Chapter 110

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth

Allya sighed as she sat on her office's seat.

Shopping was over. Pyn had ended up dragging her through a few more shops than planned, and very few of them had anything to do with combat equipment, but overall it had definitely been a good day, although she would die of embarrassment if anyone opened her lingerie closet. Or more probably kill them and disappear the body, so to speak. Why in all the hells did the store stock up those kind of skimpy costumes, let alone maid uniforms?

They'd ended up buying the weapons Eismi had shown them, and the shield belts. It had been pricy as hell -she could definitely understand why they had still been in the fox eared woman's storerooms-, but overall so, so worth it. The daggers had shredded the practice dummies -most of which turned out to be some of Crystal's golems hollowed out of their components and stuffed with whatever would fit in there-, and Pyn's bow had literally punched through the target, and seriously damaged the massive slab of stone behind it. Turns out in the elf's hand, the arrow did break through the sound barrier.

But, despite all the excitement, it was back to paperwork once more, even as the sun had dipped beneath the horizon hours ago-

Allya jumped out of her chair before she'd even processed what she'd heard. Then her face went white as her brain recognized the siren sounding throughout the manor.

The city was under attack.

*****

ALERT: SENTRY GOLEM REPORTS: ANOMALOUS SURFACE ACTIVITY

ALERT: MILITARY GOLEM REPORTS: EXPLOSIONS ; SIRENS ; MAGICAL ACTIVITY

Alexandra blinked as the messages appeared in her interface, and she gestured at the screens on the workshop walls. She was currently alone with Jared, working on her newest artillery rocket prototypes, while Emilia and her maids were trying to teach CQ how to train her puppy.

Her eyes went wide when she saw what was happening, and she swore.

A simple mental command went out…and alarms began sounding throughout the dungeon as blast doors came down and golems raced to their battle stations.

"Jared, get Emilia back here now." Said Alexandra. She knew the vampires would be reacting immediately to the alarms -hell, she was seeing it right now in her dungeon view, Sarah and Ella were extremely well trained-, but she would also rather send her other boss to make sure the vampire girl was safe. After all, as much as Jared was inexpressive as ever, she knew the golem butler would let anyone through to the vampire girl only over its dead body. And right now she needed the vampires in the fortified core of her dungeon, behind the toughest defenses she could make, not in the second floor boss room.

Jared nodded, and departed as the clang of feet sounded throughout the hallways, praetorian guard golems concentrating to defend the core, loading field guns and pulling RPGs out of crates as their more mundane brethren marshaled for war.

*****

Allya came out of the manor at a dead run, her bodyguards in tow, only to come to a screeching halt at the vista in front of her.

The town, despite being surrounded by giant mesas, was mostly flat. Very few buildings had more than one story, and those that did tended to be close to the mesa. Which meant that the in construction airship docking tower dominated the landscape.

That tower was now aflame, as several airships took turn passing by it, unleashing their broadsides, as the perimeter towers tried desperately to fire on them, the night awash with the occasional flashes of light born from the lightning thrown by the tesla tower.

She turned towards one of the guards.

"Go to the airfield, tell them to get everything with guns into the air! Move!" But even as she said that, she heard the thunder of the crude bombards the Republic used as artillery coming from the airfields. Whoever was attacking was no fool, and they knew the ships would be attempting to take off to respond.

Depending on how many hostile warships they were, it might just be a delaying tactic…but it just might not be. She turned towards another guard, opened her mouth, and cringed in pain as she heard the thunder of several dozen cannons going off at once, plus the almost sizzling sound of cannonballs crashing into a ward of protection.

She looked back at the battle, just in time to see the Sakura thundering out of the darkness, all guns blazing, going full speed towards the entire enemy flotilla.

The enemy ships visibly hesitated. They'd probably expected a guard ship, but the Sakura was by far the heaviest ship in the entire expedition, now that the Alberta had been taken down. Moreover, unless Allya was sorely mistaken, it looked far larger than any of the Republic's own ships, for this had to be a Republic attack.

But while they were inferior in tonnage and technology alike, the Republic's warships had sheer numbers on their side, and apparently their captains weren't lacking in guts.

The frigate sized airships adjusted course, and the air battle proper began.

Allya turned back towards the guard she'd been about to speak to. She couldn't afford to be distracted by the battle.

"Go to the new military entrance with the dungeon, speak to the golems there, and ask for reinforcements. Go, go!"

The soldier hesitated, then thundered off, and Allya gestured for her guards to follow her as she ran for the nearest tower. She might not be able to affect the battle from there, but at least she'd feel useful being near some of the artillery fighting back, and all things being equal she'd rather be behind solid fortifications and have an eagle's view of the fight rather than be cowering down on the ground.

*****

All things considered, the Sakura acquitted itself admirably. Unfortunately for the ship, it wasn't enough.

