Chapter 234 - Subtlety (Patreon)

Chapter 234

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Workshop

Activate audio output. Sent Alexandra over the connection to the AI.

The speakers crackled a bit, and then-

"Hello world." Spoke a mellifluous, androgynous voice. "Siege ship onboard artificial intelligence, assigned vessel SV-X01 'So Much For Subtlety', reporting in."

"Hello, and welcome to the world." Said Alexandra. "I'm Alexandra Rousseau. Do you remember me?"

"Affirmative."

"Alright. Excellent. Do you know the other people in this room?"

"Affirmative. Database indicates identities as: Emilia Von Oswald ; Crimson Queen Von Oswald ; Sarah Leupold ; Ella Hartstein ; Jared ; Seraph Four Sixteen." The AI paused. "All personnel confirmed as friendly, with varying levels of command authorization. Query: naval command?"

"Negative. They're not naval command, just my…support staff. And family members."

"Understood. Query: purpose of meeting?"

"I've loaded you with a mission statement and briefing package, and we wanted to check if everything was there and made sure you assimilated it all. It will also be an opportunity to meet everyone, get to know each other, and maybe learn a few things."

"Understood. Query: learning inefficient, inload datadump?"

"Ooookay, first things first, teaching you to talk like an actual person. Seraph, CQ, that's your job." Both of them nodded. "And for your information Subtlety, just loading data into an artificial intelligence doesn't actually teach them. AIs have to integrate that data before they can truly use it efficiently."

"Understood. Warning: designation is 'So Much for Subtlety', not 'Subtlety'."

"I know, but your name is too long. Thus, nickname, for the sake of brevity. As a matter of fact, may as well make it your actual name, to differentiate you from the ship's hull."

"Acknowledged."

"Good, then I'll leave you with them." If the AI was apprehensive, it didn't show it as CQ bounced in place like she was on a small trampoline. "Emilia, would you care to join me outside for a bit?"

"Sure." Said the advisor.

They stepped out of the room, as CQ excitedly began talking to the AI, while Seraph tried to keep her at least a bit reined in, the maid simply watching with a smile while Jared looked on with a air of faint…amusement? It was hard to tell, without a face.

"So, what is it?" Said Emilia once the door had closed behind them.

"We're going to need some teachers, for our AIs, I mean."

"That's fairly easy, between us all, we have a fairly broad knowledge base."

"The problem is going to be teaching them how to fight. In naval combat, I mean. Which means finding someone qualified to do it. You may not have noticed, but I'm not the greatest tactician around."

"No, I didn't really notice. I thought you were pretty good, honestly. Besides, didn't you command entire fleets of starships?"

"Yes, I did, but I had tactical officers and a whole load of support staff to handle this kind of stuff. They were more than capable, since my command structure didn't really think me capable of doing it otherwise." Plus Arcadia probably pulled some strings to make sure she didn't make a mess of things. "I only scored eight out of twenty in my tactics score at the academy, after all."

"Eight? How did you pass?"

"I didn't, why do you think I was engineering track and not command track?"

"I…had never thought about it, actually."

"Well, it's because I failed, hard."

"So, you want someone to train them. I assume from the town?"

"Yes. Calder would be ideal, but…"

"Push came to shove, you'd like to use the pirates, which you want to know my opinion about because you think it's a horrible idea?"

"Basically." Said Alexandra, a bit taken aback at how easily her girlfriend had read her.

"Well, I don't think having that buxom traitor take over the education would be a good idea, but she had her colleagues could serve as helpful supplementary teachers? Raiding, dirty tricks, that kind of stuff."

"Right. Probably a good idea. Still, Calder has no real experience with the kind of weapons they'll be using, Sylvia does."

"Not really. She has experience with Erisian weapons, which while roughly the same technology as yours, aren't the same doctrine. You keep emphasizing the difference between tech and actual weapons when talking about Earth, that you may have had roughly the same technology as the UISN during the Interplanetary Wars, but that both navies went in completely different directions, despite technically using the same tech. So whatever she knows probably isn't applicable to your stuff, right?"

"Right. Thank you, that was helpful."

"Please, you'd already thought of all of that, you just needed someone to lay it out for you so you'd stop feeling guilty about potentially being too paranoid to use a valuable resource."

"...Seriously, have you started using telepathy or something?"

"It is a well documented traits of girlfriends throughout history."

"Uh uh, and that means that I should be able to read you like a book?"

"Given how you somehow manage to do juuuust enough design work on your ships so I can't push to pretty them up, but still far less than I would like, says it all I think."

Alexandra snickered.

"Guilty, I guess. Alright then, let's go back in before CQ starts putting stickers on the computer cores!"

"Bet you five hours of design time that she already has."

"I am not taking that bet."

*****

Alexandra frowned, drumming her fingers on the tabletop as she checked the communiqué.

The amount of message traffic she was getting from the UDC was skyrocketing, mainly from the rebels. Most of it were reports and intelligence, but she was starting to get questions about courses of action, and there were even suggestions of establishing a coordinated battle plan. So far she'd been fairly clear that with Sunrise besieging Darthar and her forces preparing to occupy Erakis, she was in no position to do anything else, but that wasn't going to last forever.

Then there were the messages from the neutrals and her enemies, who were either imploring her to stand down or using barely veiled threats.

The more she saw of this, the more it worried her. Because there was one thing she'd failed to take into account.

