Beyond?

“If you really want to hide important knowledge from the common folk, then write it into a book.”

-The Great Technomagus of the Free City States of Nict.

***Stiran Archipelago, Southern Ocean, The Shield of the Emperor***

***Azir***

I watch Ivy who is sitting on top of Jeremiah and polishing her nails. The poor guy is tied up to a neat bundle like a caterpillar. Somehow she acquired some duck-tape and wound it around his head to cover the mouth. “And you are sure that you refuse to listen to him?”

“Yes.” She smiles charmingly at me.

Shrugging my shoulders I return my attention to the tactical display. Unfortunately our strategy isn't adaptable at all. It's either winning the great prize and holding out as long as we can, or being found out.

The door to the bridge opens and Chuck enters the room. “All done.”

I nod. “How did it go? Is everything set up?” I ask him tentatively. Chuck got the most important role in this game. He and his assistants went down to the staged base under our feet and filled it to the brim with the illusions of soldiers who are going about what soldiers do at military bases. Things like marching in neat, orderly lines, picking their noses, cleaning guns.

My friend smiles and gives me a thumbs up. “We had to sacrifice a few herds of cattle to get the ritual done, but I think the effect is worth the effort. Once those bastards get to see our base their eyes will pop out. They'll think that we are about to launch a full scale invasion of our own. No way that they don't use a sizeable portion of their fleet to counter us right here and now.”

“Hoh?” I manipulate the controls of my captain's chair to zoom in on the island. Chuck didn't lie. The whole base is filled to the brim with soldiers. They are working or doing other important seeming stuff. “That's a great illusion spell. How did you manage to make it that organic? I hope you thought about the royal bloodline's ability and concealed the spell somehow?”

Chuck snorts. “What are you thinking of me? We made it look like the whole base is under various strength and endurance enhancing buffs. In fact a few of my assistants did nothing but apply buffs to the corpses of the cattle which we hid behind the illusion. The whole place is brimming with magic! When the Master takes a look at it he'll see nothing, but a whirling chaos of spells. It was lucky that you found out about their weakness when you fought with Jeremiah.”

I lean back in my chair, appreciating the work. When I fought with Jeremiah I realized that the Emperor's ability isn't flawless. When there is too much energy and magic in one place they get blinded. I also verified it with my children. If I overload an item with magic and instruct Sariel to look at it, all she sees is white. It's like looking directly at the sun or at a bright light. That's why Jeremiah couldn't read my time spell in time.

One of the analysts in the control room points at a small map in front of him. “The first enemy scout ships should be reporting back to their fleet by now. We expect a course change any minute now.”

Hitting a button on my seat, I call up the tactical display on the front screen. “Operating this thing is still a largely intuitive thing to do. I feel like a barbarian who is randomly hitting buttons, hoping that something happens. We are lucky that the creators of the Shield made it largely automated.”

“It can't be helped. We were never able to take this ship out of the dock for a test flight before you came along.” Chuck crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I think we should be glad that we have enough control to tell it where to fly and to activate the shields and barriers.”

I grumble, scratching my chin and looking down at the many buttons on the console at my side. “There have to be some real weapons though. So far Sariel only managed to activate the air to air plasma guns by mashing buttons. The huge magnetic field which is generated by this ship must have offensive capabilities.”

I flip an orange switch which looked like it was attached to some kind of power system when I had the console opened. The lights in the room go out.

“Nope. That was the wrong one.” I set the switch back to its original position and the lights return. “It's too bad that we can't hack deeper into the system. If only we had more time!”

Ivy stirs while sitting on top of Jeremiah. “Master, I suggest to not mash any buttons whose function wasn't verified. The old technology of the Empire seems to consist entirely out of hard coded logical circuits. If something goes wrong we have no chance of correcting the mistake.”

I hit my fist onto the side of the console. “Fools. Were they afraid of artificial intelligence? It's a huge effort to build and control something like this ship with purely logical circuitry. It's like building a mechanical computer with punch cards to program them. I am sure that they were capable of building better devices. It was the same with the Light of the Emperor. That was an annoying piece of technology. I'm glad we blew it out of the sky. They could have at least labelled the buttons better.”

Chuck shakes his head. “I think you should give them a little more credit. Building their military devices in this manner is a great safeguard against them being tampered with and turned against you. So their decision to do it like they did is still proving to be working. After all even you can't simply take over their devices. And you have much more time at hand than an attacker in a fighting situation would have.”

