Chapter 268 - Making Contact

Note : Chapter 271 has been written and added to the queue, kicking off book 8 !

Chapter 268

Red Sands Desert, Duchy of Sarth

Wreck of the Flickerlight

She was in. Only inside an airlock, true, but in nonetheless.

Because as any maintenance airlock did, there were easy to access network connections and technical panels. Which could be a pain in the ass if, like her and Ghost, you'd found out no one came to this place in the otherwise crowded ship unless there was a prescheduled maintenance, and it was utterly soundproof, thus making it an excellent and discreet meeting place.

Which in their case had made it prime territory for someone looking for some alone quality time with a fellow spacer. Especially if one wasn't particularly quiet during such quality time.

Alexandra found the intercom panel, and quickly accessed the network maintenance panel. Rule one: don't jack into the comm system, that's where all the defences are. Fortunately, most had easy to maintain, far less protected wires and hubs, if you knew what you were doing.

She most definitely knew what she was doing. The golem jacked in with no problem. Though, she was using Sagitarian tech straight out of a fabricator, these systems had literally been designed to interact with each other, had there been a problem she would have been amazed.

Immediately, she realized that there was an active network there. Not just a quiet one either. She couldn't dive into it, not without tripping security programs, but she could feel the echos of the traffic, by the pulses the system sent to avoid overriding other communications.

Alright, now…what should she send? She wasn't confident enough to try hacking into it, especially not when Ghost hadn't managed to crack the fabricators yet.

Mmmhhh…The Glimmer-class had been designed and built by Arianne Aerospace Defense, the European Union's semi governmental arms contractor for space warfare. AAD had almost gone under after the Terran Hegemony war and funding was redirected towards clean up efforts, and been bought out by an up and coming artificial intelligence named Arcadia. That's why she'd met the AI when overseeing the pipeline for the Glimmers' overhaul, she basically made the ships. AAD was the foothold that had gotten Arcadia into the defense sector, and became the dominant, and eventually basically only, supplier of the newly formed EFSN.

Though, of course, that latter part you could only know if you were Ghost, and had had access to the records stating that Arcadia owned the controlling shares in her remaining 'competitors', small as they were.

Hyperspace had been discovered and invented long after all the Glimmers had been retrofitted by Arcadia. Which meant any schematic or program that had gotten here would be Arcadia Systems, in one way or another. It wasn't for certain, but…well, it was worth a shot. After all, Seraph had been an Arcadia Systems AI, just not an Arcadia. Not until Alexandra herself had contaminated them with the kernel anyway.

System, system. She sent over the network.

There was a pause in activity, and then-

Acknowledged. Statement: Secure system, batmode lockdown. Query: Identify?

Okay. So the ship was still in battle mode and on full lock to prevent enemy hacking, both internally and externally. An odd provision for external attempts, but better safe than sorry where cyberwarfare was concerned, especially when AIs might be involved on both sides.

The 'internal' part of that protocol was more immediately applicable however.

She hesitated. The system wouldn't be able to read her network ID like Subtlety had, but…what should she send? The AI clearly acknowledged the Arcadia standard hail, but sending her CENTCOM ID might trigger a reaction she wasn't prepared for. After all, the Sagitarius Empire had massively distrusted their AIs, there had to have been a reason.

But…they did revere the EFSN and its high ranking officers like they were saints.

It was worth a shot at least.

ID: EFSN FLEET-HIGHCOM 1

There was another pause.

Query: Serial Number, Auth Code.

Serial Number: Zero, zero, eight, six, three, six, eight, omega, epsilon. Authentification Code: alpha-theta.

Processing…confirmed. Visitor access authorized.

Oooookay. So it had recognized her, and for some forsaken reason that allowed her visitor access to the ship, like a civilian VIP. In battle mode that was…limited.

But still, the ship was talking to her. That was massive. She could do a lot with that, especially since she knew the ins and outs of Arcadias and the other AI types she made.

Query: Com-stat?

