Chapter 112

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, Command Center.

Alexandra popped back into her avatar, and smiled at Emilia, doing her best to appear conciliatory as the vampire girl slowly tapped her foot on the ground. She was courageous -some would even call her fearless-, but she wasn't insane, and her advisor's body language screamed 'fed up'.

"So, now that you have deigned come back, could you please explain what the hell is going on Alex?"

"Well…The Republic launched an air attack."

"That much is obvious."

"But we managed it. Drove them off the first time, then they rallied and went in for another go…which left them wide open to be ambushed by the Tarkian airships."

"Ah. So that's who these people are."

Alexandra nodded, idly wondering if the vampire girl had watched through the screens or cast one of her old divination spells.

"Yes. Tarkian Hegemony Skyfleet. Or whatever they call their airborne navy."

"Right. And why did you rush off?"

"First and foremost to honor our alliance. But if I'm going to be honest?" Alexandra shrugged. "I'm tired of just being an outside observer to what happens on the surface. Every damn time something has gone wrong up there it came back to bite us in the ass. It's past time we stopped waiting for our enemies to come into the dungeon and at least use the town as a buffer."

Emilia gave a warning half glance towards the maids, and Alexandra minutely nodded. There was no need to mention that this was only the first step.

After all she intended to go far further than turning Rebirth into a buffer. Chunks of the Republic's own territory would do nicely as well.

"That's fair enough." Said the vampire girl. "Still, I'd appreciate some warning before you rush off." The vampire girl crossed her arms under her breasts, huffing. "I'll have you know I have studied a great deal many military texts and could be of considerable help planning and managing a battle."

Alexandra looked at her in open skepticism, quickly joined by the maids. They were all experienced soldiers, albeit in vastly different ways. That statement was…well, about what you'd expect out of an armchair general.

"What?" Continued her advisor.

"Look, Emilia, don't take this the wrong way, but while your advice is most welcome, I think it would be better if I kept the battle management down to me. I would appreciate your feedback for any planning, but…" She didn't need an armchair general backseating her during a war. But there was no real polite way to say that. "Once the enemy is engaged, there is no time for hesitation."

Both maids nodded at that, and the vampire girl visibly deflated.

"Alright…Well, I guess I'll redouble my efforts elsewhere then!"

Alexandra blinked as her advisor smiled, and suppressed a chuckle. So that's what that was about. Emilia wasn't worried about the battles themselves per se, she was just worried about feeling useless, and having her advice be no longer needed. Which was fair, as Alexandra had moved a lot of her focus lately away from dungeon building and into straight army construction. Oh yes, she still had some development going on, plus various background experiments and projects, but there was no hiding that most of her recent prototypes were for military deployments. And Emilia, as helpful as she tried to be, well, wasn't a military officer or an engineer.

"Well, in that case I'd appreciate some advice on how to make proper magic casting golems. Because I'm going to be honest, our primary bottleneck besides brainpower right now is magic power. Runed items are all well and good but they're fragile and delicate, two words you never want in the same sentence as 'military hardware' except for what said hardware is aimed at."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that enchantments are effectively long lasting spells, if complicated. As such, I'd like to see if I could make golems to cast them. And if I could…" Alexandra smiled nastily. "Well, I'd be able to mass produce enchanted gear at long last. Coupled with all the new stuff I got today, our enemies won't even know what hit them."

Emilia matched the Earth-born's smile, before tilting her head.

"Wait, what new stuff?"

"Oh, you didn't see? I shot down one of the airships above the mesa. It blew up, so every complex mechanism is pretty much fucked beyond measure, but I got some other stuff. For example, bronze! And a lot of other things I don't really understand."

"Well, better go through it then! If nothing else that'll give us something to do while the surface dwellers get their things together, without having to start on the deep dive on enchantment."

"Deep dive? What do you mean?"

"Oh sweet, innocent Alex. I mean a plunge into the dark abyss that is enchantment magic. You'll see, it's not as mad as people say it is…mostly."

