Chapter 173 - Onslaught

Note : Chapter 174 has been written and added to the queue !

Chapter 173

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

City of Rebirth

"-My men have filled the holes left by Philia's knights, but we've had to increasingly rely on Crystal's golems." Said Anders, before sighing. "Honestly, I am starting to worry how much we have to depend on her forces."

"The Republic would have crushed us without her. Still can, for that matter." Answered Allya as she leaned back from the table in the command center, and cracked her neck. She was spending far too much time poring over maps, trying to guess when the next batch would arrive. Because, for once, airship reconnaissance was out of the question. The carrier hadn't shown sign of life since the initial strike, and she wasn't willing to poke the proverbial bear until Crystal had her air defenses up and running. "But I understand the feeling. Having to depend on someone else, someone whose motives are obscured to us is…disquieting." And knowing more about Alexandra's potential motives had only made her more disquieted. "But I know she won't betray her oaths. I think she'll stick by our side no matter what, and that's more than I can say for most of our allies."

Anders nodded.

"I suppose that's fair." He smiled wanly. "She has more than proven herself, and it is a bit churlish of me to resent having such an excellent ally it makes us look weak in comparison."

"Indeed. Now-" Allya looked over her shoulder as the door swung open, and a guard stepped through, an out of breath messenger in tow. "Yes corporal?"

"Milady, a messenger from captain Calder."

The messenger straightened as Allya turned around.

"Milady, the captain's compliments, the Sakura has sighted a swarm of approaching constructs!"

Allya nodded. There'd been a few stragglers from the reconnaissance group that had arrived over time, all of them with their locomotion damaged in some manner, which implied that there was some basic swarm protocol in the old machines, driving them to clump up, but leave those that whole slow the whole group behind. Or something like that, she wasn't a damned artificer. They're been easily handled by the artillery. The field guns might be obsolete scrap compared to even the degraded remnants of the Old World, but when you could bring thirty of them to bear on a single vehicle, complete with Alexandra's new explosive shells, that target would die. Especially since dodging or even just a simple serpentine seemed a completely foreign concept to the automata, and they just charged forward.

There had been a few casualties, and even a fatality from a lucky hit, but all had been pretty quickly healed, and the golems had taken the brunt of the attrition.

"Well, it seems our foes have arrived at last. Send someone to warn Crystal and the other members of the war council. Then order the adventurers to take their positions." She smiled. "Let's do this one properly, shall we?"

The guard smiled back, and slammed his fist against his chestplate, quickly followed by the messenger.

"Yes milady! Let's show them why they should fear Rebirth!"

Allya wasn't sure the constructs even understood the concept of fear, let alone be capable of feeling it -fear would be one of the first things she'd removed in any automata she intended for combat, if nothing else-, but she couldn't fault his enthusiasm as she returned the salute.

She just couldn't share in it.

*****

"Well, it seems like we have a great deal of guests this time." Said Alexandra as she entered the tower's observation deck, adroitly dodging around a mage rushing to get the tesla weapon crowning it up and running. "And we're getting everything ready. Expecting an airstrike?"

Allya lowered her binoculars and grimaced.

"I expect anything at this point. Smooth trip?"

"Well, people don't point and gawk anymore. Hell, I actually got cheered." That was unusual. After the Republic attack people had treated her as death incarnate, but now they seemed to see her as a savior. Typical. "Though, I have to admit that the adventurers were the loudest among them."

"Yes, the new steps seemed to have given them a great deal to be happy about. Despite the grumblings about the temporary closure." Allya looked over her shoulder. "Thank you for that, by the way."

"Don't mention it." Answered the Earth-born as she stopped by the baroness' side. "Besides, I've got more coming."

"More?"

"It's a surprise." Said Alexandra with an innocent smile, and the baroness visibly shivered. The dungeon core immediately raised her hands. "I promise, it'll help."

"I know, sorry, I just…"

"Have a lot on your plate. Speaking of, I saw my gift downstairs. Like the tank?"

Allya chuckled.

"After I stopped fainting you mean? Yeah. It's very useful at cutting through a busy streets, and it, ah, serves as a very visible reminder of our alliance." She sighed. "Something I really hope wouldn't be as badly needed right now."

"Expecting an uprising?"

"Basically every other place of importance in the kingdom that didn't turn over to the traitor's side had some kind of trouble. So yeah."

"Maybe Rebirth isn't important enough." Suggested Alexandra, and she shrugged as Allya gave her an incredulous look. "Okay, it most likely is, but still, it is a possibility."