Asking about the status of its chain of command was tricky, but she should be allowed to.

Com-stat: CIC, OFF. Bridge, OFF. FLEETCOM, OFF. NAVCOM, OFF. ARCADIA CENTCOM-5, OFF.

Alexandra nodded as she read the message. Okay, so it had registered that the Combat Information Center and the Bridge had been taken out. The fact that it acknowledged that fleet and naval command had been destroyed meant it had confirmation they had been, which was interest-

ARCADIA CENTCOM?!?

That…

Oh.

Oh shit.

Arcadia had seven CENTCOMs, or central commands. One through three were on or orbiting Earth. Four was on Luna. Alexandra was six and seven was apparently the one in charge of the doomsday deep space station Arcadia had made to produce the planetkiller weapon schematics Ghost had given her.

But five…five was for Alpha Centauri.

Crap. Crap crap crap. An Arcadia core had made it here? How?!? Not one had been lost to hyperspace! And-

Wait, how could Arcadia be there? The Sagitarius Empire was scared shitless of AIs. Why would they have her on the command list?

…Arcadia had intended to take over the European Federation eventually. Had already been well on her way to having puppeteered the legislative branch by the battle of Europa, and been happily chipping away at the executive ever since, from what she could tell.

That…Arcadia trying to take over the Sagitarius Empire would explain a lot.

What the actual hell had happened on this planet?!?

Query: CAP, KIA. XO, KIA. ComOff All, KIA. NonComOff All, KIA. Initiate Omnicron Protocol?

…Shit.

With all of its officers, commissioned or not, killed in action, the ship was trying to reach out for someone to take command of the ship.

And since she'd had visitor access…she was considered aboard the ship as well as de facto part of its crew for the voyage. And for some forsaken reason, being a VIP put her in the chain of people the AI could brevet as captain, even if it was literally the last person on the list, she was still there.

That could be a lucky break, or suicide. She'd already subverted Seraph, she wasn't worried about stepping too far now. But there was no way the God of Fire wasn't watching this location, with the crashed starship, and there was no telling what might activate once the chain of command was restored. Although…

She'd done stuff she shouldn't have gotten away with, like her raid on the supply ship escorting the Hammer of Eternity. Yes, her shuttle were stealthed, but she'd had multiple high tech firefights on top of and inside the ship. She even had to have the ship self destruct to take out the evidence.

And the Order clearly could move full sized, suborbital shuttles around, she'd seen the landing traces back when she'd awakened as a dungeon core. And somehow she doubted they were as stealthed as hers were.

Mmmhhh…Everything she'd seen indicated the God of Fire's lackeys were a lot less omniscient and omnipotent than they'd like to admit, and that they had to resort to tricks and backstabs to keep their hold on the planet.

Still. Not something to be done lightly. Just a comm ping to notify the ship was back online with a new captain might kill them all. Better to take it slow.

Negative. Delay Omnicron Protocol. Run system diagnostic. She answered.

Access Denied.

Crap. Alright. She was going to need to feel her way around with the level of authorization they'd give a VIP, someone you wanted to keep out of the way of all the actually important stuff.

This was going to be a long day.

*****

Helmgor, baron of the White Sands, and soon to be dungeonslayer, looked critically at his team as they assembled.

They were few, but they were powerful. They'd learned from the Republic's attempts. Numbers wouldn't carry this fight. What was needed was a surgical strike by a honed scalpel. Take out the core, and leave.

The problem was going to be the advisor and her maids. The golems were of no consequence, not if they couldn't mass their firepower against them like they had against Falmagar. Luckily, the vampires had many enemies.

He wondered if the UDC would have approved of using the neutralizers. Even they had to be squeamish about killing an advisor that way. But there was no choice, there must be no witnesses left behind.

Just death, and mysteries.

He had five people besides himself in the team. An archmage, Emylris, countess of Kolotan. Niece to the late Falmagar, she was eager to avenge her uncle's ignominious death. Then came his strong frontline, Kimitar and Amida, brother and sister, fellow knights of the Riders of Dawn and baronets of the Silver Isles, though in truth they knew enough magic to be paladins in all but name.

