Elsewhere

Duke spent the next several hours scattering dungeons in the numerous voids he found under the surface of the planet. In all, he planted more than 5,000 new dungeons underneath the plant’s surface, even going so far as to use his EARTH Ability to sink the entrance to the one he had made on the surface. I wonder what it will be like when these dungeons mature enough to start putting out cores of their own and sending dungeon monsters out to spread them. I expect it would compound over time with the dungeons overspreading the entire planet eventually.

With that thought, Duke headed back to the ship to find a bit of a crowd waiting for him. All the orcs came out of the conference room when he appeared. Lya and Mira were also waiting for him with Aurelia. “Looks like the gang is all here. All we are missing is Zarkon.”

An enormous forearm rested on Duke’s head in response, “Oh, no. I’m here too. They told me you would be right back but that was hours ago. Where have you been, my friend?”

“Gathering information and making sure theories worked in practicality. What have you all been up to?”

“Waiting for you, mostly,” Mira replied. “We didn’t want to take off and leave you behind somewhere. Figured that might be a bit rude.”

“Yeah, just a bit. So, any discussions on the next destination while I was out or are we still heading to Clan space?”

“You confirmed that your plan will work?” Absolutely sure? I’m not putting my ship in unnecessary danger. Necessary danger? Sure, all the time. But not if it’s something that we should have known better than to try.”

“It’s confirmed. At least as safe as your own storage items, probably even more secure.”

Zarkon stepped around Duke, “What are you all talking about? What does this have to do with storage items?”

Gro’nok answered after a moment’s pause where numerous glances were exchanged to Zarkon’s irritation, “Duke has a way to bring the entire Clan along with us.”

“Has the Clan gotten so small that they could fit in the remaining spaces?”

“No, the Clan is actually bigger than it was the last time you were on Capnok.”

Lya cut in, “Capnok? That’s your homeworld, Gro’nok?”

“Yes, Capnok is the home of the Clan. Do not make me regret sharing that with you.”

Duke made his way over to the navigation console and was able to locate the planet rather easily. He pulled up the data and quickly perused it. “It’s about a hundred light years away from here.”

“Ten weeks,“ Mira lamented.

“One hour, maybe less,” Duke countered, and all eyes shifted in his direction.

“You have another ship up your sleeve, Duke? One that is faster than anything I have ever heard of?” Urgoth’s question was just what Duke was looking for.

“No, we’ll use this ship. But here’s the deal. I’ve decided to go at our enemies full-force. I’m not going to hold back anymore. I’m taking the fight to them and, in order to do so, I need to make sure my allies are secure so anything that delays that task is no longer acceptable. Relying on stardrive to carry us across that distance over the course of ten weeks is one of those delays. I can get us there in about ten hops like the one that got us here actually. I’m not concealing secrets anymore if they hinder my progress. The Syndicate has agents everywhere so my secrets will be known quickly anyway. All our secrets for that matter. So, there’s no point for anyone to hold back, is there?”

“I suppose there is not,” Mira responded. “But outright telling them what we can do is not on the list, right?”

“Yeah, I would not put that on the list of things to do. But I am going to expect them to know what we can do and to have counters ready. We just have to be better than their counters. Which means we all need to gain experience and level up or even Tier up if possible. Do you know what was piloting the titan mech?”

“What, not who?” Gro’nok asked.

“It was a Tier Eight demon. His name was Carlyle but I don’t think that matters much. What matters is that in a lot of the fights coming up, we are going to be outgunned, out leveled, and out Tiered.”

“Then we fight dirty, like papa Gra’Tuke taught us,” Urgoth said. “Never fight a fair fight, he said. If you can win by fighting fair, then you should have talked your opponent into giving up. If you can’t win fair, you fight dirty and learn from the experience.”

“Not exactly what I was thinking, but it works. We have to make it so expensive for them to pursue us that it’s a bad business decision to continue. Get them to cut their losses and run.”

“And just how do you propose we do that, Duke?” Lya asked.

“Destroy their fleets to start. Right now they don’t really know how precise I can be when TELEPORTING the ship but if I can see the target in some way, I can place us millimeters from the target. Imagine arriving at a space station where they have a fleet docked and just blasting the ships in the dock to hell and then disappearing. Only to appear at another space station half the galaxy away and do the same thing again in an hour. How are they going to be able to stop us from doing that if they have no idea where we are going to hit them next?”

“They will find a way to stop you from TELEPORTING the ship,” Mira said.

“Perhaps, but it won’t be easy and in all that time, we are all getting stronger while their forces get more and more strung out.”

“The biggest problem I see is that this ship’s not blowing anything much larger than us up anytime soon. At least not with the weaponry it currently has,” Lya said.

“What’s the biggest limiting factor to the weaponry you can use on your ship, Mira?”

“Power. It takes a lot to power-up weapons.”

“And if you had, say, 10 times the power, would that change the weapons you could use?”

“Oh shit, you’re right. The new cores!”

