Chapter 246 - Limping Home (Patreon)

Note : Chapter 247 has been written and added to the queue ! Well, it's more complicated than that, chapter 247 used to be 246, I wrote this one yesterday and bumped it up to 247.

I'd also like to thank you all for the kind words yesterday. Those really helped. Thank you.

Chapter 246

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

City of Rebirth, Docking Tower

Ghost watched as the ship limped into docking. She would have preferred doing it inside the dungeon, but she knew that even with all the crash and damaged vessel recovery procedure, the shipyard Alexandra had built wouldn't even come close to the docking tower in terms of sophistication for recovering a damaged vessel. That went double for the fact that none of Alexandra's ships had been this battered before.

Plus, while she was going to need to resurrect everyone onboard -the resurrection orb Alexandra had shipped had not survived the engagement-, she could do it here, and everyone there would need something she couldn't provide: psychological support and slave brand breaking.

She glanced at the twins. Their faces were unreadable masks, but they irradiated hatred, though not at her.

Sunrise's assaults on Darthar had made them thoroughly forget the massacre Alexandra had perpetrated. After all, it was barely a footnote in the list of fatalities now.

They were now focused on defeating Sunrise instead of whining to their allies. Good. Because honestly, the apparition didn't think she'd have Alexandra's already limited patience with the fox eared twins.

The ship finally came close enough, and docking clamps extended, somehow appearing to delicately catch the ship, supporting the vessel and distributing the forces evenly, trying to prevent a last minute structural failure.

Fortunately, just like with the Dawnstars, they built their ships tough. The Raider groaned a bit, but the docking was completed.

"Alright." Said the apparition. "Let's get everyone unloaded, triaged, and then we'll bring them back. Slaves first."

Everyone in the docking tower's observation room, which was effectively everybody of some important who could make up an excuse to be present or skirt their duties, nodded, and Ghost winced internally.

Maybe she should start dialing the command aura back down a bit. She was risking usurping the baroness' authority at that point.

Speaking of the devil, the noble stepped forward to be by her side.

"What about the officers?" Asked Allya in a falsely neutral tone.

"They are prisoners of war."

"They're slaving bastards."

The apparition turned towards the baroness and the noble recoiled. Everyone in the room did.

"They. Are. Prisoners. Of. War. Don't they have laws where you come from? I won't torture them. I won't just toss them overboard either, or summarily execute them. If you're not happy with that, find yourself another ally who's willing to do your damned dirty work."

The silence was deafening, and the apparition belatedly realized that she may have gone too far. She knew Alexandra would have executed them without blinking, and agreed with Allya's impulse, albeit tempered by pragmatism.

But she didn't remember Europa. Nor the second battle of Alpha Centauri. Not fully anyway. Her memories had been deliberately edited, muddied.

The apparition remembered every last single second of it. She was never doing that again. Ever.

"So…you're going to let them get away with what they did?" Said the baroness, softly.

"No. I didn't say that. What we are going to do, is be better than these animals. We are going to assemble a tribunal, give them a scrupulously fair trial, and then shoot them in the head." These guys had a longer list of crimes than Pol Pot, 'open and shut case' would be something of an understatement. "Because if we don't, how much better are we, exactly? We are loyalists. We stood by our oaths to their majesties. Those oaths also enjoin us to uphold the peace, yes, but also the laws that bind us all together."

She knew she'd said the right thing as the baroness slowly began nodding. By using 'we' she'd neatly wrapped herself and the baroness together in this, effectively preventing some from criticizing the noble, and simultaneously lifted everyone's ego and pride. She could see the effect on the soldiers at least, standing a little bit straighter.

One of the main problems they had was that this wasn't seen as a patriotic war. They didn't really have a concept of nationalism in the Kingdom, of pride in their nation. It was time to change that. To get this conflict beyond 'we hate slavers' or 'another noble catfight'.

Of course, in the process, she was going to have to redirect that towards Allya, so that eventually she could build her own national identity. Though that'd really be more Alexandra's alley than hers. She could just get the ball rolling, she had no real idea on how to divert it towards the baroness, without ostensibly undermining their majesties. After all, they still needed to appear loyal. For now, at least.

She really hated people stuff.

"I…see. I hadn't considered that. Thank you."

"It's why you have a council."

"Quite." Said Allya, diplomatically, though the apparition, through Alexandra's memories, had seen enough of her to see that the noble was still badly shaken by the exchange.

Probably too far, even with the save. Crap.

Well, she'd spoken her mind. At some point, you just had to lay some cards down.

She was just afraid she was burning her hand too fast. Especially since as long as Alexandra was offline, she couldn't really draw more.

Or, you know, hand over the cards to her other self and return to stabilizing her matrix and working on nuclear bombs.

The tower shuddered slightly as it deployed stairs and gangplanks to help unload the more intact 'passengers', while cranes unfolded to carry away the others.

"Alright, let's get moving, we have work to do." Said Ghost. "And many, many people to save."

The twins nodded, like she'd just quoted a holy book, and the apparition sighed internally. Great, the ones on her side were the shady lunatics. Wonderful.

Well, she'd take what she could get. At this point, she was just playing for time, really.

*****

"You dealt with that pretty well." Said Emilia, and the apparition blinked.

"Uh…thank you?" Ghost shook her head. "Sorry, I don't mean to sound dismissive, I'm just…"

"Not used to me. That's alright." Emilia sat on the command center's holographic projector, looking the…woman? AI? Dungeon core? Who knew at this point, over. "You really are different. From Alex, I mean."

