Chương 1363: 1393 - The New Fleet

Artorion's arkyards were some of the largest in Leon's Kingdom. They spilled over the eastern mountains and down the western slopes, building the war machines that would bear Leon's warriors to the stars and bring them back with songs of victory on their lips. These arkyards, however, were almost unique in that their arksmiths only built war arks here; civilian arks were built elsewhere. All ark classes used by Leon's military had hulls laid down in these arkyards, with hundreds under construction at any one time.

With new campaigns soon to begin out in the planes, Leon saw fit to inspect the arkyards and see how the construction of his fleet was going. Doing so on this particular day, however, was no coincidence, as two new dreadnoughts were scheduled to receive their names and join their fleets today. The ministers who oversaw the arkyards and the master arksmiths who managed all of the construction had offices in a large facility straddling the eastern ridge, and it was there that Leon went to begin his inspection.

"… an' down there Yer Majesty can see 'at the newer classes 'r bein' finished," Master Kell said with a wide grin. He was missing teeth, seemed perpetually covered in soot, and was more than a little overweight, but all of that was more than tolerable given how well the corvette yards ran under his leadership. Leon's eyes followed the line of Kell's hand, covered in black grease, to the top of the eastern slopes, where a hundred corvettes in relatively small yards were in various stages of completion.

Some were bare metal skeletons, little more than the ribs of the superstructure, while others were nearly complete, their new hulls shining like mirrors and the magic spilling from them potent. In the past hundred years, the corvette yards had grown so efficient that a new corvette came out of them every two days. These were, of course, the smallest of the 'large' ark classes, but it was impressive, nonetheless.

"It's always a treat to see your work, Master Kell," Leon said politely, and the master beamed through his dirty face.

"Yer makin' me blush, Yer Majesty," the man said.

"It's ma honor to work here, an' more'n that, both of ma sons 'r officers in yer fleet, so I gotta make sure they got the best!"

"I can already tell from here that you've accomplished that much," Leon remarked, his tone regal but no less honest for it. The corvettes, given their size, were the easiest of his large arks to upgrade, and they'd undergone quite a few refinements in the past century. Few of the corvettes around before the war with Triton and Antipatra were still commissioned, with most having been scrapped and rebuilt into newer corvette models.

These new corvettes were faster, had more efficient stealth features, and were packed to the gills with sensor and communication systems. Leon had made the decision to go lighter on weapons and armor for the newer designs, allowing these corvettes to more ably fill their scouting roles, even if it made them less useful in a battle line.

"Our frigates," Master Millon hurriedly stated as Leon's eyes fell upon him, "are comin' along nicely. Had some trouble with a few, but we've got 'em figured out now; they'll do their job."

"Was the 'trouble' related to their new jump drives?" Leon asked curiously.

"Uh, yeah, 'twas. Real finnicky, them things are." Leon smiled, having had a long and very hard conversation with Nestor and several Ravens half a century ago when it became clear that their newest variation on Nestorian Drives had high rates of failure when scaled down to fit in the smaller arks. That had been accounted for in the corvettes, but frigates, it seemed, were also small enough to have needed extra engineering to get right.

"How have the Gerian stabilizers worked out?" Leon asked.

"Ah!" Millon exclaimed.

"They're real beauts, Yer Majesty! Workin' as intended! I can say that the boys down in the yard like workin' with 'em more than those old ones. They used to say that one wrong move could have 'em teleportin' you out into the Void! But no such complaints since those stabilizers came in!"

"Geri will be happy to hear that; he spent almost an entire year fixing the shaking problems that were disrupting the spatial matrices."

"Can't speak for that, but I can say that they make installing the drives as easy as a cool mountain breeze!" Nodding, Leon ran his eyes over the frigate yards again. Not as efficient as the corvette yards, they were still able to get a new frigate in the air every four days.

