Elsewhere

Hours later, they were gathered in the feasting hall sitting along long stone tables. The ship’s crew and, from what Duke guessed, the rest of the Clan were in attendance. There was music being supplied by a boisterous group on an elevated stage. The music was primarily percussion-based with drums made of monster hide, steel, and bone all shaped masterfully to provide a beat that resonated throughout the hall and through the stone of the tables.

Duke found himself unconsciously nodding his head along to the music as the savage beat appealed to him. Gro’nok sat on Duke’s left but the seat to his right was empty. He had saved it for Aurelia, but she had chosen to stay on the ship. Duke glanced at the empty chair, darker and darker thoughts roiling through his head.

Why am I even sitting here? I should be out doing things, not sitting here waiting for the geriatric crew to come to a decision. Does it really matter if the Clan comes with the ship or not? Hell, all I really need the ship for is its navigation system. I can get myself wherever I want to go. I could plant the Clan Dungeon on the ship and leave everyone behind here. I have to get back to Teldin to check in but beyond that, I have Syndicate ships, bases, planets, whatever to destroy. The Contest grows closer day by day and I’m not getting any stronger sitting on my ass.

“You seem troubled, my friend. Drink this and it will ease your troubles,” Gro’nok said as he placed an earthen mug in front of Duke. Without a second thought, Duke took a long pull on the mug, the drink burning his throat on the way down and giving a pleasant surge of warmth in his belly.

“Thanks, I needed that. But I am not going to stick around and wait for a decision. I am going to be leaving in about six hours. I have things I have to do and my time to get them done is running out. I’ll set up the Clan Dungeon on the ship before I leave. I don’t know if I’ll be taking the ship with me or not. That hasn’t been decided yet, but I am leaving. I’m sure you know that the Syndicate is going to come here and attack in force. From what I saw, the Clan is not ready for that. I hate to be like this but that is what I saw.”

“You are not responsible for the Clan. I call you friend. I call you brother. But the Clan must take care of the Clan. It is not up to you to take care of the Clan. Please do not leave without at least sharing one more departing drink.”

“That I can wholeheartedly agree to.”

Duke stood from his chair and downed the rest of his drink before heading down the table and tapping Mira on the shoulder. When she looked up, she saw the look on his face and immediately asked, “What is it, Duke?”

“I am heading out in a few hours. I have too many things I need to do and sitting around here is not going to get them accomplished. I will equip the ship to handle the Clan and will come back to the ship when I can. That reminds me. Is there some way I can find out where the ship is at any given time?”

“That’s a lot to unpack, Duke. First, what the fuck? You’re leaving? Just like that?”

“I need to go to Teldin and check in there and then I’m taking the fight to the Syndicate. The longer I give them, the more they will know about me and the more ready for me they will be. I can’t let that happen.”

“Then the Iron Reaver is coming with you.”

“What about taking the Clan with us?”

“That’s their call, but I’m not waiting around here and losing touch with you just because they can’t see the writing on the wall. And no, there’s no way for you to track the ship. That is purely by design – we’re supposed to be able to infiltrate and drop off mechs undetected. Being able to be tracked really makes that impossible.”

“Dam. Good point. I didn’t think of that. OK, I gave Gro’nok a six-hour time limit. After that, we’ll be heading out. I appreciate you wanting to sticking with me. It hasn’t been a smooth ride for sure.”

“I’m just waiting to see what the next upgrade for my ship you pull out of your ass will be.”

“If you put it that way, air filtration. That’s the next upgrade.”

“I have to go get the ship prepped and let Lya know because she is going to want to come too. See you in a few hours.”

When Duke caught back up to Gro’nok, the orc was surrounded by a group of young teens listening to his stories of battle and valor. Duke quietly took up a spot on the outside of the group and listened. He was outside of Gro’nok’s line of sight so the orc didn’t see the look on his face as he related the tale of his heroic intervention on Turin Station.

“Young one, know this: The Syndicate is making moves to take control of all mech transport. My triad was on Turin Station looking for transport since our previously contracted ship was no longer usable after an encounter with pirates. I had spoken with the crew of another ship and thought they might help us when their alarms went off – the Syndicate was attacking their ship in the hangar…”

The ooohs and ahs continued as Gro’nok related the tale. What surprised Duke was that there was absolutely no embellishment in the tale. He described every action that he had seen including Duke’s fighting the troops without a weapon. The story was, however, focused on the mech activity and he went into great detail of every hit that his triad both gave and received. After he was finished, he asked the group to offer up suggestions on what he could have done better and what they learned from his experience. The responses were enthusiastic and often insightful.

Duke stepped further into the group to some confused and somewhat hostile looks from the teens. Gro’nok intervened immediately, “Everyone, this is Duke. What I described of his bare-handed fighting is the smallest of his capabilities. He is directly responsible for saving Urgoth and his triad on Altis Marin Six and is a friend of the clan. Show him the proper respect.”

