Chapter 176 - It Begins

Chapter 176

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Dungeon Factory, Assembly Point Alpha

"We have completed the preparations milady." Said Ella as her spider throne shifted, trying to find a better spot, Jared politely stepping out of the way. Given how crowded the area was, it was a futile endeavor. "All forces are ready to deploy or retreat at a moment's notice."

"Good." Alexandra nodded as she looked at the vast cavern. It could have handily served as a cross section of her entire army, from the old, obsolete musket golems the town still saw as her 'best', Standard Combat Units in their heavy armor, and her brand new missile launchers and anti-aircraft guns, both of which wouldn't have looked out of place in an early Cold War armory on Earth.

And, of course, push came to shove, several of her praetorian guards elite variants, equipped with railguns and diffraction lances. But those very much were last resort options. At least when it came to defense.

When the time came to attack…well, she had found a use for those prototype aircrafts she'd built. She just needed to time it right, and the adventurers guild would never know what happened.

"Seraph also assisted in reinforcing the cavern for potential bombardment." Ella shrugged. "Fortress building isn't my area of expertise, but it seems solid. We're only waiting for the noise to start at that point."

"Indeed we are. Get some rest you two." She smiled as they both looked at her oddly. "However superfluous it might be, I have a feeling we're going to need every edge we get, psychological or otherwise. Then man your battlestations. We're not getting caught with our pants down again."

Alexandra saw Ella open her mouth from the corner of her eye.

"If you make a single joke about me and Emilia, I am painting your spider throne pink and sending you to liaise with the baroness." Said the Earth-born.

The vampire maid's mouth closed with a snap, and Alexandra smiled.

They were as ready as they were going to be.

Now to see if it was enough.

*****

Allya set down the letter, taking a deep breath as she wiped her eyes.

It shouldn't have hurt as much, but it did. At least she knew what Cassissa had been doing…and that the princess didn't blame her for what happened.

Which was stupid. She hadn't been the one to throw down the gauntlet, or sneak away the family sword.

But at least it was a weight, a weight Allya didn't even realized she had until now, firmly lifted from her shoulders.

Allya took a deep breath, and reached out to start composing her reply. As she did her hand brushed the suitcase with the dungeon's teleportation pendants, and she froze. She had started distributing them amongst her people, but she had far more of the things than she had councilors, and she had been wracking her head to find which people she both needed to protect…and could trust with such devices, especially since they came from the dungeon. And the letter did say Cassissa was under house arrest…And push came to shove, she did owe the princess. More than she could possibly hope to repay.

Maybe it was time to make a down payment on that debt.

Allya grabbed one of the medallions, and put it in the enveloppe she had set aside.

If only she had known what she had set in motion with that simple gesture…

*****

The core hummed softly as the Hammer of Eternity made its way towards Seraph-4.

The plan of attack was finalized. Three stages. Simple, effective, overwhelming.

Perhaps not refined, but refinement meant nothing compared to victory.

And once this was over, it could return to its vigil over its true charge.

*****

The apparition sighed as she looked at the code in front of her. With her other self having her hands full dealing with the surface dwellers and the invasion going on, she'd been left to deal with the remaining, potentially unsecure, code in Seraph's little bunker.

Most of it was garbage. Whatever spell had afflicted the computer systems in that bunker had done its job well. Even reinforced military systems had been completely destroyed, and those that had survived not only had their internals damaged, but also their code, although whether that was due to the hardware taking so much punishment or another effect of the spell was impossible to tell. The only things that seemed to have survived -relatively- intact outside of Seraph's core were the tough as nails backups, the things meant to be unsophisticated secondary systems no one truly expected to be used, and made to be more reliable than effictive.

Which all on its own was fascinating. It not only meant that the weapon, or probably spell, had a limit -possibly something having to do with the durability of the device-, but also that it might have been targeted, looking for specific machinery to damage and destroy. And-

She froze, and ran a bundle of the code back. There, a data pack, encrypted and ready to send, if the code she was looking at was right. Transmitted from somewhere else, to be pulsed by the massive communication arrays. But the attack had shut down everything and the packet had remained stuck in the buffer, with destruction of the main array leaving no programs to transmit it…or erase it. Stuck in limbo, the systems it was linked to obliterated, but still connected to the vast data network.

The apparition leaned forward, and opened the package.

Strings of numbers. Just numbers and letters, plus some identifiers that seemed fam-

She took a deep breath. She recognized that pattern.

Her hands gripped her imaginary chair's armrests. Her hands clenched so tightly the simulated wood faithfully creaked in response.

She recognized that pattern because she'd sent orders just like it. Orders that had ended a world, vanished in the glow of nuclear fire.

Those were Omega-level launch codes. A pattern that the EFSN had used for weapons that could threaten entire planets, to authorize their use upon a world inhabited by humans, to override their automatic failsafe to self-destruct upon nearing an atmosphere. And these people had patterned everything they did after the EFSN, even reverred it, to the point of copying weapons and stars knew what else.

