Romans & histoires Ao3 Lower Decks

and return the solar system to its "Default-State." Avery Vane-Thorne stood on the command deck of the Ares-Prime, the flagship of the new "Tri-World-Fleet." For the first time, "Sovereign-Pilots," "Amethyst-Navigators," and "Technocracy-Engineers" sat at the same consoles, their distinct "Standards" woven into a single, functional "Combat-Frequency."

Dax asked, completely unfazed. "Worse," I said, my fingers flying over my keyboard as I decrypted a fresh packet of data pouring in from the coastal sensors. "The Ark in the Mariana Trench isn't an aerial fortress like Neo-Angeles. It's designated as Abyssal-One. It's a high-pressure, deep-sea manufacturing hub. And they aren't sending drop-ships." I hit a key, throwing the coastal radar onto the main holographic projector. The western coastline only thirty miles from our grounded crater was lighting up like a Christmas tree. But the signatures weren't in the sky. They were emerging from the ocean.

Her onboard marketplace, restaurants, and areas for leisure and entertainment excelled above all others. “She looks new because they recently remodeled the entire weather deck to attract more high-end passengers,” Crystellia said. “You should see the updated HB-containment system on the promenade deck. It keeps commuters comfortable even when they cross through unshielded sunlight.” Bjorn smiled. Crystellia understood the expectations of traveling rich folk. But was she aware of the below-main poor-borne section consisting of kitchens, laundries, crew-cabins, and group sleeping quarters for lower-class citizens? He had read of a deck set aside for storing cables used to group-roost those wit

She dropped through the structural lattice of the lower deck, bypassing the heavily guarded main platforms entirely. ​The cellar deck was a dark, wet labyrinth of hanging pipes, structural beams, and rushing sea spray. Lyra deployed her landing parachute at the absolute last second, the nylon snapping open with a violent jerk that slammed her boots directly onto the grating of the maintenance catwalk surrounding the thermal siphon.

They took three villages, much closer together than they liked, and turned sail back to Concordia. The slave pens below deck were overcrowded and poorly tended as the ship was minimally staffed without the blood slaves that normally accompanied them and with many vampires remaining behind in order to tend to the sick and dying of Concordia. Going below deck was a miserable affair as a result, stinking of urine, faeces, vomit and stale bodies, echoing with crying children, weeping women, angry men, and their fervent prayers to the One God for deliverance. Thaelen spent as much time as he could on the deck, working himself into exhaustion in order to try to alleviate the burden on his soldiers

Even the crews on the other vessels had a hab on the Raven’s Refuge, despite the fact that they also had temporary habs in the ship they served on. The township deck was rather spacious and comfortable - there were dozens of villa-like habs on one end of it. Each one was large enough to house six people comfortably. Eight if they became pressed for space. There was also a lounge, an eatery, a quaint theater, and a couple of small shops. There was plenty for all to do. Up on the bridge, Rear Admiral Aurora took her seat on the captain’s chair and glanced up at the star maps displayed on the screens in front of her. Then she called out to the dozen or so officers behind their terminals, and or

Damn. At the pack border I hesitate the slightest of a second before following her over. We walk to the packhouse, which is more like a mansion. This thing is huge. 5 stories at the least, and I know the order of stay - Alpha at the top, Beta’s underneath (if they don’t have their own home like my parents had), Gamma’s under them, then conference rooms, and other necessities. The next floor is for visiting ranked members of other packs, and then the first floor is the common space for single Omegas. Ground floor is where the kitchen, living room, common toilets and such reside.

The air in the sub-levels of the Glacial Spire was different from the crisp, biting cold of the upper floors. Here, it was thick and heavy, smelling of ozone and the ancient, metallic tang of blood that had been spilt over centuries. This was the “calibration” deck, but as Astra led me deeper into the bowels of the mountain, it looked more like a factory for souls.

Below us, Lagos looked like a circuit board on fire—neon signs flickering, transport tubes stalling, and the desperate citizens of the slums looking up at a sky that had turned a bruised, electrical purple. As we climbed higher, the air grew thin and clinical. The "Grit" was being replaced by the "Ozone" of the elite. We passed the floating gardens of the High-Administrators, places where the grass was genetically modified to glow silver and the water ran in gravity-defying loops. To them, the war in the refinery was just a flickering news report on a glass screen. To me, it was the end of the world. "Dreadnought slowing down," Jago signaled. "They're docking. Top-level hangar, Section Alpha

It felt like a chapter of my life had closed, and the future felt uncertain. Maeve rubbed at the spot where her neck met her shoulder as she walked across the deck toward the control room, which had a door leading down into the lower level of the boat. Beneath the deck was a large master bedroom and bathroom, a kitchen, a few storage areas, and a bunkroom.