Chapter 91 - Outpost

Notes :

Merry Christmas everyone ! I celebrated mine yesterday, but I hope yours goes well and you get plenty of holiday cheer !

Chapter 91

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Starfire Pass

Click click click click, reverse.

The Hand watched as troops bustled about. Despite armchair strategists holding that undead troops need not be cycled in and out of the battlefield, it remained very much a necessity. If nothing else, weapons and armor needed to be maintained, and their bodies likewise required some attention. Granted, they could be left to fend for themselves for an extended period of time, especially horde units that were specifically designed for that very purpose, but that didn't mean it was even remotely optimal to do so.

The trebuchet the Nineteenth was building was taking form in earnest now, and so was the defenses arrayed around it. They'd started with a simple palisade, backed with a ditch, but it was rapidly evolving into a full on castrum.

It was both reassuring and infuriating to see them applying the legions' rulebook to the letter. Even if they were...disagreeing on certain subjects, they were still Imperial.

The observers' agitation had seemingly subsided as well, and they were now waiting as much as much as the Hand was.

Hurry up and wait. Kallaran's wisdom truly lives through the ages.

The number of quotes attributed to the First Emperor was endless, though some of them he'd probably never spoken and rather been attributed later on. After all, it was easier to make your argument if the founder of the greatest nation in the world had backed your viewpoint with some timeless wisdom.

The Hand turned as a legionnaire hurried up the steps to the rampart, and saluted, before gesturing at the valley.

They sighed, and went down, pocketing the coin before coming to a dead halt.

Before, they'd only see glimpses of light reflecting on metal.

Now they saw it. A beast of steel, punching straight through the forest.

Heading towards the pass.

If the Hand still had blood pumping through their vines, it would have run cold.

They barked out orders, and the troops heading for maintenance went for the valley-facing defenses. They didn't believe the rebels were a threat, not compared to the Nineteenth, but they weren't about to stand there like an idiot either.

However, before they could fully take positions, the metal construct stopped. It was hard to see anything from this distance, but there was activity under the thinning canopy. People disembarking?

Perhaps this was just a foolhardy reconnaissance expedition. Foolhardy because reconnaissance was supposed to be discrete. This had even less subtlety than the Nineteenth, and they were building a siege trebuchet right in front of the defensive line.

They sighed, and turned back towards the wall.

The Hand wished they could investigate, but with the enemy having a fort almost within firing distance, it was a no go. Any weakening of the defenses would cause the other side to pounce. Plus, any real reconnaissance they would have to handle themselves, which would leave the pass wide open. The maniples were good, and the ballistae useful, but they would never be able to hold without magical support against so mighty a foe.

Still...there was a disquiet.

The rebels were up to something. And the last time they were, the mines were lost and they unleashed that...thing.

They shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Their tenacity had earned them that much at least. The Hand made a note to post some observers and record what would happen. A proper recon expedition was out, but a couple of legionnaires keeping watch from the fortifications they could spare.

For now, at least.

Once that trebuchet began slinging boulders...

Well, it would time for a glorious last stand, to die for the Empire.

Again.

*****

"Alright people!" Sapphiria clapped her hands, attracting the attention of the workers. She didn't have many utility bots, so she had ended up following Ramina's advice and asked for some manpower from Astralis. That meant talking to Kalia, which had meant a very thorough kiss and some cuddling before they had to attend to their duties. "The Bane probably aren't going to charge down the slopes to attack us, but we're in enemy territory, and we only have so long before nightfall. So let's get moving! Start unloading everything. Ramina, you're with me."

There was a chorus of assent, and Sapphiria quickly surveyed the area again as the artificer went to her side.

"So...did she nosebleed?"

The AI flicked a glance at Ramina.

"I don't know, did your fashion sense change to favor scarfs, or do you have so many hickeys your neck looks another color?"

Ramina's blush was all the answer Sapphiria needed. Not that she particularly cared about it. First, because her sensors could penetrate the clothing to get her biodata, second as the objective was simply to ward off her questions.