Seraph-4 had been the strategic communication center of the entire Sagitarius Empire. The location to transmit and relay the most important information to wherever it was needed. So if those launch codes were here, never to be sent…the planetkillers might have never launched either.

The question was, if they hadn't fired…were they still there?

And despite what had happened to this bunker…well, the EFSN had always made sure to put its Omega weapons out of reach of any feasible first strike, from the deepest, most secret bunkers to ships hidden in the depths of interstellar space, hidden to all, even their superiors, like the ballistic submarines of old. If that was the case…could they still be operational?

*****

"Well, I suppose we didn't have to wait long." Said Alexandra as she made her way into the redoubt, giving the place an appreciative glance. Given what had happened to the previous command center, she heartily approved of simply finding an anonymous, well dug in position to give orders from. At least it wasn't sticking out with a giant lightning weapon on top begging to be shot.

"Never had to wait much with these things." Said Allya as she lowered her binoculars and turned towards the dungeon core. "Our guard ship sighted them. Three hundred heavily armored vehicles, moving in."

"Their big punch."

"Yep. Which means everything else is going to show up." Allya smiled at Alexandra's surprised expression. "It doesn't take a general to realize that. That…'mirage tank', was it? It attacked the command center's tower, specifically, and unless those things have spies, it attacked it because of the tesla tower." Which wasn't hard to figure out. Had the tank aimed lower with its initial attack it would have killed them, even with Alexandra's reflexes. "Which means something told it to…and that something wanted the way clear for the strikecrafts. So the carrier is going to show its ugly face, directly or indirectly."

"Well, they're going to have a very bad surprise then."

"I certainly hope so. All preparations have been completed, including your suggestions, and I believe guildmaster Starvak is on its way. This is it. Are you ready?"

"I am. All of my forces are on stand by. My new golems are ready to pour out as soon as the signal is given."

"Good. Well, time to end this."

*****

The tanks came in a single, massive wave. No stragglers, no disorganized blob, just a gigantic wall of armor and firepower, moving slowly and implacably towards the town.

They rolled towards the town, completely ignoring the howitzers that began bombarding them, most of the shells not even making it down thanks to point defence lasers, however degraded they were, and the few that did simply illuminating their shields as they intercepted the blasts.

Then they crossed an invisible line, and opened fire.

The walls of the city had been made to survive a siege, to hold off Republican siege bombards and conclaves of Saphirian war mages.

They vanished in a hail of dust and debris. Some of the tanks fired randomly at anything looking like a structure, punching holes -or, for some of the more demolition oriented models, annihilating entire sections- through the wall, and peppering the towers, but a few units focused their fire with much greater precision, surgically annhilating weapons implacements and the top of the towers.

What they could not know was that these emplacements were functionally useless. Oh they were manned, but by damaged or basic, disposable golems, and the weapons themselves were either damaged and hastily patched up to look like the real deal, or outright decoys, assembled out of whatever scraps were on hand. All technically 'real', not illusions, but only a master gunner could have told you they were non functional.

And no Old World machine was going to know how an ancient field gun worked, much less judge on the fly if a given gun could fire.

So they wasted several seconds 'neutralizing' the artillery. Seconds that, as soon as they outlined themselves as the real threat, they no longer had.

Shields flashed and failed, tanks began to explode left and right. Some were hit by arrows of impossible power, others ripped apart by blades of pure force, as Team Crystalline leapt into action.

But most…most simply had a split second for their sensors to shout a warning about a dangerously close teleport, before Starvak's axes sent them to oblivion forever.

It became immediately clear which tanks were under control of an actual commander and which weren't then, even to those who hadn't been watching like hawks for the firing patterns, relaying it to their own officers. The mass continued onwards, completely ignoring the onslaught like good little automatons, at most briefly stopping to drop off drones and infantry.

The others on the other hand, immediately adopted a defensive formation, trying to lock onto Starvak.

They failed.

So they did the next best thing.

The guildmaster appeared in front of another tank, his axes raised…

And every single piece of ordonance and every last energy capacitor within it detonated.

The guildmaster flew back like a cannonball, not so much injured as simply disoriented.

And every turret of the battlegroup locked onto him.

Lasers, railguns, the odd pulser and even a plasma cannon disgorged their fury.

And the continuous fireball that was Starvak and his wards stopped moving. And then it began flying towards them.

Clearly, the entity controling the tanks realized that whatever the hell it was fighting, it wasn't something it was ready for, and the tanks turned tail and ran for it.

It wasn't going to save them, but given the fact that their more stupid comrades were in the process of being shredded by the adventurers, using the same trick as last time, just with some golems accompanying them to draw some of the fire, and the artillery, now judiciously emplaced in the trenches and dugouts, not to mention spider tanks flowing over the trenches, it was their only solution.

Or so Alexandra thought.

Because as Starvak pursued the tanks, more a living meteor at this point, plunging in their midst and simply impacting whatever tank he wished to destroy, the aircrafts crested over the horizon, a swarm of drones that had to be those elusive 'weapons platforms' in tow.

Bomb bays swung open, and hell came crashing down on the guildmaster.