Chapter 213 - In Extremis (Patreon)

Note : Chapter 216 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 213

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

City of Rebirth

"What do you mean the ship has been delayed?" Asked Syliva as she leaned forward.

The crewmember's eyes darted down to her cleavage, before getting back to her face.

"I mean just that ma'am. The ship is being temporarily grounded. I don't know why, the captain didn't tell. Just be patient, I'm sure we'll be ready to leave in no time."

Sylvia's sharp retort was halted by Maria landing a conciliatory hand on her shoulder, and squeezing discreetly.

"Of course. If you'll excuse us?"

The crewmember nodded, clearly relieved, though whether it was due to Sylvia's obvious weapons and agitation or trying to remain professional and not stare at her skimpy outfit was anyone's guess.

"This isn't good." Said Sylvia as they stalked the ship's corridors, and Maria sighed.

"I know. But we can't afford to make a scene. Not now."

"Yeah…Sorry." Sylvia looked over her shoulder, smiling apologetically. "I'm a bit…agitated."

"Anyone would be in your situation." Especially after coming face to face with Lesly so recently. "Come on. Let's grab a drink at the onboard bar."

"You know just what to say to me, don't you?" Sylvia chuckled as her executive officer rolled her eyes.

"Anyone who has spent more than five minutes does."

"Uh uh."

They made their way to the bar…and Sylvia froze as she stepped into the room.

"Maria? I hate your fucking mouth." Whispered the captain, as Allya turned around from the barman, and smiled broadly at the captain.

And two guards unobtrusively stepped in behind them to cut off their retreat.

"Captain! Would you care to join me for a drink?" Said the baroness.

*****

Allya's smile widened as she gazed at the pirate captain, who looked like a deer caught in headlights, as extradimensionals say.

She was very, very glad for her preparations. Even with everything set up in advance, they'd barely managed to ground the ship, as Sylvia and Maria had managed to bury their trail so deeply, especially thanks to their anti-stealth field or whatever the hell they were using, that they'd known which ship they were going to take when they boarded. It also made her realize quite how dependent Alexandra's intelligence gathering was dependent on her stealth technology, and once someone had a counter she was almost blind. They'd have to correct that.

But she'd made it. Now time to rope the captain in.

Sylvia sat down beside her at the bar, though Maria remained standing, in position to help the captain if something went wrong.

"You seem to know me pretty well. I'm guessing this isn't a goodbye. Or you taking one last chance to avail yourself of my charms?"

"No, and no. Besides, I'd have brought Pyn along if I wanted the latter. She's the one who wanted to get into your pants, not me." Allya took a sip of her glass, and grimaced. "Though a drink here may not be a good idea. Their stuff sucks."

"What do I owe the pleasure then?"

"I want you to pay your favour back. The one you owe me for giving you that Aline woman." Someone who hadn't been looking for it would have missed it, but Allya saw both of them tense up at the mention of Aline's name.

"...Or?"

"Or I'll have her back. It's only fair, after all."

The pirates exchanged a look, and shifted subtly, clearing the path to draw their weapons. Her guards reacted similarly, and a dozen hands came to rest on sword pommels. There was no way to miss that, and the pirates froze. Allya shivered internally, it reminded her a lot of their first meeting.

Except that know she knew they were part of a possibly heretical, but definitely high tech cult. She wasn't exactly confident in her guards' ability to win this, should it come to blows.

Of course, if it did, the pirates would be dead in seconds regardless. There was an entire squad of Alexandra's praetorian guards up in her fortress, ready to unleash every kind of hell imaginable.

Besides, the pirates knew this would be a losing battle. Rebirth's fleet would intercept their ship before it made it out, provided it even managed to get out of the defensive perimeter without being shot down by the air defenses, and taking her hostage wouldn't change anything, even if she didn't trigger her teleport talisman.

"I'd rather avoid that. What is it you want?"

Allya flipped open one of her spatial pouches, and pulled out the small tube of metal used to contain official degree the world over, and put it down in front of the captain.

"Sylvia Hiddenvale, by the will and grace of their majesties, I hereby name you privateer of the Asarian Kingdom. You are called upon to serve. Will you answer?"

*****

"This went about as well as could be expected, under the circumstances." Said Allya to the rest of her council, after the pirates were escorted out.

"Was that truly necessary?" Asked Melia, before raising a hand as Allya rose an eyebrow. "I'm not denying that their expertise is useful, but did you truly have to go to such lengths to acquire it?"

"In a handful of days, we'll be surrounded on all sides, and our only hope not to be encircled by an army a hundred times our numbers is to harass their supply lines to the point of total collapse. What do you think?"

"...Point taken."

"I believe her expertise and experience will be invaluable to our endeavors. Now, Crystal, you said your airships should be there momentarily?"

"Indeed. Two hours out, at most." And finally be close enough to download their logs and start going through them, though given how frustratingly low bandwidth the radios had proven to be at any kind of range, they'd basically finish downloading as the ships made their final approach to land. Alexandra leaned forward. "The ships will proceed immediately to my dungeon to land, but the prize vessels will go to the docking tower until I have space for them."

Several of the councilors exchanged looks.

"You are not turning the ships over to Rebirth?" Slowly said Dominique, as clearly no one else was willing to voice the thought.

"She doesn't have any obligations to." Said Allya, and Dominique nodded wordlessly, offering her -and the guild's- tacit approval and surrender. "Furthermore, what would we do with them? We can do some repairs on ships, but not refit an entire vessel, let alone to Crystal's military standards."

"She's turning them into warships?!?" Gasped out Willard.