Nine vessels constantly strafed the larger ship, their cruder, less effective bombards thundering with almost clockwork rhythm, while the Sakura fired back defiantly, trying to focus its fire to take down the enemy ships one at a time.

But it was a losing battle. The wards flew into pieces, and the ship began to lose altitude as its balloon and propeller took hit after hit after hit.

The captain was on the verge of yelling for his crew to abandon ship when one of the frigates harassing it came apart in a massive explosion, and the Creative Acquisition, Sylvia's pirate ship, flew through the debris cloud, spewing death at the enemy.

It wasn't enough to send them running, hell it wasn't enough to even tip the balance, but it did disorganize the enemy vessels, who attempted to regroup.

Right above the dungeon's mesa.

They never even saw the massive artillery battery assembling beneath them before it ripped two more ships to pieces in a single, rolling salvo.

*****

Alexandra smiled viciously as the enemy vessels turned tail and ran. She was suddenly very happy she'd decided to give her field guns an absurd maximum elevation. And built a special series of elevators to bring her artillery topside in a hurry, directly linking her warehouses to the military entrance.

Her ready batteries weren't necessarily much, but she'd targeted the ships with care. She was, when all was said and done, a space navy officer after all. Or used to be, at any rate. And as horrible as it sounded, in space warfare you went for the wounded ships first. Even a near wreck could fire point defence lasers and use electronic counter measures after all, and a vaporized vessel would never be repaired to fight again.

Of course there were other considerations in play. Nominally, she'd targeted the most wounded ships…among those she was reasonably sure would crash inside her influence.

One of them didn't, somehow keeping most of its propellers online and managing to almost make it out of the defensive ring of towers before the hull finally failed, spilling men and equipment onto the merciless ground as the wreck dispersed over several hundred meters of burning debris and corpses.

The other however just blew up as one of her cannon balls found a magazine, and the debris came thundering down all over her influence, disappearing nearly as fast as they fell as Alexandra greedily absorbed them, smiling as she saw the notifications for new materials and objects.

And then it was over. Silence, as the enemy airships sped away, quickly out of range of the primitive artillery, and far before her muzzle loading cannons could reload.

"What's happening?" Asked Emilia as she belatedly rushed through the command center door, her maids and Jared in tow.

Alexandra gestured at the screens.

"If I had to take a guess? I'd say our Republic friend got a bit adventurous." The Earth-born blinked. "And I'm getting some discussions I need to attend to topside. I'll explain later, just stay within the command center, I'll be back."

"Hey, wait-"

But the dungeon core's attention was already elsewhere as she jumped into her surface golem.

*****

"Sir, you need to see this."

Rear admiral Spear Mintz blinked, before walking over to the console where the bridge's sensor specialist was busy turning dials and flipping arcane switches. The flagship of his squadron had never been made for such a role, and thus didn't have a proper flag bridge, so he had to intrude upon the captain's domain whenever he wished to be kept up to date, although he was very careful in not interfering. After all, while he was the captain's boss, he was under no illusion that said captain was the only master after the Gods on the vessel, he just got to point the man in the direction to go to.

But this was the evening watch, and the admiral was something of a late sleeper. Not to mention he liked to spend his last hour awake on the bridge, trying to make himself as little of a nuisance as possible, and letting the sounds of an efficient ship lull him to a beginning of rest. Except that this night of all nights, the lieutenant of the watch had fallen ill, and in the breach of every regulation and protocol the navy had ever written he'd jumped at the occasion of taking the watch and in a way being in charge of the ship, even if it was just to stare at the horizon all night. After all while they were close to the dungeon town now, they had slowed down to make sure there would be ample daylight for their arrival, so as to not appear like an enemy force trying to sneak up on them.

"What is it corporal?" Said the admiral gently as the sensor specialist grimaced.

"I don't really know sir." She admitted. "We're getting some really weird stuff from the town. A few hours ago we detected what looked like airborne objects, maybe ships but we were too far for a good resolution, flying in a holding pattern. And now…It looks like the sensors are registering explosions and magical discharges of some kind. Hard to tell." The admiral frowned, then the sensor operate suddenly jumped up. "Wait, there! Several air contacts, moving away from the town. Looks like several more are following them…wait, no, one of the groups is turning back. What the hell is this?"

"That, corporal, is a Republic raiding party. And the contacts you just saw go back had to have been the town's defensive warships." Spear walked over to the captain's chair and firmly pressed the big red button on the arm of the chair.

Instantly alarms began blaring throughout the ship.

"BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS! ALL CREW TO BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! BATTLE STATIONS! BATTLE STATIONS!"

The admiral turned back towards the bridge, and looked at the communication specialist in particular.

"Transmit to the squadron: adjust heading to generate an intercept with the fleeing vessels. All ships are to douse running lights and prepare to run silent. Run out the guns and prepare to engage." His smile would have done a wolf proud. "We're going hunting."