"Their propaganda focused on our little town, so I'm not going to go off of that assumption. I think it's more likely that martial law and the heightened security level threw their plans into a loop. On top of that, attacking the city's defenders while the might of the Old World comes down on us is suicide, not to mention would be unbelievably unpopular."

"Yes, people tend to like being alive for some reason."

"Right. So they'll wait for this fight to be over." Allya shrugged. "Well be at our weakest after all."

"But also at our most popular."

"At this point Sunrise is never going to win a popularity contest in here. The best they can do is take the council down and try to keep a lid on things, or hope it will cause the barony to collapse."

"Fair enough. Speaking of which, I have some…gifts for you."

Allya looked at Alexandra, then took a very deliberate step away from the edge of the tower.

"Alright, now I won't fall to my death if I faint. Go on?"

The dungeon core chuckled.

"I suppose I deserved that. It's a series of, ah, teleport talismans." She gestured, and the butler golem that the baroness hadn't even seen come in extended what looked like a briefcase. "They can be triggered by speaking a series of code words, each talisman has its own set attached, or by being broken. They'll allow you to be teleported to my dungeon in an emergency."

Allya's eyes went wide. Personal teleporters? That was…extremely rare. And expensive. Not to mention hazardous.

"Are you sure they're safe?"

"Certain. They are bound to my influence and a sizeable teleport circle." The Earth-born smiled. "Turns out, dungeons have some pretty good teleports. They're also, ah…very hard to prevent. Or intercept."

Allya gave her a sharp look.

"I see…Very well then, I gratefully accept your gift. How many are there?"

"Twenty five." Alexandra shrugged as Allya looked at her, surprised. "They're meant for you, your council, and other critical individuals as you see fit. Their range is unlimited, so I suppose you could send one to your business partner Elkaryos as well. Although do make sure to warn me first, so my guards don't dogpile him if he just appears without warning!"

"I'll try." Said Allya with a smile, before looking over her shoulder, at the wasteland as shouts of alarm began to ring out, and the outlines of vehicles appeared on the horizon. "And now I believe the main event is about to start."

"Indeed. Let's send them back to the scrapyard."

*****

The vehicles were a diverse bunch, but all of them seemed to be a form of transport. From lightly armored APCs to trucks and even what looked like staff cars, they rumbled along as a more or less unified swarm, a thousand strong. But they were not the main threat.

The golems, silently sitting on their seats, were. Some were simple models, others fully militarized, with weapons ranging from simple pistols to crew served laser cannons.

First to fire were the howitzers. The guns, old models from the fight with the Republic, with some updated -and cheaper- ammunition, opened up.

The rumble of artillery rang out over the desert. And a few seconds later, the enemy formation came apart in geysers of sand and shrapnel.

Trucks were ripped to pieces, unarmored vehicles and the golems atop them shredded into so much scrap. But the armored vehicles fared better.

A few were destroyed from direct hits, but direct hits were the exception at that range. APCs were showered with shrapnel, thrown off course by shockwaves, sometimes crashing into and crushing other, lighter vehicles, but they simply corrected their heading, and kept coming.

Alexandra waited patiently as they came forward, her arm raised, the guns behind her thundering with metronome precision. Then as they moved past a marker, embedded into the ground in advance, she lowered her arm.

A flare came out of the tower in response, and the field guns opened up at their maximum range.

Most of them missed. Some didn't. But unlike the howitzers, they weren't attempting to spread their fire. Alexandra had carefully observed how the reconnaissance stragglers had fared against her artillery, and adapted accordingly. All the field guns were targeted on APCs, and all of them not only fired brand new armor piercing shells, from their newly rifled barrels, but each vehicle was also the focus of ten guns each.

The APCs were tough, but even they were not this tough. Vehicle after vehicle came apart under the relentless bombardment, as shields, then decayed armor, failed under the onslaught.

And at last, the enemy reacted.

Turrets pivoted, guns came to bear, and the steady staccato of autocannons and the sharp crack of lasers filled the air.

Almost immediately a gun or two fell silent. But those were light weapons, meant to slice down infantry, not penetrate fortifications, no matter how primitive. And for each artillery servant that came down, another golem stepped up to take its place.

Alexandra readied another signal as the enemy neared another marker, her eyes cold and calculating.

Then she lowered her arm once more.

And all hell came loose.

The defensive line lit up like a volcano, as rockets took to the skies in a monstrous display of power.

Except that she was fighting constructs of the Old World. Turrets pivoted, the fire on the fortifications dying out, and retargeted.

