Chapter 80 - Against The Grain

Notes : Chapter 81 has been written and added to the queue !

Well, amazingly, as soon as we threatened to withhold payment and drag this to court, work that the construction company had been almost a month late on and was making constant excuses for...was done in 48 hours. Golly Gee.

So, I'm actually coming home ! At fucking LAST ! Hopefully tomorrow, I'll be moving back in to my appartment, and then I'll be able to sleep in my own damn bed. Gods.

I hope you'll enjoy the chapter and start of book 3 !

Chapter 80

Icerend Borderlands

Great Pine Forest, Riverbed Crystal Field

Sapphiria sat down in the driver's chair.

The Bane in the pass were under attack. By another, larger Bane force.

Out of the pan and into the fire...

She shook herself.

"Anything else?" She asked Cia.

"Nothing apart from an exhortation to give up the search for crystals and return immediately."

Sapphiria looked out the window, at the squishies outside. They couldn't see her due to the polarization on the viewports -the crystals were even more dazzling in the gathering twilight-, but they still darted glanced at the vehicle, worriedly.

"...We found the crystals. We can take the time to harvest the field before we return." It would delay their return time by a day, but...

The squishies desperately needed them, not to mention so did she, to get a better idea of whatever the hell was going on in this world. And the way back would be safer, once the more violent aberrations born from the storm had expended their magic.

"And in the meantime?"

"Shut down all industrial expansion except for the new smelters. Set everything up for cranking out hardware."

"Understood. Shall I prepare the plans for an assault upon the pass?"

Sapphiria pulled up simulations and estimates, processing them on overdrive.

"We'd just do the enemy's work for them. If a full scale army takes that pass, we're not going to be able to dislodge them. And we'd expend so much taking the Hand's place we'd be easy pickings for the enemy."

"If they take the pass with a full scale force, bottling them up will be impossible." Warned the AI. "Our plans were drawn with the assumption that the Hand would receive reinforcements but be forced to keep most of their forces defending the pass, thus unable to mass sufficient forces to simply bypass an artillery post."

The AI nodded. A single small battery of artillery guns could have kept the Hand bottled up indefinitely. But if there was a full army out there, one which was attempting to take the pass through infantry wave attack, they'd have bodies to spare. They could just eat up the barrage and march on Astralis, or bring their greater numbers to bear against the isolated...artillery post...

Sapphiria sat straighter.

"Cia, we have done the calculations for firing howitzers into the pass, correct?"

The simulacrum blinked.

"Yes. It is narrow and long, but straight. The deeper we fire in, the smaller the position we may place the guns, but it is perfectly possible to even hit the other side of the pass if they are set correctly. Why?"

"Because we don't need to take on the Hand." Sapphiria mentally tapped the tactical maps. "If we can get some artillery up, we can drop shells directly on the attacking army when they advance. We still get to bottle them up in the chokepoint of the pass, without having to take it, or sacrificing the Hand's...well, forces, which right now are effectively ablative armor."

"You..." The simulacrum glitched, clearly thrown for a loop. "You wish to help the Bane?"

"The longer we can keep them killing each other, we better off we are." And if it made the other side think the Hand already had their reinforcements, so much the better. "How fast can you get some guns ready?"

Cia shook herself.

"Unclear. The colonial fabricator can make most of your howitzer design without a problem. But certain parts like the barrel will require special alloys, and the fuses will demand main fabricator time."

Sapphiria nodded. She might have gone a bit too in the 'quality' department for her howitzer, instead of a steel tube meant to roughly guide a shell, but...

Well, she was going to need to fire a heavy artillery shell through a narrow mountain pass, with enough precision to neither hit the walls or the defensive line she was trying to preserve. A barebones early howitzer didn't have that kind of precision. And mortars were out, most of the ones she had in the archives were not only imprecise smoothbores, but their ranges were generally shorter and she wasn't going to tempt fate by setting up too close to the Hand.

After all, they had to realize that the second that army was no longer a threat, those guns would be turned on them.

The enemy of my enemy is a problem for later, as said one of her mom's twenty first century novels. Something about a commissar in a cartoonishly over the top universe with divine emperors and cathedral mechs.

As for the shells, she'd rather be safe than sorry with the fuses, plus she had wanted variable airburst capabilities. Not necessarily for shrapnel dispersion, the skeletons were hard to hit with those, but even high explosive shells benefitted from not expending half of their energy hammering the ground.

"Then get started. Plus, send a message back topside ASAP. Say we found a crystal field and are harvesting it. We'll finish harvesting it or filling our cargo hold, whichever one comes first, and then rush home as fast as we can." Thanks to her navigation systems, she could just took their previous path, which should allow for a somewhat easier going. If nothing else, the trees on the way would already be on the ground, and they knew exactly where they were going.

"Understood. What about you?"

The AI nodded at the squishies through the cockpit's viewports.

"I'm going to get them up to speed, then to bed, and expedite the repairs tomorrow." The snowpiercer was mostly intact, but if she had some time to kill she wasn't going to waste it. Plus, restoring the hull attachment points would allow her to use slapguns again, and she was going to have to dump some raw materials out to accommodate the crystals.

"Affirmative. Good luck ma'am."

Sapphiria grimaced.

