Chapter 313 - Moment of Truth (Patreon)

Note :

And this concludes book 8 ! I hope you've enjoyed it !

Chapter 313

Ytakan Scrublands, Archduchy of Rebirth

Darthar-Asaria trade route

Alexandra had known from the get go that fighting a running battle was a recipe for disaster. Trying to retreat as the melee foes pursued her troops would only end in disaster, her own golems blocking the line of fire of the units they were looking to join, only guaranteeing the deaths of both.

Instead her infantry formed up in squares, kneeling golems wielding bayoneted rifles on the outer edges, forming an old fashioned wall of pikes, while behind them submachineguns and shotguns unleashed hell.

The squares cleared large lanes between her golems, allowing the next line of troops to pour fire into them.

And while her golems were destroyed, small, agile teams ran, carrying machineguns, grenade launchers and all manners of special weapons.

There were five lines. The first was out in the open, and every successive one on a slightly raised abbattis, allowing them to pour fire over the others, into the seething mass of monsters, with the field guns massed at the third line, and the howitzers at the fifth, their backs solidly protected by the human army behind them.

The first line crumpled, and fell. Squares or no squares, the Jakarls were killing machines designed for this kind of fight. Rifles snapped under the pressure, golems cut in half by chitin blades, and shotguns silenced.

But they had done their job. Their weapons were safely brought back to the second defensive line...where they joined up with their own weapon teams in a exodus towards the third line.

The Jakarls hit the second line, and found much greater resistance. Flamethrowers opened up, spreading gout of flames over entire units of monsters. Not killing them, but severely hampering their senses and dealing considerable damage to their joints, slowing them down as they slowly cooked inside their biological armor, thus slowing the entire advance behind them.

Still, they pushed on, and the golems died fighting under their bladed legs.

The Jakarls advanced once more...and staggered to a halt as the third line charged them.

The dungeon cores on the other side were so surprised they didn't realize that the ground was moving behind their creatures.

That was the reason why Alexandra had ordered her troops to focus fire on the Tishaks, the imp skirmishers, wiping them out at the start of the infantry engagement.

They had, more by luck than good judgment, been right on the money.

Well...almost.

Alexandra hadn't buried her infantry.

She had buried her tanks.

The spider tanks leapt from the ground, punching effortlessly through the thick covering that had hidden them, and opened fire. Their guns slammed into the Jakarls' back at point blank range, felling entire units.

What remained of the monsters in the rear units whirled around, the entire seething mass of creatures preparing to engage on both sides, as their centaur allies finally got back into position, and moved to charge the rear of the tanks.

The centaurs arrived just in time. Just in time to watch the last of the UDC's infantry be annihilated. The golems of the third line unleashed every single one of their special weapons. Rockets, grenades, mortars, everything they had, in an unending tide of fiery death. The field guns fired an endless stream of canister shots, and the golems that had charged forward...

They threw themselves on the waiting arm blades of the Jakarls, detonating their explosives and claymores strapped to their armor.

The line of monsters buckled. But it began to push forward again, their back ranks tearing into the tanks.

Alexandra watched as the creatures reformed, only to be met with the gaping maws that were the barrels of the howitzers, the artillery having lowered its barrels for direct fire.

They fired. Not cannister shot. Instead they fired packages of rods.

Rods covered in runes.

The air came alive with arcs of lightning as energy danced between the rapidly melting rods of metal.

The front lines were thrown to the ground, twitching...utterly helpless before the second wave of suicide golems.

And the back ranks...the back ranks collided with the spider tanks, and chitinous claws broke as they met mythril armor, hidden behind a thin coating of steel. Alexandra didn't have many of her mythril clad prototypes, but those she had held back the tide for long enough.

Long enough for the monster with the twenty millimeter Gatling gun to finish spinning up, and for the tattered remains of her marines to drop from the skies.

The centaurs came to a halt, gazing at the last of the monsters as they were put down. The Jakarls didn't fall back, they didn't surrender, they didn't break. They just died where they stood. Scythed down by waves after waves of ordnance from every possible direction.

