Chapter 261 - Strategic Shift

Note : Ow. No new chapter to add to the queue, IRL medical issues (hell potential tooth cavity) and other stuff.

Chapter 261

Plains of Ulnor, Republic Borderlands

Village of Tuski

Coledar, former general of the Elkis Republican Army, and now the second in command of the whole New Republic's Army of Liberation, grimaced as he rubbed his behind.

One thing he'd been happy to leave behind during the march through the wasteland had been horse riding. Unfortunately, if he wanted to keep up with the Ignis assault battalion, he didn't really have a choice. They may only have one 'calvary' unit, but the rest of the battalion was made up of dragoons.

Though, thankfully their logistics train was top notch, if made of madmen. You hadn't lived until you'd seen someone construct fortifications out of supply crates, including ones containing gunpowder.

But they got their job done better than anyone else, and that was that. Just like with special forces, you had to swallow some quirks for quality.

He was on the front lines of their advance, to get a feel for what was going on. Right now he could see the occasional flash of gunfire and puff of smoke as Ignis' skirmishers', mostly Jay's raptors, their 'cavalry', but a few infantry as well, annihilated what remained of the picket force screening the approaches to the village.

He almost yelped as something with far too many teeth emerged from a nearby brush, a grinning captain on top of it.

Thankfully his horse was well trained, better than he anyway, and didn't even blink as the raptor came to a stop by its side.

"General Coledar, sir!" Called out Jay, after whom Ignis' so called 'cavalry' was named. "You may want to take a look at this. They've built a militia!"

Coledar blinked, and took the binoculars the captain was offering, though he didn't even see his subordinate draw it from the saddle pouches.

He brought them to his eyes, and focused on the distant village.

Damn. He was right. There was a remarkably well organized militia out there. He'd have expected all the civilians to run for the hills, or failing that, hunker down somewhere, not take up arms.

Something nagged him. There were too many militia. That was a good chunk of the population of the village. Pretty much everyone in condition to take up arms in fact. That…didn't make any sense. The New Republic had broad popular support, he knew that. So even if their foe managed to get his supporters under arms, he sure as hell wouldn't have trusted them with weaponry.

He focused, saw a flash of skin, and froze in horror.

One of the militiamen, a lumberjack given his build…he had something on his skin.

A brand.

One he'd seen from intelligence reports of the civil war up north, the one their greatest ally -and former enemy- was busy fighting.

"Oh shit." He said out loud, and shook his head as Jay looked at him, almost askance. "Those aren't militia captain. They're slaves. The senate…they're using Sunrise's slave brands."

The captain's face went through several expressions, before settling on pure, unbridled rage.

"Captain, I want you to go down there." The general pointed at the village. "And get me as many prisoners as possible, including among the regulars. We need to know how they got those brands, and how widespread they are."

"Yes sir." The captain didn't like the order, he was clearly itching to pin every single soldier to a wall and set them alight for what they'd done to the village's population, but he would obey.

"And once you've found who is doing this, I want you to requisition whatever resources is necessary, and hunt them down."

This time the captain smiled, and so did his mount. It was hard to tell which was the most vicious, and Coledar shuddered. What the raptor…intelligent? Or was it just sensing the mood and going along?

He decided he was better off not knowing.

"General, it will be my utmost pleasure." Said Jay, before spurring his mount and disappearing back into the brush, rushing lest Coledar countermand his own order.

He wasn't going to. Heads would roll for this.

He turned towards his aide, the major looking physically ill at what she'd just witnessed.

"We need to get back to the camp now. We must warn general Amelia. And we need to confer with our allies in Rebirth. Immediately."

The major nodded, and they rode off, their escort surrounding them as the sounds of battle from the village redoubled, and the air filled with war cries.

*****

"Fuck me." Said Anders as he looked at the images, projected above the council table. They were pictures, taken by mages and sent through arcane means to Erakis, where Alexandra had moved them on through more conventional ones. "They gave the Republic the brands?"

"We really should have seen this coming." Said Allya, bitterly. "It was only a question of time until they did something like this. I thought…I thought they wouldn't dare because it would cause a rebellion, but they're desperate."

Alexandra, in her ambassador golem, gave her a look, but Allya ignored the dungeon core. She knew the Earth-born thought they were equally to blame, but damn it, that woman had been on Alcheryos less than two years! Of course she couldn't bear the full responsibility of missing that. Especially not when Allya had been the one to do a lot of political briefings, including on the Elkis Republic, and now on the Eris Empire.