"I'd love to quote my aunt and say that I make my own, but at this point I need every bit of help we can get." She sighed, and gazed at the squishies outside. "Alright. Time to break them the news."

*****

Unsurprisingly, they didn't take it very well, though she was careful to brief the 'officers' first, before doing the rest of the crew.

Fortunately, they were used to the universe hating their guts and kicking them where it hurts, and recovered quickly. Especially after she gave a little speech.

"Yes, Astralis is under threat. And more Bane than ever are coming. But this only makes the completion of our mission more vital. We must finish harvesting these crystals, and then we will ride home like the wind." A bit of an exaggeration, the snowpiercer was a glorified extreme terrain cargo hauler with personnel capabilities, not a surface to orbit shuttle or a hypersonic fighter jet. But it was fast enough for them. "When we return, we will then kick these bastards out of the valley so hard they'll feel it in their bones!"

There was a ragged cheers, and they went back to work. Or, more accurately, packing everything up for the night, while she retired near the snowpiercer with the command crew.

"What actually are our chances?" Said Ramina, and Sapphiria shrugged.

"Depends on the Hand, and what they're facing. According to the scouts' reports, the second defensive line held, though its palisade was more or less destroyed. That means most of the horde had been destroyed, and the maniples have taken a beating. But they still have the third defensive line with the stone wall, and that's going to be a different beast entirely. Attacking a fortified position is never easy, but a proper wall even more so. You can't just beat your way through them without artillery."

And good luck dragging a catapult or trebuchet through the pass. Those things had a pathetic range to begin with, and they'd have to go over the previous defenses to get into range. Magic might help with that, but at that point might as well use spells to topple the wall directly.

Given the scouts' reports on whom had used the last spell, she was fairly sure the other side was outmatched by the Hand on the arcane side. Which was somewhat terrifying, because according to what they'd seen, that...thing could have probably seriously damaged her android in the tunnels, but chose not to.

She hadn't been worth the resources.

Well. That was a catastrophic mistake. One that, ironically, would expand the Hand's life...unlifespan, even if only briefly.

"So...we'll make it?" Asked Ramina.

"Probably. If nothing else, they'll muster another assault, and that takes time. Especially since they'll probably try to plan around the Hand now." Why they hadn't baffled her. Did they not realize who was holding the pass? They should know a lot more about that thing than she did. That or they were deeply underestimating the Hand for some reason. Whatever the case, they'd probably gotten one hell of a wakeup call and would be more cautious.

"How can you be so sure?"

"If they were just going to try to overrun the defenses, the assault would have stopped only with their army ceasing to exist, and the Hand would have counterattacked at the end to grab the supply train." At least if the Bane had one. They'd never seen the Hand's, but then again the abomination had been here a while and probably had the supplies stuffed in the tunnels and some of the buildings and tents the scouts had observed. "They pulled back to the other side of the pass to regroup and rethink their approach. Which in turn means that, like the Hand, they have limited resources, and they can't afford to throw them all away in a vainglorious show of do or die."

That, ultimately, had been what had doomed the Theocracy. Its leadership was so used to being all powerful that they hadn't realized their resources were limited and even failing. The first waves into the Federation had run into a meatgrinder, and after Massilia, their counterattacks had been butchered. Well, until the Theocracy Navy took over, but by that point it was too late, and the fracture lines were too deep.

Their Empire imploded under its own strain, with the Federation applying some carefully measured force. Notably at their holy worlds. Not a single Federation vessel had entered the Theocracy's home systems, but the possibility of them doing so with the expeditionary fleets invading the galactic core had been enough to finally rip them apart.

From Massilia to the battle of Eradun Five, the political demands to produce victories or at least appear to turn back the tide had eroded their military capabilities for nothing, instead of pursuing a sound strategy. A mistake the other side was clearly not keen to make. At least not yet.

Though, they probably didn't have a civilian population to appease. The Bane had some kind of high command and leadership, that evidently hated each other, so maybe some pressure to deliver results would manifest itself that way. It would be a good advantage to have.

"I see." Ramina looked a lot more reassured, and Sapphiria flicked a glance at Paul, who shrugged.

"We'd all be dead or worse already if it wasn't for you. Whatever you decide is best, I'll follow."

"Fair enough." She looked up at the snowpiercer. "First light tomorrow, harvesting resumes while Ramina and I finish the repairs. Then as soon as we're full we haul ass home." She winced, and looked at the artificer. "I'm sorry to say this, but we'll really be relying on you to spot aberrations, because a slow, cautious pace isn't an option anymore."

The artificer nodded.

"I understand. You can count on me."

"Good. Paul, if we get engaged...honestly, since we're running home, hopefully we can just outrun whatever is out there, but if it comes down to it, I can stay behind and catch up with my armor."

The magehunter's gaze descended to her still damaged chestplate, then back up at her.

"Are you...sure?"

"Certain."

"Alright." He seemed dubious, but nodded. "Hopefully it won't come to that."

"Let's hope. We can retrace our steps and make haste at least. So there's that." Plus, for the final sprint, she could just run all night. It would deplete the capacitors, but once back at the town it wasn't like they'd need it anymore. At least not for now. Right now she was using as much power as the vehicle could recharge in a day through the nuclear batteries, but she had roughly a day's worth of juice stored up on top of that. "Alright, let's sheperd everyone in, and get some sleep. We're going to need it."