There was a hesitance in the air. Neither side willing to engage. The centaurs out of fear.

And Alexandra out of the capacity to do so. She was out of ammunition, for her ships, for her rocket launchers, for her howitzers. Out of tricks. Her entire army, spent, with nothing but rifle rounds and what little remained to feed the field guns.

Far out into the plains, the air filled with more bladed feet hitting the ground, as the UDC's reserve began to move forward.

Alexandra closed her eyes...only to open them as bugles and trumpets sounded.

The human troops began marching to meet them.

Alexandra could almost taste the debate on the other side. Far into the distance, she watched her sensor screens the burst of activity in the fleet.

Two command ships were suddenly swarmed, Glavistar's ships coming hull hull with them, and she saw the icons indicating bioweapons fire and marines swarming and buzzing around the ships.

It was over quickly. Glarvistar's squadrons were the most intact, and whoever was being subdued, the other dungeon cores weren't willing to help them.

The UDC's reserves shuddered to a halt, and turned around. Marching back towards their transports.

The centaurs simply stood there. Hearing their allies, their reinforcements, leave them behind.

One of the Cataphracts began laughing. Then another. And another. There was an hysterical edge to it, and before long the entirety of the twin cavalry lances were laughing their hearts out.

Finally, they stopped, and Alexandra watched as several of them stepped forward. Hands reached up, and helmets were thrown at the feet of her tanks.

More stepped up, and before long there was a small mound of the armor pieces before her automata.

Alexandra ordered her troops to stand down. The battle was over.

She was victorious.

*****

"Victory, then?" Asked Allya as Alexandra sat down in the command center.

They were alone. Everyone else preparing their end of the debriefing.

"Yeah." The dungeon core closed her eyes. For the first time in...Gods knew how long, feeling genuinely, physically tired. "Some victory though."

"You beat the odds."

"I lost half my army. We're completely out of ammo. My fleet is in freaking tatters. The ammunition I can replace, it's why I have a supply depot in Darthar, but the ships? Some of them were first gen vessels. Ones we began making months ago. We're not getting those back. Ever."

"You'll still get them back a hell of a lot quicker than they will."

"Will I? They're dungeons as well. The same advantages. The same powers."

"The same powers? Maybe. But hardly the same advantages. They don't have your skills. They don't have your drive. They don't have your vision. They don't have your people."

Alexandra opened her eyes, to find the archduchess almost within touching distance. She sighed.

"You're probably right. Still, it's hard to feel optimistic after this."

"Perhaps. But still, you've pulled off the impossible."

"Have I? They expected to lose. Some of them, at least."

Allya chuckled grimly.

"That's because of your reputation. Every enemy is already halfway towards defeat in their own minds. Given how that dungeon core reined the other ones in, it probably became something of a self fulfilling prophecy."

"It was a bluff. And they bought it. If they thought they could take on my troops and Sarth's, they would have engaged at the end. They just didn't think they could take us both after how much ass I'd kicked."

"Yeah. Because they were affected by your reputation. Your..." Allya licked her lips, trying to find the words. "...inevitability."

"Right." Alexandra sighed. "Still, we didn't accomplish anything. We just lost half of our army, almost every single one of our escort ships and most of our ammo...for what? We didn't even hurt a single one of Sunrise's soldiers. And you saw the vector the UDC's fleet had. Retreating North. I give you two guesses as to whom they're going to run to, begging for a military alliance, once their leadership has swallowed their pride."

"At least the siege of the capital is lifted."

"There is that. Though I wouldn't say lifted. They've just left enough of a blocking force to keep what remains of the royal army penned in the ruins while the duchess comes South. The assaults have stopped, yes, but they can't come to our aide." Alexandra closed her eyes. "The duchess doing that seemed like suicide then, but it makes sense now, doesn't it?"

Allya nodded.

"She was preparing to take out Sarth, after your army was annihilated. Probably bring her wayward army to the east back into the fold."

"Yes...yes she was."

