Chapter 284 – Plane Entry

Emily takes her place in the pilot seat and sets the neural link on her head, connecting to it with a stream of machina and letting Harriet flow into the ship’s systems to watch and assist should it be needed. She checks the destination readout, pointing her towards a set of coordinates directly ahead, where Elwaine’s fleet last sent out a location broadcast for the rest of the crew. Next to the destination readout is a list of coordinates marking the borders of the closest known body’s orbit and atmosphere, which they’re rapidly approaching.

“Prepare for atmospheric entry,” she says, broadcasting her voice to the other pilots in the squad following closely behind her ship.

She adjusts the steering flaps around the craft’s thrusters with hundreds of micromovements a second to keep them perfectly on track, watching their positional coordinates carefully and lining up with the border readings to meet the atmosphere at a shallow angle. She waits for the plane’s gravity to start interfering. Strangely, it seems to have little to no effect on the ship despite them being well within what would be its range of influence were it a planet. The plane doesn’t seem to grow in their vision as they get closer, staying perfectly sized to fill their sight.

“That’s… I want to say not natural, but I know it is,” Emily muses. “I wonder why qi has such a strange effect on forming astral bodies, whilst mana leaves them nearly identical to a neutral planet.”

“Nearly identical?” questions the pilot who gave up his seat, standing at her shoulder and staring down at her incredulously. “You can only say that because you grew up on a mana-based planet, and yours was particularly tame compared to most others. I’ve seen habitable planets made completely of fire before: try to call that normal.”

“You have a point, but at least with those I’ve seen, their gravity still acts normally.”

“Just wait,” says the other pilot, sitting back in their seat, relaxed and letting Emily have full control. “You’ll notice gravity acting soon enough.”

Their words prove true. The moment they enter the plane, the canopy is engulfed in a pale mist that blocks their view, and a sudden influx of forces hits them. Emily keeps a close eye on their positional coordinates, quickly making thousands of adjustments to keep balanced as gravity and air resistance several times stronger than on Ulea slam into the ship. She converts a drop of her machina covering the ship’s hull into spatial mana to get a more accurate feel for their position as she turns up the power to their shields to compensate for the atmosphere burning up against them.

The canopy is covered by a kaleidoscope of red, white, and blue, but Emily holds the ship steady regardless, remaining completely unconcerned by the lack of vision and reaching out with her spatial mana to confirm none of the squadron’s ships has broken from the pack. It takes several minutes for air to stop burning up before them as they slow to planetary speed, and when the film of burning plasma clinging to the ship’s shields finally fades, so too does the mist of qi.

The landscape below is far closer than Emily would have expected so soon after atmospheric entry, only ten or so kilometres away already, and it’s nothing like any natural formation she’s seen on Ulea. Directly beneath the squadron is a long river cutting through a valley of sharp rocky outcroppings, dotted with bursts of vibrant green earth and plant life, but around the large valley, there are countless floating islands, seemingly held up by nothing and anchored in place, unmoving. Some of the islands hold glistening pools of beautiful, clear water, bubbling up from their centres and pouring over the edges to form cascading falls that join the river below, while others are nothing but bare rock.

Docked on top of several of the barren islands, Emily sees some of the Heavy-Blade ships they’re tracking, along with a small contingent of crewmembers guarding them. However, the majority of Elwaine’s fleet remains unseen.

“Have they split up?” Emily mutters, directing her squadron towards one of the larger floating landmasses.

“I bet they’ve hidden most of their unmanned ships,” the pilot at her shoulder explains, pointing out the weapons of the exposed ships tracking them through the sky as they get closer. “If they’re fighting on this plane, it’s likely on foot: they’re probably hunting down mechanoid forces trying to steal resources.”

“Makes sense.” Emily sends out a signal layered with her machina, establishing a connection with the docked ships on their crew’s usual comms frequency and burning some energy to immediately begin watching them for other outgoing messages. “Hold your fire, we’re friendly. This is Emily returning from dungeon drop-off.”

“I thought Rotwin’s fleet was your closest linkup,” the smooth, feminine voice of one of the crew’s pilots responds with confusion. “Whatever, weapons disengaged. You’re free to approach.”

Emily sets her ship down directly beside the largest visible ship, which the responding pilot is in control of, and directs the rest of her squadron to set down around them.

“You’re a natural,” says the pilot whose seat she took as she disconnects from his neural link and makes to get up. “That was a textbook entry and landing.”

“It’s not hard when you have a spatial affinity and enough energy to spare to feel out every inch of the ship and its surroundings at once,” she responds with a dismissive shrug and a small, barely noticeable smile, casting Blink to leave the bridge and ignoring the good-natured grumbling comments she leaves behind.

She arrives outside in the blink of an eye, taking the plane’s heightened gravity and qi-dense atmosphere in her stride, making for open air. She has to block a distress alert when the pilot who allowed her to approach notices her proudly displayed mana signature as she walks up into the sky on a conjured stairway of wind, a clear discrepancy from the mechanic they know her to be. She watches the ship’s external hardpoints turning towards her, preparing to shoot her down, and calmly sends out a crackling stream of machina to forcefully wrestle away control of the vessel from the weaker mechanic.

“Don’t worry, I am who I say I am,” she calls out, boosting her voice with mana to make sure she’s heard. “Give me a moment, and I’ll explain.”

