Chapter 330

Red Sands Desert, Archduchy of Rebirth

City of the Darthar

"So, any updates?" Asked Alexandra as she strode onto the bridge of the Flickerlight, though this time much less hurriedly.

"Yeah. But most of it is guesswork." Said Ghost, as she bent over Glitch's shoulder, whose hologram was 'manning' the sensor console. Alexandra felt...a pang. She'd been on that bridge. She'd been on that very console, once. It brought memories back, and-

She shook herself, driving the rising visions back. Her diagnostics, the ones she'd promised to make, had returned conflicting results. The programs suppressing the memories that would have driven her mad were still online, but her memory structure was starting to become weird. She hadn't realized it, but her files, her 'self', was no longer stored just on her dungeon core. She now had some scattered into secondary cores...

And some in the Flickerlight's computer architecture itself.

Her programs were made to keep a single, meaty humain brain in check. It was a miracle they still worked with a dungeon core. No wonder they were starting to break down when they were dealing with what was, in effect, an entire Arcadia network, if nascent one.

"So, what are your guesses?" Finally said Alexandra, as both of the women gave her a worried look.

"Well..." Ghost tapped the screen, and Alexandra looked over Glitch's other shoulder. "We have some grav-drive signatures in orbit."

"My my. Evading the radiation burst?"

"Can't exactly evade something lightspeed at that range. Which is what I found weird as hell. Hence, I ran some analysis..." She touched an icon, Glitch giving the apparition an annoyed look, and a bunch of analytics that didn't make much sense at first popped up. "And this is what I found."

"That's..." Alexandra frowned, then her eyes widened. "That's the shield disruption wave, right?"

"Yeeep. Whatever it is, it's speed just decreases over time, as it disperses. I've never seen anything like that. It's like the freaking interstellar void is slowing it down."

"And the satellites are dodging that?"

"I have no clue if they're satellites, ships or freaking missiles. I just know they have grav-drives and they're relatively low powered. Can't exactly do more with passive scans, especially when the array was never meant to you operate in atmosphere, let alone be buried underground. I'm amazed it even works at all. But yeah. They're dodging. There has also been what seems to be...low profile weapons fire?"

"How the hell do you make a low profile space weapon?"

"Kinetics, mainly. There were bursts of radiation reminescent of relativistic projectiles hitting something. No clue what or why though."

Alexandra licked her lips.

"It's the Church."

"What?"

"It's the Church. If it was the Order, they'd be shooting at the Citadel, and it would be firing back."

"Then what the hell are the Custodians firing at?"

"At a guess? The orbitals. Just like the ground, they must have kept some of the stuff up here online to create some of the shit to keep the populace in check. You know, just like that satellite that pinged Seraph about the fusion engine?"

"Aaaah. That makes sense. And our dear church boys are cleaning house. Afraid the Order may be using some of them under their nose."

"Yeah. And that's gonna be a problem for us." Alexandra knocked on the bulkhead in front of them. "Because we're kind of doing the same thing."

Ghost grimaced.

"Shit. I'm guessing I should prepare some failsafes?"

Alexandra slowly nodded.

"Yes. I'm afraid so."

"What kind?"

"Preferably, the kind that doesn't leave much to analyze."

There was a long silence.

"You know..." Ghost met Alexandra's gaze. "That might have been exactly what the Order was doing when they detonated that nuke."

"Even better then." Said Alexandra, and the apparition shivered at the unyielding steel in her voice.

"If we-"

"I know." There was finality in Alexandra's voice, and Ghost's mouth snapped. "Will you do it?"

They both knew what she was asking.

The ship would never be able to contain the nuke. Even the relatively anemic one hundred kiloton bombs they'd been building. It was made to defend against energy coming in, not out.

Even if it did, many of the armor plates would explode outward like the mother of all shrapnel bombs.

That 'failsafe' would wipe out Darthar...alongside its entire population. Quite possibly take the branch office with it too.

"Yes. I will."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Good." Alexandra closed her eyes. "I hope it won't come to that."

"So do I."

"Yeah..." The dungeon core opened her eyes, as she patted both AIs on their shoulder, or at least tried to, as one passed through Glitch's hologram. "Alright, keep me updated. I'm off to see how our first surprises do against Sunrise."

"Suuure, you get all the fun stuff."

"Are you volunteering for what will happen to the slaves?"

Ghost's expression fell.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"I know. I know..." Alexandra sighed, before brightening up. "But! Thanks to the maids' suggestions, we might force them to bring out the big guns."

"If we're lucky."

"We always made our damned luck, didn't we?"

"Point taken. Let's see if the maids gave us enough aces to win that round then." Alexandra nodded, and began stepping back to her ambassador. "Oh, and Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"Give them hell."

The dungeon core smiled.

"Gladly."

*****

"You want me, to order our best, who are still recovering from the battle, to take our army's lead?" The duchess' eyes flashed dangerously. Not just because of his suggestion, but because he was blatantly going over her nephew's head for this. "To expose them to the enemy's own harassers, and their 'mines'?"

The count licked his lips, and bowed his head.

"Your Grace...we have no choice. With the fatalities we are experiencing...the attrition is insane. We have lost over a thousand slaves already, and more pile up every hour that passes. And with no hope of replenishing our numbers..."

The duchess hissed, and the count stopped speaking.

That damned archduchess and her dungeon core were simply taking everything with them as they left. Even the royal army hadn't been as successful in evacuating civilians.

Probably because said civilians hadn't experienced Sunrise's occupation for themselves, let alone suffered through months of horror, seeing their families and neighbours enslaved and used as cannon fodder, but she'd be damned if she said that out loud. Or gave voice to the doubts that were beginning to plague her about exactly what would happen once the brands failed, after their victory.

