Chapter 4

“Drop pod deployment should only be used when there is a significant disruption to teleportation. If infestation had progressed to the point of the drop ship coming under fire in orbit, abort deployment. If infestation has progressed to the point of world soul death, abort deployment. Honor and pride have no place in combating the eidolon threat. Planetary bombardment from range is preferable to insertion into a lost cause.”

—Ardent Operating Procedure, Genzo Lethwraith

The upgrade between the freighter and the Basquiat was astonishing. Even the artificial gravity felt more solid underfoot. Kerbo met them as they passed through the docking rig and seized Sylvas in a crushing hug that lasted so long that Rania loudly whispered to Kaya, “Do I need to be jealous?”

There was a thoughtful sound as Kaya considered the question. “He does seem to have a thing for fiends.”

“Of course he does, we’re sexy as hell.” Kerbo finally released Sylvas, who probably would have been crushed breathless by the bear hug before his upgrades. “And who are these charming ladies?”

“Kaya Runemaul. We met before.” Kerbo’s head canted to the side at the statement, his face puzzled. “You were so hungover you were pissing blood.”

The fiend rubbed the back of his neck. “You may need to narrow it down a little more.”

It was right then that Sylvas derailed the train crash of a conversation, directing the fiend’s attention to the others. “Rania and Malachai. Archaeologist and necromancer, respectively.”

Kerbo put an arm around Malachai’s shoulders and started leading them into the pristine white halls of the ship. “You were Ardent, too, right?”

Malachai raised an eyebrow. “Indeed.”

Having no luck getting a rise out of the corpse-raiser, Kerbo twisted around to look at Rania instead. “And, Professor, what is a gorgeous archaeologist like yourself doing mixed up with an idiot like Sylvas Vail?”

She grinned. “For all his flaws, he does keep finding his way into very old places.”

“Ah, so it’s a professional arrangement.” Kerbo’s grin turned flirtatious.

She took hold of Sylvas’ hand. “Not for a lack of trying on my part.”

Told you so.

Kerbo, unwavering in the face of defeat, just went on grinning. “Well, good to know. That’ll make assigning bunks a lot easier.”

Sylvas opened his mouth to intervene, but Rania squeezed his hand, so he switched plans. “If we could head straight to the bridge?”

“Should have known you’d be no fun.” Kerbo chuckled, leading them along an entirely different passageway from the one they’d been headed to. “First time I laid eyes on you, I knew you would be that kind of Ardent.”

“Technically, I’m not with the Ardent at all anymore.” Sylvas chose not to engage with that particular bait.

“Not sure how you wrangled that one.” Kerbo chuckled.

“Got too useful.” Kaya was happy to answer for him. “You volunteer too much and look what happens.”

Kerbo chuckled. “See, you, you’re more my kind of people.”

There were a half-dozen other Ardent in their full regalia charging along the corridors at full pelt, slowing just slightly to stare at Sylvas and the others as they passed. The ship moved with such smoothness compared to the clunker that they’d been on before that it took Sylvas a few moments to realize that they’d already decoupled from the freighter. Without his gravity sense, he might not have even noticed at all. Then, all at once, they arrived on the bridge of the ship.

Screens spanned out across the far wall, showing the full breadth of space surrounding them. Individual stations were set up to monitor different scrying spells built into the ship, and the circle where the pilot would sit was actually recessed down into the floor so that whoever sat in the captain’s chair positioned behind it would still have a full field of vision. The captain’s chair pivoted as they entered, and a familiar elf rose to her feet. He’d never learned or looked up her name, but she had been the one who fought the Crimson King back on Croesia, where all of this began. The one who’d nearly killed Sylvas for trying to help her aim straight. She couldn’t muster a smile, but she did manage a nod. “Welcome aboard the Basquiat. The admiral filled us in about…the situation. We will be ready to depart in a few minutes.”

He snapped off another salute. “Thank you, Captain. If it would be alright, I would like to pilot. I have a gravity affinity.”

She gave a curt nod to the mage who had been down in the piloting pit, and she hopped out with considerably more grace than Sylvas would have expected. The captain then turned her attentions back to the slate in her hand as if this was all just another day for her.

Sylvas turned to Kerbo before heading for the pilot’s circle. “Is Fargus on this ship, too?”

“Fargus? Ah, sorry, no. He fell about two, nearly three, months back.”

Sylvas hadn’t even known. He’d been so focused on his own problems, he’d fallen out of contact with the dwarf who’d saved his life, and now the man was dead. “Eidolons?”

“What else?” Kerbo moved away to assume his own position by the captain’s side.

Down in the pit, there was an array of displays feeding him all of the tactical information, all of the things that his gravity sense told him naturally, and all of the star charts for both their destination and the intervening space. Sylvas was glad he’d volunteered for this. Malachai, Kaya, and Rania were all just standing around awkwardly trying not to get in the way of people with jobs. The captain finally deigned to speak. “When you are ready, Mr. Vail.”

The imperious tone was so like that of Vaelith that Sylvas almost did a double-take, but he got over his surprise quickly enough to send his mind sweeping out through the cruiser’s systems and seizing control. It wasn’t as smooth as the Folly, probably nothing ever would be again, but it was so much better than the freighter. Sure, it wasn’t a joyous melding of mind and machinery, but it didn’t hurt, so Sylvas was calling it a win. With a push of will, his mana flooded out through the ship, connecting with every spell woven into the hull in succession. 

