Chapter 222 - Bait (Patreon)

Note : Merry Christmas everyone ! Trying to work on the Christmas Special for this year, but a combination of food indigestion and a bad cold has me down for the count, so no promises.

Chapter 222

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

In Flight

"That is…not good." Said Alexandra as she gazed through her 'binoculars', though the device had more in common with a camera and a rangefinder than anything, it was a handy name to tack onto. Besides which, she still couldn't be bothered to name it. "How many?"

"Lookouts counted fifteen ships total mom." Answered CQ, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, looking a bit odd with the makeshift repairs on her armor. "Ten lighter vessels, five gunships, three frigates and two corvettes. Then four light cruisers, and, well…that."

Alexandra mentally bit her lower lip. 'That' was a battleship.

"They're screening the advance of their commandos."

"Mom?"

"Sorry, I was thinking out loud. Those ships put themselves on the most direct route between us and the commandos, to screen them from us."

"But…we would just have to go around. They're slower than us."

"Not that much slower, at least for the lighter ships. And they don't need to stop us, just slow us down. Besides, they probably think we don't know about the commandos…Oh." Alexandra chuckled as she lowered her binoculars, before laughing as CQ tilted her head. "They're here because they were worried about us coming home with our prizes and stumbling about their little advance."

"Wouldn't that have been unlikely? The wasteland is huge. Like, super mega huge, not second floor huge."

"They have airships providing cover for their commandos, and patrolling the area to deter monsters and look out for us. If we'd found an airship patrol there, we'd have known something was wrong. Crap, that's exactly what happened with the reconnaissance flight."

"So…do we attack?"

Alexandra frowned. Or rather, she would have had her golem been able to express it, though thanks to their link -or the fact that she was her daughter- CQ seemed to divine the expression anyway.

"I…don't like our odds without this squadron joining the assault. Or without you leading it for that matter."

That seemed to perk CQ up considerably, as she smiled brightly at the compliment.

"So…if we can't go around them, and we can't kill them…we run past them? Just like I did with the adventurers protecting their mages?"

"Exactly kiddo. Just like that. Minus the teleporting of course."

"Eh, I didn't always teleport. It got predictable. Plus, I like mixing things up."

"Don't we all." Gods knew she did. So did Emilia. Or Ella, though for her that manifested in increasingly concerning poisons and chemical agents. Which reminded her that she needed to check on the tree project and whatever the hell the maid had done to it. Knowing her, it was probably some kind of horrific mutated tree abomination that secreted neurotoxin through its leaves. "Alright, let's brace for one hell of a sprint. This is gonna get rough."

"What about the prizes? And the prisonners?"

Alexandra blinked. She'd given her daughter responsibility over the people they'd captured, which she was ideally suited for thanks to her short range teleportation enabling her to blink from ship to ship among the squadron, and to her delight the boss had shown a considerable amount of empathy. She wasn't going to be bullshitted or taken advantage of -those that had tried had earned a high impact ticket to their freedom by virtue of being thrown overboard-, but she was also being scrupulously fair and helpfuly whenever she could, something she probably picked up from Jared when he cared for the adventurers being resurrected.

"Well, we'd already decided to discard them and scuttle the ships. Hopefully it'll draw some of these guys off." She nodded towards the enemy vessels. "But I doubt it. They'll probably send a gunship at most, but we're close enough that the battle with us will be over and done, one way or another, long before the prisonners become at risk."

"Oki. Well, I suppose I should go tell them the good news."

"Right. And I'll order the charges set for the ships. Remember to emphasize that they have to get away from them as soon as they land. I tried to use as little as possible-" Both to conserve explosives, or rather converted shells, and to avoid needless fatalities. "-but breaking the spine and vitals of a ship still takes a lot of punishment."

"Oki doki! Will do. Uh, wilco mom!"

"You don't need to use military protocol and jargon, CQ."

"But it sounds soooo coool!"

Alexandra smiled as she rolled her eyes.

"Been watching those series with Seraph, haven't you?"

CQ looked away, fidgeting like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Alexandra's heart almost melted at the sight.

"...Maybe?"

"It's alright." Alexandra reached out and patted her daughter's head, who leaned into her hand. It was a bit awkward since the golems weren't that much taller than her, unlike her avatar, but CQ clearly wasn't complaining. "Just make sure to remember: they're shows, not reality. The military wasn't actually like that. My home wasn't actually like that."

"Will I get to see it someday?"

Alexandra froze, before sighing.

"I don't know kiddo. I genuinely don't know. But maybe. Though if you do, it'll be in a long, long time."

"Okay. Well, at least I'll have your stories about it!"

"True. Now, let's see if we can outrun these fools."

"Aye aye ma'am!" CQ threw an exhuberant salute, vanishing in a flash of energy before Alexandra could open her mouth.

The Earth-born giggled.

"Oh she takes after me all right." She shook her head, before frowning as she raised her binoculars again.

She hadn't shown it in front of her daughter, but this concerned her. Her ship's wards were tough, but not 'tangle with a capital ship' tough. And given their relative positions…

The battleship would be able to engage them unless they were willing to veer in towards where the army's camp would be. Straight into the path of one of the pairs of light cruisers. And something bugged her about those. Or at least one of them. It didn't look quite right. In fact, it looked liked it had some kind of mast. Several of them, actually.

