Chapter 263 - Preparations (Patreon)

Note : Chapter 265 may be the end of this streak I'm afraid. I'm in constant pain from my teeth, and getting to see a dentist about it is hell.

Chapter 263

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Core Fortress

The core fortress was bustling with activity, the likes of which had not been seen in a long time.

Alexandra had kept up on high tech weapon development, but it had very much fallen by the wayside compared to more urgently needed, if less advanced equipment, which could be used in the wars on the surface.

But now that she was threatened directly, it had changed. Prototypes that had languished for weeks, if not months on her workshop tables had been completed, and moved into production. Weapon deployments that had been suspended indefinitely due to a tight budget were now being rushed forward.

Everywhere there was activity. New artillery, from plasma guns to pulse cannons, were being calibrated, sighted and tested, as praetorian guards hustled, moving crates of equipment headed to the reserves, or unpacking new hardware, fresh from the fabricators.

There was one, clear way to stop her, and that was removing her from the equation altogether. If the adventurers guild took out her core, her bosses would die and army would eventually shut down, cut off from its mana source.

That wouldn't just mean her death, it would mean CQ's and Jared's. Alexandra was a soldier, she was comfortable with the possibility of her own destruction. She had long since come to terms with death, when she was humping through the half terraformed hellscape of Alpha Centauri, and watching mushroom clouds rise in the skies as the UIS' remaining marines nuked the colony's domes. Those domes had been empty, thankfully, the colony still under construction, but there was nothing like seeing a city be consumed by thermonuclear fire to hammer in one's own mortality.

Just the thought of her daughter truly dying made her blood boil. The fact that she would most likely be avenged by the Western Marches was cold, cold comfort however.

Speaking of, the reinforcement Emilia's mother had promised still hadn't arrived. According to her it was because the scope of the mission kept changing, which was…odd. Because it sure as hell didn't sound like they were just sending soldiers. Still, they were on their way at last, though given the chaos on the continent, and the general hostility towards the vampires, their ETA was an open question.

At least she'd had her meeting with their majesties. It had been fairly short, but it had gone well. She'd never met true royalty before, and it had been somewhat odd to have praised and thanks heaped upon her by them.

Their not so subtle references towards Darthar's status as a member of the duchy of Sarth…yeah, they knew. And they weren't going to stand in the way. There was a low chance of that, but outright approval was a nice bonus. They'd been especially enthused once she'd informed them of Allya's intention of outright buying the city. They didn't want to antagonize the duke of Sarth either, it seemed.

The ground shook slightly, and Alexandra stepped aside as a spider tank passed by. One of her new, if long planned, 'Omega' class, it was currently used as little more than a beast of burden.

What it was carrying made her smile. Good old fashioned electronic warfare emitters. She'd had the idea when contemplating how to upgrade her missiles. She had gotten missiles with more speed, and some with primitive evasion, but it had barely been enough against mages. And those had never been trained to fight off missile attacks.

So she'd asked some questions. Then it had dawned on her. If she could project holograms, she could use them as decoys! Just like the ones used by the Dawnstars, or more advanced missiles. She'd dismissed it because, on Earth at least, they were mostly used to fool sensors, not create something very authentic looking in the visible spectrum. They were pretty useless in that regard, all things considered.

And with magitech, she could even use them as a tactical weapon. Yes, the holograms would be disrupted, and any foe that made it this far would almost certainly be equipped to see through illusions, but they'd be a distraction.

One that would grab attention away from the stealthed praetorian guards she'd made. Equipped with prototype particle lances, they could deal silent, invisible death, albeit only at relatively short range. They were horrendously expensive, and couldn't use energy shields, but she'd given them everything else she could. Given the cost of the stealth coating, might as well. Enhanced agility, greater strength, the works.

As a bonus, the stealth coating was an illusion as people understood it. Spells made to go through holograms and such wouldn't see through it. That would buy them some time. Hopefully. Though, unfortunately, someone just needed to use mass amounts of area of effect to eventually hit, and burn the coating off. Even a simple fireball would do it, if it landed close enough.

She was also installing some old fashioned sensor jammers. Because…well, what worried Alexandra the most was how the Republic's commandos had gotten the data to teleport into her dungeon. Ella had been right, it was the biggest question left by that fight. And they'd had no answers. Neither Amelia nor Coledar had any idea, and the surviving commandos were just given spatial coordinates and a map. Their commander might have known more but she was thoroughly dead and soul sealed.

Their colonel had also died in the explosion of the fortress, at least officially.

Alexandra didn't believe it for a damned minute. This reeked of faking their own demise. He had to have been working to another purpose.

That, the two senators dying...and the hegemon, almost assassinated by units that knew everything there was to know about looking and acting like Republic black ops.

Gods fucking damn it, she'd played right into the Order's hand, hadn't she? This 'colonel' had played her, hell, everyone like a damn fiddle without breaking a sweat. Bastard.

And if the Order had gotten that data, then the Custodians almost certainly had something like it.

With the guild's little stunt having all the hallmarks of their plans, she would rather be prepared. Push came to shove she would go down fighting.

Fighting while she got her family to safety.

Ghost had also wired the nuke to a dead man switch. If Alexandra fell and Emilia was out of range, boom. Let the Custodians wonder about that particular stunt, and try to piece together the clues from a glowing crater. At least the mesa would contain the detonation, prevent much damage to Rebirth, not that the city would survive without her anyway.

Still, just in case she'd prepared an exit strategy for Allya, Pyn and Trira. It was the least she could do for them, if the worst came to pass.

