Chapter 12
“Torin, you need to come back to the Bridge right away,” Ana’s voice crackled from the walls of the ship.
“What now?” I snapped with uncustomary frustration.
The Megapede incident had got under my skin more than I cared to admit. Even with the beast firmly out of sight, echoes of what could have been left me a little sick to my stomach. The plan of retiring to my private quarters with Fang Mei and Crynn for a bit of relaxation therapy had been high on the list of things to do.
This had better not be one of Ana’s attempts at comedy.
“Susan has just contacted us, Stormblade Harbour is under siege.”
“What? Is this some kind of joke?”
“Not this time. A fleet practically appeared out of nowhere and started to bombard the shields…hard.”
“God damn it, never a moment’s fucking peace,” I swore. “Crynn, Fang Mei, back to the Bridge.”
They didn’t say a word before turning around, they didn’t to. Their feelings were written plainly on their faces.
***
It didn’t take long to hurry back up the stairs and down the corridor before the three of us were back on the Bridge. The grave expressions of the crew manning their stations confirmed this was a legitimate crisis. Not that I truly believed Anastasia would pull my leg about something this serious but hope springs eternal.
My castellan, Sarah, was up on the big screen and Kristoff’s image was down in the corner as he listened in from Storm Raider.
“Report!” I barked, sweeping into the room and taking my seat in the captain’s chair. Crynn and Fang Mei took up flanking positions on either side of me.
“Captain Carter,” Susan started. “We are under siege. More than sixty warships appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and began a bombardment of the city five minutes ago. These ships have advanced weapons systems designed to break through defences such as ours. The first barrage initially broke through the shielding. As you know, by default, we keep the generator running at a relatively low power setting to conserve mana.”
“Bloody Nora!”
“Thankfully, I was nearby and managed to get to the generator facility in time and crank the strength up to the maximum. This prevented any of the enemy vessels from taking advantage of the momentary lapse in protection. None of them got into the bay. Most of the damage to the city was minimal, the kinetic energy of the bombardment had been sapped by the shield.
“From what we have observed, the attackers look like an alliance of the mercenary companies sent by the consortium. Which marries up with our suspicions as to who was behind the Outlaw Nation invasion. The good news is that the shielding is holding and keeping them out. Instead, they pivoted their strategy and started landing troops further south on the island. Establishing a beachhead.”
Anastasia strutted over and hopped into a seated position on the arm of my chair. “The invasion by those idiots from Chicago must have always been intended as a distraction. A way to get our two most effective weapons out of Stormblade Harbour.”
“Agreed. The question is how they got so close without being detected. We have monitoring stations and scout ships set up just for this eventuality. It’s not like we didn’t learn a lesson from Reed’s attempted invasion during the winter.”
Crynn tapped her lips in thought. “Speed. If it were me, that is how I would go about it. Hang back with the fleet out of sight and then turbo boost the engines to the point of near failure to get in position before the enemy can react. It’s an all-or-nothing tactic, though. If you don’t succeed, effective retreat is almost impossible.”
[Crynn is partially correct,] Quinntexxis spoke to us through the Navigation Hub now that it was directly in contact with the hub in the Command Centre of the palace. [Once spotted, the mercenary ships covered the remaining distance at great speed. We only had a few minutes of warning, but it was enough to begin mobilisation. It appears they had scouted the position of our spy buoys in advance and took a route that avoided detection for the most part. And speaking of monitoring stations, there is more bad news. A second fleet has been discovered. Moving much slower than the first and coming from Wisconsin. Troop transports.]
“Fragshli is making a move.”
[A fair assumption.]
“Is it in league with the mercenaries?”
[That is unknown at this juncture. However, if I were a betting fairy, I would say not.]
“What makes you say that?”
[Marena’s Mercy and Storm Raider are not trapped in the bay of Stormblade Harbour. The Outlaw Nation distraction was deliberately designed to draw the ships out and allow the mercenaries to attack without having to battle them, but this tactic has left the Wisconsin transport flotilla completely exposed. They are not properly equipped for combat; they can be sunk with ease. If they were working together, then this is a degree of poor planning that I don’t think is possible. Therefore, the likeliest answer is that the fragment seeks to take advantage of the situation but is unaware of your current location, and how vulnerable it has made his forces to counterattack.]
“It could be another trick,” Fang Mei suggested. “Another feint to draw us away.”
