12 Miles Below-Chapter 50Book 7. : Aggressive takeover

“Should you not be more worried for your own health?” The Icon asked.

“Nnn… No. The shield is all I care for.” He could recreate his shawl after, but the shield was impossible to fix with his nano swarms. Then his pet rock started sending him a flurry of angry images, so he added one more to the count.

“Fine." He To'Orda grunted. "And the rock. Keep him protected.”

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She gave him a pitying look through the digital feed. “Sir, you do realize if your shell is destroyed, the rock engram will equally shut down with it? It is running on your own hardware.”

The rock paled at that. “Aw fuck. Look boss, you can’t just die and give up like that - you gotta live! Else I’m gonna get squashed here with you too, and I’d rather not, y’know?”

“I am constantly amazed at your selflessness.” The Icon said flatly.

To’Orda gave a grunt and a shrug, and the Icon’s blessed intelligence carried through as she understood immediately what he was saying. Given her increasing frown. “Very well, sir. If you wish to keep your shield unmarred, I can store it within the crew compartments and vault. You should begin to make your way here to the Icon, I’ll prepare for your arrival.”

He had a gut feeling he wouldn’t make it in time there before To’Naviris demanded he show up. Either to carry him into the battle on a palanquin, or to be his punching bag.

The rock said so as well, in different words. “You better come up with a better idea than trying to hide Boss under your skirts lady, that ain’t gonna save him a lick. Wrath and the Hyper-Weasel are back together and that’s going to be extremely unhealthy for everyone. They might be beefing right now, but we all know that’s just theater. They’ll be thick as thieves pretty soon. It’s gonna suck.”

“I do have a possible plan that would help you avoid destruction.” She readjusted her navy cap, then coughed into her digital fist. “However, I recommend you not ask me full details on that plan until it’s executed. You might be forced by default to veto it, despite it being in your best interest, sir.”

“That sounds mighty suspicious lady.” The rock said. “How treasonous are we talkin’ here?”

“None. A technicality on Relinquished’s wording. It will follow the law of the letter, and possibly the spirit as well, given Relinquished does not seem overly attached to the outcomes of this situation in terms of you surviving the encounter or not. All she cares about is to be entertained, so in that regard, she will be satisfied. You will have to trust me.”

The rock sent her a few images of squinting eyes, and doodled fingers pointing from his doodled eye back and forth to hers. “You do anything suspicious, and I’ll send a strongly worded letter to To’Orda recommending punishment.”

He debated getting up and making his way to the Icon, but at the speed things were going, he’d get thirty minutes into the journey and be ordered back to the frontline, making those thirty minutes of effort wasted.

So, he decided to simply enjoy what time he had, lounging by a boulder. Watching the bonfire ahead, where wolves, a bird, and a Deathless were all trying to figure out different means of discussion using the rock as the middleman.

It was not to last. The inevitable marching orders came through, from an irate To’Naviris now currently chasing after the pair that had escaped him. It hadn’t even been thirty minutes into the day.

To’Orda had been ordered to join To’Naviris and fight to the fullest, so he’d need to bring his shield with him. With a grunt, he got up to grab his gear.

“Whoa, you planning on leaving?” Drakonis said, halting his attempted discussions with the gathered greyroamers over the bonfire nearby.

Ah. Right. The Deathless. Since he was no longer useful as a hostage, he should be eliminated then. To’Orda grabbed his hammer, turned, lifted it high… and held it there.

Drakonis stared him back. As if expecting this. "It's been real." He simply said. "Disapointed it ends like this, but I learned what I needed to know."

“I do not want to end your life.” Boss said, letting the hammer drop back down on his shoulder. “Go.”

Drakonis stared back at the Feather, confused. “Are you serious?”

Questions. Damn. His back hunched down, and To'Orda once more felt small. "Nnn... yes."

"So you lot really can grow a heart." He muttered back, more to himself than to To'Orda. At least, it wasn't interpreted as a question within his systems.

To’Orda tapped the rock on his shoulder before lifting his shield over his back, feeling tired and wanting to let the rock handle the rest. It did, projecting its usual doodles in the air. “Go on scram you little punk. Consider us not squashing your face as our thanks for the food recommendations. Hardly deserved if you ask me, but eh, so is life. You’re free to go, and I recommend you do exactly that.” The rock said, bouncing up and down with each step To’Orda took.

The shock collar over the Deathless’s neck snapped open, dropping down on the ground. The man stared at it with a frown, before looking back up at the departing Feather. “Are you still planning on killing Keith?”

“And his malfunctioning girlfriend.” The rock supplied. “Or unofficial girlfriend. Eh, details. Anyhow, ordered by the local bigwig here, nothing to do about it. You should scram, we didn’t get any official orders to hunt you down yet, but it’s coming for sure the moment that asshat asks where the second Deathless in the biome is.”

