Notes : Chapter 137 has been written and added to the queue !
Not much to say. Eyedrops are helping but not fully. Still struggling with vision problems but at least I can read most of the time now. Getting back on my feet, slowly but surely in short.
Chapter 135
Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley
Settlement of Astralis
There may still be bandwidth and reliability issues communicating with the tower and the relays back to the mines, but the turrets and their private network interfaced with Sapphiria just fine so long as she was there.
It reminded her that she needed to install a laser relay, to go through the tower to reach the mines with better bandwidth. It's not like the Bane didn't already know where the squisheis were. Nor would it be hard to find out anyway. Astralis was never really hard to spot, and the fresh, metal guntowers didn't exactly scream 'old Imperial ruins' anyway.
Said guntowers began to fire, the strangely flat 'thump thump thump' of the autocannons filling the air. They weren't built for shooting at very high rates of fire, but they didn't need to be.
To her pleased surprise, the squishies were responding well. Instead of milling around uncertainly or rushing to pot something with their personal weapons, they responded like a well oiled machine, the non combatants retreating into the buildings while the soldiers and militia formed up at key defensive points, establishing a second perimeter to backstop the turrets in case they were overrun.
Though, it shouldn't been that astonishing. Kalia knew what she was doing, and this people wouldn't have made it this far without some serious organization.
She burst out of the settlement proper just as the machineguns opened up. These she could make far faster and use more liberally than the autocannons, and the skies were filled with a single, unending roar as the turrets fired a volley dense enough you could walk on it.
What they were firing at however, gave her a slight pause. They looked like someone had tried to give a tapir the frontal plating of a triceratops. Stupid looking or not, it could evidently take a lot of punishment, as evidenced by their relentless advance.
Unfortunately for them, it couldn't take enough. Two were already down, and the remaining three couldn't close, not without exposing their flanks and be eviscerated. Their frontal armor seemed to be eating most of the machinegun fire and the bulk of the autocannon detonations, but given the status of one of them, which had tried to divert or possibly retreat, the same couldn't be said of the rest of their bodies.
Not that it looked it was going to last long anyway. As she watched, the frontal armor of one of them finally cracked under the hammering, and the turrets retargeted, heavy machineguns widening the cracks...
Only for an autocannon rounds to smash right through, detonating halfway inside the thing's skull.
Blood and less identifiable substances exploded out the back of the bone plate, and the monster dropped.
The rest, realizing that death was inevitable at this point, simply rushed forward, weaving and trying to keep the machineguns from ripping their flanks to pieces.
Sapphiria swapped out her plasma gun for her gauss rifle. Energy wasn't what these things needed.
She let out a single three round burst, and the front creature fell. To her amazement, it began to stand back up, but the machineguns simply shredded it.
The second one made it halfway to the turrets before the combined firepower of the entire defense net just reduced it to pulp.
Sapphiria lowered her rifle, double checking her scanners for life signs.
"Well. I guess we got more samples out of that at least."
As well as a reassurance that the defenses were keeping up.
For now at least.
Sapphiria began to pull status reports of the turrets, noting ammunition levels and the maintenance schedule, before looking up as Kalia arrived, Gregor and a team of soldiers in tow.
"Well...no day's ever boring with you, is it?" Said the mage-magistrate with a smile. She opened her arms, and Sapphiria hugged her. "Sorry I'm late."
"It's fine." The AI squeezed her girlfriend, before stepping back. "These monsters are new, though."
Kalia frowned as she saw the vista.
"Yes. They are. I think we're going to need to have a council meeting about that."
"And...?"
"And we'll have a meeting afterwards." Said Kalia with a smile that caused the AI to melt. The soldiers exchanged knowing glances, which at least went some way towards maintaining that their meetings had a whole other purpose entirely.
Not that she didn't intend to if there was some time of course...
"Fine by me."
"Good. Gregor, can you go get Ramina? I'm sure Sapphiria can lead us back to Malry."
"Oh. Right." Said Sapphiria, as both of them looked at her. "I...may have kind of ditched her in the infirmary when the shooting started."
Which, while not strictly true, was the gist of it.
