Chapter 227 - Helljumpers (Patreon)

Chapter 227

Red Sands Desert, Elkis Republic

In Flight

"Alright ladies, break it up. It's show time." Said Alexandra's voice over the radio, as she checked the readouts in the cockpit.

She heard some scuffling and a few jests, and she smiled. The maids had somehow managed to sneak a deck of cards in their drop pods. Though how they were playing in the cramped space, Alexandra had no idea, but apparently CQ was trouncing them, to their evident surprise. Though her mom knew it was probably thanks to the bit of Arcadia's code that would allow the boss to grasp probabilities on a level the maids couldn't even dream of.

"Status?" Asked Sarah.

"Altitude fifteen hundred meters. Hostiles in sight...Now. Beginning dive maneuvers in thirty eight seconds, from mark...Mark."

"Sync." There was a bit of rustling and muffled swearing. "We're ready to drop. See you on the other side milady."

"Affirmative. Good hunting helljumper."

"Helljumper?"

Alexandra chuckled.

"Sorry, old habits die hard. It's the nickname they gave to orbital drop infantry. Came from a video game, I think."

"No, no, I kind of like it actually. Feet first into hell and all that."

"Glad you think so. Fifteen seconds."

"Ready."

Alexandra began counting down, slowly and inexorably, feeling herself tense at every passing second, until...

"Three...Two...One...Go go go!"

Technically Alexandra didn't have to do anything besides pushing a button, she'd already programmed the flight plan into the plane, but she gripped the control nonetheless as the kinesys runes kicked in and the plane dove in a way no pre-artificial gravity Terran aircraft could have.

She watched, tensely, as the ground, and the caravan slowly making its way on it, grew ever closer.

Then-

The ship passed a predetermined threshold, and shuddered as the drop pod ejected. Alexandra spared a split second to check up on the second aircraft, who had done the same, before time seemed to slow.

'Dive bombing' wasn't exactly what she was doing. It was actually a kamikaze run. The blackbird analogues she'd made weren't built for this, the fuselage couldn't take the strain of recovering from it, even if they had the altitude to spare.

Instead, she eyeballed the caravan. They knew where the general was, but not necessarily their entire force disposition.

She adjusted her trajectory. If she was going to lose plane, might as well make it count.

At the last second, she saw heads craning as the scream of falling metal caught up with the senate guards below.

The fastest amongst them began to run, and-

CONNECTION LOST

Alexandra took in a deep breath as she was ejected back into dungeon mode.

Good hunting girls. Give them hell.

*****

"One more glorious day in the majestic guard of the senate." Said the sergeant as she walked to the captain's side.

The captain sighed.

"Yes, yes, and next up you'll say we spend a lot of time not guarding the senate."

"Hey, I'm just saying boss, this isn't the capital. Erakis is fine and all if you want presents for your husband, but it's lacking in entertainment."

"What do you want, an opera? Look, the senate orders, and we obey. Especially when the army is concerned. Do you want to know what'll happen if our dear 'guest' decides she should be queen, with that psycho dungeon up North, and the Hegemony licking its chops down south?"

"Right, right. Anyway, report of the day: Karim says there's some harpies west, but only a handful. He thinks they're shadowing us, hoping someone slips up or is left behind."

"Mmmh. Reinforce the sentries when we make camp. What else?"

"A whole load of nothing." The sergeant shrugged as her captain stared at her. "Look, boss, what do you want from me? It's a fucking desert that we spent the last year moving entire armies through. Everything that could bother us is fucking dead and buried, or spread over the sands when the flyboys used them for target practice."

"Let's hope so. I have a bad feeling about this."

"About what?"

"I don't know." The captain frowned. "This place just..." She tilted her head. "Did you hear that?"

"Heard wha-wait, yes, what is that?"

The captain had just the time to open her mouth before the wagon in front of them, which had more in common with a battle tank than anything, exploded. She threw herself to the ground, and watched in shock as the sergeant joined her...a piece of metal the side of a buckler stuck in her skull.