"We already did know she was in contact with the UDC. The kill team was made up of her people after all."

"Yeah. And she's got a lot of things to answer for."

"So?"

"So we continue our march north. And we finish what we started."

*****

Joachim stared at the screen. Replaying the battle, over and over again.

There had to be a reason. A reason for Lesly to deviate from the plan.

Instead of shattering like a cursed mirror, the UDC's isolationists were regrouping. Restructuring themselves, with some of its members using the hot iron provided by the battle to forge it anew. Meanwhile the interventionists did the same, solidifying the two blocs, instead of setting the stage for breaking them apart, and mixing both to create a new, unified organization. One that would obey her every command, and stand by the Order's side when the time came.

There had to be some gambit. Some reason he couldn't see or fathom, against a threat or for a greater prize.

But even as he told himself that, he knew he was desperately rationalizing. And as he realized...

Thoughts came back to him. Details. Details he had dismissed. Oddities in Lesly's behavior, in reports about her interactions with others.

Something was off. And his subconscious was screaming, screaming about a pattern he couldn't see.

He sighed as he gripped his head. Damn it, what the hell was he missing? What could possibly-

The door slammed open, and Joachim jumped back as a figure barreled into the room. He was halfway through reducing it to atoms before his finger relaxed on the trigger of his Old World weapon, drawn without thought, the merciless drills from the relic guard finally paying off.

His eyes widened as his conscious mind registered what his subconscious had, and he lowered the gun, staring at the disheveled apparition.

"Erik? What the hell happened to you man?!?"

The guildmaster and former general of the Order looked like a shambling corpse, parts of his body were shredded, and Joachim could see some of his ribs through ribbons of flesh. How...what could possibly do that to an archon?!? They were made of energy, these kind of wounds shouldn't even be possible!

"Assassins." The guildmaster shook himself. "I killed them. Not important."

"Not imp- are you insane?!? They almost fucking killed you! How did you even find me anyway?"

"Contacts. The archives. You needed to see this. With your own eyes."

"See what?"

The guildmaster held up the file he had been holding.

"This."

Joachim frowned.

"What is that?"

"Your extradimensional's true identity."

"Her true identity? She was-"

"Alexandra Rousseau was a lie. A cover. This. This is who she truly was."

The guildmaster flung the file onto the Commander's desk, and Joachim looked at the anonymous cover. Then he flipped it open.

His eyes widened. He opened and closed his mouth convulsively, utterly incapable of forming words.

After a full minute, he finally managed to speak.

"That's- I- No...that's not possible! She couldn't-"

"It is possible. It's her. You killed the Butcher of Europa." Joachim scrambled backwards as suddenly the guildmaster was there, their faces inches apart. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!?"

"I didn't know! How...how could I?!?"

The growl that the half dead guildmaster gave wasn't even remotely human.

"I imagine, if you and Lesly had bothered to ask, you would have." He straightened, and his gaze bore the weight of a judgement even Joachim couldn't fathom. "The Grandmaster will be informed of what you've done."

Joachim closed his eyes, and exhaled.

"Alright. I'll accept the punishment. Whatever he sees fit, for my transgressions."

"Good." The Commander opened his eyes again, and saw the guildmaster at the threshold of his office. "Good. Because you and Lesly better make it count. Make her sacrifice mean something. Otherwise, I swear to every star in this universe, I will hunt you down, before the Custodians get to you, and believe me when I tell you that their ministrations would be the sweet caresses of a lover compared to what I will do to you. Are we understood?" Joachim nodded. "Good."

Then he was gone.

Joachim collapsed into his seat, his eyes staring into the void. His previous worries forgotten, scattered to the winds compared to the enormity of what he had just learned.

The Butcher of Europa...

There were plaques dedicated to her deeds in every Stronghold of the Order.

And the grandmaster...the grandmaster and his council of High Commanders assembled beneath the gaze of her statue, at the heart of the Order's web of intrigue and power. The gaze of the High Admiral of the European Federation Star Navy.

What had he done? False Gods, what had he done?

END OF BOOK 8