[That is possible, though I think it is unlikely given the circumstances. The Wisconsin faction is fully aware of Marena’s Mercy’s capabilities, having experienced the ship’s deadly efficiency first-hand. They would know that the fleet could be sunk without ever seeing the submerged dungeon ships. There are too many risks to make it a viable strategy.]
Fang Mei was not convinced. “You’re assuming that the fragment cares about the risk to the people on those ships.”
“That is a secondary thought for now,” I interrupted. “Allowing the transport fleet to reach the middle of the lake, farthest from shore, is in our best interest. We can deal with them after the immediate problem is dealt with. How are we situated about the siege?”
Susan resumed her report. “The city shield is holding. Although the mana consumption is enormous. We have organised teams to conscript the civilians for mana-sharing purposes. The shield should be good for the next two days. There are only seven seaworthy ships in port, not enough to force a breakout. The enemy has sixty-six much larger vessels taking turns blockading the bay. There are another twelve of our ships in Lake Michigan that can return if needed. Of course, Claudia can supply ground troop reinforcements, but Grand Rapids still has close to fifty thousand Outlaw Nation soldiers bearing down on them.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“What is the plan, captain?” Kristoff asked.
It was a good question; one I didn’t have an immediate answer for.
“Susan, how many enemy troops have been landed on the island?”
“It is a bit difficult to tell, but we are estimating between ten and twenty thousand based on the number of ships in the attack fleet. Unfortunately, they are making a concerted effort to conceal their activities from view. Our people with scrying abilities or gear are being blocked.”
That was a concern. The mercenaries might be wearing limiter glyphs to operate on the planet, but they remained experienced individuals more familiar with Darkwyrld technology than the Shattered Storm. I couldn’t help the nagging suspicion that they might have an ace up their sleeve to break through that we hadn’t seen yet. With both dungeon ships involved in the raid, virtually every member of the crew was with me. That comprised the bulk of the most talented people in the Shattered Storm.
There were a few others I could rely on, but many of them had been put in charge of the other ships in the fleet.
“Keep some of our scout vessels watching the Wisconsin flotilla, otherwise, we ignore them for now. They paint a tempting target for sure, but we can’t afford distractions right now. The enemy at the gates deserves our full attention. Anastasia and Kristoff, get the ships moving for home as fast as possible. Susan, get on the blower to Regina and see if you can prise Calum MacDonald from her grasp to head up the defensive organisation inside the walls. He knows what he is doing.”
“Understood.”
“We’ll stay in close contact. Alert Anastasia if anything changes. We should be back in what…six hours?”
Anastasia nodded in confirmation beside me.
***
The ships went deep the moment we exited the river system. There was no point giving our opponents any more of a heads-up than necessary.
Stormblade Harbour had grown over the last year to encapsulate the entire northern third of the island. The sites of spawning crystals inside that territory had been narrowed down via rigorous observation and cordoned off. Once the shroud dropped, we’d be able to move those crystals to somewhere more convenient. The inland pylons for the shield had been shifted to cover all that land. It was part of the reason why the mana expenditure was so high; the area of coverage was five or six times larger than it used to be.
Despite the expansion, there was a significant amount of exposed beachfront down the east coast of the island and that is where the mercenaries made landfall.
However, they didn’t limit their activities to Stormblade Harbour during the time it took us to get back within striking distance. We had established several smaller colonies on the larger islands of the archipelago. Without the Framework gifts Stormblade Harbour had, they didn’t enjoy the same degree of protection. By the time the dungeon ships arrived, the two nearest Stormblade Harbour, Moongarden and Hogworts, had been razed to the ground.
Hightower to the west had been spared the depredations thus far and was in the process of being evacuated using transport pads linked to the city’s gate like what we had in the various guild houses.
“What were the casualties?” Brant asked an angry-looking Susan on the screen.
Brant had joined me in Navigation the moment he heard the mercs had taken their frustrations out on the satellite communities. The militia commanders of Moongarden and Hogworts had been friends of his from before the Darkwyrlds.
“Too early to tell,” she answered with a frustrated sigh before continuing in a sombre tone. “There were approximately two hundred militia stationed with both colonies. None made it back before the towns were overrun. We don’t know if any prisoners were taken or if they were just slaughtered. I’m sorry, Brant.”
The big, blonde man nodded his understanding. He’d known it was a forlorn hope. Those men wouldn’t have abandoned their posts and saved themselves. Not when there were civvies to protect.
