Chapter 77 - Teleport Strike

Chapter 77

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth, Administration Building.

"So, what took you so long ?" Asked Pyn as she craddled her mug of coffee. "I expected you at least a day ago !"

Sylvia giggled.

"That impatient ? Well, we had to make a small detour."

Allya rose an eyebrow. They were currently at her breakfast table, happily eating together at Pyn's insistence. The pirate captain was no more dressed than the first time, in fact she seemed to have gone for an even skimpier outfit this time ! She was quite frankly amazed the pirate didn't flash everyone whenever she took a step with a skirt this short.

"A detour ? What for ?"

"We, ah, encountered something of a large airfleet on our way there."

Allya froze.

"How close ?"

"A few days away at most ? They were slower than we were, but well..." She shrugged, which had a very distracting effect given the amount of cleavage she had on display, at Allya's dismay. "They had capital ships."

"Capital ships ? How many ? And where were they heading ?"

"At least a dreadnought, and I think three battleships, although we didn't get very close." Sylvia chuckled. "The first reflex of people in my profession when encountering a large fleet is to move in the general direction of 'away' after all ! As for where they were going ? Towards Lost Sands I think ? I mean, if they didn't alter their heading that was where they were going ?"

Allya frowned. Lost Sands was huge...but...

"Were they going to the eastern edge of Lost Sands ?"

"Yep !"

"Then they're heading here."

That seemed to freeze the captain and her lieutenant.

"What makes you say that ?" Carefully asked the captain.

"Because we're the only thing worth sending a damned battlefleet out in this place. Us or Darthar, really." Allya's mind reeled with the possible reasons, before she firmly shook herself. She knew she still had enemies in the Empire, and a vengeful archduke to worry about, but even he wouldn't be able to send an entire battlefleet after her ! Otherwise she'd have been dead a long time ago, if nothing else. "This is...very concerning."

"Well, for what it's worth, they didn't seem to be Erisian. Or any other major power. The ships were painted black."

Allya nodded. That was good, most great nations had a garish, high recognizable color scheme for their warships, and Erisian warships were...not painted at all. They didn't need to. No one could match their sophistication, and they needed no paintings to instill terror into their enemies. They were, after all, the armored fist of the greatest Empire on Alcheryos !

"That's....good to know. Anything else you know about that fleet ?"

The pirate captain shrugged once more, with the same distracting effect.

"Not really no. Like I said, we were busy getting the hell out of dodge, we weren't there to sight see."

"Fair enough, my apologies."

"No need to apologize, it's my pleasure !" The pirate captain leaned forward, and Allya didn't even feel jealous as Pyn's gaze became drawn to the exposed cleavage. Allya had trouble looking the pirate in the eyes as well. "Now, I think you discussed our payment with your council, didn't you ?"

"Yes, we did." And they had screamed bloody murder all the way. But the common threat of the mercenaries had gotten them to agree fairly quickly. They weren't happy as being a safe haven for those particular pirates, but given the alternative...especially as while negotiations were still ongoing with the mercenaries, their own counter proposals had been less than satisfactory, to say the least. "And they approved. The funds have been set aside, and will be paid momentarily."

"Excellent !" Sylvia leaned back, making her chest bounce again. "Then, now, about my offer...Did you, uh...discuss it ?"

Allya sighed as she felt Pyn's hand on her thigh, squeezing it.

"I...I am not that interested." Which wasn't quite true. "But I am willing to at least get to know you better, but no promises."

"Ah, romantic type, eh ? Of course, no problem !"

Allya hid a sigh. She wasn't the romantic type. Not really. But she did at least like to know who she was sleeping with. If only to avoid waking up with a dagger in her throat.

"It's not like that." Said Pyn quickly. "But I'm sure it'll go well. Now, I was thinking we could go for a bit of a tour of the town this evening ? With the battles going on, people have been enjoying themselves even more than usual !"

"Well, as long as we can get to a good bar at some point."

"Oh we know a place, and we'll get seats. The bartender is a friend."

"You mean he figures the patronage of the nobles owning the area can only be good for him ?"

Pyn chuckled.

"That too, I suppose."

"Sure, I'll make some time to be there." She turned towards Maria, who rolled her eyes.

"Someone needs to get you home if you get too drunk." Simply said the lieutenant, and the captain chuckled.

"Right, of course. So it's a date !"

Allya managed not to cough her hot chocolate out in-extremis.

*****

"Well, they certainly are effective." Said Emilia, before wincing as another piece of golem flew through the air and hit the ward of the protection. "Perhaps a bit too much so?"

Alexandra smiled.

"Nah, it's fine! I'll just have few of them at the same time. Honestly we need some more individually dangerous golems, we rely too much on swarms. AoE spells have always been the way to go in the previous floors, let's not make it too easy for the adventurers, eh?"

The vampire girl nodded.