What the hell could an airship possibly do with sail power when it had propellers? Especially when it had to be such a massively liability both in battle and to use their cost and endurance saving balloon. Which pretty much meant that it had to be some kind of weapon. Or one more thing in the Republic's seemingly endless bag of tricks. It was probably only fair, but still. She would prefer to know what she was heading into.

She could ask Emilia…but the vampire advisor was elbows deep in getting the ships, both the town's and hers, ready for departure. They hadn't even spent a night together lately, so rushed was her schedule, and Alexandra would be damned if she added more ontop of it. Besides, by the time she got the advisor on the radio, it would probably be too late anyway.

She lowered her binoculars. Well, it looked like she was going to find out the hard way.

*****

"Everything ready?" Asked Alexandra.

"Yep!" Confirmed CQ. "The ships have been scuttled and the prisonners are down, safe and sound. Destroyed whatever cargo we couldn't take in the holds as well." Alexandra nodded, thankfully that had been fairly little, thanks to the raiders' generous cargo capacity. "I left them with plenty of food and water, they should hold out a while."

"Good. They'll need it." The Earth-born nodded towards the enemy ships, who were now all angling towards her own vessels, save for a single pidly gunship, the farthest one from her. "Their friends don't look too keen on rescuing them first."

"Well, we did kick a lot of butts. Their butts."

"That we did. Probably gained something of a reputation along the way." Alexandra frowned. "But in any case, that ship, the light cruiser, it worries me."

"The one with the masts?"

"Yeah." Alexandra sighed as she turned towards the boss. "Probably just a bad feeling, but I can't help but think about all the times they've managed to bamboozle us lately, like with the boarding thrusters or the suicide bombers and-"

"Uuuuuh, mom?"

"Yes?"

"The ship is glowing."

"What?" Alexandra whirled around, and she gasped as she saw the cruiser, wreathed in emerald energy, the masts beaming like giant pillars of crystal. "The hell is-"

She was interrupted as a massive gust of wind rocked the ship, almost knocking her off her feet, only staying put thanks to a golem catching her in extremis, and her eyes went wide. Or they would have if the golem had any. What the fuck! There hadn't been…any…wind…

Oh crap.

"It's wind magic! We have to-" She felt the ship start to tilt as the winds overtook the stabilization system, the balloon dragging the entire vessel off course.

Which was when she realized it was doing the same for the nearest ship.

In the opposite direction.

"JETTISON THE BALLOON! EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" Yelled out the Earth-born.

Her golems leapt into action. Most of them had some sort of handhold, a lesson learned from the frigate boarding her old flagship, and were able to stil loperate despite the ship going crazy.

Thankfully, despite her willingness to cut corners, Alexandra was nothing if not thorough. Each of the chains holding the balloons had emergency release pins. Her golems reached out and pulled them.

The ship dropped precipitously as the runes and propellers failed to compensate in time. And Alexandra threw herself flat on the deck as the Darokyn passed overhead, close enough that she could have reached out and touched the other ship's hull.

She laid there, panting for a second, before jolting back up. She frantically looked for CQ, before sighing in relief as she saw her boss swearing profusely. One of the golems had managed to get her out of the way, but only by tackling her, which had led them to slipping halfway across the deck thanks to the tilted ship, before being stopped by a group of gunners.

"Relay those orders to all ships!" She winced as she heard a horrifying sound, like a trombone the size of a blue whale being crushed by the mother of all steam rollers. She looked, almost in shock, as the Drinax and the Harrier collided.

"Mom?!?" Called out CQ, and Alexandra shook her head. This was no time to fucking freeze up! Command principles, do something, anything. Indecision is the greatest disaster in battle.

"I'm here! Relay those orders, and then-" She looked at the enemy ships, and swore as she saw that they were using the wind to boost themselves. That fucking battlecruiser…now she knew why it was in the middle. It was there so it could catch up to either of the light cruiser groups on the side, if she took the bait. Damn it! "-then get us the fuck out of there!"

"What? Why?"

"We have two damaged ships, our formation is screwed, and that battlecruiser is going to tear us a new asshole. We have to retreat and regroup! Now obey my damned orders!"

"Yes mom!" CQ vanished as the closest radio operator spat out instructions into their radio, and Alexandra looked worriedly at the approaching enemy ships, fervently hoping her decision to punch through hadn't doomed them.

Then she saw another source of light, and she closed her eyes as she recognized the flare of magical rockets as the frigates rushed in.

Of fucking course. When it rained, it poured.

"Prepare to repell boarders!" She barked out, before turning towards the nearest officer golem. "And get us turned around!" She swore as a particularly violent gust of wind rattled the ship, even despite the lack of balloon. "And get me back to the bridge!"

The golem nodded, and grabbed her golem, helping her move from hand to hand towards the ship's bridge.

Then the all familiar sound of cannon fire began to fill the air, and Alexandra swore.

This was going to be a long day.

A very long day.