Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

They march deeper into the station, passing tens of hangars with locked doors and a few with doors wide open, giving them a clear view of the ships and crews within. Most of the hangars are smaller than the one the Heavy-blade Pirates have claimed, with only enough room for a couple of medium-sized ships.

It takes a little while for them to reach the end of the hallway, where they arrive at a wall covered in doors of various sizes. Some are at ground level, and others are suspended halfway up, with people rising to them on wings, magic, flying swords, and jetpacks, using whatever means feel most comfortable to them. The doors open and close periodically, letting one group in at a time, and Emily's reminded of the transportation rooms back in The Dome.

Yorn lets his sharp qi flow freely, parting the slight crowd with his presence alone and walking straight towards the largest door.

Emily doesn't miss the glances being cast towards their group, dripping with envy, greed, and caution in equal parts. Though a lot of the people she sees aren't covering their faces as everyone did in Chroni's black market, the tense, hostile atmosphere hanging over them is almost identical. She doesn't feel threatened, despite being surrounded on all sides by unfriendly gazes, but her hand does move to rest against one of the pistols openly strapped to her leg, making sure the warning is clear to anyone who sees it.

The door before them slides open when Yorn taps his identity token to its scanner, and their group files into the metal chamber beyond.

The moment the last guard trailing at the back of the slave procession is in, the doors shut behind them, and Yorn begins fiddling with a screen listing the station's different sectors.

It's more like an elevator than a magic transporter.

The room shudders slightly as he inputs their destination, before going near still, with only a slight hum of vibration under their feet to tell them they're moving. Emily's a little surprised when she feels the room shift from vertical to sideways movement, but as she tries to scan the mechanisms moving them, she hits resistance. Her machina flows freely through the floor and walls, giving her a better look at the inner workings of the control display, but there's a spherical net of charge wrapping the transporter and blocking her from accessing the surrounding station.

When the doors finally open again after several minutes of movement, they exit into an opulent hall with white stone floors and golden filigree covering the walls and ceiling. There are golden chandeliers covered in glowing crystals floating overhead, not attached to anything, and beneath them stand three beings wearing flowing white robes stitched with golden thread.

Emily dislikes the room instantly. She feels faint traces of mana woven into the excessive gold, forming a spell to keep it clean and shining, but no real substance in the needlessly dazzling room.

"Captain Yorn, what a pleasure it is to have you patronising our business once again," says the robed figure in the centre of the room, who emits the presence of a fifth phase martial artist, stepping forward and gesturing for them to approach.

They're humanoid in form, but instead of skin, they're covered in scales, and their smile reveals rows of needle-thin teeth that almost look as threatening as the gaping black holes that are their eyes. Emily glances to her son at her side and sees him tilting his head curiously at their resemblance.

"No one else in the Association works as efficiently as you, Loph'iim," Yorn replies, stepping forward and clasping hands with the scaled businessman. "The pleasure is ours."

"Ha, well, if efficiency's what you value, efficiency's what you'll get," the fishman beams with an eerie grin, turning his cold gaze to sweep over the listless crowd of prisoners. "Looks like you've brought us a fine stock of merchandise this time. Mind if we have a closer look?"

"By all means."

Yorn steps aside and gestures the man and his associates forward.

One of his associates is a fish-like humanoid resembling Loph'iim, though they're only fourth phase, and wears a nearly scale-tight bubble of water over their head that extends from a luminescent blue choker around their neck. The other is a fourth circle mage that looks to be the same species as the worm-headed mage in their crew that Emily saw in her dream, with a face and limbs made from small writhing tentacles.

The crewmembers standing guard around the prisoners clear the way, without the need for an order, and the merchants begin inspecting the crowd of just over a hundred captives. They check each one carefully, with Loph'iim leaning in closely to judge their facial features, sometimes pulling away loose robes to check their proportions before he moves on. The other fish-person takes their hands one by one, turning them up and pressing fingers to their exposed flesh on pulse points before pouring qi into them. The worm-faced creature places a squirming hand to the crown of their heads, letting milky-white mana swim through their minds.

None of them speaks out loud, but Emily can sense the invisible threads of mental mana linking them and doesn't doubt they're sharing their findings.

"Another fine batch," Loph'iim finally says, walking back to face Yorn after their assessment has dragged on for far too long, letting Emily's crawling disgust build beneath her skin like buzzing static begging to be given form. "No notable faces, all in near-perfect condition, minds sufficiently prepared for reformatting. You've once again proven your crew's worthy of your reputation."

"How much?" Yorn responds without a flicker of emotion at the flowing flattery.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Credits, or resources?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"Resources; I'm not a fool to be fleeced."

"Haha, of course not, of course not. You know how it is: always polite to ask."

Yorn doesn't look amused.

"Since you've managed to bring one at the sixth phase, I'm in a generous mood," Loph'iim continues, not batting an eye at Yorn's cold stare. "How does… thirty low grade essences sound?"

Emily doesn't outwardly react, but she's floored by the value of their prisoners.

That's insane. The Path of Ascension didn't reward us with nearly that many, and that's a once in a hundred years event.

"Four mid grade spirit essences, and twenty-five assorted low grades," Yorn responds calmly.

"Three mid grade and twenty low grade," Loph'iim fires back without missing a beat.

"Four mid grade and twenty low grade."

"Four mid grade and fifteen low grade."

"Four mid grade and twenty low grade."