"Yes. Every single one of them." Simply said Alexandra. "They will neither be as powerful or high performing as my other vessels, but they will serve well as patrol or escort crafts. If we are to go on the offensive against the Republic after all, we will need our own convoys, and does anyone here believe the Republic will refrain from turning our own commerce raiding tactics against us?"

"They seem to have been reluctant to lower themselves to that level so far." Said Anders, and Alexandra nodded.

"They have. Though that may be for other reasons entirely."

"How so?"

Allya stepped in, and Alexandra let her take over. They had started practicing their speech and meeting topics, so that they could each continue another's reasoning. It was a cheap trick, but it hammered the fact that they were in this together, and indivisible.

"We think that they may have been aware of Sunrise cutting us off well in advance. With that in mind, risking their airships to raid our caravans and convoys, while our own defenses were impenetrable to an air raid, leaving our entire airfleet free to do escorts or counter attacks, would have been a waste of resources. That's not even mentioning the fact that we now have a battleship. Their own don't have the endurance to circumvent the town, not without a significant supply train of their own, and wouldn't be a match for the Dusk Blade even if they were. Anything lighter wouldn't be guaranteed to be able to outrun it as well, given its technological superiority." The Dusk Blade was, after all, a Gorromarian made warship. It may not include their best technology, but it was still leagues ahead of anything the Republic could bring to bear.

"Besides, there is also another thing to consider." Continued Alexandra, neatly following where the baroness left off. "Despite the war, they have proven entirely unwilling to stop trade, and we continue to have a great deal of business with the Republic and neutral convoys. Commerce raiding could collapse that, not to mention risk destroying their own merchant vessels in the fog of war." Everyone nodded. It was an open secret how corrupt the senate was, and it didn't take a genius to realize that if a mercantile corporation belonging to or having a senator in their pockets suffered such losses, there would be hell to pay. "Since they already knew, or had guessed, that the point would soon become moot anyway, and they could control our only avenue of trade once Sunrise cut us off, they would leave it open. They may even hope that keeping this lifeline would allow them a lever in negotiating for our surrender, pointing out that the Kingdom had abandoned us, or be unable to help, while they keep sending in life saving supplies."

"Do you expect them to do so?"

Alexandra shrugged.

"Doubtful." She glanced at Allya, who took the hint, and spoke up once more.

"We have little imports from the Republic, outside of people such as adventurers and other specialists." No one batted an eye at calling the adventurers 'specialists' despite them having been the overwhelming majority of the town's population once, and still remaining its largest single group by a wide margin. "In fact, our balance of trade with them is simply outrageous. They mainly trade manufactured goods, some Tarkian in origin, as well as exotic resources with the Kingdom, in exchange for a wide variety of raw materials and magical artifacts, some imported from the Sapphire Kingdom." It was amazing how willing mortal enemies were to trade with one another once enough money was involved. "We have had little need so far of such goods, especially not when refined metals have been readily abundant from the dungeon. One advantage in our position is that we are guaranteed to grow explosively, have a significant population that will always have substantial amounts of mana to burn, and a functionally infinite source of raw materials. Given the costs of shipping, it makes sense for artisans to establish themselves here, especially with our low taxes and generous subsidies. So we have little to import from them, especially as, paradoxically, our homegrown industry isn't large enough yet to require the exotics they offer."

Allya shrugged, and Alexandra picked up. Some of the councilors were looking definitely worried at their level of coordination. Good, let them tremble. It would prepare them for the far worse things to come. They, after all, still thought that Alexandra's declaration of taking the fight to the Republic meant raiding Erakis.

Not annexing the entire town.

"Of course, that doesn't mean that some new Republic convoys won't 'conveniently' turn up with perishables and the kind of resources we used to import from the Kingdom." Said the dungeon core. "But if they do they won't find a market. It will be Rebirth's official policy that any trader that takes the ill advised step of sourcing such good from the Republic will be held in unfavorable light and cut off from government subsidies as well as taken out of any fast track lanes for construction or city planning." Which would be a death sentence. Everyone had realized that the only way to get ahead here was to get on those lanes, or at the very least get the principality to underwrite your enterprise. It's why so few had joined the little coup attempt and been subsequently purged.

Alexandra and Allya both watched the council carefully as Alexandra spoke, and noted who gasped or looked uneasy.

After all, the dungeon core had just proclaimed official town policy. And Allya hadn't blinked. In fact, she was nodding.

Anders and the twins didn't shift. Neither did Melia, nor Trira for that matter. But the others showed various degrees of unease. The royal engineer, whose name Alexandra couldn't be bothered to remember, but her programs for such eventualities happily reminded her was named Vorton Markol, was looking distinctively green around the edges as he swallowed compulsively, trying to calm down. And Willard wasn't much better.

They were starting to realize this wasn't just an alliance of convenience for mutual survival.

There was a new giant in the playground. And few had seemed to realize that the multiple serpents were only the heads of a single hydra.

Gauging the council's reaction, and gradually getting them comfortable with this was the first step in Rebirth becoming much more than a single town.

And eventually, its own empire.

"We will, of course, convey it in much more diplomatic terms to our traders." Casually said Allya, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. "They are, after all, valued partners. But we will make it clear that there won't be going around us. I am willing to entertain some contraband and a few shenanigans, but not this. Am I clear?"

A chorus of 'Yes milady' answered her, and she nodded.

"Very well then. Then let us adjourn. We will meet again tomorrow."

The councilors filed out of the room. But not Alexandra, in CQ's body, or Trira or Pyn, sending yet another message.

That she was no longer 'just' a councilor. She was part of Allya's inner circle, and held as much weight as the baroness' own girlfriend, or Allya's spymaster and -for those observant enough- surrogate mother.