Polar Opposites

There are many superstitions regarding skimmers and the ocean.  For example: a woman aboard is bad luck.  That was quite firmly squashed by the women themselves, and I’ll leave imagination up to how.  Another is a skimmer without a ‘mancer aboard will not make it to port.  There is some truth in this one, for the skimmers themselves are constructed with technomancy and need routine checks – especially those with void rooms – to ensure the wards and welding aren’t doing anything unexpected.  These large, general legends can be found on all skimmers.  Other traditions can be found in particular regions or on particular ships.  The northern coast says that the Stormrider family is descended from sirens and can never fully leave the sea, which is why so many skimmers in that are have Stormriders either as captains or crew.  The Alannis flagship had a superstition that a redheaded captain meant that the ship would see war sometime during his or her command.  

Langley’s ship was no exception.  It was a moderate sized skimmer, built for speed rather than defense or cargo space.  Rather than the regular two engines it had three, the metal plating on the exterior was slightly reduced, and it had six guns instead of eight.  But she was fast.  And because of the special modifications that had been made, the rumors insisted that only one of the twins could command her, or at the very least – someone with Stormrider blood.  The second superstition was that the skimmer would perform poorly and was vulnerable to misfortune when only one of the twins was aboard.  This one, at least, had a grain of truth in it.

That was why, when Langley returned and Sabreur didn’t, the two crew stationed to guard the ship grew nervous.  

“He’ll be back before sundown, I’m sure,” she said as she passed them, removing her hat and making her way for the hatch to below decks.

Skimmers were a miracle of modern technology and ‘mancy combined.  They had their origins in the traditional schooners of old.  As progress moved on, the ships started to be outfitted with metal plating, then entirely metal bodies, and finally renowned gravimancer Geres Malark invented the skimmer core which ushered in a new age of sailing.  The ships traditional design was inverted, the ship sweeping up instead of down with the bottom being wider than the deck.  With a gravi-core installed and the appropriate outlaying supports added to the bottom, a ship no longer sailed in the ocean so much as over.  The sails remained as propulsion, but instead of the upright two or three masts they doubled in number and swept from the point of the ship down across the upper deck to either side of the body of the ship, providing a tunnel of sorts along the lower deck walkways on either side.  When the boiler was invented, engines that processed ‘mancy-coal were made standard for added propulsion.

Skimmers were beautiful things.  This particular skimmer was sleek, more streamlined than most, a graceful thing with ornate gold twining off the bow and along the bottom, the metal hull dark blue with intricate carvings.  On the side, near the back, in bold block engraving, filled in with black enamel, were the words ‘Langley’s Ark.’

The halls of the ship were lit with ‘mancy lamps.  Langley maneuvered through the halls and down two more decks to the very interior of the ship, where the void rooms were located.  These were always in the center of the skimmer as they needed the most material between them and anything that could put a hole in the walls that contained the void room.  Simply, a void room crammed a good deal of mass into an area that was normally not big enough to fit it.  This mass was contained by the voidmancy wards on all surrounding surfaces.  If any of these wards were broken, the mass contained within would then expand through the hole, violently, and with devastating results.  The more mass inside, the bigger the explosion.  

It was also where the high-ranking members of the crew lived.  Langley’s own room was a level 2*  void room while Sabreur’s was a level 3 on account of his laboratory.  Langley had a small space set aside for her own in there but didn’t use it near as much as her brother did.  Not too far from their void rooms was the one void cargo hold, a level 5.  And farther down from that was the first mate’s room, a normal room built slightly larger than the normal crew’s bunks to account for his higher position.  Langley had offered to upgrade it to a void room like the other officers, but the current occupant had declined.  ‘mancy didn’t bother him, he claimed, so long as it didn’t directly affect him.

Langley and Sabreur weren’t bothered by this.  ‘mancers had a reputation for being dangerous and unstable people.  The twins supposed they hadn’t done anything to dispel these fears either.

The woman knocked on the closed door of her first mate, Ajiin.  She heard a muffled reply and so she pushed the door open, peering her head in to look.  The room was mostly dark save for a candle lantern hanging off a peg.  Langley could see the outline of her first mate on the bed in one corner, his arms behind his head and one knee crossed over the other.