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Drakonis watched the pair leave, eyes deep in thought.

That was all To’Orda saw of the Deathless before he started on a steady jog into the forest, the general coordinates set. Drakonis had no way of keeping up with a Feather, not with his armor off. And a steady jog to To'Orda was more of a flat out sprint to a human.

That let the Feather run for a few minutes of silence, steadily making progress on his map.

“Why did you allow your hostage to leave alive?” The Icon's feed remained steady in his vision, her expression growing increasingly concerned. “I am relieved, of course, at your action. However, I do not believe To'Naviris will appreciate such mercy."

To'Orda grunted, adjusting his grip on his hammer. The weight felt heavier somehow. "Nnnn... don't wanna." As in he didn't want to bother with the effort of killing the Deathless.

After all the time spent together, it felt almost... untasty.

"What the lady is trying to say," the rock piped up, "is that you're gonna get your ass handed to you when your new boss finds out, you know that right? Seriously, why'd you let dog-breath go?"

To'Orda continued his jog, more annoyed at the questions he’d been forced to answer. He dredged up the prior thoughts that had been so clear in his mind, only now felt so murky. What had he said? "Nnn... I answered already. I don't want to."

It was technically correct, if sparse on the details. Which was fine for To'Orda.

The Icon's eyebrows rose slightly. “I believe it is important for you to examine what prompted this decision with more detail."

Ah. Bugger. She was digging into this. He’d hoped she wouldn’t.

"Oi! Don't go psychoanalyzing the boss," the rock protested, bouncing on To'Orda's shoulder as the jog continued through the underbrush. "Maybe he's just having an off day. We all get 'em. It’s a rough life for us out here toots.”

But To’Orda knew the Icon already had the answer. All she was doing was waiting for him to allow her to speak it out loud. He said nothing for a few more minutes of silence, then groaned and gave a grunt.

Go on, explain it to me.

She took her cue. “As far as I’ve seen your life, the only ones who have ever treated you with any amount of compassion have been your enemies - The Deathless Drakonis, To’Wrathh herself, along with the Odin and greyroamers here with you now. I strongly suspect that may be the root cause of your hesitation earlier. I would count your rock among the number, but it is a manifestation of you in the end. Everyone else in your life has seen you either as competition to be crushed, or a tool to be used. Drakonis has been the first entity to speak to you as a peer, even if the nature of the discussion was on food and general trivia.”

The rock raised a doodled hand to interject, thought about it some more, then lowered the hand. “Man, that’s kinda depressing to think about.”

“Exactly my point. More consideration should be put into how you live your life, rather than simply living it, sir.”

“Nnn… There is no escape from work. Nowhere is safe.”

Case in point: All this. Earlier he’d been given orders to remain put and ‘watch how real Feathers handle things.’

That had been among the best orders he’d been given in his entire life thus far, but he knew that wasn’t going to last. And the new orders to come running over were exactly what he’d expected.

“Plan?” He asked instead. Anything to get the Icon to talk about something else than this topic. She had mentioned she was being proactive in the background.

“I give To’Naviris a seven percent chance of defeating both To’Wrathh and Keith working together with a prepared field. However, I am more worried about what happens after. Regardless if he survives or dies, there is a high chance that he will demand the execution of every Odin in this biome after.”

“Why?” Boss asked, immediately awake and alert. Those were his minions that were being threatened. “Explain your reasoning.”

“The Odin have been preparing for combat with machines for years now and they will have those plans augmented by Keith’s own addition to their technology. More than To’Naviris would wish.”

And of course, Feathers were sore losers. If To’Naviris had his army wiped out by birds, he’d want them eradicated, even the ones technically under his own banner. A difficult proposition.

“Nnn.. will the Odin truly be a threat?” He could see them being good minions to hunt down a rogue human in the area, but defeating an entire machine army?

“They will.” The Icon said with complete confidence. “I will do what I can to help protect my Odin given the expected fallout. And you. I hope you decide to trust me when the time comes.”

To’Orda considered it for a moment. And came to a decision.

All right so - my initial assassination plot didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but round two was going pretty smooth, and I did have another assassination plot in the works.

Turns out, it’s nice to have another Feather on the team to smack around To’Naviris while I got into a better position. And Wrath was doing just that.

As I got out of the cloud of death, Journey’s HUD showed a connection again with local comms and most other subsystems working again.

I was unfortunately still on fire due to the clumps of napalm dropplets sticking to my armor, but that would die down in about ten minutes or so. Hopefully.

