Reevesport really had been largely intact a few hours ago. Now a significant portion of it was on fire and several flaming airship hulks were falling away, tracing trails through the air as they hit the volcanic crater.
"Is that the best you can do? Even Ophelia's was bigger," I said.
Tara was making her way out of the Graven with Mechos supported against her shoulder. The man looked pale, drawn, and I wasn't getting any power readings from him. Normally he had a faintly familiar aura of an upgrade core. His had been somehow removed. No wonder he and the Mechanites weren't doing well.
I teleported him away from Tara and into the Medbay.
"Oh good. The pink slime isn't him," Anna said.
"Put on some clothes. You don't want to kill him. And the slime is Ophelia," I said.
Our shields were starting to take a lot of hits. The fact that we had any shields at all put us in a better position than most ships. I tracked one transport vessel falling from the sky to crash into the city, resulting in another explosion.
I was moving us away from Reevesport as quickly as possible, trying to avoid the worst of the conflict breaking out. From what I could tell five distinct factions seemed to be going at it, all doing their best to defend their bits of the burning city.
The air above the city warped and twisted, and three new airships appeared. They were each our size and build, which made sense given they were our same design.
Scholar warships.
The air warped again and four more airships arrived. White and gold, Righteous vessels.
From the jungle what appeared to be a massive crystalline spider, riding upon the back of a dragon, rose into view. The old upgrade core of this ship—it seemed to be doing well for itself.
I teleported Anna to the bridge and materialized her a jumpsuit. Anna slipped into it even as her eyes tracked what was happening on the display.
"Is that actually a dragon?" Anna asked.
I wished I knew. I wished I had cell samples. That could be a proper defense drone.
"I believe so, and with this ship’s old upgrade core on top of it. Don't get your hopes up, it would look like a pig riding a chicken, if you tried," I said.
"You are so making me a dragon to ride one day. Do we have any bombs ready, and how is our dimensional drive?" Anna asked.
We had two in storage.
"Their triggers were made by Mechos. In his current state they may be unreliable. We likely have a single fire out of our dimensional drive," I said.
"Bring Tara here," Anna said.
I teleported the Righteous woman to the bridge. At the moment, she looked a good bit more put-together than Anna did. Tara didn't miss a beat as she sketched a bow. "My Queen. Is that a dragon?"
"You've ships here. They need to be gone and I need some safe coordinates," Anna said.
"It will take me a few minutes," Tara said.
"It better not," Anna said. "Pinpoint weak spots in the volcano for detonation."
I retasked both my science drones at once. Anna wanted to destroy the city and everything in the skies above it.
It was a bold plan. It might even work.
32
Planning to detonate several bombs to explode a volcano for the purposes of mass destruction is not quite so easy as it might appear. The explosions alone won’t be enough, there are complex forces and energies that needs to be pushed in exactly the right places to get the desired bang.
This sort of thing might have taken humans years to calculate, if they were capable of it at all. With my science drones to provide information in real time, and the overwhelming power of my Biocomputer, I was anything but human. It took me seventy-three seconds.
I was confident of my solution. In that time our shields dropped another eighteen percent and two more dragons climbed into the sky from the jungles. The Righteous, Scholars, and dragons were enough to inspire the denizens of the city to stop shooting at each other and start shooting at them.
The Righteous airships shimmered and blinked out of existence.
"I've got coordinates. Sending them over," Tara said.
I teleported the bombs and engaged the dimensional drive. I left one of my science drones behind to actually trigger the bombs after we left—if we left.
I didn't want to be here for what I was about to unleash.
The sky tore itself apart as the dimensional drive engaged, worked—then melted. We weren't getting a second trip. Fortunately we didn't need one. We were elsewhere.
We looked to be underground in some vast cavern that extended several miles in all directions. Below us shimmered a force-field in the shape of a blue dome, beneath which antiquated buildings were dimly visible.
"Do we have pursuers?" Anna asked.
I wasn’t detecting any other ships in our vicinity. I'd lost contact with my science drone, which hopefully meant the bombs had accomplished their mission.
"We seem to have gotten away clean," I said.
Anna turned her attention to the surroundings and grinned at Tara. "So, you aren't worthless and may not be a complete liar. That’s Aelfwal out there, isn't it?"
"I keep my word when I can," Tara said, rubbing at her eyes, "As so might you, given that you allowed our ships to escape your massacre back there. Did you really have to burn the whole city?"
"The city was already burning. I gave the council in charge a way out. I wish they'd listened," Anna said, moving to her throne.
I wondered just what had happened during her meeting on the council airship. Thanks to her monitoring bracelet I didn't have to leave it a mystery, I pulled those logs.
Anna tried to make peace with them. She had warned them about the attack on the tower and why, and that Scholar forces were expected to arrive at the city soon. She'd offered to try and transition her ship’s upgrade core into the city proper.
The council’s answer was hitting her with some sort of power dampener, stripping her naked, and throwing her into an arena where an enormous massive mechanical ape was meant to tear her limb from limb. It hadn't quite worked out as they intended.
Whatever else could be said of Anna, she was talented.
"I don't approve," Tara said.
Anna regarded her for a long moment. "Good. You shouldn't. Keep expressing opinions like that and I may have cause to keep you around. The dome, do you have a way through it?"
I said, "Before she answers that, I'd like to know just what we're hovering over. Given the obvious intention to keep us out, I'd speculate it was the home of one of Anna's ex-lovers. If she had any."
Anna explained, "Power cores bond most commonly to individuals. But as you prove, that is not any sort of mandatory requirement. Down there beneath that shield is the Aelfwal socket, if we are to believe Tara here. Until now, I'd thought that one just a legend."
"Amongst the Scholars, cores and sockets are prized highly and rank is given accordingly. Based upon your powers and her connection to you, Emma, our Queen in their estimation would qualify as only a Lady, not a queen," Tara said, choosing her words carefully.
Anna gave her an amused look. "What she carefully isn't saying is that my taking the Aelfwal socket would make them officially regard me as a Queen."
"But not the Queen of the World—unless that city below is far more impressive than it appears," I said.
"No," Anna said with a faint smile. "I'm probably going to have to buy that title the old fashioned way, with blood and flames. We'll get there. So, the shield?"
"We don't have a way through it. As you said, a legendary place. One of the three sister cities of Galasa lost in the fourth war," Tara said, staring at the force-field. "We'd hoped to anchor the city and return it to the core eventually."
"So, the only people likely to have the knowledge of how to breach that shield are going to be the Scholars?" Anna asked.