Chapter 208 - Special Project (Patreon)

Chapter 208

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"You can't be serious!" Shouted Emilia.

"Honey, she's getting bored to death! The fourth floor isn't nearly close to complete, and even if it was, you know as well as I do that few even get to her! This will give her opportunity to grow." Retorted Alexandra.

"Grow? She'll be fighting on the frontlines, Gods knows how many hundred kilometers away from the dungeon!"

"And she can return from the dead. You know falling in battle is nothing to her. In fact she seems to almost welcome it, as an opportunity to learn from a worthy opponent."

"And what if she gets captured, and gets tortured, uh? What will you do then?"

Emilia regretted saying it a split second after the words left her mouth.

She felt the temperature drop, and then-

"Then nothing in this world, or in all your hells and heavens, will be able to protect the Republic from extermination."

The silence was total. Emilia felt…something through her connection with the dungeon core. And as she stared in Alexandra's eyes, all she beheld was the endless, infinite cold of interstellar space.

"But it won't come to that." Continued the Earth-born, and just like that, it was gone, and the vampire released the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "First and foremost, to be able to capture her, they'd have to win, and somehow stun her. Which is not going to be easy, since I don't think she can even be knocked out. Not to mention, she can teleport, and has one of the talismans. Plus, I'll be there to chaperone her. I'll be careful, I promise."

Emilia sighed.

"Okay. Alright." She threw her hands up. "Alright! I cave. You can take CQ as your marine commander for the next flotilla of ships."

"Thank you. I believe it'll be good for her, give her some experience, and she'll have tons to do. A little real world experience is exactly what she needs. Besides, I'll try to avoid boardings against their warships."

"That didn't work so well last time."

"No it didn't, but this time I'll be ready."

Emilia slowly nodded.

"I don't doubt it. But still, it's going to feel weird not to have her around."

"Don't worry, it's temporary. And hey! She can come back any time."

"Yeah, I know that, still…" Emilia chuckled. "I suppose I know how mom felt when my big sisters left the nest."

"And when you did."

"No. I was called by the God of Fire to serve. It's…different."

"Right." Alexandra looked a bit uncomfortable, and Emilia once again wondered why were the mentions of the Divines making the dungeon core so…restless.

Then again, the Adjudicators had a tendency to leave one hell of an impression, so she couldn't truly blame the Earth-born.

"Well, I suppose I better pack some things for her trip then."

"Pack? Honey she-" Alexandra's words died in her throat as she met Emilia's eyes. "Yes, of course."

"Excellent. And you're helping. I'll be damned if we send our daughter off to fight a war on the other side of the wasteland without everything she needs."

"It'll be my pleasure." Alexandra chuckled. "I'm sure she'll ask for some stickers for the ships."

"Be careful, she might just start trying to put some on the enemy's."

"How? By putting them on cannonballs?"

"If you let her talk Seraph into it, I'm sure she'd find a way."

"Yeah. Yeah she would." Alexandra clapped her hands together. "Alright, let's open the blast door, reassure them all we haven't gotten into a huge fight, and tell her the good news!"

*****

"You're feeling useless, aren't you?"

Allya froze, before setting down the paper she'd been holding at the breakfast table, and looking up at her girlfriend.

"What?"

"You're feeling useless. Or powerless. Same difference. That's why you've been throwing every iota of yourself in your work lately."

Allya opened her mouth…and closed it with a snap. What could she answer? Say that she was planning to take over the continent with an extradimensional dungeon core? That she was contemplating the largest conquest seen on Arkhan in over a century as a matter of course?

But…damn it, her girlfriend was right! She was feeling powerless. Even if not in quite the way her girlfriend thought.

"Yeah…" She sighed as her shoulders sagged. "Yeah I am. I just…It feels like I'm at the mercy of the whims of the world."

"And Crystal's."

"Not…really. In her case, it's like I'm just following in the footsteps of a giant."

"Well…I can't contradict you with that." She smiled. "But I've always felt that way with you."

"You did?"

