356
David slapped the BRIGHTSPEED button again when they neared the nostrils of Kabberjaw. The Dreadnought slowed to a crawl, from 980 kilometers an hour to 4. A few deceleration problems snapped through the Dreadnought and everyone had to hold onto something to stop from flying forward (while one Derek stood on the deck and purposefully didn’t hold onto anything so he went flying) but Eliot was already fixing the problems. No one was hurt, unless they were trying to get hurt.
“I only flew 15 meters! I’m fine,” Derek said.
“Good results all around,” Eliot announced. “It’ll be better when we get those grav crystals and I can negate inertia a fair amount, but this was pretty good!”
Mark nodded, and then he turned his attention back toward the world outside, because there was another problem.
The ocean was a darkening thing. That was not the problem. They still had several minutes to get inside the nostrils, and from the scans it appeared both nostrils led to the same harbor inside. The nostrils were 20 kilometers wide, but the left one had been cracked open in some ancient time, and was larger than the right. Maybe 40 kilometers across. David had aimed for the larger nostril. Lots of space in there.
The land beyond was full of light, like a grand city in a giant crescent.
But some ships were arrayed in lines across the harbors, each of them a beacon of brightest light.
A giant red hand, a hologram, was in the air between the Dreadnought and the larger nostril. Right in front, palm out, fingers up; an obvious ‘stop’ if Mark had ever seen one.
“Comms?” Mark asked, gripping to the side of the castle, near the observation deck.
Eliot spoke in the comms, “Not picking up anything, but they surely see us. I hailed them once. I’m gonna hail them.”
Mark stepped into the air, hovering up toward Isoko, and Isoko turned the air thick enough to keep him afloat without too much actual effort. Isoko glanced at him, then she turned back toward the big red hand in the air, over the boats blockading the harbor.
A minute passed.
Mark glanced down at the ocean. The surface was nearly opaque with darkness, now.
Eliot turned on the bright lights of the Dreadnought and the cargo hold below must have opened up for Derek, because a team of Dereks zoomed out into the dimming sky, their hovercraft lit up with full ‘defenses’. The lights around the Dreadnought turned up a degree and the darkness in the ocean directly below them sort of boiled away, revealing clear waters.
“Nothing yet?” Mark asked.
Eliot said, “That dragon, Betenala, is openly asking everyone why they blockaded us. She seems indignant. Others are talking about how it’s just some human whatevers, and telling her to stay out of it.”
Mark watched as Derek’s personal hoverboat went out into the air over the waters.
Mark turned back toward the blockade, which seemed to be automated. No people down there at all. Some people were beyond the curtain of light, though, deep in the harbor on the other side. The darkness was crawling into the harbor, but not nearly as much as it was outside—
Something very, very large slithered in that darkness below the Dreadnought, and Mark heard, like a song on the other side of a closed door, something like a kaiju Call. It was too distant to be a real Call. Too soft.
But it was there.
Andria started panicking—
Mark said, “Open comms for me, Eliot. All frequencies but the dragon one.”
“Open.”
Mark said, “Hello, Stronghold. This is Mark Careed, requesting entrance.”
Nothing.
Mark said, “Allof the radios, Eliot.”
“… All of them?”
“Even dragon radio, yes—”
The radio crackled and the red hand of the harbor vanished, the light curtain opening, as a male voice came over the air, “Welcome to Stronghold, Mister Careed! Please get inside—”
“Let him die out there!” interrupted a woman’s voice. “Let all of the heretics die—”
“Get her the FUCK— Shit. Still on— Please come in quickly. This is Wang Lo, Leader of the Skull Guard, and we spoke earlier.” Wang Lo tried to be personable, ‘happily’ saying, “You are cleared for arrival into Stronghold!”
David started driving forward, passing over the ships in the harbor.
As Mark responded, “Thank you for the warm welcome into Stronghold. We look forward to spending the short night here, and handing out lots of goods to the people who need them. Perhaps we can even do some shopping in—”
“We threw your fucking grav crystal into the ocean! Ha!” said the woman from before. “You damned dirty HERETIC!”
The radio crackled.
The Dreadnought passed into the harbor completely, and the light curtain went up behind them.
