Chapter 235 - Diversion

Note : Chapters 236, 237 and 238 have been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 235

Parval Volcanic Fields, Tark Hegemony

City of Tark

"Are you ready?" Said the Order operative, as Orzal Vek, formally of the Elkis Republican Army, and now a 'compulsory' recruit of the Order to Restore Humanity, looked up from the small book he had been reading.

"No one ever is." He couldn't read the operative's facial expressions through their armored face mask, but he could tell they were unimpressed. "But as ready as I'll ever be, yes."

"Then we will depart imminently."

The operative turned around and vanished from his room. The ex-colonel watched them leave, before sighing and closing his book.

He knew just enough to realize that wherever he was, it was some kind of safehouse of this…'Order'. He had also been given considerable material pertaining to what would happen to him if he turned his vest.

And very little of it had to do with the Order's own punishment.

Which brought him to the unpalatable fact that he had no choice but to cooperate, unless he wished to be tortured to death as a heretic by the Custodians or the Inquisition. Wonderful.

He packed up what little he had with practiced efficiency. Once he'd had a manor, a townhouse, and several estates, all hidden behind multiple layers of obfuscation, but still. Now all he owned was contained in a single bag. Ironically, his stand against the senate's corruption had robbed him of the fruits of his own. Well, at least he could trust his sister and brother in law to manage them well. They'd had plenty of experience at that after all.

He felt a pang as he thought about what little of a family he had, before shaking himself.

First priority: figure out what the hell he'd gotten 'volunteered' into.

Then…well, there had to be someone out there who could protect him from the Order, and wouldn't flay him alive just for having been conscripted into their ranks.

He just had to find them.

*****

"Well this fucking sucks." Said Allya bluntly as she looked at the images.

Alexandra nodded. She hadn't -quite- solved the long range data transmission problem, though she was getting close, so they'd had to wait for a full review of the results of the reconnaissance flight over Darthar until the blackbird came home.

The brand new, still staggeringly expensive blackbird. She had genuinely considered just using her raiders for recon, but had been swayed by Allya, who pointed out that it would ruin the element of surprise for the first attack.

Then the meeting had gone onto…other subjects. Their ambush wasn't quite ready yet, thanks to some delays and additions, but it should be even better now.

"What's the problem?" Asked Emilia, quietly. The vampire was highly aware of how thoroughly outclassed she was in terms of military knowledge in the room, even compared to CQ. It still didn't stop her from asking questions, thankfully. Part of what made her a great person was that she wasn't afraid to admit her ignorance on a particular topic and try to solve it, even if only a little bit.

Alexandra sighed. She hadn't been able to take a deep dive into the images -the screen on the airplane wasn't made for detail work and she couldn't have Seraph analyze it-, but she'd had a bad feeling from the get go.

"They're fully dug in. But they dug in intelligently." She tapped a few controls on the command center's holographic projector, and four spots became highlighted on the massive ring of field fortifications surrounding the city. "Sunrise's army has deployed in a circle around the city. Wide enough to allow their own artillery to shred anyone trying to sortie through the shield without putting their frontlines in danger, but close enough to be able to cover the retreat of a potential assault force. The problem is, they didn't stop at just trenches and barracks. These four places? They're fortresses."

"Fortresses? That's-"

"Perfectly possible if you have hundreds of thousands of slaves on hand and you don't care if some are worked to death." Grimly said Allya. "That's the kind of manpower they're working with."

Alexandra nodded.

"And this is probably only the tip of the iceberg." The dungeon core manipulated the projector again, and hypothetical underground sections appeared. "If I were them, I'd have built deep as well. Barracks for their most elite units, tunnels to reinforce other spots in the defensive line…And cargo warehouses."

"So…what's that then?" Asked Emilia as she pointed at the collection of crates and various other cargo containers trying really hard to look like desert under some poorly camouflaged tarps.

"That, is a giant piece of bait."

