The man’s words hardly registered as Nick was instead looking at the droids.

The ones who came down with him dawdled about, dropping the materials they collected onto the floor. The ones who first searched the hold stood at against the walls; their weapons held high. None regarded the stranger with any particular concern or attention.

Which was something he felt needed to be remedied.

“What are you all doing?!” said Nick. “Subdue him!”

The words struck the droids like lightning. Every single one stopped, their heads shifting in the direction of the escaped prisoner.

The droids by the edges drew their weapons. Swords and spears whistled as their bearers crouched into a combat stance. Then the mass of gray figures moved, closing in on their prey. Glass bottles clinked aside and were sent rolling. Hammocks were torn apart.

“Wait!” The man’s head swiveled about at the encroaching droids. “I said I just wanted to talk!”

Nick said nothing. He needed this ship, the man posed an unknown risk, and his tolerance for any risk at the moment was nil.

A droid got within striking range behind the man. It swept the butt end of its spear forward.

The attack never landed as the man ducked. The weapon rushed past, tapping but the top of his head-wrap. As the strike came to a stop, a hand reached up, grabbing hold of the handle.

Brown light flashed from the man’s shins. Stone engulfing and encasing his right foot as it kicked backwards.

The stone heel caught the droid in its chest. Nick saw the green bar above the droid flash half-red, as it was sent flying backwards. It smashed into a barrel, and barley oats spilled out from the ruined container onto the floor.

The man got back up, whirling the spear around like an expert.

Maybe Nick had misjudged the man, given he had somehow managed to escape his cell all while under the droid supervision. He was an Innatum. Earth-based although he didn’t what tier or ability. From the looks of it thus far, the man had a good deal of experience in armed and unarmed combat.

Nick pressed forward as the man fumbled to the side, using the spear to hold himself upright. He coughed and hacked as his face was twisted in pain. The stones encasing his foot gave away, crumbling into chunks which teetered onto the floor.

Aether sickness. Nick had seen it enough times, watching it happen to friends and family when they over-trained. Whatever maneuver he had just pulled must have exhausted the little aether he had available. Doubly so given it looked like he had been a captive for some time.

Nick and the droids continued closing in.

Then the man’s head perked up, eyes zeroing in on the structure standing on his left. Nick realized just what the man intended on doing, right as he shifted the spear in the direction of the aether-balancer.

“No further!” said the man, as he shoved the spear toward the quartz rings. “Or else!”

“Stop!” said Nick.

Every droid and living being in the hold froze to a standstill. The only sound came from the whir of the air-engines, bottles knocked out of place and rolling along the ground, and the haggard breathing of the man.

The spear in his hands hovered just in front of the runic inscriptions of the quartz rings.

“Looks like that got you talking.” The man looked around, coughing but managing to crack a grin. He directed his gaze to Nick. “I take it you know very well what would happen if I nick this bit here?”

Nick knew well enough. Any further and the weapon would have driven through it completely, disrupting the quartz rings and essentially rendering the balancer useless. All air-engines tied to the ship would fail soon after, and they would fall.

Leaving the ship useless, him stranded, and back in the same place he was this morning.

“Do so and it won’t end well for you either,” said Nick, emphasizing the threat in his voice. “Do you have any idea of where you are?”

“Oh, I am very aware. Fringe. Old Continent. The promised land turned lost. Filled with all sorts of spooky monsters from tales that keep children by their mothers’ blouses.”

“And you’d destroy the only thing keeping you from them?”

“To be fair, up until now a good part of me thought all of you were monsters.” He looked around at the droids again, a weave of brown hair spilling through his headwrap. “Never seen ones like these before, but it is a big world out there. I tend to keep my mind pretty open for that reason. That doesn’t exactly mean I know exactly what you are, but at the very least it got you talking eh? Now… I trust you and your boys not to try anything rash while we negotiate? While we talk this over like two civil gentlemen?”

Nick glanced over the man. He did not know a single thing about him other than that he was a prisoner on-board. Which made him no friends to these pirates. However, he also didn’t like being threatened.

He could try to subdue him, but with how close the spear-tip was to the aether-balancer… it wasn’t worth risking it. He didn’t know if he or the droids would get there in time. Above all else, he needed this ship. Intact.

He took up a non-threatening posture with his sword and crossed his arms.

“I’m listening. What do you want?”

“Many things,” said the man. “Food. Good Drink. Something soft to rest on. A tiny cage like that doesn’t allow for good sleeping posture you see. Oh, and a several other pleasures that the Divines have deemed men to enjoy upon this earth.”

“Does this seem like a joking matter to you?”

The man chuckled, coughing between each laugh.

The man had a strange way of talking, but Nick chalked it up to being in captivity for so long. It wasn’t like he was in the best condition either when they tied him to the bow of a ship for three days.

“Sorry, old habit. Grew up around a bazaar. Small talk comes with any bargain. That being said, I’d like your assurance that you won’t kill me or cage me up the moment I withdraw the spear. Not a big fan of sleeping in a cage, and a big fan of continuing to live, you see.”

His request was odd but reasonable. Odd because there was nothing which would stop Nick from saying yes then doing precisely the opposite once the man couldn’t threaten the ship. He decided to entertain him. It wasn’t like the man did anything wrong… and he was likely a victim of poor circumstance. Similar to himself.

“You have my word.”

“Good. And… would you mind telling me what you are after?”

Nick clenched his arms.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Well…” the man’s eyes looked up in thought then back to Nick. “I’d just like us to lay our cards out on the table as the saying goes. But… if I were to surmise, you are after someone or some people these lot have taken. Vislandan, if I’d wager a guess?”