Alexandra looked at the two maids…who winced, and swallowed. It was pointless for her, but some reflexes still remained ingrained into her psyche, even after spending so much time as a dungeon core.

Well, it looked like it was going to continue being an interesting day after all.

*****

"Thank you admiral, that is very generous." Said Allya as she looked at the moored ships. Each of them bore the sigil of the Elkisian Republic Air Fleet, and while they showed a lot of damage, they were still perfectly functional, having surrendered before the Tarkians could finish them off.

Spear shrugged.

"Republic vessels would be of little interest to us. They are too backwards and different from our own design philosophy. Even retrofitting them wouldn't be worth it, and well, I would have to drag them across an entire wasteland to do so. Standard protocol would be to scuttle them, but I believe you need every advantage you can get. Besides, having those ships now belong to the people they attacked, to strengthen them where they were meant to weaken is poetic justice at its finest."

The baroness chuckled.

"Indeed it is admiral, indeed it is. Now!" Allya turned towards the admiral. "Besides gifting us the captured vessels, I was told you had some other things you wished to discuss?"

"Indeed. I come bearing a great deal many offers, including promises of cooperation and friendship, as well as commercial contracts and overtures."

"Commercial? Of what nature exactly?"

"Mainly technological and military. The Hegemon is keen on the golem parts your town's dungeon produces en masse as loot. Our labor force was always greatly automated, and our industry has an endless hunger of golem components. Unfortunately due to our chronic material shortages, that hunger cannot always be met from our own resources."

"I see. And the military side?"

"That, milady, is what the Hegemony can offer you. Both as payment for golem parts shipments, and as a way to make sure that the Republic does not, ah, disrupt that trade, so to speak."

Allya grinned. What the admiral was saying was basically that the Hegemony was ready to arm her in exchange for those parts, or at least economic access to them. She'd have opened the market to them anyway, but still the gesture was appreciated.

"Well, if you have a catalogue or something like that, I'd be happy to broach it."

The admiral burst out laughing, before coughing and regaining his composure, smiling widely.

"Knowing your likely situation, the Hegemon thought that this would be a poor showing for the Hegemony as a whole. Thus she decided that…samples would be more appropriate."

Spear locked his gaze with Allya's.

"A lot of samples." He finished.

Allya opened her mouth, then closed it. He couldn't seriously be suggesting…she'd thought the auxiliary ships were there to take in cargo, and probably as logistical support for the expeditionary fleet. But were those packed with weaponry?

"I would be delighted in seeing those samples of yours admiral. I would hate to disappoint your Hegemon after all. Could something be arranged?"

"Of course milady. Give me a few hours to disembark some, and I will be able to present them to you."

Allya nodded.

"So be it then. I will be awaiting news of your samples with eagerness in my manor." She smiled. "If there is one unfortunate truth to my situation, it is that paperwork never ends, and I need to convene my city's council."

"Of course! I will send for you when everything is ready. The rest of your council is invited, if they are interested. And, if I may milady? Please, take some rest. It has been a long night for all of us."

Allya hid a wince. If the admiral was telling her that, she must be really looking the worse for wear.

"Thank you admiral, that advice is appreciated, I'll certainly give it a try." She chuckled. "Although I won't make any promises!"

"And I would not dream of asking one from you. Have a good even…" The admiral trailed off as he looked at the lightening sky. "Morning milady."

"You too admiral, you too."

*****

Allya flung herself into her seat, and sighed as she looked at her assembled council.

"Alright, first things first. Pyn, status on the tower?"

"Well, good news is we were at the stage where the main structure was being built, so none of the complicated parts were damaged. Bad news, the structure wasn't complete or fully reinforced yet." The elf sighed. "In short? According to the trademaster, they're going to need to rebuild entire sections of it, and add some extra reinforcements just in case."

"I assume that means delays?"

"Yes. But only by a couple of weeks at most."

