Chapter 385 - The Citadel

Note :

So, for those wondering what went worse, I fell sick, my mom got an incredibly violent allergy, and on top of all that I had a personal-ish event that I'm currently going to keep under wraps at the advice of some of my friends. I might make an announcement about it, I might not. We shall see.

Anyway, I enjoyed the hell out of writing this chapter ! Only hesitated at one joke at the end (it concerns Ghost, Alexandra and Emilia), because I know some people are extremely uncomfortable about polycules. But everyone on discord encouraged me to go for it, so I hope you'll enjoy !

Chapter 385

Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire

Dungeon Factory, Command Center

"Correction. There is a total of twenty four pulse cannon." Said Glitch. "Twenty on the side facing the planet, four on the starside."

"Great." Alexandra leaned on the console, staring at the hologram projected above everyone in the command center. "So reassuring. Though, it brings up the question of why, exactly, do they have artillery facing starside?"

Ghost circled the projector, looking up at the station. It looked like a gigantic disk, and brought a vague sense of familiarity to the dungeon core.

"I'm more concerned about the fact that we didn't notice it before. Seriously, these guns aren't quite the size of a dawnstar, but they're as big as most UIS dreadnoughts. That station is in low orbit right now. How the hell isn't it a giant splotch in the sky?"

Alexandra opened her mouth, and closed it.

Her other self was right. Just like you could see even regular cities from orbit, let alone the giant megalopolises made out of hab towers, you could see large enough vessels from the ground. Not as just dots of light, but full objects. And it wasn't like that thing was covered in light absorbing coating and only visible by its positioning beacons. No, it was painted gold for fuck's sake. And that station was as large as most of the orbital elevator transit stations on Earth. Shit, it was larger than Ortu Stella, the station she'd been on when...when she'd been sent to Alcheryos.

"That is...an excellent question." Alexandra turned towards Emilia. "Illusions?"

"I wouldn't put it past them, but I don't see anything that suggest that in the data." The vampire leaned forward, squinting. She'd gotten a lot better at interacting with technology and high amounts of information, both thanks to her Arcadia kernel, courtesy of having been part of the hivemind, and various memories and tricks she'd kept after separating. "Hey...Glitch, can you crunch some numbers for me?"

"Affirmative."

The vampire started talking to the AI, gesturing at the data, and Alexandra turned towards Ghost. She didn't need to supervise, the vampire knew what she was doing.

"Do you think Allya is going to be mad we missed all of her drama?"

Ghost snorted.

"Nah. Probably not. Besides, this isn't something we'll inform her of anyway."

"We'll have to bring her in eventually."

"Yes." Ghost smiled. "Look at you, all grown up and ready to trust people, instead of the constant paranoia of keeping everyone in the dark!"

"I learned some harsh lessons. Both ways."

The apparition's eyes and tone softened.

"I know." She placed a hand on the dungeon core's shoulder, squeezing it softly. "But you're here. You made it."

"Yeah..." The dungeon core sighed. "Any updates on the Guild situation?"

"Glitch has started looking into Darthar and Erakis' records, which made me feel pretty stupid for not thinking about it." Alexandra tilted her head, and the apparition shrugged. "Why would they bother making illegal expeditions? Too high a risk of being discovered and tipping us off. So they probably filed the proper paperwork for proper wasteland expeditions, and launched them from the closest cities to boot."

"That...makes a lot of sense. And makes me feel like an idiot for not thinking of it."

"I know, right? Anyway. She's been digging into it, but they use paper and it's going to take a bit to dig it up discreetly, not to mention scan and digest all of it. On my end, I can confirm that the weapons aren't being stored in the wrecks. They're being temporarily held there until they're smuggled out, usually by attendants and trusted adventurers. The problem is that I can't track down where they go from there as they move through the guild hall and that place is locked too tightly, even for the stealth golems."

"Attendants? Is..."

"No. Dominique seems clean. I think. It's hard to say for sure but they seem to be keeping her completely in the dark about this." They had her under constant surveillance. Not to spy on her, but to protect her. Raika and the rest of Alexandra's old party had insisted. "Probably so she doesn't have to lie. She is on the council after all."

"When she does attend." Which she was doing, less and less.

"I think she realizes relations aren't going well and hopes that keeping a low profile will help with mending relations."

"It would have if the guild wasn't so dead set on killing me. All we want is for them to stay out of the damned way."

"Agreed."

"Did Raika and the others get anything useful?"

"They're all doing it as discreetly as possible in their own way. Generally, not much, except for Fernand. For some reason people seem to be a lot more open with alchemists. Though in this case it's probably because it has to do with his business and some don't realize he's an adventurer too. Potions haven't gone up in price, but they're always low on stock in the whole city, despite new alchemists arriving constantly and production increasing."

"Interesting. I'm assuming they're buying just below the threshold at which Allya would be told there's a shortage." Alexandra frowned. "Which means they're getting desperate and in a hurry. They wouldn't need to buy up to the point people would notice if they had time."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Well, I'd love to put a tracker in Fernand's potions and see where they're going, but I don't want to put him in undue danger. Plus, let's be real, they're probably avoiding buying from him." Which in turn, might be sending clients to him who couldn't get their large potion stacks for resupplies from other shops, hence the complaining.

"Yeah. Anyway, with Glitch's record delving, we might have some rough vectors or at least directions to where we can find those expeditions. Even if it's just to confirm they're at their normal, scheduled position or not, it beats having to send the recon crafts you're making at random in the wasteland and hope for the best."

"It wouldn't be at random, I can come up with a search pattern. But you're right. Plus, since we'll know where they left, we might be able to track them."

"Track them?"