She was beginning to realize the bottomless well of hatred she had created in the west of the Kingdom, a well that would never dry up as long as she lived. And any of the counters she could think of would only feed the flames until they grew beyond her ability to fight.

And so, there were no stragglers left behind, no one to replenish their pool of slaves...And those damned poison mines, those 'chemical weapons' were tearing a hole right through her vanguard.

"Very well." Let out the duchess. "You may bring our knights."

"Thank you, your grace."

"Now leave me."

The count bowed, and left, and the duchess stared at the tent flap as one of her maids closed it.

She knew what the dungeon core was doing. She was pulling her elites forward, where they'd be vulnerable to her own tricks and attacks. But damn it, the count was right.

That made it no less palatable however.

Her only option was to acquiesce to military necessity...and brace for what the dungeon core had planned.

*****

"An interesting reaction." Said Manson, duke of Sarth, as he gazed at Subtlety, after she finished her report.

"But an expected one." Retorted Alexandra, with a satisfied smile.

"Am I the only one...uncertain about all this?" Everyone turned towards the desert ranger commander, who shrugged. "I've spent my entire life fighting the evils of the Old World, but now...Old World missiles, and chemical weapons? I could understand for the supply convoy, even if barely, but we're just..."

"Laying mines, yes." Alexandra's smile vanished. "Mines containing lethal neurotoxin gas. Mines that, as far as we know, have killed at least a thousand people, in three days." Her gaze hardened. "And their deaths lie at my feet. Not yours." There was a ripple of unease in the room. "But it is necessary. Because of this, we have convinced Sunrise to not only slow down, but swap out their slave vanguards with their elites. Our mines are dispersed, at random, but with an army this size, missing them is almost impossible. Nevertheless, I have marked each and every position, and I promise you we will disarm them, if any remains, on our way back north."

"I am not...disputing your strategic priority, or your thoroughness in making sure your weapons do not threaten us, I am troubled about the exact methods."

"It's simple. For the same cost, a neurotoxin mine will wipe out an entire platoon worth of slaves, while a shrapnel mine will take out, what? Five? Ten? Less than a fourth of the slaves, either way. And that is if we are using bouncing mines, which are far easier to spot and disarm. With this, we have given them an attrition rate so horrific that using slaves as an ablative meatshield is no longer viable." She leaned forward. "Do you understand that? Every raid we do from now on, every engagement between our recon and their skirmisher screen, will kill soldiers of Sunrise. Not slaves, not innocents, soldiers. Elites, even, as they are the ones with the antidotes and wind magic to protect themselves against chemical attacks." The dungeon core sighed. "Is it...questionnable? Yes. But every slave we have killed now would have had to be killed by our own skirmishers while we retreat. Do I wish I could have used another way? Yes. I would have loved to have deployed conventional weapons to the same effect. But even incendiary munitions would never near that level of efficiency, not to mention pose an existential threat to our own army. Sunrise has the mages to keep a forest fire away from their main force, we do not."

Not yet anyway, but he didn't need to know that.

"So we use chemical weapons. Weapons their elites can counter, but not their slaves. And so, we have gotten them right where we want them." She finished.

"And now that you have sucessfully drawn out Sunrise's best?" Asked the commander, after several seconds of tense silence.

"Now?" Alexandra's smile returned. "We blow the ever living crap out of them. We've given them some ground and confidence. It's time to take it away."

*****

Lady Asray Mikras, Knight of the Riders of Dawn, snarled as she wrestled her mount back onto the path.

Her original mount, a well trained gryphon, had been killed at the battle of the bridge, and now she was stuck playing baby sitter to the ground pounders, wrangling a damned war horse with an attitude.

Some 'favor' from her brother.

"My lady." Said her sergeant, a commoner, but one who probably wouldn't stay that way for very long. He was competent, driven, and had done his best to prop her up and fill in her deficiencies, like a good second in command. The nobility badly needed people like him, especially after their recent...losses, and as much as she hated her current assignment, she was intending to make the most of it. And if she had to bend a few rules and twist her brother's arm into knighting him, then so be it. "Mandragore wing reports another one of those poison mines. There were no fatalities, but one of their riders had to be sent back as they did inhale some of the gas."

"Good. Those things are dispersed, it means we should be able to relax for a while." The knight looked around, and sighed. "We are well ahead of our expected schedule, yes?"

"Yes, my lady."

"Then let's take a break. It's high time we took some time for lunch."

The soldier's head dipped, and after a few terse orders, the riders were dismounting and opening their saddle bags, fishing out the nut and honey filled breads that made up the basis of their field rations. They would get a proper, warm meal only for dinner or breakfast.

Even that was positively luxurious compared to the 'food' the slaves had to scrabble for, but she tried to avoid thinking too hard about that and the shapes she'd seen in the pots while passing.

Asray pulled out a strip of beef jerky, tearing into it, before fishing out her own diminutive loaf of bread as she leaned against her mount.

The first piece was halfway to her mouth when she heard the sound, and she froze.

It was thumping. Rythmic thumping.

A rythm that haunted her nightmares.

"EVERYONE SADDLE UP!" She screamed out, and her men leapt onto their mounts as she scrambled to follow, though she was noticeably slower. "Pull back! Now!"

"My lady-" Started the sergeant, alarm clear in his voice.

"Don't argue! It's that-" The trees exploded, as the towering abomination of metal smashed through them like a hurricane. Men screamed and horses reared up as they were showered with splinters. "-damned machine." She finished, as she stared at the behemoth.

The Mackie stopped moving, and the last thing the knight saw was the gaping mouth of a howitzer barrel.