Chapter 194 - Whispers Of Armageddon

Chapter 194

Alexandra's Core

Simulation 1

"Any news?" Said Alexandra as she sat into the meeting room of the apparition's ever evolving 'house'. There was now a lot more furniture, and she could faintly discern moving aircrafts in the skies beyond the windows.

"A few. I've kept working on various projects, as you've no doubt summarised, but the primary one was this." The apparition gestured, and a hologram appeared above the table they were sitting around. "I found this code back when we were fighting the automata. I kept it to myself, as I didn't want to distract me."

"And I'm guessing, were trying to find out more." Said Alexandra as she read the code. "That's encrypted. Communications from Seraph's bunker?"

"Correct on both counts. Look at the headers."

Alexandra did, and her eyes widened.

"Holy shit! That's- They had planetkillers?!?"

"Or something powerful enough to classify as Omega. Given the fact that Alcheryos is still there, they either didn't use them or the weapons were destroyed."

"The latter seems more probable." Alexandra looked at the apparition, who shrugged. "You think otherwise?"

"I spent a fair amount of time digging into the innards of the transmitter it was connected to. It wasn't easy, let me tell you, but I managed to get something out of the wreckage of another buffer. Notably, the vector to beam the message at."

Alexandra nodded. A tightbeam made sense for this kind of sensitive transmission.

"Let me guess, straight into deep space?"

The apparition nodded.

"Precisely. Of course, what was there is probably long gone."

"Not…necessarily. If it was tight beam, it was to an object they knew was there. So either an installation, or more probably a relay of some kind."

"Spy satellite?"

"Maybe. Stars knew we used them enough for covert comms in Alpha Centauri. Or hell, in Sol itself."

"A good point."

Alexandra looked at the code, then at her other self.

"You wouldn't have brought this to me if you weren't making a point. Especially as we can't exactly act upon it right now. What is it?"

The apparition sighed.

"Look, I'm doing my best here, but chances are someone is going to realize the control programs binding you are pedaling in the void, messing with ghosts. When that happens, that 'God of Fire', or at least his lackeys, are going to come down on us like a ton of bricks. Thus…"

"Leverage."

"Precisely. Whatever the Sagitarius Empire did, it seemed to have at least rattled the God of Fire. His 'divine fleet' would have hardly bothered bombing the planet from orbit, and killing every single 'heretic' if that wasn't the case. Something about them terrified the Gods. And we can both agree at this point that whatever they're after, the wellbeing of humanity is far from their minds."

"On that, we are agreed. But you do realize that mutually assured destruction, or whatever the hell the Sagitarius Empire was intending to do with this, didn't work, right?"

"True. But at the time they had several nations with equivalent tech and an entire garrison of Seraphim troops at their doorsteps, not to mention a whole fleet overhead." Alexandra nodded. That much she'd gathered from Emilia's history books. There had been a substantial amount of 'Divine' troops on the planet and above it, which begged the question of why it had taken a damned millenia for the so called deities to return. "We have, what, a single orbital fortress, according to Emilia?"

"So it seems. But appearances can be deceiving. They might have hidden some ships in the outer system. I know I would."

"Same." Alexandra looked at the apparition, and they exchanged a wry smile at the pointless comment. After all, they arguably were the same person. To some extent. "But still. It might make a potent bargaining chip. And push comes to shove…"

"We can go out in a bang."

"Or use them as one hell of a distraction. Whatever it is."

"Well, it's not like we aren't already damned in the God of Fire's eyes just by shedding our chains anyway. I'll try to build an observatory, see if there's any object on a regular orbit that was in the beam when the message was supposed to be sent. It's worth a try."

"Thanks. I've also updated the code compiler, and continued working on the material extraction."

"Found anything good?"

"I believe I have absorbable quantities of beryllium, platinum and vanadium. Enough to replicate them, hopefully."

"That's excellent!" Especially the platinum, it was a key component in many of the superconductors the EFSN used. Not to mention an excellent chemical catalyst and part of the core of phase system that allowed a hyperdrive to function. "I'll absorb them post haste then. Anything else?"

"Yes, could I get a bit of fabricator time to make some parts?"

"Sure. I'll order Seraph to divert some production capacity your way."

"Thank you. I believe that's all."

"Then I'll be going." Said Alexandra, stretching as she got up. It was about time to head to bed, and she, for one, couldn't wait.

Well, not that she'd be heading to the bed itself for a fair bit. Knowing Emilia, she'd probably spend a lot of time elsewhere, quite pleasantly.

"Of course. Just make sure to keep the noise down, will you? You'll wake up the whole town at this rate."

Alexandra barely had the time to open her mouth before she was kicked out of the simulation. She stared at the now empty void around her, almost feeling her other self's laughter echoing in her mind, before sending a code ping signifying bad manners, but smiling despite herself. At least the apparition wasn't reacting like Emilia was the devil itself, and was warming up to her. She idly wondered if that was how it would have gone, had the control programs not made her trust the vampire from the get go. A period of intense distrust and paranoia, followed by mellowing and eventually just getting to the same end point, just taking a bit more time and grief?

One of the first things she'd done when she'd learned of the trust modifications and accepted the vampire's advances had been to look for further sign of tampering, to make sure her feelings for the vampire weren't utterly fake, but some searching plus a few delicate questions to Emilia had proven that they were genuine. Or as genuine as any feelings by an AI were at any rate. Dungeons dating their advisors were vanishingly rare, hence Emilia's mother's surprise when CQ had called them her parents.

She shook her head, and reintegrated her avatar, getting up from the chair in the command center. Right now she had other things to do.

