Aotrs Commander

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"Velinkar to fleet. Concentrate fire on the remaining Azura ships while their tranfer effect is down, do as much damage as you can." Even to himself, he sounded defeated.

They'd lost.

Velinkar sat for a dangerously long moment, his eyeglows closed.

And that was it. They were out of back-up plans. There were fighting an enemy immune on the practical level to logitics and supply chains that was also functionally immune to the their primary weapons (rendering all conventional tactics moot); that was much bigger than they were, with much stronger individuals (Lichemaster, they'd put the High Command to flight with only one such individual), who could see their attacks coming; and that had not even seemed to flag under the attritional attacks that should have made living creatures start to flag. The Aotrs had just (at a huge diplomatic cost) sent away a chunk of the enemies' fleet... And they were still losing decisively, due to the amount of damage the Azura had inflicted with invulnerable, while their flagship absorbed all the fire.

And once the fleet lost, the ground force's successes were meaningless, since they'd be mopped up from orbit with no counter. (And even that success felt more due to the whims of fate than Aotrs tactics; already, the tide was turning as the Azura advanced.)

[Friction roll: 3]

This was what it was like to fight an out-of-context problem, in reality. Every strategy he concocted failed; every time he thought he had a handle on what to expect, the Azrua drew out another exotic technique or ability they Aotrs had no counter for.

He'd been prepared for this to fail. The Misericordia had already been taking the fire of the entire fleet the moment the Aotrs had found the invulnerability field had emerged and they'd all switched fire - there had been no real reason to assume a concentrated attack would have been more effective, or even that the Lord Foul Skream's dispel would have worked.

His desperate, literally suicidal Phase Two would have been to open a Gate to right in front of the Spacial Splinter cannon, with the reverse side of the Gate facing it, so the Azrua's visual-only detection wouldn't have seen it past the one-directional gate, whereas the cannon would have a clean shot, and shoving the enemy vessel through with a suicidal ram of his own. And that clearly wouldn't have worked.

He'd been prepared for his plan to go wrong. But the way in which is went was so completely unexpected - so out-of-context - that they had no answer to it.

Other than to do exactly what the Azura wanted. Conform to them.



A long time ago, a young living Velinkar had been in a place where he was surrounded by people who had always just the same attitude. Conform. Where you had to be just like everyone else - oh, you could have eccentricity, but only so long as even in your eccentricty, you had to do all and be all the things that you were expected to do so; ultimately Be Assimilated. To speak out was to be targeted and repressed by the angry horde of the "how dare!" Or you could choose to be silent and meaningless, beneath notice, take your pick. He'd been powerless; in complete isoloation from the alien mindset around him, one driven by an ingrained cultural self-centric arrogance, factionalism and grinding apathy. He'd hated it. He'd hated every moment of being trapped in that place, with no way out and nothing but a long, slow slide into murky grey nothing as the future.

And then one day when the Aotrs had arrived. He'd seen them; seen his chance and gone with them without hesitation. Escaped. He ever regretted for a moment what he'd left behind; but he'd never forgotten, not even after all these centuries. That chance, that escape - he'd been both figuratively and literally prepared to die for it. Then... And again today.

Fighting the Azura felt just like being back there; trapped and powerless, with no control save what you could scrape by yourself in the meaningless and at the whims of fate whether you lived or died, no matter what you did or didn't do. The feeling was an old, familiar and bitter one.

And now, the Aotrs were committed. Smash, without tactics or subtlety, the way the Azura liked it, until the Aotrs were broken or the Azura broke.

Hells, even if they won this round, it was clear that the Azure Skies were far too big for the Aotrs to fight; an apparently minor faction was soundly beating the best the Aotrs could give them. And at this point, any victory would be pyhrric at best; the losses they had suffered over this campaign far out-weighed the limited gains they had made.

The only thing the Aotrs could do now was accept the defeat and try and mitigate that loss as much as possible.

He opened his eyes glows and returned his attention to the losing battle, for the first time for a long time feeling every century of his age.

In the end, perhaps there was no escape after all.

* * * * * * *

The Doomskreig had no counter to that extraordinary attack except one - sheer size. The Azura had not teleported to the power core - and they surely would have done if able - so the only thing the Aotrs could do was make it hard for them to get there.

The Doomskireg shut all systems off entirely. Every bulkhead opened and for a moment the Azura charged fowarded - only to find the bulheads were opening because the Doomskreig was venting its entire atmosphere. No atmosphere, no light, no gravity. And just before the power shut off entirely, every bulkhead shut back down and locked, with the last manual locking system.

The Azura would no doubt get to the power core - from experience, the Generous Knight would likely slaughter her way through personally if nothing else, and the Aotrs had no counter to her if she was even half the strength of the Furnace Knight. But... They'd have a long walk, and have to cut through every bulkhead and door on the way. And then they'd have to make up an interface to get a computer controlled system to work without actually having a computer. The captain, having been continously appraised of events with Lord Foul Skream suspected they had magic that might do that regardless. It might not even slow them down much.

But it bought some time. Time to Gate out to the Doomskrieg's escort what few living crew they had, while the Aotrs crew went to the weapons systems, and pulled out the critical components. Time while the Generous Knight was busy occupied taking the ship to not be in command of her fleet and ground force, in the hopes that some cracks might finally show, and the Aotrs would be able to at least effect a retreat in good order.