Nick felt surprise flicker across his face, although it was concealed by his mask.

“Silence sometimes speaks just as loudly as words.” The man smiled. “And what I heard was yes. Now… I believe I can help you with recovering your lost ones. Family, friends, a beloved. You name it. Don’t exactly care but I’ll help. In return for-”

“And...” said Nick. “How would you know and how-why would you help?”

“Sure. As for the former, it was more of an educated guess. Every single lout on this ship and back in the camp was talking about the great raid into Vislanda for weeks on end. Doubly so once those who went returned. You show up a few days later, with…”

The man looked at the droids.

“Whatever those things are. I don’t know too much of that country but it fit the bill for what people think. Advanced in the art of war, straight-edged, to-the-point. Only thing missing are wings but again, it was a guess. Nobody else seemed to care about any of the raids, not until they got done with this one, which left me with Vislandans.”

It made sense when the man put it that way, Nick had to admit. However, it also made him doubly cautious of him. He wasn’t an ordinary fellow. No ordinary fellow would be this calm in this situation, nor be so meticulous with his actions.

“As for how I’d help… well let’s just say that I know a great deal of this lot and their ilk. You learn a surprising number of things when you are just a background ornament. Who they are and what they can do. Their likes and dislikes. Where they work from. How they function. You get the drill.”

The man took a moment to breathe.

“And as for why? Well, they have something I’d dearly like to have back.”

“And what is to say that you can’t just sell me out later in exchange for the item?” said Nick.

“I take it you haven’t known this lot for long because their words don’t mean a damn, which leaves any kind of negotiating off the table. Unless it is with an entire fleet backing them up. And… well, the item in question has a great deal of value. The individual in question wouldn’t give it up for anything else even…”

The man eyed a pile of bloodied bracers and weapons below one of the droids.

“In exchange for someone who killed five of their fellows.”

Nick turned his head away.

“They left me with no choice.”

“And you probably did a service to the rest of humankind by getting rid of them. Only certain characters willingly come all the way out to the Fringe. Same kind which isn’t wanted much by any civilization I know of.”

A tumbling noise sounded, followed by a yelp and clink of something striking metal bars. Nick turned to the direction it came from. Past the open cargo doors, he saw the girl inside a cage, having fallen backwards from the looks of it. She watched them, blinking with fear. Her arms clasped around herself tight.

“Close the door,” said Nick.

The closest droid stepped across and creaked it shut.

“Good of you to leave her alive,” said the man. “Pretty sure she was press-ganged to working here. Don’t think she did anything wrong herself. Outside whatever these louts forced her to.”

The man coughed, his grip on the spear twitching and nearly striking the quartz-ring. Nick bit his cheek.

“Anyhow.” The man withdrew the spear, and tossed it, letting it clatter to the floor. “I just needed you to hear my offer. Way I see it, I die either way, either by you if you reject or by monsters if I take us all down. I know your folks on that continent of yours don’t look too kindly on southerners but I figured I’d shoot my shot anyway.”

Nick couldn’t give a care about where the man was from. That being said Nick could very well just say nothing and have him subdued by the droids at this point. They were close enough now to just clobber him before he could do anything.

However, he had given his word, and he was no petty murderer. The man also had information, which he preferred to have without resorting to more unsavory means.

Information and assistance the man seemed all the more willing to provide, all in exchange for whatever possession had been taken from him.

“So…” the man wiped his beard of spittle. “Do we have a deal?”

Nick still had his doubts. There was far more to him than met the eyes. Too many unknowns for him to be comfortable.

“How did you escape the binds?” said Nick.

“Picked the lock for the bounds and the cage.”

“So, you’re a thief?”

“Eh not anymore. Just something I picked up growing in the bazaar. Though that has nothing to do with why I was locked up in the first place.”

Nick felt a bit hypocritical saying that, given his last profession. Smuggling was technically thievery, and was punishable in the same sense.

“How did you get past the droids?”

“Droids?” the man looked at the closest one. “That’s what you call them? Well… they just let me through. Didn’t pay much mind either.”

“What?”

Nick looked at Legatus One with confusion.

“The individual was already subdued,” said the droid. “Which invalidated the order given. No orders were given to continue monitoring individual in question.”

Nick blinked. He thought back to all the commands and realized he never gave specific instructions to watch over this particular man. Only to the captured girl.

He’d have to be more careful with his words moving on.

That still left the man however. He stared back, kneeling, with focused and hopeful eyes, doing his best to stay upright with each haggard breath.

The man had done no wrong. At most, he could be a valuable ally going forward. And as much as it pained Nick to admit, he was out of his depth. He knew little of the way things were here.

Maybe Cedric was right, to an extent. Some things he couldn’t do by himself.

“We have a deal.”

“Excellent!” the man coughed, dropping to sit on the floor. Nick grimaced; he didn’t want to think too hard about the last time the floor was cleaned.

“My full name is a bit lengthy.” The man nudged the cloth wrap around his head back into place. “But for now, you may just call me Ali. And what is yours my friend?”

Nick was about say his given name, before deciding to keep that to himself. Instead of not answering however, he recalled his given name from the blue screens.

“Nezra. Call me Nezra.”

“Nezra hm… Well, glad to be working with you. Now-“

A yaw reverberated through the hull of the ship, loud enough to cause the planks to shake.

A figure moved, blotting out the rays of sunlight peering through the planks on the side. The noise grew louder with each second, and Nick realized it was another set of air-engines.

Judging by the encroaching shadow, it was another ship.

“Hey Trent!” a brash voice yelled. “You have some enormous balls running off like that with a ship! I have word from Cumberlane if you cooperate that he’ll let you off easy and cut only one off!”