“Hear the attacks are getting worse out on the border near Africa?” he explains, pointing off into some unknown target in the distance. “Some Nests even had their defenses overrun. Had to call in the Drops to even get them to scatter.”
“Where’d you hear that?” I ask.
“Just rumors.”
“Everything is rumors,” I mutter, while finishing off whatever whiskey was left in my flask. Damn.
“Rumors are the newscasts of the desert, Captain,” Volker sneers, as more smoke trails past his jagged face.
I raise the empty flask in mild agreement to his words. Scavenger attacks have been something that the Reich has dealt with ever since the Reclamation. The Eternal Führer banished them from the Continent, and ever since they’ve wanted nothing more than to get back inside.
“That one Scavenger vessel two years ago, remember that?” Volker reminisces with a grin, “Fucking thing flared and gave away its position, then tried to lob rounds at us before we even reached the range of their guns!”
“And the damn shots landed a hundred meters from our ship,” I say. “Gave their position away and we could just blow them up.” My hands whip into the air to illustrate the ship combusting from our artillery shots. Volker’s wide smirk slowly devolves into an emotionless face before taking another swig.
“Where do you think they go?” Volker asks in a somber inflection.
“Where do they go?” I repeat in puzzlement, attempting to process the question.
“Like, do they just park those ships in caves or something. Do they live in cities? What causes a people to just hop on machines and try to pillage innocents? You ever think of that?”
I never actually have. Does somebody need to question why the sun beats down on the desert? Or why a storm can destroy all in its path. It is just nature.
“Just figured it’s how they were. We have loot and they want it. It’s that simple.” I conclude, walking toward a cupboard, opening it, and revealing a bottle of whiskey among its contents. “Do flies need a reason to seek honey? No, they simply buzz toward it and get stuck. Maybe that was the burden we carried, attracting the flies.”
Volker agrees with a grunt and takes another puff.
“If I was on the other side of the Reich border I know that would be all I’d want to do,” Volker comments.
My attention turns back to the huddled groups down below. I hear the cheers and songs rising like the smoke from fires.
“What do you think they’re talking about down there?” I ask, pointing to the orange lights scattered upon the deck.
“Usual stuff. What Nests we’re going to. What they’ll do when we reach them. What they did on their leave,” Volker lists off in a dull fashion.
“That would be a quick conversation. Most probably went and whored around, got drunk, then came back,” I reply.
“Speaking from experience, Captain?” Volker teases. To this I laugh and raise my bottle another time.
The engine buzz carries on like a constant rhythmic hum. Like a low voice chanting out. Wait. No, those actually are voices. Music gently rises from the deck, along with the noise of the drinking men. There are more sounds however. An odd, distant and fuzzy chanting.
“Odd song,” I state to Volker, taking one last drag from my cigar, “Ever heard that before?”
“Nah,” Volker denies. “How did they even get a sound system onto the deck?”
Putting out the cigar bud, I walk toward the door, tossing the wasted cigar into a rubbish bin. “I’ll go investigate.” I announce to Volker, before opening the door and exiting the Bridge.
The door leads to an indoor staircase that descends down the tower. The creaking of the ship is always the most prevalent here. Sometimes it sounds like the wires and metal plating that hold this tower together will break apart at just a strong breeze. During the day, with the sun beaming down and temperatures up, I’d need to wear a helmet, but at night, when the moon is out, there is no need.
Opening the door, I pace slowly onto the metallic deck. Ashes and sparks dance about the ship as the soft Kiln wind carries them away. The crew have divided themselves into various campfires with six or seven crowded around a flame. Some men are singing, some are brawling. Most are drunk.
The song of trumpets and chants is coming from a group considerably louder than all the others near the bowsprit. While making my way over, a few of the men notice my armor and immediately stand a little straighter. The larger, bronze-colored armored one with a shaved bald head is standing above them all, knee raised up, arms outstretched in theatrical display at the story he is telling.
“And the fucker came up to me and said, ‘If you talk to me like that one more time…’ and it was right there when I knocked him onto the ground. I don’t like knives you see, gotta just—”
He wrestles with the air, pretending to down a figurative man. The crowd’s attention has now turned to me placing myself on a chair, joining the group bunched around the flames. The air becomes thick with nervousness. They aren’t used to the Captain himself joining them in their drinking.
“After I stopped throttling his neck he eventually regained consciousness but you should have seen the wedding party—” he pauses, as his good eye slowly turns to meet mine.
“That’s a good story you should continue,” I encourage.
After a few seconds of wide-eyed befuddlement, the man quickly regains his composure and waves his arm down to the fire. “Welcome to our humble fire, Captain,” he says with a smile half full of teeth.
The muffled voices continue to sing and I turn my attention to the small wooden box that is blaring the music. It’s cobbled together in a makeshift fashion with screws and tape. With every call of the horns it rumbles like it will burst open at any moment.
“That’s an odd contraption,” I remark, pointing at the box. “Where did you get it?”
“He made it himself,” a man to my right says in a slurred tone. I can’t place his name, but he appears to be a guard by his uniform. More armor, more pouches, and a rifle by his side. Each ship in the Kiln was assigned at least a few still-active military members, although most of the men who sail in the Kiln have themselves at one time served in the Kiln.
“Thank you, but I would like to hear from Chief Engineer Keller,” I calmly reply, my eyes turning toward a face covered in a fix of dust and grease.
“I did make this myself, Captain,” Keller beams, pointing to the box. He stops the song, and the group bemoans their loss of entertainment. With one quick fashion he opens up the wooden lid and takes out a dark and round, yet flat disc. “A friend of mine sold it to me in Eagle Nest #18. Said some Scavengers found it while scouring the desert.”
“Scavenging is illegal, you realize,” I state, leaning back.
Keller’s eyes freeze for a fraction of a second, still grasping at the disc. The fire reflects speckles of orange off of the disc’s glossy coating. I can tell his mind is churning with the right words to say.
“Technically, yes it is, but I didn’t scavenge this, somebody else did,” Keller defends.
“Fair enough,” I respond, not caring much that the disc was actually found. I’ve never agreed much with the rules about scavenging in the Kiln. It’s a vast desert. I’m sure there are things out here worth some money. Yet the law demands that nobody take even a trinket from the sands. The reason for this is unclear. Some argue that it’s to prevent some ancient virus from resurfacing to plague humanity once again. Or maybe, the Scavengers planted a lie in the desert. I doubt the latter, I don’t think the Scavengers are smart enough to even replicate an Aryan artifact.