"Tell me about the destroyers," Leon commanded, and Master Sten stepped forward. While Millon and Kell were both Bison, with large physiques that befitted their lineage, Sten was a Ji Spider. Given his stick-thin frame, cloud-white skin, and casual, yet arrogant, smile, he could never have been mistaken for a son of any other Tribe.

"Nine Octanus-class destroyers have left my yards in this past month," Sten proudly reported, his eyes narrowing slightly as they flickered in the direction of the other master arksmiths.

"Oh?" Leon responded.

"I was expecting only six."

"My arksmiths are the best," Sten proudly bragged.

"No one is faster, or gets faster over time, as they do." Leon smiled good-naturedly, understanding the words were directed more towards the other masters than to him.

"Don't overwork them," he warned.

"New arks are always needed, but good arksmiths are just as valuable."

"They know their limits, Your Majesty," Sten declared.

"They also know the importance of the upcoming campaigns and redoubled their efforts. They may not be swinging swords or firing Lances, but they are all proud of their work—as well they should be, given our destroyers are the most well-built in the entire Kingdom! There hasn't been a single complaint from the fleet about our destroyers in almost three years!"

"Those are figures to be proud of," Leon stated. All of Leon's arks had received upgraded designs, but unlike the frigates, there hadn't been any growing pains with the destroyers. Their jump drives were integrated well, and their new cannons incorporated lessons learned from studying the ancient Thunderbird arks. Their weapons weren't quite up to those ancient standards, but Leon was confident that all they needed were a few more iterations and his destroyers wouldn't lose out to those of his ancient Clan.

In fact, given the defensive measures that were incorporated into the new destroyers, he imagined he'd surpass those old standards soon—stronger shields, more powerful thrusters, and a more efficient power supply, all of which allowed more powerful weapons and stronger armor; there was hardly a system in his destroyers that hadn't been overhauled in the past century.

"What about the cruisers?" he asked.

"I trust the Gemini incident won't be repeated?" Two arks, both light cruisers, had come out of the arkyards forty years ago as the first arks of a new class. However, acceleration to more than sixty percent of what should have been their top speed tore their superstructures apart. Both Gemini-class arks were lost, though it was fortunate that they hadn't left the Nexus when it happened, allowing most of their crews to survive.

It was still a black mark on the records of not only his arksmiths but also his ark designers.

"No, Your Majesty!" Master Turen hurried to assure him. His fear, Leon felt, was justified, as it had been the failure of the arksmiths to properly anchor the thrusters into the superstructure that caused the Gemini incident. By the time that was discovered, however, the entire class had been canceled, and the under-construction Gemini frames had started being scrapped. It had been a tremendous waste of resources, and while Leon was loath to part with so many skilled arksmiths, punishment had still been expected.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. In the end, many of those arksmiths had been given the choice of either demotion to a planar arkyard, which would've meant significantly less prestige and pay, or ninety-three lashes in Menander's arena, a lash for every life lost in the incident. Nearly all had chosen the lashes.

Thankfully, the Dancing Bolt-class arks—themselves essentially renamed Geminis with additional thruster anchors—had proven their worth in the past quarter century, as Turen explained to Leon. Light cruisers were designed to support dreadnoughts and to act as flag arks of smaller task forces, and so were arks designed to do everything. Compared to heavy cruisers, however, they were expected to do the same job with less power, and so Leon considered their construction to merit great scrutiny.

As for the heavy cruisers…

"… and Line-Admiral Reon had nothing but praise for the new Soaring Feather-class arks that we've been building!" Turen said quickly, nearly tripping over his words a few times in his haste to make sure that Leon knew that the officer in charge of fleet procurement had personally praised the newest heavy cruisers.

"His word means much to me," Leon stated with a proud look at the cruisers in question. More heavily armed and armored than light cruisers, heavy cruisers commanded larger task forces and could be thought of as the backbone of his fleet. Perhaps not as imposing as his dreadnoughts or carriers, but in the past century, it was detachments led by a heavy cruiser that had done most of the fighting out in the planes.