That, and a small box of books. Containing everything she'd learned so far…and the code necessary to free dungeon cores from their control programs. Of course, problem was going to be inserting the bundle in the first place.

And now that she was done planning for her death, it was high time she planned her enemies'.

*****

Orzal Vek, former colonel of the Elkis Republican Army, and now member of the Order to Restore Humanity, looked up as the soldier sat down on the other side of his desk.

The irony. He'd been drafted by the Order to serve as a disposable operative, to help them assassinate the Hegemon and make it look like it was the Republic's handiwork. They might have even intended to dispose of him afterwards, or just leave his body on the site of operation as additional bait.

His field command expertise and cool headedness had allowed him to salvage that disaster. Now his reward was another damned desk job.

"Yes?"

"We're moving ahead with the operation."

Orzal nodded. He knew little of what was happening, though he had gleaned far more than his 'brethren' suspected. They were still hesitant about him, but they extended some measure of trust and respect, as thanks for what he had done.

He was just waiting. Waiting for his chance to strike. He wondered if they could sense that.

Given what had happened to his old master, they would be stupid not to expect something. Which was why they were trying to avoid the same pitfalls. As much as they could, anyway.

"Very well then." He got up, sighing. He was getting too old for this shit. "Let us stir the pot a bit."

In this particular case, it was something that wouldn't haunt his damned nightmares. If anyone deserved some ass kicking, it was the Far Reach's raiders.

He could understand wanting vengeance for the invasion of their homeland. Wiping out border villages and all the horrors unleashed by their revenge raids wasn't something he would even remotely excuse.

Of course, he knew there was a grander design behind it. Though it was becoming fairly obvious. The attempt to drag the Hegemony into war with the Republic hadn't exactly been subtle.

Why the Order wanted the entire continent to descend into chaos and death however, was an open question.

And it had brought in some questions…

Like if the senate, and Charles Veumen, the senator that had lead the disaster, and one he had killed with his own hands, had truly instigated this.

Or if he was standing with those who had caused the disastrous war that had cost the lives of so many of his men.

"Yes sir." The ex-colonel's eyebrows rose, and the soldier smiled, before leaving.

Orzal shook his head. Technically, he had no rank and no authority here.

In practice…in practice, he was already building a modicum of command authority with the people he'd saved.

He was starting from scratch, but if he had moulded units loyal to him and him alone once, he could do it again.

And this time he would put them to better the world, not make it worse.

He just needed to get into position to do that first.

*****

With Allya and her fiancée asleep onboard their ship, plus Emilia trying to coax CQ back home, Alexandra had a rare night of spare time. At least now that she had assembled a plan of attack, parts of which she'd need to discuss with everyone before putting it into motion.

Others she would keep sealed away from everyone but Ghost and Seraph, those who knew everything. Parts like her intending to use the advisors of her fellow, allied dungeon cores as unwitting trojan horses.

With that spare time, and the need for more high tech equipment, she'd decided to start delving into the more…esoteric materials she had gotten from her little forays into the wreckage of the Old World army with her stealth golems. As well as some she'd obtained earlier but shelved for later analysis. At the time she'd grabbed whatever she recognized and wasn't horrendously expensive, and smashed it together to create what she needed. Hell, she'd mostly just used reconfigured spare parts for all the high tech stuff she'd 'custom built'. The fabricators had only caused her to double down on that approach, since they made such spare parts vastly cheaper than any alternative.

Still, it was time to take a better look.

She had found some fascinating stuff. Thermal superconductors, zero attenuation optical fiber, a great deal of the building blocks of starships, which once again reinforced her impression that the larger vessels had been meant for the void of space at some point.

One of the weirder ones she'd gotten had been some kind of…ballistic gel? She'd worked with stuff that, at least in theory, did the same thing, an underlayer for armor that spread kinetic energy evenly and served as a form of energy reservoir. But this one…it was just wrong. It didn't absorb kinetic impacts, it transformed it into heat. It was like a material that had infinite friction. But…you could move it, mold it, hell, tear it apart!

Only in certain configurations, and above a certain level of energy, it seemed to gain the capacity to just convert kinetic energy into heat. The possibilities for this kind of stuff were insane! It would require more volume and mass than 'normal' kinetic gel, because something had to disperse and then deal with the heat (hence why she had recovered the thermal superconductors), which she guessed was why it had been deployed on warships and not, say, the combat units.

But it would allow her to actually do anti-kinetic armor against truly high velocity weapons. The holy fucking grail of EFSN armor, to counter the UISN's damned railguns!

It would also have applications for her recoil systems. It would be complicated, but she might be able to use that gel with cooling rigs, as a better (and less finicky) alternative to her already souped up, and pushed to the limit arcane recoil compensators.

Well, she was pretty sure the gel had to be somewhat arcane in nature as well, but like alchemical ingredients her power replicated it just fine, so it wasn't from an enchantment. It was inherent to the material. Somehow.

She needed to build a coding matrix like the one the apparition had done for magic, but for alchemical properties.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Someday, she'd actually overhaul that old system.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

Alexandra rolled her eyes.

Maybe she should make an AI dedicated to that. Or offload it onto Glitch.

Then again…

Alexandra shivered as she remembered the flash of something inhuman in Glitch's avatar.

She'd need to have a word with Ghost about that. And maybe, just maybe, reconsider her refusal to dig into the AI's inner workings.

After all, she and Ghost knew exactly how dangerous an Arcadia could be.