The captain just laid there, panting for a couple of seconds that felt like hours, before dragging herself back to her feet, and taking stock of the situation.

Something had just hit the convoy. Some things, there was a second commotion further along. The cart was utterly destroyed, it looked like some kind of giant metal dart had hit it head on. An explosive metal dart. Some kind of rocket maybe?

The captain was processing that almost idly as her brain was still in shock, trying to make sense of what was around her. Many of her troops were down and...uh, were those mana crystal fragments? Why would-

The captain staggered back, covering her eyes as something hit the ground in front of her, throwing sand everywhere.

She lowered her arm.

The incongruous sight of someone in a kind of maid style combat armor stepping out of some kind of metallic bullet greeted her. Then, before she could gather her thoughts, the maid unsheathed a sword, almost too fast to see, and everything went black.

*****

Sarah stepped over the officer's corpse as she flicked their blood from her blade. Normally she would have had a taste, but there was no time for that. She took a second to situate herself, eviscerating a soldier, more quick on the uptake than the others, who tried to charge her, then locked onto the prison wagon a few steps away, looking battered from the nearby explosion, and began sprinting.

She barely even bothered with the soldiers she weaved around, leaving them for Jared and his two automatic shotgun wielding golem acolytes to sort through, simply tanking any hit, be they crossbow bolts, magical attacks and even the odd arquebus shot, on her mythril armor. The young lady and her wife truly had spared no expense on their equipment upgrade.

The enemy was quickly recovering however, and as she vaulted over a half collapsed soldier in plate armor, she found herself face to face with a small knot of senate guards, assembling themselves in front of the prison wagon's door.

She barely even broke her stride as she primed the grenade and threw it. The metal cylinder exploded on impact, releasing a cloud of short lived dust.

For a split second, nothing happened.

Then the chemical agent made it through their skin and throats, and the soldiers began to scream as they started to dissolve alive.

Payback's a bitch, uh? Thought Sarah as she kicked the most resilient amongst them out of the way, before ripping the reinforced door off of its hinges, and-

She froze, finding herself nose to nose with a dagger wielding, blood soaked woman in a Republic's general uniform, corpses wearing senate guard uniforms dotting the interior of the cart.

The maid laughed as she took in the vista, and the woman took a step back, before she suddenly focused on Sarah's mouth, with its apparent fangs, and relaxed.

The maid thought about what to say. The dungeon core would have said something sarcastic like 'congratulations, you're being rescued'. Eh.

"You continue to surprise and impress general." She said as she offered her hand. "Now come. Crystal didn't go through so much trouble to let you return home alive to have your pathetic excuse for a government botch the job."

Amelia nodded, and took the vampire maid's hand, who dragged her out of the reinforced wagon.

"Target?" Said Ella, not even looking over her shoulder as she threw daggers faster than humans could even see, keeping the rallying senate guards at bay.

"Secured."

"Great. Let's fall back."

Sarah nodded, took one look at the frail, barely medium rank human, and sighed.

The general yelped as the maid unceremoniously threw her onto her shoulder, and drew her longsword single handed.

"Alright." She looked around, and saw the enemy rallying around an officer, before a flash of energy and a sudden commotion indicated CQ was making short work of the would be commander. Jared was still holding his ground, twirling his revolvers around as he fired relentlessly. With foes this well equipped and in such chaos, an enemy dropped only about every two shots, but those that went down stayed down.

Some of the others...not so much. Sarah swore as she saw some of the corpses reanimating. What the fuck was it with the Republic and zombies? Moreover, what kind of maniac equipped their soldiers with zombification talismans?

"Better get moving." Said Ella, tensely, as one of the zombies pounced on her, ignoring the two daggers stuck in its skull trying to disintegrate it, and Sarah cut it in half with a swing of her sword.

"Agreed." Sarah, and she started to sprint, the general on her shoulder trying her best to keep her lunch as the vampire maid darted through the chaos, stopping only briefly to finish off a mage that had been pinning CQ down with some kind of magical net. Jared went to join her, losing one of his golems in the process as an entire squad of arquebusiers opened fire. Unfortunately for them, the gunslinger boss was out on both of his revolvers...and he still had a belt full of Ella's 'special' grenades.

