Chapter 28 - Debriefing

Note : Chapter 29 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 28

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

Sapphiria sat, suppressing the instinct to activate her camouflage and try to fade into the background as the mage-magistrate furiously paced on the other side of the table. She was amazed the woman hadn't dug a trench in the council room's floor already.

"So...let me get this straight. You went on a little expedition of 'reconnaissance in force'." Kalia made sure to mimic the quotation marks as she spoke. "And while doing so, stumbled upon a major Bane mining operation, trying to open a new way into the mines, and then not only caused the undead manning that operation to attack you, but won and ran for your lives?"

Sapphiria coughed.

"Technically, they were trying to reopen an old way into the mine, by digging into the...cave...in..." She licked her lips as Kalia glared at her. "It matters! It means that whoever is doing this has no idea what they're doing."

Kalia's gaze softened, becoming more thoughtful than frustrated.

"Why?"

"Because they shouldn't be mining the cave in. They should be trying to open a new shaft. Plus...I don't think just hitting rocks with pickaxes and hammers is the best way to remove them." Especially not when the entire place might be balanced on them.

"Alright. So they don't know what they're doing. Great. So instead of letting them keep on with a fruitless endeavor, you destroyed it."

Sapphiria opened her mouth, and closed it.

The mage-magistrate...had a point.

"Yes. But, in doing so, we have reinforced to them that we believe this pointless task may be truly worth pursuing, and we have regained the initiative."

"That is, until they attack again."

"If they do." Kalia stared at the AI, who shrugged. "I am making more reinforcements. Further expeditions, in other areas, may put them on the defensive. Get them thinking about protecting that worthless project and maybe even the pass, rather than attacking Astralis."

Kalia sighed, and seemed to visibly deflate.

"I really, truly hope you're right. Ancestors help us if you're not."

"I certainly will assist if they do not."

Kalia smiled.

"I know. Alright." She nodded towards Paul, who had stayed up and in the background, wisely keeping his mouth shut. "You're dismissed. Get out of my sight."

"Of course, magistrate." He bowed, and left.

Sapphiria watched him walk out of the room, before turning back towards Kalia.

"What's the problem with him? He was...extremely competent when we fought."

The mage-magistrate chuckled.

"Yeah. He was. That's part of the problem." Sapphiria tilted her head, and Kalia made a vague waving gesture as she sat down. "Notice what he calls me?"

"Yeah, magistrate?"

"Not the full title. He's a mage hunter."

Sapphiria blinked.

"People hunt mages?"

"Someone has to. It's not like a city guard can just put a practitioner of magic in irons the old fashioned way."

"Let me guess. Mage hunters aren't very well liked in the Magistracy."

"No, they're not. But they were...tolerated. Their expertise was sometimes, sadly needed."

"And was it?"

Kalia simply stared at the AI for a few seconds, long enough for an awkward silence to descend upon the room.

"Yes. He came for...someone under my employ. And ran afoul of Gregor along the way. He got captured, and tossed into a cell. Rotted there for a while until the evacuation began. I set him free, in exchange for his word to stop pursuing his contract and getting the hell out of my sight once we were out of dodge. He proved his worth on the way here, so I let him stay. Doesn't mean I have to like the man though."

Someone under her employ? Not Malry, or her brother Teman, though she didn't think he was a mage anyway. Ramina? That's what made the most sense.

"Gregor stopped him?"

"Looks can be deceptive. Paul's probably more skilled, but Gregor...he has experience. And experience outranks everything."

Sapphiria nodded. In her experience, firepower and good logistics outranked everything, but that was another discussion entirely.

"I see. And you entrusted him to bring me back?" Then suddenly, it clicked. "Wait a minute, did you instruct him to-"

"Don't ask questions you do not want answers to." Said Kalia, cutting her off, a slight blush on her cheeks. "He was here to protect you, and let's leave it at that."

Sapphiria leaned back into her seat. Kalia had almost certainly instructed the mage-hunter to knock her out and bring her back if necessary.

She wasn't sure if she should melt or get furious that a squishie had ordered another into harm's way for her.

"I see. Believe me, that wasn't necessary."

"So it seems. But I...we, can't afford to lose you, Sapphiria. Not when you're the only ray of hope we've had in so long."

Had Sapphiria possessed a heart, it would have skipped a beat. She felt her cheeks color despite herself.

That moment, when squishies look at you with that gaze and thank you for your help or put their hopes into you? She liked that moment. She liked it a lot.

"Why...I...Uh...Thank you!"

"No, thank you." Kalia cleared her throat. "So, what of your reinforcements now?"

"I will retreat down to my home, repair them, salvage what cannot be repaired, and then return with more than ever."

"For another 'reconnaissance in force', I assume?"

Sapphiria blushed and coughed.

"I, ah, will try something a bit less destructive this time. Maybe just a sweep to get rid of some wandering dead."

"A commendable endeavor. Some of my scouts have started deploying into the valley again, maybe they will be able to give you some useful intelligence by then."

"Let us hope. Do have them keep an eye on the ruins of...uh..."

"Mytran. The mining expedition's town was called Mytran. And I will. The response the Hand will have will be extremely important."

"Indeed." Sapphiria sighed as she received an alert from her bots. The one with the damaged knee -the arrow still in it-, had collapsed. Damn it, and he used to be such an adventurer...Eh. That would have gotten a laugh out of her mom. "I should probably return home now. My golems really need those repairs."

