Chapter 104 - Unforeseen Consequences

Notes : Chapter 403 of The Fallen World has been written and added to the queue !

Ah ! First chapter of TFW in months, and it's announced on a chapter with the most common name in that story, ironic or what ?

Anyway ! I hope you'll enjoy ! This chapter, and the next one especially, were VERY fun to write.

Chapter 104

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Artillery Outpost

"You know, I expected some kind of giant fortress surrounded by concrete and barbed wire." Said Malry as she joined Sapphiria and Gregor outside of the snowpiercer, being the last to disembark by virtue of being the squishiest. "Which, don't get me wrong, I knew intellectually wasn't the case, but you know..."

"I've done so much it's hard not to expect miracles?"

"This outpost is already a miracle." Malry smiled. "Though it could use a bit of flooring. I know I wouldn't want to be there once the snow melts and it becomes mudtopia."

That...was a good point, actually.

"I'll look into that. So, do you need to set something up, or...?"

"I don't need a crystal ball, if that's what you mean. I mean I wouldn't mind a proper one, but I don't have it. Usually I set up a bowl of still water to show what I'm seeing, but that's for basic farsight."

"Farsight?"

"If you were looking from a distance? I don't know how to explain it. It's not quite an image."

Sapphira had a fair idea. It's how sensors relayed their take to squishies, since they couldn't process the data like she could.

This magic seems more technological by the minute.

"I think I understand. My own divination works like that. So what do you need?"

"Just a quiet place to sit down for a bit. Then I'll tell you what I sensed."

"Got it. Here." The AI gestured, and a few bots jumped into action, clearing snow off of an empty artillery shell crate.

There were colonial batteries she could have sat on, but Sapphiria already wasn't comfortable about using them so liberally next to squishies, she wasn't about to have someone cast magic while on top of it.

"Thanks." Malry sat down, wincing slightly at the cold steel underneath her, opening a small leather purse on her lap, revealing glittering mana crystals, before closing her eyes. "This will take a bit."

"Sure. We'll try to avoid disturbing you while you cast."

And Sapphiria was going to record every little bit of it.

*****

It started innocently enough. The usual murmured incantation, and runes appearing around the diviner. Several crystals on her lap vanished.

Sapphiria wasn't sure why incanting created visible runes, and why other ways of casting spells sometimes didn't. That was something Kalia couldn't explain. That even she wasn't sure anyone could.

The runes she didn't all know. But it required a fair bit of mana, and unloaded it slowly. Its fuses were geared on mana recuperation.

What followed...

Pulses. Electromagnetic radiation, from radio to even a handful of X-Rays. Meson. Tachyons. Exotic particles by the bucketload.

Her armor sprung up alarms and target locked the diviner, tagging her as an air defense battery, a hunter-killer drone and a starship in turn.

Until finally she received it. A burst, embedded into the sensor pings.

An IFF challenge. Not one she recognized. But it certainly was in the right format for one.

Then it was past, and Malry's shoulders sagged.

"Well..." She said, after taking a few seconds, though to recover, marshal her thoughts or just make sense of what she'd sensed Sapphiria couldn't tell. "I have good news and bad news."

"Good news?"

"I think I can tell you which tent the Hand is in. And that there's three mages currently in the pass."

"Great."

"But beyond that, it's just a haze and I'm fairly sure someone tried to flash me when they realized I was doing a divination."

Sapphiria winced. Ah. Counter measures. Not ECM because it wasn't electronic but...ACM? Arcane Counter measures? With some kind of static jammer set up over their base.

Ironically, having done her earlier recon sweeps with the pre-programmed drone might have saved her ass, if they were just jamming everything on the other side of the valley. Though if they were, why hadn't she noticed it?

Actually...had she even been looking for it? It's not her cheap, shitty drone would have noticed with its comm off to save battery. If it could even tell it was being jammed with it on.

I need to get something that isn't a tourist's toy.

TO-DO LIST UPDATED

She genuinely couldn't tell what triggered this thing or not, sometimes she went days without it triggering, and sometimes she had it activate half a dozen times in as many hours.

"Alrighty. Anything else?"

"I think the Nineteenth is digging down, and then advancing by digging?"

"Like, sappers?"

"More a trench network. But there might have been sappers. Lots of zombies. Not many skeletons."

