Chapter 411 - Strategics (Patreon)

Notes :

I think my eyesight is getting a bit better ? Hard to tell, but I'm hopeful.

Really appreciate the response to the blurb, by the way ! I'm not going to start writing a novel series right away (I have enough on my plate already XD), but I'll definitely start putting on some layers and worldbuilding.

Chapter 411

Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"Alright everyone." Said Alexandra as she sat on the edge of the holographic projector. "You've all had the basic briefing. The UDC is coming down south to start a mess, and we need to stop them." The assembled AIs, vampires and bosses nodded. "Which means we need to start moving a bit faster. CQ, you're taking the Windwrath down south, alongside a few transports. Link up with Jumper, take back command of your raiding group and veer into the Western Baronies. Your objective is to deny them their objective. They must not reach positions to threaten Sarth or the supply lines. The destruction of their task force is not strictly necessary but would be an appreciable bonus."

"Yes mom!" The boss wasn't bouncing with excitement, instead she seemed focused, if a bit restless, shifting from foot to foot. "Troops? AIs?"

"For the troops, it's up to you. Whatever you think you need, I'll make sure that you get it, so long as it's not a detriment to the march north. You'll have the Windwrath's AI once I bring it online, and Whiskey to back you up."

"Oki doki!"

Alexandra looked at the others.

"Glitch, Subtlety, I need you to get me estimates of how much force the other side is willing to pour into this mess, and how they're going to handle their logistics. Is their force self sufficient, like those monsters they sent before? If not, what do they need, and how are they getting it? Our objective is to slow them down as much as possible without drawing too many forces off of the main battle lines."

"Affirmative." Said both AIs in unison.

"Good. Ghost, Seraph. We need to increase production. I know, I say that all the time, but the UDC is going to start hitting its stride and funneling all it can into our faces. We need to be able to stand against that."

"Don't discount the Sapphire Kingdom either." Cautioned her other self. "They're technologically backwards, but they're the only nation on the continent to have a pillar of power. They have a lot of mana to burn, and mages to do it."

Alexandra nodded.

"Which brings me to my next point. Emilia, my biggest blindspot is still magic. And the problem is, I don't have the time to learn everything I need. There's too much going on. So that'll be your job. Figuring out the Sapphirian side of things and what they're going to bring to bear."

The vampire grimaced.

"I know a lot about magic, and more about the Kingdom than other nations due to that, but I'm not from Arkhan. Nor am I an archmage."

"We have someone who's both. I've started working on implants and interfaces, but they're not ready yet. In the meantime, I've given you full admin access to the VR pods, go talk to our friendly neighborhood prisoner."

"You mean the archmage everyone thinks is dead."

"Black site detainees aren't strictly a 'me' invention honey." Alexandra shrugged. "We have to play the cards we're dealt, and for what it's worth I have a mountain of evidence to detain her without trial. I believe 'military necessity' and 'force majeure' are both recognized by the WMC and the Western Marches."

"I wasn't protesting, just noting some unease. I'll talk to her."

"Good. If she proves uncooperative, ask Ghost to make an appearance. But I'm sure we can get her some stuff she wants." They already had made a deal with Emylris after all. Ensuring that her domains would stay within her family. Which...in and of itself was actually bringing in some complications, because after the bloodbath, the candidate with the most claim to her titles was a rogue scion who had exiled himself to the Sapphire Kingdom and, last she'd heard from Trira, was very likely to be part of the Sapphirian Army.

"Sure. I'll practice my interrogator face in the mirror."

"Attagirl. And now this leaves me with two tasks. Obviously, Frankie-"

"Frank."

Alexandra looked at the AI, whose avatar had definitely become more masculine, and nodded.

"I'll amend the personnel roster. Frank, I need you and the triplets to handle the war down south. Don't override Amelia, she's our designated marshall for this war and has command. But back her up, especially if the Tarkians start trouble. You'll be the symbol of Imperial authority in the south. And unfortunately, the role of keeping it all together as I focus north is on your shoulders."

Frank nodded.

"We'll get it done, boss."

Boss? Who the hell is he hanging out with?

"Excellent. Jared. To you I'm going to give one of the shittiest missions I can imagine, and I apologize for that. Despite our plans and staging, the guild's destruction has created a staggering amount of resentment. Not among the general population, but among adventurers. For now it's just grumbling, but it won't stay that way for long. I don't think there'll be an outright attempt on my life. Certainly they don't have the resources. But sabotage? Almost certainly. So you'll be on counterterrorism duty. Link up with Trira, you'll be her muscle if things go south. Seraph, Glitch and Whiskey have been earmarked to back you up for internal dungeon defenses, intelligence analysis and tactical planning respectively."

The boss golem bowed.

"Good. Let's get to it people! We have wars to win."

She hoped that wouldn't become her damned motto. Peace was nice.

Oh who was she kidding. The way things were going, she'd be formally at peace when she won.

Or died.

*****

The Adjudicator froze.

The door to her lodgings in Gorromar was as mundane as it could be. The real security was in deeper.

That was why it made such a great tripwire. Leaving the primary door without any traps to catch someone later was a clever tactic.

And no one expected the angels of the God of Fire, with Divine technology and magic at their fingertips, to do something as mundane as putting a charm on the door. A charm that would move slightly if the door was opened and closed. Revealing the fact that the wood behind it was slightly off color. As if someone had purposefully damaged it.

