Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Once the initial shock of seeing two figures emanating far more power than she currently possesses has passed, Emily notes the odd nature of their energy signatures, not quite mana nor machina yet just as potent. She lets her gaze shift towards their companions. Two of them, Emily immediately recognises as powerful mages, their mana both purer and denser than her own by a noticeable degree yet still falling short of their leaders'. They're both humanoid, but one, wearing similar robes to the leaders, stands several heads taller than everyone around them and has delicate features that could be cut from the finest stone. The other only reaches their leaders' waists, wearing well-fitted body armour and bearing enough heavy wrinkles on their face to nearly obscure their beady eyes.

None of the remaining members of the party can match Emily in strength, but a few clearly fall within the bounds of fifth circle. They're almost all wearing body armour of a similar design to the shortest leading mage, including the quadrupedal hound-like creatures, and most are being carried through the air by small, back-mounted packs spewing flames instead of their own strength. An entity composed of what appears to be a mass of writhing worms is the last to leave the ship before the exit hatch shuts behind them, and they all begin drifting down towards the compound's barrier, talking in an array of languages that Emily can't yet understand despite being able to hear them from afar.

Emily sends a signal to deactivate the barrier, allowing their guests entry, and waits for them to approach, taking the extra seconds to drink in more of their discussion, supplying her linguistics skill with more data to work with.

"We… them... be any… more yet… Barrier breaking… we want right now," she parses from their gruff leader as they touch down in front of her.

Emily cautiously reaches out with her magical senses, reading the air around the two leaders and detecting thin, invisible layers of energy that block her probing, slicing away at any mana tainted by her control.

"Savage," the elegant woman at his side responds in the same language, never taking her eyes off Emily and not sparing the man a second glance even as he growls in anger at her comment. "We should just… them nicely… the ones that… draw us here, and… interesting… mistreat…"

The woman smiles as she finishes speaking, her eyes glistening with amusement, flashing her sharpened canines and tilting her head. Emily's gaze is drawn to a thin scar as silver as the woman's hair creeping up her neck from the collar of her robes, marring her porcelain-white skin.

Several other members of the group speak up, most using different languages to their leaders, and the quadrupeds communicate with a series of growls and whines that everyone else seems to understand. Emily picks out a few repeated phrases among those speaking the same tongue and narrows her eyes as she starts to recognise the word 'slave' being thrown around.

"Give her a…" the crimson-eyed woman cuts through the noise in a commanding tone, silencing her companions in an instant with only the man at her side scoffing in response.

One of the hound-like beings steps past their leaders, machina dancing from its skin and reaching up to the more advanced mechanical pack fixed to its spine. A small, articulated mechanical arm sprouts from the pack, reaching into a slot, from which Emily can feel spatial fluctuations, before pulling out a small device that resembles her in-ear communicators. The hound tosses it to Emily, and she snatches it out of the air, quickly scanning through the group and noticing most of them are wearing similar devices, with the over-eight-feet-tall mage bearing an even more complicated contraption covered in runes and crystals, highlighting their sharp, pointed ears.

A quick pass of machina confirms her suspicions as she finds a near-identical internal structure to her own communicators, with the main difference being the complexity of the electronic chip controlling the device and the miniature battery supplying it. Emily tucks the main body of the device behind her ear and pushes the soft monitor into place.

The crimson-eyed woman points to her blood-red lips and nods encouragingly.

"You can't understand me," Emily says, watching the woman nod again and gesture for her to continue. "This thing's a translator of some kind, isn't it? You probably need me to keep talking so you can gather data about Ulean English."

"Keep going," the woman replies, the words shifting into a vague imitation of common Ulean as it passes through the device in Emily's ear, understandable despite several errors. "It needs more information."

"It really is like my innate skill. Nearly as efficient too if it's able to get that close that fast."

A few members of the alien crew mutter complaints about how long it's taking, and Emily smiles as she finally stops missing the meanings of words in the middle of their sentences.

