Chapter 315

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

City of Darthar

Alexandra's hologram appeared inside the Flickerlight's engineering section, only to be greeted by the sound of -slightly- mad cackling.

"Ghost?" Cautiously said the dungeon core as she spun in place, trying to pin down the source. The clang of flesh against metal sounded.

"Ow! Alex?" Alexandra knelt down, looking under a fabricator that had been propped up on blocks of raw materials, to find Ghost jammed under the heavy machinery, rubbing her forehead.

"What...how did you get in here?"

"I crawled, genius."

"No, I mean you, as in, like, your body!"

"Oh, that? Yeah, I found out that as long as it's inside our command net, I can possess pretty much whatever, and then hop out. I think you can, too. Possess everything that's on the ship."

"Never really had the need."

"Right." Ghost huffed as she crawled out from under the fabricator, before dusting her clothes. Not that there was any dust to remove, the ship was so clean and sterile you could have done open heart surgery on the floor and it probably would have been more sanitary than in the infirmary back in the dungeon. "What do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I was about to contact you, but still."

"Came to check up on you." Ghost's eyebrow rose, and Alexandra rolled her eyes. "And escape from CQ's nagging."

"Kid mad she missed the big kaboom?"

"Oh hell yes. And she's relentless. Since she's on a trip and without the duke or the maids to distract her..."

"She has nothing but time."

"Exactly."

"Alright, well, bienvenue in my little refuge my dear, you're welcome to hide away from the world for as long as you want here."

"Ah ah. So, what's got you all cackly?"

"Oh, nothing much." The apparition grinned. "Just a light bit of code cracking and tinkering with hardware locks."

Alexandra froze.

"Did...did you unlock the fabricators?"

"Hell yeah I did! Well, this one." She pointed at another propped up fabricator. "I wanted to replicate the trick on another before I declared victory."

"Are they fully unlocked?"

"Well, uh, no. I mean yes. I mean, kind of? There's some kind of software lock I can't get past, because of the captain's lockdown, which means certain items can't be built."

"Like?"

"Nukes, plus hacking and communication systems, for some reason."

Alexandra blinked.

"What? Why-Oh."

"Oh?"

"The captain was afraid of a traitor onboard."

Ghost opened her mouth, then closed it.

"That...makes a distressing amount of sense. The security lockdown...any slimebag would try to get themselves hacking gear to punch through it. Failing that, get comms to transmit whatever you came here to get..."

"And if that fails, blow the ship."

"Yeah. Damn. But that means they didn't have the fabricators under constant surveillance."

"How would they tell? You can't look into these things. The item just pops out, and you can just add a thin shell around it to make it look like something else. Any noob who knows how to launch the design software can do it. And there'd be tons of stuff moving back and forth. Plus, if the lockdown is inside the damned fabricator, it means they thought the ship's internal network might have been compromised."

"That's not a pleasant thought."

"Yeah." Alexandra patted her other self on the shoulder, or rather had her hologram glitch through her. "Sorry to drop more stuff on top of you."

Ghost sighed.

"It's okay. I know you already take more than your fair share of the burdens and workload."

"Right. Speaking of, you got the data from the engagement? Glitch told me she offloaded it to you, after I sent her to do the resupply with Subtlety and kick the army's ass into motion."

"Yeah, she did." Ghost gestured, and graphs appeared in midair. "Well, I have good news, and I have bad news."

"Hit me."

"Good news is, our artillery is more or less intact. We lost some guns, true, but our fortifications took the brunt of it when someone went after them."

"And the bad?"

"We have almost no marines left, and our ammo is basically dry. We're out of...well, fucking everything, really. The highest stockpile is that of small arms ammo, but that's not saying much. The duke and his people have immediately offered their own ammo stores, but they're not as heavily armed as we are, especially in the artillery department. Don't get me wrong, it helps, but it's...what's the expression, a blade strike in a lake of water?"

Alexandra smiled.

"That's the french one. I think it's a pebble in a landside in english."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Right. Anyway, we're getting so desperate for lift capacity we're hiring civilian vessels to carry the ammo I stockpiled in Darthar up to the army. Subtlety's idea, and it's a good one."

"And they're taking the contract?"

Ghost shrugged.

"Allya's footing the bill, and at this point everyone believes her pockets are bottomless. Plus, we're assembling a convoy to be escorted in by CQ's reinforcement fleet. With that, and the fact they'll be chartered to come back with holds full of civilians and damaged equipment, they're being pretty enthusiastic. We pay well, and many merchant factors and captains feel like getting on the good side of a nascent house that's well on its way to take over half the damned kingdom is a good idea."

"To be fair, they're not wrong." Alexandra grimaced. "We need reliable cargo lift, and Allya reward loyalty generously."

"Exactly. Also the fact she let go those smugglers, you know the ones the twins hired, in exchange for favors hasn't gone unnoticed."

The dungeon core chuckled.

"If they think it'll buy them immunity, they're in for a rough awakening."

"More some...leniency."

"Perhaps. But that's up to our archduchess."

"Our?"

"Well, she technically does rule the area, and the land we live on."

Ghost's eyebrows rose.

"She's really growing on you isn't she?"

