Chapter 10 Part 1 of 3 (Patreon)

“Council leader,” Storbon coughed as Delilah looked out the Air Force’s hangars out onto the Alvan Empire.

She smiled to herself, suppressing it as she looked back with an innocent expression, lowering her spyglass.

“Is there are problem Major?” It was hard to keep her expression seeing the hardened Major’s flushed expression.

She had some distinctly non-work related thoughts flash through her mind.

“Please mind your footing, I don’t much want to have to jump down the mountain after you.”

“Oh, well I’d feel safe if it was the Major catching me.” She looked over the Empire and raised her spyglass again, biting her lip behind her arm.

She followed the growing black line that spread from King’s Hill along the main trade route to the growing trading ouposts and on to the inner and outer cities, linking the entire Empire together.

“What do you think of the rail system Storbon?” She asked.

“Honestly?”

“When have I enjoyed being lied to?”

“I don’t think that I get it, we have carriages that travel quickly and we have the teleportation network so people can move through the Empire Freely.”

“The carriages are expensive to make and they are unreliable. The teleportation network is impressive and quick, but it requires mana stones or monster cores for people to use it, they are  not inexpensive. The rail network takes some time to lay down and costs more up front, but it can run off of ambient mana, wood and coal, making it much cheaper to produce and run. It is reliable, can move much more than the carriages and it can keep running through the day and night unlike the carriages. What do people use to mark their wealth in the first realm?” She looked at him.

He sunk into thought.

“Land you own, the number of beasts that you have.”

“Exactly, horses and beasts of burden, or those that can produce products are highly valued. It costs a lot to maintain a ridable mount. That’s why most of the first realm kingdoms only have riding beasts for the knights and well-supplied mercenaries. The trains will be everyone’s horses and they will only need to pay for them when they need to travel. It will connect the farming communities to the cities, decreasing shipping costs and times. Allowing the farmers to supply the cities and the cities to supply the farmers the technology they need.”

“That makes sense, I forgot how they deal in terms of coppers and silvers with gold being rare. He looked at his own gear. “This would be worth more than a knight could make in several lifetimes.”

“Right, our biggest problem right now is that most people in the Alvan Empire are still farmers or traders. We have to work to shift the farming towards ingredients, which are more expensive seeds and intensive procedures. There are many people from the higher realms that want to move into the Empire, we need to strengthen our people in a way that inspires their growth instead of expecting handouts.”

“It sounds complicated.”

“Best to think of it as a service, we provide a service for them that they repay in taxes and fees. With a common look towards their betterment as a whole. We’re all in this together and we have to support those that would fall behind.”

Delilah lowered her glass falling silent looking over it all. There was still so much to do. We did all of this and there is so much to be done in the future.

“Council leader,” Kanoa said in his deep voice.

She smiled and bowed to the man who saluted her. The big Samoa smiled and lowered his hand, assistants flanked him on either side.

“How have you been Brigadier General?” She asked as she walked with him, heading into the hangar.

Kestrels were loading up and heading out on patrol. Waiting Sparrows and Kestrels were tended in their aviaries, thankfully behind sound cancelling formations.

“Busy as we all are,” He grinned. “Training was ramped up as well as breeding for our different aerial beasties. New weapons that were introduced in our last engagement have matured, giving us missiles, high powered bombs and rail guns. It has been and adjustment but our people have done well. Patrols and scouting have become our main missions. And finding Special teams and Close Protection Details in interesting places,” He raised an eyebrow to Storbon.

“We seem to get lost in the most strange places, near enemy compounds and sect cities.” The two men smiled at one another.

“So, the aerial technology has matured?”

“In a way that scares me as much as it’s brilliant. Miss Delfina Lucero is an amazing woman.”

Delilah snuck a glance out the corner of her eye.

“Yes, quite, more of you Earthers.”

“Bah, you think that we’re the ones with wild ideas? Lucero might have great ideas, but the Terrible Trio gave breath to destruction in a way that shakes my bones.” His smile went against his words.

Taran, Qin and Julilah seem to have found their place in weapons development. Now they had enough teachers in different disciplines, they had turned fully towards increasing Alva’s combat abilities through formation and smithing routes.

They took teleportation formations to a nondescript hallway with armed guards.

“From here we have to walk.”

The mountain was a completely military facility, with the newest training camps being built inside. There were no true maps of the entire complex. With the population explosion in Alva, they had moved all development into the mountain under the watch of the military.

Through several sets of stairs and down different corridors they passed guard posts, being checked several times before they passed through one last security hallway, controlled by Close Protection Details.

Past them they passed secure rooms.

“Each of these rooms are developing items specifically for military use. There are crafters from every profession here.” Kanoa said, he opened a door to a classroom. There were several large testing tables that were bolted to the ground, showing signs of use and wear. Several items were laid out on the desks, the windows were shuttered on the three sides of the room and there was a door to the left and right back side of the room.

“Eyo,” Taran, smiled, standing with Qin, Julilah and Delfina, different items around them covered in sheets to hide the projects underneath.

“Morning,” Delilah said, the door closed and sealed behind them, a sound canceling formation passing through them all.

“Okay, so to start, we’ve continued the uprgrading process for the formation stack systems, the medical supplies, weapons and armor. They’re all new and improved and we’ve slowed down implementing those upgrades so that we do them in updates that give a clear advantage over the previous versions. Unless the upgrade is a formation, because those are really easy to screw in and good to go. Really we have two things to talk about- the Gnome Crawlers- we outfitted them with mortars- we used them when pulling back our lines, allowing our artillery forces to add in another fifty percent of their firepower. Instead of just producing more mortar crawlers, we checked to see what a rail cannon would be like on the back of them.” He flipped over the chalk board to his side.

“This is the six-legged crawler, it can move under its own power, or it can be stored and dropped off. It’ll stab its legs into the ground, creating a stable firing base in twenty-five seconds. One Artillerist can use the formations on the side of the crawler to alter the cannon’s aim, another can load the cannon with the detachable storage device.”

“Going from five members to two,” Qin said. “Increasing our overall firepower and allowing us to use the rail cannons as mobile support instead of having them only in fixed positions.”

“Increasing our mobility, range and firepower. How much will they cost to operate and to build?” Delilah asked.

“The prototype was costly, about twenty Sky grade mana cornerstones. Our mass produced version will not only cost significantly less, they will have the ability for us to change out the rail cannon and uses formation sockets. They would reasonably work unless they are destroyed. We just need to put them on a dungeon core factory line every several years and that would repair any damages.” Julilah pulled out a pamphlet and handed it to Delilah.

“Using Enhanced Sky Grade iron for the core structure, Earth Grade for coverings.” Delilah sighed, blinking at the numbers and the resources required. “And this is per unit?”

“Yes.”

Delilah breathed in, closing her eyes and looking upwards.

“Implementation plan?”

“One Companies worth to start, we’ll field test it till the metal is screaming,” Kanoa said.

“Very well. Sky metal is still quite rare, and the cost is prohibitive. Once you have a report on performance, make sure we have another meeting to go over the results.” Kanoa’s assistant started jotting down notes.

“And next up is this little beauty. I hope you brought your credit card.” Delfina pulled a sheet off of a model.

“What is that?”

“That is the dream,” Delfina said, looking at the air-carrier.

Kanoa coughed.

It hosted one large internal flight deck its outer hull was covered in rail cannons and the new rail based machine guns above and below with a railgun belt along its mid section.

A massive beast of an airwing pushed to either side of the craft.