckert chants rhymically and gestures wildly and calculatedly. Lara notices that the esoteric glyphs which are drawn around the jar are also found in Eckert’s protective gloves. The dancing waves of purple and blue and white are steadily drained from the eels, from the rainwater, and from the crystals embedded in the jar, seemingly flowing downward into the ship’s bowels.
“Release,” Eckert shouts over the sound of the downpour that fills the ship’s floor.
Ludorf releases the clasp and pops the lid off the jar. Keenen releases the contraption that shoots the net back into the cloud, allowing the eels to return to their course through the clouds. The apprentices use the winch to reel in the net as Arden pilots the ship downstream again.
They repeat the process. They cast out unsuccessfully a couple times, then reel in another strange creature. The writhing mass within the net emits a forceful and frightening field of lightning as it’s reeled in. As it approaches the ship’s aperture, it thrashes about within the net, sending fault lines through the metallic hull.
With much force and strain, the apprentices reel the creature into the jar and Ludorf seals it once more. Within the net swims an opalescent squid, its tentacles raging against the confines of its prison. The creature, the water, and the crystals illuminate with the crackling energy that Eckert covets.
The voltomancer resumes his chants and gestures to drain the energy from the jar. The purple and blue lightning is withdrawn to some unseen destination before Ludorf unhinges the jar and Keenan releases the net, sending the squid away.
“You should check for damages,” Eckert says. Lara nods and moves beneath the ship’s aperture, inspecting the minor cracks and dents that the hull received.
“This won’t take long,” she says. She hurries to the storage room to grab some small slices of metal to patch up the cracks with, bringing a small crate to stand on.
Lara takes a deep breath and carefully finds her balance as she steps on top of the crate. She ignites the torch beneath her cloak to shield the flame from the rain. As she prepares to patch the hull, she notices that the squid has not returned to the depths of the cloud. It hovers above the Scarab. Its eyes are pitch black orbs reflecting lightning with cold, alien detachment.
Surrounding the squid on all sides are its kin. Their appendages course with lightning as a cacophony of ceaseless thunder rattles the Scarab’s metal frame. The squids link their tentacles to form a net of their own and begin closing in.
Beyond the squids is an almost imperceptible amalgam of translucent blue tentacles. They seem to slowly reach downward from within the tempest.
“What’s the hold up?” Eckert asks. “One more good catch and we’ll be home free.”
Lara ignores this and turns to Keenan, saying, “We need to shut the hatch! Arden, get us back to ground, quick!”
The panic seems to shatter Eckert’s concentration. He peers upward through the hatch and beholds the web of interlinked squids and the indication of something more sinister waiting beyond.
Keenan grips the crank warily, unsure of what needs to be done.
A series of thuds resound against the ship’s exterior. Lara gazes with disgust as a mob of squids wriggle around the ship’s aperture. Their electrified tentacles jolt the rain as it falls into the ship and drains away. The lightning courses along the raindrops and spreads into the pooling water below, but does not penetrate the insulated garments. The room seems to be taking in more water than it can drain.
“The hatch, Keenan, shut the damn hatch!” Eckert orders. “Arden! Take us to the nearest rock, I don’t care which one.”
The ship begins to move, then stutters and stumbles before coursing steadily downward. The double doors that seal the hatch begin closing, but the prying tentacles hold them open.
While Keenan presses against the crank with all his might, Ludorf arms himself with a mop and stoically swats and jabs at the squids as they attempt their intrusion. After beating some back, something on the other side grabs hold of the handle and tugs. The apprentice is lifted upward and forcefully rammed against the hatch’s door until he admits defeat and relinquishes control of the mop.
Lara curses herself for allowing the mother of her children to wind up in such an unpredictable situation as this.
She then kicks the crate until it’s directly beneath the hatch while she adjusts the size and heat of her torch. She climbs on top and begins cooking the tentacular abominations with the gadget, their limbs blackening and curling in the flames. The ship begins moving irregularly, staggering as it descends.
“We can’t take much more of this,” Eckert says. “They’re acting as conduits of the tempest. Our thrusters and stabilizer will be useless soon.”