* * * * * * *

Behind it, seemingly forgotten, the Spacial Splinter array drifted on the last push of the Doomskrieg's tractor beams, the only weapon the Aotrs had that might prevent the Azura's terrible sun plague from overrunning the galaxy. Despite its size, alone against the dark of the void, it was a seemingly tiny dark shape, silent and fragile.

The Red Furnace: First Contact

As the bridge shuddered under the impact of multiple hits, Velinkar scowled. There didn't seem to be much option. If hitting the flagship was the only thing they COULD hit, then, really the only chocie was to focus-ifre with everything they had an hit it harder, If they couldn't damage it with the combined firepower of the largest portion of the Aotrs fleet - then what could they do?

He knew that the spell protecting the fleet likely had some mitigating effect of the amount of fire going in, because that was fairly typical of damage-transfer magic. How much effective power were they losing? 20%? 50%? More? Who knew.

But there wasn't anyway they could break it. Killstorm was good, but even with the runecores on one of Velikar's Liche's Wraths, she wouldn't be able to to do it. Even if she did, would they be able to re-establish it again instantly?

He breifly contempalted trying to scour runes away with repeated energy beam strikes. But the energy beams were their weakest again such heavy armour and they probably wouldn't be able to sustain an attack long enough to actually disrupt the runes.

Velinkar considered trying to remove the flagship from the fight via Gate. With a concentration of power his Terror-class heavy drradnought might be able to open a Gate big enoguh to fit it through... But the chances of them letting him do that, especially with their thrice-damned prognostication seemed small. They could try tractorbeaming it, but they'd need prpobably need a lot of ships to get very close and try it, and all the while completely exposed to the functionally-invincble Azura, a clear invitation to ram. and even if he could get it through a Gate and there was any kind of distance function to the magic, where would he send it? This kind of situation would mean it would have to be in the system, so where? Into the sun? No, they'd likely be able to stop in time. Even if he closed the etnry point of the Gate so they couldn't come back through and were sedately ejected out of the far end by the collapse, they'd be able to se it coming and evade. By divination if nothing else. Damn it they had the Aotrs beat on magic and they didn't have anyone str-

Wait.

Wait.

Killstorm wasn't the strongest caster in the system.

"Open a channel to Lord Foul Skream now!"

Without even an acknowledgement, his comm officier responded, and Lord Foul Skream appeared seated in his command chair on the Doomskreig on Velinakr's screen.

"Milord! We need a massive dispel on the enemy command ship now! It might be our only chance!!

* * * * * * * *

Velinkar's plan was risky, but two-fold.

First, Lord Foul Skream had assented to th requested. For one of the High Command, a simple insystem Gate to a ship involved ina fericous starship battles was of no moment, so even as Velinkar frantically made the last calculations, the lich-engineer was seated in the ritual chamber of the Liche's Wrath Kreella-Kar and preparing himself for the biggest dispel he could manage (possibly the biggest he'd ever done). A grand dispel that would (Lichemaster please) dispel or disrupt the damage-transfer spell, but also any other active spell on board the Misericordia - including the divination spells.

And in that moment, the Aotrs fleet would hit the Misericordia with everything they had, all at a single point.

To do that, they'd have to slave the fleet's entire firecontrols to one person.

Of course, the best shot in the fleet was Lord Foul Skream, Veliner reflected. But even he couldn't do two jobs at once.

Dammit, he'd have to take the shot himself.

He issued the orders.

If this failed...

Velikar looked out towards the sun, for the briefest of moments. Then he finished the other program he'd been working on.

Then there was Phase Two.

* * * * * * * *

"Foul Skream to fleet: initiating now."

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Velikar scowled as the shrinking Captain Nymosto of the Bleeding Wound, the Fettered Star which was part of his anti-magic strike ships. Not the senior commander, even, but the nominal second-in-command, who had seen to correct his commander's orders.

This was something the Aotrs did not come down as hard on under normal circumstances (history showed what happened when commanding officers belived themselves infallible) but Nymosto had managed an instance of not only completely failing to understand his orders, but to insist to Captain Vreataiik of the Liche's Wrath Foul Anger that Nymosot's "interpretation" was right.

It was an unfortunate instance. With the time constraints, Velinkar had elected to pick the commanders of ships who had the most technical skill. Vreataiik was a genius in most respects, but he was a better mad scientist than a commander (though he was quite capble in the latter role) but if he occasionally had a short coming, it was second-guessing himself. Nymosto, on the other hand, equally a capable engineer-captain, was abrasive and forthright. Again, not enough to typically get himself in trouble... But in this circumstance, it was a case of one rolling up at the exact time the other rolled down.

Result?

Instead of using the anti-magic-gear equipped strike vessels to conduct a decapitating strike on the target command vessel, Nymosto had gotten it into his head to deposit a boarding party as a hit-and-fade, instead of just blasting the ship apart with one. With the loss of that whole party - AND valuable anti-magic personnel gear AND worse, very likely, the loss of surprise of the tactic entirely.

Velinkar was not pleased.

Nymosto knew he had fumbled. Having originated from the British Stellar Empire, as the lich stared back as his boss, the only thing that came to mind was a exchange about an old Earth general, after the subordinate officer failed; a comrade has asked afterwards what the general had said. The officer had replied "nothing, by god, it was far too serious for that."

