Submantle- The Alpha Key

by Patrick Lane

  “Cowards,” Nifty spat, as he dove away from several discs toward the train’s ramp.

  Snort and Grunt made an appearance at the delve-train doors, both beasts receiving half a dozen rounds across their impervious snouts. Grunt let out an angry bellow and pawed the ground.

  “Stand down,” Nifty barked as he backed towards the cargo bay door. These cowards were really starting to boil his blood. He considered pulling out his arc-shot, to return fire but quickly realized it would leave him defenseless against their counterattacks.

  The cycles began to circle the train peppering the hull with concussive rounds, trying to find a weakness in the armored hull to prevent the Eos from leaving. But they were too late and the hull plates too thick. Scotty retracted the train’s stacks and Nifty heard its two good engines thrum to life.

  Two lance-hares crested the loading ramp, and bounded into view. With their ears twitching erratically, the hares took a broad circuit around the train, joining the riders. They finally took up position at the edge of the platform, their bloodshot eyes never leaving the train.

  A late arrival glided up onto the platform just as Nifty deflected the last barrage and backed into the hold retracting the train’s ramp as he went. Its masked rider, a zeal mallet strapped to his back and wearing an armored version of the green and silver livery of his cohorts, drove straight at Nifty, firing round after round as the bay door irised closed. He had been followed closely by the Yolon on his reptilian war beast. The man had removed an enormous three clawed club from its holster on his back and it began to glow dangerously as they neared. Nifty could hear dozens more impacts pelting the train as he threw his helmet and gloves onto one of the benches, followed by a discordant series of scraping noises. Was that the Yolon’s club? That sounded like it was doing some serious damage. They needed to get out of here.

  These men were military, no doubt was left in Nifty’s mind now. What the scrap had he and Scotty walked into?

  Nifty did a quick check of the animals. The dusters had already settled on the ceiling and Buttar and the pushsnouts were waiting patiently for any instruction. None of them had sustained any visible damage.

  Help friend Scotty, signaled Grunt, stamping a hoof for good measure.

  He simply nodded back, took a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves and quickly made his way to the cockpit, wondering at the second piece of luck he’d had that day.

  What was that Topsider phrase? Good things always come in threes… Or was it bad things? He’d have to ask Newton once he returned to Rocktower.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The Eos managed a successful if somewhat undignified retreat. The damaged craft rumbled across the platform, back to the entry ponds, to the sounds of small explosions across the hull as the soldiers continued firing their weapons. Like an old man sliding into a warm bath, they entered the lava pond and glided down the tunnel back to the earth’s mantle.

  Nifty navigated away from the Helix, struggling to keep the train on course. Eos needed repair, and soon, they could ill afford to get caught with her like this. He found a sheltered spot several miles away and anchored the delve-train to the crust, between two jagged crags, and switched off the slip-shield to mask their position.

  With the train and their location somewhat safe, Nifty turned to the senior Ranger slumped in his seat, bruised and bloodied, about to pass out. After prying the Key from his hands and setting it on the console, Nifty hefted him out of his chair. Slinging an arm around his shoulders to take as much of the weight as he could, he guided him to the cramped medical compartment in the back.

  He stripped Scotty of his rot-spattered jacket and threw it right out into the hallway to deal with later and helped the Ranger onto the well-bed to assess the damage. The stubborn old fool had built a reputation for being unstoppable back in his days at the academy, but today he’d taken a buffeting that would have left a younger man flat on his back for days. Scotty had ignored the pain, and the risk, and kept right on going, pushing himself to exhaustion. He would need rest, and a lot of it.

  Nifty noted a nasty patch of bruising around Scotty’s ribs, and he probed the area for fractures.

  “Easy now, lad. You’re not making bread rolls here, you know,” Scotty complained, with a painful wince.

  “You know, for not having any broken ribs, you’re really acting like a bit of a woman’s blouse.”

  Scotty replied with an amused grunt and Nifty took that with a sense of relief; as long as Scotty could complain and joke, he’d be fine. He applied a penetrating balm to Scotty’s bruises, and made sure he drank two packs of lichen-brew before helping him into the cool blankets of the well-bed. The medical sleeper unit, which looked rather like an ordinary bed, would speed Scotty’s recovery while he was resting. Almost immediately after lying back, Scotty was fast asleep and snoring quietly.

  With the use of a specialized med-kit, Nifty began the arduous task of removing the shards imbedded in Scotty’s face and cleaning the wounds. They were numerous, and the task was more sensitive that he’d expected. One particularly nasty shard was within a hairbreadth of Scotty's eyeball, spilling blood into the orbital cavity, and yet he’d suffered it without complaint.

  Nifty waved a knit-rod over the freshly applied stitch-balm, and from experience he knew most of the wounds would likely heal without too much scarring. Scotty should have a fresh layer of pink skin by the time they made it back to Rocktower. Of course, that depended on whether Nifty took that detour he wanted.

