Chapter 224 - Teleport Assault (Patreon)

Chapter 224

Red Sands Desert, Contested Border Region

Republican Army Forward Special Operations Base 'Victis'

"Everyone ready?"

The assembled soldiers nodded solemnly, and the lieutenant-colonel took a deep breath.

She didn't want to do this. Orzal, her commanding officer, didn't want to do this. But they had no choice.

She just had to hope he'd make it count.

"Already then. First wave! Prepare to move out!"

An entire company braced themselves, and the lieutenant-colonel nodded at the mages.

"You may teleport when ready."

The mages began incanting, and the teleporter lit up. Her hair stood on the back of her head as the air around her became charged with something she couldn't quite describe.

Then with a flash of energy, and a small thunderclap of displaced air where the teleporter failed to compensate for the air loss, they were gone.

She sighed, and pulled out a pocket watch. Thirty seconds each wave, to be able to vacate the landing zone while under fire. They could have spread out throughout the target floor, the third one, but a scattered landing was a recipe for disaster. She'd much rather have to wait a bit. Besides, it's not like the teleporter would be able to go much faster anyway, and it was already going to be in a pretty bad state after that stunt.

"Second wave!" She called out, and the soldiers stepped onto the teleporter in perfect lockstep. Then, exactly after thirty seconds had passed since the first thunderclap, a second sounded, and they were gone.

The lieutenant colonel pocketed the watch, and unsheathed her blade.

"Third wave!" She yelled, and stepped alongside her soldiers.

She looked to the side at the lieutenant commanding the mages, who gave her a wane smile.

"See you on the other side boss!"

The lieutenant colonel smiled back, despite the obvious breech in protocol and etiquette, and then-

She almost screamed as she felt like she was being ripped apart into ribbons, before being put back together.

And she was somewhere else.

She coughed. There was stuff in the air. Like a mist, and-

She blinked. That wasn't mist. It was blood. Vaporized blood.

Vaporized blood and flesh, as she realized she was standing almost ankle deep in what little remained of the previous waves.

The lieutenant colonel barely had the time to scream before fifty field guns opened fire at point blank range with cannister shot.

Compared to that, the hundreds of rifles, machineguns and rockets firing hot on their heels weren't even relevant.

*****

"Damn." Said Alexandra as she looked at the carnage.

And that was the mildest thing she could say. Almost automatic really. She'd seen, and done, terrible things, but even she had to fight the urge to throw up as she looked at the teleport redirect room's security feeds on the command center's holoprojector.

Slaughterhouse couldn't describe it. Even slaughterhouses were somewhat clean and orderly.

Even Sarah looked definitely a bit green around the edges, as she handed Emilia a glass of water. The only persons seemingly thoroughly unaffected were Ella and Seraph, and Alexandra could feel through her link that both were off balance by the carnage, though probably for different reasons.

Apparently she'd finally reached the point of total overkill against the Republic. She hadn't even had to detonate the minefield, let alone use the more extreme measures like the upgraded kinetic drop hammer traps and the partial self destruct. That didn't even include the several defensive lines ranging out from that room, made to contain anything trying to work its way out.

The initial layer of artillery and firearms had been more than enough to reduce everyone to liquid and chunky salsa.

Damn indeed.

"Isn't…what…" Emilia managed to catch her breath and regain her mental balance, visibly shaking herself. "That was the Republic?"

"Yeah." Alexandra tilted her head. "No doubt about it. Same uniform, tactical disposition…crap, they had a lot of the same equipment as the last teleport commandos."

"How…I thought they wouldn't come into range for days yet!"

The Earth-born nodded.

"Sounds like we severely underestimated their range. Or the quality of their teleporter. That…is not Republic tech. Or up their alley in terms of magical prowess. Shit, they're so early the original raid plan might not have made it in time! Not if we wanted the raiding squadron to join up with the fleet anyway."

Emilia looked at the carnage, clearly bit back another round of heaving, and doggedly pressed on.

"What…what the hell happened?" The 'to them' was unspoken but rather obvious.

"They teleported in. Got redirected to the room. As per protocol, and to avoid say, whacking the twins, the defenders challenged them. Their response was to open fire." Alexandra looked at the hologram as it slowly spun it place. "As you can see, it was a mistake. But the first wave had the time to get their bearing and disperse, and the artillery didn't actually open up, to avoid hitting our own. Seraph-" She nodded towards the golem. "-also had the presence of mind to have golems dart in to grab anything useful, before a potential second wave arrived. Which included this."

Alexandra gestured, and the hologram flickered, replacing the rotating representation of the devastated room with a strange, cylindrical device.

"No way. That's…"

"An influence disruptor. An intact influence disruptor." Alexandra's smile wasn't wolfish. Dragons would have been scared by it. Ella was scared by it. "And many of these guys died so suddenly, and the destruction was so total, that their soul sealing enchantments didn't activate. Do you want to bet about what's going to happen once I sent proof that the Republic sent its military with banned influence disruptors to kill me to our good friends within the UDC?"

"That…"

"Will either shake the UDC out of its stupor, or cause it to implode. At this point, I'm past caring which. Because we're going to use this as our justification for everything we're going to do to the Republic. "

Ella looked at the hologram, then at Alexandra.

"Milady, you are missing what I feel is the most important question missing from all this."

"Yes?"

"Where did they get the scan data to zero in a teleport?"

That gave Alexandra pause. Because after discovering the stunt Allya had pulled, she'd made very, very sure to have some systems to scan for, well, scanners, on adventurers.

"That is…an excellent question. And one that we will have answered. Soon." And probably with a healthy sprinkling of Allya and Trira's help. "But first…" She tapped a button on the console, and the radio within crackled to life.

"Yes?" Answered the operator inside Allya's manor.

