Arcane Exfil-Chapter 67: Cast Off

Packing took the better part of three hours. Fernal hadn’t said how long they’d be gone, exactly, but the mission profile filled in the blanks well enough. Investigating a cult base sure as hell wasn’t gonna be a day trip. Nor a week trip, for that matter.

So Cole packed like Murphy was personally invested in his failure – a month minimum, plus a few extra clothes and supplies for whatever fresh hell awaited them.

The driver had the car waiting when they came down, something closer to a cargo truck than any fancy Forëa they’d seen. Tenna and the others saw them off at the door. Cole settled for an efficient farewell and a “hold down the fort.”

Stowing their packs on board, they pulled out ahead of schedule.

Alexandria slid past the windows for the better part of an hour, the route taking them away from the warehouse district, away from the part of the port where they’d hit the cult operation. They instead drove through the main thoroughfares of the Port of Alexandria – the part that received tourists and immigrants.

The naval installation came up on the right as they rounded the peninsula, heralded by a giant sign that read “ALEXANDRIA DOCKYARD.” The checkpoint leading into the base proper was the same as every checkpoint he’d ever passed through, which was almost comforting in its mundanity. With an efficient presentation of credentials and a quick wave of a guard’s hand, they were through.

Cole had seen enough military ports to know what they looked like: San Diego, Norfolk, Pearl Harbor, now Alexandria. The only difference here was the abundant magitech – in the cranes, in the lighting, and the beautifully vintage ships moored in the harbor.

Oddly enough, the three massive vessels before him weren’t quite the ships-of-the-line he might’ve expected of Celdorne; they were dreadnoughts. Actual big-gun dreadnoughts, which shouldn’t exist for another few decades. Then again, they did have cars and combustion engines, and he didn’t know the upper limits of magitech.

Anyway, the ships’ proportions were familiar from history books and museum ships – something like the Iowa or the Yamato. The core design aligned with those powerhouse battlewagons, except with distinctly Celdornian details.

Glyphs ran along the turret housings, similar to the enchantments that adorned their rifles but scaled up to siege-weapon proportions. The hull plating had a sheen that wasn’t quite steel, but rather some alloy that caught the light wrong. It was probably enchanted the same way the big guns were.

Whatever Celdorne used for high-grade steel, it certainly wasn’t steel – same way nothing brass here was actually brass. Brass had aerochalcum, and steel probably had whatever proprietary jargon the artificers here had cooked up. The point was that these things could probably shrug off fire that would’ve gutted the Bismarck.

He pressed his eyes up against the window as they drove by. Part of him almost wanted to stop there and appreciate the sheer ballistic romance present. There was something deeply, irrationally satisfying about naval artillery. The mathematics of lobbing a shell the weight of a small car across a stretch of ocean and trusting the trigonometry to put it through someone’s deck.

These champions had ruled the seas for half a century before carriers dethroned them, and even then they’d found second lives as shore bombardment platforms – with the Missouri firing her last shots in 1991, a full sixty years after commissioning.

But that was Earth, where the only things in the water were other humans and their machines. Tenria had sea monsters, apparently, or at least enough legends of them that people took the possibility seriously. Obsolescence aside, nothing sounded cooler than a battleship squaring up against a kraken.

They cleared the capital ships and medium-sized vessels, winding through the smaller craft: sloops, corvettes, the unsexy workhorses that actually kept a navy functional. The Redoubt was berthed among her sisters somewhere, indistinguishable until the hull name popped up on a marginally fancier sloop.

Yeah, marginally. Despite the aerochalcum trim, it was still a sloop among sloops, anonymous in a way that took effort to achieve.

The car stopped at the foot of her gangway. Two officers stood waiting on the dock. The older one had the weathered look of career navy, which mostly boiled down to a face that had long since stopped bothering with unnecessary expressions. From a first glance, Cole could tell that this was a man who took no bullshit and said no bullshit – exactly how he liked work acquaintances.

The younger one stood half a step behind, barely keeping a lid on obvious excitement.

The older one stepped forward as Cole exited the vehicle with his bags. “Captain Mercer, I presume?”

Cole nodded.

The older man extended a hand. “I am Lieutenant Commander Aldous Fenwick, captain of the Redoubt. Beside me is my first officer, Lieutenant Yaro Stent.”

Fenwick’s handshake was brief, about as dry as his demeanor. Stent, on the other hand, shook hands ecstatically, like he was meeting a celebrity.

“Gentlemen,” Cole said, raising a hand behind him. “My team: Sergeants David MacPherson, Ethan Walker, Miles Garrett, and Lady Elina Gracer.”

Fenwick acknowledged them with short nods. “We make Ashpoint by morning. Stent will attend you.” He turned away as he finished the sentence. “You will excuse me.”