The artificer coughed.

"Where do you want the gun?" She said, transparently changing the subject.

"Here." She pointed at a spot roughly a dozen meters away. "Then we can put pillboxes here, here, here and here." She pointed at four other spots surrounding it in a rough square.

"Isn't that a bit overkill?" Each of the pillboxes had two turrets, and had a field of fire interrupted only by their doors.

Sapphiria shook her head.

"Better to be safe than sorry. Especially since it's going to get a lot of attention." Firing heavy artillery was a bit counterproductive to stealth after all. Even killships, the Federation's final contingency plan even the upper echelons of the Navy didn't like to discuss, were built with the assumption they wouldn't survive the launch to get back into hyperspace.

It's why they were equipped with an array of industrial modules, and capable of setting up a shipyard and munitions factory that could make and arm more killships. And said 'munitions' were biosphere killer superweapons.

Needless to say, they were also some of the most heavily stealthed ships the Federation had ever designed, even if it was only to keep them alive long enough to get into position to unleash their payload.

"Yeah, it's gonna be one hell of a boom." Ramina smiled, and Sapphiria reciprocated it.

"Indeed. Though not nearly as big as the one we'll deliver to the pass."

"Right. How many shells do you have?"

"I brought sixty, and I have four times that again ready to ship."

The artificer whistled softly.

"That is a lot of firepower."

"Not nearly enough for my peace of mind." Sapphiria shrugged as the artificer looked at her. "Believe me, ammunition disappears quickly in a real battle."

"I wasn't in the military, but I was in charge of keeping our firearms operating. I believe you. Still, three hundred shells is one hell of an ass kicking."

"Let's hope so. Now grab some tools, we need to assemble that thing."

*****

"Alright, almost done on our end." Said Sapphiria as she approached the foreman of the workers she'd brought. Which just happened to be Calvones Worldwalker, the surveyor she'd floored when constructing her workshop's foundation in a single day. "What about your end?"

He smiled, turning towards her.

"Well, we aren't miracle workers like your golems, but we're doing petty well. Your pillboxes will be ready shortly. I have to say, this material is amazing. It's not...quite concrete, is it?"

Sapphiria shook her head.

"Not exactly. More like a variant. But trust me, it's the tools that make the work easy." Most notably, some of them had the ability to link prefabricated bricks together like they were cast as one. She glanced at the notebook he was holding, and raised an eyebrow. "Looking to expand?"

He blushed, and nodded.

"I felt that it might be a good idea to make a survey of the area. Not to impugn on yours, but it is what I do. And a forward outpost where logging expeditions could retreat to in case of danger or drop off lumber would be very useful."

They were at the very tip of the spear, it seemed insane, but it wasn't like the Bane were going to sortie.

"So long as it doesn't become an actual base. I don't need squads of civilians getting in the way or stationed in the literal artillery post."

"It won't. If nothing else, I don't think we want anyone out after dark unless there is no other choice."

Sapphiria nodded.

"Agreed." She looked at the workers, who were all sneaking glances towards her, more preoccupied with her presence than their jobs, and she sighed. Right, unlike what some idiots held, looking over your subordinate's shoulders imperiously never increased productivity. Quite the contrary in fact. This wasn't The King is Watching, and you learned very quickly as a naval officer to stand back and give those under your command space. Interestingly enough, it held true for AIs and squishies alike, hence why she rarely looked directly at what Cia was doing and instead asked for status reports.

"Good work, and carry on." She said, theatrically smacking Calvones' shoulder, just enough to make an audible sound and turn heads, before returning to the howitzer.

Hopefully it would boost their confidence, even if only the surveyors', and it gave her a good exit to cease being a distraction.

Besides which, if she left Ramina alone for too long with the howitzer, she was bound to start drooling all over it.

Not that she could blame her all that much. Seeing the howitzer come to life had her all giddy, and she had to hide it to maintain her image as the cool, calm and collected 'Ancestor'.

