Chapter 221 - Recon Flight (Patreon)

Chapter 221

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Workshop

"Impressive, isn't it?" Said Alexandra as she paced around the aircraft, patting the fuselage.

"It certainly is." Said Emilia as she gazed at the craft. It was huge, four times as long as a spider tank, though not at all as wide as she had expected. "The wings do look a bit, uh…stubby though."

"Inherent problem of the mission requirements." Alexandra sighed as Emilia gave her a curious look. "Not going to go into the depths of aerodynamics, but bigger wings means lower top speed, which we can't have if we want it to outrun wasteland monsters. But large wings would give it more endurance, one of the many, many factors why it is so energy inefficient. Alongside the fact that because it had to be low tech, and I don't have aluminum, it's made out of steel, instead of the high tech light weight composites I have. At least we won't have to worry about runways, so that's something. Yay for magical antigravity."

"It's not-"

"I know, I know, but close enough. Point is, with magic we can make it land and take off vertically, so basically anywhere, which will help recovering the damned thing, or doing an emergency landing if necessary. Not that the latter will be anything but a death sentence in the wasteland."

"I'd love to get me one of those." Said Sarah as she studied the plane. "I'm not one for airships with all the crew, but my own personal flying death machine? I'd be down."

Alexandra's eyebrow rose as Ella nodded in agreement.

"Well, far from me to hold back from you girls another toy to play around with, but this is military equipment." Sarah opened her mouth, but Alexandra cut her off. "If you want to volunteer as pilots for a mission in enemy territory with no hope of reinforcements or rescue if something goes wrong, please, do talk it out with Emilia."

One look at the advisor was all they needed to know that it wasn't happening. Wisely, neither of them spoke up.

"No? Thought not." Alexandra snickered. "Besides, knowing you you'd find a way to ram an enemy ship with it and walk away with a grin."

"Yeah…Yeah I probably would."

Emilia cleared her throat.

"You two's fantasies about blowing things up notwithstanding, you said you were planning on launching it immediately?"

"Yep. I'll possess the pilot, since I'm still figuring out high bandwidth transmissions over a distance. It won't be comfortable, but it should do. At least it shouldn't take very long, that thing is fast. Or at least, it should be."

"Provided it doesn't crash or blow up five minutes in?"

"Provided that, yes. Care to bet about it?"

Emilia tilted her head. Alexandra rarely proposed to bet on things like that.

"What would we bet with? Design time?"

"I was thinking more along the line of some more…private stuff." The maids exchanged a look, but didn't comment. "Whoever loses has to accept a request from the other, no questions asked."

"Deal."

"Excellent!" Alexandra smiled widely, and Emilia had the sudden feeling that she'd just made a terrible, terrible mistake. "Let's see who's going to be victorious then!"

*****

"I hate you." Said Emilia over the crackling radio.

"Awww sweetheart. Don't be such a sore looser." Answered Alexandra, her voice almost sickly sweet. "You'll break my heart."

"I'll do so much worse than that. You set me up!"

"Me? Noooo. I just had some…assistance from Seraph and Allya."

"You'd already tested it!"

"Well, you hadn't asked if it was the first test."

"I said the first five minutes!"

"And the prototype exploded seven minutes into its maiden flight. Either way, you lose vampy. Better suck it up! That, or I'm sure I could come up with an even better request, if you'd like…"

"No! No. It's…it's fine. Truly."

"Good girl." The irony of turning her own phrase against her clearly wasn't lost on Emilia, and Alexandra could just picture her grinding her teeth, but she wisely kept quiet.

"Anything on the scopes yet?" Intervened Sarah, with almost indecent haste, as she rushed to her charge's rescue.

"Not yet." Alexandra flipped a few switched, and hummed as she watched the crystal screen in front of her update. "Should be soon enough, their camp should be…" The screen flickered, showing multiple contacts as the craft's sensors found them and the onboard computer processed the data. "Uh oh."

"What? What is it?"

"That…is a shitload of large airborne contacts. Which means airships. And we're too far away for them to be patrolling around their camp." Alexandra checked her golem's crash harness. "Looks like this is gonna get interesting."

*****

"Well, they're definitely trying to screen something." Said Alexandra as she looked at the crystal screen. She had controls, but the aircraft was automated, so she could dedicate all of her attention onto what the sensors were seeing. "Not sure what though."

"You said there were people on the ground, correct?" Answered back Sarah over the radio.

"Yep. Sizeable caravan. I think one, maybe two battalions of ground pounders. But they have something with them. It looks like a giant slab of stone. Why the hell are they dragging it through the desert?"

There was a short pause, then Emilia spoke up.

"That slab, what size is it?"

"Uh? Oh, roughly…fifteen by fifteen meters. Wait, hold on." Alexandra frowned as she zoomed in by manipulating a few controls. "There's…crystals at equal intervals. The hell?"

"That…that's not a slab Alex. That's a teleporter."

"...Ah. Well well well. Third time's the charm, or so it seems for the Republic."

There was a short silence.

"They might be aiming it at the town."