Stent turned to them and began, “Captain Mercer, sir. I – we are – ah – very glad of your coming aboard.”

He shook it off. “Your name has preceded you. As would be expected of any Hero. There has been a great deal said of your command; of your vanquishing of a Vampire Lord.”

Cole tried real hard not to raise an eyebrow, or turn to the others. It wasn’t much of a surprise that rumors had already started to spread, but just what did the rumors say?

Stent caught himself and cleared his throat, trying to recover some composure. “We are proud to receive you. The ship stands ready.”

Cole nodded. “Alright. Let’s get on with the tour, then.”

Stent brought them aboard, leading them inside. Surprisingly, it did not match the outside.

The passage they went through was wide – and not just ‘for a sloop.’ It was wide in general naval terms, with room enough for two men to walk side by side without touching shoulders. The lighting, too, was strikingly similar to the magical daylight they’d seen in the castle. And the deck underfoot was polished and clean, maintained to a standard that working vessels never bothered with because working vessels had better things to spend labor on.

Stent talked as they traversed through the vessel, going over the various facilities on the ship like it was a pitch rather than simply standard orientation.

Cole listened with half an ear while the rest of his attention tried to square what he was seeing with what he knew about ship design. The Celdornians straight-up had a luxury yacht in their navy – kind of like how presidents flew around in private jets. The comparison that came to mind was ridiculous, but it fit: the Enterprise. Not the carrier – the starship, Roddenberry’s version.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The guest quarters occupied a section of the aft deck, a corridor of private cabins that had no business existing on a ship this size. Stent walked them through the arrangement: Cole here, Mack next door, Ethan and Miles across the passage, Elina at the end with slightly larger accommodations. Graves and Vale had already claimed their rooms, apparently; they’d boarded earlier, Stent explained, while the Redoubt was still being provisioned.

Cole’s cabin was small by shore standards, but by any naval measure he knew, this was palatial. A queen-sized bed, a desk built into the bulkhead, a quaint little porthole letting in grey afternoon light, and enough floor space that he wouldn't bang his shins getting dressed. And he had all that to himself. He’d seen the VIP quarters on the Gerald R. Ford once, and this almost compared. Which was pretty impressive, considering the Redoubt was no supercarrier.

“Dinner’s at half past seven,” Stent said from down the hall. “The wardroom’s forward – past the galley. If there’s any want before then, you have only to speak to a hand; they’ll bring me.”

He lingered a moment. “It is – well – it does us great credit to have you aboard, Captain. And your party.”

Stent nodded, opened his mouth like he had something else to add, then just nodded again and left. His footsteps faded down the passage.

Cole spent the next few hours doing approximately nothing useful.

He unpacked what needed unpacking, which wasn’t much. Checked his gear, which didn’t need checking. Wandered the ship’s accessible areas until he’d mapped the layout well enough to stop thinking about it. The Redoubt was smaller than the interior treatment suggested, but the utopian amount of space made her feel like she had room to spare.

The others scattered after Stent left – Miles toward the engine room, predictably, and the rest to wherever suited them.

Cole found Elina on deck not long after everyone finished settling in, standing at the rail as the harbor shrank behind them. The breakwater was already a thin line, the dreadnoughts reduced to grey shapes against the waterfront. She didn’t turn when he approached, but she shifted slightly to make room.

Cole settled beside her, elbows on the rail. The city kept shrinking. Eventually the headlands swallowed the last of it, and there was just open water and the haze where the coast used to be.

They talked a little. Nothing substantial – more like the kind of conversation that happens when two people are comfortable enough not to need one. The resort came up, inevitably: the ice skating, the onsen, how much they already missed it, and of course, plans for another visit.

Cole wasn’t the type to romanticize scenery, but even he could tell this had all the contours of a ‘moment.’

They stayed there in silence until the bell rang for dinner.

The wardroom, much like the quarters, was spacious and leaned on comfort rather than martial efficiency. Everyone was already there when they arrived: Fenwick at the head with his officers and Cole’s team sitting with Graves at a round table.

Vale occupied a corner, apart from everyone, waiting for his meal in silence.

Cole joined the others, taking his place alongside Elina. The food arrived shortly after, with the chef himself bringing it out and serving their table first.

The first item Cole noticed was the soup – some kind of chowder, by the look of it, pale and thick with steam still rising off the bowl. It reminded him of the clam chowder his uncle used to make on fishing trips. Just, with alien clams and vegetables.

The main course was Sunday roast, or rather the Celdornian approximation. This version used varr instead of beef, but the bones of the meal were the same – carved meat, mashed tatties, greens in butter, gravy on the side. It wasn’t gonna make anyone’s top ten list, but it was real cooking, and real cooking on a naval vessel that wasn’t a cruise liner was a luxury in itself.