"Yeah with...I don't know...residual heat signatures?"

"Residual heat signatures. In the desert."

"You know what I mean! They might leave trash, and other stuff like that."

Ghost snickered.

"Eh. Tracking via snack wrappings."

"Perhaps. I mean they're certainly not going to store all of their waste." That was actually becoming a problem on the trade route. With everyone dumping their stuff as they went, and the ever increasing density of trade, things were starting to get messy. Allya's people had already designated waste dump sites, and there was actual talk of having some of the patrols, who'd run out of monsters to keep at bay, start enforcing more benign regulations. They were still technically at war, had declared the birth of the single largest Empire on Alcheryos in a millenia, and there were discussions of using military airships to track down and reduce littering in a wasteland. Man, governments were weird. "It'll be better than a search pattern, and a good place to run some tests."

"Fair enough. Can't really argue with that."

There was a brief commotion, and Alexandra glanced at Emilia as the vampire came towards them, dragging Glitch behind. She had a sudden flash. That...wasn't something Emilia did. Or herself.

That was something Arcadia did.

"Found something already?" Asked the dungeon core, trying to shake off the sense of unease that had briefly filled her.

"I did." Emilia gestured at some of the holograms, and then glared at her girlfriend, who blushed and brought them forward after the system failed to comply. Right, she needed to do some adjustments. And probably get Emilia some interfacing with the dungeon systems. They'd been talking about it, as the vampires wouldn't need implants, as they were more or less augmented to begin with and already jacked into the network.

The vampire started pointing at the data.

"When you said it was smaller than it should be, the first thing that came to mind would be a simple distorsion spell. It's something that was used for airships a lot, especially for pirates. Making them smaller and thus further away than they were. But divination and sensors see right through it, creating a disrepancy. It's why military crafts don't use it, there's no real point since anything they'd need this against would most likely be scanning in every direction anyway."

Alexandra nodded. That made sense. Even the Asarian Kingdom, for whom a steam engine was basically an eldritch terror, used magic based sensors for target detection on their airships, and didn't rely on some guy with mark one eyeballs in a crow's nest on top of the balloon. And on Alcheryos the eyeballs may be considerably more advanced than usual sometimes.

"I see. So, since it's not that. Then what did your dazzling intelect uncover?"

"Well, I started wondering what could do this. You know, appearing smaller but when you actually take measurements through divination it looks normal? And I remembered my mom ranting about some vaults and Erisian bases. And that's when I remembered!" She gestured at a schematic. Was that...the magazines for the Mackies Mk 2?

Alexandra blinked, opened her mouth, then froze for a second.

"Oh." She finally said. "They're using...spatial manipulation?"

"Exactly! The Citadel is like in a spatial bag. I don't know...why it's like that or what benefits it would offer, but they are."

Alexandra looked at Ghost.

They both could come up with a lot of them. Smaller target if you wished to hit them with direct fire weapons, and depending on how you did it and if the other side knew, it probably would confuse the ever living shit out of enemy guidance systems for missiles and other smart munitions.

Hell, it might be a part of how that station moved around. Whatever it was doing, it sure as shit wasn't through hyperspace. So no teleportation or more conventional jumps. Though weirdly enough, Alexandra could swear it felt like the station was singing when it moved.

It also explained why the station was divided into quadrants, seemingly made to fire in sequence. Why not shoot everything at once in a broadside? Because exiting the bubble might cause your ordnance to clump up and hit each other. Or at least interfere. And with guns that size you really didn't need to worry about the enemy having shields and overwhelming them with a massed volley, you'd litterally hammer the bubble into the planet's crust if it survived the hit. So it was purpose designed for it.

"Gah! Stop doing that."

Alexandra blinked, and smiled as she looked at Emilia.

"Do what?"

"This! Having a whole silent conversation just looking at each other! It's worse than twins!"

"I mean..." Alexandra's smile got wider.

"Yes, yes. You're copies of each other. Technically better than twins. I get it." Alexandra could swear she heard a whsipered 'you'd think it was a two in one package in the bedroom too...', but she decided to ignore it, though she failed to hide her blush. She didn't even need to look at Ghost to know she had the same reaction, she could feel it through their link. "It is still infuriating."

"Alright, alright!" Alexandra held her hands up. "We can lay it out for you."

"That would be appreciated." She sniffed haughtily, and the dungeon core smiled.

"Understood. It would help defending against attack, is the simplest and most obvious one. Because, if it's compressed space, you're still technically a smaller target, right?"

"Yeah. I'm wondering how they're doing it though. I know it's possible to do spatial magic within an enclosed space, even one with an opening. But I've never heard of it just done around something."

"If the Gods created magic, I highly doubt they wouldn't know more than we do. Even before the Great Night they probably kept a lot of tricks up their sleeves."

"I know...I just hope we can learn what they did before you destroy it."

Alexandra couldn't help it. She melted. The vampire's faith in her and that she would eventually be victorious was just...too much.

She picked up her girlfriend and hugged her.

"Awww! Don't worry, I'll store some bits for you. But first, we have to figure out how to blast it. And, you know, survive the retaliation."

Because if there was one thing she knew, it was that you didn't make a battle fortress like that without a 'go to hell' plan. Also known as 'launch everything we have and blast this general direction'. The kind that automatically launched if the core systems failed.

Generally that was made as a last resort retaliation. She knew Mars had one, as a deterrent. The problem was that on these plans you didn't really target specific installations, you just blasted anything you could reach.

In Sol that most likely would have thoroughly fucked a lot of the inner system infrastructure and shipping.

Here there was only one target. Alcheryos itself.

And those guns could probably crack the planet's crust.

Wasn't that going to be fun.