"Fair enough. Still, I think the tail slash is a bit much."

The Earth-born shrugged.

"It gives them more offensive options and makes outflanking them harder." Alexandra winced as one of the golem cobras unleashed another devastating slash of it's tail, and a golem went flying in pieces. "Although I might want to armor up their tail a bit more." Because the armor plates had literally caved in from the hits. Damn it, the golems were quite literally destroying themselves with their own attacks! Well, the thumpers and the Royal Guardians did that as well, but still... "They're quite literally coming apart."

"Well, that might help balance them then. They're deadly, but get weaker as the fight goes on, if only from their own attacks."

Alexandra nodded.

"That's fair." And she could do a more resilient version for actual combat, and maybe even a praetorian guard version! "I guess I'll keep them this way. So, now that we have tested their effectiveness in battle, would you like to see the Royal version?"

"Royal? For CQ?"

"I was more thinking as a mini boss, but yes, for CQ when we move her boss room there as well."

"Of course!"

"Excellent, then..." Alexandra gestured, and the golems still happily tearing each other apart fall back, and the remains littering the area vanished. A new cobra golem appeared, and drew itself up...except that this time it deployed a magnificent hood.

"Oooh, it's beautiful!" Said Emilia as she gazed at the array of gems, forming complex patterns on the inside of the hood. Most of them were actually fairly worthless, but two in particular were anything but. "What's their special abilities?"

"This." Alexandra activated mental command, and the gems at the center of the pattern on each side of the hood glowed brightly...before disappearing behind a flash of energy as the royal cobra unleashed twins beams of power. "And this." The royal cobra lashed out with its tail, and the appendage crackled with electricity, before unleashing arcs of electricity everywhere. Then finally, the cobra opened its mouth...and a fireball flew out. "All of them reusable, albeit at a fairly low fire rate. Its a very tanky magic caster."

"That's...awesome! Did you manage all the runes by yourself?"

Alexandra chuckled.

"Vampy, I'm far from the day I couldn't even make the most basic runes without requiring constant review." She shrugged. "And I had some help, but it was mostly for the fireball spell. I know we got a scroll for it, but I still enlisted Ella to give me a hand and make sure I didn't spend hours running in circles."

"Why not ask me?"

"Because you were currently busy looking into the water spells, and training CQ. I didn't want to take your time with her away." Although it had definitely been a surprise, she was more and more thinking of CQ as her daughter, and some parental instincts she didn't even think she had anymore were resurfacing. "Besides, it was a fairly small review, and there weren't that many mistakes."

"Would it have made the royal cobra explode?"

Alexandra winced.

"Nooo...but it would have melted it."

"Well, it's always one or the other with you."

Alexandra chuckled.

"I guess it is. I guess it is. Alright, the royal cobra isn't just a spell caster, it's also much better armored, and a bit more agile. Want to see how it stacks up against regular cobras?"

"Of course!"

"Alright, time for another test then! Let's be about it!"

*****

"We are ready captain." Said the mage as he approached Aubriana.

The captain nodded.

"Good." She turned towards the rest of her camp, and raised her voice. "Alright, listen up! The time has come! Assemble by section, and get ready to move out!"

A war cry answered her, and her soldiers began to form up. The captain turned back towards the mage.

"For whatever its worth, I sure hope to the hells that this works." She whispered.

"Believe me captain, you don't even come close to my colleagues and I's hopes. If it fails, at least it'll be over quickly for you. For us...not so much."

Aubriana winced. She'd heard magic feedback from rituals could be brutal, but she hadn't exactly considered how brutal it would be for such a spell.

"Fair enough. Well then, I suppose we should get to it."

"Indeed."

The mage joined the circle of his brethren, and they carefully checked everything once more as the soldiers got into position. Then, the mage looked at Aubriana, who nodded, and began incanting, closely followed by his colleagues.

The chant rose into the air, and Aubriana chuckled. The war cry had already been bad enough, but if no one figured out they were there...they were either blind, or a fool.

*****

"What's the situation?" Said Allya as she rushed into the fortified observation post.

"We're hearing incanting, but...it's not coming from the mercs' camp milady." Said Anders as he gestured at the enemy camp, who seemed as confused as they were. They'd spent the last day reorganizing, and they'd clearly succeeded at at least getting their forces back into some semblance of order. "We're trying to locate its exact source, but we can't find anything. Plus we-"

Anders stopped as everyone's hair stood up, and the air seemed charged with something out of this world. Allya's memory barely had the time to pull up the sensation before Éclair hit her like a freight wagon.

"TELEPORT STRIKE!" Yelled out the bodyguard as she tackled her charge to the ground, and everyone instantly drew their weapons.

*****

Energy began to build up as the mages continued incanting. Reality began to twist, and the soldiers figdeted anxiously, before settling down. It would either work or it wouldn't, and they would never know if it failed. They'd be annihilated in an instant, destroyed by the dimension the mages were about to catapult them into to traverse great distances.