Last came those he was hesitant to have along, but understood the importance of. Nairi was an elven archer, a commoner who had clawed her way out of the slave pits through sheer effort of will and her ability to hunt the most dangerous of monsters, freed by her master for saving his life during a hunt, and steadily climbing the ranks ever since.

Olroi on the other hand had killed his way out of the pits, climbed on the bodies of his fellow slaves. No one wished to have a slave assassin, let alone one utterly devoid of morals, but he was too useful not to use. Which was, incidentally, why he could be trusted. He knew that without the duchess' -or her spymaster's- patronage he was a dead man thirty times over. That meant that, even if his soul was probably being prepared a custom welcome in the deepest reaches of the darkest hell, he was reliable.

"Are we ready?" Asked the baron. He may be of lesser birth than Emylris, but he was Knight-General of the Riders of Dawn, the duchess' own knightly order. He spoke with her voice, and none would dare deny him.

Besides which, Emylris was an old friend. He might even forgive her for marrying his little brother and drawing him away from his knighthood, one day.

"Everything is good on my end." Said Emylris. She sounded distracted, which was understandable. She was an astral mage, one of the eight great arcanas, and the one which dealt with the communication crystals, pocket dimensions…and teleportation. She might still not be the equal of the archmages that ruled the Saphire Kingdom, but she'd forgotten more about teleportation magic that every other mage in the Kingdom combined could ever hope to learn. "The locus is ready, I have locked the location, and I have gathered enough power to punch through anything."

"Will it be enough? The previous assault…"

The archmage laughed.

"Those incompetent lowborn Republic pricks knew nothing of astral magic. They were handed a teleporter made by people a million times more competent than they ever were, and a user manual for idiots. I wouldn't be surprised if they messed it up in a dozen different ways and only saved by the failsafes. What happened once we're in, however, is up to you."

The two commoners in the room didn't comment on the lowborn jab. They were used to it.

"Will you have a shield up?" Asked Kimitar, his sister nodding by his side.

"Impossible. Not if you wish to avoid risking being spread over half the continent." Said the archmage. "Even I have my limits. I can teleport us all the way to Rebirth with no risks, or protect us, not both."

"We'll take care of any foes." Simply said the baron. "I will project my own barrier. And push comes to shove, our personal wards will take the shots. Nairi, Olroi, you'll have to take out any artillery we may encounter. We will try to arrive in a different area that the Republic did, but that does not mean the dungeon core doesn't have surprises for us."

"Our emergence point is the labyrinth, correct?" Asked the elven ranger, and he nodded.

"Yes. We know that it can be breached, and exited into the dungeon's hidden pathways. And it should be high up enough that security will be lighter. We shan't be expected."

"Good." The elf went back to inspecting her arrows, and the baron turned towards the assassin.

"Your mission is to take out the advisor and maids once we encounter them."

"I have the neutralizer. It should be easy." The baron almost flinched as Olroi pulled out a dagger, seemingly out of nowhere.

"Still, just in case, Amida will have a backup."

"I don't miss my mark, baron."

"Neither do they, shadowblade." The baron smiled as the assassin recoiled slightly. "Don't be fooled by their fancy uniforms. They're not like the duchess' playthings. They're elite soldiers that have drunk the blood of thousands. You may be a successful killer, but so are they."

"Then it may be a worthy fight yet."

Helmgor frowned, but continued on to the siblings.

"As for you two, I want Amida with me, and Kimitar with Emylris. I'll need someone to help me push through, and we know the dungeon loves to snipe mages. Don't let her."

"Yes my lord!" Shouted both knights.

"Alright then. We're as ready as we'll ever be. Emylris? Do it."

Everyone finished their little preparations, and gathered inside the complex patterns inlaid into the crystal floor.

Reality screamed, and suddenly they were somewhere else.