"This is Crystal. Warn the council that we need an immediate meeting. I just suffered a teleport attack. And tell captain Calder to get ready to move out. We're going hunting."

*****

"Merciful Earth-Goddess…" Said Melia as she looked at the carnage. Alexandra had to stop herself from reacting, but it was hard. Outside of the God of Fire, she hadn't seen anyone mention the other deities except as a whole pantheon.

"Indeed." Alexandra shut down the portable hologram projector, which she'd installed on the council table. Or rather, that she had her golems install for her. "So as you can see, our enemies substantially underestimated my defences. And fell right into my trap, thankfully." Since she was planning to keep the teleport redirect dead quiet, she'd served up the lie that the enemy had teleported into a 'training and testing area' close to her core room, which she had booby trapped ahead of time. It wasn't quite a complete lie, since she had done her fair share of testing in the teleport redirect room. "But it doesn't mean that they won't try again, and better prepared this time. We need to take out that teleporter."

"Which is why we are sending the ships out." Said Allya. "It's not optimal, but we have to try, attack before they have the time to regroup."

"What about the evidence you've gathered?" Said Willard, looking uneasy. "Accusing the Republic of this…"

"Will hardly make our relationship tenser than it already is." Said Alexandra, her voice dripping with irony.

Willard glared at her for a second, since they both knew that wasn't what he meant, and the dungeon core sighed.

"The UDC will do as it will."

"Still…it's going to be a shock to many. I need to warn my uncle. When do you plan or releasing that evidence?"

"To the UDC? I already have."

Silence descended upon the room, as Allya and Alexandra braced.

"YOU WHAT?!?" Yelled out half the councilors.

*****

"ORZAL! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF INCOMPETENT PIECES OF SHIT DO YOU HAVE FOR SOLDIERS?!?" Bellowed Marie as she practically kicked down the door to his office, before coming to a screeching halt as she found herself nose to nose with the barrel of his sidearm.

"Sweet Gods Marie, can't you knock? I almost fucking shot you!" Said the colonel as he lowered the pistol.

"I…" The senate guard commander looked at the door, which was almost coming out of its hinges. "Sorry. My bad." She shook herself, finding her footing again. "But that doesn't change anything. Fucking hell Orzal, could your men be any more massive fuckups?!?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Said the colonel, his hackles raising and anger building in his tone, alongside an edge of warning. First the 'commander' sent her people on a suicide mission, and now she had the gall to criticize them? What the actual-

"I'm talking about this!" Yelled out the senate guard commander as she threw a communiqué down on the colonel's desk.

Orzal blinked, and picked up the paper, starting to read it. It was typical of the kind of stuff that was sent through a communication crystal and then written down. Most of his correspondance with the senator was in this way and-

He froze. Read the paper again.

And again.

Then he set it down.

"Holy shit."

"My thoughts exactly. What the hell man?"

"Something has to have gone wrong. The disruptors are all equipped with redundant self destructs, and all of my men have soul sealing artifacts. How-"

"I don't care how. And neither does the senate. What matter is that apparently miss dungeon bitch has Republic soldiers in custody, alongside a banned influence disruptor. And guess what? The UDC is already coming out of the woodwork to yell at us. Only the individual dungeon cores so far, but how long do you think that's going to last? And given how well this war is going, do you care to guess what will happen if more join the fray?"

The colonel shook his head. There was a reason why the disruptors had self destructs after all.

"So what do we do about it?" Said Orzal, with a sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.

"The senate has ordered a full cleanup."

"Full-"

"All of them Orzal. All of your men. They have to be dead by the end of the day. The senate needs to be able to pretend deniability." She met the colonel's gaze, and her voice softened. "Look, I know you're attached to your troops, but it's either them or the Republic." And both of their hides, but that went unspoken. "So just do it, okay? I'll buy you as much breathing room with the brass as possible so you can make it painless. You know I had to fight hard so they weren't just branded traitors and thrown to the wolves in the torture dungeons."

Orzal nodded, choppily.

"I'll get it done."

"Excellent. And unfortunately, with those news, the troops got restless. Including ol' Coledar. The good fucking general has ordered his troops to begin an orderly retreat, citing the 'unsustainable supply situation' and the 'potential of large scale unrest and warfare with dungeons'."

"...What did you do?"

"I ordered him to stand fast if he didn't want to end up in front of a firing squad. And since the troops were starting to get some ideas, I decided that throwing some…motivational material in the mix was a good idea. The senate approved."

"..Amelia." Simply said Orzal, and Marie nodded.

"General Amelia Loveheart has been arrested for treason and cowardice. Not publicly, of course, as far as the troops are concerned their figurehead just vanished into thin air, and neither I nor the senate would like that to change until we have her safely back at the capital, away from any army units that would get any ideas of an heroic rescue."

"You're moving her?"

"No shit. Keeping her here would be a recipe for disaster. And thanks to Coledar and the 'genius' of admiral Artay, airships aren't an option, since they just pushed an entire squadron of the dungeon's raiding ships our way. So yeah, I sent my best men." Or rather, her remaining best men, given what had happened to her previous detachment. That had not been a fun tantrum to weather on his end. "I had a long range caravan ready, just in case. And an air convoy too, but it'll only be good as a decoy right now."

"You think the dungeon core would attack the air convoy?"

Marie shrugged.

"I can't take the risk. Furthermore, she hasn't attacked any of the land caravans yet, so it's the safer option."

"Right."

"Look, I know you have a lot on your plate, but we're secure in the fortress. As long as we hold the fortifications and their rallying figure is in limbo, the grunts will stay in line. Focus on your clean up, I'll handle the rest."

"Roger that." Orzal closed his eyes. "And Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you. And I'm sorry."

"No problem. And I know."

No. No you don't.