Sideways Relations III
"I'm… I'm sorry… that you uh… that you couldn't… meet him…" he tried to speak, doing his best to keep some semblance of composure.
"I'm sorry for your loss." There was silence between them as he just kept his eyes forward, watching the clouds move along. "If… if you want to stay here, we can get the stuff unpacked… give you as much time as you need."
"No… no… I uh… I'm pretty sure he'd want me to wallow in tears near others, keep me from doing something out of my mind. Being alone with my thoughts is a good way to get into trouble." They both headed back to the castle after she cracked the wards, 1st Air Fleet getting them there in no time flat. The rest of the day Gabriel would spend his time just moping around from library to music room, doing what he could to settle his mourning of the man he considered not only his teacher, but his adopted father. The body would be cremated the next day with a memorial service, per Teagan's request, found in another coin. Hrist kept an eye on the purple-haired mage while Selene slipped away, finally deciding to take on the challenge that was the reports from her new secretaries… and receiving an overload of information for her effort.
HOLY SHIT! Why are there so many?! What the hell is this one from the police in Gold Pine?! And this one from maintenance REMFs from 2nd Brigade?!
There was so much useless stuff she didn't need to really see, wondering why it was even being sent to her. Then it occurred to the empress. In most 4x games, there were settings for automated mayors for cities, making sure a player could just keep hitting the next turn button as long as everything was going to plan. She hadn't done any of that for her secretaries, they were just sending her whatever they were receiving themselves. They didn't know what she wanted to know about just yet, just that some of these reports were important.
A quick hop to the requirements to reach her for each one, taking a good hour to set properly and speak to each of them to understand her goals, and the reports dropped to… almost none. One notice was from a Director of Intelligence due to the fact he had no agents to work with just yet. The dev already had that in the pipeline, getting a sizeable number of automatons… and androids. The autos would be the forceful backbone and wet work, the advanced androids would be for interaction with others, hidden in plain sight, though a little more fragile if one could call them that. With a sigh of relief as she left the palace for the first launch at the mass driver, the flood of information was staunched finally.
Middle Intersolar… the mass driver still has use after getting the main launches done, getting cargo sent up quickly without the need of an inventory hopper dragged around. Oy… space elevator has its plot cleared, probably should get the foundation and base structure ready now… the Secretary of Labor and of Transportation should be able to get that going…
Her Director of Intelligence again chimed in with a request for authorization to run "Renaissance" psychological evolution courses on the people in the empire. At first, she was appalled by her own automaton asking to play mind games with her people, then realized the entire project was to ease civilians into the next era as quickly as possible so she could move them yet again to Colonial Era. He wasn't doing any experiments or true brainwashing, just performing psychological "carrot on a stick" progression programs and incentives to get people to use what was now available, to move away from the old and adapt to the new. When she checked in with Orlo, he somewhat agreed it was the best course of action, with Turnie stating it wouldn't harm her citizens.
By his calculations, a new era could be integrated every three to five months, far faster than what she was expecting as long as they keep getting told 'out with the old, in with the new.' As she reluctantly agreed, the empress got back into her transportation to head to the mass driver entrance, further up north and hidden in the Boramar Mountains.
Once she landed, the heavily reinforced blast doors opened up, allowing her to walk into a small ceremony. Juliet was proud of her work here, though most of her main construction team was now already at the second site. The security force now emplaced all saluted as she walked down the bunker hallways towards the operations center, looking somewhat reminiscent of NASA's Houston MCC. It was quite a bit larger, with far more advanced equipment and no CRT monitors from the few pictures she had seen, but the general layout was about identical. This station would also keep command of the rockets that were fired off to launch satellites, still more efficient than the mass driver due to allowing two launches every load, with the platform soon to be extended to four. The mass driver would eventually allow multiple shots per day, though the launch pads could be increased to allow as many as twenty rockets at one time, all having their trajectories streamlined to not hit each other or cause turbulence.
"Welcome ma'am" she heard from the Chief of Operations here. They provided her a seat with desk just for her while they sorted preparations out for the first shot. The projectile that would be fired out looked like it might have been an old-fashioned steampunk artillery shell, massive in size to about 25 meters in diameter. It was actually smaller than what was going to be shot out once they got the portable station gantry up there. "Is there anything we can get you?" the Director asked.
"No thank you, I'm just a little excited for this."