The control programs. Dungeon cores obviously had a lot of leeways on how they did things, but…what if this was staged? What if this entire UDC implosion was a plot from the God of Fire and his lackeys?

What if she was being used as a tool to start another purge, another 'convenient' cataclysm? The United Dungeon Wars had been cataclysmic for the world's commerce and technological recovery, it had driven almost every nation in existence into a substantial recession, and lead to chronic instability as nations tried to rebuild themselves afterwards.

If there was another war on the horizon, one that looked like it could end up being worse…the Custodians might have concluded that the previous purge had failed to do enough damage, and decide to take it up another notch, by having the dungeons fight among themselves. Since they were the main source of mana throughout the world, a lot of kidnapped (or hell, maybe even dead) dungeons would be another apocalypse writ large…and the people would have no choice but to beg the God of Fire for more 'life giving' dungeons.

Hell, the Custodians could even step in when enough damage was done, smite one or both sides, and pile on the praise for their 'heroic intervention' and 'saving the world from its own folly' once again.

Those were…disturbing thoughts. Thoughts she'd have to discuss with Seraph and the apparition.

But she had a new priority, and another project for them.

If the UDC's rebels were going to turn to her for leadership, then she couldn't afford to deny them. Just being the center of this mess had made her a lot of enemies among the dungeons, she needed allies to counterbalance that.

But she couldn't trust them, not with the control programs embedded in their minds.

So it was time to see if those dungeon cores were truly impenetrable from the outside…and do some good old cyberwarfare.

*****

"Hey mom!" Called CQ from the radio, and Alexandra blinked as she looked up from the prototype thruster she'd been working on. It was large enough that it didn't even need a table.

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering, what would be a good theme for Subtlety? I don't know what really goes with 'siege ship' besides 'big guns'."

"The point of a siege ships is the big guns. Besides, Subtlety is more of a running experiment than anything at this point, her ship hasn't even begun assembly yet. Crap, I'm working on the thruster for her missiles right now."

"Oooh, experiment, science! Good pitch! I'll prepare a labcoat!"

"A lab-CQ, what the hell are you doing?!?"

"I'm making Subtlety an avatar!"

"You WHAT?!? I thought you were making a paintjob for her ship or something like that!"

"It would get ruined in battle! And why not an avatar? You have holographic projectors, and those golems where you project yourself onto, can't you spare one for her? That way she has a body!"

"And you get to drag her around the dungeon to do stuff with her?"

"...Maybe?"

Alexandra rolled her eyes, although her daughter couldn't see it.

"Alright, I'll see what I can do."

"Thanks mom! You're the best!"

Alexandra shook her head as the connection died.

Well, they never said having kids would be easy. And at least it should help keep CQ out of trouble.

Ah, who was she kidding? Her daughter would have the AI wrapped around her little finger by the end of the day, if she hadn't already.

*****

It was a testament to their awkwardness that neither of them had spoken yet. Nor been able to look the other in the eyes.

After all, they both remembered what had happened after their previous meeting.

Allya had arrived ten minutes ago for the meeting in Alexandra's conference room. Pyn and Emilia had, quite pointedly, not been invited.

"Soooooo….Bondage, uh?" Said Allya.

"Yeah. And roleplay?" Answered Alexandra.

"Yuuuup…."

"I think we've learned more about each other than we've ever wanted."

"I think our girlfriends, well fiancée in my case, learned more about each other than we'll ever be comfortable with."

"Right."

"...You know what the only viable move is now, right?"

"I'd say it's running away to the most remote place on the planet, but that would be lying." The dungeon core smiled faintly. "It's pooling our own resources together."

"And striking back. As you said, the best defence is a good offense. Any ideas?"

Alexandra leaned forward.

"I may, or may not, have built a jaccuzi recently."

Allya nodded.

"And I can get us swimsuits."

"If you get them to me, I can modify them. Get them to however much…or little material we want."

They exchanged wicked smiles.

"They're going to regret what they did."

"Well, they will benefit from it, all things considered. But yes. I'll also prepare some snacks. What was it? 'Revenge is best served hot, and with those fried cheesy things on sticks', I believe was the quote."

"You fry cheese?!? I thought you were French!"

Alexandra chuckled.

"Some heresies may have percolated through."

"Yeah right. My ancestor would have strangled you if she'd learned."

"Probably." Actually, absolutely not, since depending on when she'd have tried, she would have ended up on the wrong side of fleet security, EFSN spec ops, or one of Arcadia's death squads. That's if she was lucky, there was a fair chance it would have been all three at the same time. "But regardless, I'll have some snacks ready. Among other things, if necessary."

"Other things?"

"The lingerie shop also sells, ah, marital aids."

"Oh." Allya coughed. "I'd, uh, like to take you up on your old offer of upgrading my equipment."

"Nice sidestep."

"Thanks. When, do you think?"

"Emilia is thoroughly distracted for now, and I should have no major ongoing projects in a week or so. Then I'll have to handle Darthar, and Erakis."

They exchanged a look, managing to meet each other's gaze. They both knew what they were currently doing was also a way to distract from that.

Erakis promised to be relatively painless and more an interesting administrative challenge than anything. It would, all things considered, be a formality.

Darthar…would not.

"Alright then. It's a date."

Alexandra chuckled.

"A double date." She corrected.

"And a superb ambush."

"Indeed it will be. Indeed it will be…"