Chapter 21
As the indentured servants thinned, shuttles began to circle overhead. Each of them was big enough to disgorge a dozen men and had small rotary cannons on the front that could be a problem even for Lily and Violet.
The dig site was a shallow bowl pocketed with entrances that ran deeper. A honeycomb of stone.
"We need to go before the shuttles get here," I panted, struggling to keep up. Why did I have to do sparring for the whole afternoon before this? I understood that Lily could move incredibly quickly, but trying to keep up with her and watching Violet easily do so was daunting.
There were times Violet burst ahead of Lily with speed that seemed superhuman, though I wasn't always sure if superhuman meant beyond the bounds of other races. Humans had evolved for stamina over raw speed. These other races could have developed far differently when it came to muscle endurance.
The shuttles landed nearby and began emptying themselves of men who looked far more capable than those we'd just dispatched. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the indentured servants had simply been fodder to exhaust us.
The real soldiers were about to arrive, and they were decked out in heavy armor and carrying military rifles like those I'd seen on VDF soldiers.
Blaster fire began to scorch the air overhead as we moved deeper into the dig site.
Looking back, I watched as the stone entrance turned red hot behind us.
Thankfully, we were well out of their effective range, and if Lily and Violet could keep their pace, we'd stay ahead of those rushing behind us.
"Violet, any idea what might be down here?" I asked, unwilling to even entertain the idea that we could find nothing. There had simply been too many soldiers in that response above.
"I don't know," she said quickly. "If there was something down here, Master never shared it with me. Why a gambling house would want it is also far beyond me. It's not like my master traded in weapons of mass destruction." She paused. "She was one."
I frowned. That was an odd way to describe someone's capabilities. It was clear on Violet's face that she'd let something slip she wasn't supposed to say.
"Look… my master was very, very powerful. It's not an exaggeration to say that she was a weapon of mass destruction. It's a long story. Perhaps I can explain it later," she offered.
"An explanation would be nice," I conceded, doing my best to trust her.
"Yeah, I suppose I owe you one now, don't I?" She bit her cheek and dipped her head.
"Yeah, you do. But I guess that can wait until later." I eyed her, and she bobbed her head in agreement.
"Later, I promise," she agreed.
We moved deeper into the shafts as sounds echoed from all around through the hard stone. Thankfully, I had thought to bring one of the lanterns that Brick often gave me when I went into the depths of the ship to fix something.
When Lily turned to me in the dark, her glowing pink irises catching mine, I found myself smiling. They were both familiar and oddly comforting.
She watched me for a moment before turning forward. "Dim the light a little. It's interfering with my ability to see."
I shuttered the lantern down to just enough that I wouldn't trip over my feet and trusted Lily. Our group continued through the caverns dug through the stone.
"Odd." Violet paused, looking at a wall that we had reached. Unlike the others, the wall wasn't stone. It was some dark purple metal.
"Any idea what that is?" I asked, knocking on it with my fist. A force field sprang to life no more than a centimeter from its surface, humming and bouncing my hand back with a small twinge of pain.
Lily scowled at it and pulled her fist back, then smashed it with all of her strength. I was impressed when she shot back, slamming into the other side of the tunnel and cracking off a fragment of stone. Lily groaned and shifted her torso back and forth as something popped uncomfortably within her.
"You okay?" I asked.
"I'm fine." She waved a hand. "It's tougher than it looks."
Violet stepped up and ran her hand across the surface, then pulled it back sharply after my comment, as if burned. "No. The barrier is just reflective of force," she said. "Older kikai shields had different properties than what you see today. My master would often talk about them nostalgically."
"Speaking of… How old was your master?" I asked.
"Old. Kikai can live a little longer than humans, but there are some who can live exceptionally long." Violet glanced away.
I nodded and smiled, wondering if that had anything to do with her near-assertion that her master had been a walking weapon of mass destruction. I wasn't about to point that out, given how reluctant she'd been after accidentally saying it the last time.
"Alright, do you have a summary version of the shield? You said it is reflective. Does that mean we can drill into it?" I asked.
