Notes :
Lots of stuff these last few days, didn't get a new chapter done. But hey, had an excellent evening yesterday, so that's something.
Sadly, construction starts back up tomorrow. Gods that's going to suck.
I hope you'll enjoy the chapter !
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Chapter 128
Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley
Starfire Pass
Click click click click, reverse.
The Hand gazed at the handful of skeletons making their way through the pass.
They were making it very obvious they weren't armed. But they weren't officers either, nor heading for the white flag, still planted in the ground.
Salvagers.
The Hand grimaced.
Would they be covered by the truce? You could argue either way. Normally they'd have allowed it, as a small cost, albeit with their own troops escorting the salvagers as a show of force, but the other side had necromancers.
And they didn't even control most of their forces.
The golems the rebels had left behind moved to battle stations, and the Hand saw one team set up their machinegun and load it, before training it on the incoming skeletons.
Alright, they needed to act. They weren't sure if the golems could get orders from someone out there, and they had demonstrated impressive autonomy, but even that had limits.
The Hand grabbed a handful of rock shards from the ground, still scattered about from when the Tyrant had obliterated the gate and the surrounding walls, and murmured an incantation.
It wasn't very complex. But the shards screamed out of their bony digits, and hurled themselves across the pass.
The skeletons jumped back as the makeshift projectiles impacted the ground in front of them.
There was at least one Risen in that group, as the Hand saw them look up, and scan the wall, seeing the golems getting into combat position.
Just a few more seconds....don't shoot...
The Risen gestured, and the skeletons began to pull back.
They're pushing their luck. Thought the Hand.
They must have seen how depleted the wall's defenders were, and immediately started probing. It was what forces of the Age of Expansion did, but in this case it was monumentally stupid.
This truce was forced by the Imperatrix. Risking her wrath when they'd barely even begun the negotiations either indicated a high level of confidence, or they were smelling blood in the water. Enough of it that they thought confirmation or some pressure would allow them to better their negotiating position.
Which...made some sense, the Hand had more or less laughed off their first, ridiculous offer as even a basis for negotiation.
It was just worrying, because they were playing this game with an arm tied behind their backs. This kind of stupid stunt could cause the golems to attack outright, at which point all bets were off.
Sapphiria would never grant command of her golems. And involving her in the negotiations wasn't an option.
There was disturbance at the end of the Pass, and the legate stormed in, the skeletons immediately changing course to hug the edges, giving her as wide a berth as they physically could.
The legate didn't even notice them, walking with unnaturally long strides, seeming to move farther than she should. There wasn't so much as storm clouds over her head as a miniature hurricane.
The Hand sighed, as they began rolling the coin again.
Click click click click, reverse.
This was going to be a long day.
*****
"Well, that was anticlimactic." Said Sapphiria as she gazed at the data.
"Did you believe they would attack again this quickly?" Asked Cia.
"No. Not really. But I had to account for the possibility." The AI shrugged. "I believe they will uphold their truce, and at least give some warning before it is called off. If nothing else, they think they're talking to Sarcher, and I'm guessing that betraying their truce outright, when those 'forces' already strong-armed them into ceasing combat in the first place, would end poorly."
She knew what the Federation would do if two worlds started a dispute, and then broke a Federation backed agreement between them.
It had happened often enough. And the Navy had needed to show that what the Federation promised, the Federation would uphold.
After all, one of the biggest problems the Federation had, besides the incipient reforming of the Theocracy and a second war, was being seen as, well...the only galactic superpower and thus expected to step in when things went sideways.
That stemmed partly out of the fact that the Theocracy had no independent systems at all nor even understood the concept, at least not in the same way the Federation and humanity as a whole did, and partly because the Federation had a tendency towards interventionism on neutral human worlds when things went dire.
As such there had been mounting pressure both to and not to help former Theocracy worlds that landed themselves in hot water, with a considerable amount of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' involved, as political forces used the Federation's intervention or lack thereof to their own advantage. The Federation was rapidly turning into the easy political punching bag and scapegoat of a lot of former Theocracy world which...in some ways was fair, they had collapsed their millennia old Empire, corrupt, slavering and genocidal it may have been.
The general policy so far had been to limit it to border territories and slowly expand influence through a network of client states. Which, incidentally, was exactly what she had been doing, though on human planets. Deliver orbital elevators, farming complexes, terraforming systems, asteroid deflection grids...
The list was endless. The Theocracy had been interconnected as all hell and effectively a planned economy. Once central authority was gone and power reverted to local governments, systems that worked on a galactic scale completely collapsed. The war had been over for almost a century and there were still widespread shortages and shipping had only just reached the level prior to the collapse. And that was with the Federation injecting infrastructure and its own shipyards' production into the mix.
Overall, the territories of the former Theocracy were still at roughly two thirds the industrial output they once had, and that included all the places that had either joined the Federation or become client states. Some unwillingly, it was worth noting, either during the war or the Galactic Core campaign, when the Federation was targeted by armadas of raiders and terrorists, sponsored by a variety of Theocracy successor states that thought they were out of reach now that the Federation had withdrawn its fleets.
The Bane's central authority seemed to be in a much worse position than the Federation had been, with its own forces and territories no less, but they still had to stamp down when things got too far. And here, if someone outright challenged that crackdown?
They'd have to react. Harshly. A feudal power that couldn't stop its lords from killing each other was no more than some ink on a map.
"Yet they have made a provocation."