“I’m trying to get us down, chief,” Arden shouts from the cockpit.
“Do something,” Lara commands Eckert. “Don’t tell me you’ve never run into this situation before, I just don’t buy it.”
Eckert glares at her with ire, but says nothing. He positions himself beneath the hatch and begins another series of incantations and swirling, erratic gestures. Lara continues sending flames at the squids until the torch dies out, either due to the overexposure of moisture or lack of power or both. The apprentices press their combined weight against the crank, trying to close the doors with all their might.
These mundane efforts seem to accomplish little. However, whatever form of arcane art that Eckert weaves must be taking some effect, as the grip of the squids’ tentacles slackens and recedes.
The apprentices find a second wind when they see this and press firmly against the crank. However, just as the doors are shutting, a translucent curtain of blue and purple stingers from some creature far above rains down. Even as the doors shut, the tendrils clasp around the jar at the center of the chamber and a cataclysmic detonation of lightning erupts in a blinding white and blue light.
The jar’s glass shatters and scatters. The deafening blast leaves Lara’s ears ringing. The chaotic image of the frightened apprentices and their mentor is burned into her vision. An agonizing, stinging pain pulses across every inch of her body, accompanied by that queasy sensation of suddenly dropping and falling.
A voice is heard from somewhere and she can vaguely understand their recommendation.
“Hold onto something…”
***
The Scarab falls and crashes into the dark side of an asteroid. Branches and limbs snap as the hulking machinery skids across the landscape. Lara’s hands grip a metal door frame desperately, but the impact of the fall pries her from this refuge and she slams against the floor, sliding until she collides with a wall. Banging and clattering resounds in the ship as the others are thrown about.
After many interminable moments of confusion and dread, the Scarab comes to a stop. All around is the sound of rain hammering on the ship’s hull and pouring onto the flooded floor. Lara notices a chorus of chattering and clicking insects along with the cadence of the rain and shudders.
“Is everyone okay?” Lara asks as she stumbles in the pitch black ship. She also wonders if she is okay. Despite all the protective gear, it seemed that her skin was doused in a jolt of white hot flames when that creature reached into the ship.
The floor of the Scarab feels lopsided beneath her.
She gets half-hearted responses from the others. She listens to the muttering and cursing of Eckert as he clatters around in a nearby room. Eventually the blue light that he used to illuminate their path in the factory washes over the room and Lara gets her bearings.
She stands at the threshold where the storage room meets the central chamber. The Scarab landed at a bad angle, causing one side of the floor to slope into a mire of quickly pooling water.
The jar which harvested raw lightning was shattered in the crash. Broken glass and chipped shards of crystal litter the floor. Keenan and Ludorf stand near the center of the room, dusting off pieces of glass and inspecting one another for scrapes and fractures. Arden staggers out of the cockpit holding a hand to his head.
Rain pours through the open doors of the hatch.
The weary voltomancer wordlessly walks over to the crank and begins shutting the double doors. Keenan lends a hand and the metal doors come slamming down.
“There,” Eckert sighs. “It won’t be long before the flooded water drains out. We should begin inspecting what needs to be repaired.”
“Hold that thought,” Lara says. “Can I borrow your light?”
Eckert gives Lara the crystalline cylinder and she aims its beam at the slotted floor near the rising pool of water. Enmeshed in the cracks is soft, soaking soil.
“We may have landed near a river or lake. The soil beneath us is soaked. The Scarab will be completely submerged before we’re able to finish the repairs.”
Eckert stands hunched at her side stroking at his chin.
“Even if we could get it off the ground,” Arden interjects, “we crashed through the canopy of some jungle. It would be no small task to push through it again.”
The voltomancer lets out a steaming sigh.
“We have contingencies in place for emergency situations such as this, but time is of the essence.” Eckert turns to face his crew. “We’ll have to detach the cockpit and cut our losses.”
“But sir,” Arden objects, “the Scarab landed in a nosedive. The cockpit is buried in the mire.”
“I know. I need you and the apprentices to grab the shovels and spears from the storage room. We’re going to make it back to Crater’s Bluff or we’ll die trying.”
Arden and the apprentices do as they are told.