"Disposable fodder." Called out Gregor. "Probably troops and militias they killed during their advance."

"Great." Said Sapphiria. "Anything else?"

"They had...parts, deeper, in between trenches. Towards the back, I think. But that's it."

The AI nodded.

"Dugouts, to wait out an artillery barrage." She smiled, and put a hand on the diviner's shoulder. "Thank you Malry. You've been a great help."

And she had been. Drone recon might not have spotted the dugouts, and certainly not the mages. Well, the mana crystals they were using.

The alchemist smiled.

"No problem. So, what now?"

"Now?" Sapphiria looked up at the slop leading into the pass. "You make yourself comfortable in the snowpiercer, and we go ask the Hand for a meeting."

*****

The Hand came to a screeching halt as the medallion on their collar didn't shiver, it positively leaped.

They threw themselves on the ground, and waited as the waves of divination swept the landscape. What the hell? Was that the Nineteenth?

No. It came from inside the valley.

The rebels. It had to be.

Was that their version of ringing the bell? Or were they doing some kind of sweep for a barrage?

Damn it, if they started attacking the Nineteenth now as a demonstration...

The Hand grabbed a talisman from their belt, and a handful of mana crystals from their pouch.

...Time to stop messing around.

They crushed the little clay figurine.

The crystals vanished, and their feet left the ground as the Hand began to soar through the air.

*****

Sapphiria tapped her foot. They had been waiting at the white flag for several minutes. And there wasn't even the slightest sign of activity up the slope.

This time, as a sign of trust, she'd left her 'golems' back in the outpost, though they were ready to rush forward at a moment's notice.

"Do you think he's ignoring us?" She asked.

"That'd be remarkably stupid." Gregor shifted a bit, gazing at the pass. "Plus, they don't seem to be pulling out. It could be a deliberate snob, but that's not Sarcher's style."

"So what?"

"Maybe they're not home."

"Not-" Sapphiria froze. "Gregor. If they're not home, then where the hell are they?"

The skeleton looked over their shoulders.

"They could be down in their portion of the mines, preparing to withdraw...Or they could be skulking around in the valley."

"Taking a look at the entrance and Astralis." Sapphiria pinged her comm as she turned her armor's speaks off. "Cia, I need you to-"

Her armor's software interrupted her, overriding all message traffic with a priority alert.

BRK BRK BRK. ATMS DSTRB DTCT. MSSL INB

Or, in plain english:

Break Break Break. Atmospheric Disturbance Detected. Missile Inbound.

Sapphiria tackled Gregor to the ground a split second before something hit the ground a scant few meters away.

Sapphiria was up on one knee, her plasma gun ready...before she recognized the Hand, and lowered the weapon a fraction. Gregor did not do the same, hopping onto his feet and lining up his carbine.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She barked out at the Bane, who calmly looked back at her.

"I believe I would be the one entitled to that particular question. You-" The Hand's head snapped up as trumpets sounded throughout the valley.

"The hell?" Called out Sapphiria.

"They think your scan was the prelude to a barrage, marking their positions and mages for termination." Quickly said the Hand. "I must go! Tend to the defense."

Sapphiria looked as the Hand turned around, and made a split second decision.

If they had jammers, they would deploy them forward. Her perceived advantage of using her drone to see the pass might evaporate. And they'd have countermeasures for her artillery. She knew she wouldn't even dream of another attack without some. That had to be why these mages were in the trenches.

Plus...she could take a look at the defenses and the pass both. Get a much better feel with her armor's sensors than she ever could with her drone.

"I'm coming with you."

"What?" Asked both undead, turning towards her.

"I'm coming with you. You need all the help you can get."

The Hand stared at her, and then at her gun.

"...You'll obey my commands."

"You have battlefield control."

"Deal. Move."

And they started up the slope, Gregor spitting out a torrent of insults before following behind them.

*****

As they ascended up the slope, Sapphiria tensed up, suddenly remembering that unlike her, the Bane probably didn't have a tactical network to update everyone on friendlies and hostiles.

But none of the Bane even turned to look at her. Huh.

Perhaps they did have something like this. She remembered Gregor saying he had felt a call from the Bane, like that of a legate to their undead troops. She'd thought it seemed remarkably similar to the feelings a squishie got when liked into an AI's tactical net.

"So, what's the plan?" She asked as they ascended the slope, quickly running past the reserves and the undead workers.