Violet shook her head. "I don't think so. Besides, if it were that easy, I don't think they'd still be digging."
I agreed with her and let my thoughts follow that same line of thought. If this small section hadn't been enough for them to solve, I doubted we were going to do any better. Instead, it seemed that they’d started to dig around the larger structure.
Violet pressed her palm flat against the metal, frowning. Her fluffy tail waved back and forth as she worked through something I couldn't see. She closed her eyes, and it almost looked like meditation while she kept her hand resting still against the surface.
"What are you doing?" Lily began, but I held up a hand to stop her. I trusted that Violet was testing a viable theory.
Sure enough, we were rewarded. The purple metal began to ripple and twist, as though an invisible hand was pulling at it.
"Whatever you're doing, it's working," I whispered.
Violet still didn't respond, locked in deadly focus, until her eyes snapped open at the same moment the metal peeled back and revealed what lay beyond. Violet stepped through the tear she had made into a hallway with metal decking.
Lily cast me a sidelong glance. "Let's go."
"Violet, any chance you can close that behind us?" I asked, interested in the concept of the fortified men with big guns not being able to reach us quickly.
We stepped through into an interior that was brightly lit despite however long it had been idle.
Some of it had the same purple metal, while other sections looked more standard.
The steel that made up the interior of most ships stared back at me, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought we were standing inside one right now.
"Is this a ship?" Lily asked, her head on a swivel as we moved forward.
"Yes." Violet surprised both of us. "A very, very old one. How it got buried so deep is making me rethink what I know to be true."
"Violet, if you know anything about this, more information would certainly be welcome."
"My master often talked of her first ship, the one that she made a name for herself in. It's a bit of an urban legend." She glanced over her shoulder at me, her lips parting. I could almost taste the denial she'd been about to breathe before she shook her head. "I don't know.”
“Why don't we find out?" I asked.
"As for that hole"—she glanced back the way we'd come—"why don't you use it as a trap, Lily?"
"I could." The helivore wore a smirk. "But then I might kill some people."
Violet winced. "If you can avoid it, please do. But I'm not sure I have the strength to open it again. I am nowhere near as strong as my master was, and that wasn't built as an entrance." She wiggled her nose, and we hurried through.
Lily paused for a moment, as the mass she collected outside slid off her and began to work at the entrance.
The hallway opened up to a bridge that was smaller than the one on the Griffin.
The purple metal and steel blended seamlessly together in an elegant design, and I could see the echo of kikai tails in the design features.
Various parts of the ship were one color, only for the corners to turn white—a common motif in kikai tails and ears.
Violet stepped up to the captain's chair and ran a hand over the armrest.
The ship came to life.
"Welcome," a soft digital voice answered, and a kikai appeared on what I hadn't even realized was a screen. Covered in stone, it had just looked like a black wall until it illuminated to reveal a kikai with nine tails all spread out in deep red, the tips black as if dipped in ink.
She didn’t look a day over thirty, young enough to be very attractive, but only enough that she had a touch of authority. But the black and crimson coloring made her appear far more wicked than I’d expected of someone who chose peace at every opportunity.
Violet stared at the projection, her mouth falling open. "Master." The word escaped her like a breath she couldn't hold any longer.
"Violet, so good to see you." She smiled. "Unfortunately, I am a simple AI for managing the ship in Akari's vision. That she is not here with you means I must ask a series of questions."
"Hey, Violet," I said. "Did your master always look that young?"
"You, unfortunately, are not on any recognized list." The image turned to me curiously.
I scowled at the image. "I'm the captain of the ship that Violet currently serves on. I'm here as her friend."
The image shifted. "I am happy to see that Violet has stalwart friends. She has always been a shy one." The AI chuckled, as if at some inside joke. But the joke seemed to fall short even with Violet, who was still staring at her master's lookalike with wide eyes.
"Do you know what happened to Master?" she asked the AI.
"No. I could only hazard a guess, and such activities are beneath both me and the woman whose image I've been made in." It shook its head.
I chuckled. Even the AI that looked like this woman seemed prickly. I couldn't imagine what she'd been like in life.