"Bullshit. I could believe Amelia wasn't after me, but this? This fucking teleporter has my freaking name on it." Alexandra drummed her fingers on her armrest, before smiling. "In more ways than one."

"Please don't."

"Oh yes. I will. Even if it was just a separate group, I would take a swing at them. If they're going to so nicely offer up their guys peacemeal, far from me to turn it down. But with a full scale teleporter? I'm grabbing that. And we have just the troops for that."

"We do?"

"Remember those harassers we were making to help Darthar? I think it's time for a little field testing." Alexandra smiled, though Emilia wasn't here to see it, even if the golem had been able of any facial expression. "I'm sure our friends over there won't mind a small delay."

"And how, pray tell, are you planning on getting through the escort ships?"

Alexandra paused…and then she checked her position.

"I can have the raiding squadron here in a few days, and join up with the new wave of ships and the Q-ships. That should give us, what, thirteen ships? Plus there'll be the first corsairs in as well, if we rush out the Vallis and the Zuekhvi a bit. We'll have to scuttle the prizes, and get the position of the prisonners to the Republic somehow." She hated the guys, but she wasn't about to strand the poor bastards in the wasteland once she blew their vessels, which currently served as their prisons.

"They won't make it if you leave them behind."

"I'll get them some weapons from their own ships' armories. Should allow them to hold on until they're rescued. Plus, it'll divert some enemy forces. It's a win win."

"Except for the prizes you lost."

"I have a much greater one in my sights."

"...I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise, am I?"

"Nope!"

"Alright then. Let's yoink a giant teleporter from an enemy army, probably purely made up of elite troops, with half a squadron of capital ships above them."

"Tsk tsk tsk. Have a little faith honey. You know I always come up with some stratagems."

"That's what worries me."

Alexandra chuckled.

"Alright, fair enough. Now let's see their main camp, and go home."

*****

"-but the main army appears to be staying put." Finished Alexandra, tapping the miniature representing said army on the map laid down on the council table.

"So you think they are planning on trying to kidnap your core once more?" Asked Anders.

"That's our conclusion, yes." Answered Allya. "Which is something we cannot abide. Precautions have been taken since the last attempt, of course, but it is better not to tempt fate. Beside, the Republic is unlikely to be unaware of that fact either. It would be stupid not to do so, and our resident dungeon core is anything but."

Everyone nodded, and Allya had to stifle a sigh of relief.

She knew Alexandra didn't give a shit about them making it into her dungeon. Even if they somehow bypassed the teleport redirector, or punched through the trap laid out for them there…They'd never make it through the defenses of the core fortress.

She was starting to doubt anyone short of a Custodian could.

No, the dungeon core was after the teleporter. Or rather the biggest piece she could get away with stealing. Thankfully, everyone assumed she already had teleportation, after all, she had demonstrated it with her insurance policy inside the dungeon. But they were unaware of the limitations of what Alexandra had, thanks to the Western Marches' stinginess on the matter of sharing magical knowledge.

Gods knew what the dungeon core could do with a full teleporter. Actually, no, she did know what Alexandra thought she'd be able to do. The Earth-born had been rather vocal about it after all.

"There is one thing you are forgetting." Said captain Calder, and the orc smiled as he leaned forward, which was a rather toothy -well, tusky- affair for him. "If they're that close to us, and lady Crystal deploys her artillery to the town's defenses…there is no real reason we couldn't use the town's airships, now is there?"

Allya blinked, before exchanging a look with Alexandra.

"While that would definitely be an option, many of our ships would not be able to keep up with Crystal's. More importantly, many of them are not proper warships."

"But the Dusk Blade and the Sakura are."

Allya drummed her fingers on the table. Everyone was looking at her expectantly. Getting some more non-golem operated ships would complicate the job of stealing the teleporter, or at least disguising the fact that it was the true primary objective.

But it wasn't like they could say 'no' to having a freaking battleship along. Even with Alexandra's stratagem, it would be a crucial addition.

"An excellent point captain Calder. We had become so reliant on golems that we forgot more conventional alternatives were available." Or rather, neither her nor Alexandra were willing to fully trust said alternatives. "Let's do so. Please contact both ships, and get them ready for departure."

"Immediately?"

"Not quite. But soon. Very soon. We only have so much time before they drag their teleporter into range after all."

"Very well, milady."

"Thank you, captain."

"But…if you're recalling the raiding ships, won't that mean the main army will be free to advance once more?" Said Melia.

Alexandra shook her head.

"There is some inertia to this. Plus, it seems they came to a full stop after the first raid, and did not start moving in the time between it and the second one, which allowed a full round trip. We should have the time."

"And if the ships are destroyed?"

"Thanks to the increased mana income of separating the floors into individual delves, and the extra clay and iron steps, I can sustain the production of roughly four ships every two weeks, three raider-class and one corsair-class." Which meant that she'd have to dip into her reserves to finish the two extra corsairs in time for this batch even with the funds set aside for any refit of prizes, but still. "So before they are able to make any significant movement I would be able to build another squadron from scratch."

"Ah. I hadn't taken that into consideration, my apologies."

"None are necessary. But I believe it's high time we give the Republic a more…direct taste of Rebirth's power."