V12: Epilogue

  …

  Interlude: Khanrow

  …

  The continent was united, yet our work was not done.

  Not even close.

  Catherine sat across from me while I was disguised. The Guardian’s capital city was filled with parades, and songs of victory resounded in every street. They were victorious, and with their alliance against the coming threats, they needn’t fear the King of Wisdom. Seized assets flowed into their lands, and wealth graced the hands of the masses, while immense riches flowed into the hands of merchants who would rebuild the lands that were taken. Medals were being given, speeches were being uttered, and none of them knew that the war continued in the shadows.

  They have yet to win their peace thanks to those who have escaped.

  “Lady Celia has permitted your forces to be deployed across the lands of Guardians, but only with attaches from our own intelligence service.” Catherine did not know me, but I knew her. She was Celia’s teacher and right hand. A Phantom between eight and seven centuries old who has served since her death long ago. She led their intelligence service, and she did not know who I was. “All agents who enter our lands must be weighed and provide a thumbprint and blood draw.”

  “We accept those conditions.” I told her, and she gave a small tilt of her head. She had guards at every table. Normal Descendants and Merchants in plain clothes. Their trained bodies made them obviously agents. The effects of the elixirs left behind by the Ancients for us were obvious to the trained eye. I was sure that they did not know that one of the waiters tending to the tables was one of ours. “As I said in the contact letter, our intentions are solely to ensure that the rest of the Scholars and Forgers are dealt with. We will leave after they are accounted for.”

  We knew where they were. They were on the outskirts of civilization being watched, and we will chase them, force them to act, and give them no reprieve. Their existence allowed us to keep an eye on the Guardians of the Moon. That was the only reason why they continued to persist, since we already stole their innovations. All they could give us now was time and the ability to respond to the threats that Jack suspected would arise in their lands.

  In other words, we were to address threats that the Guardians had no clue were even going to arise.

  They held themselves to such lofty heights and celebrated these victories, while we continued to prepare for war.

  “We have information regarding the Sahuagin. Several extraction sites were abducted during the fighting and turned into hives. We preemptively dealt with them and saved as many as we could. The survivors are… traumatized.” As always, Jack had appeared where he was needed most without prompting, with Khalai in tow. Once the High Justiciar was out of the bottle, he made full use of his new asset. Acquiring information that would’ve been otherwise lost due to death, we gained insights into our foes beneath the waves. “They are desperate and in search of people to feed off. Their undersea empire is slowly crumbling towards civil war.”

  “…We will take this information under consideration. You have our thanks for dealing with the threat. The Forger’s intelligence service destroyed themselves rather than serve.” The Forgers, even though they were lacking in many respects, had loyalty down to a science. Those who were entrusted with vital information were more kin to machines than mortals. No. They reminded me of Iterants, such was their loyalty. “But in the future, our people will decide such things in our lands.”

  “We hold no objection to it. We are auxiliaries hired on to maintain and protect until you stand on your own. His majesty simply wishes to ensure that our true foes do not advance as you rebuild.” I bowed my head. It felt odd to play the contact and the new agent, but I swallowed my concerns and played my part as well as I was able. More than anyone, save perhaps Jack and Morgan, I knew the importance of this gamble. To betray our new allies from the onset by fooling them with a thought-dead warlord? If I failed, the ruse would destroy any goodwill. But with my success, the Guardians would play into our hand. It was worth the hours spent having my body reforged to look like another man entirely in the medical tanks of the Citadels. “In all honesty, I want to serve the King of Wisdom. The sooner the Guardians are on their feet, the sooner that I leave.”

  “I see. The King of Wisdom chose well. We would not wish to be hosts to his intelligence service for long.” Service. Singular. I had to make sure that I did not twitch so much at that. They had no idea that there were over four independent intelligence organizations. Each region under our control had local itinerant forces investigating and surveilling our own people. An inter-region domestic service that answered solely to Jack and Ayah operated and surveilled our industry and academies. Then, there was my branch, which was solely for other polities. Finally, there was one entire organization who watched us, ran operations against us, and whom we were meant to operate against as well. Jack made a watcher for us who watched us well and who kept us sharp and disseminated successful operations. The Guardians had one singular budding effort for their entire nation. It will be years before they can see us off. “I look forward to working with you, James.”

  I offered her my hand and shook it with a nod.

  Jack’s last missive to me resounded in my head.

  He was right, as always.

  If we do not help them, they’ll fall.

  …

  Air supremacy.

  Some people confuse the term with air superiority or think they’re interchangeable.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Such isn’t the case.

  Air superiority means that when your people are up in the air, they have a favorable advantage, and that makes it so that the enemy’s air force has only a marginal effect on all your operations. The enemy’s air force is a problem when they show up, but every time they show up, they’re going to be addressed or whittled down. The boys on the ground and in boats fret over enemy planes just to see them shot out of the sky, or they get hit by the enemy, but the enemy’s planes don’t go home.

  I’m simplifying things, but that’s not what I’m going for.

  Air supremacy is when the enemy’s air force can’t do anything because they’re either dead or they die when they lift off. Rather than have the soldiers or sailors worry about the enemy air force, air supremacy is when you take them out entirely. They’re a non-factor to all operations you conduct in a theater. When you have air supremacy, the skies aren’t a battlefield. They’re in a favorable position that you can strike from with absolute impunity.

  I had it for the first couple of years of my campaign. Aerial cavalry changed over to incendiary bombers before anyone else could muster up enough mages, archers, or even their own aerial cavalry. As the years passed, everyone developed countermeasures. The most potent was the Guardian’s swarm artillery that used masses of small undead familiars to tear through people. It was deadly enough to even be used against fortifications, though smashing against armor and stones destroyed the familiar. Against aerial cavalry, though? The swarms chewed through flesh and blood with ease, since they didn’t have any armor.