"Well, time to see what you said when you thought I couldn't understand."

She activates The Clock.

***

"They'll arrive in exactly twenty-four hours," Emily informs Pod and Ivor, grabbing their attention immediately and drawing their gazes away from their workbenches.

"Is that a prediction?" Ivor signs.

"Or did you use The Clock as planned?" Pod finishes for him.

"The Clock," Emily replies, standing up and storing her current half-finished project in her belt. "Start packing up: anything you want to take goes in spatial storages. There should still be a little room left on Elisime; I'll put her in my Factory before we leave."

Her apprentices nod and immediately stand to get to work.

"How strong are our visitors, and how many?" Ivor asks as he carefully packs away the preserved honse corpse from which he was stripping the tendons.

"I don't know their exact numbers, but just over twenty left their ship to meet us, and none of them were weaker than third circle, so I'd guess they total in the hundreds. There were several among them with the energy levels of fifth circle, two around sixth, and their two leaders, whom I'd place at seventh if my estimates are correct."

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"Damn," Pod mutters in awe, glancing over with a hint of concern in his gaze. "Would you be able to beat them?"

"I'm not sure, but I doubt it without activating any of our larger, mounted defences," Emily replies, a touch of excitement bleeding into her tone despite her lack of confidence. "I'm not even sure how a battle with them would play out, given that they are neither mages nor mechanics. They hold another energy type I don't recognise and, though it was a little more difficult to recognise than it would be if I were facing a mage, I could sense the presence of innate barriers protecting them; they were sharp and bursting with vitality."

Both her apprentices' eyes widen in shock, but they quickly recover and continue sorting through their work, already used to Emily shattering their worldviews.

***

The same group leaves the spaceship hovering above to meet her, and Emily listens to their messy conversation from afar, watching the weaker members of the group speaking over each other as their leaders remain silent.

"Why did it have to be a desert?"

"Not like anywhere else would be nicer on a backwater rock like this."

"The air here's quite nice, actually, plenty of mana for a place so recently elevated."

"Shove it, snob. It ain't nothing special." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"We shouldn't even be stopping with Federation dogs on our trail."

"Ha, like they'll be close. They're probably still licking the wounds the Captain gave them."

"Fuck that, we all know the Vice-Captain's will hurt them for longer."

"Tsk, get your head out of your arse, bootlicker."

Emily notes the conflicting opinions and apparent hostility among what should be close companions, given their matching uniforms. However, they all immediately fall silent as they touch down and one of their leaders opens his mouth.

"We should just grab them and leave," the man barks, repeating the same line she had half heard before. "There won't be anything worth more on this tiny rock yet, and The Barrier breaking will draw more attention than we want right now."

"Savage," the crimson-eyed woman repeats as well, though she smiles and tilts her head after the word leaves her mouth this time, catching Emily by slight surprise. "We should just ask them nicely. They are the ones that sent out a signal to draw us here, and she's far too interesting a specimen to mistreat."

"I'm with the Captain on this one," the abnormally tall, sixth circle mage says. "We don't need more time-bombs to worry about. May as well just throw them in with the rest of the slaves for when we get to Xlanax."

"I say leave 'em here," the smaller sixth circle mage at their side says, nodding towards Mensacus. "I don't want to risk putting that one with our cargo. It smells like rot, and we don't have any slave collars left to restrain it."

Emily keeps her expression carefully blank, fully suppressing her emotions and resisting the urge to react as they demean of her son. The weaker members of the invading group begin throwing in their opinions, their confidence bolstered by their stronger peers' words.

"We should get rid of some of our cargo to free up some collars, as long as that one's somewhat stable, she'll be worth more than most of the brutes we're carrying."

"You're all morons, just ask them to join us. They're practising death magic in Federation space; they'll join us willingly if they know what's good for them."

"Ask… join… inhuman… fit…" one of the hounds says, their language still on the edge of Emily's understanding.

"Want… little one…

friend… not… a slave…" another quadruped adds.