“How do we get out?” Lara asks. “The entrance hatch is completely submerged.”
Eckert enters the cockpit and opens one of the windows.
“Like I said, there are contingencies in place.”
He grabs a rolled up rope ladder from a compartment beneath the dashboard and hangs it from the window, letting it uncoil and roll into the mysterious mire below.
The torrential rain rattles onto a sheet of water in the darkness below. Whatever lights were being cast from the front of the cockpit before have been submerged in the muck or damaged in the crash. As Lara stares out the window she feels they have been dragged into some bleak and surreal afterlife and wonders if she’ll ever see her family again.
“Can’t we wait for the storm to pass?”
“I don’t want to take the risk,” the voltomancer shakes his head. “Who can say how much further the Scarab will sink by the time the storm passes? Who is to say what dangers lurk on this rock?”
Arden leads the apprentices through the cockpit with their spears and shovels. A glowing coil is looped through Arden’s belt, emanating a dim green light.
Arden is the first to descend the rope ladder. The apprentices quibble over who will be next and eventually follow.
“They’re going down there on their own?” Lara asks, wondering what the apprentices’ mothers would think of this predicament. “Isn’t there anything we can do to help?”
“Of course,” Eckert says. He flashes his crystalline light around the doorway of the cockpit and indicates some metallic levers and clamps. “I need you to get to work on detaching the cockpit from the body of the Scarab. There are ten of these clamps–sealed tightly, but you seem strong enough to release them.”
“I don’t follow–are you leaving the Scarab behind?”
“Don’t have much of a choice, now do I? We’ll be back for it–don't worry about me, we’ve suffered losses before and we’ll do so again.”
Outside of the Scarab, Lara hears some bestial snarling. Arden shouts some command to the apprentices.
“My god, what’s happening down there?” Lara asks.
“It’s unlikely that we’re alone. If you care about helping them, you’ll get to work on those levers,” Eckert says as he opens a compartment beneath the cockpit’s control panel. He arms himself with a handheld crescent made of granite and some strange circuitry. Lara would guess that it’s some sort of raycaster, except there’s no compartment for loading volits.
Lara gets to work on one of the levers. It feels like ancient machinery that has been locked in place and sealed with layers of rust. Even with all her weight pulling the lever down, the mechanism is completely inert. She braces her foot against the wall of the cockpit and presses with all her might, concentrating on getting back to her family and helping those kids down below escape. To her surprise and her relief, the lever releases and one of the bolting mechanisms that holds the cockpit to the Scarab releases.
She sighs with relief. She turns to watch Eckert as he holds the strange crescent with one hand and makes strange, angular gestures with his palm and fingers with the other hand. Low incantations emanate from his lips. A pulsating heat fills the room and the crescent begins to glow and crackle with purple energy.
The energy surges from the strange crescent through the open window. A purple bolt of lightning appears and disappears with a thunderous report. In an instant the chaos outside is illuminated.
Lara sees a tableaux of Arden surrounded by
three monstrosities. Lara would call
them alligators like the ones that lurk in the swamps on Agulon, but these
stand tall and wield crude weaponry in their scaled hands. One gatorfolk’s maw is open wide in agony as
the lightning courses through him.
Another slinks back toward the mire as it watches its companion meet its
doom. The third brings a heavy club down
in an overhead strike at Arden, whose spear is braced against the blow.
The apprentices are out of
sight. Lara hopes that they are above
water.
“Don’t worry about them,” Eckert admonishes as he shakes the hand that holds the crescent. “Focus.”
Lara does as she is told, but the image of the horrors happening below is engrained in her mind. She moves from one lever to the next, releasing the clamping contraptions with great strain. She wills herself to ignore the shouts and screams coming from outside the window. The room occasionally becomes illuminated in another bright purple flash as Eckert’s makeshift raycaster cuts down more gatorfolk.
She has released several more of the levers when she hears movement at the window. She turns to see Ludorf, one of the kids, as he lurches through the window. He tosses metallic objects onto the floor as he stumbles through and collapses into a corner of the cockpit. Keenan is right behind him. He also brings metallic objects with him. He tosses them on the floor with haste, then turns to Eckert.