"They must have heard about the piracy campaign, figured we'd got for their supplies." Said Allya. "Dig in, put the supplies in underground bunkers, then put all the crates and such in a nice, open area that just so happens to be in between two fortresses. It looks to be the best place to strike, but I'm guessing those fortresses just so happen to have overlapping fields of fire and a lot of artillery already calibrated to hit the area or anything trying to attack it."

"Yep. And that's why we're going to attack it." Everyone stared at Alexandra in shock for a second as the dungeon core smiled. "Of course, while the ships go for the giant bloody ham hung from the ceiling, the marines will be making their way towards one of the fortresses on the other side of the city…"

"I mean no offense Alex." The baroness gestured at the hologram. "But I've seen your marine raiding force. They can't take one of those fortresses. Nor do they carry enough explosives to demolish it."

"They won't have to. They will, however, have enough firepower to shred that fortress' artillery. Then they'll dig into whatever defensive works are left, and have enemy try to take it from them. Our troops will lose, of course, but we'll bleed them…and more importantly, we'll probably create enough panic to allow the airships to disengage. Hell, if we're lucky enough, we'll force them to have the other fortresses -they have to be able to fire at each other, to concentrate their firepower against air attacks- fire on us. Why bring explosives to wreck the enemy's fortifications when they'll do it for you?"

"You could also turn their artillery against them."

Alexandra opened her mouth, and closed it as she looked at the baroness, before looking away.

"I, uh, I don't know how."

"You don't…what?"

"Look, I don't know how to operate catapults and trebuchets! Or whatever the hell the magical artillery they have there!"

"No need to get defensive. We all have our weaknesses." Allya smiled. "In which case, it means we need an accelerated tutorial. Let's summon the royal engineers and their toys. I'm sure they'll appreciate feeling useful again. It's high time for some hands on learning."

*****

"Fifty minutes to target." The golem turned around to face Alexandra. "Enemy air patrol visual imminent. Orders?"

"Begin marine drop."

"Yes ma'am. Engaging drop…now."

The ship shuddered as drop pods and jetpack infantry bailed from the ship, the jets of energy lighting up the hulls of the squadron in the night.

"All expeditionary units are away." Said the golem.

"Excellent. Then let us circle around, give them some time to get into position. Stay out of Sunrise's patrol's sight."

"Yes ma'am. Adjusting headings now."

Alexandra's eyes swept the deck as the ship tilted. She was onboard her first Corsair, the Vallis, and she had to admit, it was a sight to behold. The ship was, effectively, a frigate built and structured around a pair of two hundred millimeter cannons meant for battlecruisers. With these guns, she could actually threaten Sunrise's fortresses.

But they had to know she had something like that in her arsenal. The launch of the ships had been public, after all.

Thankfully, they probably didn't know about her ground assault and marine drop capabilities. Calling off the attack on the teleport commandos was turning out to have some unexpected benefits.

Besides, of course, the fact that she was planning on buying that teleporter, with its operation manual and maybe even get a full run down by its operators, off of the New Republic's hands as soon as it arrived in Erakis. Sooner than that maybe.

She sighed.

Well, time to walk into a trap.

*****

To give credit where it was due, Sunrise did have some pretty alert airships. They were pathetic pseudo-gunboats, either small 'monster hunter' gunships that her corvettes could have destroyed in a single broadside, or armed merchant vessels, but that also meant that they knew they were completely useless in a fight.

And thus, they'd fully homed in and focused on their role as reconaissance platforms. Something Alexandra would have to remember in the future.

Of course, what it meant was that they had a bit of warning before her small squadron fell in on their supply stockpile (calling it a depot would be a stretch) with a vengeance.

The raiders did the honors, their first pass blowing away the tarps and flattening anything resembling concealment. Then the Corsair fired.

Twin two hundred milimeter shells slammed into the pile of crates.

And half the depot went up in flames in a gigantic shockwave.

Okay, so maybe there had been something in there besides empty crates. What the actual hell?!? It was almost like it…was…booby trapped…

Oh hell. Of fucking course. All of her previous attacks had been pirate attacks. Not regular commerce raiding operations, she'd actually taken prizes and cargo rather than burning everything down to the ground.

