Chapter 145 - Makeover

Chapter 145

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

In flight over Rebirth

Sylvia sighed in relief as she put the detonator back into its ornamented box. The unassuming device, meant to look and function just like an exceedingly fancy cigar lighter, would have also triggered the charges hidden within her ship.

Charges which, if she believed the engineers and scientists who's made them, would have probably vaporized a good chunk of the town with them. It wouldn't have been subtle…but at that point, she had been willing to throw subtelty out of the window to keep that bitch Assaria out of the adjudicator's hands.

Thankfully, that wouldn't be necessary. Allya had accepted her suggestion, and with the prisoners shipped off to the dungeon, she could rest easy. They were in no safer hands than Lesly's, and although it might create problems…she knew the continental high commander wouldn't let them down.

After all, all of this was part of her grand plan.

"So. Off to Sunrise?" Asked her executive officer as she leaned against the desk.

"Actually, we received new orders from Joachim. Other agents have been diverted to handle that part. We get the interesting bit."

"When you say interesting, you usually mean 'suicidal'. What is it?"

"Remember those warmachines? The ones powered up by the distress beacon command warned us about?"

"Yes?" Maria's eyes went wide. "No, you can't be serious!"

"I'm afraid I am. We're going to be the ones to 'discover' the threat for the town. The job that'll carry us over their path has already been set up."

"Ah. I assume there's more?"

"There is. Joachim wants to make sure Lesly has a pretext to intervene. So no just getting a visual and running home, we need to get their attention, and corral a group big enough to force the town to ask for help."

"All the while without the crew knowing."

"Exactly!" Sylvia smiled. "Up for the challenge?"

"To save humanity? Always. When do we leave?"

"The timeline isn't clear yet, but not immediately. If nothing else, command wishes for the heat to die down around the Void Blades before we move out. We need to make sure the adjudicator isn't watching for exactly what we're going to do."

"That's…not a pleasant thought."

"No it's not." Sylvia stretched. "But I'm not complaining. It gives me more time to bed that delicious baroness. It'll help with convincing her to let us keep Serabor with us."

"She has seemed less than impressed about your advances so far."

"Yes, but I am making headway."

"If you say so." Said the executive officer, skepticism clear in her voice.

Sylvia chuckled, and looked out of the porthole, towards the sands of the wasteland.

Towards the army of genocidal robots inexorably marching on to level the town to the ground.

*****

"So, how are our 'guests' behaving?" Asked Alexandra as she stepped into the command center.

"As well as can be expected." Said Sarah as she contemplated the array of screens before her. The vampire maid had been disappointed by the fact she hadn't been allowed to break some knees yesterday, but she'd perked up considerably after Alexandra had put her in charge of the newly built prison with a simple set of instructions. 'Treat them humanely as long as they don't resist, keep the officers alive. If they try to breakout, kill first, ask questions later.' Alexandra -and Ella- would rather have interrogated and then executed everyone at first, but that would alert the town and the adjudicator that something was up, which was a no-go. Plus, Emilia had convinced the Earth-born to wait, since they already had the physical evidence to go through, before going around and taking risks by interrogating people. And if nothing else, having some more information would give her some direction to steer the interrogation into and have some questions she knew the answer of to see if they were blatantly lying to her, since she didn't have any of those 'truth stones'. "Some of them didn't believe the kill line. The survivors have learned better now."

Alexandra nodded. One of the issues she had was that with all that interference from powerful individuals, she wasn't sure she'd be able to sense if they tried to dig tunnels or something like that.

So her solution had been to build the cell block in a suspended cube, in the middle of a vast room packed full of mines and artillery cannons, with several of the truly high tech golems, mostly the new praetorian guard, deployed nearby in reinforced bunkers ready to intervene. All of the access points were high security fortified checkpoints with a simple white line in front of them. Sarah's rules had been simple: step over the line, and your body will be held up as a reminder to the others.

It seemed some hadn't taken the terrifying maid at her word.

"Good to know that they can learn." Alexandra sighed. "Anything the surveillance system was able to glimpse?"