Velinkar broke the comms channel without saying a word.

Nymosto had not soiled himself for 156 years, since before he could walk, but suddenly he recalled the feeling with eeriy clarity.

* * * * * * * * *

The engineering teams began frantic work on the temple's destruction preparations. One team, however, was working hard on establishing a local planetary shield. While they had some power sources, this team was focussing on attempting to jury-rig a conversion to draw some of the power from the temple itself to fully establish the shield. The shield, typical of its kind, was designed soley to protect the ground force from orbital bombardment. Such shields didn't - and couldn't - touch the ground, not least because there was never an even, safe surface on a planet with which to attempt to make a hemisphere, save perhaps on the largest of spaceport landing fields, the sort some miles across. So, by nature, as it started some distance off the ground, it could not stop ground forces or low-flying craft from getting in. While a starship might have the accruacy to put a shot through the gap, the incredibly shallow angle required meant that, realistically, it was never possible to do so because of the intervening terrain.

[D100 competance roll for engineering team: 91]

The rest of the forces were either rapidly positioning for defence or securing capture Azrua materiél (with a particular eye to rigging the captured munitions in creatively destructive ways).

* * * * * * * * *

Velikar quickly began to adapt the fleet.

First, he deployed a force (he labbeled it Task Force Arrow) which was heavy on warheads and railguns (comparitively, missiles were among the Aotrs' primary weapons after all), with the bulk of the available Bloody Steels and Sorrow Skeans. This task group was to stand off and start firing at the Azura ground forces deployed in positions away from the War Droid and Temple combat zones. The sustained barrage - since the Aotrs had been husbanding their expendables - was intended less to deal damage to those forces, but for force the Generous Knight (once identified by Boldness) to have to commit one of her task forces to simply protecting those forces or have them destroyed.

Second, he prepared the remainder of ships forces into two strike fleets -Task Force Spear (his commanded) and Vice-Admiral Spawn's Task Force Sword, to engage the other two fleets. As this was, essentially, the final roll of the dice, he committed his reserves, leaving only the resting/maintenace cycle third of the fleet safely ensconced outside the system.

The third part... well, that wasn't an order.

"Lord Foul Skream," he said respectively the the other, aboard the Doomskrieg. "I request you bring in your task force in concert with our strikes."

Foul Skream's eyeglows lightened in the lich equivalent of a tight smaile. "In order to present the Azura with a third target, including the largest vessel they have seen, which is towing something spewing an enormous maount of power. You want me to be bait." Velinkar would have been more unerved, except that Lord Foul Skream just sounded amused.

"I... Wouldn't put it quite that way my Lord but..." He paused momentarily. "Well, actually milord, no, that is basically what I'm asking yes."

"Never fear, Admiral, I think we can handle outselves." The Doomskreig itself WAS a supercruiser, even if it was a generation behind. No, the big risk was exposing the Spacial Splinter Cannon's battery array itself, even though it was quite well shielded, it was still not combat vessel and towing what was essentially a mid-sized starbase full or power cores put a dampner on even a Supercruiser's already limited mobility.

And Foul Skream was the best engineer the Aotrs had, nevermind Lord Death Despoil's personal aide for nearly three millenia. The Furnace Knight might have Foul Skream beaten in a straight fight, but in logisitics and science, Foul Skream had him cold.

The issue was, of course, they didn't really want to have to fire the Spacial Splinter Cannon at Tanshin (i.e. the star) to cause it to not exist while they were anywhere near it, since there was no precise telling how quickly the Laws-of-Physics-Just-Stopped-Happening area could go or how fast. Even a supernova couldn't travel faster than light and the explosion tended to travel a fair bit slower... but a lightspeed propogation only gave the about eight minutes to Tanshin II, being of course, squarely an HPE-L and thus having an approximately 1 AU - or eight light-minute - orbital radius. Even double ot triple that time was cutting it a bit close when ground forces were around, especially since they needed to keep the Azura from likewise escaping...

"We await your signal, Admiral," Foul Skream said.

Lord Foul Skream and the Doomskrieg escort fleet would be Task Force Bullet. (Velinkar was not feeling the time to be fancy.)

Velikar's group (Task Force Spear), the largest of the two, would be making a hopefully killing stroke on his target. Sword would attack the other group, and primarily attempt to hold it in place. A similar sort of role as Task Force Arrow, but one that involved mixing it in with the Azura fleet directly on roughly even odds.

Finally, Velinkar assigned the anti-magic strike fleet - Task Force Dagger - with a new job. He did not make any comments aboutr "getting it right this time" as he outlined calmly to Captain Vreataiik the new orders. A hit-and-fade strike, this time to directly attack (the words "with starships" were said with no emphasis, but none was needed; only one of Vreataiik's bridge crew flinched slightly) the Azura's reserve forces, with the aim of damaging and destroying the accelerator rings themselves. Velinkar did not state their were to be no heroics, but he didn't need to. Both Vreataiik and Nymosto knew the difference between a mistake and an error and that recklessly sacrificing to regain face was definitely make the former into the latter.

A few short minutes later, the 8th fleet was ready.

"Admiral Velinkar to Task Forces Spear, Sword, Arrow, Bullet and Dagger:

"Begin the attack."