He let power flow out of him, cycling through the ship. He could feel the massed reserves of crystallized etherium he was meant to draw on for power, a huge supply for a ship of this size, but he didn’t need it. His own mana supplies were overflowing now that his covenant had reached its first level. His core was, essentially, a mana generator at this point, and while the mana was a blend of gravity and war affinities, there was so much of it that the dilution didn’t matter.

The Basquiat began to move, not under the power of the spells woven into its engines, but under Sylvas’ power of will. He wanted it to move, and it did. He wanted it to move faster, and it did. He pushed the velocity higher and higher, moving through the vacuum with no resistance, and then at last, he began to cast, tearing through into null-space and sending them on their way. Only then did he let his mana flow to the engine spells, blasting them forward the moment that they’d escaped the grasp of reality’s laws, pushing them to the very limit of what the ship could muster even here in null space with no forces working upon it.

“Estimated arrival…seven minutes?” an incredulous voice announced from behind him that immediately caused him to smile. Sylvas finally managed to get some sort of emotional reaction from the captain, even if he hadn’t intended to do so.

The Ardent snapped into action. All of the people on the bridge who’d been idling, waiting for something to do, suddenly had several moments worth of something to do in far less time than they’d expected. “Deploy all troops to the drop pods, now. Mr. Vail, if you’re going down to the exoplanet with your friends, you will have to turn over the helm.”

Until now, he’d been the captain of his own ship. He wasn’t sure what the protocol here was. “Do you need me to slow us down?”

“Our pilot can handle that,” the elf assured.

“I mean, is seven minutes too soon?”

“This is an Ardent ship, Mr. Vail,” she replied evenly. “We operate on tight schedules.”

Flying up out of the pit, Sylvas was saddened to feel his connection to the ship slipping away, but there was no chance he was sending everyone else down to the planetary surface without him.

Don’t worry, I’ve already pulled a data dump from the fleet. Just sifting through now, Mira told him in a tone that practically begged him to ask just exactly how she’d managed it.

But wise to her game at this point, Sylvas decided that pretending not to hear was the best course and landed alongside Kaya and Malachai as they hustled to their pods. Rania caught him by the wrist as he was about to step into his own, and he launched into a prepared speech. “You should stay here with the ship, help coordinate our efforts.”

“Hah, no. I’m not staying behind. Whatever’s down there, you’re more likely to need an archaeologist than”—one of the Ardent, glowing from the inside, ran past them to his own pod—“whatever that is.”

Sylvas tried to pull free. “I’ve got no doubt you’d be a massive asset to us down there, but your safety—”

She turned him around so he had his back to the corridor. “Is not your concern.”

“I am pretty concerned about it, actually.”

She rolled her eyes. “I made it through the shikari. You think I can’t make it through this?”

“How are you going to defend yourself?”

“I’m not,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m going to let the small army of people trained to fight eidolons, fight eidolons, and I’m going to do my job, which is finding out everything there is to know about that planet.”

Sylvas couldn’t keep the exasperation out of his voice. “The entire planet is going to be overrun.”

“Yeah, and you’re going to kick their asses? What’s not making sense.” She let go of his wrist and stepped backwards into the waiting drop-pod. “See you down there!” 

The pod snapped shut around her, and she blew him a kiss through the window. At a loss for words, Sylvas turned to find one of the remaining drop-pods.

I like her. You should probably make sure she doesn’t die.

He sighed as the pod doors snapped shut. “I’m trying, but she doesn’t make it easy.”

On the subject of things that will not be easy, we will arrive in orbit in approximately seventy-three seconds, and then you will be departing from this rather charming ship.

“Approximately seventy-three seconds?”

Well, I can’t account for the competence of their pilot, darling. They might be a little more sluggish than you.

Sylvas’ eyes might have been limited to observing only what was inside of the pod, but his other senses stretched far beyond his body’s original limitations. As they broke out of null-space and back into reality, he could feel what was happening outside, even if he couldn’t see it. He braced himself with the handles by the door of the pod.

The Basquiat came under fire the moment it arrived in the system. Eidolons did not need to breathe, and from the planetary surface, a great many of them had already made it into orbit since their arrival on this plane of existence. It was those eidolons that began the bombardment of the ship the moment it appeared. The ship rocked with every impact, shielding spells being broken almost as fast as they could be flung up. Sylvas longed to involve himself in the fight, to throw a gravity shear around the whole ship to deflect the incoming assault, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once, doing everything at once, so he focused on the task at hand, quietly fragmenting his psyche and preparing spells for his arrival on the planet.

The planet loomed large in his gravity sense, smaller than Croesia or Alvarhain but bigger than Strife in its dimensions, even if its gravity well didn’t seem to quite match up, as if it were missing some portion of its mass. Given the destruction that the eidolons brought with them, that was hardly surprising. It was no wonder the Ardent used drop-pods instead of trying to teleport down to planets in this state, given the roiling chaos he could feel in the gravity. 

Using any sort of teleportation while down there was almost guaranteed to result in you being flung off course, possibly by miles. Turning his attention back to his own body, Sylvas saw the numbers counting down on the window in front of him, ticking closer and closer to drop. The ship was closing on the planet, dipping into the upper edge of the atmosphere to give the pods the best chances of making it to the surface. Heat began to spread all across the hull from the friction. Then the countdown hit zero, and suddenly, there was darkness outside the pod window. 

Abrupt nothingness for a moment, then, just as suddenly, light as flames began to lick up the pod, and he plunged down towards the surface.