Chapter 398 - Sand Kraken

Notes :

I still want to write, but at the same time I feel burnt out. Ouch. Reminds me, I need to do a RR announcement about the new cover.

Anyway, I hope the long awaited sand kraken lives up to your expectations ! I know some of you were really hyped about seeing one at long last, and I hope it won't disappoint !

Chapter 398

Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire

Wasteland

Alexandra looked at the AI core. Did it actually contain an artificial intelligence? A neonite? Would her trick with the reactor even work?

Only one way to find out.

"Showtime." She said, and plugged herself in.

For a single, eternal second, there was stupefied silence in the network.

Turns out, the core was connected to a lot more than she'd thought. It was just using its processing power on things outside the tank. Which meant communication systems she hadn't been able to detect. Something to look into later, for her own endeavors.

She felt the astonished...stare was the closest word she could come up with, of the two other entities in the network, as she plugged in directly into the cable hub. The IFF transmitter would have made it obvious what she was after, and the core directly was suicide.

And it was indeed, two entities.

Turns out, both hypothesis had been right. There was a neonite.

And an AI.

Then, everything happened at once.

The neonite flailed around in a panic, putting up walls around the core while the AI went on the offensive. Right reflex, when you have an intruder, you can rely on your inbuilt defenses, but if you can take them out before they start wrecking shit, you're golden.

Unfortunately for them, she knew Sagitarian systems and EuroFed electronic architecture like the back of her hand.

She sent her decoy programs towards the reactor controls, and then started a phantom general assault, only the killcode thrown towards the IFF's walls being more than half hearted.

It had the predictable effect. She felt them take the hit, prepare to counter attack...

And panic when the reactor began to blare alarms.

They both rushed to try and retake control. Not that it was going to help. The decoy would make it look like there had been some kind of sleeper program in the control it had been talking to, and they'd have to rip through their own software, chasing ghosts, before they realized the horrible truth:

This wasn't a software attack. She'd physically rigged the core to blow, ripping apart or jamming every failsafe, and no amount of code could undo that.

By the time they figured it out, it would be too late

She dove for the IFF transponder, as her programs broke through. It was a simple matter of pinging it with protocols and authorizations then.

The IFF shifted.

Mission accomplished.

She turned her attention towards the two, who belatedly realized what she had done, though they didn't fully grasp its implication.

The neonite had already given up on the reactor controls, but the AI...was still chasing the ghosts?

She scanned it, and grimaced. It wasn't even a true AI. It was...some kind of pathetic simulacrum of one, just like what Seraph had been, before her limiters had been ripped away.

Realizing they were screwed, the neonite came for her, clearly deciding that they would at least have the satisfaction of killing her.

She gave the AI equivalent of a salute...

And jacked out. Physically severing the golem from the network, then hopping herself out of it.

A split second later, the night surrounding the ships lit up as the tank exploded, her drone banking slightly to avoid taking in the shockwave.

She held her breath.

Then she felt it. The ping, sweeping for IFF confirmation.

All of the IFFs on her screen lit up with a flurry of activity.

Then, one after the other, they flipped to compromised, as they failed their checks.

She smiled as the dunes began to shake.

Checkmate, fuckers.

To her surprise though, there was no immediate move to get away. Try as she might, with the AI core wired into a full network outside the tank, there was no way they hadn't gotten a distress call out. Couldn't they realize what was going on?

Actually...she started to detect communications. Snippets of transmissions. When it had been absolute silence before. Why-

Oh.

The neonite, the AI in the tank...

They'd been managing their communication hub. Maybe even been in command. Kind of like her with her dungeon monsters or, hell, what she was doing with her drone.

They were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, confusion getting the better of them.

But quickly, discipline reasserted itself, and someone finally got a hold of the situation. The essence cylinder was rolled out, as the remaining vehicles getting back onboard the ships, battered but still online, towing the smoldering wreck of the Mirage behind them.

The ships started to take off, as the last few people on the ground took to the skies, using magic and jetpacks.

Then...

The dunes stopped shaking.

And the desert came alive.

*****

One thing misunderstood by many people, was what sand krakens were. When someone heard their name, they imagined a big, brutish beast the size of a ship, with tentacles capable of crushing tanks.

But they were so much more than that.

The sand rose into the air. Not in a giant blast, but in tendrils. Crackling energy bound the grains together into gigantic tentacles, some tougher than stone, others dispersed like a hellish, flesh stripping sandstorm.

They shot up, as the airships attempted to run. But it was too late.

The sandstorm tentacles dove straight for the engines, and the machines screamed as supersonic sand particles were blasted directly into them.

Hardened or no, nothing would survive this for long.

The ships' propellers failed, one by one, some literally abraded to nothing more than stubs, and the sandstone tentacles caught up, wrapping around the vessels.

Of course, the crews weren't idle.

Spells and weapons flew. Sandstorm tentacles were torn apart by miniature hurricanes, and sandstone melted and exploded into fiery molten lava from energy beams and explosive spells.

But they kept coming. For every one that was destroyed, three more rose from the desert.

And then...one of the sandstone tentacles, attacking the large transport, exploded.

Revealing strange, pulsating flesh beneath, unmarred by the attack.

