Chapter 135 - Missiles

Chapter 135

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Seraph-4, Missile Silos

"Yes. They are. And I know what you're thinking. They're not ICBMs."

"How could you possibly know that?"

The apparition smiled.

"Because as with half of their crap, they're using EFSN inspired equipment. If not outright partial copies like the railguns." A hologram of a missile appeared in the air. Well, a mental projection really. "Look familiar?"

Alexandra frowned. She'd seen those before…

"Those are Orbital Defense Grid missiles, right?"

"Yep. There were some in the Frankfurt planetary defense center. Interceptor missiles, insane acceleration and maneuverability, but very short range, couple of light seconds at most."

"Just enough to reach beyond lunar orbit, I remember. The sensor platforms for targeting were originally on Luna, and they wanted to be able to protect them. Are they…?"

"Nuclear? No. Gravity warheads. The kind used to pull relativistic kill missiles off course."

Alexandra winced. Relativistic weapons had been the nightmare of military planners everywhere ever since humanity had invented the reactionless grav drive. All of a sudden you could make a missile relying purely on kinetic energy that could hit a planet at something close to the speed of light. The solution had been missiles equipped with a overpowered gravity generator that could just jerk such a weapon off course, as just destroying it would only mean you'd be hit by the debris carrying the same energy. And, as a bonus, that burst of gravity would rip apart any conventional missile as well.

On Earth those missiles had been replaced by giant stations with massive tractor and pusher beams in geostationary orbit, but she was given to understand the Martians still used them when she'd…left.

"They thought their defense stations would be taken out first." Said Alexandra. There was no way they wouldn't have been able to make tractor or pusher beams with that level of tech. "So they tried to discreetly build a new missile battery in a secret installation that shouldn't have them. They made it so under the hood, not even the facility AI was aware of it."

"Well, it clearly didn't work. Because I figured out why the installation's secondary systems had survived whatever shut them down."

Alexandra winced. She could do the math.

"Because it was never meant to. It was targeted at the missiles. Are any of them…functional?"

"No. Not a single one. In fact they're basically completely destroyed. Little more than husks filled with dust really. Whoever did this was thorough. Which is a damned shame too."

"Why?"

The apparition gestured at the window. The ceiling of the assembly of missile silos, whose honeycombs she could see stretching below.

Alexandra frowned, then froze.

There we no launch hatches in that ceiling.

How-

"They...Were they hyperspace missiles?"

"Bingo. The holy grail of modern warfare. Or so Arcadia said anyway. I inspected them quickly, and they definitely had some kind of miniaturized hyperdrive, and no silo side teleporter that I could find. They're beyond any kind of recovery, but they had them." Her other self shook her head. "Arcadia would have sold her soul for these things, you know."

"I am aware. For that matter, so would we. I. Whatever."

"Fair enough." The apparition gazed through the windows at the missiles. "I assume you're not going to warn the Adjudicator of your 'unusual discovery', correct?"

"Fuck that. And…given how the edicts were worded, I'm not going to tell Emilia either."

"Agreed. I don't think they were speaking about restarting the war either."

Alexandra nodded. Because one thing she'd observed here…

With magic and the technology they'd derived from it, the people there should have been able to make nukes and long range ballistic missiles. If nothing else, the Eris Empire was more advanced than when the US or the USSR had built their first ICBM even in pure technological terms. But there were none. Not even mentions in history. And they clearly knew such devices were possible.

The edicts of fire said that 'None shall rekindle of the fires of the Old World'.

And states with literal airships, hypersonic jet fighters and teleportation…did not have a single nuclear reactor, bomb or even simple satellites and the rockets to carry them. Hell, there wasn't even a single mention of space exploration.

The more she thought about it, the more she was starting to question whether the God of Fire was protecting these people, or keeping them in the dirt with one giant metal boot on their neck.

*****

Allya sighed as she sat down in her office, slowly rubbing her eyes.

She…hadn't gotten much sleep lately. Images of an army disappearing in a cascade of explosions just kept haunting her.

The baroness looked at the papers arrayed on her desk, and let out an even deeper sigh. The earthquake of her -Crystal's really- victory was still having aftershocks. The news of a dungeon just annihilating a, however small, army had swept a wind of panic over many. The UDC's response had also been…less than satisfactory. Simply put, a lot of people tolerated the organization because however pushy it was, it actually prevented dungeons from going rogue like this, and were fairly good at policing their members. Now that it was no longer the case, a lot of people were asking questions, not least some of its own members.

And in the meantime, she had her own people to deal with. The adventurers guild was seriously grumbling, but Dominique's official inclusion into her council had calmed those waters, however temporarily. But her merchant combines, which were, when all things were said and done, the lifeblood of her town, were…more problematical.

Many of them hadn't expected them to win, and no doubt begun discreetly preparing for an arrangement with the Republic. Others were absolutely terrified that their ties with said Republic were going to make them a target for a crackdown, especially after the discovery of the weapon smugglers and the 'raid' on their warehouse, and some were simply sharpening their weapons with an eye on Rapier Enterprise's, Elkaryos' corporation, share of the entire government and admittedly privileged position in the town.

This made her town a freaking powder kegs the likes of which she'd never seen.