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Velinkar didn't particularly like the odds much... But on the other hand, the Aotrs was nothing if it was to not trust the opinion on experts. A longer, drawn-out conflict seemed unwise, as the longer it dragged on the more resources the Aotrs would be using, and the Azura clearly had overall much more expend. Getting into a way of attrition with a superior enemy was not something they were going to attempt.

He made preparations. He aides would form the diplomatic delegation (to be met with a rather more senior diplomat (Lady Axea) enroute via a dispatch vessel).

The anti-magic strike force would spearhead the engagement, opting to Gate directly to strike at one of the larger, more pivotal Azura ships (in the hopes of disupting both what command and control they had as well as damaging their power transfer system). That ought to give them some element of surprise.

The ground force would be sent in force, via every Murder left in the fleet, Gating right into the atmosphere. A secondary, distrating force (with the fleet's Dirges, Fallen Souls and fighter top-cover) would be hitting another point, and primarily disgorging expendable war droid troops. The specialists would follow via Killstorm's own Gates once the location was secure enough (relatively speaking) to begin the operation; with Boldness is necessary.

Subterfuge scoutship Lich-Black was specifically designated to be on stand=by to attempt to retreve and deploy (via personal gates and a marine team) the oratus and/or toxicrene to attempt to further disrupt the Azura's response to the ground attack or to support Boldness' part of the operation.

Win or lose, however, the Aotrs still had one, very final card up their sleeve.

The Doomskrieg (under Lord Foul Skream's personal direction) and the Harbinger Spacial Splinter Cannon it carried was now within a single Gate jump of the Tanshin system...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"Win some, lose some," Velinkar reflected to Boldness. The Azura had gotten a lot of information out of them - most of it, in honst, retrieved from a galactic net search, which while something the Azura could not do themselves, was the sort of thing that the elenthnars had already likely managed themselves since showing up the Aotrs side of the galaxy.

Still, they had something, and if nothing else, it pointed the Azura squarely at the Strayvians, who would NOT be pleased. He wasn't sure what the best case was, the Strayvians disengaging from their invasion altogether to furiously focus on the new aggressors - but then freeing up the Shardan and their allies and the Bright Accord Alliance had already taken a shot at the Aotrs - or the Strayvians continued to fight on multiple fronts and got themselves wiped out again.

It did not, however, seem to help them in the immediate situation by taking the biomancers out of it.

But, on the whole, he considered their diplomatic difficulties of lesser importance than getting his ground force re-embarked, by ship and Gate.

It was clear the situation in Tanshin was increasingly untenable, with two hostile powers - and he wasn't sure how big the Tides were at this point. While the Tides didn't appear to have demonstrated much in the way of surface-to-starship magntitude capability, there also didn't seem to be much gain in spending the time to pound Tanshin I. Tanshin II did not appear to have any strategic value other than being a habitable world, which was not immediately of benefit to the Aotrs. (If they needed a new bulwark against the Azura, there were better and closer places.)

While his - and those back on Fearmore and elsewhere - poured over what they'd recovered from the Tides, there was a little more time before the anti-magic ships were refitted. The Aotrs had kept up the steady pressure on the Azura, now latterly directed to what targets for best phychological damage by Boldness. Hit-and-fade strikes, primarily using energy weapons (and vessels like the Shadowfangs and Dark Fears which had little if anything else), had minimised Aotrs damage and at least confined the supply issues to repair and maintenance, rather than munitions supply. As hampering as having their primary weapons impaired. But hopefully the pressure was still telling on the Azura crews.

No, at this point, Velinkar suspected, the Aotrs' main goal would have to be eliminating the Furnace Knight, rather than claiming the system. Hell, they'd fought wars for less than they'd recovered from Tanshin I on occasion. Getting rid of him (or at least inflicting debilitating damage) would hopefully at least get the Azura to lose a lot of interest in this system.

(If the Azure Skies chose to interfere in the other powers they'd just got data on, that was less of the Aotrs problem. Velinkar even considered, for a moment, the delightful possibility that them doing so would somehow provoke the Manual Fighters (since it as unlikely that the Blastarons wouldn't already take a shot at the Azura if the two powers happened to meet anyway, but they looked like they'd rather decisive lost that war).)

Ultimately, if the Azure Skies were nearly-out-of-context problem due to their size... Well. Damning Echo base existed, and if the Aotrs could hold that and retain themselves undead for howevr long (sadly decades or centuries) it took to work out how to use the technology... But that was a worst-case scernario a long way down the line.

For the moment, they needed to pursuade the Azura to Be Somewhere Else, and that meant dealing with the Furnace Knight. Preferrably at a great distance, and with orbital bombardment, though he was resigned that they would almost certainly need to get Boldness in.

That said... If Tanshin II was not obviously worth fighting over, then it meant they wouldn't have to worry about collateral damage (or reducing their weapons power) shooting at the surface. He'd already have been throwing railgun slugs at it, but the Azura were simply too adroit at gravity manipulation.

"A few more hours, Boldness, and the anti-magic strike ships will be ready. We seem to have cleared the board of the immediate issues and this last round seems to indicate we have accomplished about as much as I think we can here - so it's down to you. You have had full access to what we've got and where it is. If we were going to make a decapitating strike against the Furnance Knight, what would we need to do? I think it's clear at this point that you are the best asset we have for doing that, so I'm essentially putting the fleet at your disposal for a plan. You know best where he likely will be, and where your assets are.

