Followup

The temple complex had rapidly changed over the past week. Even without the full power of modern technology, just the presence of Rye and Meli had seen the capabilities of the locals move on in leaps and bounds. The main structure itself had been left - the locals had opted to keep it as a memorial to those that had lost their lives on the altar at it’s peak - but the rest of the buildings had been re-purposed, re-built or just re-used. The inns and taverns that had been dotted around the main structure were bustling with visitors from the outer villages that were now under the control of allies to the revolution, while many of the inner rooms had been converted into barracks for the rapidly growing army.

Rye had already drafted a half dozen or so of the more capable locals into a makeshift engineering corps, overseeing their construction of not only more bows but also carriages and chariots; essentially they were in the process of building a medieval mechanised infantry. Meli meanwhile had advanced the state of metallurgy to the point of constructing blast furnaces; after a demonstration of the speed with which poured iron and steel could be formed into weapons and construction material, the local blacksmiths had practically demanded to study under her.

Dustin walked through the complex, Emely in tow as he smiled at the locals and nodded to the handful he knew by name. His group was barely advancing the tech level by any real measure - but it would be more than enough to utterly dominate any forces the rest of the planet could array against them. Which was handy - Sola’s sensors had reported two of the nearest temple-states rallying armies to put down what was being called a heresy, according to the handful of spies that the revolution had managed to slip behind enemy lines before the other cities had raised their security.

There were some concerns about spying going the other way - but it seemed unlikely to be a real problem. For starters, Sola was monitoring the enemy sites from orbit. While they might indeed have been able to get access to notes or even sit in on one of Meli’s lectures, it was one thing to learn about metallurgy and quite another to build a working blast furnace without appropriate material… or a hand scanner confirming the mix used for the bricks would be able to take the increased temperature without exploding. Rumours that a vanishing one was working with the “heretics” were also spreading, courtesy of Dustin’s friendly spies, and as a result some of the more technically minded on the enemies side were no doubt hedging their bets by not working too hard on resolving those sorts of problems.

With their army growing and almost ready to push on the next temple they’d targeted - one built on the slopes of a mountain pass, that would cut off any significant reinforcements from the northern part of the continent if they could take and hold it - Sola’s crew were once more turning their attention to the Fractal complex. Stepping through the door of their shuttle-slash-meeting room, Dustin arrived just in time to hear Bleu comment. “I don’t see why you don’t just do the same as the last time.”

Defia shook her head as Dustin paused to get a drink, not waiting for him to catch up on the conversation. “Statement. That would be ill advised; when the redundant facility went down, the secondary site will have switched to a more defensive protocol. Likelihood of internal defences, traps and other countermeasures is significantly higher. Addendum. They will also be watching for anomalies with rapid escalation reporting of potential disturbances to the cluster. If I am detected, likelihood of fleet deployment to scour planet has greater than acceptable levels.”

The rogue Fractal gestured towards Dustin at that point. “Additional statement. Primary unit is present. Suggest recall of additional units for full cluster debate on optimal mission protocol.” Dustin glanced from one to another and nodded. “Emely,” he said, “would you run along to drag Rye out of her workshop? I’ll call Meli in, but last we checked our resident genius engineer was in the middle of building something, and you know how she gets.”

Emely nodded and spun to leave - although one of her tails did take the time to brush Dustin’s cheek in a deliberately teasing manner as she scampered out the door. Sighing, he turned back to the others present. “Well, I know what Defia thinks now, and I guess Bleu as well. Yril’k, thoughts?”

His security chief gave a multi-armed shrug. “I believe’k the same as I thought last time’k captain. You should not be on the front’k lines. Beyond that… I would wish’k for the full range of opinions we have to define’k an optimal strategy.” She moved with a warriors grace and began to clear the table of the assorted papers, tablets and other detritus that had been building there in meetings over the past week. Once clear, she tweaked the shuttle’s hologram projector, bringing up a display of what their scanners and Defia had been able to piece together about the likely internals of the second Fractal complex. “Do you’k have any adjustments to make before’k the others arrive, Defia?” She asked.

