Chapter 307

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"Hey. Alexandra?"

The dungeon core blinked as she looked away from the holographic map.

"Freya?" She said as she saw the vampire. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm leaving."

"Ah. New mission?"

"I'm afraid not."

Alexandra looked at the map.

"I mean no offense, but this is pretty far gone. You're not going to mend the UDC back together. You're not even going to slow down the bloodshed."

"I know." Said the vampire, wearily. "Yet I must try. I swore an oath."

They exchanged a glance, and for a split second, something passed between them.

"I understand." Whispered the Earth-born. And she did.

She too, had sworn an oath.

An oath that had lead her to murder an entire world.

The vampire simply nodded.

"I know." There was long silence between them, before she cleared her throat. "I heard you were trying to gather the advisors of your allies?"

"It seemed prudent."

"I hope you can keep them safe and sound."

Alexandra's smile was mirthless.

"I wouldn't even dream of it if I couldn't."

In more ways than one.

"Well, I hope that whatever you come up with proves workable." Freya licked her lips. "You know, you remind me a lot of someone."

"Someone nice, I hope?" Said Alexandra, half jokingly.

"The founder of the UDC."

Alexandra froze.

"Now that...is not someone I hear about often. Strangely enough, especially in these times."

The vampire shrugged.

"They withdrew from the world, after the horrors they unleashed."

"Right." Alexandra looked away, lest her eyes betray her.

After all, she knew the feeling.

Though, in this particular case...

There may be more to it. Rising to the occasion, creating a semi apocalypse, then just conveniently vanishing? This had the God of Fire's stink all over it.

And a tool not discarded meant it would be used again.

She'd have to keep an eye on that.

"Believe it or not, it was nice meeting you, Alexandra Rousseau." Said the vampire.

"Likewise, Freya Von Oswald."

"Take care of them. And yourself. If my sister is made a widow or my niece a half-orphan, I will be extremely cross with you."

Alexandra chuckled.

"I'll endeavor to please in this matter."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Now!" Alexandra smiled. "I believe it would be uncouth to send you on your way without some gifts."

"Gifts?"

"The kind that goes boom. Let's get your sister and CQ. We need to do a raid on the armory!"

*****

"Nice distraction." Said Ghost as Alexandra stepped into the lab.

"Thanks. I thought it was pretty inspired."

"And in character, to boot."

They exchanged smiles. Currently Freya was very busy being piled on by recommendations and gifts by CQ, who was effectively pillaging the armory, under the bemused supervision of Emilia, who, if anything, was egging her daughter on. And the poor elder vampire didn't have it in her to tell her niece 'no', thus leading her to be piled on with ever stranger and more improbable weaponry.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Yes. They really do expect me to be the explosion loving crazy with a hard on for military hardware, uh?"

"Every good lie has a truth within it. Now." Ghost's face became serious, and Alexandra followed suit. "Let's get down to business."

"Let's. Is it ready?"

The apparition nodded, and gestured at one of the machines, a fabricator. It opened with a hiss of an escaping neutral atmosphere, revealing a small, unassuming orb.

"It is. The adjusted runework was too fine for me to risk doing it by hand, even with precision tools. The fabbers were made for this kind of detail work however."

Alexandra held her hand out, and grabbed the sphere.

"What about the code?" She asked softly.

"It's extensive, but shouldn't be too much of a problem."

"How, exactly? Implanted memories are one thing, but programs..."

"Are only possible in people that have been digitalized, I know." The apparition smiled. "Luckily, the vampires are a passable in between."

"How so?"

"Whatever they are, it sure isn't biological. I took the liberty of scanning the ever living crap out of Emilia and the maids during their checkups." Alexandra nodded. The vampires now had regular medical checkup. It was mostly a bit of paranoia, after they almost died during the dungeon self destruct, but they humored her. Sarah always kicked the golem with the knee hammer. "They're...I don't know how to explain it properly. Mainly because I don't really understand their so called nanotech."

"What, tiny machines that do things?"

"Well that's the thing, they're not machines. They're like...mana enhanced, artificial cells with non biological components. Kind of like cybernetic enhancement at the cellular level."

Alexandra opened her mouth, then closed it.

That was...so far beyond anything she'd even heard from it was insane. Nanotech, yes. Genetic engineering and cybernetic augmentation? She had been a living incarnation of both.

