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New Atlas was a sprawling metropolis situated atop what had once been an almost entirely smooth upside down sort of metal dome, which had once contained rock, stone and even a few caves that had been lifted up into the low-sky in Atlas' first incarnation. Now, after decades and decades, that once pristine surface was scarred, pitted and scored by additions both wanted and not. Long spires stretched down for upwards of a mile, ussually in groups of five or six, all along the edge of the dome. Long, curved 'roads' wound around between and through them on the same bend, with more spider-webbing off to link to various parts of the towers and even reaching up towards a larger cluster of a dozen wider, more blocky spires at the center of the dome, where light and glass and finer steel glittered.
Here was where the upper-middle class and wealthy elite of Atlas citizens worked, safe in the sheltered heart of Atlas, with the less-wealthy working around them below and living around them above. Even if Grimm were to reach the Kingdom by any means, the powerful, beating heart of the Kingdom would survive long enough to coordinate a response. And outlast well enough to coordinate a recovery after.
Or, so the logic went.
Around the perimeter of it all, casting this lower world in near-eternal shade, were the five greater dockyards. Huge lengths of stone, concrete and, predominantly, metal here the NAN's fleet moored for maintenance, and shipyards manufactured replacement components and ships and where the most powerful corporations had their warehouses, shipyards and private dockyards. They stretched out from New Atlas proper like great arms swarmed by throngs of ships of all kinds of sizes, coming and going from the maintenance facilities or dropping parts built elsewhere, or salvaged from the world below, into open-air sorting facilities interspersed among them to help further their work. It was a mad machine of industry, pumping grey smoke into the air, and the source of much of New Atlas' might and wealth. The Schnees had held a handful of all three, ten years ago when their fall began, and until a week prior had retained half their warehouses and a dockyard of their own, though they had been forced to lease out the shipyards the NAN used whenever they needed one.
Now, Weiss had seen all of that lost…
Instead of there, she found herself below, standing at the anchor point of a massive cable twice as wide as she was that had been affixed to the outside of the circle that ran below New Atlas and reached up to attach itself to the bottom of the great arms of New Atlas. These supports weighed hundreds of tons on their own, but looking up at them, the stiff, chill wind seemed to make them sway rather like old power lines and cables she'd seen below.
Down here were the Lower Yards. Smaller, less advanced shipyards and cokyards built on thinner arms supported by cables from above, intermingled chaotically with warehouses and poorer housing complexes built, typically, around the huge support cable emplacements.
"I don't know how you can possibly know where you're going…" Weiss asked as she followed close behind the woman, who only flicked an amused look over her shoulder.
"Not everyone grew up in the manors above." She shook her head, "This isn't even bad. You should head to the slums. There, the roads are barely five feet wide. These are at least thirty. Plenty of space."
"I suppose…"
The slums were, as the name suggested, the poorest places for the poorest of New Atlas' people. Even the poorhouse hab-blocks were built of solid concrete and steel, properly planned and anchored to strong-points by civil engineers. But the slums were built out of old ships, warehouses, and whatever else that had been attached to the circling road and hung off the great cables like something alive. The slums, at least, were far enough away that she felt safe enough walking.
Still, she kept a hand to Myrtenaster… And a well of gratitude for Pyrrha, who helped part the thronging crows that pushed their way to and fro in the chaotic streets of the winding lower docks.
"We're almost there." Pyrrha said when they reached a long wall with a simple door built at the corner and long, narrow ventilation windows along its top some fifteen feet up. Waving at the door, she said, "Just down a level."
"Down?"
"Assuming the dock number you gave me was right," Pyrrha smiled, flicking a no less wary for it look around them habitually before she turned back to her, "yes. Try the card you got on the door-lock, that'll confirm it."
"Alright…"
The door was sturdier looking than she'd thought, on closer inspection, with a slight bulge in an 'X' shape that spoke to reinforcements. Beside it were two boxes, one for inputting a pin and another for inserting a card. This was normal even in the greater docks - most dockyards serviced numerous ships, as did the shipyards, so it was easier to build them larger and lease them out as needed. Above, the entire complex was usually bought out.
Down here, she had to share.
But, with a whir as it vanished and a nearly inaudible chirp, the card went and came and Pyrrha pulled the door open.
"See?" She smiled, "I know where I'm going."