"We hold the line." The Hand said. "I will use my magic to try and counter theirs. You use your weapon and your artillery to disrupt their formation. Hopefully your golem gunners know what they're doing."

Sapphiria smiled.

"So you have been scouting us out." She shrugged as the Hand looked at her. "How else would you know our gunners are golems?"

Sarcher looked back towards the wall.

"I would be stupid not to. Get up to the parapet and stay behind the crenellations. Do not show yourself until and unless I give the signal."

"Roger that."

"What of me?" Asked Gregor.

The Hand smiled.

"You will not look out of place. Stand proud, stand tall. You hate the Empire reborn? The 'Bane'? Here is your chance to take your tithe of destruction upon us."

"Gladly."

Sapphiria hopped up the steps as they arrived at the wall, careful not to reveal her full speed or agility, and dove behind the crenellations as the Hand stood next to their troops.

Her sensors' view wasn't great, but for now it was enough. She had the drone take off from the outpost just in case though.

What she could see was enough to give her pause though.

A tide of rotting flesh was surging through the trenches, more coming in every passing second from the other side of the pass.

She wanted to gag. The skeletons of squishies was bad enough, but their rotting corpses, puppeteered as meat shields?

This was disgusting! Unforgivable! The Federation had burned worlds for less.

"Zombies moving forward. No Imperial units that I can see for now." Said the Hand, and Sapphiria realized he was narrating for her benefit.

She nodded.

"A prodding attack, then?"

"More of a cautious one. I doubt this is purely sacrificial. There's enough that they are probably hoping to inflict damage and whittle down my forces. And no doubt they anticipate that we are about to attack first."

"That or they were preparing to attack anyway, and think we just blew the secret."

"...What did you detect on your divination scan?"

Sapphiria hesitated, then sighed.

"Three mages in the pass. Dugouts at the back of the trench network. Some skeletons mixed in, but mostly zombies."

The Hand swore.

"I can't see any skeletons. Either they're hiding or using illusions to meld in the crowd. Could you pinpoint them?"

Sapphiria doubted Malry could, or she would have. But her turret and armor sensors had seen through the Hand's illusions in the past. They, if nothing else, knew she could do it. Holding that card back would serve no purpose, she'd already played it.

"If they get close, maybe."

The Hand nodded.

"Good. In the meantime." They fetched a couple of mana crystals and extended a hand towards the AI.

Only to find themselves with a stilleto against their neck and the gaping maw of the barrel of the plasma gun pointed at their face.

"I haven't fought a Hand, Sarcher." Said Gregor, somehow having stowed the carbine and drawn his blade in a fraction of a second. "But I doubt even you can survive without spinal column."

The Hand nodded.

"Probably not. Nevertheless, if I'd wished your doom, I would have used one of my talismans before you could react. I was simply going to cloak you in illusions of my own, since you seem keen on actually helping for this battle, and have even keener insights. It would free you from staying behind the battlements, while preserving the element of surprise."

Gregor looked at Sapphiria, and she faintly nodded.

They both lowered their weapons, and the Hand summoned their magic.

The crystals disappeared in a shower of multicolored sparks, and energy wrapped around Sapphiria. One second, her armor stood there. The next, her sensors insisted she was surrounded in a hologram showing a pale skinned young woman in an armor just slightly less ornate than the Hand's, with...

Her exact facial features and hair underneath the simulated helmet.

Oh hell. She hadn't removed her helmet in the Hand's presence, had she?

She looked at the Hand, and met their gaze.

Oh yeah. They knew. This was a message.

"I'm surprised you had that ready." She said calmly, as she came to her feet, and put one hand on the merlon she had been hiding behind, appearing like a nonchalant general, supremely unconcerned by the approaching wave of undeath.

"I based your appearance on an old...colleague of mine. You remind me of her, in some way."

Intriguing.

"Interesting." She said. "So, what now?"

"They seem to be massing in the trenches, preparing for their assault. I could disrupt them, but chances are they would counter my spell."

"I could do it."

"Your gun can reach that far?"

"My gun? No. My howitzers? Absolutely."

The Hand stared at them, then nodded.

"Excellent." The AI smiled. "Let's give them hell." She muted her speakers, and instead transmitted on the tactical net. "Alpha Battery? Open fire!"