The vampire maids idly wondered if it qualified as war crimes when they were fighting war criminals, before ignoring the horrifying screams and sprinting out of the caravan and into the wasteland, the roar of the undead at her back, with the bark of firearms, shotgun and revolvers both, plus the whisper of thrown daggers indicating her comrades were covering her back.

She didn't know what tipped her off, but she spun in place and blocked at the last possible second, throwing the rogue back. The man snarled, and reached for his belt.

Sarah didn't let him, and she swung...

He pulled up his daggers to parry, and looked in astonishment as the sword missed him, and he suddenly found himself staring down Sarah's gauntlet.

The rogue screamed as the wristpiece's integrated flamethrower triggered.

He'd only slowed her down by two seconds.

But two seconds was all the undead needed, and Sarah swore viciously as five zombies made it through Jared's barrage and pounced on her. One exploded as Ella's dagger found its mark, and another found itself with CQ's sword straight through its brain as the boss teleported in front of it, but the last three rose into the air, and Sarah braced herself for the charge...

Which never came, as the air filled with a roar like the end of the world, and the wasteland exploded.

The artillery barrage was neither very precise nor exactly efficient, but sixty heavy guns loaded with high explosive shells were going to ruin anyone's day. Sarah grunted as the shockwave hit her, but the zombies were thrown off course. They scrambled as they hit the ground, only to be mowed down by machinegun fire.

A new wave of zombies, this time accompanied by senate guards bellowing war cries, preparing to crash down upon the beleaguered commandos, but they suddenly fell down as golems dropped from the sky, their jetpacks flaring as they unleashed an ocean of lead.

A group of golems weren't armed however, and they simply tossed the extra jetpacks they had been carrying over to the survivors of the raids, while their comrades landed all around, forming shield of their own bodies as they stemmed the onslaught.

Sarah quickly put on the jetpack with Ella and CQ's help, and ascended upon onto the ships, an entire squad of marines surrounding her as sort of living shields. But by this point it wasn't necessary.

The senate guard was fanatical and well equipped, but even they couldn't take so many shocks and retain a coherent battleplan, especially not under an artillery barrage by a superior enemy. The senate guards weren't retreating however, much less breaking, continuing to attack with insane courage through the bombardment, throwing themselves at the line of golems.

Sarah landed on the ship's deck, threw the general at a nearby group of golems, who took her without blinking, well, not that they would have been able to anyway, and turned back to look for the others.

She caught Ella just in time, before the other maid crashed into the deck, ripping off the jetpack immediately and looking critically at the ballista bolt that had pierced her as she laid her colleague down on the deck, kneeling by her side. A simple look told her the other maid would make it.

"You'll live." Said Sarah, nodding slightly as Jared landed next to her, his last remaining golem in tow, looking the worse for wear. She was about to ask about the other boss, when CQ teleported aboard, looking slightly singed and smiling like she was having the time of her life, which she probably was.

"I know. But I just convinced the young lady that I was fully back from my injuries! Fuck!" Said the other maid through gritted teeth, and Sarah laughed.

"That's what you're worried about?"

"All aboard?" The voice had such gravitas that Sarah got up, Ella following her with a wince, and they both saluted as the golem stopped in front of them.

"Everyone accounted for or dead on the field ma'am." Said Sarah, as she nodded towards Jared's remaining golem.

"Good. Then let's get the hell out of there." Said the dungeon core, as marines began landing on the ship's deck. Most were damaged, and a few looked good for the scrap yard, but far more came back than Sarah would have expected. "At ease ladies." Said Alexandra, and the maids relaxed, Sarah looking a bit sheepish. "And get Ella to the medbay."

"Yes ma'am! Uh, milady."

"Either will do." Alexandra looked at the general, who was being tended by a group of golems. "And congratulations. You more than lived up to your reputation. Mission accomplished. Now let's see how much their expeditionary army would like their adored hero back."