  After his encounter with Ink, thoughts of winning the Ranger Games so he could court Lulu felt rather foolish. What kind of man would intentionally carry on the Jax line? Part of him wished that Ink was correct about the origin of the Jax virus, but he doubted it would matter, it was so ingrained Submantle that people would remain afraid of the Jax name no matter what evidence was brought to light.

  Yet he couldn’t escape concerns raised by the Fluxform. A journey to the surface sounded fairly straightforward, but his gut told him would need to be better prepared. Especially after their brief encounter with the greenbacks. Besides, he mused, the delve train needed repair and Scotty would require as much time as possible to heal before reaching home. The last thing he needed was a wounded partner wading into what sounded like an extremely delicate mission. More importantly, he wanted time to think.

  They had already found the Key so that was one less thing to worry about and they had probably done it weeks ahead of schedule.

  He gathered up the medi-kit and returned it to its cabinet, and was about to leave the compartment when he caught sight of his image in the medicine cabinet mirror. Doing a slight double take, Nifty was startled by what he saw. He looked worse than Scotty. There had been a stinging sensation across his face as they’d returned across the Gears but he had paid it little mind.

  His entire right side was covered in short but deep cuts, blood had run down his neck and under his jacket collar to dry. Much like Scotty, metal shards were sticking out from his skin, and now that he saw them there, he could suddenly feel each and every one. Angry red bubbles under his sweat plastered hair, stung his forehead. He ran a hand over his wounds and winced as he felt along the ridges of where that Branders roller had almost connected with his skin. It was a superficial wound, only made worse by the abrading of his helmet. Sighing, he took the med-kit back out.

  As he picked and pried he wondered how Scotty had stayed asleep during his little procedure and for the first time that day he felt a dreadful weight he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying had lifted from his chest. His mentor was safe, with this knowledge he hardly felt the pain at all as he finished the work on his face. Well maybe it hurt a bit.

  He headed to the storage bays, stored the corpse in a cold drawer, tucked the airiron away in his personal locker and sprayed Scotty’s jacket down twice, it still stank—just not as badly.

  The boars had already unsaddled themselves and had rolled onto their massive beds, both were snoring loudl
y. Buttar was still awake and began whining and complaining about his stall while Nifty de-rigged the dusters’ kickback canisters. Finally realizing its complaints were falling on unsympathetic ears, the hyber-ram circled around the stall several times then dropped into a ball and fell into an exhausted sleep. Satisfied that they were all comfortable, Nifty headed to the cockpit.

  He disengaged Eos from the crust and guided the wounded delve-train back towards the outer stanchions, circling back to join the other transports passing through Terraport’s mantle space, and set the course for Ragnatex.

  Kicking off his boots he slung his legs up onto the control console, locked his hands into the control leavers. Within minutes he fell into an exhausted sleep and he let the autopilot struggle with the listing Eos for a few hours.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ragnatex. A thousand years ago at the end of Core War Five, when the Jax Scourge first hit, nothing in the Helix had escaped. Not even the plants and animals had survived. The virus had left all the buildings intact, but not much else, so no one really had a claim to the Helix or any of its cities.

  Scientists speculated the virus caused a corruption in the air or water systems, but so much time had passed before anyone had dared enter, it was impossible to prove. With the entire Helix abandoned, and nothing left to interact with the remaining machines, the scourge just seemed to have run its course. The intercontinental council had authorized reseeding well over a three hundred years ago with both plants and animals, yet for years after Ragnatex remained devoid of human settlement.

  The manner of its corruption had given Ragnatex a reputation as a cursed Helix, more so than the other Bastions. Without anyone to claim it, habitation of Ragnatex finally fell to the most desperate in Submantle. Pirates and criminals fleeing the authorities had taken over, and in a little over one hundred and fifty years, six of Ragnatex’s major cities had been cleared and resettled and were now well on their way to being fully operational.

  Nifty hadn’t been here in ages, mostly because their missions weren’t usually in this sector of Submantle but also because Scotty wasn’t always keen on having to deal with the lack of rules and regulations Bastions seemed to thrive on.

  Many Ascendants had made Ragnatex home, most of them the kind that didn’t seem to care much for Linkers. Which was strange because Nifty knew for a fact that Rocktower Ranger Corps had aided the burgeoning Helix a good number of times.

  As they neared the port, the assigned docking slip flashed green across the holo-viewer and he limped the Eos towards the second ring of the Helix. He knew that he would have to tread carefully inside these walls if he hoped to get out of there with as many scratches as he walked in with.

  They entered one of the port chutes, nearly clipping the entrance as he struggled with the controls, its shielded doors gliding shut behind them. Nifty felt the delve-train quiver as the magma was sucked out of the entry tunnel, leaving the vessel to rest on the floor. Deploying the wheels, and irising open the window shields, he throttled forward through the mile thick wall of the Helix, and entered the docking bays.

  As one of the most prosperous city in Ragnatex, Textermire held some of the largest foundries under the continent. The machine shops here stocked almost anything you could think of, and some of the most famous Song potters had moved their shops here.