The red-eyed woman shook her head; as she opened her mouth to speak Meli stepped in, followed rapidly by Emely tugging Rye along by the arm. Dustin sighed; the Feliax and Rabyth women didn’t exactly look the part of assistants to a goddess, but the locals all seemed to have taken their strange manners as some form of spirited good luck. With the entire crew gathered - or at least, that part of it that was on the planet, he gestured to the hologram. “Alright, time to begin a proper planning meeting.”

It took them some time to work out the details. Despite the repeated requests from the women present, Dustin insisted on going along with Yril’k. “We need operational and tactical command on the ground.” He said flatly after a particularly lengthy discussion. “Realistically, if we run into any oddities like Aricia’s containment, we’ll need to adapt the plans accordingly mid-mission. Out of all of us here, the only three capable of doing that while Yril’k manages the immediate situation are Defia, Meli and myself. Defia’s out as it’d likely bring a fleet down on our heads, and I am not putting my pregnant wife on the front line. So I am going, end of discussion. On to the actual strategy, please.”

The assembled women weren’t happy about it, but they bowed to his order none the less, although Meli gave him a look that suggested she wanted private words with him later on the matter. With the question of who was going mapped out - mostly security team, with a couple of the more talented locals who wanted to take the fight to the false gods being added to the list on Emely’s suggestion - things turned to the tactical. They’d be breaking in with an explosive compound this time - something simple that could be made with the local tech levels before they’d arrived. That’d give the best chance of it seeming like a local uprising, which Defia assured them meant the likelihood of a cluster response in the next century or so was limited.

Once inside, it was a quick dive to the communications core; if they made rapid progress, the most likely outcome would be the Fractals activating a system neutralization protocol - sending a pulse running throughout the facility, terminating any technology present and turning it into a plain dark set of tunnels that would rapidly decay as their power source collapsed. Based on some quick math by Meli, if that happened they’d have a day or two to get out from the lowest levels - plenty of time. “So, we go in, reach the comm array, total it with some more of the crude blasting powder and that should be it.” Dustin concluded with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “It sure sounds simple. Which naturally means everything that can go wrong, will most likely go wrong.”

The others exchanged glances before most of the women nodded. Defia remained the only one looking confused. “Statement. Why assume the likelihood of a catastrophic failure cascade given the simplicity of our stratagem?” It took them most of the remainder of that evening to adequately explain the human idiom to the synthetic lifeform, and even at the very end of the day she still had a puzzled look on her face as the others headed off to their respective beds.

A day later, and Dustin stood at the top of the temple, gazing north. Their army was moving out - a initial **** designed to harry a much larger group that had been dispatched from the temple they’d marked as their target. The rest of their forces would be ready to go in under seventy-two hours after that, with the result being that by the time the main forces met, their enemy would have been under near-constant harassment for over two days. Watching the dust from the massed wagons moving out, he grimaced to himself. “War’s fucking stupid.” He muttered, turning back towards the only other person sharing the viewpoint with him.

Bleu shifted her weight from one hip to another - a gesture that was entirely an affectation. The slime woman was perfectly capable of not needing to use her legs for balance at all, or merging them into a single pillar if she so chose; she gave Dustin a tired shrug as she replied. “Of course. But hey, freeing people from a totalitarian aggressor, saving civilisation and all that stuff, right?”. The medic traced her hand idly in the air. “Emely says that this is the best route forward for these people, we all looked at the research and agreed. And their medical staff are actually vaguely competent now; we shouldn’t lose too many lives if all goes well.”

Dustin raised an eyebrow. “High praise, coming from you. Shall we go? I’ve got a shuttle to catch for my own mission, and someone insisted on riding shotgun in case we get too battered while we’re underground.” Bleu nodded, then hesitated a second as she replied. “Sure. But… fuck, look, Dustin, can we talk when we’re back on the ship? I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Nothing serious!” she waved her hands rapidly when she saw his worried expression, kicking one foot idly against the stone beneath her feet. “Just… it’s bedroom stuff, ok? And I know when we get back you’re going to be busy with Trea’k, and I’m not the best at talking about this stuff, so wanted to pencil it in.” Dustin grinned. “Certainly, Bleu. I’ll make a doctor’s appointment as soon as I can.” With Bleu’s groan echoing behind him he turned and began to head down the steps towards the shuttle - and the conflict to come.