"I'm guessing trying to capture the Diodekoi is not going to work, but you need to get her and the Furnace Knight in the same place and on hostile terms. I think the biggest asset we have in this instance is the Azura don't seem to have a counter to our Gates, short of divination. So we could potentially use one or more of anti-magic strike team to move your toxicrene and oratus around - especially during the heat of an engagement, though we'd have to get a ship within 90 000km" - he tapped the holotable, showing the radius up on the real-time display to show her the relative distance - "to do it, but I feel like there's a very good chance the Azura won't notice a personnel Gate opening inside one of their ships." (He was farily sure, at this point, given their inability to locate Gate drive that the Azura shields were probably closer to galactic standard than advanced enough to block Gate transport, from what had transpired so far.) "That could then place them where they would be most useful, like I dunno, corrupting the Furnace Knight's immediate legion.

"But... At the end of the day, Boldness, splitting off and turning the Diodekoi is not something we can do. We don't know enough about her and Azura society is too mired in politics for an old soldier like me to even know where to begin. Which makes this, essentially, your show, I'm afraid.

"So, how do we manipulate things get you and your assets to the target?"

The Red Furnace: First Contact

"Right," Velinkar said. "I thought that might be the case, but-"

The comm system on his scanner peeped. "Vivisector to Velinkar." Vivisector's tone was brusque, which suggested this was important enough the general didn't have time to wait on nicities.

"Here," Velinkar responded shortly. That Vivisector had not apologised for interrupting spoke volumes.

"Short, short version; the planet is home to a second group of hostiles, the Tides, enemies of the Azura, who were responsible for shooting down our first sorty. My scouts killed their local commander which means we have a window for air support, and we could really use some reinforcements ASAP, enemy inbound, jamming in progress; data attached."

Velinkar, ignoring Boldness for a moment, grabbed his scanner to see the information being relayed (via the ship's system). He absently noted that the point of transmission was tens of miles from the base, which indicated that Vivisector must have opened and gone through a Gate presumably to get outside of the jamming field. (Gate XV, a small part of his mind abscently noted, most likely, given it was the lowest level which would do th distance and have a small enough compression factor Vivisector could do it at a run - Gate X had the range, but it would take too long at about fifteen metre per mile to sprint down...)

"Acknowledged," he responded, thinking fast. "Two Murders will be inbound in five minutes."

"Acknowledged; out."

Velinkar gave immediate orders. Two Murders on the LSS Dying Gasp were already primed, and within four minutes and twenty-five seconds, they were loaded with War Droids and Enragers, prepped for a combat drop. He had momentarily considered and discarded asking Boldness if she would accompany them with the Murder he'd prepped for her.) The necessity of time and function restricted the load of troops to what could quickly march on board, as the precious minutes were not available to stack the droids in the de-activated position - but it was still a substantial force. Velinkar had also scrambled two squadrons of Craters. The Murders and Craters were to perform a Gate jump and then split, with the Murders rushing down to the besieged facility (hopefully before the serious shooting started). The Craters, meanwhile, were to conduct an airstrike on the enemy ground force (or accompanying flying support) and do as much damage as possible before retreating back. The Murders had been told they would likely need to stay on station, as Velinkar felt it unlikely they would have time to safely get the robots off and be able to retreat. If they had time, Velinkar knew from decades of workign with Vivisector that the general would find plenty of uses for the Murder's energy beam turrets.

He was writing off all the mechanical troops, but that was what they existed for. If the Aotrs could retain them, all to the good; but if not, they were fundamentally disposable assets.

"Sorry," he said finally returning his attention to Boldness. "right..."

* * * * * * * *

The Aotrs negotiators opened communication to the biomancers, making a counter offer. An opporuntiy had arisen: the Aotrs wished to use their enormous skills to deal a blow to some uppity Strayvian pirates. The location of a major Strayvian military base was provided in full detail (in Velinkar's opinion, this was not remotelt what you'd expect from pirates, but the Azura seemed to have a funny way of looking at things), which needed to be conducted as soon as possible.

In additional to a substantial recompense in resources, the Aotrs were prepared to return the favour with a the deployment of a task fleet (Veliknar limited it to a reinforced attack fleet of around thirty ships) to make a strike at an (Azura or Tide) target of the biomancer's choice, to be determined once the current situation and Tanshin had been resolved.

Velinkar sat back - now it was just a case of waiting; to learn the results of the ground attack, the biomancer's response... And when his chosen strike force was fitted with the anti-magic gear...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

The scout regarded the Regional Subdirector for a long moment, before carefully removing her helmet and looking at it with her naked skull.

"Regional Subdirector, we are ALL unliving creatures. And there are currently no War Droids - construct forces - within the facility anyway, as they are all deployed in defensive positions protecting us - and your own facility, I might add - from the Azura."

She put her helmet back on.

"So what you are asking is that we expose ourselves to be attacked and destroyed by the Azura, who can then enter your facility completely unchecked and loot it entirely unopposed.

"Regional Subdirector, you are aware that we are currently the only thing standing between your museum and the Azura? If we walk outside, we will be wiped out to minimal losses to the Azura. A task force we have repelled once already, but which your own forces have previusly failed to defeat.