Out there, twilight began to flow into the sky, the roof of the world still bright blue, but the horizon in every single direction crawled with gloom. Derek was out there in his hovercraft, like a bright spot of light about 5 kilometers out from the harbor wall and getting further by the moment.
Inside the harbor… it was daytime, Mark supposed.
The interior of the harbor was sort of hard to understand, but Mark knew anatomy well enough to get it, after a moment. This was a dragon’s skull. Predominantly the nostril section. That meant a bunch of confusing passages to the brain area in the back of the place, but it also meant a giant cavern in this area. This particular nasal cavity was about 80 kilometers across.
Water filled the space in the center while a grand city of towers, low buildings, and greenery formed a wide crescent, reaching almost all the way around the confusing, spikey-white of the place. The left side, the one with the break, began way over there, with a lighthouse-like thing sticking out into that break. The lighthouse shone brightly.
The entire harbor was a bit dimmer with something like twilight in the air, but it was still rather bright. Where was the light coming from? Maybe from the bone itself, overhead? Maybe. The ‘sky’ shouldhave been dark, and darker still with the darkness outside, but it was actually quite bright in here. The bone looked lit up… somehow, like there was some sort of ambient light just… in the air, or something.
As for the harbor itself, the waters were deep and blue, and not dark at all. The bottom of the harbor was the bottom of the nasal cavity, and also the top of the mouth. The center of that space had been broken out long ago. The water in here was bright with daylight, with deeper lights illuminating the depths around that break in the nasal cavity, and even down there, in the depths, beyond that absolutely massive ‘sinkhole’ like space, it was still ‘daylight clear’ water.
Parts of the ‘nasal shelf’ formed a ‘beach’, way over there, and over there, too. Several places had beaches. White sand beaches, it seemed, with buildings beyond.
Civilization was everywhere in here, extended around the nasal cavity, onto the ‘walls’, where roads and tunnels had been carved between the sections of the skull that led to the eye sockets, and even further overhead, with some buildings up there in the smaller sinuses. Most of those buildings looked uninhabited, but they still had active skull lights on the outside… And the lights were skull-shaped. Mark didn’t see that at first, but he saw it clearly now that Quark was picking those skull-lights out. Well okay then.
Most buildings had little glowing dragon skulls on them, somewhere. Usually over the front door.
Did Raptor have glowing skulls? Mark didn’t even notice, and he was pretty sure they did not have glowing skulls at all? Was it some religious thing? Highly likely.
Stronghold looked a lot healthier than Raptor.
Everything here was bone-white or green and brown with life.
Far ahead, across the 90 kilometer wide space, docks extended out into the waters and the docks were full. The boats were in for the night. Most of the boats were similar in size to the ones back at Raptor, but there were a few larger ‘fighter’ boats with big engines on them and even a few guns.
Those fighter boats hovered in the air a good 50 kilometers ahead, toward the left, at what seemed to be a big hoverdock.
And then there were the people, or rather, the lack of them.
It was night, so most people were sleeping or getting ready to sleep, but still…
The city looked empty.
The lights were on, but almost no one was home.
Mark’s team was fully awake, though, and they were a bit more awake after hearing that the woman on the radio had thrown the grav crystal into the water.
Mark responded to that woman by saying, “You can tell us where you dropped it and we’ll go get it.”
The woman yelled, “The raiders have already taken it! Good luck fighting Captain Grey! Ha ha! Fuck you!”
“Get her OUT OF H—” Wang Lo cut himself off and tried not to sigh too much, as he said, “We’ll help you recover it, of course, honored guest. We deeply apologize for this affront and pray to God that you forgive us. Please, let us honor you with a late night meal, at the palace. We have rooms for you all if you would please partake of them, a feast that will be ready in a few hours, and then we can go get your grav crystal in the morning. I fear that the original 50,000 kilos will probably be… somewhat compromised but please do not let the actions of one… honored elder influence your opinion of us. Shrine Keeper Sela Vonn is simply enthusiastic about God. Once we set all of that to rights, perhaps Mister Cybersong will assist us with that order of mechanicals that Elkatracks desired?”
Mark said, “We’re not spending the night at your residences—” Derek wanted to speak up. Mark adjusted himself, “One of our people will spend the night. Derek Kevins.” Derek made some happy vectors inside the ship. Mark continued, “In the morning, Eliot will do the crafting wherever you want it done, and we’ll go shopping, and we’ll eat the feast wherever you want. How about around noon for the feast? We’ll get the grav crystal eventually so I’m not too worried about that, unless the raiders can take it out of Kabberjaw and actually sell it somewhere?”