"Yeah! A knight-valiant, a leader and military commander? Honey, I'm a huntress turned adventurer, do you have any idea how it feels like to be by your side, watching you coordinate whole armies, fighting horrors older than my civilization and sending them back to whence they came?"

Allya opened her mouth, and closed it, chuckling.

"I…I guess you have a point. I supposed I'm too used to being the important one in the town."

"You still are. But you just have an equal alongside you." Pyn raised her hand as Allya opened her mouth to protest. "I know, I know, you consider me your equal. But I mean in political power, and politics…aren't my thing."

"I noticed." The baroness leaned back into her chair. "Well, I suppose that's fair. It's just…weird that I'm feeling part of someone else's story, so to speak."

"Aren't we all though? Even the most powerful men and women in the world are also just part of their peers' stories. No one is the center of the universe honey. Even the Gods have other Divines to be compared to, don't they?"

"...You're right, they are. I suppose it's time I came to terms with that." She chuckled again, this time with genuine mirth. "I was so used to being on my own and just thinking about myself that I, well…"

"Couldn't help but think you were the center of everything? I know the feeling."

"Yeah." Allya grabbed her bowl of hot chocolate, and took a long, drawn out sip, before setting it down, smiling. "Thanks honey, I believe I needed that."

"Anytime. It's what girlfriends are for, I believe."

"Yeah." That made Allya fall deep in thought. Girlfriends, uh?

There had to be a jeweler around town. And with Eismi's enchanting talent…

Maybe it was time to change that.

"Honey?"

"It's nothing." Said Allya, hastily hiding her grin behind her bowl as she raised it to take another sip. "Just something else I realized." She smiled at her girlfriend's confusion. "Don't worry, I'll tell you…when it's ready."

"Fine, be like that."

Allya's smile only got wider, but she stayed mysterious for the rest of the meal, adroitly dodging her girlfriend's barely disguised fishing attempts.

*****

Alexandra sighed as she sat down in front of the workshop bench. Deciding on having CQ accompany the next batch of ships had kicked the proverbial anthill, and Emilia and her maids had gone into a flurry of action, with their daughter's enthusiastic, if a bit bemused help.

She needed communication systems, a proper way to talk via video to her mommy every day, several spares for her weapons, personal mana batteries, a full wardrobe, everything.

Alexandra found it a bit funny, however exhausting it was, but she wasn't going to mention how overkill some of this stuff was. Why the hell would their daughter need a dress naval uniform?

She would keep her peace, if her relationships have told her anything, it's that when your girlfriend gets like that, you just nod, say 'yes honey' and obey.

Stars save you if you don't.

She blinked as she received a ping. Oh, Seraph had sent her the list of materials and items the apparition had requested.

The list scrolled in the corner of her vision as she worked.

Most of it were standard parts, some were industrial systems, a lot of scanners, which made sense for a lab, more acid, hydrofluoric this time, and-

Beryllium? What the hell was her other self going to do with pure beryllium? Sheets of the stuff too. For that matter…it was odd she'd found the material in sandstone. Other elements should have come out first.

Unless she was directly driving for it. But why?

The list kept on scrolling as she worked.

And then she froze.

She knew that part.

She stopped the scrolling.

What the hell could the apparition possibly want with a neutron emitter matrix? She didn't have sensors nearly precise enough to use it, and it wasn't like she was making radioactive…isotopes…

Beryllium. It was to neutrons what a mirror was to visible light. And the sandstone, the acid, the centrifuges…

The Ottoman Directorate. Fuck, the Fordow incident!

She immediately activated various security protocols. She'd hoped to never have to use them, but she was too paranoid not to.

Then she sent a communication request. It was time to have a talk, Alexandra to Alexandra.

*****

The apparition looked studiously neutral as Alexandra appeared in her evolving home, but there was no possibility of one hiding their trepidation from the other.

And there was no way her other self hadn't noticed the defensive programs spinning up. She wouldn't be hurt by that. Both of them were doing it, they were just too polite to mention it, and they understood why it had to be done, just in case.

"Hello. I assume you found something?" Said the apparition.

"I did. Tell me, are you really determined to pull off a Fordow? Because I think the God of Fire is a bit more dangerous than the Federation. Or the UIS for that matter."