“Exactly. I want to see if we can figure out how to set up an entirely new set of cores just for weapons and with that, we can upgrade all the weapons and be able to punch way above our weight-class.”

“Bleed them. Burn them. Kill them all!” The Steel Tusks took up a bloodthirsty shout that reverberated across the bridge.

Mira gave Duke a serious look, “Even though I love the idea of having more firepower at my disposal, this ship is a mech and infantry transport. It’s designed to get in fast, provide cover while unloading, and get back out just as fast. It is not a capitol ship. I don’t care how many weapons we glue to the hull; it will never stand up to even a single heavy cruiser in a fight. Find another plan.”

“OK, we’ll come up with another plan, but I still think the seemingly random strikes would be effective.”

“I’m not arguing against that concept. I’m just not going to bring this ship, loaded with people, repeatedly into a fight where we are heavily outnumbered and outclassed in weaponry, armor, and shielding. That’s an invitation to disaster. Find another way.”

“Right. We’ll find another way. But for now, let’s head to Capnok and at least check in on the Clan. It will be up to them to decide whether they want to come with us.”

Gro’nok growled, “The Council will decide, and we will persuade them.”

Duke nodded, “I think that’s good? Whatever the case, meet me in the mech bay in ten minutes with all your Clanmates. I have something to show you all. Then we will be heading straight for Capnok.”

Duke TELEPORTED down to the mech bay and began to pull mechs from his INVENTORY, placing them in their individual slots. Most mech slots seemed to be of a standard size, but there were three that were much larger. Duke guessed the three were for exactly what he was putting in one, the titan mech. He performed a CLEANSE and RESTORE on each of the mechs and replaced the cores in the ones he had removed them from, finishing up with the titan. He had even taken the two nearly-destroyed Clan mechs to place next to the other Steel Tusk mechs.

He had barely finished up when the orcs entered the mech bay. He met them at the entrance with a shit-eating grin, “Hello everyone. I picked up a few more mechs for the Clan. You might want to change their color schemes but I think you’re going to like them.”

“By Harmid’s infected tusk, that’s a titan mech!”

“And the Ebon Dancer! She lives again! But how? How is this possible?”

Mira stepped into the mech bay smiling, “That’s Duke’s doing. He has a crazy Ability that fixes things like new.”

“Just like that?” Urgoth asked.

“Just like that,” Duke responded. “Like I said before, I’m done hiding. I’m going to use all my Abilities including this one for our benefit. If it helps us steal mechs from the Syndicate that they think were lost or destroyed, I’m going to do just that. If I can use my Abilities to destroy their ships, I’ll do that too. You are in this for as far as you want to go but I’m going to take this to the end. They chose us as enemies, now they will have to deal with the consequences of that choice.”

“Yes, you sound more and more like one of us, Duke,” Gro’nok said. “We six Steel Tusks stand with you at the minimum. When the Clan sees what you have done for us, I am sure they will also join.”

“Especially since the Syndicate will have cut them off from mech transport,” Urgoth said.

“Yes, brother, that is true. Let’s make haste to Capnok and gather the Clan.”

Duke listened to the continuing conversation with only part of his attention. The rest of his mind was dedicated to the first TELEPORTATION waypoint on their journey to Capnok. When he felt sure of the destination, he moved the ship across the first ten-thousand lightyear jump. The only indication in the mech bay was that Duke sagged slightly as he had used nearly his entire Mana pool to make the jump. After a few seconds of regen, he TELEPORTED back to the bridge, leaving the orcs and Mira in an animated discussion of deployment tactics with a full mech bay and how the titan mech would fit into those plans.

Duke took over the navigation station again. It was becoming so common for him to be there that it was now an unwritten rule that anyone sitting there simply moved when he came on the bridge. He didn’t mind. He was used to being in charge but not used to being the final level of leadership. He knew that he had all but abdicated his role as the King of Stormstride with his continual absences. There was underlying guilt there even though he had set the kingdom up for success on both economic and military fronts. It wasn’t the entirety of the reason that he wanted to head back to Teldin, but it was one of them.

Duke’s Mana had refilled so he set the second waypoint in his mind and TELEPORTED the ship along. This continued for the next several jumps before Mira and the orcs rejoined him on the bridge. He waved at them as they entered.

“Duke, where are we?” Mira asked, her tone rising with concern.

“One stop from our destination. Everyone ready?”

“Ready for what?” Morka asked.

“This!” Duke activated his final TELEPORTATION to get them to the Capnok system. They arrived close enough to the planet that it was recognizable on the viewscreen with some magnification. What they saw around the planet set off alarms.

“Syndicate ships!” It was hard to say who said it first, but the realization hit them all at essentially the same time. Mira landed in the Captain’s chair so fast that no one was sure they even saw her move. She had the ship’s shields on at full before anyone else could even take a step. The weapons were deployed and fully energized by the time the Steel Tusks had decided to head for the mech bay. For them, the fight had come to their home and they were going to defend the Clan with everything they had.