Chapter 298

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

SINS Flickerlight

Alexandra spun in place, taking in the sight of the bridge. It was clean, ordered, tidy. Almost peaceful.

It was only ruined by the knowledge that everyone who had been on it was now in the ship's morgue, their bodies scraped up and stored there by the dutiful vessel's AI.

"It's been a while." Said Ghost as she touched the captain's chair, her hologram glitching slightly as she did. "It's so similar it almost hurt."

Alexandra nodded. The Sagitarius' Empire fetishism for the EFSN was on full display here. It wasn't just that the bridge was like that of an EFSN warship, it was almost exactly like that of a Glimmer-class light cruiser. There were some differences, but it was clear they were there out of sheer inevitability more than anything else.

"It is." She sighed. "Have you had time to get a dive into the code?"

"Yeah. I did. I tripped the loyalty switches from the inside out, and dove into the coms. Good news is, we're in full control of the ship. Anything that says otherwise will have to go through the security system, and they'll have a bad day."

"Bad news?"

"The communication arrays altered its broadcasts when Omnicron was activated. Not by much, but it altered the status ping. If someone was monitoring it..."

"Fuck." Alexandra pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, before opening them again. "What was it communicating to?"

Ghost grimaced.

"That's the problem. I can't freaking tell."

"How? Omnicron made us the ship's AI, forced a network link."

"Yeah, but they don't trust their AIs, remember? Captain's lockdown. Some info is just out of our reach, encrypted to hell and back, not to mention buried in security programs."

"Damn it. Alright. Get on breaking that if you can. We need to know who we're talking to."

"Aye aye. What about you? How did inventory go?"

Alexandra smiled.

"Well, bad news? The ship jettisoned the magazines. No missiles, no warheads, nada. We do have the fabricators, but..."

"Same security lockouts."

"Actually, I'm more worried about the captain's lockdown."

"Why?"

Alexandra gestured, and a repair drone scuttled into the room, the mechanical spider holding what looked like a magnetic swipe card if it was made out of molecular circuitry.

Ghost's eyes went wide as she saw it.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nope. It's the chief of engineering's emergency manual override card. Well, its backup. The original was destroyed." Ghost grimaced, and Alexandra imitated her quickly. The ship looked pristine, but it was clearly because of millennia's worth of recycling and rebuilding by the AI and its systems.

Because when it had hit the ground, the crew...well, her earlier thought about them having to be scraped off of the bridge was very literal. Scraped off of the floor, the walls, the ceiling...

Those kind of impacts weren't kind on the human physiognomy.

"It won't work with the fabricators we have at home, you know that, right?"

"And you tell me that once you're inside the ones here you won't crack the others wide open?"

They exchanged smiled, and Ghost shook her head.

"You got me there. I assume that's top priority now?"

"Absolutely. Everything else can wait."

"Even...?"

"Even our nuclear program, yes."

"Alrighty then."

"As for the rest, the ship is, unsurprisingly, dry for conventional fuel. It's running on its arcane backups, which are enough for propulsion and defensive systems."

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Ghost nodded. That was standard. If you had a ship whose main reactor got knocked out, and who somehow survived the endeavor, you needed to bring it home. Everything else was secondary.

"Weaponry?"

"That's where I was surprised. They indeed patterned this after the Glimmer-class, but they also gave this thing a spinal gun."

Ghost blinked.

"What kind?"

"Railgun."

"Please tell me it's not called the MAC gun."

"The C stands for cannon, it'd be superfluous. But no. It's just a spinal railgun. Besides, the MACs are coilguns."

"Why a railgun? That doesn't make any sense."

"Remember what Emilia told us about beams being easy to deflect with magic? I think they had arcane means to defeat energy weapons that were much better than what they had against kinetics. At least for these kind of weapons."

"Right."

"As for the rest? Plasma point defence guns."

"What, no mid range weaponry?"

"You should really see those plasma guns. I use 'point defence' in the loosest possible term."

"Ah."

"But, very interestingly, we have those." Alexandra snapped her fingers, and another hologram appeared. "Three boarding shuttles, made for search and rescue. Plus customs inspections."

"And?"

"There's four shuttle slots on the ship. And you know it."

Ghost looked at the holograms, then back at Alexandra.

"Out with it."

"Let me show you."

*****

Alexandra activated the lights in the planetary assault shuttle. It wasn't necessary, they weren't really 'seeing' to begin with, but it was for dramatic effect.

"Sweet merciful stars." Said Ghost, staring at the giant mass of metal before them, and Alexandra nodded.

"My thoughts exactly."

"...That's no railgun."

"No it's not." Alexandra stepped forward, and patted the tank with her hologram. "Fusion gun."

"Yield?"

"Variable. And affects the reload time obviously. But from the manifest? Five...to a hundred and fifty tons of TNT."

"Fucking hell."

"Yeeep. And that's not all. Monomolecular armor plating, active kinetic energy dissipation, full grav drives, and its own energy shields. Mundane energy shields."

"It's not...arcane?"

"Nope. None of the defensive systems are. This whole thing was made to be hit by null weapons."

"What about the gun?"

"I don't think they had a choice, if they wanted something that could go toe to toe with what their enemies could bring up." Alexandra smiled. "I think this will make a useful addition to our arsenal, don't you think?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Good. Now, our problem is going to be to get it back home for disassembly. And don't say teleportation, because all the guards down there will feel it. Ideas?"

Ghost looked up.

"We don't have the schematics. They won't be in the fabricator banks."

"Unlikely as hell. This was a separate vehicle, attached to the ship. My guess is, it got it from some kind of planetary assault vessel, spread their assets for a strike dirtside. So we'll have to do this the old fashioned way. As in lots of wrenches, oil, swearing, and taking notes."