Then they each got a glass of fresh, anti-scurvy liquid that looked a lot like orange juice – ranji juice, as Celdornians called it.

Graves said grace after the chef had departed. Cole bowed his head and gave thanks with him. When it ended, he picked up his utensils.

Miles lasted barely two bites before posing a question, most likely inspired by Graves’ gesture: “Say, Walker. That stuff Graves been teachin’ you – the holy magic. How’s that work?”

Ethan finished chewing. “It’s prayer. You pray, offer mana as an offering, and God either responds or He doesn’t.”

Miles waited, but Ethan didn’t continue.

“What, that’s it?”

Ethan shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the core of it.”

“Well, there’s gotta be more to it than that. Some kinda technique, somethin’ you’re doin’ with the mana—”

Ethan shook his head. “No, nothing more. Not even kidding. The mana is an offering that you give up. That’s the whole point – you’re not in control. God is.”

Miles couldn’t seem to accept the answer. “So you’re tellin’ me you just… what? Ask and hope for the best?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that, but… yeah, I suppose.”

“Well, shit.” Miles sat back. “What’s the point, then? If you can’t rely on it—”

“You err at the outset,” Graves interjected. “Holy magic was never meant to be relied upon. It is petition. A petition is not a thing one leans upon; it is laid before God, and the answer awaited.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “God only? Or does any god count?”

“There are practitioners of spiritual magic elsewhere. Though they may produce results from their magic, I do not say they have yielded fruit. None, I find, are compatible with the truth I place my faith in.”

“Right, my bad. Still, no offense intended, but ain’t that just hope?”

“Hope is a frail word for it.” His tone was still warm, but it had gotten firm – correcting without rebuke. “When I pray, I do not cast my wish into the dark. I entrust the matter to God. He acts according to His will, whether or not it accords with mine. The mana I offer is no bargain struck. Rather, it is sacrifice; the earnestness of the plea.”

Miles frowned, trying to follow. “Alright, but say you’re in a fight. Demon’s coming at you. You pray, you burn the mana, and nothing happens. Then what?”

“Then I am spent,” Graves said simply, “and the demon still comes.”

“And that’s just… acceptable to you?”

“I do not call it acceptable.” He met Miles’ eyes. “Yet it is true.”

“Sounds like a raw deal.”

Graves considered that a moment before answering. “For a man used to weapons that answer the moment he calls, perhaps. When you have seen a man freed from a darkness no blade could cut, there exists no ‘raw deal.’ Nor when a life is restored where all other aid has failed. Such things come only by His hand. They are gifts, not wages. And a gift, Sergeant,” he said, returning to his food, “cannot be summoned by command.”

Miles didn’t have a response to that. How could he? He chewed slowly, frowning at his plate while he worked through that.

Mack set down his fork. “Mind if I ask something?”

Graves inclined his head.

“This whole thing – Christianity, I mean. I kinda didn’t pay much attention before, being in a coma and dealing with demons and all, but now that you guys mention it, it’s weird, isn’t it? Sitting here talking about a religion from Earth like it’s normal?” He gestured vaguely at the room, the ship, the world outside. “We’re on another planet with a completely different history, completely different everything. Now, I get that King Alexander brought it over, but how’d it even stick?”

Graves set down his fork, considering the question rather than rushing to answer it.

“It is a fair thing to wonder,” he said. “Most Summoned would, I surmise. But it is not so strange as it first appears, for truth does not confine itself to one soil.”

Mack raised a brow. “Meaning what?”

“Truth alters little from one world to the next. When King Alexander was summoned hither, he brought his faith with him and set the Church beside the crown. He found a people who already held the shape of the gospel, though under another name.”

“Redeemism,” Elina said.

Graves nodded. “Aye; a faith native to our world, yet remarkably consonant with the gospel delivered by King Alexander. Our accounts differ in name and setting, yet the substance aligns: the promise of redemption, the means of it, the grace that undergirds it, the sacrifice that facilitates it.”

Mack released a low breath. “Alright. What of other religions, then? Tenria’s got more than Redeemism, surely.”

“A considerable number,” Graves answered. “Elnoir keeps their pantheons; Aurelia honors its ancestors; Istrayn held quite their score of rites before they fell.”

“Why, then? Why Redeemism?”

Graves saw right through Mack. “I could set proofs before you, for I have them ready to hand. Yet I do not think it is proof you seek. A man may weigh evidence and still remain uncertain. What you would know is whether faith is an answer. And to that I say it is.”

Being confronted with philosophy was never pretty, especially for those with trauma. But maybe it was necessary. Mack had driven this conversation; question after question, pressing for clarity like a man trying to find footing. For a man who’d watched a kid die and couldn’t stop it, that kind of certainty might be exactly what he needed.