The sea smelled of dead fish and rust.
Marcus stood on the edge of the dunes. Behind him, the exhausted column of the Faceless Legion huddled in the sand.
Before him lay Ostia.
It wasn't a city anymore. It was a graveyard of ships.
Ancient Roman triremes rotted next to rusted oil tankers from the modern era. The skyline was broken teeth—towers snapped in half by orbital lasers, craters of glassed sand glowing faintly in the moonlight.
Silence hung heavy over the harbor. No waves lapped the shore. The water was black, thick with oil.
"It's dead," Decimus whispered, leaning on his spear. "There's no one here."
"There's always someone," Marcus said.
He scanned the ruins.
[LOCATION: OSTIA PORT RUINS]
[POPULATION: UNKNOWN]
[THREAT: MODERATE]
"Move," Marcus ordered. "Stay quiet. Weapons ready."
They marched into the city.
The streets were canyons of debris. Cars fused into asphalt. Statues of gods melted into slag.
But there were signs of life.
Fresh footprints in the ash. A smell of cooking meat—rat or seagull—drifting from a warehouse.
"Ambush," Narcissus rumbled.
He stopped. He raised his shield.
Shadows detached from the ruins.
Dozens of them.
They weren't machines. They were men.
But they looked like monsters. Their armor was made of tires and shark skin. Their faces were painted white with ash. They held harpoon guns powered by compressed air tanks on their backs.
"Halt!" a voice cracked from the darkness.
A woman stepped into the moonlight.
She was tall, wearing a coat made of patched leather. Her left eye was gone, replaced by a glowing red cybernetic implant—scavenged Board tech crudely wired into her skull.
She leveled a heavy speargun at Marcus.
"This is the Salt Kingdom," she said. Her voice was gravel. "The toll is flesh or metal. Pay or bleed."
Marcus didn't raise his hands. He rested his hand on the pommel of his Vibro-Gladius.
"We have no flesh to spare," Marcus said calmly. "And the metal we carry is sharp."
The woman laughed. "You're just refugees. Dust-eaters. I have fifty guns on you. Drop the supplies."
"Valeria," Lucilla whispered behind Marcus. "That's Valeria. She used to run the docks before the invasion. She's a smuggler."
"A pirate," Marcus corrected.
He looked at the woman. At the fifty harpoons aimed at his people.
"Narcissus," Marcus said softly. "Say hello."
The giant stepped forward.
He didn't roar. He just let the cloak fall from his shoulders.
The black ceramic armor gleamed. The blue Fusion Core in his chest flared to maximum output.
Light flooded the street.
The pirates flinched. They shielded their eyes.
Narcissus looked like a god of the deep. A revenant of steel and ice.
He raised his right arm—the one with the heavy Plasma Caster strapped to it.
He aimed at a rusted crane tower behind Valeria.
THOOM.
A bolt of blue plasma screamed through the air.
It hit the crane. The metal evaporated. The tower groaned and collapsed into the harbor with a splash that shook the ground.
Silence returned.
Valeria lowered her speargun. Her cybernetic eye whirred, zooming in on the smoking barrel of the cannon.
"We pay in iron," Marcus said, stepping forward. "Iron that kills machines. Stand down, or we sink this whole city."
Valeria stared at him. Then at the giant.
She grinned. It was a terrifying expression, full of gold teeth.
"You have big friends, dust-eater," she said. "Come inside. Let's talk trade."
The Throne Room.
It wasn't a palace. It was the hull of a beached oil tanker.
The interior was hollowed out, lit by burning barrels of oil. The air was hot and greasy.
Valeria sat on a chair made of welded exhaust pipes.
"You want a ship," she said, cutting straight to the point.
"We need transport East," Marcus said. "For two hundred people. And heavy cargo."
"I have a ship," Valeria said. She gestured to a porthole.
Outside, bobbing in the black water, was a vessel.
It was ugly. Boxy. Flat-bottomed. An oil rig supply ship, retrofitted with armor plating and a heavy crane.
"The Neptune," Valeria said. "She's slow. She's ugly. But she floats."
"Is she seaworthy?" Decimus asked.
"She runs on bio-diesel and spite," Valeria said. "But she won't run for free."
"What do you want?" Marcus asked.
"Power," Valeria said. She pointed at Narcissus. "Whatever is in that big bastard's chest. I want one."
"That's a Fusion Core," Galen said. "It would kill you to install it."
"Then I want the gun," Valeria said. "The plasma thrower."
"No," Marcus said. "We keep our teeth."
"Then you walk to Syria," Valeria shrugged. "Good luck swimming."
Marcus looked at Lucilla.
"Show her the blueprints," Marcus said.
Lucilla pulled out the datapad. She brought up the schematics for the Sentinel Turret.
"This is Board tech," Marcus said. "Defense grids. Auto-targeting. I can give you the code to print your own."
Valeria leaned forward. Her red eye scanned the screen.
"I don't have a fabricator," she said.
"We do," Marcus lied. "On the ship. We'll leave you the schematics and a localized jammer to hide your base."
Valeria thought about it.
"And you take my ship?"
"We borrow it," Marcus said. "You come with us. You pilot. We provide the muscle."
"Going East is suicide," Valeria said. "The Board has a blockade."
"We broke their fortress," Marcus said. "We killed their Stalkers. A blockade is just a target."
Valeria looked at Narcissus again. At the power he represented.
"Fine," she said. "We leave at high tide. But if you get my ship sunk, I'll carve my name into your skull."
The Preparation.
The Neptune was a rust bucket. But it was solid.
The refugees swarmed the deck, loading crates.
Galen and Varro went to work immediately.
They mounted the two heavy Sentinel Turrets—looted from the fortress—onto the bow and stern of the ship.
"Power coupling is tricky," Varro grunted, sparking wires together. "The ship's generator is weak."
"Wire them to the main battery," Galen said. "We only need them for short bursts."
Narcissus walked down the cargo ramp. The ship dipped under his weight.
He went to the lowest hold.
"Too hot," the giant grumbled.
He found the seawater intake valve used to cool the engine. He ripped the cover off.
Cold ocean water sprayed onto the floor.
He sat in the puddle. The water hissed as it touched his skin.
"Better," he sighed. He closed his eyes, leaning against the hull like a dormant titan.
On the bridge, Marcus watched the radar screen.
It was an ancient green CRT monitor. It swept the harbor.
PING.
A blip appeared at the edge of the screen.
Then another.
"Valeria," Marcus said. "What is that?"
The pirate captain looked at the scope. Her face went pale.
"That's not a whale," she whispered.
The blip moved fast. Straight for the harbor mouth.
"Depth?" Marcus asked.
"Submerged," she said. "Sixty feet. And closing."
Marcus hit the alarm button.
"Battle stations!" he roared into the intercom. "We have company!"
Lucilla ran onto the bridge.
"It's a Hunter-Sub," she said. "The Kraken Class. Vane sent the sharks."
"Get the engine running!" Marcus yelled at Valeria.
"It needs to warm up!"
"Warm it up later!" Marcus grabbed the throttle. He slammed it forward.
The ship lurched. Black smoke poured from the stack.
"We're launching," Marcus said. "Ready the guns."