"Do you think that if we are wiped out, you will be able to retake your facility from the Azura which what forces you have left while THEY are entrenched within. Assuming, of coruse, they simply don't destroy it?

"Because it sounds to me, Region Subdirector, that you don't really want your facility protected. That you demand we commit suicide before you are prepared to talk tells me that you are not prepared to negotiate with good faith or with honour. Your attitude also makes you as a bigot, judging others on their physical construction and vitality. Would you make such a demand of any creature not made of flesh, I wonder? Because if you have an objection to the very existance of anything that is not alike and fleshy, I'm afraid you and your people in for a rude awakening. Like it or not, the Azura have arrived here and drawn attention to you. We won't be the first to come, nor will we be the last and the next ones, organic or not, might no choose to attempt to speak to you. So you have a decision to make.

"You can continue and make enemies of us and go back to tell your bosses that you, personally, utterly failed in your duty to protect one of your people's sacred places and that you have assured you will be fighting a war on two fronts against two space-faring powers that are stronger than you - or you get down off your palanquin and we can discuss working TOGETHER to expel the Azura from your planet and your system.

"Choose carefully, Regional Subdirector of Long Term Memory, because you are literally deciding the future fate of your entire people and civilisation."

The scout commander might have been laying it on a little thick... But she really didn't like bigots or arrogant, incompetant buraucrats, and the Subdirector was clearly both.

Behind her, the rest of the scout team, without being obvious, prepared to fight. She was very quick on the draw with her MLA pistol - a legacy of a life spend being picked on for being a female and a half-elf on the petty human backwater planet she'd been born on. If the Regional Subdirector reacted with any kind of kill-them-all-hysteria, she would personally guarentee he wouldn't live to finish the sentence.

* * * * * * * *

"We'll try it," Velinkar said. It cost the Aotrs nothing to provide intelligence on the Strayvians. (What were the going to do, shake their fists and shout "curse you, Undead!" And they had their hands full with the Shardan and their allies as well as their invasion...)

He privately wondered how much of a nasty shock the Azura would come up against the Strayvians. They might be big, but the Strayvians had changed a great deal in the past couple of centuries. They weren't now the runners-up behind the Cybertanks for Most Stupid Stratagists In The Galaxy anymore, not having finally pulled their act together. (There was some concern they might have been taking a few too many leaves out of the Aotrs' own playbook. Strayvians using an Aotrs outlook was only a bit less terrifying than the Shardan and Lazerblasters...)

"My aide will work with you to sort out the fine details. Would it be better for them to negotiate with us, or would you have more effective clout with them if they think that your presense already means we're subserviant to an Azura?"

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Vivisector paused long enough in his planning to tell his scouts speaking to the battlecrabs that the conflict between them was increasinly seeming a tragic first-contact misunderstanding. It happened, sadly not that infrequently and often with far less willingness to negotiate between the sides.

It was, he had them explain, a situation exacerabted by the presense of the Azura, who the Aotrs had initially had been manipulated into believeing were part of the Azura (not strictly true, but also mot 100% inaccurate). The Azura were clearing using both of them against each other to weaken them both, so they could steal what the Aotrs now realised was not an abandoned ruin, but a place of inportance to a living culture. In fact, if they could deal with the Azura, it stood to reason that their two cultures might have some common ground beyond the mutual enemy, since the Aotrs were also big into post-funeray rituals, just from a slightly different angle. And by dint of what they did the Aotrs were quite keen on archeology and has a lot of museums, so they fully appreciated the situation.

(A surprising number of musuems, it must be observed, patroned by Kemala Axea's wide-ranging Renaissence-Berserker pursuits...)

He was working on the basis that even if they had to sacrifice some or all of the stuff they'd found in the ruins (returning it to its rightful place), if they could finagle access to the ruins anyway to look with nondestructive ethods, it would be almost as useful. And an apparently planet-bound group of aliens was much easier to accomodate and deal with than a very large hostile empire...

He added that the Azura were clearly on their way to steal what was in the prison/museum/site and any help they could provide would be beneficial - given that the Azura clearly wanted to play the against each other, Vivisctor thought that perhaps the Aotrs and the Tides ought to do the opposite and collaborate to push the Azura off and then (politely) settle their issues in a civilised manner.

(It was worth a shot, he felt.)

In the meantime, Vivisector elected not to pursue the wounded knight. If the Ceronians continued to be professional, they'd have soildly covered the retreat, and Vivisector did not have the numbers for an assault in any case. The defence had bought what it needed - time - for Killstorm to regain enough mana to get them out of there.

He solidified the defences, moving the line a bit further back, littering the former nfantry positions with as many boody-traps and explosives - and re-animated (non-Battlecrab) corpses from the previous battles - as possible. The last battle had, at least, given them plenty of those. While animated dead were fundamentally hopeless on the modern battlefield, there was a small chance that en masse they would at least cause the Ceronians some dela in taking the positions.

The bulk of the remainig defence would solidly be from the surviving Enragers support by what War Droids were left. His own proper infantry were withdrawing back to the site itself.

* * * * * *

Velinkar sighed. "Worth a thought, but no, it seems. I could give them all the information we have on the UCDR, but it doesn't amount to much and they're probably too far away as a power for the biomancers to get at.