But all three mixed in at a fundamental level? That demanded...an understanding of how life worked beyond anything Earth had even come close to.

"Jesus."

"My thoughts exactly. And then there's the whole mana and spell mess woven directly into them. And I think I know why blood magic exists, as a matter of fact."

"Why?"

"Remember when Emilia told us they drank blood for its mana?"

"Yeah?"

"That's bullshit. It's not for the mana. Instead their canines and the organs they link to are alchemical fucking factories. Remember how you could use ingredients to substitute for runes and entire sections of a spell's matrix?" Alexandra nodded, as the realization of where this was heading dawned on her. "The vampires do the same with the blood they harvest. Dungeon cores substitute for it because we have so much mana there's simply no need for that energy efficiency anymore. And that's also interesting in and of its own, isn't it?"

Alexandra licked her lips.

"Yeah. Because once Emilia said that otherwise all powerful warriors would just steal dungeon cores to serve as their personal batteries and power ups." She closed her eyes. "And that's exactly what dungeon cores do for vampires."

"Bingo. And those systems being this way tells me dungeon cores weren't just used for civilian purpose either. That, or the God of Fire modified the connections to be able to jack into the vampires like whatever they were originally built to interface with did, but as far as I can tell, it's on their side, not ours, and I can't look into their cores."

"That might be for the best, honestly. That you can't go into their cores, I mean." Alexandra sighed. "So, since they're...something we don't quite understand, can you get the code patch through?"

"Yeah, easily. To be able to handle all this, their brain is a mess of nanotech and mollecular circuitry. I'm fairly sure you could neutron bomb them and they'd just wonder why they can't taste anything anymore."

"Nuclear transmutation damage is not something to take lightly."

"You can if you have nanotech to expunge the isotopes. Regardless, the vampires' think boxes have more to do with a computer than whatever kind of mess of a sludge the human brain is."

"Alright. Then?"

"Then the program transmits the, ah, patches in through the dungeon-advisor links." Alexandra could guess what her other self had been about to say before she corrected to 'patches', but decided not to take notice. "There's a shitload of defenses to prevent someone tempering with the cores, but nothing in network. Not even just a firewall. Amateurs."

"I don't think the God of Fire expected this kind of tech. After all, the whole goal seems to be keeping everyone's nose in the dirt, right?"

"Right. In any case, once the patch is through, it'll get to work on its own. It won't be instantaneous, but it'll be quick." The apparition coughed, and Alexandra's eyes narrowed.

Oh here we go, thought the dungeon core.

"Yes?"

"With this access, you know we could just, you know..."

"Mind control them?"

"Well...yes."

There was a long silence, before Alexandra spoke up, meeting her other self's gaze.

"Listen to me carefully. Very carefully. We aren't going to do that. Ever. This whole war is going to be predicated on making people follow us. Not mind controlling them. We could, yes, puppeteer the dungeon cores. You might even be able to do it in a way no one will notice. Not immediately anyway. After all, you'd just have to copy those control programs, and change the directives. But if we're going to win, we need people to turn against the God of Fire. Just like we've started with Allya, with Pyn, with Emilia, Sarah and Ella, we must plant the seed of doubt inside of them, and make the tiniest of cracks. Then we will let the Church's own action break the dam wide open. And even if what you propose wouldn't be one of the greatest mortars to fill in that crack, I refuse to stoop down to their level. For any of us to stoop that low. Am I understood?"

The apparition nodded. She looked...relieved.

Alexandra relaxed. Ghost hadn't wanted to do it either. But like a good executive officer, she needed to be the devil's advocate, and lay out all the options, even the unpalatable one.

They exchanged a look, and Alexandra nodded.

The apparition smiled faintly.

"Crystal clear, lady Crystal."

"...You've been waiting a while for that joke, haven't you?"

"Three months or so."

"Damn you. Alright, so if it's ready, we just need to press a button, and we'll be done?"

"If nothing goes wrong."

Alexandra laughed.

"When has anything we've ever done gone perfectly to plan?"

*****

Alexandra hummed as she flicked some switches, and gazed at the cockpit.

It had been a while since she'd taken the time to possess a golem aboard a blackbird, let alone fly one. Usually it was just on autopilot.