"Give her a Universal Translator," the fanged woman says, immediately silencing the chatter. She continues to speak, but no one else seems to hear it as her rich voice brushes against Emily's ears, feeling far too close for the distance still separating them. "Though it doesn't seem like you need it."

She noticed? How? And why isn't she saying anything to her allies?

Emily's shock doesn't show on her face as she snatches the thrown Translator and slots it into place in her ear. She turns away from the grinning woman pointing at her blood-red lips, towards her son, meeting his questioning gaze.

"They just gave me what I think is a translator, but they'll need data to understand us. Assume they're recording everything we say to understand later, though. Let's show our hand a little so they know we're worth having as allies, connect us so I can translate for you."

Mensacus nods as Emily starts giving an explanation on how to make a simple gas blowback weapon system, supplying the Translator with data without risking any valuable information. The mechanical chimaera opens his third eye, bathing his family in its cold light and carefully keeping the aliens facing them out of its range as several hands immediately fly to the handles of their weapons. He forms a mental link between them, allowing them to speak without fear of prying ears.

'Don't react, but one of their leaders has realised I understand them,' Emily whispers through the link. 'For some reason, she's playing along, but keep your guards up: these people are incredibly dangerous, I'm not even sure how she realised.'

The Translator in her ear beeps with a high tone, and Emily immediately cuts off her technical information dump.

"There we go, you should all be able to understand us now, correct?" the crimson-eyed woman asks.

"That we can." Emily nods.

"Perfect," the woman purrs, before falling silent and subtly turning her head to the man beside her, giving him control of their introduction without ever looking away from Emily, her eyes roaming up and down her body and lingering on all of the runic enchantments as if she can understand them through the layers of obfuscation in place.

"Tsk, fine," the man grumbles. "I'm Yorn Balwin, seventh phase martial artist and Captain of the Heavy-blade Pirates, our little band of thieves. This is my right hand, Silvia, also at the seventh phase. We picked up on your signal a short while after we heard this planet's Mortal Barrier shattering and split from the rest of our crew to come check it out."

Yorn falls silent and glares at her, silently urging Emily to reciprocate the introduction.

"I'm Emily Coldstone, fifth stage mechanic, and these are my children: Mensacus and Silica, at the fourth and second circles respectively, and my followers: Podrick Rockworth and Ivor Juric, second stage and second circle."

Harriet crackles just beneath her skin, displeased with the lack of introduction but willing to play along for now for the sake of deceit.

"Quite the odd group you have here," Yorn says as his gaze filled with undisguised greed washes over them. "You don't often see mages following mechanics willingly, let alone raised by them."

"Yes, well, I'm an odd woman with a lot of skills to offer, and there aren't many on this planet who would've been willing to build a vessel for a cursed consciousness," she responds vaguely, letting him come to his own conclusions about Ivor and Silica.

"Right…" Yorn mumbles, considering for a moment and only relenting when Silvia finally breaks her gaze away from Emily to glance at him intentionally. "Anyway, what's important here is this: we don't have a lot of time since this planet falls within the territory of The Federation, and we're all wanted criminals according to their laws. Your child there will likely have you marked as one as well, unless you willingly give him up the moment they arrive, so are you willing to join our crew and leave with us, or do you want to wait and take your chances with them?"

'They'll take us by force if we say no anyway,' Emily sneers internally, filling her family in on the conversation she heard before their connection was forged.

"We'll come with you," she responds aloud without a single sign of her disdain. "We're no strangers to being wanted criminals, and I'll never give up my children."

"Grab anything you need and follow us then. You have thirty minutes."

Yorn turns and kicks off, shattering the ground and shooting back up towards his ship with nothing but the strength of his body. Silvia grins and bids them welcome before copying him without kicking up any sand, and their crew follow them using various methods, only a few offering perfunctory welcomes before they go, leaving Emily to dwell on her surprise at both martial artists' bodily strength, and Yorn's use of a familiar unit of time.