"I mean, we COULD point them at the Shardan" (there was no question of pointing them at the Manual Fighters - who Would Find Out and that wasn't worth thinking about - the Shardan would find out too, but the Aotrs were already enemies, so it mattered a bit less) "but aside from getting the biomancers killed a lot, I don't think that would be helpful." (And they didn't know where the Blasted Legion were hiding, the Yrgynela were elusive... And the Cybertanks and everone else way too close for comfort, since Velinkar, if he could not get any local strikes, rather wanted the Azura to be Far Away from the Aotrs, preferrably for a few centuries...)

"What about the Strayvians? We have quite a bit of information on those," (but didn't basically everyone?) "and we're fairly certain we have some idea of where the Dominion space is now concertrated. Would that be enough...?" It seemed, of course, reasonably likely that the Azura would have had run-ins with the Strayvians before, during the Empire period at least, given how stupidly large the Empire had gotten.

Actually, the thought of the Azura knights coming up against the Empire-Era Strayvian super-villains/mad science was (if somewhat dated), a rather hilarious one and the Azura might even somehow appeciate the fist-waving and "I'll get you next times" that would likely result...

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Vivisector watched the battle with keen interest. It had, admittedly caught them all a bit off-guard with the realisation that the battlecrabs were, NOT in fact Azura deployed by the orbital forces as planetary defence, but a third faction. That was the problem with the Azura's determined resistance to traditional technology, there was not the comms chatter to intercept.

He had the remaining specialists see if they could find a way to communicate with the battlecrabs against their common enemy. If that meant they had to sacrifice some of the tubes, so be it; after all, they could legitimately claim innocences - of a sort.

Sadly, the dead ones were probably dead too long to be able to be raised with Summon Dead, which had a time limitation of roughly fifty years per assessed caster level for that spell. Unless they could find one who had only relatively recently just died (a thousand years, give or take a few centuries), that option was out. (Vivisector considered and dismissed killing one of the living ones solely to perform that task. It was wasteful, especially if they COULD communicate and use the living ones as a bargining chip.

It was, of course, entirely possible they would either not be able to communicate, or their very presense of the preceeding battle had already squashed the idea, but nevertheless, enemy battlecrabs hitting the Azura in the rear was a nice thing to contemplate.

In the meantime, he deployed a tighter defence. The knights were the main problem here. The Aotrs had a veritable plethora of extremely capable individuals compared to most powers - even such long-lived folk as the Elves - due to their tendancy to pick up and retain the best and brightest. However, that didn't mean they were always there all the time, and a small force like this one had, basically, himself and Killstorm and the captain of the Line Infantry, who was not quite on their level. Against normal, mortal foes, any of the three of them could blitz through with horrendous ease, only in any serious danger from actual anti-vehicle weapons.

But the knights seemed more akin to super-powered beings - and even the Aotrs had some problems with superheroes and the like.
As their upper tiers and the distressing tendancy to spontaneously get TO those upper tiers tended to put them above the levels of even the bottom-end epic casters. Sure, the Aotrs did technically have individuals (aside from the High Command) who could qualify in their own right, but they were VERY small in number and none were present.

So the knights were the biggest problem, due to the damage they could cause. It might be possible he was over-selling them, but after the damage they'd caused thus far, Vivisector was leaning hard on caution. He gave orders to priority target the knights with anti-vehicle weapons when the opporunity arose, working on the basis that not even most superheroes would be able to tank a direct hit from a Hammer of Hatred's can-opener.

In the meantime, the War Droids - of slightly more use here - were set up as a screening force against the enemy infantry. While on the one hand, a close assault was among the easiet ways to deal with War Droids, and this seemed an enemy specialty, on the other, the point of War Droids was ultimately to pin in place the enemy for the Line troopers to attack themselves.

In this instance, Vivisector had pre-planned with the Storm Cleavers (all of which had survived the battle with the battlecrabs) to use their Frost Bombs as an artillery barrage on the War Droid positions. He hoped that the somewhat impetuous knight would charge i8nto sluaghter them (even wth Enrager Mark 1 support), but that while they and the other infantry were doing so, every Frost Bomb the trio carried would be unloaded into the vicinity, turning it into a mist, but most importantly, life-sapping frozen hell. It would no do the War Droids much good either, for that matter, but the Aotrs Lie troopers would be essentially immune to the cold th4emselves and stood a chance of making a killing counter-assault.

And if that worked, the Line troopers would pull back to their previous position, and another group of War Droids would take the place of the first. A classic, if in this case slightly unorthodox, cumbersome and wasteful, ping-pong defence. If it went to plan, Vivisector had enough War Droids to do it twice, but he very much doubted in combining and survivors, that there would be enough War Droids to do it a third time, if even the first time succeeded.

But it was the best shot he'd come up with. And the rest of the Aotrs interlocking defences would hopefully be able to deal with the enemy armour.

* * * * * *

Velinkar was slightly concerned, but not entirely surprised at Boldness' apparent burgeoning power level. Had he had the conversation with Vivisector, they would have both agreed on the superhero problem. (And these was a reason that the Aotrs specificallt considered teenage girls with magical powers to be a top-tier threat, because they seemed very much most prone to going all, well, they'd all seen the cartoons.)

All the more reason to keep her on the allied side, then. (It was, after all, just barely working with the Manual Fighters...)

(He thus refrained from pointing out how remarkably dumb owls were compared to their reputation... He had done falconry once, a few centuries back.)