Wang Lo seemed more relaxed with the slower schedule, saying, “We will welcome Mister Kevins into our residences, including his multiple bodies. Your desired schedule is agreed.”
Mark glanced down, and as though Derek had been waiting for the go-ahead, he took off on a little hoverskiff, sailing across the open air of the harbor. It’d still take him half an hour to get to the palace… wherever that was. Mark assumed he knew where he was going.
Mark said, “He’s on his way, now. Where should we park our ship?”
Some small instructions followed and soon David was pulling forward, into the air of the harbor.
As they traveled, the world beyond the left nostril slowly and totally turned dark with night.
“We’re staying on board for the night?” Isoko asked.
“Yes,” Mark said, “It’s been a big day. Maybe we could order take-out from Stronghold, if you all want new foods?”
Andria said, “Yes! I want a whole arrangement! They have a night guard here, right?”
“I like that idea a lot,” Sally said.
Mark said, “You two get on the comms and see about that, but meanwhile there’s a godly discussion to be had regarding the ‘honored elder’ Shrine Keeper Sela… whatever?” Mark had forgotten the name. Quark reminded him. “Sela Vonn, Quark is telling me. Sela Vonn.”
Tartu easily, instantly said, “It’s dragon worship. Look at that space on the backside of the nostrils.”
Mark turned, and wondered how in the hell he had missed that.
A big shrine/temple/church/lighthouse grew on the interior side of the bone, between the nostrils. It was a huge place, with spiraling horn-like towers, and each tower had a giant glowing dragon skull set atop them. No people, though. Completely empty of people. That’s why Mark didn’t feel it.
“Oh yeah. That’s dragon worship,” Mark said.
“You read about it,” Lola softly said, almost to herself, “But you never seeit— Well. I think I saw it once, years and years ago, but that was just a kid who liked to paint dragons. Everyone thought he was weird. Went on to join the HVP as a monster designer… I had completely forgotten about that.”
David spoke up, “I’ve seen it before. It’s usually a lot more hidden than this. If the Empire were here they’d bomb this place into non-existence.”
Mark realized something, again. Before, when meeting Chief Ariku, Tartu had startled at the mention of a certain dragon that Mark almost recalled, but not quite.
So Mark asked now, “Who is Farhowla?”
Tartu startled again, debated not answering the question, and then rapidly decided to get it over with. He said, “Farhowla was the heir apparent to Gedahowla the Bright, who was the dragon who ran the Empire before the Aluatha Imperial Family executed her with the backing of the rest of the Imperial Dragon Coven. After that grand revolution the Aluathas further executed all of the traitorous dragons in that coven and took over the Empire.”
Ah.
Yeah.
Not quite how Mark had ever heard the story before, but sure. Close enough.
When Elaria Valen, Aurora’s mother, spoke about ‘worship’ as her main magical language, when she spoke of her murdered familiar praying alongside her with a hundred praying hands and a hundred voices raised high, she had been speaking of the Worship of Dragons. Probably her worship of Gedahowla the Bright. Whatever Kabberjaw was —and it was a lot— it was certainly a place out of time with current politics.
It was full of dragon worshipers.
That must have been why ‘Skull Keeper’ Sela Vonn had been so adamant in labeling the Dreadnought full of heretics. From her perspective, they were heretics.
Derek had a different revelation. He went, “Oh shit! You think Farhowla is here?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Mark instantly told Derek, “We’re not interacting with him if he is here.”
Derek was miffed.
Tartu was deeply relieved. “Thank the gods.”
“Lotta gods out there, Tartu,” Isoko said, “So be sure to thank the right ones!”
“Thank... Verdago, then,” Tartu said, stumbling a bit, his vector betraying how weird it felt to say that.
No one made fun of him for stumbling, or for naming Verdago, but Derek really, really wanted to.
Instead, Derek said, “So the shadows aren’t doing much out there; the lights are keeping them away from me.”
Another Derek said, “And people are partying in Raptor’s streets like it's a festival day. The shadows are down the streets, but they’re not coming near the light at all.”