“A part of the enemy fleet is changing course!” The analyst draws our attention to the big screen in front of us. “Four hundred ships changed course.”

“Not enough.” Ivy mumbles, lying down on top of her pillow. “Maybe the Master isn't one of the brothers after all?”

The analyst points out another part of the enemy's formation. “Now this group changed their course too. It looks like they are trying to arrange their ships into attacking waves.” He mumbles for a few moments. “Actually that makes sense. Our islands are relatively small targets compared to their fleet and stacking their ships too close together would be utterly stupid. If they send a thousand ships to cover each of the islands they have to use eleven thousand ships. Then a big group for our base. If we are lucky they'll commit some reinforcements too, sending the main part of their fleet to the encounter. Any more wouldn't be just overkill, but causes more trouble to their own units than it would help.”

My head turns to the analyst. “Do you think it'll be enough? Seems like that group didn't change course.” I point at the screen. A group of the enemy fleet is parting from the fleet, obviously completely unperturbed by our existence.

The analyst starts mumbling again, counting the ships and their type through his satellite link. Now I get to see why the Siorda are one of the big clans, despite not being the best warriors. They are on par with an artificial intelligence and fast enough to count huge numbers within seconds. Quick judgement and correct information is the most important thing in a battle.

A moment later he is done. “That group largely consists of the mobile docks. I also count a few of the warrior class ships and troop transports, but there are only about eight hundred of them. They left less than five percent of their fleet as escorts for the docks. We didn't expect them to commit their mobile repair docks to the fight, so their actions are within our calculations.”

Kneading my hands I watch the group which is still heading on towards the main continent. “Those are still a lot of ships and they have enough fighting power to cause us trouble. Do we have a chance of catching them with our fortresses?”

The analyst shakes his head. “They'll always be able to outrun our fortresses if they want to. But we have their movements covered with our satellites. Whichever direction they choose, we should be able to move enough forces there to counter them. And even if they manage to outmanoeuvre our fortresses we can teleport a huge amount of anti-air cannons from Quinn and Dwem directly to where they hit land. We set aside a few transport drones with stepper discs solely for that purpose.”

I arch an eyebrow. “If we have that kind of capability in reserve, why don't we create an iceberg in their path and place the guns on top of it. If we conceal it with a good shroud or fog spell, they won't know what's coming until they are right above it. The iceberg will be destroyed very quickly after the guns start shooting, but it'll be a good trade if a handful of guns destroys a ship. You just have to make small enough platforms, so that they aren't taken down all together.”

The analyst looks at me with a blank expression for several moments. Then he turns away, obviously contacting someone over the mana net. “I'll have someone look into it.”

Oh...? So the military didn't think of that? Seems like they are still new to oceanic warfare with magic. Just don't take the credit for my idea, you...

My thoughts get interrupted as the first wave comes across our defences on one of the outer islands. We placed some of Quinn's guns on the outer islands to make it look like we really laid claim to the whole archipelago. The images show the barrier spells of a few ships lighting up brightly. So they have that sort of defence mechanism, I wasn't sure what to expect from those strange wood and metal structures. On one hand they look like the product of a low-tech society, but on the other they can fly and were created with the assistance of magic.

The return fire is impressive. The enemies utilize some kind of energy spell which is similar to the one which the nomads used. Explosions light up the island's barrier while some of the enemy's ships go up in flames and fall out of the sky. The analysts starts counting numbers and is giving instructions to the gun crews over the mana net.

From time to time the barrier flickers and huge explosions punch craters into the tropical paradise. After a quarter of an hour of watching the fireworks, our guns stop firing. The analyst deemed that our barrier became too unstable and ordered the remaining gun-crews to use their stepper discs to retreat. Shortly afterwards the island gets torn apart in an impressive display of brute force.

“Is Quinn's inhibitor still okay?” I ask worriedly after seeing the remains of the first wave wasting their energy to turn the island into a charred wasteland of craters. They are moving on towards us while doing so.

The analyst answers me. “It's dug fifty metres under the earth and concealed. The operating crew reports that everything is fine, though they were shaken a little.”

Chuck sighs and nods. “It seems like the first part of our battle strategy worked as planned.”

“Labelling a lost encounter as 'worked as planned' is a good way to sugar-coat the situation. I hope that our base can hold out a little longer, otherwise the second wave will do us in and we won't even lure half of their forces into our killing zone.” Ivy grumbles, puffing out her chest.

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