"Of course, ma'am." She began to hear background chatter in the room as the teams figured out all checks and requirements. Power was good with no fluctuations, weather wouldn't affect projectile trajectory or speed, the astronaut team was prepped and in the secondary loading tube. None of this needed to happen, most of the communications was just for her to hear, a show as it were. While time was flying by for her, the whole thing took a good half hour before they were ready for the countdown.
This is it. The hurry up and wait part.
"Rail check is stable. Team is thumbs up." The astronauts inside, each one of them, showed the camera their thumbs. They were ready, even if they were drones. It gave them a little more relatability for the empress. Despite them being made of metal and wires, she had made each one, and they considered her their creator. As much as they could be disposable, she much rather each one come home safe and sound.
"Power is stable."
"Aerial is clear."
"Task cooling is variable, standby… cleared."
"Ma'am?"
"Yeah."
"Call is a go. Go for shot."
Recommended Song: Two Steps From Hell – For The Win)
The shell was grabbed and moved through a secondary hallway via multiple hooks and a rear magnetic loader, getting it into position and latching in place. The mass driver charged up all capacitors and pressurized the area. Lights went out in the barrel as doors sealed shut. The coils charged fully as lightning sparked a little around them.
"In, ten, nine, eight, seven, six" the chief of operations counted down. Selene was apprehensive, even if she knew everything would work out. Her stomach was full of butterflies. Real expansion into space. This was the start of it. The shell was dropped and hovered for a split second, balancing on the electromagnetic field. "One. Shot. Rock n Roll."
The shell launched up the barrel, moving faster and faster, the electromagnets on the sides depressing into the walls like piano keys until the cargo was away. "Envelope stable, speed at Mach 1… Mach 2… Mach 3… Mach 4… Mach 5…" the notice of the shell increasing speed by the second while she watched the cameras inside the cargo pod, the automatons all holding onto their harnesses. "Mach 15, Mach 18, Mach 21, Mach 24, Mach 26 reached." There was a thunderous roar from the tip of the mountain as the pod blasted out the top, riding enough power to carry it to orbit. Gold Pine, every citizen, all looked up at hearing it, the range well beyond anything they could see.
"Good guns, stabilizing now." The next few minutes almost kept her from breathing, waiting for the acknowledgement they were safe in a stable orbit as the man-made fireball escaped the atmosphere. "Control, we are on point. I think we can see the castle from here. Sorry we can't wave at you ma'am." Selene jumped up and pumped her fist, a yahoo escaping her lips as she shouted to the room. The room was a little different compared to the Houston MCC, as none of the automatons cheered. This was all for her sake after all, a morale boost as it were for their creator.
"Flight, take a spacewalk for a bit and prepare for return." The pod would orbit for little under half the standard mission of a space shuttle, around three days. During that time, the pod would take a few pictures of the planet, the moon, any random space debris that had been collected through the planet's lifespan and gather data for the next real launch for the station printer. It would also run a few tests on radiation, stress tests some materials and chemical mixtures, and in general be a weird light flying in the sky after dark for her to look at.
"We'll take some nice photos for you ma'am."
"Thank you. All of you." She nodded at the command team and gave a half curtsey, a few of them with personality cores, though only known by their titles. The second pod would be launched tomorrow morning, along with a third for the inventory hopper. They expected the station, at least the smallest one, to be built by the end of the week due to needing to be slower in micro gravity and not knock required parts away into the void. If everything went according to plan, she could technically visit the thing in the very near future, albeit without much in terms of amenities. That would come with the much bigger station created around it, hopefully with gravity plating installed for her to walk around and not float.
As she left, the dev checked on a spare, very much needed, construction team and sent them to the space elevator. The top would be used for ships to dock and send shipments down or crews up. Her Secretary of Labor, Transportation and Energy, among others, all chimed in with available ideas to get it done quickly and efficiently without harming the environment nearby.
A small notice popped up from her Secretary of Defense and Admiral Erilyn. Apparently, there were sightings of merfolk armed in the area, all observing her ships.
First, it's Drow, then its faith eaters after the Drow, now its merfolk. I would think they'd be friendly given we cleaned up the ocean of all that toxic goop. Maaaaaaybe they're just being defensive until we talk?