She blinked as she went through the paperwork, and came upon a notice about the Void Blades. Assaria had brought in their support auxiliaries? Apparently the mercenary commander had chartered an express air courier for the job, too. Probably had tried to get them here before the main battle took place. Which the neonite had forgotten to mention.

Allya made a mental note to enquire about them. If nothing else she'd like to know what her mercenaries were up to. And she quite frankly could use the logistical expertise of their auxiliaries. Melia was good, but things were starting to become a bit problematical in terms of organization. The forces defending the town were quite larger, and getting larger every minute with reinforcements arriving from all over the kingdom, from more royal knights to Sarthian men at arms. Having four different forces, five if you count the dungeon's, in town made it even worst.

She shook her head, and continued on, not paying any further mind to the paper that might sign the death warrant of her entire town.

*****

"So, what's our status?" Asked Alexandra as she walked into the workshop.

The place was now packed with Seraph's golems, toiling away under Sarah's supervision. With Alexandra's ability to just materialize whatever they needed, the AI had been able to put their schematics to good use. And since they lacked intact examples of a lot of the devices in these schematics, they were busy trying to replicate them.

One of the golems turned towards her and saluted her, which Alexandra returned more by reflex than anything. She had no idea where Seraph had learned the EFSN salute, which was reminiscent of the French military salute, but it was parade ground perfect, and the AI insisted on using it whenever the Earth-born came in. At least she'd gotten the AI to stop shouting 'officer on deck!' whenever she stepped into a room with them. Perhaps there was an issue with having someone drawing so much of their knowledge from movies and other entertainment media.

"We are making progress, lady Alexandra. Not optimal progress, but progress nonetheless."

Alexandra glanced at Sarah, who shrugged.

"They're doing fine. Just a bit frustrated at some stuff."

"Ah. Having issues?"

"Yes. Most of the devices in my databanks use standardized components, for ease of fabrication." Alexandra nodded. The EFSN did the same, it made field repairs and logistics a hell of a lot easier, and while weapon capability could suffer, given the fact that even top of the line courier ships took two months to get to Alpha Centauri, it was more than worth it! "But unfortunately, we don't have many of these components. We don't even have the schematics for some of them."

"Ah. That's…problematical."

"Yes. I have been attempting field substitution. But it is going…poorly."

Alexandra blinked, and finally noticed the golems at the back of the workshop, cleaning the floor, and clearing debris.

"Oh. Detonation?"

"Yes. It turns out, the difference between a fusion reactor's igniter and a plasma bomb is academical if the containment field fails." Said Sarah sarcastically.

"Correct. In fact, most plasma weaponry use modified devices invented for fusion reactors." Answered Seraph, apparently impervious to the sarcasm and taking the comment at face value. "But the issue remains."

Alexandra grimaced.

"Well, it looks like I'm going to have to teach you the art of kitbashing. Real kitbashing, not the crappy 'field substitution' they teach you in the manuals."

There was a long silence as the golems stared at her.

"Are you sure that is wise?" Finally said Seraph.

"Wise? No. But it is doable. But first, do you have the systems I asked for?"

"Yes. The first part was simple. Communication systems were readily available." Which was unsurprising, Seraph-4 had, after all, been supposed to be a communication site. Officially, at least. "The rest was pulled out of the facility's shielding. Assembly was trickier, but I believe it should be working satisfactorily."

"Excellent! Show me."

*****

"Well, so much for bringing them in before the fight." Said Assaria as she looked at her executive officer.

"Agreed. Should we…send them back ma'am?"

"On what? A standard transport? That'd be a recipe for disaster. And we can't use the courier either, it had already planned its route, it took some samples of dungeon loot and is currently on its way to Sunrise."

"So we just keep them here?"

"If nothing else the reasoning to keep them here is still valid. The Republic will be back, believe me. We just need to be extremely careful…and yes, look at some solutions to ship them some place safer is someone starts looking too closely at them. Especially the baroness."

"Yes commander. Fortunately there is a merchant cartel from Sarth that has proven…amenable to appropriate compensation for their discretion, so they'll be housed on the outskirts of town, in a place no one will dare report them. And even if they do…Sarth is deeply in bed with the baroness, even she will at least hesitate to bring down the hammer if one of her closest allies is involved, even if only peripherally."

"Good, good." The commander sighed. "Well, at least there's that. This contract would give me grey hair if I had any, I swear."

"The pay's worth it."

"The pay and the gifts. The guns we got from the Tarkians might have been taken out of our pay, but the Tarkians gave the baroness one hell of a friendly price and you know it. Besides its not like they'd have sold that kind of stuff to mercs anyway. Because believe me, if it had only been the pay, I'd have seriously debated considering cutting our contract short and leaving."

"Point taken. Well, I just get to making sure our contract is long, fat and happy then."

"You go do that." Said the commander with a smile.

Neither woman ever noticed the stealth golem hidden under the furniture.

To the mercenaries' credit, their offices were actually well secured, with armed guard around the clock, regular sweeps by artifacts both mundane and arcane, and encased in excellent enchantments to prevent divination and most communication systems for listening devices to upload their contents, even if they'd slipped by the sweeps somehow.

Unfortunately for them, military grade Old World communicators were hardly 'most' communications systems, and the high tech stealth composites the golem was made out of laughed off any attempt by the sweeping teams to locate them. And behind that golem sat the silent fury of a dungeon core, carefully preparing her vengeance.