Chapter 239 - Territorial Acquisition (Patreon)

Note : Chapters 240 and 241 have been written and added to the queue, alongside chapter 28 of The Dragon Imperium !

Chapter 239

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Trade City of Erakis

Alexandra -or rather, her hologram- took a deep breath, before stepping out onto the stage.

The crowd fell quiet instantly as they sighted her, and she made her way to the lectern.

She had some experience doing speeches. Sweet stars, she'd done the victory speech after the second battle of Alpha Centauri, a speech she knew had been played live all over Earth, and then been shipped via courier to all of human space, to be watched from the skies of Trappist-C and the tunnels of AD Leonis-3.

"Greetings everyone." She said, her voice effortlessly carrying over the whole crowd as old instincts and half forgotten lessons from Arcadia came back to her. "For those who do not know me, I am Crystal, dungeon core of the Dungeon Factory dungeon." She was really going to have to do something about that repetition. "As of oh eight hundred this morning, I, in the name of the principality of Rebirth and the Asarian Crown, have taken possession of Erakis, your home, from the New Republic, as per the stipulations of the treaty of Red Sands." The Earth-born smiled. "I know many of you have questions. Some were addressed by General Amelia, but others were left for this very occasion. First and foremost: yes, anyone who wishes to stay will become a citizen of the principality, and by extension, the Kingdom."

Citizenship was a bit fuzzy on Alcheryos, outside of the more advanced nations like Gorromar, Tark or the Eris Empire, but there was some associated paperwork and privileges, even in a polity as backward as the Asarian Kingdom, even if those privileges are mostly 'our nobles can't -usually- kill/overtax us without some cause'.

"Citizenship will not be mandatory for residence, nor will extra taxes be extended for lacking it. The same, however, cannot be said for paperwork, notably for mercantile ventures." She hid a smile as she saw a fair portion of the crowd shift uneasily. With this, they'd effectively told most of the population, those that would make an insurrection possible, that they had no reason to worry…and grabbed the ones that could become a serious pain in the ass or dodge around taxes in a meaningful capacity by their nether regions. "Of course, dual citizenship will remain a possibility, though anyone in the principality will be judged by its laws, period."

There had been some agreements between the Kingdom and the Republic pertaining to their traders, where they could be judged by their home power rather than the one the crime had been committed in, provided that it was a crime in the other polity. It was mostly for show, back when the Republic had been trying to set up a detente a century and a half ago, but it was there.

"Many of you have also wondered what the deployment of my secondary core here means for the city. Its purpose is twofold. One is to establish a strong military presence. We do not wish conflict with the New Republic, but the baroness and I would be fools to discount the possibility when general Coledar and his forces were marching on Rebirth a scant few weeks ago. Erakis also remains an oasis of life within the wasteland, and while recent military campaigns have done a lot to clear out nearby dangers, there is very little doubt that they will return in time…if we let them. Which brings me to the second purpose of the core. With this core, I intend to open up a new section of my dungeon, a…branch office, so to speak. It will be vastly smaller than my main dungeon in Rebirth, and only incorporate several relatively small sections called steps, tailor made for rapid throughput of lower ranking adventurers, but it will be a fully functional dungeon in every other regard, with guild supervision and such."

The crowd had been softly murmuring before. Now it was completely silent once more, utterly stunned by the news.

Before they could recover their wits and inevitably start throwing questions, but still after giving some time for it to sink in, Alexandra spoke up again.

"I understand that this is surprising news. So far as I am aware, no other dungeon has ever done this in the history of Alcheryos. But as has already been well established, I am hardly a normal dungeon. The adventurers guild has already set up its people by the entrance, and we have established a schedule. Only the clay step is open, but I will endeavor to bring the iron step online as fast as possible." Or rather, as soon as she had her local forge online. The clay step only used standard and martial golems, but given the massive markup of making stuff with the secondary core, there was no way she was going to make the spears and swords the old fashioned way. "Of course, guild control means taxes. Since you are part of the principality now, we saw no reason to change our policy, and neither did the guild. We shall take fifteen percent of all loot received from the dungeon, and so will the guild."

Did it feel as weird to them as it was to her for the dungeon core to be announcing the taxation policy of her own dungeon? She hadn't been on this world for all that long, all things considered, hell, she'd spent longer slogging it out on the ground in Alpha Centauri, but it still was extremely weird for her.

"Thankfully, these taxes will also allow most of our projects to be financed without the need for other ways to levy funds. As such, as of today, all import and export taxes are abolished." That should buy them some time with the merchants, and might even swing many onto their side, though Alexandra didn't expect it to be that easy. Many of them, after all, had deep links to the senate. They had to, to be able to flourish. "Thank you for your time, and have a nice day."

She walked off the stage while everyone screamed questions, and she tapped Amelia's shoulder with a wide smile as she passed her backstage, the hologram glitching as the golem hand underneath it made contact.

"They're alllll yours General."

"Geez, thank you lady Crystal." Said the General with a smile, before stepping in.