"Nope. They're being very tightlipped about everything. It's clear that they're terrified mind you, but they're not speaking as to what."

"I assume being captured by the inquisition and then transferred into the custody of a notoriously bloodthirsty dungeon would account for that under normal circumstances. Of course, we know better."

"Right." The maid looked over her shoulder. "Still nothing about this…'Order'?"

Alexandra sighed, shrugging. A lot of her hatred had seemingly just…leeched out in the day after her party had been rescued, and she no longer felt the burning fury she once had whenever she thought about the so called 'Void Blades', at least that was the name Allya called them by. She was just a bit…weary, for the lack of a better word. Especially as she'd discovered that she'd just gotten a single piece of what was looking like a very big puzzle.

Besides, she'd have ample time later to start torturing them for information, or at the very least find a way to discreetly eliminate the bastards that had participated in the attack on her party. Getting the leader would be more problematical however, she wanted whatever the hell the woman used as a body, but if there was one merc would couldn't have a convenient 'accident' without raising eyebrows, it was her!

"Emilia's digging into her books. But no references to them so far. Hardly surprising, if they were some kind of secret cult. But still, it's good to know who we are up against. Even if we only have a name."

"Agreed." Sarah tapped her finger on the console for a few seconds, and Alexandra chuckled.

The maids might not have been here long, but they'd spent most of that time together. She was learning to read them remarkably well, at least when their guard was down, and she could tell the vampire maid was hesitating to ask her something.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Wellll…" Sarah turned around on her swivel chair. "I was thinking. My equipment is nice and all, but the ass kicking I took last time makes me think I'm in dire need of an upgrade, and well, with all the new tech..."

"Ooooh." Alexandra stepped forward, smiling. "Want a makeover?"

"I…well…Yes, I guess?"

"Good. I'd be more than happy to help. Provided I get the right…compensation."

Sarah frowned.

"Compensation? I don't have access to materials or anything like-"

"Not that kind of compensation silly." Alexandra's smile widened. "The information kind."

"Information?"

"Yes. See, Emilia has a lot of stuff to poke fun of me about. Because I've told her a lot about my past and because of my…antics. So I'm seeking to gain an advantage. Just a bit. So childhood stories, anecdotes, anything I can use as ammunition."

Sarah chuckled.

"I am her maid. I know everything there is to know about her. But why should I betray her? Besides the upgrades, I mean."

"Do you not want to see her face when I pull out those anecdotes out of nowhere?"

The maid smiled slyly.

"Fair enough. Deal. But." She held her finger up. "Only bring it up when I'm here, understood?"

"Of course, of course!"

The maid leaned forward, and began whispering into Alexandra's ear.

The guard golems exchanged a look as they heard the nearly hysterical laughter coming from the command center, before shrugging, and going back to their duties.

*****

"Are you sure about this? I mean, it doesn't seem very practical."

Alexandra shrugged as she threw a glance at her advisor. They were currently on the topmost 'floor' of the dungeon, the vast, hollowed out area she'd used as a launch pad for her rockets.

The place definitely looked worse for wear. Besides replacing the roof, she hadn't bothered with it, and you could still see the blast marks and demolished floors where some of the rockets had detonated on ignition. But her power was already sweeping out, smoothing floors, reinforcing pillars, and giving new purpose to the area. She'd had to requisition some processing power from her other self to do so, and it felt good to be back at her old level of ability.

"It's not supposed to be. Oh, it might come in handy, but I doubt it."

"Then why build it?"

Alexandra smiled, as the top of her mesa was slowly converted into a gigantic fortress, gun embrasures facing every possible direction, dotted with pillboxes and murder holes.

"Because fortresses are seldom about pure defence. It's also about deterrence and sending a message. Like the European Federation's first Planetary Defence Center. Kharkiv was a terrible place for it. Too close to the border, really badly placed to use its point defence to protect the industrial centers around Kiev and Odessa. But it sent a message, and the Russians received it loud and clear."

"Right." Emilia nodded as Alexandra smiled. All of her talk about Earth's history had made the vampire girl something of a specialist, for Alcheryos anyway, and she knew enough to keep up now. Mostly. Besides, she was fairly sure her advisor had some books on the subject, and she just hadn't bothered with the topic before. Which reminded her…

"Any news about that 'Order to Restore Humanity'?"