"That's good." Far better than she had expected at first, when she'd seen the scaffolding surrounding the tower ablaze. But then again, it was a scaffolding, it was meant to be cheap and replacable! "Next, Anders. Status on our prisoners?"

"We're not getting anything more than rank, serial number and name out of them. They're pretty well behaved at least." The guard commander sighed. "Honestly I am having more trouble from my own men than them. A lot of people died from their mercs' little stunt, and while those were just hired muscles, these guys chose this path. Shit, as far as I can tell most of them are proud of it!"

Allya nodded. Handling the mercenary prisoners had been a delicate matter -especially with the sentencing, rules surrounding mercenaries being always murky-, but her people had understood that it was never personal, and the mercenaries hadn't really gone out of their way to be cruel. Yes, the battle had gotten out of hand, but so had every case of urban warfare in history. There'd been incidents, but they were isolated, as everyone understood that these weren't the people to be pissed at, they were just hired goons and glorified muscle.

But real, tangible Republic troops? Especially as the Republic used a professional military, volunteers only, and not some kind of conscript -or hell, levy- based force, it meant everyone was there by choice. And as Anders said, proud of what they were doing.

That was going to be one hell of a fine mess to deal with.

"That was to be expected I suppose. Keep a close watch on the prisoners. Don't coddle them, but they have honorably surrendered, and we will keep our side of that bargain. Anyone who mistreats them will be court martialed, is that understood?"

"Yes milady."

"Excellent. And how many fatalities did we suffer?"

"None. At least none permanent."

Allya's eyebrows rose.

"None? Seriously? How?"

"They weren't even bothering to return fire against our fixed emplacements, and I had our medical personnel swarm aboard the Sakura as soon as it landed. We got to everyone in time. Had a fair amount of wounded tough. The Sakura is going to be short a third of its crew for a while, and we have several dozen light wounded from the debris falling from the sky, but nothing major. However, well…" The commander sighed. "Two of the Gorromarians died. They were high up the tower, and with the scaffolding burning we weren't able to get to their bodies before the flames consumed them."

"Shit. How's the trademaster taking it?"

"She is absolutely livid. But not at us. I didn't even recognize half the curses she used against the Republic, but it took her five solid minutes to calm down. I think the Republic is going to land itself in some pretty hot waters diplomatically milady."

"If they weren't willing to do that they wouldn't have launched that raid in the first place. Or hell, begun this war." Because it was a war now, indisputably. She'd exchanged some communiqués through crystals with the queen, but bar some diplomatic niceties and a token attempt to get the Republic to back off, the formal declaration of war from the Kingdom to the Republic would be delivered to the senate within the week. The war so many had feared for over a century was finally there. "And Gorromar is pretty isolationist, they're unlikely to attack."

"Perhaps not, but a lot of the Republic's more advanced items or alloys are imported from there. If Gorromar's leadership declares an embargo it'll hurt them, a lot." Said Melia.

Allya rubbed her chin.

"Thank you Melia, I hadn't considered that." She smiled at her economic advisor, before turning back towards Anders. "Is there anything specific the trademaster is planning on doing about this, apart from complaining to the Gorromarian government?"

"Yes. She's already taken the time to petition her corporation. Their services came at a sizeable cost, but apparently when they said they'd make a guarantee of safety they meant it. Another Gorromarian airship is being loaded, this time with anti air weapons and more advanced hardware to protect the construction site. Not sure when it will arrive though."

"Well, I'll take what I can get." Allya sighed as she gazed at the clock on the wall, stubbornly insisting it had only been a few hours since the air raids and not the whole day it had felt like. "Alright, it's so late it is basically early. Does anyone have anything urgent that must be adressed immediately before the council?" Everyone shook their head. "Then let's end it here. We all need some rest."

Everyone muttered their assent, and Allya got up, followed quickly by Pyn as she made her way to their bedroom. It was a testament to how tired they were that they didn't even bother disrobing, much less taking part in their nightly activities, before they laid down, holding each other as they drifted to sleep.