"Well, off to the infirmary then. I'm sure she'll understand."
*****
"-rushing out like that made quite an impression." Said Malry as they walked into the council room, Saphiria closing the door behind them. "Though I admit some of the patients were panicking before they were told what had happened."
"Sorry. I'll try to be more sedate next time." Sapphiria smiled at Gregor, as he pulled up Kalia's chair as well as hers. "Thanks."
"No problem." He pointedly didn't do it for Malry, but she didn't seem to mind. Everyone was more or less slotting her and Kalia as the...well, the rulers of Astralis, for better or for worse.
That reminded her that she was going to have to activate those emergency protocols and declare herself governor, sooner or later. Her authority as a fleet admiral when squishies were at risk was broad, but not unlimited.
It wasn't just about Cia throwing a hissy fit either. She also needed to think about when the navy got there...if it ever did. Having a rock solid legal basis for what she was about to do would safeguard her and the squishies.
"Alright." Started Kalia. "We've been having more and more monster trouble as winter has gone on. We expected that. But not exactly in this fashion. Gregor?"
The old skeleton stepped forward.
"I've been talking to our people with the most experience with Convergences." Given what she knew of those, that meant Paul, which explained why Kalia hadn't done it. "There's two main possibilities. The first one is the simplest. Monsters simply come down south in winter. Why? No idea. Maybe the colder weather makes it more comfortable for them. Maybe it's too cold up north. Maybe the alignment of the stars put them in a foul mood. The other one..." He shrugged, which was an interesting gesture on a skeleton. "A manatempest may be brewing."
"That's like, a powerful manastorm, correct?" Said Sapphiria, and the skeleton laughed.
"Pretty much. Though it's like calling a hurricane a powerful breeze."
"...That bad?"
"Let's put it this way. If one happens, we will see it from the valley."
That gave Sapphiria pause. They'd driven for so long, and barely hit the edge of the Convergence.
Granted, the snowpiercer wasn't going to set any records for speed, especially when first passing through an area. Their return was significantly quicker thanks to having already cleared a path. But still.
That was insane.
"Just to be clear, we don't risk being affected by it." Said Ramina. "As in, the storm itself won't reach all the way to us."
Kalia nodded.
"The scouts didn't leave much behind for the Magistracy to acquire, but that much was pretty clear in their records."
"That's something." Said the AI, before glancing at Gregor. "But it's pushing the monsters outward?"
"Basically. It's one of the signs. A proper mage observatory could probably see more, but it's not like any was ever built, let alone calibrated, for Icerend."
"Do you think it could be soon?" She was trying not to sound worried. Just as she'd started scaling up...
"Probably not. These things take time. Gather power and momentum. When it does happen...the attacks will stop for a couple of days. Then...whatever was changed by the storm will wake up."
Sapphiria felt a chill go down her spine, her programs doing a passable imitation of the squishie reaction.
"Well that's not ominous at all."
"Hence the reason for this meeting." Said Kalia. "Once I learned that it was a possibility..." She shrugged. "I thought you should be warned."
"Thanks." The AI sighed. "There's not much I can do right now. What forces I have are concentrated at the pass. For now however, I need to refocus my efforts."
Kalia nodded. She was aware of her retasking her industry towards scaling up. The others however simply looked disappointed. They had their suspicions about what she had down there, but not full confirmation, and the AI wasn't sure on how to approach that.
Actually, no. She knew telling the truth would work...with Malry and Gregor.
She wasn't sure how to approach Ramina. Even Kalia had agreed on keeping her half in the dark, which said it all really.
Frankly, when Kalia had told her she should never tell Ramina she was an android, because the mage-magistrate didn't want to shoot the artificer for assault, she'd thought her girlfriend was kidding. Or at least exaggerating for effect.
More and more she was starting to doubt if that was the case. There was something fundamentally wrong about Ramina. Not technophilia, the literal sense of the term having taken real form after the creation of sapient AIs. She'd met technophiles, some of them in her own family. Stars, she'd dated technophiles.
This was something else entirely, and combined with Ramina's personality traits...