"Of course. Have a safe journey!"

"Thank you! And do stay safe yourself. I'll be back."

*****

"How are your squishies fairing ma'am?" Said Cia and Sapphiria popped back into the simulation. Her body was currently sprinting through the tunnels, after a short stop saying hi to Tramistres and her little posse of hunters-turned-sentries.

"They're doing quite well, I-" The AI blinked. "Did you just call them my squishies?"

She turned towards the simulacrum, but she had the best poker face she'd ever seen.

"Simply updating my vocabulary from my commanding officers and mission parameters."

Why, why oh why did they program them to have sass?

"I see. How did our expansion programs go in the meantime?"

"A second mineshaft is being excavated to accommodate the new mining bots. The new minecart loading and unloading stations have also been constructed."

Sapphiria nodded. The loading one was basically just a hopper, to dump an entire load into a cart as soon as it arrived, fed via a small conveyor belt and a robotic arm taking it shovelfuls from the pile the mining bots created.

The unloading was a bit simpler. Two big robot arms, that simply tipped the minecart, spilling its contents into a small pit that then fed the conveyor belt to the ore crusher and separator, before putting it back on the rails and sending it on its way.

"We need a better way to mine. Small bots aren't very good at it."

"Our environment has restrictions. However..." The simulacrum hesitated, and Sapphiria gestured, encouraging her to go on. "We are currently having problems for specific materials, while running an enormous surplus of others. The ore brought back from the stockpiles in the stronghold has helped alleviate that a great deal. May I recommend switching focus to the veins these ores came from?"

"That's...A very good idea." Ore veins didn't form in asteroids, so her entire system was built on just processing an homogenous mess of stellar debris, effectively, a mush of everything needed. But here, with water, tectonic movements, and all the other crap that went into making planets, well, planets, materials concentrated. Just mashing rocks wasn't going to get her very far. It was wasteful, even. "I'll start doing a detailed catalogue of veins I have come across, and see about deploying some security for mining operations there."

"Thank you ma'am. It would help a great deal."

"And this material surplus? Anything in particular we can do with it?"

"Metaconcrete? Most other products would require specialized processing and fabrication facilities."

"Mmmhhh. Well...the cargo bot is doing empty runs to the surface. Get a metaconcrete plant up on the schedule. The smallest model we have. Might even be useful walling in some tunnels."

"Yes ma'am."

"As for the junkbots-"

"I have downloaded their status reports and diagnostics. I have begun fabrication of spare parts and stand ready for salvage operations."

"Good job." The AI smiled. "But first, we're going to take some scans with the lab module."

"Ma'am?"

"We don't understand magic yet. But the effects it causes are physical. That means we can make better armor and other countermeasures." At least within reason. These things were just...stupidly good at armor piercing. Why? What had they been fighting that they needed the ability to pierce heavy armor that badly? Something to ask Kalia next time. Or Paul, he was remarkably talkative, without going into 'I have no lungs and I must rant' Gregor territory. "And of course, find ways to avoid our units becoming combat ineffective when they didn't have to."

"So...don't get shot?"

Sapphiria couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Yes! Always. But mostly, try to make sure that shots don't take you out when you do get hit." She pulled up the junkbots' schematics, and tapped the head. "See, simple thing. The enemy aimed for the head a lot. That means we move whatever parts aren't strictly needed to be there, and then turn it into a heavily armored fire magnet."

"Why not just...remove anything of use and not waste resources on armoring it up?"

"Because they'd shoot the head off and start attacking actual critical parts. Making it heavily armored not only makes it divert more fire for longer, but also an indication that it's important." It wasn't. Not for utility bots anyway. They had a lot of sensors and some data processing up there, but you could rip their head off and they'd still work perfectly well for most purposes. It was a bit more problematical for the junkbots since it would reduce their accuracy a lot, the processing power from the nodes ran some of the targeting systems, and the head had most of the rangefinder systems. "All war is deception Cia. We just need to be more deceptive than the enemy."

How had her aunt put it? 'Wars are just an unending cascade of bullshit and fuckups. You just need to make sure the enemy fucks up more than you, and that you're the better bullshitter.'

She should have been a poet.

"Understood ma'am. Perhaps..." The simulacrum hesitated again, but this time she was clearly marshalling her thoughts, so the AI gave her space. And some more processing power. "Perhaps we should design a specialized unit to draw fire then? The enemy seemed to go for the most obvious target presented to them. Perhaps there would be benefit to a unit whose goal would be purely to draw fire and not deal damage of their own."

Sapphiria gazed at the simulacrum in surprise.

"That's...genius." And something she should have thought of. It's exactly what Kalia's people had done with their shieldbearers when she'd met them. "And I believe we have some stuff for this, in the riot control schematics."

"The Riotbots have similar parameters as to what we need."

"Yep. And they'd have the ability to hold a horde at bay, allowing the junkbots to keep firing. We can even give them maces instead of riot batons to make them truly combat effective." The AI smiled. "Good idea Cia!"

"Thank you ma'am. I am happy to be of service."

"Alright then, let's start on some designs! Time to crush some bone bastards into dust."

"Bonemeal."

The AI blinked.

"What?"

"Crushed bones make bonemeal. Not dust."

"I..." The AI facepalmed. "Fine. Let's crush some bastards into bonemeal."