Ghost nodded, then smiled.

"Well then, it's simple. Why bring the tank to the lab?"

Alexandra blinked, before laughing.

"When we can bring the lab to the tank?" She finished.

*****

"We're home. How are you holding up?" Said Allya as she entered Camille's office.

"Oh, milady! I-"

The archduchess made an abrupt gesture, stopping her halfway through rising up.

"Please, just...just stop with the pomp. I've had enough ceremonies and formalities for ten lifetimes. I had to threaten my way past the welcoming committee to my own capital city for the sake of the Gods!"

"You...threatened them?"

Allya chuckled.

"Yeah...sort of. I told Anders that I was happy to be home, and that I was glad to see him, but if he didn't tell everyone to go home and let me flop onto my bed I was going to start carving my way through the throng with my daggers."

The secretary chuckled.

"Well, I suppose he got the joke." Camille's smile vanished as she saw Allya's expression. "...You were joking, right?"

"I was." Mostly. "I'm just passing by to check in, before I go change."

"Well, there's this." Camille patted an intimidating stack of paper on the edge of her desk. "That'll require your formal signature. I've taken the liberty of collating the advice of everyone on it and some analysis for the bigger proposals. Most of it is just rubber stamping however."

Allya nodded.

"That's good. Thank you, by the way, for keeping everything together in our absence."

"It's why you hired me, milady."

"Right. Still, I wished to show a bigger sign of my appreciation than mere words." Allya opened up one of her spatial pouches, and withdrew a small, delicate box from it. "Here."

"Milady, I can't-"

"Take. It."

Camille meekly nodded, and took the box. She flipped it open, and tilted her head at the pendant within.

"What is it?"

"It's a teleport talisman. Among other things."

"Other..." Camille lifted the pendant, and stopped.

Because underneath it was a belt buckle, that positively shone with runes and enchantments.

"I advise you wear it. It's not as good as this." Allya patted her own belt. "But it has its own perks."

"What is it?"

"Shield generator. Alongside some other goodies. Some immunity to poison, that sort of things. If you ever go back to adventuring, it should come in handy."

"I...milady, I don't know what to say."

Allya smiled, acting nonchalant. Principal being 'acting'. They both knew that buckle was worth more than probably her secretary's entire annual income.

"Then don't say anything. Now, anything besides the paperwork?"

"Trira is complaining about our enemies' lack of assassins, but that's pretty much it."

"Is she seriously upset our foes have given up on trying to pierce her own defenses?"

"Well, she is somewhat worried about her people getting bored. And herself."

"I'm sure we can find her something to do."

"We have. Well, Dominique did. Her, ah, specialists, have been happily helping train adventurers, now that they have completed our forces' training."

"What about the dungeon's forces?"

"Lady Crystal hasn't asked."

"And everyone is too scared to offer?"

Camille cleared her throat.

"I wouldn't...have put it quite that way, but yes."

"I'll ask her." As soon as she could lure her away from whatever she was doing anyway. She'd tried to make contact, and only gotten an annoyed Emilia, that seemed...frustrated that her girltoy was away.

Luckily, according to Emilia her inquisitive sister in law had been handily deflected by an off hand comment about being busy due to quite tight ties and suspension. Freya had suddenly stopped enquiring about the dungeon core and decided that something else deserved her immediate attention.

"As for more economic things, we've been doing quite well, though you are no doubt unsurprised."

"I'm not. Lots of new adventurers, right?"

Camille nodded.

"A veritable tide. We've been having problems with housing again. With the branch offices, suddenly many clay and iron ranks can afford to travel here, and..."

"Quantity over quality."

"Very much so. Though we have started getting some quality as well."

"Oh?"

"Yes, we've started having Electrum and even Silvarium ranked adventurers arriving. And with them, their accommodation."

"High end restaurants?"

"Yes. Among other things." Camille coughed. "With the surge of population, notably, we've started having proper districts emerge. Industrial, cargo and residential already existed of course, but there has been further subdivision. Including one that has gathered some, ah, complaints."

Allya tilted her head.

"You're talking about a red light district, aren't you?"

"Well...yes."

"Ignore the complaints, unless something breaks the law." One thing that she was sure of, closing the bordellos would have the same effect as closing the bars, it would cause an uprising. "As for the high end accomodation, I really hadn't expected it. Not this early anyway."

"Well, this is the capital of the new Archduchy. Surely there will be your vassals visiting on a regular basis, if nothing else."

Allya grimaced.

"Right."

"Also, for the red light district, one of the problems was, ahem, roleplaying."

"I don't see the problem."

"Roleplaying as people."

Allya leaned forward.

"...As who?"

"Well, there have been whispers that some of the ladies used illusions to, well, look like the dungeon core...or her boss."

Allya closed her eyes.

She opened them again, and Camille recoiled.

"My dear, I want you to do something. Order Anders to take as many guards as he needs, not a single golem, and raid the places that offer such...services. Knock the owners around, threaten them with deportation, burn the entire place down if he has to and put their heads on spikes, but I want this to stop before the sun goes down, and every rumor about it squashed."

"Y-Yes milady."

"Good." Allya leaned back into her chair, sighing. "Now, I should really go to bed. It's been a long trip." Plus, Pyn had to be already under the covers, and miss her...what was it? 'Personal heater'? Something like that. And she'd hate to deprive her fiancée of that.

Besides, she knew that pulling a stunt like that was a good way to end up...well, exactly like Alexandra would once she got home and Emilia got her hands on the Earth-born.

She should never have let Pyn and Emilia collude together.

"So it has. Have a nice night, milady."

"I intend to, I intend to."