And knowing Emilia, she'd soon be far too distracted to wonder much more about it.

*****

"Still getting used to it?" Said Raika as the healer wiped the table, covered in spilt beer.

"Yeah." Answered Alyssa as brought her arm up, and marveled at the smooth, almost glossy metal. "It's quite something, isn't it? But I still…misjudge things from time to time." She smiled wanly. "It's a lot stronger than my real arm, for starters."

"Well, you know what they say, the flesh is weak." Said the party leader, diplomatically, as she took a sip of her own drink.

"Hey, no reason to disrespect the classics!" Called out Thomas, the ranger having finally recovered from his poisoning. And not a moment too soon, as Raika was fairly sure Alyssa would have incinerated him out of general principle -and sheer annoyance- at the man's constant complaining about being left on the sidelines during their dungeon delve.

"Eh, you can keep your classics. I have the future!" Said Alyssa as she brought down her cybernetic hand on the table, and paled as the furniture visibly dented. "Uh…"

"Alyssa, dear, please don't break the baroness' stuff. She's being nice enough loaning us a place to stay as it is." Said Raika, chidingly, and Alyssa nodded, subdued.

The invitation to come live in the manor had been something of a surprise, but clearly the baroness had enjoyed their little trip into the dungeon, and wanted to renew the experience at some point. Plus, it was probably mixed with some residual guilt at allowing them to stay enslaved right under her nose for weeks.

There was no other reason she could find for the baroness' sudden burst of generosity…or the increased security they were lavished with. Then again, the entire 'manor' was closer to a damned fortress than anything, it was just made to look nice. Ish. It depended on one's tastes, definitely, but there was only so much one could do with crenellations and giant reinforced walls meant to bounce off cannonballs and eat artillery shells for breakfast.

Still, the architects and builders had made a valiant attempt nonetheless, and more or less succeeded.

"Yeah, I'd rather not anger the lady who happens to be best friend with the dungeon. Ya know, the one with the giant golem army, the big canons and the fucking tanks?" Said Thomas, leaning back into his bunk. The baroness had offered individual rooms, but by this point they'd gotten so used to doing everything together, protecting one another from creatures while adventuring, or the Void Blades while enslaved, that sleeping in separate rooms had brought more harm than good.

At least the first time around Raika had reached Alyssa before she was able to burn down the room. Mostly. Explaining that their pyromaniac novice of the temple of fire had regular nightmares, and was likely to start blasting unless someone reassured her to the hacked off guards had not been her greatest moment. Luckily the baroness had been close by, and things had been smoothed over remarkably quickly.

She hadn't been sure if the baroness' story of regularly doing the same, except with daggers, was true or not, but the noble was covered in enough sharp implements that it certainly seemed plausible. Still, it was hard to reconcile the image of the fearless war leader, who had team Crystalline's sorceress launch her headfirst onto an Old World warship, bellowing a mighty war cry all the way, with someone who would wake up panicked from a nightmare.

After all, the baroness was supposed to be other people's nightmare.

"To be fair, the baroness has her own tanks now. And golems." Said the healer as she brought her cybernetic arm up again to admire it.

"Yeah, but it's not the same. She can't crank them out like sausages for one."

"I doubt even Crystal would be able to do that." Alyssa touched the robotic limb. "You know, I'm still wondering if I should have turned it down. I mean, I know Eismi said it was a gift, but it still feels like far too much."

"You severely underestimate the twins' hatred for slavers." Called out Fernand, the alchemist bringing his head up from his book. "To them, the very fact that we were enslaved within their vicinity, by their allies no less, is an intolerable affront. Besides, we seem to be in the baroness' good graces, and they probably intend to stay as cosy with Allya as they can."

"I suppose." Said Alyssa as she brought the artificial arm to rest on her lap. "Still feels odd."

"That might be because of the fact that you're part metal now." Said Raika, the bite taken out of her sarcasm by her wide smile. She was honestly so relieved to see Alyssa dragged out of her endless circle of self pitying and bouts of intense violence. The dungeon delve had started the process, and it looked like her new arm was about to hammer the vicious cycle into the ground once and for all. "Though you may have to fear magnets though."

"Ah! Right. That and electricity spells, I guess." Alyssa knocked her fingers against the metal of her arm. "Though Eismi said that it will handle a lot."

"Plus I'm fairly sure being struck by lightning would also incapacitate your fleshy bits regardless."

"That too."

There were a few minutes of comfortable silence, with Raika going back to her drink and studying the map on her newly bought tablet, while Alyssa continued marveling at her arm, trading barbs and jokes with Thomas, and Fernand continued reading his tome.

"So, whatcha think of the delve? The new one, I mean." Said Thomas as he turned towards the party's leader.

Raika looked up from the map.

"Looks doable. It's going to be an interesting fight, especially without the baroness and her people carrying our asses." Something she wasn't shy on admitting. Allya and Pyn were mighty, but Dominique had been downright terrifying. Whatever the guild did to its representatives had turned her from a somewhat powerful, cheerful attendant into an unstoppable killing machine. "But we have to start somewhere, and this 'labyrinth' sounds very interesting."

"Let's hope we don't get a shitty rearrangement tomorrow."

"Let's." Said Raika, although she wasn't worried. They'd escaped remarkably lightly last time. Hell, in fact she'd been wondering if the dungeon had been pulling her punches, as a couple of times it looked like at least one of them was toast, only for some piece of equipment to fail or a golem miss spectacularly. Was it because of the baroness' presence?

Guess they'd find out soon enough.