What if that what had caused her to be pursued by a magehunter?
After all, Paul was sent as a hunter-killer...
You don't send assassins, even sanctioned ones, after a mere thief, or someone falsifying their degrees.
"Well. You've certainly done right by us." Said Gregor. "Still, best if we starting planning some contingencies."
"I agree." Sapphiria stood up, and tapped the map. "We had talked about a decoy. Perhaps we could begin surveying the best spot to site it. Preferably towards the mouth of the valley, to attract any monsters trying to get in..."
*****
"You know, somedays I think I'm getting good at this whole 'strategy and tactics' things, then you and Gregor come along and remind me that I know absolutely nothing." Said Kalia as they entered her office, before collapsing into her chair.
"It wasn't that bad." Retorted the AI as she took her seat on the other side of the desk.
"Darling, you just spent half an hour arguing about ridges, sightlines, elevation and fields of fire. My understanding of tactics is 'get the high ground and shoot them'."
"Is that why you went into the valley then? Scurry to the highest point possible?"
Kalia grabbed a long, wooden ruler from her desk, and swiftly hit the AI over the head with it.
"Ow!" Sapphiria rubbed the top of her head "Where did you get that?"
"Part of the tools we brought for the maps. Used it when we were making our way in. Got it out of my gear because, well, what kind of teacher doesn't have a big ruler to smack their students with, from time to time?"
"A sane one? Corporal punishment is highly counterproductive and-"
Kalia held up her hand.
"Sapphi. I know. I was joking."
"Oh." Right. "Sorry."
"You're a bit worked up." Kalia opened a bag by her desk, and brought out a canteen. It had definitely seen better day, but it opened without issue. The mage-magistrate sniffed at the contents, then winced. "A special, made by some of my citizens and given as...well tribute isn't the right word. Call it gratitude."
"I don't require drinks."
"No you don't. But you have to let people shower you in stuff. It's how things get done here. You save people, you get rewarded. I know you don't like the whole worshipping stuff. Nether realm, if I was in your position I wouldn't either. But you need to accept their gratitude and their gifts, even if only from time to time."
She fished a couple of tin cups from her bag, and filled them. They were as beat up as the canteen, which she found interesting. She knew the mage-magistrate had wine and proper glasses, which made this deliberate.
Sapphiria accepted one of the cups, and almost threw it away as the smell reached her sensors.
"Oh fuck! Is that...please tell me this isn't what I think it is?"
"Gregor once told me that there's three things that happen in any military camp. First, someone builds a still. Then someone makes a bar. Finally, people start playing dice and cards in the bar." Kalia gazed at the inside of her cup. "And that good commanders learn to both ignore them...and make it known that if they have to take notice, things will get uncomfortable for those involved." She downed the entire cup, and coughed. "The point of the lesson is that you can't stop these kind of things entirely. But you can regulate them. Which is why I don't stomp down on the still, I just make sure they're not taking someone's rations, and that my people can make sure it's safe."
Sapphiria nodded. Though she wasn't sure she would call spiced nutrigel moonshine 'safe', at least certainly not for one's tastebuds, even if it was harmless to the rest of their anatomy. Which, being moonshine, it almost certainly wasn't.
"The Federation Navy has something similar." Though in their case, they provided the squishies what they needed. Of course, there were always squishies that needed to make their own stuff, at which point it became a delicate dance, to say the least.
"Then they're not idiots." Kalia watched the AI intently, and Sapphiria sighed, before downing the drink.
She immediately started coughing. Fuck! She'd had reactor coolant that tasted better than this.
"Alright. Now that you've had something worse than whatever is on your mind, you can speak up and get it off your chest."
Sapphiria smiled between two coughs.
"I don't think it's worse, sadly."
"Truly? Because this is truly foul. I mean I kind of like it, but..." Some of Sapphiria's horror must have slipped into her expression, because the mage-magistrate changed the subject with indecent haste. "Seriously, what's on your mind?"
"Remember when Gregor when to show me the Throne?"
"Yeah?"
"It's a Vestige. One I recognize."
Kalia dropped her cup.
"WHAT?!?"