On the other hand, so was To’Naviris. He’d been forced to pull out more of his kit in order to save his life against Wrath’s onslaught. Two giant occult hands swatted through the air, trying to slap her like an insect. And To’Naviris was all the way up there, suspended by what looked to be another pair of massive occult legs holding him still.

He looked to be the glowing burning heart of an occult giant. No head, more a blob of glowing blue with To’Naviris at the center, still on fire.

Multiple small tentacles were thrashing wildly with occult weapons to keep her off from attacking, and Wrath dipped around avoiding it all. But she wasn’t going for killing blows. Her part of the plan here was to harass and push To’Naviris into the position we wanted.

“Everyone good there?” I asked.

“Yes.” She answered back. “He is unable to overclock, and his occult abilities seem to be taking a heavy strain on his processing abilities. Failure is imminent. Once I have weakened him enough, I will have him pushed back into your range.”

“That sounds a little too good to be true, what’s the catch?”

“The enemy army is marshalling forward.” Wrath said, sending Journey a small data packet. A video feed where we saw from her vantage point just what was coming from the deadlands.

Machines. Not the small wave of crabs, but real fully fledged and armored ones. Murdershrimps I could recognize, along with massive walking titans that Undersiders called Behemoths. There were dozens of different models and variations here, but To’Naviris hadn’t skimped on sending it all.

“If your Odin can hold this army off, I believe I will finish To’Naviris myself within the next seven minutes.” Wrath said.

“They can.” I shot her a thumbs up. And I really did believe in the little scrappy birds. Their preparations for machines had been pretty decent, but with a bit of additional tweaking…

Far above, near the very top of the strata’s roof, black dots were all across the area, flying from both the sides of the deadlands. Septimus was already ahead of schedule, seeing the shift in the battle and adjusting to it.

All that mattered to me was that I had the army I needed to fight off machine reinforcements, and I wasn’t completely opposed to leaving the Odin some kind of weapon to use in the future against machines in case they were put on To’Naviris’s permanent shit-list.

So I may have added a few minor occult adjacent items into the Odin armory.

The Murdershrimps reached the frontlines first, zipping across the battlefield, only to start swatting the air at something dropping over their heads. Small metal spheres, with one thin wire dangling from it. As the spheres bonked onto the machines, they remained stuck there, magnetized.

And then the little wires trailing behind each began to glow occult blue, an edge forming. The result was exactly as I’d hoped - the murdershrimps immediately triggered shields to protect themselves from the occult wires now dangling over them, burning through their shields. One after another, those shields flared and broke.

Then a rotary cannon on the Odin fortification opened fire and ripped the murdershrimps to pieces. The strike was accurate, surgical, and calculated by the Odin recon team far above.

The process would repeat with just about every machine trying to make their way through.

That had been something I’d worked on while I was there. A quick dirty weapon of war when I saw the Odin had hundreds of miles of wiring ready to go from both architecture, communications, and so forth.

The raw material was there. So they followed my orders, cut a few hundred snippets of metal wires,and then we affixed it all to Odin all-purpose hilts. Which were these tiny little clamps built in small orbs that the Odin would hold in their talons. It helped them hold onto anything for long periods of time without having to pinch their talons themselves, so there were plenty to recycle from. A bit of fenangling to get all of them hooked up to some minor amount of electric power, and I had a budget occult blade made.

Wrath’s nanoswarms were far faster than Journey’s, but by the time she returned with the new power cells to play with, I’d actually gotten most of the ammunition done. She still helped produce a few hundred more before we got word To’Naviris was finally making his approach.

In the hands of a human, these thin wires of occult wouldn’t be able to block anything, and would easily cut a user’s hand off. As bombs to be dropped down over the machine heads, they worked pretty darn well.

And even if they missed their original bomb run, they’d land on the ground, buried under the ashes, to get picked up by the next machine running by like the world’s most dangerous caltrop.

Septimus didn’t ask questions such as why that worked, or how humans had powers. But it was clear he wanted answers after all this was over. They’d all been convinced the fabled human occult blades were operated by some higher dimension tech, where the real machinery was hidden in a separate pocket connected to the hilts. That’s the conclusion their best and brightest scientists had come up with.

Learning its actual occult placated him slightly.

It wasn’t perfect, and the Odin defenses were going to get overwhelmed the moment they ran out of ammunition and tricks, but it would be enough to hold off To’Naviris’s backup. At least until Wrath put a killing blow on him.

As for me, I walked right back into the fire and smoke, keeping myself somewhat high up off the ground, close enough to the fight between Wrath and To’Naviris.

The goal wasn’t to kill To’Naviris.

It was to stab him through that soul fractal with the true fractal of division.

And ever so slowly, Wrath was forcing him to back up closer and closer to the pillar of smoke where I hid.