Another Derek added, “Still a few more hours before the actually-dangerous part of night comes on, but everyone in Raptor is telling me that it’s not a big deal as long as you’re in town, and ‘don’t let those fools at Stronghold tell you otherwise!’. Want me to ask about the Shrine Keepers?”
“Yeah,” Mark said, “Please do, Derek.”
“Sure thing, boss!”
And time kinda passed, as the Dreadnought flowed forward, keeping it slow and steady.
Mark kinda grinned, gazing out at a giant indoorharbor, located inside the nasal cavityof an ancient dragonthat was half the size of Australia. Just! Gods! Imagine that! He had never even dreamed of being in a place like this, ever…But he had always dreamed of helping people. He never thought about being the person that helped facilitate othersto craft easily-granted supplies of necessary goods and services. But this… this was kinda the dream.
The world seemed so very, very big.
Eventually, David parked the ship about 5 kilometers out from the main harbor dock.
Soon after, Andria complained, “Ughhh! They won’t let me order take-out!”
Mark snorted in disbelief. “What? Why not?”
“The radio waves are being monitored and controlled for some bizarre reason! I just don’t get it,” Eliot said, “So, we’re trying to ring up some night guard place, you know. One that serves food 24/10 —there are 10 days a week here— and the person on the other end of the line is pretending to be the call-in person for the restaurant but I KNOW they’re not at the restaurant we’re calling, because I got eyes on that place and the phone isn’t even ringing there.” Eliot added, “I’m about 2 steps away from sending in a hologram to the bored guy at the public service counter and ordering for us.”
“Do it, Eliot,” Andria said, so very seriously, “I want whatever that Skilled Cook is cooking, and I don’t care what it is.”
David piped up, “A Skilled Cook?”
“Ohh! I want fried foods, too!” Sally said.
“I’ll go pick it up,” David added. “Sally can sit at the controls if needed.”
“Okay!” Sally said.
Mark said, “Put me through and let metry, Eliot, before we go throwing too much weight around.”
Eliot snorted, and said, “Like youwon’t throw your weight around... One second… Almost got— There! Go ahead.”
The line chimed, and then chimed again, like the ringing of a bell. It was not at all like the ringing of a phone line back home—
“Hello! This is Southern Style Cooking. How can I help you?”
“Hi,” Mark said, “This is the big ship out in the harbor and we’d like to order takeout. Can I get 3 of everything on the menu? What do you guys use for money here, anyway?”
“Uhhh,” the person said, sounding unsure, “Sorry, sir, we don’t, uh, sell to people out there.”
… They really were pulling this shit, huh?
What a strange thing to not allow!
“Uhhuh uhhuh uhhuh… Hey, soooo,” Mark said, “I knowthis call is being routed to someone who isn’t actually at Southern Style Cooking, so I’m just gonna tellyou what’s gonna happen. We’re getting that food, and we’ll pick it up, and you need to connect me to them, right now, or else we’re gonna have an international incident on our hands.”
“Sir! I… I don’t know what to tell you! We can’t deliver out there because we have no boats and it’s dark!”
Mark was looking at Southern Style Cooking with Quark’s help, right now.
Some guy was sitting at a service counter open to the street and some guards in white clothes were eating fried dumplings or something at a coral table on the other side of the street. The service counter guy was bored. The phone next to him was an old red rotary phone that Mark had only ever seen in old movies, and it was very much not in the guy’s hands. The cook in the back was reading a very well-read book, and a hover skiff was parked in a little alcove behind the building. That hover skiff had ‘Southern Style Cooking’ in big letters in a box on the back.
Quark rated the skiff as capable of reaching most of the neighborhood around the place, and even the ship. The Dreadnought was only parked 5 kilometers off of the shore, now. The entire city could see it, floating there, but the restaurant could not. It did not face the harbor at all.
Mark told the guy on the phone, “This is sucha weird hill to die on, whoever-is-on-the-other-side-of-this-call. We’re trying to order some food. So I repeat, this is such a strange thing for your country to even tryand do. Stop us from ordering food? From a place that is open at night and with guys sitting right there, bored, waiting to make food? Based on what I saw at Raptor I have half a mind to go aroundyour petty-as-shit government and hand out supplies to everyone here, and damn your rude government. SO! I am asking politely... Do you guys use gold? Or some other currency? Because I’d like to order from Southern Style Cooking now.”