"Ma'am, there is also a visual on an Artinian fleet moving along the coast, heading towards what we should just classify as New Zealand until a better name is found." As she checked on the footage from a long-range drone, there was a request from her science division… for a bigger research lab. Apparently, the one in the castle was considered too small for the projects they had in mind. Juliet had something to say about that as she requested a much larger crew to handle more tasks, as she just didn't have the manpower.
"Ok, ok, I'll… hang on…" Selene quickly swapped in a massive amount of materials to get the crew built, given she was going to need them anyways once there was a lab stationed on the moon. With an increase to well over one hundred thousand automatons of all sizes, her head of construction was pleasantly satisfied.
"Ma'am, if you don't mind me asking, why didn't we have this from the get-go?" she asked.
"Because I was trying to handle too many things without someone keeping the minor stuff dealt with. I didn't think you were hurting on construction teams and tasking every fabrication unit to do stuff takes a lot of time. My screw up."
"I'd like to say we all screw up now and again, but…"
"Yeah, no you don't! I already know this!" Selene laughed out. Romeo didn't really need an expanded crew, as military models could be temporarily conscripted in the area to help with FOBs or installations.
I was never very good at RTSs or having high APMs for micromanagement. My build orders sometimes got forgotten, it wasn't exactly my forte. That was one of the reasons I liked 4x games instead, the time to look at each order or needs of my towns and cities.
Once that was taken care of, it was fairly simple to get the new zoning ready for the ARC, or Advanced Research Center. The location would be near the shipyard, directly diagonal in position of the valley to the castle. Given the projects they were going to work on, some of them being quite dangerous, it was best to keep their creator safe and sound if something went… off.
Please don't tell me Nikola and Robert are thinking about building a planet buster… please don't tell me I built crazy scientists…
"Ma'am, you're going to want to see the flotilla engage." Her Secretary of Defense showed a connection to the drone, ornithopter and satellite footage of the Artinian Royal Fleet sailing off. What they weren't expecting was the flotilla heading in their direction… all of two corvettes and five fast attack boats. The Artinians numbered in the fifties, easily outnumbering her forces.
"I take it this is the minimum you believe should be engaging?" she questioned.
"These are the fastest you have in the water right now to get around the continent and head them off at the pass. They're more than enough ma'am. Just watch." The battleships the Royal fleet had opened up their side doors to push out their cannons and ratchet their scorpions on the decks, however they didn't exactly get far with their preparations. Multiple railgun rounds lanced out from the corvettes with a few laser beams strafing the area, the initial strike blasting out the other side of the wooden hull for the fleet. The fast attack boats skimmed across the water far too fast for anything to really track them, pulse lasers and machineguns punching potholes through the sides while chain guns tore apart their masts.
Five against fifty and it still wasn't a fair fight. Kind of feels like I'm picking on the little guy.
"As you can see ma'am, overextending our forces would be nigh impossible at the moment given the tech advantage we have, completely ignoring our production and manufacturing capability. With a little more streamlining, we could cut down on sending brigades to handle towns and cities, instead sending as little as a few platoons or a company. This would allow you to focus on building more construction teams or prefab buildings."
"Except what happens to the remainder of the brigade or, I dunno, division… field army…"
"You haven't deployed anything really larger than brigades yet ma'am. Nothing has required a division as of yet. That could change in the foreseeable future, and we can get that done for you instead."
"Ok, but what happens to the extras sitting back at the FOB? I'll… think about pulling back a little on the military strength and dispersing it a little better. Can't you deploy without me?"
"I can, just wanted to make sure you saw certain engagements, so you know how well our forces are doing. I understand that you would want to at least be in the loop." The main reason she was even sending brigades in was at the time of producing most of them, there were only Artinian towns or forts to conquer and she didn't know if they had any magic superweapons of any kind, so splits of 5,500 soldiers were sent. She didn't have shields or tier immunities when they were first sent out to take these lands in her name, her tech wasn't as strong as it was now. For the most part, the dev wanted to overcompensate to guarantee a success. With recent upgrades, he wasn't wrong, dispersing her forces more efficiently was needed.
"This isn't to tell you to stop sending intimidation forces towards Artinia ma'am, this is just to show you the tech advantage we currently have and that sending more than required is just simply going to be overkill. A suggestion of mine would be to start getting outposts set up on the islands, some fighter garrisons and small maintenance harbors. In this way, we can keep anyone from expanding in ways to attempt to flank the empire. It would also disperse your forces to better give early warning."