Lasers, shells and even the odd pulser shard flew to meet the rockets, and they began to explode. But Alexandra wasn't stupid, she knew they would have point defence. So the rockets had been spread all over the entire defensive line, and their firing pattern adjusted. Each rocket that died was simply too far from its brethren to take another with it in its death throes.

There were a lot of vehicles in that wave. But there were more rockets. And at last, they came back down.

The battlefield erupted in a massive cloud of dirt, dust and shredded metal. Cheers sounded throughout the fortifications, but Alexandra only frowned.

Far too many rockets had been shot down. And even then, there probably hadn't been enough to take them all out as well.

She was proven correct, as battered vehicles emerged from the cloud. APCs, a few armored trucks, and by some miracle some of the unarmored ones as well, including the staff cars, that for some reason had been equipped with shields. The cheers died down as almost half of the vehicles emerged from the hellscape…and so did some of the engines.

Alexandra's eyebrows rose as over a tenth of the enemy vehicles came to a screeching halt. What-

Her question was answered before she even had the time to ask it to herself as rocket teams disembarked, shouldered their weapons, and fired.

Five hundred high explosive Old World rockets streaked towards the fortifications, and this time the field guns did fall silent as half the emplacements purely and simply vanished, and the others were heavily damaged.

The vehicles embarked their infantry again, and raced to catch up with their brethren, still charging forward. As they came into range, the defenders rushed from the dugouts in the first line of defense, and began firing.

Rockets, including some of Alexandra's own, but others from Tark, streaked back towards the enemy, and APCs started dying again, and machineguns began firing in earnest.

Somehow sensing they were facing infantry, the vehicles came to a halt, and began disgorging their own soldiers.

Alexandra pressed the detonator she had kept in her other hand the whole time.

The minefield, carefully emplaced and wired to the tower in advance, exploded.

And a full two-thirds of the enemy infantry came with it.

She couldn't make mines that could take out the vehicles. Or, she could have, but only at the price of gross overkill. But she had her betties, and due to the influence disruptor she had everything ready for long range, wire born detonation.

So cylinders of metal and death jumped into the air, and detonated, scything all around them. Some hit the underside of vehicles and exploded harmlessly, a handful finished off the remaining unarmored vehicles. But the automata came on, uncaring. Golems began suppressing the trench line and the remaining field guns with laser rifles and grenade launchers, while weapon teams deployed their guns.

Alexandra looked to the side at Allya, expectantly, but the baroness didn't even notice, so focused she was on the unfolding battle. She waited for every weapon team to have deployed their guns, and targeted them at the defenses, before raising her own hand, and bringing it down.

A horn blared, so loud some of the soldiers cringed, but loud enough that anyone in the area would have heard it.

Including the adventurers hidden in tunnels and tight foxholes.

The sand behind the vehicles, in an area her field guns and howitzers had been extremely careful not to target, even as enemy vehicles drove over it, erupted as camouflage covers were cast off, and the adventurers charged, straight into the enemy's rear, already at point blank range as the artillery ceased fire.

Some of the golems didn't even react. Those that did were ripped apart by wave of magic and arrows, before the wave of paladins, fighters and monks crashed into their backline.

Already damaged, effectively encircled and already in contact with the enemy…they didn't stand a chance. Even Old World weapons had their limits, and those limits were ruthlessly exploited as they came down.

Alexandra smiled as she looked at the baroness.

"Victory is ours, I believe."

"Thanks to your plan." Replied the baroness as she returned the smile, and turned to face the dungeon core.

"And yours. The adventurers were a brilliant suggestion."

"Thank you. I-"

"Miladies! More contacts!" Shouted a sentry, and they looked at the wasteland.

Indeed, a small knot of vehicles had arrived, and were currently cresting a dune. But something seemed…wrong.

Alexandra grabbed the binoculars Jared offered her, and looked. They were similar to the to the other vehicles, stragglers maybe? But something nagged her, something…

Then it hit her. Every single one of those vehicles were hovering above the ground. Not a single wheel or track was to be seen. And they were moving in formation. In formation around something behind them.

A large form crested the dune. And Alexandra dropped the binoculars as she recognized it.

"MIRAGE TANK! EVERYBODY OUT!" She shouted out, as the EFSN battle tank's turret pivoted.

And the tower they were in exploded as the fifty megawatt laser beam slammed into it, the energy of ten kilograms of TNT…every second.

Even the magic of geomancers and the skill of the royal engineers could not hope to stand up to such firepower.