"Fine," Loph'iim sighs, holding a hand to his chest as his expression crumples in pain. "Four mid grade and eighteen low grade."

"Deal." Yorn holds his hand out, and Loph'iim's supposed pain vanishes as he clasps it with a toothy smile.

"Always a pleasure doing business with you."

Loph'iim turns to his mage associate and silently nods. Yorn's gaze finds the crewmember who looks like them and nods as well.

Both mages approach one of the prisoners, a woman with fur tracing the edges of her face and covering her exposed hands. She's at the front of the group, staring blankly into space, but the moment the two mages place their hands on her head and entwine their tendrils, her face snaps into awareness. She glares and bares her teeth, letting out a low growl, but it turns to a whimper that turns Emily's stomach when a milky-white light washes over her.

A magic circle forms around her, and the two mages quietly chant in a guttural language that their Translators don't translate. Emily focuses on their words instead of what they're doing, but though she can feel power behind the sounds they're making, she can't make sense of what they're saying, even with her linguistics skill.

The sickening process is over after a few seconds, and when the two mages withdraw their hands, the woman is back to staring blankly ahead. The crew's mental mage taps the magical focus in their other hand against the side of the woman's collar, and it detaches with a click, falling into their waiting palm. Their flesh writhes and swallows the collar, putting it away somewhere as they turn to the next prisoner to continue.

Emily turns her eyes away from the brainwashing and meets Silvia's gaze. The vampire's face is calm, but her crimson eyes are dripping with both disgust and a familiar bloodlust. Cold acceptance settles in Emily's chest as she lets all other emotions slip away, understanding what her recent dream was telling her she's going to do.

Can I really be called a traitor if the members of the crew I've interacted with the most side with me?

***

Once the last slave's collar has been released, Loph'iim sends one of his associates into a side room to retrieve a storage ring filled with their payment. Yorn accepts it and slides it onto his finger before offering his closed fist to Silvia. She taps one of her storage rings against his, and with a quick burst of qi, a transfer is made.

Emily, Pod, and her children, escorted by a few chimaeric hounds, silently follow the Vice-captain to the exit before anyone else moves to leave. When the door shuts behind them, Silvia approaches the control screen with Emily at her side.

"Would you like to start with getting your piracy mark, or visiting the central hub?" Silvia asks, her hand hovering over the control display.

"The hub," Emily replies. "Is it okay for us to leave on our own? Won't the others have to wait a while to return to the ship now that we're occupying the transporter?"

"They'll be fine." Silvia shrugs, selecting their destination and turning to lean back against the wall as the room shudders into motion. "As soon as we're moving, another transport bubble will take this one's place. The tracks for all the bubbles are linked in Xlanax, and there's enough of them that you never really need to wait."

"Do other stations use the same system?"

"Some. Especially around the outskirts of Guild space, since it's one of the cheaper internal station movement systems. Though some places separate their movement tracks for added security."

It doesn't take long for the bubble to come to a halt and, when the door slides open, Emily steps out into a world of metal. The hub is a cavernous open space that could easily hold Chroni several times over. The geometry of the space is a little confusing, as it stretches into the distance where Emily can see the buildings and walls twisting and turning until they appear horizontal as they disappear around a gradual corner, but no one else seems to spare the view a second glance.

The ceiling high above is covered in buzzing electrical floodlights that illuminate the space like broad daylight, and there are metal spheres travelling at high speed along crisscrossing magnetic strips between them, casting flickering shadows onto the buildings below and making the space feel alive.

"Come on," Silvia says, leisurely stepping out of the bubble and stepping onto thin air using invisible footholds of qi. "We can look around for a bit and grab a drink before getting to business. We have time."

"When are we due back on the ship?" Emily asks as she follows, feeling Silvia wrap her and the others in a thin layer of qi. She doesn't resist, and the Vice-captain lifts them up to join her in the sky.

"We'll be having a meeting to decide where we go next in fifty hours, though I'll return sooner than that to continue my cultivation. You're free to stay out and explore if you want, obviously, but make sure you're back in time. You may not be a branch head, but the brute does somewhat value the voices of all our members fifth level and above."

They glide over the hub, passing other awakened beings flying freely and looking down on the tightly packed metal buildings below. They all vary in size and shape, with some taking the appearance of stout domestic dwellings while others creep up past the rest and hang clearly visible glowing signs advertising businesses. There are hundreds of unawakened creatures milling about the narrow streets between them, all of them carrying weapons and some of them using them.

Emily catches sight of two men staring each other down with guns drawn, surrounded by a cheering crowd as they spit vitriol at each other. Their argument builds until one fires, and the other follows suit a fraction of a second later before dropping to the ground to clutch a bleeding abdomen. His opponent drops dead with a hole in his head, but before the man can celebrate, someone steps out from the crowd and slits his throat.

The other instigators choose between joining in a larger brawl for the scraps left on their corpses and turning to vanish into the crowd, satisfied with the show.

"Is there no one here to enforce any rules?" Emily asks, watching blood paint the street in a spattering of different colours that favour reds and blues.

Silvia glances down at the scuffle before it vanishes from sight with indifferent boredom in her gaze and shrugs.

"Not among the mortals," she replies, turning back to scanning buildings for their destination. "The Bloodcoin Merchants will have awakened guards somewhere nearby to respond if needed, but they only really care about fights among the awakened that could cause damage to the station."