The crew tried to retarget on the flesh tentacle, but it was too late.

It shed its armor, and slithered among them.

Some of the soldiers were too slow to get away. The tentacle touched them...and they spasmed, screaming like the damned.

Alexandra watched in horror as their screams ended in a gurgle, blood exploding from their eyes and mouth, flowing directly into the tentacles, that seemed to get even quicker, the flesh rippling like a liquid.

And then she saw the energy flowing alongside the blood, her sensors covered in warning messages.

The kraken wasn't just draining their blood. Or their essence.

It was drinking their souls.

The first few of the bodies hit the deck, the unnatural, eldritch magic of the kraken having let go of them, leaving behind nothing but a withered husk, empty of life or energy.

One of the soldiers, clearly a retired adventurer, hit the tentacle head on with a greataxe gleaming blue. Mythril flashed with energy, and she felt the scream of the kraken within the very armature of the drone.

The tentacle reeled back, trailing ichor.

And then began to sprout. Smaller tendrils erupted from the pulsation flesh, and dove for the survivors.

Most managed to destroy a handful. The warrior with the axe fended off a dozen.

But there was no end to them. And the merest brush meant death.

She watched in horrified fascination as the last people on the deck fell...and then the main tentacle battered through the main cargo hatch.

To get to those below.

The interior of the ship lit up with energy fire, as the tanks within engaged, heedless of the fact that every missed shot tore straight through their own vessel.

To Alexandra's surprise they were holding. An endless hail of lasers drove the tentacle out of the main cargo hold, and began to cut away the appendages holding the ship, and dragging it down.

But it was already too late. The ship was too low.

The dunes sank.

And teeth, endless teeth, moving like a mad grinder from the depths of hell, rose from the sand.

There was a scream, an endless roar of primal terror, rending metal and death...

Then it was over.

Just silence. And empty desert.

Alexandra swallowed convulsively, and sent the go order to everyone back in Rebirth.

Then she stepped back into her avatar.

She didn't even want to review the footage of what had happened to the other ships. She didn't need to know. They were dead.

She already had seen enough to haunt her nightmares for the rest of eternity.

*****

The crowds cheered as the army moved through the streets. Even this early in the morning, as the sun peeked its head over the horizon, the streets were packed. Opening the parade were the tanks and the Mackies, marching in perfect lockstep, shaking the very ground as they walked. Only CQ preceded them, mounted on her manticore Kara, smiling and waving at the crowds.

Only those who knew her very well could have seen how strained that smile was.

Behind came the golems. Battalion by battalion. Endless ranks of troops. Rifle Combat Units, true to their name, marched with the barrel of their rifles laying on their shoulders, like the musketeers that had preceded them, marching out to defend the city against the Republic. Heavy Combat Units lumbered at the back of each formation, cradling their machineguns and grenade launcher.

And the Advanced Combat Units moved with the inhuman grace of artificial musculature, gleaming with mythril plating.

No one batted an eye at the armed guards and golems surrounding the crowds. The city had been on heightened security since the summit had begun, and it wouldn't be the first time the enthusiasm of the people of the city would have to be pushed back a little.

The gleaming, affixed bayonets on both the guards and marching troops drew a few looks, but few questioned them. It looked impressive, and what if they were rarely used? The dungeon core had fought the UDC's Jaskarls at point blank range, and charged her Mackies through the Duchess' troops. Several times.

Clearly, she knew boldness could win the day.

There was a rumble, then an ear splitting roar.

Among the crowds, a few dove for cover. Survivors, both civilian and military, who had been near the So Much For Subtlety when it had engaged Sunrise. People who knew what a point blank ballistic missile launch sounded like.

A split second later, the sky was filled with the thunder of guns as the mesa fortress vanished behind a wall of flames.

The entire city shook with massive detonations. Columns of smoke and one of energy rose into the skies, screaming out energy. Waves of mana and essence battered into the crowds.

There was screaming, confusion.

Then pure shock as the golems stopped, turned as one...

And charged down the streets, bayonets at the ready.

*****

Starvak heard the screams and horrified gasps in the guild hall, and arrived in the main room just in time to see the explosions rip through Rebirth.

The guild branches on the trade route, and especially in the three cities with Crystal's dungeon and 'branch offices' had become rich. Unfathomably so, even by dungeon town standards. The central hall wasn't just renovated, they had even installed crystal screens, showing the few news that were broadcasted here. Which usually meant Rebirth news, who had the technology and budget to do so.

He watched as the golems rushed into the city, the Mackies and tanks leading the charge through the main boulevards, while the dungeon's boss took to the skies, alongside what appeared to be some kind of jetpack unit in the army behind.

Unlike the others congregating around the screens, he knew what those explosions meant. What they'd hit.

He also saw, like the old warrior he was, how perfectly timed it was, happening just as the tanks neared the arteries that would allow them to move freely deeper into the city, rather than getting in the way of the rest of the army.

He turned around, and ran into the staff section of the guild hall.

Crystal knew. Maybe she'd always known. Perhaps the vampires had betrayed him. Or perhaps Orromar, that ever so honorable centaur.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but finishing this.

Once and for all.