Susan continued. “Early headcounts suggest we got seventy percent of the civilian population out before the pads became inoperable. It…it does not look good. The damn fuckers completely levelled the settlements. Gave them the full-on scorched earth treatment.”
“They are pissed at the contract’s cancellation and are taking it out on us,” I said. “Well, they are going to pay for their actions. Any of the fools who participated in the sacking will feed the dungeon.”
Brant grunted in agreement, a stark contrast to his earlier stance on my peculiar method of execution.
“Possibly,” Doyle interjected. He was part of the group in the Command Hub with Susan. Calum had arrived but was out overseeing the distribution of the militia and the Shattered Legion soldiers permanently garrisoned in Stormblade Harbour. “We can’t rule out the possibility this was a calculated act of brutality. Either for intimidation purposes or an attempt to evoke a response from the city’s defenders. A section of the shielding would have to be deactivated if we wanted to send a sortie out to stop the pillaging. That would have provided an opportunity to breach our defences.”
“Good point. No matter, we will be in position within the next fifteen minutes and then it will be time for these bastards to reap their just desserts.”
***
Darik Scargiver
The thick pads of the Mammutodon’s feet crunched on the sand. The four thick toes displaced the small particles on the beach, but they quickly transitioned to sod as he marched from the beachhead. Darik sucked in a lungful of air; this place was better than that cesspit Chicago. More natural. It didn’t offend his senses as much. With that being said, it lacked the pleasant odours of home, but all things considered, this had been a gratifying surprise.
Perhaps Carter wasn’t such a bad sort, after all.
Not enough gratitude to engender any mercy for his opponents, though. Earthlings were still only good for only two things.
Experience and fertiliser.
Hence why the Mammutodon mercenary had decided to pass the time by sacking the two smaller nearby communities. A little bit of violence to whet the appetite for the main course.
Grollick, his chief dwarven sapper, raised his bearded face from papers covered in engineering calculations splayed out on a table set off the beach and saluted his commanding officer with a fist bump to the heart.
“Speak, Grollick.”
“My boys have been hard at work since landfall. These fackin’ morons don’t know the first thing about proper siege defences. Nobody’s made an effort to stop our excavations. Nor have my boys uncovered a single buried countermeasure. They fackin’ moved the pylons from their original positions and they ain’t been properly secured yet. Fackin’ Amateurs.”
The Scargiver allowed himself a smile. Something concealed by the two massive trunks that covered his mouth. It only added to his dour, uncompromising reputation.
The local's lack of knowledge did not surprise him. Such blind spots were common, and not just in newly integrated worlds. Many put too much faith in the strength of the Framework. And it was in the common interest of those in the know to stifle the distribution of such knowledge.
One such snippet was the vulnerability of shield pylon foundations if they are moved. It takes several months for the impervious nature of a pylon to sufficiently permeate the soil around it. Something the Framework did automatically when first purchased, but not if an existing pylon is moved as part of an expansion. Until then, you could dig the foundations out and topple them if you had the right equipment. A flaw that could easily go unnoticed because it did not affect any of the new pylons in the network.
The automated system attempted to compensate for the flaw by alternating the placement of pylons. Bring an old one down and the two flanking it would pick up the slack, but the field between them would be weaker and that made it vulnerable to brute force penetration.
Even the other mercenary captains’ who were part of this alliance didn’t know about the methods Grollick utilised to gain entry into Stormblade Harbour. Grollick knew this, of course, but the cantankerous dwarf didn’t require any encouragement to disparage those who he deemed unworthy of respect.
Which was virtually everybody except Scargiver and Grollick’s wife.
“How long?”
“Depends? How many pylons do you want to bring down? If just the one, then we are good to go right now. If you want to weaken the shield further or want multiple points of entry, you’ll have to wait a little longer.”
The ideal situation would have been to catch Stormblade Harbour unprepared and be in the bay from the beginning. Dungeon ships were faster than most if they had the necessary reserves of energy. Carter could be back soon and that would complicate matters further. Darik didn’t have full control over most of the alliance fleet, he couldn’t command their ships to sacrifice themselves to buy the rest more time. The captains commanding those ships were more likely to withdraw and save their hides.
“We’ve waited long enough. Let’s get this over with. Bring it down and then the attack can begin. I shall lead the charge myself.”
“Aye, sir!”