Alexandra bit her lower lip, before sighing.

"She's someone...had she been on Earth, I would have been proud to call her my sister in arms, my second in command. Crap, I probably would have done a lot to get her the High Admiral job instead of, well, us."

"I probably would as well. She's...she's a better leader than we are."

"She is." Alexandra took another look around the room. "Alright, I should head home, Emilia is getting antsy." She glared at her other self as Ghost gave her a wide smile. "Not that kind. She's just...worried."

Ghost's smile fell.

"Right. I forget that she has people on the other side as well."

"Yeah...her family is basically tearing itself apart. And the knowledge that some of her cousins planned to have her assassinated, or at least did nothing to prevent their dungeons from doing so..."

"Maybe they didn't know?"

Alexandra's gaze said it all about how probable it was.

"Right." Simply said Ghost. "Well, safe return home then. I'll keep working on this and give you a full report when it's done."

"Thanks. See you."

"See you."

And with that, the hologram vanished.

Ghost stared at the place the dungeon core had been, before turning back towards the fabricator.

"You, old girl, may be our salvation yet." She said.

The ship's AI beeped, and Ghost smiled. Maybe there was something to Alexandra's plan of turning it sapient through sheer exposure.

Only time would tell however.

*****

"You know." Said Alexandra as she gazed upon the holograms of the observation deck, at its feed of Rebirth. "I realize that I know frighteningly little of the pantheon of the Gods."

Emilia shivered by her side, as they both looked at the newly built temple on the outskirts of the city.

It was hard to not remember the spear that had been intended to murder Alexandra...a spear forged and used by the Custodians of the very God that temple was dedicated to.

A spear that couldn't have been used without at least their implicit permission.

"No. No I suppose you wouldn't. What did you want to know?"

"Well, everyone seems to venerate the God of Fire, and his clergy is everywhere. Yet besides a few swears, I rarely hear about the others."

The vampire shrugged.

"That may be because you are in a region of the world that was touched by the God of Fire, more than most others."

"It was?"

"Yes. Gorromar, most notably. He went there, gave them a mission, gave them purpose." Alexandra nodded. As she'd surmised. Probably the source for the early Seraphims and the start of the inquisition. That would explain why they were so heavily militarized at any rate. "But there are other gods who are venerated. In Asaria, the Earth Goddess, Maia, has many temples, especially closer to the great plains of Asaria, the breadbasket of the Kingdom. Ytarkos, the God of Winter and Ice, is also venerated in the Far Reach and the Saphire Kingdom both."

"What about the Republic? Tark?"

The vampire shrugged.

"Both have gone...astray, some may say. They believe, but money that could be used for temples and offerings went to martial endeavors."

"Or the pockets of senators."

"Yes. But Tark used to venerate Orius, the God of Metal and Lava."

"You seem to have some gods that have two titles."

"Some do. But mostly one is an extension of the other. Ytarkos is the God of Ice, but he also became the representation of winter. Similarly, Orius governs over the blood flow of the world, the magma beneath, but metal has to be melted to be used."

"Well, not always, but I take your point. What about the Western Marches? Any patron deities?"

They both knew she was fishing, but Emilia simply gave her a wry smile.

"Why, the Blood God of course!"

The Earth-born chuckled.

"Of course it is. Vampires gotta eat after all. What's his name?"

"He has many. One of the more recent one, and the most popular now is actually one given to him by an extradimensional, one of your fellows. Technoblade."

Alexandra's eyebrow rose.

"Techno...blade?"

"Does it ring any bells?"

"I think so...something about one of the prototype cures for Sarcoma type cancers, but it was long before I was even born. Probably something else, because I'm not sure what cancer has to do with a God of Blood."

"Blood God, not God of Blood. And I suppose that without a dungeon, we are highly susceptible to many ailments of the sun, chief among them cancer." The vampire shrugged. "Well, it's a shame, I thought you would have the answer."

"Sorry. Though, I'm confused, people can just...give new names to the Gods?"

"For the most part? Yes. They still have a 'true' name, but as long as they are venerated, the clergy goes along with the flow. Names change, perspective change...they adapt to their time. They kind of have to."

"Fair enough."

They stood there, in companionable silence, for a few minutes, their hands intertwined.

"So...Allya asked you for any help for the wedding preparations?"

"Technically, yes, but most of my support has been trying to keep her from panicking. None of her people can actually just grab her and shake some sense into her."

Emilia chuckled.

"Kind of the same on my end with her fiancée."

"Bit of the blushing bride and panicked groom, eh?"

"Well, they're both planning to wear dresses, so..."

"Fair enough." Alexandra shrugged. "But the preparations are going well. I've given some nudges here and there, and my end of it is done."

"What did she entrust to you?"

"The one thing I am unbelievably amazing at."

"Mewling and begging for my mercy?"

Alexandra let out a strangled sound.

"N-No! Gods vampy, what the hell? No, no, explosions of course!"

"Explo-" Emilia rounded on the dungeon core. "What the hell have you got planned?"

Alexandra's grin was suitably mysterious.

"Why I don't know..."

"You're going to regret playing coy!"

"Probably! But it'll be worth it just to see your expression."