It reminded her of an old history class that explained Cuba vs the US with Russian missiles during the Cold War. As much as she had Strategy and Tactics as a skill, she forgot someone will eventually want to lay claim to territory she didn't own yet just to the left of her front porch to gain an advantage.
"Get that done for me, Secretary."
"Yes ma'am. I'll also send some more recommendations for you to peruse." That was a large undertaking she had removed from her shoulders now. There was going to be no constant reports of bases built, everything would just be finished, and she'd get to focus on more important details… like the urgent call from 12th Brigade. What she found surprising was not that they were telling her to check in, but because they were warning her of an impending attack for the dwarves.
Footage appeared in her Hud involving faith eaters, a lot of them. They had taken the Drow city that the brigade was slowly heading towards, with advanced recon heading further ahead. There were at least thirty of them, but one thing was for certain, they weren't alone. It seemed they were fighting bugbears, Illithids, and what looked like the remainder of a vampire group. Most of the blood suckers were already dealt with by the team battle royale, bar two.
"How in the hell did… wha…" she whispered to herself as the fighting continued. The bugbears seemed to be the heavy hitters here, with the two vampires being little more than holding on anymore. The Illithids, surprisingly, were on the losing end of everything, as the faith eaters seemed unaffected by any mind control, nor were their puppets. These weren't the same faith eaters she had fought before, the creatures in the video had four arms and moved a lot quicker. They used their claws similar to a sloth to climb around and swing from point to point like a monkey, used cover and ambush tactics. The other fact was that they had turned all the remaining bodies of the Drow into puppets, practically boiling over the walls that the living or unliving tried to hide behind. It was a lost city, being fought over for the spoils… but the place was still occupied by the invaders.
This is a new development. Is this thing a pack creature that normally runs around in groups, only solo when it wants to hunt, or is it an actual sapient race on this planet like the Illithids? I wonder if they naturally live in the Underdark and just come up once in a while to snack. Hopefully the dissection can shed some light on at least how the body works. Behavioral research might take a live specimen… oy, I just know the research teams are going to want to start doing that…
"Nikola, Robert, you have everything you need available?"
"Yes empress, we have almost everything. Could you… could you spare some more teams?" Nikola chimed in. She actually liked his accent, Serbian or Croatian and well thought out. He seemed matter of act, never taking no for an answer when it came to science and had a clear understanding of what he was doing. The empress somehow knew that he, Robert, and any other future science leaders, would make some incredible headway in avenues her tech tree didn't offer, ones with integrated steampunk and magic inside advanced technology.
"I'll get right on it; send me a list of things you'll need in the new facility." He acknowledged as she cut coms, then sent a request for all of her secretaries to send lists of what they would need to do their jobs properly. What she received afterwards while trying to read through 12th Brigade's report was the size of Santa's nice and naughty list… combined. "Holy shit… ok… damn…" Selene put that on hold temporarily as the Drow were verified as evacuating before the complete extermination of their people, at least on this land mass. Reconnaissance had found a tunnel bored up and heading towards Kaldanas Mountains, probably for an attempted incursion into the dwarf fortress at some point. It was possible they would attempt to somehow lead some of the faith eaters into the fortress, giving them an edge in ending the dwarves then finishing off any of the rampaging creatures via ambush and avoiding the puppets. She highly doubted that would work, resulting in her having to send in a 'Sterilization Force' to burn everything down.
With the helibot landing back at the palace, the empress got out and saw Hrist waiting for her. "Hey." As they walked back into her home, the Valkyrja stopped her with a tug on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"
"Morlan wants to spar with me." Selene's smile dropped.
"Oh hell… nonono… he isn't ready to even think about that just yet… you didn't…"
"I did not. I understand that you have given him this opportunity, however, he needs to understand this will probably be a…"
"Long road? Well, longer than a few days at least." The dev sighed and pushed her bangs back, closing her eyes and just slowly shaking her head. "I'll talk to him." As she walked down the hallway, heading towards his bedroom in hopes he was there, she just kept pushing through the list that was given to her. Espionage Agents, Sabotage Agents, Counter Agents, Assets retrieval. There were requests for underwater sea bases to be built, underground base foundations for FOBs to be hidden, her air fleets to be doubled or even tripled, a second shipyard somehow built to the south in the gulf.