"I never doubted you." Weiss sighed, "Only the mess down here…"
"Careful." Pyrrha admonished her almost… Playfully. "You're talking about my home."
Two short flights down - each was barely five steep steps - they came into a long hallway under the road above. Fluorescents had been embedded into the ceiling and cast flickering, pale yellow light over it all, and old, weather-beaten and 'edited' Atlesian posters dotted the walls between the doors that ran along either side. They were numbered but Weiss found her gaze drown to the frames around them as they made their way down. Most had been… Altered, with decorative paint swirled around some, or patterned around others, and one was covered in pictures that she thought was a memorial or family affair until she noticed the dark, ruddy brown 'X' drawn on some of them.
What that could mean, she didn't want to dwell on.
"Here we are!" Pyrrha's uncharacteristically bright chirp yanked Weiss out of her thoughts and she turned as the woman pushed open a barren, rust-speckled door and said. "Door one one six."
The bay was around a hundred feet or so long, from her familiar guess, and half as wide, with a gentle slope up to the apex of the roof twenty feet up in the middle and ten at the sides. The walls were lined in shelves from floor to ceiling, with rolling platforms that could reach up to the higher shelves more readily, all of which was well lit with bright, sterile white if sometimes flickering fluorescent lights. But, aside from a smattering of loose wood and tools scattered throughout, the shelves were barren and, from the old, sterile smell swamping the room from the top shelves all the way down to the wooden flooring, had been cleaned only a handful of days ago when she'd bought her own ship.
And just before her family died…
In the center of the room was a depressed bay with heavy, reinforced lower doors that she knew from experience let out to open air. Four powerful auto-winches sat in each of the corners and ran up to a pulley node, and then back down to anchor points on the ship waiting there.
Her ship waiting there.
The ship was eighty feet long, ten tall, and twenty wide at the rear with a flat back and a front that tapered nearly to a point, where its nose flattened as well. A reinforced metal spine ran along the bottom and connected to a wide, thick armor plate that curved around the back end of the ship. The nose had a thicker strut curled up along it, with a claw that curled into a sort of fist right at the front, which would lower to land when they came down, and the metal plating at the end had two more that curled against the sides of the ship. Two large nacelle engines were built just behind the landing gear at the rear, with long stabilizing wings that stretched out over the landing struts and rested in narrow grooves along the hull.
Above that, and the engineering section below it, was a single-floor command quarters and, above it, a roofed over but open air steerage deck, with a back plate that curved up behind it almost elegantly. Almost. Inside, she knew, were six small cabins with enough space for a cot, a desk, and a dresser, and scant else. Other models had a proper captain's suite that took up two of the rooms for one, but this one had been the only one on the market in her price range.
The deck in front of it was open, with mid-chest height railings along its edges and a single hole about two-thirds of the way up the ship with a metal cap over it that looked rather like a bolted-in viewport, albeit made of metal instead of glass. Just behind it was a simple, smaller pulley-crane system for loading cargo into a wooden-doored cargo access hatch that ran about ten feet down the ship and let into the, for its size, impressively large cargo compartment that took up most of its belly, aside from the engine at the back and, just in front of that, the small restroom and bath and, across a narrow hall from it, the cook-room, neither of which were large enough for more than one person to work.
"Your thoughts, Pyrrha?" Weiss asked as they climbed up the gangplank onto the deck and then climbed the stairs that ran curved gently along the outer edge of the ship, a thick railing between them and the drop beyond.
"It's… Serviceable." Pyrrha sighed as Weiss sat at the command seat and leaned forward.
The command console was a simple affair, with a steerage wheel in the center of a curved console. To her right were instruments for measuring the air's temperature, moisture, wind, and so on. And, below it, was a down-ward pointed LADAR system that let her know her keel sat about four feet above the doors. To the left was a speaker system to let her talk through the numerous intercoms scattered along the ship, or to other ships that opened a line to her. Above it was a general radar screen for air-traffic, to monitor everything above them and to the sides while the LADAR tracked the ground.
"My, but you sound confident…"
"I'm honest." Pyrrha shrugged, standing behind her seat and looking over the controls curiously. "It'll do, though not flashily."
"I don't need flashy." Weiss pointed out, "I need to survive."