Alexandra didn't stay to listen to the speech. She'd helped the general write it, after all.

And right now, she had much more important things to do.

*****

Alexandra walked into the shipyard, and leaned against one of the railings, a wolfish smile pasted on her lips as she looked at the massive shape, bathed in a sea of sparks.

Sunrise had destroyed her Corsair, a ship with twin two hundred millimeter guns, mounted in a single turret. They had sent an archmage to take it down, and even then, they had lost almost half a dozen ships doing so.

The So Much For Subtlety carried six rapid fire missile launchers. Each was linked to magazine packed with short range ballistic missiles armed with an alchemically boosted, high yield explosive warheads.

'Short range', in this case, because a cruise missile would have been a pointless expense against an enemy that couldn't fire far beyond the horizon. At least not that she was aware of.

Also because she couldn't make a low tech engine that could push something with a yield of a full ton of TNT and keep it running longer than thirty seconds, even with magic.

The missiles had a thin outer casing that was made out of steel. It wouldn't even make shrapnel, it would more or less cease to exist once the payload detonated. With a warhead that heavy, using the best alchemically boosted explosives she could mass produce, there was simply no point. Anyone that could be harmed by the shrapnel would be dead from the blast.

Especially not given the number of missiles a Culture-class carried. During the early days of the 21st century, the United States had refitted its old Ohio-class submarines to carry cruise missiles instead of nuclear ballistic missiles. The designers had managed to cram in a hundred and fifty four of the cruise missiles, which they could fire in four to five minutes, depending on operational conditions.

The Culture-class was slower, it could only empty its magazines of its missiles in ten minutes.

It just happened to carry six hundred of them.

That meant, incidentally, that the total firepower of their payload was in excess of half a kiloton of TNT. A yield usually reserved for tactical nuclear warheads like those used in the Interplanetary Wars.

Sunrise's wards had been good. Very good. And now that she had proved her willingness to attack their fortress, no doubt they'd deploy them on their fortifications as well as their ships.

They wouldn't be good enough.

The Earth-born regretted that many slaves would die for this, but refusing to attack now would only allow Sunrise to assault, maybe even breach the city, and get even more people killed.

It was the unfortunate fact that sometimes you needed to break a few eggs, and Alexandra was going to make the mother of all omelettes if she had to.

*****

"You know, this…really brings it home." Said Allya as she put down the sheet she'd been reading and re-reading.

"Bad news?" Said Pyn as she sat down on her girlfriend's desk, before kissing her forehead.

"Well…It's congratulations. From their majesties. For the 'expansion of the realm' and the 'annexation of enemy territories'. It also affirmed that Erakis is part of the Principality of Rebirth by right of conquest."

"We didn't…conquer it."

"Everyone considers that we did. That we strong-armed the new Republic into it. Which…to be fair, we kind of did."

"I guess. Still doesn't feel that way though."

"It's all a question of perspective. And this is just the start. I have congratulations from Darthar, Sarth…pretty much every noble or territory that remains loyal to the crown, and even some who have declared their neutrality. Sweet stars, I received congratulations from the duchess of Sunrise. You know, our enemy? Getting complimented on expanding the realm despite our 'misguided laws' and in the service of 'the false king and queen' by our mortal foe was…weird, to say the least."

"What did you answer back? If you sent anything, that is."

"Alexandra recommended that I tell we'll celebrate it in her ducal palace once we've conquered it."

Pyn couldn't help it, she laughed out loud.

"Ahahah! I love that!"

"So do I. I've just added a few touches of my own, with her approval."

"Which are?"

"I asked her to prepare the red carpet and the white flag, that we'll be with her at the end of the tour, once we're done with the festivities in Darthar and Asaria."

"Ooooh, that's perfect!"

"Thank you. Now, we have a meeting with-" Allya trailed off as someone knocked on her office's door. "Yes?" She called out.

The door swung open, and Éclair stepped through.

"Miladies, we have an urgent communication."

Allya blinked. She'd literally just gotten her mail.

"How urgent?"

The bodyguard swallowed.

"Milady…they say the Hegemon was almost assassinated, and the Hegemony blames the Republic."

"That's…" Good. And bad, potentially. She exchanged a look with Pyn. They both knew that Alexandra had done a full analysis on the situation, and if the Hegemony started taking territory, the New Republic would have to try to take it back. Especially if they pushed far inland. And the timing…'suspicious' didn't even begin to cover it. "Is potentially catastrophic."

"That…that's not all." The bodyguard cleared her throat as both nobles looked at her. "The Eternia Crystallis dungeon declared her intention to help the Hegemony. And the UDC has officially announced that it will intervene militarily in the Republic's favor if that happens. There's…miladies, things are happening so fast there were new updates as the messenger was dispatched!"

"...Shit." Allya tossed her napkin on the table as she got up. "Alright, get a messenger to Crystal immediately." Provided that her UDC contacts hadn't already told her all about it, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and anyway it would neatly cover for the existence of those same contacts. "Then convene the council. This…this could get very, very bad."