Most of what was asked for wasn't for her to do anything other than give them more men and get to it. Her fabrication units were numbering in the thousands now, with 3D printers following a similar route. She started chain links in her inventory to group up manufacturing, debating whether it would be a good idea to start placing some of it on the field instead of hidden away for only her to use. It would start to clutter up the surrounding landscape, taking up valuable space. The dev finally decided she'd wait until there were large space stations available, then have all production installed there. Until then, she'd suck it up and take online orders from her subordinates when they needed something.
The federal government has something like four million employees since I last heard… hmm… other countries were probably the same, maybe not quite at that number.
The dev reached the bedroom and checked inside, not finding the warrior there. "Jeeves, do you know where Morlan went?" she asked over her coms.
"Swimming, madam. He said he wanted to relax in the indoor pool and not push himself until tomorrow."
"He just went through a four-hour long training workout. What the…" There was a camera set in the indoor pool room as a security measure, one which she now needed to use. Morlan was there, but he wasn't swimming much. For the first time in a while, she saw him lying backwards on a pool floatie in the shape of a unicorn, with a drink and swim trunks. Deacon and Ethan were in there as well, sort of hanging out with him. Jorge was standing behind them with his massive arms crossed, a stern commander watching over part of his team. Bronze Team was a special case to be considered separate from the command structure of the Secretary of Defense. They would be Selene's personal assets where required.
The warrior in the pool just floated around, enjoying the water around his legs. The empress couldn't help but laugh a little. "Hey Morlan?" she asked over the intercom system of the palace.
"Uh, yes, your majesty?" He seemed a little startled, looking around the pool and nearby knocking himself off the floatie.
"I heard you wanted to do a little sparring with Hrist."
"I just wanted to learn a few moves from her, that's all. I know, I know, relax and just take it as you train me; I just wanted to see a few things like her shield stance. I'm relaxing, really, I mean… I'm in the pool right now…" He looked over at Deacon who just raised his beer to him and nodded.
"Good on you mate."
"I'll let you know when you should test your mettle against one of us Morlan, don't worry. I kind of had that planned" Selene finished.
"Then, is it alright if I go into Glass Dale late tonight?"
"Glass Dale? Something happening there?"
"Supposedly a circus is going to put on a show there."
"Ah. I don't see why not; go have fun, take your mind off everything." Ethan pointed to the micro camera, informing him he was being watched. Morlanion just looked up at it and gave a slight wave, the floatie he was on wobbling a little.
As Selene sat down to relax, she got back to Nikola and Robert, requesting for Robert to start working on the faith eater corpse dissection previously scheduled. With the increase in teams, they complied quickly. Though the new facility would take another day or two, the teams would at least be able to get started on what was doable inside the castle. Her Secretary of Defense got back to her right then and there.
"Ma'am, I've compiled a list of recommendations for you to check on." Her eyes scanned through the reviews he had taken in under twenty-four hours, with limited intel from the Director of Intelligence with agents not quite dispersed fully. It took her an hour just to get through the minor stuff, such as adding more rocket launch pads in another location in the event anyone figured out where she was sending her satellites up from. One recommendation was a little alarming.
"Whoa whoa, you want me to hold off on taking Silvinholm?" she asked, confused. The whole thing was going to happen tomorrow morning, it was a sure bet. The dev had pushed it back too many times already.
"Take a look at the immediate paragraphs below ma'am." The brief had a thorough reasoning, to wait until Silvinholm is weary of the siege, then come in with diplomats and offer them a chance to join the empire with offerings of supplies, medical aide and military support. Her brigade that was stationed behind would head south and weave into the western areas where the Be'arkeln Grand Tribe resided, leaving only a few recon teams to keep track of the situation unfolding. It was a plan to make her look as if the she was coming in to rescue them.
"Wait… why? The siege could take months to get to that point. This has been planned for a while now, and you want us to head towards the orcs and goblins?" Selene was wondering where his thought process was. He was doing his best to help keep threats away from her lands, so her first guess was that he was seeing something she didn't just yet.
"Artinia, at this very moment, doesn't know about us, you've been careful with that information. On top of that, until we have verification that the unknown World Class Item has been used and what its purpose is, they're a nonthreat. There are many of them, some are not an offensive weapon. For all we know, this one just blends smoothie potions for better buffs.