Chapter 183

Red Sands Desert, Elkis Republic

Trade City of Erakis

Colonel Orzal Vek was grimly silent as he watched the last sections of the army marching out into the distance.

“Quite a sight, eh?” Marie Azulin said, as she slapped him on the back. “They’ll take them out in no time. Then we can get the hell off this post and back to somewhere civilized.”

The colonel had to stop himself from glaring at the senate guard commander. The woman just rubbed him the wrong way. He had been around black ops enough to recognize a bona fide sociopath when he saw one, and her constant oscillation between borderline naiveté about military matters and deadly efficiency when it came to political ones only underscored what she was: the senate’s guard dog, here to keep a knife firmly on the army’s throat.

And for some ungodly reason, she seemed to consider him something of a friend. Or a political ally. He wasn’t sure she was capable of understanding the difference. She was, after all, a pure product of the Republic’s rotten inner workings. Child of a senator, too far from the succession to hope inheriting the main estates, but close enough that she could still get her career catapulted forward by her relatives, and have prestige and power trickle down to her if she did her dynasty proud.

Which she seemed determined on doing by putting Rebirth firmly under the Republic’s boot.

“I doubt it will be quite so simple,” he said diplomatically. “The dungeon, and the town, although they are evidently no longer the main threat, have proven quite resilient.”

“Ah! Yeah, that was before these Old World constructs smashed them to bits and they had to beg the guild for help. They’re toast, they just don’t know it yet.”

Orzal twitched, but kept his thoughts to himself.

“Let us hope so. Still, just in case, I have put in place the contingency plans.”

“That’s my man. Thinking of how to slit our enemy’s throat even in the unlikeliest of circumstances.” She patted his shoulder, and then stretched, making the sunlight glint off of her far too heavily gilded armor. “Alright, no putting it off. I’ll go handle the paperwork for the senate back home. Let them know how the departure has gone. If you need me, I’ll be in my office procrastinating on it until the last minute. Ta!”

The colonel waved at her as she left, before returning his attention to the marching troops. Many soldiers still remained in Erakis of course, the buildup was far too large to be accommodated by their logistics in a cross-wasteland expedition, but he was grimly certain their reserves would be eaten up before long as the main body found itself against the horrors the dungeon core and town no doubt had in store for them.

Plus, there remained Amelia and her shattered troops. To his amazement, the senate had allowed them to honor their parole, there was little doubt it had more to do with keeping them firmly under the senate guard’s thumb than honoring their word.

The colonel stayed there for a few minutes, gazing at the rapidly disappearing troops, and sighed. He better make his report to Senator Veuman as well.

*****

It was Allya who broke the silence in the council room.

“You want to…to attack the Republic’s army? And then invade the Republic?!?”

“Well…” Crystal leaned back from the table. “Destroying their army and taking Erakis from them, to interdict that jumping off point, would be a good starting place, I believe. And a necessity, if we do not wish to be constantly harassed.” She gazed at the rest of the council. “Unless anyone here seriously thinks the Republic will give up its ambitions and the senate suddenly understands the sunken cost fallacy?”

No one spoke up, and she nodded.

“Thought not. So yes, attacking is our only option. It is the only one that makes sense in the long-term, and currently, our tactical situation makes a battle outside Rebirth a much better prospect than digging into the piles of ruins that are our defenses and praying whatever remains holds against their onslaught.”

“And instead you wish to sortie out and attack them head-on, without the benefit of cover?” Anders asked, his voice dripping with irony.

“Instead I’m going to sortie, and shred the ever-loving crap out of their supply lines with golems that don’t eat, sleep, or rest haunting the wasteland.”

That made the commander shut up, and suddenly several councilors had a very thoughtful expression, not least of which was Melia.

“Any army this size, and that far from its base, is going to have a huge amount of logistics, and as Anders pointed out earlier, that might be the limiting factor in how many soldiers they can send,” the dark elf said thoughtfully. “I don’t know much about military matters, but I know freight and, well, piracy and other hazards. You’ll certainly be able to put a dent in them with a concerted effort, but that’s only going to last until they round up enough airships to handle all their logistics via air. At this point, even if you were to drag some of your artillery through the dunes without the main army pouncing on it, I doubt they wouldn’t be able to evade it with the ships.” Melia smiled. “There’s a reason airships are preferred despite the cost, and it doesn’t all have to do with speed. They’re simply safer than lugging it through the wastelands—or anywhere else for that matter—the old-fashioned way.”

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“That’s why I’m going to use airships,” Crystal said, and this time Allya’s mouth hung wide open, before she closed it with a snap.

“How—” Anders began.

“The Republic,” Allya said, before realizing she had thought out loud, and everyone was now looking at her. “The Republic’s airships, during their sneak attack. One of the ships exploded above the dungeon, and most of the debris was missing.” She turned towards Crystal. “You absorbed it, and”—she caught herself just in time from saying “reverse engineered it”—“duplicated it, didn’t you?”

“Precisely!” Crystal’s smile was brilliant, like a teacher whose favored pupil had answered correctly to a question. “Although there is still some work to do, obviously.”

“I do not mean to sound gloomy, but will you have the resources?” Calder interjected, the orc captain looking vaguely worried. “Your dungeon has already been half destroyed, only the deeper floors are open, and your forces have been gutted. Naval programs are expensive, very much so, and our foes are already bearing down on us!”

Allya nodded thoughtfully, as if it was a good point…and as if she was not perfectly aware Crystal was an extradimensional, who had far more mana than any dungeon should have.

