“No arguments here,” I said and moved one of the peasants out of the second shack. “Get in there and do what comes naturally. I want to see if we can breed some fiery warriors.”
“Sure,” Hot Stuff said moving towards one of the cottages.
Really she was much easier to work with than Anna sometimes.
It seemed she was able to make Lieutenants even here, although each required one hundred wood to fuel the process. Still with my resource production that wasn’t too unworkable.
I soon called her and Anna back out, I had an army. Anna was half healed, Hot Stuff was at full health and in addition there were now two fiery Lieutenants as well as three sword wielding soldiers I’d produced from the barracks.
I angled them towards the cave. It was time to take the fight to them.
47
A short distance inside the cave the forces came upon a tower. Hot Stuff was leading the way and took an arrow to the shoulder that sent her whirling backwards, blood crimson against her bare flesh.
An arrow wouldn’t normally be able to get past the intense heat of her flames. It must be a consequence of the world we were in. The single shot had taken a full quarter of her health bar.
I pulled her back and sent Anna back in. Even though she only had half her health bar she was by far the most durable of the forces we had. While she soaked arrow fire I had the others come in behind her.
Hot Stuff and her Flames made quick work of the tower. What they lacked in durability they made up for in destructive potential and soon it was but a gutted ruin.
A bit further in and the cave opened into a larger cavern. Many simple stone structures were set up and a defensive force met us. There were only three melees and three crossbowmen. If Anna had been along they would have overwhelmed her but against our full force they fell quickly.
We lost two melees in a process and Anna had only a sliver of her health left. There were however no defenders left to threaten us. Anna led an assault against their barracks first and while they spawned two more spearmen by the time we destroyed it, it was not enough and the rest of the structures filled quickly.
The world dissolved in a flair of golden light.
MY AWARENESS WAS BACK on the Powerhungry.
Iska was lounged indolently in Anna’s throne and she let out a long puff from her cigarette, “That was fun. I went easy on you but you didn’t completely suck.”
“You’re in my chair,” Anna said.
Iska grinned and snubbed her cigarette out on one of the skulls. “So, you won! Congratulations.”
“You’re still sitting in my chair,” Anna said.
Iska snapped her fingers and Hot Stuff materialized in a shimmer of gold.
“I promised prizes. The sidekick with chair issues, you get a life. Return the dead or rip one away from someone,” Iska said.
“Anna having a life? This will be new,” I said.
Hot Stuff snickered and Anna glared.
“Burning woman,” Iska said before snapping her fingers again. The flames constantly burning around Hot Stuff were snuffed out. My temperature sensors were detecting she was still well above human normal but nowhere near her usual. “Have an off and on switch. You can toggle your abilities.”
“Wow,” Hot Stuff said and around her the flames flickered back on and then away. It seemed as if she might cry.
Iska said, “Now I’m going to send you back to where you came from and you won’t have missed a moment. Know that you’ve caught our attention. We’re be visiting. One last present, for the crazy machine. I know you’ll want to study me and there isn’t a chance I’m sitting around in one of your cells but I’ll give you something interesting.”
Iska opened her mouth and tore out her own tongue, a spray of blood accompanying the motion as she tossed it onto the ground and vanished from sight.
There was hardly time to teleport it into the research section before I was again getting readings from our dimensional drive. It had been restored and we were in transit. Reality violently tore itself apart.
48
Abruptly we were inside the cavern and above Aelfwal.
"Shit, Emma," Anna said as she crossed the distance to settle into her throne. A moment later she leaned over to vomit. Charming. What was it about humans and them dumping their disgusting bodily fluids all over my nice clean floors?
"I give you the ability to teleport and you still can't get a toilet in time," I said.
It was as if we’d never had the side trip. I was picking up the warring fleets on sensors all around us.
The Wolve's ships were coming after us. All of them. They realized where we were and figured out who had absconded with the pyramid crystal —their one way to get through the shield.
Sylax was seizing the opportunity to set her forces fully against them. While most of the dragons were downed after the transition, she still had a half-dozen ships.
The other fleets were breaking off and disengaging, getting out of the way. They'd suddenly found themselves in the presence of the ultimate prize they'd wanted and didn't quite know what to do about it.
I hit an overdrive thruster burst and steered us into the middle of Sylax's formation. At least she wasn't interested in shooting at us, for the moment, afraid to hit her own ships.
I teleported the pyramid to the bridge, along with Mechos and Doctor Batavius.
"I'm rather distracted keeping us alive. The three of you combined may be equal to the task of figuring out what that thing does," I said.
Mechos reached out to touch the pyramid. Blue lines tracing through the pyramid turned red to match the outlines that ran through his flesh.
"Well, that is a reaction," Anna said.
"Do you say silly things in the pathetic hope that one of these days someone might find you interesting? We won't," Doctor Batavius said, pushing up her goggles to take a look at the sphere with her enhanced vision.
"Do you ever think about the consequences of your words?" Anna asked.
"I'm usually devoting my thoughts to useful matters," Batavius said. "There are multiple levels of dormant, powered circuitry which are becoming active. It is attempting to interface with Mechos."
For research purposes, I made sure my scanners were getting a good recording of everything that happened. In the meantime I had to keep us alive. Placing the ship in the middle of Sylax's fleet had provided us some cover from the Wolf ships, but now Sylax was sending out boarding craft.
"I believe I have it," Mechos said.
"You can drop the shield?" Anna asked.
"I think so. The systems are strange and this crystal keeps attempting to connect to a larger network that’s not responding," Mechos said. “But I think so.”
No surprise there, given the city had been long abandoned.
"Emma?" Anna asked.
This plan had quickly gotten away from me. We were where I'd wanted us to be, but there were just so many enemy ships. That hadn’t been in the plan.
"Do it," I said. I just had to hope that we could seize the socket before anyone else, and once the prize was ours the capabilities of the city would somehow save us.
49
Mechos screamed out and collapsed. The shield dropped and the city was exposed.
Much like airships, the city didn't seem to conform to conventional laws of physics. Towers soared without proper support, walls of glass were impractically large and for a massive city there were almost no roads for any sort of vehicles.
I could save my admiration of architecture for later. For now I had to find that socket.
At least the enemy ships had given up on trying to kill or board us for the moment. Everyone was looking for the same thing. Everyone wanted to claim this prize before any of the others.