The incantation reached a crescendo. Energy looped in the runes on the ground, and materials were consumed in a flash of energy as power began building up, and the veil that protected reality began to bend, and then break outright.

Then brutally, Aubriana felt as if someone had ripped her into tiny pieces, before putting her back together...and she was somewhere else.

*****

Alexandra froze as she felt a strange sensation. A sensation she instantly remembered from her death. Being close to a forming hyperspace jump field. Then another sensation replaced it. That one she'd known from the Second Battle of Alpha Centauri, when the UIS had pulled off their 'Picard maneuver'.

That was being near a ship emerging from hyperspace.

"Hyperspace emergence!" Yelled out Alexandra, automatically pulling out her sensor display in her implants, before blinking as her interface catapulted her into dungeon mode, and she remembered where, and what, she was.

She also very much noticed the interference area that had just appeared right in front of the drawbridge on the second floor.

Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK! Thought Alexandra as she mentally reached out, to her emergency protocols...and feel to her knees as she felt all her connections die.

"FUCK!" She yelled out.

Emilia ran to her side, kneeling.

"What? What was that, what's going on?"

"Someone just teleported in! And they had one of those influence disruptors! Damn it!" Alexandra looked at the battlefield, where the cobras were still killing each other. "OVERRIDE! Cease combat!" The golems immediately stopped, and she looked up at Jared. "Jared, run to the command center, and hit the battle station alarm! Then the button for immediate rally to the core room for all units!" She snarled. "We have another batch of core thieves!"

The golem gave her a firm nod, and took off at a sprint that would have made some olympic champions green with envy. Then Alexandra smiled gratefully as Emilia helped her back up.

"Thank you. Well...I suppose so much for the tests."

Emilia shook her head.

"This is insane! This is the third attempt!"

"It is." Then Alexandra winced. "And if they learned anything from the previous attempts' dismal failures, they'll be far more heavily armed this time. We need to get to the command center, now. I'm cut off from coms, but I have overrides in place."

"Right. Of course!" Said Emilia as she nodded, and they began running towards the elevator, as Alexandra blessed her paranoia and laziness, as she had installed one of their fast private elevators to the third floor as soon as she could, partially to have an emergency exit, but also because she didn't want to waste time going down the ramp.

It looked like her foresight could save them today. In more ways than one as well.

*****

Aline nodded mentally as the teleport sensation washed over her. Right on time. The moment could have been a bit better, but she could work with that.

"What the hell was that?" Said Gothram, looking at the wasteland around the camp in worry, and Aline spoke up.

"That...that was a teleport spell sir. And it...whatever came through emerged in their camp!"

The commander frowned, and Aline hid a sigh. Did she truly have to spell it out?

"Sir. They're teleporting in reinforcements! The ship we saw arrive a few days ago, it was armed to the teeth! It must have been some form of fast courier, transporting either mages or even a teleportation matrix! They must be teleporting in reinforcements directly from home!"

Gothram's eyes went wide, as did the eyes of everyone who heard her.

"Shit." Said the commander." Shit shit SHIT! Gods damn it! Do you know how many?"

Aline shook her head.

"I'm not a mage sir, but...it seemed fairly minor? Maybe another platoon, at most. Regardless, if they're able to pull that off again..."

"Then we're boned." Gothram turned towards Sia, the old woman who was looking as Aline with suspicion in her eyes, and the aide shuddered internally. The woman was very, very good at reading people, and an old mercenary herself, her instincts were probably yelling at her that something was very wrong here, especially as they seemingly had been on the verge of negotiating at least the beginnings of a workable deal. "Sia! We can't let that happen. Gather everyone! Airship or not, we're burying these bastards." He winced. "It's clear they accepted to negotiate only to buy time for this. Damn it, I should have known! Alright, no time to dwell on the past, let's go!"

Sia snapped a parade ground salute. She might be suspicious, but she was loyal, and she had her orders.

"Yes sir, right away!" She turned back towards the rest of the camp, and bellowed. "COME ON YOU SLUGS! You heard the man, move it! Form up by platoon, and prepare to advance!"

Aline looked at Gothram, who nodded at her.

"You might have just saved all of our lives Aline. Thank you. I'll make sure you're rewarded properly for that."

"Just doing my job sir." Said Aline, before chuckling. "And safeguarding my hide and paycheck of course!"

"Of course, of course!" Said Gothram as he laughed, before patting her on the shoulder. "Still, I know you're going above and beyond. Believe me, I won't forget that."

Aline only felt a distant pang of guilt as the commander turned back, and began talking to his mage and artillery lieutenants. Then she brushed it off. She was here to do a mission, in service to a much greater cause. What were the lives of a few mercenaries to the fate of all mankind after all?