Now that he was less concerned with her dashing off alone to deal with the Furnace Knight and actually had a plan, he volenteered the services of the reserved Murder detachment for her use.

A thought occurred. If these were greedy corporate types...

"How likely would we be to get a response if we tried to hire some of THEM?" he asked Boldness curiously. "Because I think Lord Death Despoil might not take it amiss if, for instance, we offered to hire some of their local forces to go and, for example, hit the United Concorde of Divine Realms forces here," he indicated Bright Accord Node Station "for us, and what might it cost us?"

Sure, the two-decade-plus streak of victories was somewhat necessary to have been broken at some point, bt that didn't mean the Aotrs as a whole couldn't be creatively petty about taking revenge for it.

He explained the UCDR's heavy reliance on magitech - as a society that likewise seemed to more rely on that than regular tech, the Azura seemed like they would be interested - or at least partly.

(Also, the already-observed very concerning presense of not only large numbers of Magical Teenage Girls, but the concern that some appeared to have survived and stuck at it long enough to be Magical Middle-Aged Veteran Ladies wuld perhaps give the Azura's thrice-cursed knights a run for their money...)

"Failing that, or in addition to it... Building on your idea of the engineered grudge, if you can locate the most readily intimidatable section - or most cost-conscious - with your assets and the addition of the anti-magic systems we're installing, it seems to me we're in a good position to pull something dirty.

"So far, your Azura divination has blunted our surprise attacks. But if our anti-magic can damp that effect enough, perhaps your Toxicrene can be used to falsify... Whatever it is that you use to report data findings to the person who decides where to go. And we can use that to lure a group out to a promising looking asteroid that they've just been told has some ideal deposits on and hit them without warning. And then leave a false trail behind to whichever subfaction they hate most is. To the sort of effect that they had gotten but withheld the divinatory infomation.

"I don't know how possibly that is, that's how I'd initially be looking at it, using spoofed or hacked sensors and communications with a more regular power."

He looked pensive for a moment.

"Is there any chance your Oratus can have an effect on Tanshin I? Some sort of disruption of defection or something when they start their attack on Brigadier Vivisector's tasks force? I appeciate that it might be too late, or possibly using that asset to early, but it's worth knowing if that option is on the table."

The Red Furnace: First Contact

Killstorm was decidedly annoyed. The Battlecrabs that had got past the Enrager Mk2s (and past the right-flank-most Hammer of Hatred whose unfortunate last-minute shots missed so badly) had torn into the fortifications and necessitated the judicious use of Transmute Matter to Antimatter, sufficient to deplete her mana at least below the point she could cast Gate XXV, if not quite entirely. Thus, they were stuck here for at least another eight hours while she meditated.

Her irritation was only slightly levened by the amusement she gained from Voidslay's wide-eyeglowed shock at the complete fluke coldbeam rifle shot that had actually hit at exactly the right point to astonishingly take one down outright. Stab's incredulity and numb shock was something that, Killstorm would be able to remember more fondly once they were out of this mess.

(Captain Fleshslicer as clearly finding it more amusing than Killstorm, he hadn't stopped shaking with periodic bouts of silent laughter.)

She wasn't angry with the rcompatriots (both the Hammer of Hatred's platoon commander, the tank commander and gunner had each called her seperately to apologise for letting them through - poor Grishkar )Third Trooper Griskar Skullcrusher, who'd she known for fifty years since she'd seen the hobgoblin's potential herself) - was feeling particular wretched. But these things happened; she was just annoyed at the situation in general. She wasn't best fond on having to be the lynchpin of the entire operation, not just of her own group (which included a lot of friends, old and new), but the Aotrs presense in the system entirely.

Killstorm scowled as she located a suitable quiet spot, with a couple more troopers assigned as guards and three Hunter Drones left from one of the groups that had been savaged. At least she wouldn't have to use the Crypt; the personal shelter was designed mostly to keep you dry and out of the elements, but was not big or especially comfortable - certainly not compared to Killstorm's large fluffy over-sized double bed back in her quarters. (Despite her lichhood, Killstorm still like to buryherself in a coccoon of quilts.)

Vivisector would redeploy and get ready for the inevitable next attack, and was co-ordinating with Velinkar in case they did need an emergancy exit. But here she was, having to go out of the loop for eight hours. At least, she mused, if they lasted that long, it might give the admiral a chance ot get some of those anti-magic systems up, and they might be able to get a drop on the Azura.

* * * * * *

Among the things brought along by the reinforcements was something Velinkar had not enrtirely expected - their one and only inside source of information on the Azura, one Boldness. Apparently, she convinced the High Command sufficiently to sned her along where she would be better placed to carry out her elimination of the Furnace Knight. Velinkat had quietly a single Murder on reserve (with some additional troops) in case Boldness did need a transport or assult ship, though he'd not told her that. She was, ultimately, a bit of a valuable resource and with Killstorm down on Tanshin I, he wanted to hold Boldness in reserve in case the ground forces did run into another one of those Azura leaders.

The first thing he'd asked was for his aides to share with her the offer that the Azura diplomats had made, to get a more informed opinion. He'd outlined to them that the Aotrs were not, obviously, going to trade out their technology at any price, but to see if Boldness herself could see any exploitable weakness in the current Azura set-up that could be used to both her own and their advantage.