  After threading his way through the docks, Nifty parked the delve-train into the slip assigned to them and began shutting down her systems, watching the bay through the cockpit’s windows. All kinds of ships occupied the docking slips, from single person needle-sliders to giant blaze-haulers with cargo holds that could easily fit half a dozen delve-trains whole.

  By their markings, most of them were trading vessels from under the continent and beyond, and Nifty thought he recognized a couple of drop-trains from one of the Hydrohelixes in the Southern Hemisphere. To his surprise he spotted a few ships that looked exactly like the frigates they encountered at Terraport, tucked far back in the corner, segregated from the rest, docked in a neat row.

  Locking down the controls, Nifty scooped up the Key from the console and grabbed Riot from its charging bracket. He weighed his options as the anger over finding the greenback military vessels here began to simmer in his belly. The presence of soldiers was normal for an unregulated Helix, but he wondered what the local enforcement would do if he was found cleaving into their hulls with a few well-placed blows from his shatter bat.

  Taking a page from Scotty’s lesson book, he took a few deep breaths, and fought hard to shake the angry thoughts from his mind, especially after their latest encounter. This was supposed to be a stop for repairs and a possible side trip for upgrades for his bat, not one for enforcement.

  He ducked into the medi-bay to check on his partner. Scotty lay sprawled on the well-bed, snoring like a congested fire weasel. He had a curious smile on his face like he was enjoying a dream. Nifty pulled up his fallen blanket, and tucked him back in. Scotty would be out for at least another day or two. That should gave him plenty of time to run his errands and think through a few things.

  He entered the storage bays, passing quietly by the slumbering animals, and headed to the back of the hold to his personal lockers and stripped out of his Ranger uniform. The dock crews would recognize a Rocktower vessel, but there was no need to flaunt his identity to everyone else as he travelled the markets.

  He selected a simple blue strife jacket with reinforced elbows and puncture-resistant liner, and pulled on a sturdy pair of civilian power boots with steel toes, hoping they would be simple enough to allow him to walk through the crowds unnoticed.

  He settled his holstered punch-picks around his hips, with the stinger blade and stuffed a coiled whip-hook attachment for it into his front pocket. He wasn’t some new recruit to be caught off guard while ogling the stores. He knew he needed to keep his wits about him.

  A slim set of shock gloves completed his outfit. They were a gift from his mum. She worked at one of the thermasilk research plants back in Crustspire and she liked to send him some of their latest prototypes. They were cut from strong double-tanned thermosilk, stitched so fine as to resemble a second skin, she’d even included wrinkles and fingernails and unless examined closely they would easily pass unnoticed. It must have taken her ages to make them.

  Nifty slipped them on, flexing his fingers a couple of times. Slender tethers connected the gloves to his jacket, powering them up, and flicking his little fingers, Nifty funneled a burst of energy between his palms. The shock gloves would hardly be enough to stop a group of intent ruffians, but they would certainly give him the element of surprise.

  On the opposite side of the cargo room he lay Riot down and set about dismantling it. He slid the pieces into a storage roll, bundling them up; crammed most of the airiron into a thermosilk pouch, and put everything in a large backpack, ready to go.

  Feeling the heft of the pack, he reconsidered the amount of airiron. Was it too much? He’d packed far more than he’d need for upgrades for his bat. With a mental shrug, he decided to keep what he’d loaded. After all, it wasn’t every day one visited such a city. It would probably be best to use as much of the metal as he could while he had the chance. Well, that, and he wasn’t sure what most foundries would charge to work with such a volatile metal.

  Which reminded him. He returned to his uniform jacket and retrieved Lulu’s pendant. It would probably be best if he made sure it was safe while at the foundries. Although highly doubtful, the last thing he needed was to have the thing go explode while around her neck. I am a gentleman after all. He thought to himself with a smile as he tucked it into his breast pocket.

  Going over his list of errands, his eyes wandered around the room and came to rest on the machine room Key he’d set on the shelf in his locker as he’d changed. He crossed back to retrieve it and walked around the room wondering where would be the best place to stash it. The train itself would be nearly impossible for anyone to enter unless they were a Rocktower Ranger,
but it would probably be best if he tucked it somewhere a little safer than his locker. His eyes fell on the perfect hiding place.

  “Ryder, attend,” he called out quietly, watching the ceiling.

  Three of the dusters materialized and Ryder dropped down to his outstretched hand.

  “Do you feel like coming to the markets with me?” She was the most level headed of the typically cautious creatures. “We can try to find you and your team some cinnamon if you like.”

  Cinnamon, yes please. The dainty creature replied, flickering her wings in a vibrant blue shade.

  “This isn’t official business, I’m just running errands.”

  Yes, Ryder like cinnamon, she replied again, and hopped from his arm to his backpack.

  “Excellent.” Turning to the rest of the animals, Nifty roused the pushsnouts long enough to take food orders, allowing the fool ram the same consideration. The animals turned back to sleep as soon as they were done. But Nifty lingered by Snort’s side until the boar cracked his eyes opened his eye, raising an eyebrow.