For Blood Or Ash - Chapter 3

Yhzmal coughed liquid from his lungs and dried off. He found purpose in shedding bodies; rebirth tickled his mystic sense. Though this “social” skin wore more comfortably than the behemoth’s pelt, the centurio would need that other body back sooner rather than later, and looked in on his previous form. It floated in a giant tube, eviscerated to the point of shark chum. A technician drifted near.

“No soft tissue can be salvaged,” sighed the delicate Caldari.

“How long?”

“Depending on infrastructure damage, weeks.”

The giant nodded and took his leave. He began opening cybernetic links to his station security chiefs as he walked out of the Lady’s Oris offices. Staring into phosphorescent haze, he queried each in turn about rats. Yes, human intelligence and signal analysis implied new clandestine activity in the Lady’s populated hangar zones. It picked up shortly before the Lady’s ship returned. Corporate affiliation of the operatives remained unknown. Yhzmal reviewed the reports as his a lift glided down to the hangar floor. Massive ships passed over the freight corridor as his tram settled at an access dock. From there, he pushed through the bustle of commerce in capillary tunnels, and at last set off into a maze of “alleys” stretching through pressurized caverns.

A village sprawled in this corner of the station, “founded” by slaves, rebels, students, and gogo dancers of at least three genders; all captured in some raid or another but neither released nor sold – almost forgotten. They stacked shipping containers into tenements, cut windows and doors, painted murals, and fused scrap into twisting naked statues to make their home. The centurio crossed a broad plaza with a fountain where Matari youths practiced martial dances. No longer limited to that initial population, this community now bustled with hardscrabble residents from across Oris. The Lady had given it to Yhzmal’s as his garden.

They called it “Tor Gaim.”

Most in the crowds regarded him carefully as he passed, neither fearful nor pleased, but cautious. Young children, however, felt no apprehension and scrambled around the giant’s base like quail. He always brought candy, hard Amarr chocolate, and tossed the bravest little birds impossibly high. None of these had been born in the village, it was too new; they came instead with parents from elsewhere, or Yhzmal had found them somewhere dark and brought them here himself. Each held such potential – the most valuable of his garden’s bounty.

Taking care to make himself conspicuous as he moved, Yhzmal requested frequent updates from his squads. Did the buzz follow him? Yes. Stopping at small shops and chatting, the centurio painted a sincere portrait as he wandered, drawing the enemy out without revealing his intentions. Eventually, he entered the trade docks, where locals made themselves available for work. Residents of Tor Gaim were not picky about their labors. That attracted a number of diverse bidders. Foremen behind desks on elevated platforms manipulated data pads while men and women waited below. No one spoke more than necessary, and it was rarely necessary.

Yhzmal’s needs there were simple: the Lady’s Harbinger would feature in a funeral for kameira lost in the battle, and had been towed to a pressurized chamber for a dressing. The centurio paid well to fertilize his garden, but never so extravagantly as to warp the market. He put in his bids, foremen scanned their feeds, men and women stood and filed out. The next “laborers” on the centurio’s list would view him more suspiciously.

While the original population had been “captured,” they were not prisoners. Many came and went. Lacking formal status, they risked arbitrary detention when not traveling to a verified job and back, and could not easily relocate to elsewhere in the station… or book passage on a departing ship. But they were mobile. Others, however, could not leave. External authorities considered them enemies of the state, to be killed at any opportunity. However, because Yhzmal tolerated no disturbances of public order, not even by station police, these “terrorists” had fashioned new lives for themselves in the Spider Works.

A tangled mass built around concentrations of giant exhaust channels, only a handful of known access points – and myriad hidden ones – opened on to that zone. Yhzmal entered through a main artery. As expected, the clandestine chatter became agitated. The centurio walked a winding “street” of steel mesh, “structures” to the sides, above, and below; it was like navigating intersecting webs of a funnel horror. People faded from sight upon encountering him, slipping through false doors and walls, but there was always traffic. The giant’s sensory implants mapped space in his head, and he felt them moving around him in parallel worlds. An ordinary traveler would have had no hint of the woman shadowing the centurio carefully.

That agent was familiar to him; she was getting better. Among terrorists rising high enough to be captured by capsuleers, men served in the dozens across all capacities, while those few women primarily led. The centurio knew this leader as Forest Jaguar. She was a valklear, and he respected that. Overhead, beside, underneath, she followed softly as heavier bodies – her pride – moved at more respectful distances.

At last she made her move.

Dropping behind, she rolled into a low crouch and swept with a muscled leg. The centurio hopped, like jumping rope, and leaned to the side to evade her lunging jab. Circling away on the ball of his foot, he caught her hammer fist in his palm and pushed. Despite his mass, he had already moved a leg behind her as a brace, and she began to fall. Taking force from her own motion, however, she whirled away – yanking her hand free with surprising strength… and leaned with casual anger against steel webbing.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she growled. “Coming here alone. What if something happened? Who would be blamed but us?”

“How do you know I’m alone?’

“I know! What is it this time, Centurio?”

“I need five ‘volunteers,’” he answered professionally. “I have one in mind and leave the rest to you. Freedom or unpleasant death awaits, depending on their luck.”

“Bastard. What’s in it for me?”

He tossed her a small fortune in gemstones. She snatched the bag from the air, and vanished. Yhzmal continued on to a courtyard. The aroma of spiced meat drifted through heavy air. Pulling a panel sideways, he stepped onto a catwalk suspended far above a huge space filled with bodies and smoke. They were mostly miners, decompressing. The denizens of Spider Works couldn’t leave, but they could grill and distill like no other; and so long as nobody died, almost anything went. Those three genders of dancer merged naked on platforms, darkly illuminated and gyrating pornographically to pounding Gallente hits. In the distant shadows, huge shafts pumped poisoned or fresh air to other parts of the giant station. This was Outland.

Yhzmal descended slowly on an industrial lift.