So they'd set the entire sacrificial stockpile to blow, expecting her to land and try and capture it. Probably some charges set into the ground, which was why the lighter shells of the Raiders hadn't detonated them.

Welp, it wouldn't have worked anyway, but at least it would explain to them why she wasn't sending some marines over. With that kind of demonstration, she'd have to be crazy to land troops.

Then again, crazy was her trademark to most of these people.

She smiled as she watched the enemy rush to respond to her attack and the supply stockpile going up. Given how they were moving, she had to guess the detonation had been some kind of pre-arranged signal for a charge, to rush her remaining golems before she could pull them back together into a coherent unit, shock and awe and all that. She hadn't even landed troops, but most of these bastards had no way to know that.

If there was one thing she'd learned from her tactical training at the academy, it was this: hit them where they ain't.

Which was why as Sunrise's infantry and cavalry rushed out of their fortresses and dugouts, her marines just flowed out of the night.

And attacked the artillery.

Now, generally speaking, charging a dug in artillery emplacements with a human (well, golem) wave attack ranked pretty high on the 'list of stupid stuff that makes you lose the battle', let alone when said artillery was on top of an enemy fortress, but in this case she had three distinct advantages:

First and foremost, those were catapults, ballistae and trebuchets, with even the odd scorpio, which she guessed came from captured equipment, backed up with more magical weaponry. Not field guns or howitzers. That made things, well, not easy, because those magical weapons were going to be a pain in the ass, but easier at least. She wouldn't have to worry about canister shots or shrapnel airburst rounds shredding anything trying to come close for one.

Second, the area was poorly lit. These guys had magical spotlights but they were emplaced in reinforced pits, made to illuminate the skies and point out airships, not try to look for infantry. Hell, with their protective, dug in pits they couldn't even be used to look at the wasteland around them!

Third, and not the least, all of her forces were expendable, and some of her golems were demolition specialists she was perfectly fine using as suicide bombers, push came to shove. She didn't need time to carefully emplace charges and then get clear, she just needed to get to the artillery pits and have one of the sappers throw themselves in and BOOM.

Of course their troops were equally expendable, which was why she wasn't too keen on demonstrating that particular tactic unless she absolutely had to. Didn't need to give them any ideas after all.

Then her troops made contact, with slave soldiers yelling out alarms as they, at last, saw the golems bearing down on them, and Alexandra realized she had a fourth advantage.

The enemy commander had no idea what the hell they were doing. The brands might make the slaves into the perfect, obedient soldier, but it also made them only as good as their officers. And the artillery commander in charge of the batteries had zero clue on how to handle enemies with machineguns coming out of the darkness and opening up on them.

They ordered the slaves to sortie.

Her golems simply stopped, the first few ranks hitting the deck, and opened up.

Rule one of modern warfare: don't charge the guys with the machine guns. ESPECIALLY not when you have artillery on hand. That goes triple when you have a nice, built up fucking fortress to hunker down in and force them to come to you.

The slaves were shredded within seconds under a veritable wall of lead. Alexandra didn't pull any punches. She might be able to afford some mercy later, right now she needed to actually use her advantages to their fullest.

One of the officers on the other side must have realized their colleagues' mistakes, and ordered everyone to pull back, but it was too late, and less than a quarter of the slaves made it back to their siege works.

A few seconds later, the golems' grenades followed them in.

After that, it was only a question of cleanup. The artillery hadn't even fired a single shot.

Alexandra looked at the intact, loaded trebuchets and catapults, and she smiled.

It would be…such a shame to just destroy them like that. And Allya had been so thoughtful in teaching her how to use them, it would be a waste not to use it.

Though, she wouln't be able to use the magical siege weapons, unfortunately. The royal engineers had been helpful, but not all of them were mages, and even then, they were pretty much guaranteed to be keyed to the magical signature of their officers, and she didn't have the time to dig into them and override that, though Emilia had taught her how, more or less.

She had the sappers emplace the charges. In the meantime, the other golems began to retarget the siege weapons she could use.

Let's see how good those were in the hands of a true professional.