“The rumors of imperial aggression in boarding skimmers has reached the school,” she said quietly.

“You mean the scholars pulled their noses out of their books long enough to notice us mortals?” he asked.

Langley frowned.  

“Be nice.  In the academic circles the Academy is unparalleled in information.”

“But in everything else they’re oblivious.  Like how your dear old professors insisted that the whole place wasn’t a Cadre recruiting grounds.”

“May I come in?”

Ajiin always got touchy when they made landfall.  She was starting to suspect that he had someone to avoid in every port, as had proved the case in prior landings when she and Sabreur had coerced him to come along with them.  The most memorable had resulted in the three of them huddling behind the counter of a bar and waiting for the debris from Sabreur’s explosion to stop flying over their heads.

“Suit yourself.”

She pushed the door the rest of the way open and settled herself in the chair by his desk.

“I happen to have liked the Academy I’ll have you know.”

“I know.  It just wouldn’t be appropriate for me to not give you a bad time about it.  Maybe if you and your brother hadn’t been such smarty-pants you could have graduated.”

“Meh.  Like we need degrees.”

It wasn’t so much as Langley and Sabreur were the top of their class – they were just better than a lot of their classmates.  And there were two of them.  Together they could accomplish much more, make better grades, and essentially distinguish themselves from their classmates by the sheer relation of blood.  Unfortunately, that meant that they were also prime targets for the Cadre – the emperor’s elite organization of ‘mancer soldiers.  The Cadre had a reputation for using pressure tactics to coerce prospective students to enlist after graduating to the Academy, giving rise to the (correct) notion that the school was mostly a recruiting field for the Cadre.  The twins had found a way out of this.  They dropped out of school before getting their degrees – a requirement to be in the Cadre.

“You sure you’re not leaving the ship?” she asked.

“I’m sure.”

The reply was firm.  Langley sighed, shrugged, and stood.

“Very well.  Sabreur and I will probably visit the school tomorrow morning and say hi to some of our musty ol’ professors.  The merchant we’ll be shipping for next will be at the ship at 2.  We should be back by then, if not, just act as a stand-in.”

“Will do.”

She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.  Her own room had her name painted on the front, under a brass plaque of a seagull.  A real feather was clasped in its beak.  As soon as the door opened she stooped and swept up the bundle of gray and black striped fur that greeted her.

“Yes, I’m home beastie,” she muttered, and carrying the cat she vanished inside her room.

It was not the typical room of a captain.  Instead of a stately array of desk, table, and bed, she had an unconventional assortment of furniture, which was not even all on the same level.  The room was divided into two portions by a wall and a hanging curtain bearing runic decorations from some island nation.  In the front part was the table and chair setup with shelves lining one wall.  The other side bore what appeared to be a standing hammock overflowing with pillows, a bookcase within arm’s reach, and a pile of logs in the middle of the rug that carpeted that corner.  A music stand rested in the third corner with a flute and violin on stands nearby.  Above that was a platform, accessible by a ladder.  It spanned the right wall and hanging in hooks was Langley’s personal armory.  A person would have to crouch to move along the walkway without hitting their head.  Beyond the curtain was the personal portion of Langley’s room.  It was here that she made her way.

Once the curtain fell behind her she stripped off her jacket, tossing into a peg rack on the wall.  The half-wall was not completely boarded off; in fact, it served as a brace for a second level of the room.  This expanse was essentially Langley’s bed as it was covered in yet more cushion and blankets.  Books and papers littered the level and it appeared that the only portion that was actually used for sleeping was the furthers corner.  A shelf on the far end held a ‘mancy lantern.  The rest of the space held her desk, her dresser, and the area beneath the bed-level was a low closet.

Her hat went onto the chair.  The cat went onto the bed.  Then she went back out into the main area and onto the hammock.  A gesture and the pile of logs nearby burst into flames that did not do anything beyond put out heat.  From the bookshelf she snagged a novel to pass the time with until her brother returned to the Ark.


*  Void room standard measurements are by cubic feet in the formula n*x^2 where n is the normal cubic feet of the container and x is the level of the room.  So, a 40 cubic foot area made into a level 3 would contain 320 cubic feet of space.  Sub class measurements are in inches and go by the formula n*x and are used for containers like backpacks.

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