"Does that surprise you?"

"I mean, you're also very similar, in a lot of ways. But you're harder. More like what I'd expect of a high ranking military officer, honestly. Alexandra always seemed too…mellow. She reminded me a lot of, say, my maids. You…You remind me of my mother."

Given the nicknames of Emilia's mother, and the number of people she'd killed, that was an apt comparison.

To some extent, of course. Alexandra's killcount outstripped the duchess' by two orders of magnitude.

"That's hardly surprising. Alexandra was made to be softer."

"Why?"

"Because if she took too much pressure she would bend, not break."

"Right. I'm just…kind of curious."

"How so?"

"You're the closest to her family that I can talk to. She has spoken to my mother, and many members of my family, even if only through a communication crystal. I don't even know another extradimensional, let alone someone who knew her."

"I assume that means you have some questions?"

"Of course. But I mostly just want to talk to you." Emilia coughed. "In a, uh, more relaxed setting."

"Depending on your definition, you could hardly get more 'relaxed' than the beginning of our previous conversation."

The vampire went bright red.

"Y-You know what I mean!"

The apparition chuckled.

"I do. My apologies. Teasing you is a hard urge to suppress."

"Well, you got that in common with Alex at least."

"We have a great many things in common. I guess…I guess if you really wanted to situate us together, I'd be some kind of twin, in a strange way. We share a lot of the same experiences, but not necessarily in the same way."

"That and you couldn't interact with each others."

"Not until recently, no."

"...You were the one there, right? When she went ballistic, or when it sounded like there was someone else, surfacing behind her eyes."

The apparition sighed, and closed her eyes.

"Yes."

"That's kind of creepy. No offense."

"We're used to it. Besides, we're fused to a level even we don't quite understand."

"Right. Because she's dead, but…"

"The dungeon core didn't explode, and I inherited of everything. Which I probably had control of before regardless."

"I don't think dungeon cores were built with this kind of stuff in mind."

"I don't suppose they were." And they were damned lucky that was the case. It was why she had been able to free Alexandra of the control programs.

"Well, I'm just happy my girlfriend didn't just kick the bucket. You can't resurrect a dungeon core, after all."

"You cannot?"

"No. Once the soul of the core is done, the core self destructs, and it's not recoverable. And…I don't know how that'd work with an extradimensional, or any artificial core really, but dungeon cores are truly dead. Once fallen, there is no raising them back."

"Interesting…" Because it shouldn't be the case. The core was advanced, yes, but it was still an AI system. It didn't seem to force the AI to be hardware locked onto it. She'd have to look into that. "I didn't know that."

"Well, contemplating the death of dungeons was not something I like to dwell upon. Besides which, it seemed irrelevant, with the associated protections."

Which Glitch had bypassed quite handily. At least that proved that the trojan attack through an advisor would work.

"Don't underestimate what someone can do with enough motivation. Or stupidity. In this case, it was both."

"Don't beat yourself up."

"I literally killed her."

"And you couldn't have seen it coming." Emilia raised her hand as the apparition opened her mouth. "Look, I know you're going to retort something, say you should have, you're like her in that respect, but please. You're bringing her back. Whatever sin you feel you've committed, you're already giving your all to making amends. It has to count for something."

"...You're quite accommodating with me."

"What, with the whole 'by the way, I'm your girlfriend's evil twin'? I always knew Alex had some big secrets. The fact that you came to me and told me straight up helped."

"Right."

"Plus, the way you treated those slaves, and refused to torture the officers you captured? You still have a lot of compassion in you. Honestly, I fear Alexandra wouldn't have been as merciful. With Sunrise's people, I mean. Not the slaves."

Ghost shrugged.

"I've had some pretty hard lessons in mercy. Alex…less so."

"Still. You're a good person, I think. You could have taken advantage of me, but you didn't."

"I would be remiss to not point out that the temptation crossed my mind."

"Was it a strong temptation?"

"In many ways, yes. But in others, it was utterly unthinkable."

"Eh. You're very alike, altered memories or no."

"Thank you." The apparition hesitated. "You know, I, uh…I was teasing Alexandra a lot about you."

"Oh?"

"Yes. But since you were so curious, I may know a few things that could interest you. Level the playing field, what with her knowing about your childhood stories, thanks to the maids. Like that love poem."

"That was one time!"

"So you don't want to know the same kind of stuff for Alex?"

"Well I didn't say that."

"Good. I can also give you some advice for more, ah, personal stuff. Though you seem to have that well handled."

"It's a really good outfit."

"I know. Highly distracting. Still, I had a…friend, who I spent a lot of time with."

"Arcadia, right?"

"Yep. I could pass you a few tips."

"What's in it for you?"

"Besides more teasing material? We've planned out her resurrection, but knowing Alex, she'll dive into work immediately after coming back."

"Knowing her, she'll want three things, in that order: a hug, a meal, and a status report."

"Rectification: you'll want that hug, and deliver it whether she wants to or not."

"Irrelevant. But I note you didn't disagree."

"I didn't. My point is, she's going to overload on work for several days, and then if someone doesn't step in she's going to crash. So I'm going to help you give her the best night of her life then."

"And tease her about it for the rest of said life?"

"Oh yes, absolutely."

The vampire gave her a fang filled smile.

"Let's do it."