"There's a gigantic quantity of various secret 'Orders' in my books. So having a bit of a hard time narrowing it down, especially as they're all referred as just 'the Order', and only get their full names when they clash, to help distinguish them. I can tell you what they're not however."

"Which is?"

"They're not an official organization. No current government has an Order, chilvaric or otherwise, by that name, or ever had as far as I can tell. They're also not on the list of active secret organizations, although that one is hardly reliable."

"Wait, there's a list of those?"

"Yep. Compiled by the Western Marches' intelligence branch. I got a copy, just in case, since some of those had a tendency to get a bit…chummy with dungeons."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Of course! You didn't truly think the UDC managed to strongarm the world into kneeling before them without a bit of support, didn't you? Besides, dungeons make for great allies. Case in point, the Order of the Lovelace Guard, based in Eternity, has enlisted the help of the local dungeon."

"I assume that's not official?"

"Well, as far as most people are concerned."

"Right. Wait, I remember that core. Eternia, right? I'd heard she meddled in local affairs."

"Yep. And these guys are the reason. Or at least they enabled her a lot."

"Uh. Good to know. So, not one that's official or supposed to still exist. Wonderful."

"I'll keep digging. There has to be a record somewhere. If nothing else, the mercs wouldn't have kept the documents if they didn't think it wouldn't mean something to someone. There would be no point otherwise. Besides, they had Old World tech. A lot of Old World tech. That leaves traces."

"I have a lot of it too, and I'm hoping I'm not leaving many."

"Yes but that's because you have been able to deal with the ruins of secrecy, not…uh."

"What is it?"

"I just remembered that there were instances of Old World site found already looted, without any records of who had done it. It might be nothing but…"

"It's a starting point, even if only for dates?"

"Yeah. I'll get to digging!"

"Roger that." Alexandra smiled. "And in the meantime, I'll get to scaring the crap out of our foes."

"Oh I'm fairly sure you've already done that. You're trying to scare the souls out of them at this point."

"Well hey, if they just drop dead from fear, that's less ammo we have to spend. And I won't complain about free essence!"

"Right. Speaking of which, I heard you were going to give Sarah and Ella a makeover?"

Alexandra shrugged.

"Sarah requested an upgrade, what with all the new stuff I have, so, yeah. Why, what about it?"

Her girlfriend grabbed her collar and dragged her to her level, their noses almost touching.

"I never got to dress up my maids. No one is designing their outfits but me! You understand?"

"Yes ma'am!" Alexandra chuckled. "A bit of the little girl coming out, eh?"

"No!" Emilia let her go, looking vaguely embarrassed. "Okay, maybe a little."

"It's fine, we all need a touchstone to our early years. So, you want to design them alone?"

"...You can help. But I still get the executive decisions. If nothing else, you're still, uh…"

"Terrible at designing anything that looks esthetically pleasing and not like a giant brick of metal, fire and death, I know. Warships aren't made to be pretty you know."

"Ah! Tell that to Sunrise. These guys put gold on the prows of their war galleys."

"That's…" She was about to say surprising, and then remembered the ridiculous decorations sailors and captains would put on their ships before the age of sail came to an end and custom vessels disappeared from anything but pleasure crafts. "Fair enough, actually. A lot of that was happening on Earth to."

"See? Anyway, you can design the armor plating under their clothes -and I won't hear it from Ella, she will wear armor, whether she wants it or not-, I'll handle the rest."

"Yes ma'am." Alexandra threw a mock salute, and Emilia sighed, before getting on her tip toes and kissing the Earth-born.

"Lay it off with the ma'am stuff. Call me Emilia. Or…I don't know, honey? That sound a bit too cliché though."

"Sure thing sweet vampire sugar babe."

"...Let's stick with honey."

"Or vampy."

"I hate that nickname."

"I know, why do you think I keep using it?"

It was a testament to how distracted she was that Alexandra didn't dodge the book in time. She had, after all, become quite adept at doing so over the months.