“Don’t worry, I am a mistress at making things cost-efficient. And you would be surprised at how much of my hardware can be repurposed for naval applications. For one, I won’t need to invest that much in artillery. As pointed out I already have many guns ready to use, and no real way to haul them across the wasteland on the ground.”

“That’s fair enough, Lady Crystal. Still, there are going to be…worries,” Allya said, pointedly not looking at Dominique.

“There were always going to be, but don’t worry, let me handle them. I am quite good at handling complaints, and any potential disagreement, I can assure you.”

Allya twitched, but didn’t retort.

She’d seen the handiwork of the dungeon and her “maids,” as well as her generosity. She had little doubt she’d find a suitable compromise or bribe for the guild…or threaten to send them packing.

At this point, she had more than earned her aura of fear and awe, unlike the baroness herself.

“Very well then. We will need to hash out the details of course.” And she was going to need to talk to Melia about the possibility of buying warships from the dungeon. “But this seems like a doable plan. If you manage to construct the ships.”

“Of course.”

*****

“So just build an entire air fleet from scratch?” Emilia said, before chuckling and shaking her head, hopping off of the command center’s holographic projector, which she had been sitting on. “You are utterly incapable of thinking small, aren’t you?”

“The shuttles were small.”

“Right. Small. Totally not stealthed to hell with technology beyond most people and large enough to carry heavy industrial machinery.” Alexandra glared at the vampire, who simply smiled. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. You’re the one with the big aspirations.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sarah, Ella, thoughts?”

The maids exchanged a look, and shrugged.

“The plan makes sense, as we had discussed,” Ella said.

“But we don’t know much about airship design,” Sarah continued. “At least not for anything but commando ships. And you’re looking for ships of the line and corsairs.”

“Ships of the line I can do. But a corsair…” Alexandra winced. She could just blow the enemy supply ships out of the sky, and it would play merry hell with the Republic’s logistics…but those ships would, by definition, be filled with loot. “I’m going to be honest, my job was to reduce pirates to plasma, not build them.”

“Why not ask the town?” Everyone turned towards Seraph, who tilted their golem’s head. “You informed me that one of the vessels was most likely a pirate vessel, and was close to the town. It is down, but its crew lives. Why not ask them?”

“That’s…not a bad idea, actually.” Alexandra nodded. “I’ll have to talk to Allya about that. There shouldn’t be a problem asking for some advice from a grounded pirate. But the design is only part of the problem. We’re going to need some more industry for this. And wood. Lots of wood. Which means that, at long last Ella, you get to build your arboretum in the hydroponics bays.” Alexandra held up her finger as the maid smiled. “For wood production, mainly, not your alchemical experiments.”

The maid did her best to look innocent, which was an utterly chilling expression on the maid’s face, especially for someone who had witnessed her torturing someone to death.

“Of course, milady,” she said sweetly. “Just wood production.”

She’d have to keep an eye on that.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Alexandra shook her head.

“Alright. Now that this is handled, the steps. I’d like to expand and improve them as we rebuild. Ideas?”

*****

“Milady, we have a package for you.”

Allya blinked, as she looked up from the seemingly endless paperwork on her desk to meet Trira’s eyes.

“A package?”

“Yep. Came in through backchannels from the latest caravans from the Republic. I opened it, obviously, in case it was trapped.”

“And?”

“Well, it’s a lot of paperwork and even images. It’s from a certain…Olstor Numis?”

Allya looked at her blankly, searching through her mind, before she blinked. That caravan master! The one she’d saved from the Sand Demon, and all the contraband she’d “graciously” allowed to go through unchallenged as long as he gave her some intelligence and had his services ready for some less-than-legal business in the future.

“Shit, he came through?”

“Apparently so,” Trira said, clearly answering more out of politeness than any knowledge of the situation. “See for yourself.”

Allya grabbed the files, and began parsing through them.

Pictures of airships, the landing fields of Erakis, trade records…damn, there were even images of the fortress there. Big bastard, although old. Probably built over a century ago, when the Republic was wetting itself thinking the Kingdom was going to cross the wasteland after the conquest of Darthar.

“Well well well. Interesting.” And a tad bit too convenient. She was going to have to look into this. And ask Crystal, since the dungeon core appeared to have some intelligence gathering of her own, somehow. That way they’d be able to compare notes. “Anything else?”

“Not much. Except, you know, the usual. Searching the caravan for spies, inevitably finding minor contraband by various merchants and some adventurers, the usual rush to get on the dungeon dive schedule that requires some minor riot control. All that.”

“I see.” She sighed. “I assume seeing the state of the dungeon caused some panic?”

“You know it. Most of the residents are becoming pretty blasé about it by now, but the newcomers are panicking that the dungeon is closed. Fortunately, the veterans are settling them down with stories of how every time the dungeon had something like that happen, it came back online, better and more profitable than ever!”

“Well, they’re not exactly wrong. Crystal has assured me that the clay steps should be open by tomorrow, with the rest of the steps to follow. It should settle the new guys nicely.”

“Hopefully.” Trira hesitated. “Look, I know when to keep my mouth shut, but I’ve been meaning to ask…what the hell is going on with that dungeon core? You know more than what you’ve told me or asked me to find out. And I can see it’s eating you up inside.”

Allya looked at her, and sighed.

“Do you truly want to know?” She held up her hand. “Think. I trust you with my life, quite literally, but think before you answer.”

Trira seemed to process that for a second, clearly not having expected that reaction, and she nodded.

“Very well then. Take a seat. This is going to be a very long, and very unpleasant explanation.”