  But I knew that little gambit wasn’t going to last long, so I looked for alternatives.

  Mini-flying castles with mages on them.

  Gliders that I can fill with Citadel Guardians or bombs.

  In the end, though, my attempts to find a new unit to replace my asset were a waste of time.

  Because the right answer was to just steal the Forger’s best aerial unit.

  Well, steal as best as you can, while keeping it a bit cheaper.

  “My apologies, but the strange engine on the Ancient Transport proved too costly to mass produce. The materials it was composed of, though, proved replicable with alchemic aid.” Erlan gestured at the large factory. The frames of twelve aircraft were being worked on. Monoplanes with piston-driven engines were a step below jet fighters, but I didn’t mind. The cost to maintain Forger in-game was extreme, and they’d have needed Citadel manufacturing to pump out here. These needed some industrial buildup, moving a lot of people around, but nothing besides that. “One day, I wish to return to those designs, but I have confidence that these will give us the skies.”

  “I feel the same way.” I told Erlan honestly. Ayah and the Iterants were integral to manufacturing the plane. They processed the numbers, created scale models, and took off every ounce they could from the frame while keeping it light. With Forger's inherent skill at machining and even some Scholar assistance from those who could be trusted, we made something that could… not be instantly killed by a Spitfire. Tests were ongoing. Wings were being figured out, the design was evolving, and more improvements were incoming to the engines and more, but a simple fact remained: we were introducing WW2-era fighter planes in industrial quantities. Substandard for the WW2 era, sure, but in my current world… they made me feel a little bit of hope. “For now, refine this design and continue to build it around the optical weapon. Perhaps, in time, we can give it the ability to carry bombs.”

  That hope primarily stemmed from the fact that while I didn’t get the Forger’s jet fighter, I did get its fucking heat ray.

  Or, an analog.

  Underslung beneath each wing were three ovoid pods, and inside each one was the optical weapon. Or, rather, it was an oversized wand made through the concentrated efforts of all the scholars, mages, and academies that I had at my disposal. Everything from the power source to the lens, and even the casing, was made thanks to stolen technology, breaking down ancient artifacts, and the time and effort of thousands of people.

  The key to its success was the Forger’s bio-weapons. Their rolling mines used rodent brains to seek out targets and detonate their payloads. We took away the guidance part and focused on it just giving a signal when the pilot pulled the trigger on the weapon. Wands and staves needed a living creature to use them, even when they had a source of power integrated into them. Until the Forger’s new weapons were disassembled and their process discerned, we thought about mounting just one or two of the weapons near the pilot seat.

  With the Forger’s innovation, as fucked up as it was, we were able to use parts of mice brains kept alive in solutions with magic to be triggers. Barely a slice of the brain, but it was ‘alive,’ and with a signal from a trigger pull, it fired the weapon that surrounded it. It was better than having Iterants spend their times solely as cores inside the weapon or manufacturing the Scholar’s implants and putting people in the weapons.

  Still, I was going to dedicate a monument to mice and make them the country’s official animal for their service.

  Their service in giving me a weapon that can cut through an inch of steel with one finger pull, that had hundreds of shots each, and hit instantly.

  Honestly, if their range wasn’t just a bit shy of a hundred meters, I’d consider replacing my cannons with them.

  Maybe, if I made a bigger one with better materials and more investment, I could mount one on a flying castle and get a massive point-and-click death beam.

  But, for now, they were the main and only armaments for my new fighters. Mass production and deployment were key to success. Strafing runs with a couple dozen of them will do enough damage against ground forces, but my primary concern was securing the skies against the Stymphalians. If these planes can keep my skies secure, then they’ll be worth everything I’ve put into them.

  With that in mind, I turned to Erlan.

  “I’ll be promoting you soon to director. You’ll oversee eight factories producing these aircraft. One for each region and a spare.” Aircraft numbers were in the thousands during WW2. I didn’t have precision-guided bombs, missiles, or computers, so I’ll need at least the same amount if I’m going to face a race born to fly and kill anything on the ground. There was also my suspicion that the fifth calamity was going to be a high-tech sci-fi faction. They’ll probably have an air force of their own, and against that, I’ll need to be able to absorb losses. A lot of losses, since I didn’t know what they’d be throwing at me. “Send me a list of people you trust and who can serve as your staff. I’ll investigate them. After that, prepare yourself to be elevated to my inner circle.”

  Erlan took a moment to process my words, and for a moment I recalled the general who led a force consigned to dying against hordes of Undead.

  That general, loyal even to people who sent him to die, was nowhere to be found.

  Instead, there was only Erlan, as he took to one knee and bowed his head.

  “I swear my life to you, your majesty.” The Forger swore with a choked breath. I let him speak. After years of freedom, after being sent off to die by the last people he swore to, this was something he was allowed to take slowly. “I will not fail you in this task.”

  As far as oaths went, it was lacking, but I wasn’t asking him to die for me or anything.

  “Raise your head, Erlan. This task needs no oaths. Only the effort and will that you have already shown me.” I offered him my hand, and he rose with my help; still, he looked at me with no small amount of devotion. I saved many of his people, gave him a home, and now a job that gave him influence and wealth. People would kill for less. “I ask you to do this for the good of the nation. Ask of me for support whenever you have need. This task is for us both to shoulder.”

  Erlan bowed his head again, and this time more than a few of the workers did as well.

  I might’ve practiced speaking a bit too much.