"Reclamation is hardly that bad." Pyrrha muttered, frowning when Weiss turned and gave her a look, one brow raised. "I mean… Not for you. You would just end up at a desk, handling service work. The General would hardly waste your education on mining crews."
"Perhaps not, but…" Weiss shook her head, "I don't want to risk it."
Even the mining crews weren't the most dangerous tasks alotted to anyone New Atlas deemed an 'ineffective citizen' after all…
"Then we should get to work." Pyrrha grunted, turning and heading back to the stairs to lean against the railing and look down at the decking. "What are we doing next?"
"After my systems check?"
"After your systems check." Pyrrha chuckled, rolling her eyes and turning to face Weiss, leaning against the railing now. "Though… I'm not sure what we'll do if something comes back red on that. After all, we're not in an abundance of time right now, are we?"
"If we fail then, as you say, I take the risk of reclamation and… Hope for an acceptable life." Her instincts screamed against it, though, and after years of struggling for a grain of independence and freedom from her family she was loathe to be shackled - almost literally - to a job 'earning her place' because the Kingdom decided she'd failed. "But if we push things and go down… I'm not the only one who would suffer, then. And I won't risk you like that."
"If you keep talking like that," Pyrrha quipped, "I'll make you take me to dinner."
"Take you to-" Weiss sighed as she registered the joke for what it was and shot the woman an unamused look. "You've been hanging out at that blasted bar again. Haven't you?"
"It's the only place you can get a good sandwich." Pyrrha shrugged, smile turning more wistful as she sighed and went on. "And where people know to back off… Civilian bars just can't compare, in that respect. Military ones can't either."
"So you've said."
"It's true, though… I suppose you've never been to any." Pyrrha sighed, going on like she was more thinking out loud than anything else. "It's just nice not to be looked at like you can do magic while you're just trying to eat and rest."
"To be fair," Weiss smirked while she watched the various readouts run through their tests, "you can move metal with your mind."
"Aura is not exactly poorly understood…"
"For us." Weiss hummed, "We use it. We've studied it for most of our lives, and learned how it works and how to wield it. But your average factory worker? Mine-crewman? Librarian? They would know far less than us and, to them, 'it's soul stuff' is hardly different from magic, is it?"
"Touche." Pyrrha countered, "You're anxious."
"I'm sorry?"
"You ramble and get argumentative when you're anxious." Pyrrha answered when she met Weiss' look. Weiss pursed her lips and turned back to her instruments, and Pyrrha chuckled almost darkly as she came over. When her hand landed on her shoulder she flinched and shot it a look, but the taller woman only squeezed her shoulder reassuringly and asked. "When do we leave?"
"In…" Her console beeped and she flicked it a look, chuckling, "Now. Assuming you're ready?"
"Your drones stowed my things?"
"They did."
"Then I am." Pyrrha nodded, turning and moving her hand to the back of Weiss' chair to hold on. "Shall we?"
Weiss' answer came in the form of pressing one of the commands on her console, and the doors below her grinding open. Another button press and they began to descend into the open air, surrounded by antennae and monitoring equipment from the other docks and, further, ships moving around below the great Kingdom on patrol or headed to or from work.
As they descended, the engines crackled to life, sending a dull tremor through the decking. The stabilising wings stretched out as they came to life and the droids coming up from below-decks came up, unhooking the winch-cables in unison and letting them drop a foot until the engines kicked into life and propelled them forward and down. In front of her, Weiss watched the mast ascend from below-decks as well, telescoping out from its bulkhead and locking into place as its arms telescoped out, unfurling a large, hexagon-patterned creme colored solar sail that lit up in gold and bronze as they left New Atlas' direct shadow and it caught sunlight.
Taking a breath of the cold air so high up, Weiss murmured, "We should have gotten piloting clothes…"
"I'll dd it to our shopping list." Pyrrha chuckled, thumping her on the shoulder playfully as she left and calling back. "Captain."
Weiss only rolled her eyes and banked northwards.
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So since some asked, I'll just offer the generalities-
Uplift Laws are the military laws that govern New Atlas. Short of writing a law codex here, getting nitty gritty isn't super easy so I'll just describe it - Ironwood adores it. XD In seriousness, it's militaristic and autocratic.
Reclamation ties into them - it's more or less forced conscription labor. You don't know where you'll be assigned, you don't get paid, and you can be forced to change to just about any job with no notice.
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