She dearly hoped she wasn't as wrong about her homeland as she had been about the Republic.

"Of course they're desperate, their entire army turned against them." Said Eismi, practically shaking with controlled rage. Everyone stared at her, and she hissed. "My sister and I, we were…afraid something like this would happen."

"Not the whole army." Noted Willard, looking considerably less stressed now that Darthar was freed and Sunrise's army in full retreat. "Some elements are still loyal to the senate. Just none that went to Erakis. And with the Hegemony refusing to attack…"

"They'll be able to reposition and try to hold the New Republic off." Finished Allya.

"Emphasis on 'try'." Said Alexandra with a toothy smile. "With our support, they have gotten a lot more firepower than the other side expects. It's part of why they were able to take that village with so few casualties amongst the militia."

Everyone nodded. Even Dominique. The adventurers guild had apparently made the decision to back off for the moment, which worried Allya little bit. She didn't believe they would have let this go without a fight, and that meant that they were planning something else.

Because that's what they needed, yet another faction throwing their hats back into this mad ring.

"But that's unlikely to be repeated." Said Allya. "Even though their feat was heroic, there will come a time where slaves will bear the brunt of this fight."

"What about the population? Will they rise up?" Asked Melia, and everyone shook their heads.

"With those brands, they can just turn any rebel into an enforcer." The baroness answered. "Any uprising that doesn't gain total control immediately or suborn the local garrison will collapse. Furthermore, they'll probably start turning people preemptively. This will decimate their economy and flatline their industrial production, but I'm guessing they don't care. In the end, that will destroy them. They won't be able to win the war. What it does mean is they'll get ten, fifteen times more people killed and turn the Republic into a depopulated wasteland before they fall."

The silence was deafening, as everyone chewed on that.

They adjourned the meeting. What could anyone possibly retort to that? The baroness was right.

*****

Eismi slammed the door closed as her sister sat down -collapsed, really- onto their house's couch, her head buried in her hands.

"We failed." Said the alchemist, and her twin shook her head.

"Not yet. But we're out of time." She bit her lower lip. "The problem is shipping."

"And what, you have a solution?"

"Darthar is free again. We'll need to use smugglers, however."

"The baroness, the dungeon core…they'll find out. You know they're not what they seem." At this point they were starting to genuinely wonder if that was their most deadly secret.

They knew the dungeon core hadn't actually stolen a lot of her tech. She'd built it on her own.

And that she had access to Old World technology.

Neither of them wished to know what the dungeon core would be willing to do to keep that kind of thing secret.

Actually, no, they knew.

They'd both seen what had happened to Amelia's army. The overlapping craters, the field of shredded corpses…

Eismi shuddered. Even now, you could see the scars on the Fields of Sorrow, outside the city's walls.

"Maybe. But we have to try. We owe Rook that much."

Ellyana sighed.

"...Alright. I'll get everything read to move."

"Cheer up. At least there'll be so much traffic to and from Darthar we'll have a chance of burying it."

That perked up the alchemist a bit. It was true after all, the baroness was preparing to visit, and already trade ships were rushing for the other city, to resupply it, and in turn pack their holds with whatever Rebirth needed. There'd be a mad dash to make deals and get cargo where it needs to be, especially with all the ships that had been trapped in the trade city.

"I suppose so. Still…they scare me."

She didn't need to precise who 'they' was.

You only needed to watch her shiver whenever she looked at the mesa fortress, and its menacing guns poking out.

They knew these guns couldn't have been built without the schematics they'd provided.

For good or ill, they'd unleashed a tiger, and now they had to ride it 'till the show was over.

"They scare me too." Admitted the artificer. "They scare me too…"

They exchanged a look.

Their conviction burned hotter than their fear. And as long as it would, they'd follow their cause, no matter the cost.

"Then let's get to work." Said the alchemist, firmly, and her twin nodded.

"Let's."

*****

Alexandra grinned as she entered the laboratory. At this point, working on prototypes or visiting her merry band of mad scientists was a holiday.

"Alright, what do you got for me?" She said as Ghost stepped away from one of the tables, where a strange relic laid. Despite attempts to make it look arcane, it was clearly Old World technology.