"They're testing the limits. It's what they've always done." She ordered her bots to stand down. She hadn't been about to attack the skeletons, but had they neared the wreckage of the rolling fortress, she would have ordered some warning shots. No way she would allow them to salvage her tech, or take a close look at the forest of stone spikes, currently the greatest obstacle to a new attack. "And I'm guessing that they thought salvaging was innocent enough. But we'll need to respond." She remembered her previous thought about those shields, and a wicked smile appeared on her face. "And I know how. How many bots do we have up?"
"One shredder, six nickelbots."
"Gather them up. Then let's send some messages to the squishies. We're going shopping."
*****
Click click click click, reverse.
"You do not look pleased." Said the Hand as the legate finished her leap and landed next to him.
She summoned a field of privacy around them, preventing anyone from eavesdropping, like the Nineteenth or the nearby golems, and immediately started to sign.
"That is because I am not pleased. I have received my reinforcements and begun organizing, but there has been...developments."
The Hand's eyebrow rose.
"What kind?"
"Opal is finishing up the remnants of the Western Confederation. Rebel forces are in full retreat."
"You fear that they will take Umbra and Noctan sooner than expected?"
"I'm worried they're going to get on the other side of that fortress city of Exacor, and establish a beachhead. Once that's done, we cannot hold this region. It is the only chokepoint we could use to hold back the might of their armies."
The Hand nodded.
"So the rebels are weaker than expected."
"No. They're stronger. At least two of the southern cities still stubbornly refuse to fall, and their troops around this fortress city are fighting like demons. But no amount of fighting spirit can cover a front this large. They will have to chose where to counter Opal's advance, and between giving up Exacor to total encirclement or one of their major capitals, I believe they will abandon the fortress to die." She sighed. "There are also more immediate news. There are rebel units out here. Not the ones you have made an alliance of circumstance with, but outside the valley. My reconnaissance unit stumbled into them, but they avoided combat."
"There are rebels everywhere behind our lines. We advanced too quickly and bypassed a large area." It was, after all, how the ones in the valley had gotten there in the first place. With nowhere else to go, they'd taken the gamble and headed North.
How they had known where to find the valley, when it had been supposedly abandoned for centuries, was another matter entirely.
"I am well aware of that. But I've had several reports on the frontlines, from the units trying to cross the rivers. Rebels made it across. Couriers, an entire contubernium dying to protect one to get their message across."
That gave the Hand pause.
The group of rebels here, with just the resources in the valley, and the mines, had found Sapphiria and had humbled both them and the Nineteenth legion. Starting from scrabbling in the dirt with barebones huts and now erecting buildings of concrete. From a handful of firearms backed by swords and shields to artillery batteries and an entire maniple of golems with rifles and machineguns. All of that, accomplished in a few months.
If they linked up with the wider rebellion...
Sarcher suppressed a shiver.
Throne protect them all then.
"That is...concerning."
"My thoughts exactly. The rebels have airships. Ones good enough that they almost made it to the City of Spires before being intercepted by the Imperatrix's dracoliches. These mountains aren't entirely insurmountable to them. Just very, very difficult to get across." She shrugged. "If what you have told me about your suspicions here is correct." Her gaze flickered to the golems as she signed. "Then this could get dangerous. Especially since we're already not mining ore, and not likely to anytime soon."
The Hand gazed at the legate, then back at the valley, at the distant settlement. There was barely any smoke coming from there anymore.
Not from lack of firewood or cold to try and beat back. The Hand was ready to bet it was because they'd moved away from fires to keep themselves warm.
That was...that was insane. Fire. Sapphiria had made fire obsolete.
"When they start coordinating..." The Hand trailed off, before turning back towards the Pass, and the legate. "This entire region will turn into one, gigantic death trap." The Hand smiled. "So let's make sure we're not the ones caught up in it."
The legate raised her hands, then lowered them, before finally starting to sign again.
"You want us to retreat?"
"No. What we're going to do is sell this entire region to Opal. We're going to...how does the old proverb goes? Nickel and dime them." What extracting value had to due with a metal and decimals was beyond them but perhaps it made sense to Imperator Vallir then. "Extract every concession, every bit of value we can. Then we will fall back, and brace."
"Would that not break your agreement with the rebels?"
"On the contrary. We have agreed that I would evacuate this side of the Pass. There was no conditions on where my troops should go afterwards."
The legate stared at him, and the Hand shrugged, before continuing.
"The rebels might not see it that way, no. But they'll have every interest in making sure the transition goes smoothly. After all...blasting me out of the defenses is a lot worse than taking them over peacefully and as intact as possible."
The legate nodded.
"Knowing you," she signed, "I assume you will wish to make sure the negotiations take some time to get the best deal."
"And make certain they don't realize they are being cheated until the very last moment, yes. Surrendering too quickly would gather suspicion."
"Then I will try to get you as much leverage as I can."
"Reinforcements would be appreciated." The Hand held up the coin, with its faint teeth marks. The legate winced. She knew exactly what that talisman could do. "I am down to the bone here."
"I will see what I can do. But they are not keen on letting my troops through. They dare not stop me, but they moved a few of their remaining legionnaires to block my cavalry from accompanying me."
That was...unsurprising. From their point of view they'd almost annihilated the Hand's forces. There was almost nothing on the walls anymore.
"Then don't bother. I'm sure the rebels will send reinforcements soon." The Hand twitched and looked towards the valley as they received the alert.
Even with their losses, they had kept their lookouts. And their gaze followed the glint of moving metal.
Speak of the daemons.