The apparition froze.

Fordow had been a site shrouded in infamy, long before the Ottoman Directorate ever came to be.

After all, it was the place Iran had used to manufacture its first nuclear warheads.

During the Terran Hegemony War, it was supposedly completely destroyed. No less than six direct hits from thermonuclear bunker busters, although whose missiles had managed to punch through the site's defenses was an open question, as no less than four nations had fired at it.

But if she had to hand anything to the Iranians, it was this: they built their nuclear facilities tough. The entire site had been made to survive overwhelming bombardment from the get go, although she doubted the original designers had envisioned quite that level of punishment. Some of the more shielded parts of the facility had survived…including the backups for the databanks, and many of the more advanced centrifuges.

And the Ottoman Directorate had stumbled upon it during the cleanup operations, decades later, and had immediately begun reactivating the machinery.

They had managed to pump out a dozen warheads from the remaining materials stored there, before the European Federation found out. The council went ballistic, literally. The Federation had poured immense amounts of treasure and personnel into helping the Directorate get back on its feet, rather than let the last remnants of the middle east die, and this was how they were repaid?

This time they decided to do things right, and the Federation Home Fleet, turned Fordow into a crater fifty kilometer wide and one deep, walking railgun and laser fire back and forth along the entire area at least six times.

Thankfully, the Directorate's upper echelon wasn't only staffed by scientists, and their diplomats managed to come to an agreement, as the Federation was on the verge of launching a full scale nuclear launch, still haunted by the ghost of Hegemony. The deal let the Directorate use the data extracted from the site, but on the condition that all nuclear weapons facilities be strictly limited in the yield of the warheads that could be made. This evolved gradually into the Federation selling surplus nukes to the Directorate, when it became clear that they were the only viable warheads for spacegoing missiles, and finally culminated in a full scale cooperation agreement on nuclear weapons production. To the day she'd left, a full third of the components for Arcadia Systems', and thus the EFSN's, nuclear warheads were built by subsidiaries in the Directorate.

"I am not trying to pull off a Fordow. I am, however, trying to give us an insurance policy."

"By building nukes?!?"

"Not nukes." The apparition shrugged. "Not yet, at any rate. Eventually? Yes, absolutely. But first we'd need a fission reactor. Can't build a warhead without enriched uranium, or plutonium, and you can't replicate it with your power without having some to absorb in the first place."

"Right, that is so much better." Alexandra's voice was dripping with sarcasm. "After all, it's not like you had already pointed out there were no nuclear power plants or anything. Zero risk of anything going wrong, right? Right."

"Which is why I am planning to do it in one of the most shielded parts of Seraph's bunker."

Alexandra stared at her.

"Alright. I'll bite. Why are you so determined about this?"

"Because we need an edge. And a bargaining chip. Right now, our only hope is to keep our heads down until we have something that can keep the lackeys of the God of Fire at bay if something goes wrong."

"And you think this is it? They'll be on us like-"

"Like a locust swarm? Exactly like if they found out we've broken their high tech limitations? Or neutered our control programs altogether?"

Alexandra's mouth closed with a snap, as the apparition continued.

"This ship has sailed a long time ago. The die is cast. Now the only thing we can do is hedge our bet. And this? This might help us."

"They might detect it."

"I'm ready to bet that if they did, then they'd detect the fusion reactors too, and we're already getting ready cross that bridge."

"...Point taken." She sighed. "Now we'll have even more to hide from Emilia."

"You could tell her."

Alexandra hesitated. She seriously did. But she sighed, and shook her head.

"No. Gift proved with his fusion drive that old technology being brought back online is okay, but building your own isn't. And no one has built a fission reactor that we know of. I don't want to test her loyalty that way. Not yet, at any rate. Besides, I'd prefer to put her in front of a fait accompli."

"It's your call. You're the boss after all."

"Right. I am." Alexandra looked at the table between them for a few seconds, before meeting the apparition's eyes. "Alright, brief me. I want to know everything. Reactor type? Size? Fuel mix? How long to build? And how long until you achieve criticality?"