"Well, I've studied this thing." Her other self gestured at the device. "Good news is, you won't need to risk absorbing it."

"What? Why?"

"Because this." The apparition tapped the relic. "Is a standard part, the kind we can sort of duplicate through the fabricators. It’s a Sagittarian landship's IFF transponder. Only thing we need to get our own working is the codes."

"An-The Sand Krakens are weapons?!?"

"Sure seems to be."

"They made self replicating-No. No they didn't." Alexandra grimaced. "If they weren't willing to trust their AIs, they wouldn't trust living weapons either."

"That means that someone made them able to reproduce, or is actively building more to keep the illusion. Three guesses as to who has the resources to do that, and a proven tendency to use Old World 'remnants' as their hit squad."

"...The Church has a lot to answer for."

"That it does. And it explains why the sand krakens don't venture into lands with plentiful mana. Wouldn't want them killing the dungeon towns, now would they?"

"But…why? The automata I could understand, but why these things?"

The apparition shrugged.

"Because they wanted to prevent large groups from moving in and overwhelming some of the more fortified Old World facilities? Or just to restrict commerce and military deployments through the wasteland? Who knows at this point. They might have done it just as extra insurance, to help slow things down."

"Fucking beautiful. Now it even calls into question the wasteland monsters."

"Yes. How convenient that they're unwilling to get too close to Old World ruins most of the time, eh? Though they seem willing to attack dungeon towns."

"I doubt they'd be much of a threat to a dungeon core." Alexandra gritted her teeth. "And they'd make a fantastic source of dungeon defenders for the cores."

"You're right. Crap." The apparition sighed. "Well, great. Another piece to this mad puzzle."

"Yep. By the way, Kara is going to need a new mech. An updated design, if possible."

"I'm sure CQ already has one in mind."

"You mean 'I'm sure our daughter has a full list of features, and detailed plans for a uniform and armor for her pet once it's grown up', right?"

"Hey, I brought you back so you'd handle this kind of thing, not me."

"Coward."

The apparition smiled.

"It's called choosing your battles wisely."

"Uh uh." Alexandra shook her head. "Alright. Damn. Well this begs a lot more questions than it answers, but…it's ready to go, right? I can send it with the army?"

"Yes. I've copied the data on it. And recorded the code broadcasts. It wasn't easy, and as usual it's encrypted to hell, but even if we lose it we should be fine. I think."

"Good. No one will expect us to be able to duplicate it after having so little time with it at our home base. And I'd rather keep it that way."

"Leaving soon?"

"Allya is going to make a ceremony out of the army's departure, then hop on a ship with Pyn and go to Darthar. With a significant escort of course."

The apparition nodded. They didn't have the resources to make another capital ship, but they had a squadron of brand new Raiders nearing completion, and the fleet that had rescued Amelia was nearing the end of their overhaul. They couldn't retrofit the first raiders with barbettes, but they'd still gotten the new datalinks and other miscellaneous upgrades. Overall, they would make more than satisfactory close in escorts for the So Much For Subtlety.

"Reminds me, bringing Subtlety home?" Said Ghost.

"Probably, yeah. She needs repairs, badly. So does the Grehai. I'll have them leave as soon as Allya arrives. We also really need to start working on a dedicated escort."

"Waaaay ahead of you on that front."

"Oh?" Alexandra's eyebrow rose. "How so?"

"I brewed up a concept with Seraph, called the Tetsudo-class. Arcane, regenerating shields that can be deployed into a pane instead of a bubble, allowing them to overlap and complete each other to shield another ship. Hence the name."

"I…didn't know that was possible."

"Neither did I. Emilia told me though."

"Glad you two are talking."

Ghost coughed. Better she wasn't aware of all they discussed.

Once Alexandra found out she'd been feeding ammo to her girlfriend, she'd be the one having trouble sitting down.

"Well, yeah, we couldn't just stay there, looking at each other until one drops dead. Besides, she seems to like me. Kind of like a sister in law of sorts? Not sure."

"I suppose that's fair." They had loved Leah, after all. She had been their sibling in all but blood. "Alright, then let's get this thing to the forces topside. We need to get moving."

"Aye aye, captain."

"Fuck off."

They both laughed.

"More seriously. Good hunting." Ghost didn't need to wish her other self luck.

They made their own. It was called 'artillery supremacy'.

"Thanks. It's high time Sunrise got a taste of our true might."