She stops at a central point between all of the guarding ships and crewmembers before pulling out her mental magic focus and casting out a web of connections to ensnare their minds. It takes a couple of minutes to follow her usual process and verify who can be trusted before applying Mental Lock, but when she’s done, a little over half of the crewmembers stationed across the floating islands have been marked as targets.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Emily mutters to herself, activating her lightning connection and letting the threads of mental mana still linked to those who refused her offer ignite, turning them to thrumming streams of charge which she fills with enough energy to roast even a fourth phase martial artist.

As she releases her connection and lowers herself back down to the floating island that she docked her ship on, the pilot who spoke with her earlier steps out of her ship to meet her. The woman looks to be an ordinary human, with a single exposed metal leg, and surprisingly, she’s a third phase martial artist.

“I take it you’ve already visited Rotwin’s fleet then,” the pilot says with a friendly smile, seemingly unbothered by Emily killing so many of her crewmates.

“That I have.” Emily nods. “They had far fewer loyalists in their ranks: we only had to scrap a single ship to account for them all. You’ve already matched their numbers with this small guard contingent alone.”

“Ha, not a surprise. Rotwin has most of his pack with him, and they at least know how to judge who’s treating them right. Most of these assholes are too stupid to understand that Yorn couldn’t care less about us.”

“You really don’t hold him in high regard, huh? I’m finding that’s a bit of a recurring theme in this crew…”

“We’re pirates.” The pilot shrugs. “Most of us joined for profit and freedom from the judgment and rules of other groups. True loyalty is a rare commodity, especially within The Guild. How many of those idiots you just killed actually chose death because they believed in or liked Yorn, and how many fell into it because they thought they’d gain something by ratting you out.”

“Point taken.”

“Exactly. Besides, I joined the crew because our Vice freed me from the cargo hold of a rival group they wiped out a while back.” The woman raps her knuckles against her metal thigh. “Yorn saw me as damaged goods and would’ve happily thrown me into the vacuum if I hadn’t told him that I’m a pilot anyway, not a fighter.”

Emily scoffs at the idea, flexing her own metal hand and shaking her head.

“The more I hear about the man, the more I question why he ever had a group following him to begin with,” Emily muses.

“Ha,” the pilot barks, grinning conspiratorially. “Well, you’re seeing to it that he doesn’t anymore, right? Anyway, I take it you need to catch up with Elwaine and the rest before you head off?”

Emily nods.

“Follow the river down to the mouth of the valley, then. They’re assaulting a spirit vein mine that the mechanoids have taken over, so it should be pretty easy to spot them.”

“Got it.” Emily turns towards the edge of the island, drawing on her lightning connection again. “Thanks.”

“No problem, just make sure whoever’s left when you're done sends me some reinforcements unless they’re rejoining us. Your squadron can help for now, but you just removed most of the bodies to man our weapons if we get attacked.”

Emily waves a hand over her shoulder to acknowledge the request before stepping off the edge of the island and plummeting towards the flowing water below. She lets lightning flow through her, synchronising with Harriet and turning to a crackling bolt of charge before she hits the surface. The water starts to boil, but she shoots off downstream before any more than a faint steam can rise from the surface, flowing with the current.

The valley continues on for miles, but she reaches the end in no time and rises from the water, reforming into a solid mass as she looks out over a wide-open basin, several hundred metres across and surrounded on all sides by sheer rock faces just as tall as the depression is wide. The river below her feet tumbles over a steep cliff, dropping into a deep pool tracing the entire edge of the basin, and there are several other waterfalls dotted across the cliff walls doing the same.

At the centre of the large depression, filling nearly half of it, is a massive stone fortress. Several of the structure’s walls have collapsed in piles of rubble, and Emily can see movement through the cracks. She propels herself forward with a burst of charge, flying down to try and enter the fortress, but hits an invisible barrier of mana before she can.

She pauses before making contact with the barrier and reaches out to hover her hand over it, letting a few sparks of mana leap from her fingers to feel out the conjuration’s purpose. The sparks pass through without any resistance, but when she tries to retract them, it feels like drawing her energy through tar.

A one-way shield. Looks like they don’t want anyone escaping.

She senses a ripple of intent spreading from where her mana made contact and immediately recognises the signature behind it.

Well, now Elwaine knows I’m here.

She passes through the barrier a few metres from a shattered wall, and before she can head further in to assess the situation and find her crewmates, she comes face to face with the glowing tip of a wand.

“Emily?” Elwaine says, lowering a fine silk cloak from his head and shimmering into existence a few metres ahead, gracefully gliding over the rubble beneath their feet to approach. Their gaze scans over her, searching for any sign she could be an imposter, but they eventually settle on her glowing eyes and the mana-filled cracks emanating from them. “I would say meeting you like this is a pleasant surprise, but I can’t say I’m too shocked. I thought it was odd how quickly Silvia took to you.”

“Unlike Yorn, she saw through my façade immediately,” Emily responds, not batting an eye at the weapon still pointed at her head and releasing her lightning connection. “We just so happened to see eye to eye and hit it off after that.”

“Mmm, I can tell,” the elf hums in agreement, withdrawing the mana flowing through their casting focus and lowering it to their side. “She has always had a certain taste for the… unique.”