She checked her pockets, sighed, and turned around.

She'd been burned often enough. She wasn't walking an assault team into another meat grinder.

Thirty three seconds later, a small house in the outer districts of Gorromar exploded.

*****

"C-Ops, this is agent Valmore. Go for secure."

"Secure. Report, agent."

"Target destroyed their base of operations and disappeared." There was a pause. "Activity is inconclusive. Whatever this is, it's not another purge center. Should we pursue?"

"Negative. They're onto you. We do not have the resources for another full scale engagement. Pull back."

"Affirmative. Will rendez-vous with agent Slyzau. We-"

The connection cut off.

Three seconds later, the second orbital strike vaporized a hill in the Far Reach.

*****

"Report." Said the Third Custodian.

"After the Adjudicator's scrubbing of her lodgings, we detected encrypted comm traffic. If we hadn't been laser focused on her location after that, we'd never have found it." Said Jeremiah, commander of the Celestial Watch. "We were able to track and scan both emitter locations."

"Why bomb them?"

Jeremiah grimaced.

"Scans indicated both areas were small and effectively abandoned. I deduced they were burners, meant to be used only once. And we would have never been able to get there in time before they disappeared. The second one, especially, was right next to a series of mineshafts. Furthermore, the second location indicated movement on the scans before we even fired. We believe they either detected our sweeps or began evacuating as soon as the connection was lost." The commander shrugged. "I made a judgment call my lord. I stand by it."

The Custodian nodded.

"You have, and you have done well. You and the rest of the Celestial Watch. Were you able to analyze the communications?"

"The encryption will be hard to break, even with our resources. Entropy and mathematics we cannot override. As for the way they communicated, they appeared to have been low-profile Great Night communicators, built to get messages discreetly across, even through the fallout of a recent antimatter detonation."

"So no hope of jamming them."

"Not without jamming half the continent and taking down the radios in all of Tark and Gorromar, no."

The Custodian looked at the commander.

"Something troubles you."

"Yes my lord. They..." He swallowed. "My lord, if all of their agents are using the same communication system or thereabouts, which would explain how we have been unable to get a pin on them so far...my lord, salvage cannot explain it. These communicators were specialized equipment, deployed in limited quantities. If they have that many of them...they're producing them. We don't forbid the use of fabricators, but this is far beyond occasionally cranking out a gauss rifle. These things require dedicated production facilities, phase crystals...If they can make such equipment, what else can they produce?"

"I would guess a considerable amount of things, but not in great quantities. Which means they have been stockpiling for a long time, to burn it all at once."

Jeremiah frowned.

"Is that why they are courting a fight to the finish my lord? Because they would be discovered by the Purge, and would rather use it all?"

"Possibly. Keep searching, commander. Adjust your parameters with what you have discovered, and liaise directly with the Adjudicator. Her work seems to be of some interest to the Order, and given their repeated attempts on her life and operations, on top of the vitality of her ongoing efforts, she is worth dedicating special attention to. I fully sanction your use of orbital strikes. Though she may not thank you for the amount of work explaining them will create for her."

"Thank you my lord."

"Glory be His Name."

"And Glory be His Pyre."

*****

"Two strikes." Said Ghost as Alexandra's hologram appeared on the Flickerlight's bridge. They didn't actually need to be there, the ship was wired directly into their network, but it had sort of evolved into their de facto orbital control center. "Low power, relatively."

"What did they use to carry them out?"

"Not the main guns, interestingly enough. Those pivoted to fire but held back. No, they seem to have...I'm not sure what the heck these weapons are. Their energy signatures are reminiscent of hyperdrives."

"You mean they threw their targets into hyperspace?"

"You'd think so, but one was definitely a nuclear-yield detonation. Kilotons."

Alexandra's face went white.

"Then they did the opposite. They brought hyperspace out. Just like what the UIS tried when they destroyed Pluto."

Ghost swallowed.

"That's...that's insane."

Alexandra nodded.

They both knew that hyperspace was, more or less, energy. Basically a maelstrom. It was why jumping without a hyperspace shield was suicide. It was the equivalent of just going into a perpetual nova.

The UIS had theorized that, instead of jumping matter in, and then keeping the energy out with a hyperspace shield, they could jump energy out into realspace, and contain it with a hyperspace shield.

They'd been wrong. They'd been so, so wrong. They'd opened a breach into hyperspace. One they couldn't control, and just...devoured the entire planetoid and the fleet orbiting it. She had been able to see into the foreign dimension. It had been...wrong in ways she couldn't describe.

Alexandra had only felt the same way a single time since, and that was when Emilia had used that hellish blood magic spell to take down the first batch of core thieves the Republic had sent.

"I agree. If they've weaponized hyperspace...we knew they'd made hyperspace missile, but this is a whole other beast. And..." Alexandra froze. "I need you to drop everything I handed you. Let Seraph take the load of your new assignment for a bit. Hell, I'll pitch in to take your place."

"What? Why?"

"Because of our own defenses." Alexandra met Ghost's gaze. "What happens if they fire one of those weapons near Rebirth?"

"A big explosion, presumably?"

"What if it's not a hyperspace jump, but a teleport that they're using? What happens if it's targeted near the teleport redirect?"

She could see the implications hit Ghost.

"Oh hell. They've started bringing down the hammer on the continent..."

"And we have a set of hyperspace magnets inside our dungeon."

"...Shit."