The vectors of his teammates were solidly behind Mark, for various reasons. Sally had the biggest reaction; she was hungry and she absolutely hated petty government shit.
“… uhhh. You’re breaking up I c—t hear y—”
The call disconnected to static.
… Mark said to Eliot, “Try calling again.”
The phone chimed twice, and in Mark’s Quark-connected vision, he saw the bored counter-guy suddenly shock to life and frantically pick up the old rotary phone, smiling.
“Southern Style Cooking! This is Atto! What can I get for you?”
Mark smiled, saying, “Hello, Atto. I’m with the big ship out in the harbor and we heard you got a Skilled Cook, and my guys want to buy 2 of everything on your menu. What do you use for currency here, though?”
Quark brought up an image of the menu, captured by Eliot’s spy drones. It looked to be mostly fried dough-things, fried vegetables, and fried fish. The prices were listed in ‘C’, which might have been the copper chits that he had seen barely nothing of back in Raptor.
On the other side of the line, Atto scrunched his face, not understanding what he had heard.
Mark asked his team, “Is 2 of everything good, or do we want more?”
Sally spoke up, “Four of everything. It’s a small menu.”
Mark corrected himself, “Four of everything.”
Eliot said, “Offer a complete kitchen remodel. I’d need to forge their currency if they want C and I don’t want to do that.”
Mark added, “And my friend can do a complete kitchen remodel with up-to-date stuff. He says he doesn’t want to forge the currency. What is the currency, anyway? Is it copper?”
Atto hadn’t spoken yet, and in the video feed he was kinda staring at the phone call. The guards from the city were looking at him now, asking questions that Quark translated into captions. One guy shouted ‘what is happening’ and another told Atto to ask who it was. Atto was terrified of the guard, his entire night suddenly turning dangerous, as he went wide-eyed and shaking his head, saying ‘It’s the big ship in the harbor!’
The guards looked at him, and then one of the guards picked up the phone, demanding, “Who is this?”
Mark said, “This is the ship in the harbor, the Dreadnought, looking to buy some food. We’re not quite sure about the currency, though, so we’re offering services for food instead. A remodel of the kitchen, however they want.”
The guard hung up the phone and then he yelled at Atto to ‘not talk to foreigners!’ and ‘you know the rules!’ and Atto just crumbled under the yelling and he promptly shut down for the night. He slapped wooden shutters closed over the counter while apologizing the whole time, and soon he vanished into the restaurant.
“… Well okay then,” Mark said.
Sally said, “So that’s pretty fucked up.”
“Quite,” Lola said.
Tartu asked a serious question, “Are we toppling a nation? Because if we are then Imperial Aluatha has rules of conduct to follow.”
“Oh my Drakarok,” Sally said, and then she sincerely asked, “Are we?”
“We’re notdoing that,” Mark said, instantly.
Tartu just said, “Okaaay.”
Isoko, floating beside Mark, said, “We weren’t allowed to enter Crytalis, either, so… this extreme xenophobia is common and it has a reasonable explanation. Diseases and such.”
Mark had been about to disagree with her, but then she said diseases, and Mark kinda hummed. “They yelled at that guy, Atto, making him terrified for his life for talking to us. That was a very real thing.”
“… Well…” Isoko went quiet.
Lola said, “All of this likely has more to do with the ‘Shrine Keeper’ dragon-worshipers, and the danger of a much stronger culture coming in and disrupting everything, than it does with actual tyrannical government oppressors.”
Derek said, “Raptor seemed alright and they hate this place, so this place is shit and everyone knows it.”
“… That is a valid point,” Lola said.
The conversation lapsed.
“If you guys want to sleep or something, I’m on duty,” Mark said.
Derek said, “I’m on duty, too!”
“And I,” David said.
There was some more conversation, and Andria was disappointed and kinda mad, but she was talking to Sally and Tartu now. Mark wasn’t a part of that. Soon, Isoko turned in and so did everyone else.
Mark had David and Derek to keep him company in the night, as he did some passes around the ship now and again. Derek spoke of his experience at the palace, and also out there in the dark, and at Raptor.
It was a night.
It was not peaceful, but it certainly looked that way to outsiders.