She'd never actually seen one of those things in action outside of a museum demonstration or one of those re-enactments her aunt organized every decade or so. And she was going to be the one to pull the trigger. Well, lanyard.

She could hardly wait.

*****

Returning on the snowpiercer felt a strange mix of boring and homey. She'd been basically living at the controls for the past couple of weeks, either getting it ready for departure or during the expedition. It wasn't exactly second nature to her, but it definitely felt like a routine.

"I wonder if those Banes are the ones that attacked the Principality." Said Ramina.

"What?" Sapphiria looked over her shoulder, and the artificer shrugged.

"The ones assaulting the Hand. Teman, you know, Malry's brother, he's been looking into who they were. He's fascinated by the idea of the Bane fighting one another, and he's speculating that what we thought was a carefully coordinated two pronged attack on the continent, with the landings in the Principality and the Magistracy, might have been competing invasions, trying to scoop up as much of the continent as possible before the other did."

Sapphiria blinked. That was...

She had some idea of how the war had progressed. The first landing had been in the Principality of Mardecan, notably its most populous city of Kamer, which had been overrun in record time, and then used the nearby Convergence to reanimate everyone to push onto the capital and then the rest of the continent.

"That might be the case." She chuckled. "Honestly at first I thought you'd called the Convergence there 'Landing' because that's where the Bane arrived."

"Nah. It's another one of those 'first landing' myths."

"I beg your pardon?"

Ramina looked at her weirdly.

"The first landing myths?" She said carefully. "The great metal ships, bearing the first humans from the seas? Come on, people have been hunting the continent we all came from forever."

Sapphiria's hands tightened on the controls, and she almost drove them straight into a tree, only adjusting course to push it off to the side at the last second.

Colony ships. Those legends meant the colony ships. Holy shit. The colonists remembered the landing of the first ships, but didn't realize where they had truly come from. They thought those vessels were seaborn, because why would they be anything else to them?

"I do remember. We just called it something else." Said the AI, softly. "Why in a Convergence though?"

Ramina shrugged.

"No idea. I mean there's Vestiges there. Always are. But it doesn't mean much. I'm at least inclined to consider it, since most 'first landing' locations are some city trying to appear grander or argue they're better than the next trade port over."

Sapphiria nodded, sagely, as she ran some calculations.

Landing was on the peninsula that the Principality of Mardecan had occupied, effectively on the southernmost land of the continent. But more importantly, it was on the eastern coast of the peninsula.

This world rotated in the same direction Earth did. Early space age Terra launched rockets towards the East, preferably over the ocean in case of launch failure, to get the velocity assist from the planet's rotation and avoid showering inhabited land in burning debris or worse.

If she was building a colonial starport, this was where she'd have put it.

If there were some answers to be had about this mess and how this world came to be, she would probably find them there.

Literally right next to the Bane beachhead and at the heart of their invasion.

Oh boy.

"But anyway. If they're from Mardecan, that means they had to come all the way up here somehow? Through the other Bane too. How did they do it?"

"Didn't you manage it?" Sapphiria looked over her shoulder again, at Ramina's surprised expression. "You got all the way here. If the Bane couldn't stop you then, they won't stop an army now. If the Hand isn't the invader on the others' turf to begin with."

"If the Hand was the invader in this scenario, they wouldn't have had a horde with Magistracy undead." Sapphiria's ears prickled. She'd never noticed that. But then again, she'd really only fought the Hand. "But I'll talk to Teman about it."

"And I'll start going over the data I got from my reconnaissance of the pass. If nothing else I need to in order to verify the targeting data, and I can take a closer look at both forces while I work."

"Sounds good." Ramina shfited in her seat. "I'll get to be there when you shoot the cannon, right?"

"Yes. But not the workers." She wasn't about to court disaster, in case monsters were attracted to it. "Safety reasons."

The artificer nodded.

"Of course. Safety first." She smiled wolfishly. "Except for the Bane."

"Indeed. Except for the Bane."

They were about to get a very rude, very harsh wakeup call. The new army and Hand both.