“We’ve unearthed the cockpit as much as we can. Help me with the ladder–we have to get Arden out of there.”
They turn toward the window, grab the rope ladder and begin pulling.
This reminds Lara that her work is not finished. She is afraid to count the remaining clasps that need to be released—she simply resumes the strenuous labor. Ludorf begins to rise to his feet, but Lara stops him. Puncture marks line his shoulder and four bloody gashes streak across the insulated garment that covers his torso.
“No, stay down. I’m almost done.”
She hears the clamor of the last crewmate being pulled through the window as she releases another clasp.
Eckert asks, “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t worry,” Arden says between gasps. “I can still pilot this thing.”
“Keenan, go fetch some plants from the Scarab so we’ll have enough atmosphere to make it back to Crater’s Bluff. I’ll make sure no one else boards the ship.”
Arden takes his seat in the cockpit. Lara hears levers cranking and mechanism being flicked into place.
“You almost done back there, Lara?” Arden asks. “We need to take off yesterday.”
There’s light at the end of the tunnel. With renewed vigor, Lara clasps one of the levers and begins the pull. Keenan returns to the cockpit, places some plants atop the dashboard, then lends a hand.
With one loud screech, the final clasp is released and the cockpit detaches from the Scarab. One last purple beam of energy is unleashed through the window before Eckert seals it. Keenan shuts the door of the cockpit.
“Everyone grab onto something,” Arden commands as he grabs the steering wheel and adjusts the positions of some levers on the dashboard.
The cockpit sputters and coughs before being lifted from the muck and flying starward, weaving past the jungle’s canopy and soaring beyond the reach of the tempest.
***
Arden lands the cockpit of the Scarab at the rim of the crater where this dilemma began. The demoralized crew files out of the cockpit. Lara begins walking toward the crater to descend and seek out her family when Eckert stops her.
“Wait,” he says.
“What?”
“I just want to apologize for how things went. I never meant to place you in such peril.”
The voltomancer’s eyes seem sincere but Lara is unconvinced. She feels childish and foolish. She wonders if she’ll ever forgive herself for being so reckless. She fights the sickening revulsion in her gut and restrains the tears of shame and worry that threaten to flow.
“Okay,” she says through clenched teeth. She resumes her path toward the crater.
“Lara, please. I promised you that I’d make this worth your while. You agreed to come along and did a damn fine job. The least you could do is accept this as your payment.”
The old man’s hands present two objects to her.
In one hand he holds a forked staff. It resembles a dowsing rod that a farmer on Agulon might use to locate water beneath the land, though it's made of a gleaming alloy and laced with circuitry. Lara recognizes this as a metallurgic stabilizer, a device that interacts with the magnetic energies of planets and asteroids to allow relatively controlled landings.
The other hand holds a crude metal cylinder that is engraved with Brinnakian glyphs. One end of the cylinder is charred from exhaust fumes and the other terminates in a narrow tube. This thruster is perhaps entirely unique since the denizens of Brinnak are so averse to star-faring voyages.
Arden and the apprentices seem as astonished as Lara at these bounties.
“Are you sure you want me to have these?” she asks. “You’re going to have a hell of time getting the Scarab out of that mire with these integral components missing.”
Eckert waves a hand dismissively.
“We have more parts where that came from. Besides, a nice family like yours doesn’t deserve to be stranded in the Nomadic Belt. I don’t know how you got stuck here, but I hope you can make it back home in one piece.”
The voltomancer hands the contraptions off to Lara. A chill flows up her arms and down her spine as the cold metal meets her hands.
“Well, you’ve surprised me once again old man. I’m still pissed, but I’m also grateful. I hope you’re able to get your Scarab out of the mire and continue on your voyages one day.”
“We’ll be alright. Now get on, you’ve been gone too long.”
Lara waves at the rest of the crew and begins her journey back to the camper. She’s so happy her strut is almost like a skip despite the bruises from the crash landing and the lingering tingling sensation from their encounter with the strange tempest creatures.
She places the aperture of the tube from the Brinnakian thruster up to her ear and listens. If she closes her eyes and focuses, it’s almost like she can hear the ocean crashing against the shore on Agulon.