It was strangely relaxing. Like an artifact of a life she'd never have back. She had gotten the basics of piloting shuttles drilled into her at the academy, part of the engineering course -after all, if all else failed, engineering and its machines were the only things required to limp home-, and those had been expanded after...Ghost departed, and she came to be. She'd been regularly tapped to provide engineering support for the anti-piracy mission, and Vesta station was such a decaying piece of crap, sometimes it was faster to fly from one side to the other rather than take the death trap that passed for its internal transit system, and that was without even considering the fact that half of the people there wanted to slide a knife in between your ribs at any given time.

The blackbird reminded her a lot of a shuttle in atmospheric flight. It didn't have a grav drive, but the kinesys rune based arcane engine provided a serviceable substitute, even if it was extremely expensive to run.

The bird pinged her, and Alexandra squinted as she looked at the screen, showing the sensors menu.

That was...too far out for her own stuff to see anything.

Which meant either something exceptionally powerful, or-

The ping repeated. And Alexandra's eyes widened as she took the control and dropped the bird.

That wasn't a fucking contact, it was an active sensor ping.

Someone was scanning the skies out there.

The system beeped as it was suddenly flooded with returns, and Alexandra tensed up, before sighing as she realized they were only echoes.

Okay. Something had pinged her, but her reflexes had made her drop too close to the Earth for the ensuing sensor sweep to catch her. Just the air where she'd been.

She knew that happened often enough that the other side shouldn't be unduly concerned, but better to play it safe anyway.

Alexandra throttled the engines back, and went dark.

The blackbird wasn't a stealth vehicle. But you could be really quiet if you knew what you were doing, and weren't afraid of flying half blind.

Alexandra took in a deep breath as she flew nape of the Earth. Well, for some value thereof. She was long out of the scrublands, and flew over a mix of forests and what looked like overgrown fields.

Then she got a contact on her passive sensors. And another. And another.

Her breath caught as she saw the sensor profiles. Airships. Two trios of escort vessels in a high guard position, covering the fleet proceeding at a lower altitude from bombing runs and ballistic missile attacks.

Look like the bastards had come prepared.

Alexandra frowned as she tried to refine the readings on the ships, but only got errors. What the hell? She couldn't make head or tail of the sensor data.

They were ship shaped, and nothing else would be moving in formation like that, they even had the magical signatures of the arcane skimmer drives that allowed airships to even exist. But the rest just made no sense. Sensor baffling, maybe?

Then she started getting more returns on the fleet, and her breath caught in her throat.

They just kept coming. Each time she thought it would be the end, yet another squadron would appear.

That wasn't a fucking fleet, it was an armada. There had be over a hundred ships out there! At least five of them were capital ships, too.

Fucking hell, technological advantage or no, there was no way she was fighting that, not without backup. The Erisian battlefleet on her homeground? Sure.

But this kind of crap out in the boonies, at the very tip of the spear? Hell no.

She could turn back, get her plane off of their course, and crash it in a lake, prevent its discovery. Hell, she might even be able to get it back close enough to the army for a detachment to recover it.

But she needed to know more. Screw subtlety, it was time to lay out the cards on the table, and she wasn't going to take away her opportunity to peek at her opponent's hand before she made her move.

She took in a deep breath, and prepared for the blackbird to go fully active, double checking all of the datalinks to make sure it would transmit everything it gathered back home for analysis.

Her bird was going to blaze bright like one hell of a shooting star, and be disintegrated just as quickly, at least if the other side had any idea of what they were doing. And it really seemed like they did.

She gripped the controls. Might as well give her sensors the best view, and maybe the sudden move would confuse the others.

Everything happened at once. She went fully active, and the blackbird screamed as she took it at maximum speed into a steep climb.

A second hadn't even passed before her previous location was speared by six different power beams, each from one of the escort ships in the high guard. Fucking hell those guys were on the ball.

Her ship screamed high into the air, and for a single second, had a fully unimpeded scan of the entire fleet.

Alexandra's eyes went wide as she saw it. And then was thrown back into dungeon mode as Gods knew how many weapons slammed into her blackbird, annihilating it.

The dungeon core just stared off into the void, shocked out of her ability to speak.

Because she hadn't seen airships.

She had seen abominations of flesh, chitin and bones.

They were monsters. Giant, flying monsters.

What the fuck had the UDC sent after her?