In response, one of the older teens hauled off and swung a full-force haymaker at Duke’s chin. In the split seconds Duke had to react, he decided to simply weather the blow. It was one hell of an unpowered punch and would have likely flattened Duke had this been before he came to this universe. Now, the combination of Duke’s Characteristics and ARMOR SKIN gave him the capability to withstand the blow as easily as an oak tree against a gentle breeze. He moved his head slightly to keep the teen from breaking bones, but otherwise didn’t react.

The teen stumbled back, clutching his hand and staring up at Duke. The rest of the teens cheered the show as Gro’nok guided the wounded teen away, “Go find yourself a healer, idiot. Everyone else, go and get to your practicing.”

“Don’t mind Kevin. He’s a bit of a bully.”

“Kevin?”

“Yes, a most unfortunate name which is probably why he became a bully now that I think on it. He thought if he could take you down, he could cement his place in the warriors.”

“Didn’t quite work out for him, did it?”

“Nope. Thanks for not making a big deal out of it.”

“Funnier this way. But I do have something to talk to you about.”

“Your departure?”

“Yes. It seems the Iron Reaver is leaving with me, so the Clan has some big decisions to make and not a lot of time to make them. Sorry about that.”

“This changes things a great deal. I was hoping that I would have time to discuss it with the Council.”

“If you want to discuss it, you have better get on it. I have preparations to make of my own.”

Duke left the Clanhold, heading for the ship. Once inside, he headed to the room that Mira had agreed to for him to plant the dungeon. It was a matter of a few seconds to plant the dungeon and he left to let it grow into the space. His next stop was a TELEPORT to a spot he had seen from orbit. It was an open area surrounded by rocky cliffs. Duke surmised that it was a river canyon at some point in the past but it was dry now.

Duke pulled one of the RESTORED Syndicate mechs out of his INVENTORY and spent nearly an hour going over it, learning its runescript and layout. As there was no instruction manual, he was reduced to guesswork. If I just trace this power transfer runescript, it should lead from the cores to the weapons, right?

Three hours later, Duke felt confident enough to get into the mech’s cockpit and to try and pilot the thing. After five minutes of frustration, he discovered that the on/off switch was hidden under a protective covering. “Sure it makes sense to put it somewhere you couldn’t accidentally turn the thing off in the middle of a fight, but this is fucking ridiculous. OK, it’s on, time to get this thing moving.”

With great confidence, Duke started to walk the mech down the canyon. At least that was his plan. Instead of walking, it stumbled and he managed to fire off the left arm weapon as he struggled to rebalance the thing. He failed at that too. Another fifteen minutes of struggling with the most non-intuitive controls he had ever run into, he managed to get the mech back on its feet.

After yet another hour of fiddling around with the controls, he discovered the most helpful switch in the entire mech. It, like every other control in the thing, was unlabeled. This switch reconfigured all the controls to fit his body configuration. Suddenly, things became much more intuitive. Moving his left leg no longer moved the right arm and instead moved the left leg. What the fuck kind of creature was piloting this thing? I’m sure I have a body or two sitting in my INVENTORY that might explain it but that was completely frustrating.

Duke spent the next half hour moving in the mech, finding that it was far more intuitive than he had expected. There even was a control pad for each hand that controlled the weapons. It finally was starting to feel natural when two things happened.

First, he received a system message. As he went to open it up, his communications crystal fired up with Mira’s voice.

“Duke, can you hear me?”

“Sure, Mira. What’s up?”

“The Clan is rapidly evacuating to the ship. Is that dungeon ready for them?”

“I hope so. I really didn’t think they would actually leave. I’ll be there in a while. I have a few more things to work on before I head over.”

“Make it fast. We need to bug out of here soon.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“A Syndicate dreadnaught and supporting fleet has just entered the system. We have, at most, two hours to get clear before we have to deal with them.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Duke TELEPORTED out of the mech and put it back into his INVENTORY. He then read his notification before TELEPORTING to the ship himself.

*** Congratulations, you have learned the Skill, Mechpilot at Untrained 1. This Skill allows you to pilot the most common forms of mechs. At your Skill level, you should avoid combat in a mech if at all possible. Additional practice is highly recommended. ***

Duke arrived on the bridge of the Iron Reaver to find Mira and Lya frantically talking about the incoming ships with a crowd. The unique qualities of his TELEPORTATION Ability would not allow him to arrive in an occupied space, so he found himself standing in front of the main viewscreen. He stepped back, looking up at the screen.

Dominating the screen was a single ship that was bristling with weapons. It reminded Duke of a cross between an old US battleship and a tic tac. The ovoid shape had dozens of tremendous tubular weapons sticking out from the hull with countless smaller shapes that Duke assumed were other weapons. Surrounding the ship was a cloud of smaller ships that he took for shuttles and small tenders.

“Duke, you’re here! Good. We can get things going. You see the fleet coming. We have to get out of here soon.”

“Yeah, I see one big ship and a bunch of shuttles. Not what I would call a fleet.”

“Those aren’t shuttles, Duke. Those are heavy cruisers and smaller battleships.”

“Well, fuck. That puts the size of that thing in perspective. Let me go check on the dungeon while you get the ship ready to leave.”