Their large battery of Lances had battered pirate arks into dust, and their large twin cannons had devastated the hideouts where those pirates had attempted to flee. He was tempted to turn immediately to the dreadnoughts and the two big reasons for choosing to begin his inspection on this day, but instead, he let his eyes swivel in the direction of the carriers.

"What mighty mounts our cavalry now ride," the smooth voice of Master Ekron said as he stepped forward.

"No finer craft shall bear our pilots to battle; they will brag to their Ancestors of the chariots they drove!"

"Hopefully not for a long time," Leon stated, amused by the Tiger's theatrics.

"In their new metal homes," Ekron continued, "they will see their hopes for a young, glorious death dashed, as no matter what forces the enemy brings to bear, they will still live to ripe old ages." Leon chuckled. The carriers had been one of the biggest focuses when it came to design upgrades. They weren't much larger than Trajan-class supercarriers, but new applications of thunder wood had allowed them to expand their ark bays without compromising other systems.

The new Trajan II-class supercarriers could hold twice as many fighters and Ulta suits, along with a host of new bomber arks. He wasn't sure about Ekron's boasting of the new carrier's capabilities, but he knew that the defensive enchantments had been iterated on and were undoubtedly much stronger. The same went for all of the fighters and Ulta suits that the carriers still bore, which the new bomber arks were able to benefit from.

This all made carrier construction extremely complex, and despite the expansion of the arkyards and greater efficiency of the workers, new supercarriers only left their yards once or twice per year. This meant that almost all of the old carriers which had survived to this point were still in service, and Leon doubted they'd be retired or scrapped any time soon. Finally, his golden gaze fell upon the massive slivers of silver close to the base of the eastern slopes. The new Lysander-class dreadnoughts.

Four massive cannons running almost the entire one-thousand-two-hundred-foot length, and huge banks of Lances behind armored covers. Along the spine and belly of these immense beasts, however, were no Lances, but covers for new weapons that Leon was anxious to see tested in combat.

Combined with these new weapons, the Lysander-class dreadnoughts could boast the most powerful shields that Leon's arksmiths could pack them with, a jump drive that could carry them three times as far as the Exallos-class vessels, and enough power that their thrusters could move them faster even than light cruisers—if given enough time to get up to speed. While none of these arks could stand up to Storm Herald in a straight fight, the Lysander-class dreadnoughts were getting close.

Master Leon—the youngest of the masters despite working on some of the most prestigious and important arks in Leon's fleet, and who Leon had been more than a little amused to learn had been named in his honor—was eager to present his work, and almost leaped forward when Leon turned his attention upon the two dreadnoughts that were going to take to the sky in just a few hours.

Leon would inspect them from within before then, but right now, their crews were preparing a shakedown at the moment, and he didn't want to intrude until they were ready.

"No more powerful beasts have ever been forged in these yards than those down there," Master Leon said proudly." Dreaming Thunder and Waking Storm will be the tip of the spear for this campaign. No enemy will be able to stand against their power. Given what I've seen from the cannon tests, they could even blast their way through entire planes if they needed to."

"You have outdone yourself, Master Leon," Leon praised honestly. These new dreadnoughts were the pinnacle of what his Kingdom could achieve, and they would be the most visible defining force of his fleet for at least another hundred years, if not longer. Leon himself had spent quite a bit of time helping with the design, which only served to further draw his interest.

He was no great ark designer on his own, but he imagined he had enough experience with jump drives to consider himself an expert in that aspect, at least.

"I am but your humble servant, King Leon," Master Leon replied, both of them smiling at what had become something of a joke between them since Master Leon had risen to his current position thirty years ago. Leon was about to continue when he noticed a secretary whisper something into Lucianus' ear before disappearing back into the mass of humanity that followed him everywhere when conducting official business. Lucianus, straight-faced and cold, walked swiftly to Leon's side.

"We received a call from out east," he whispered to Leon.

"From Justin Isynos."

Leon marched through his halls like he was going to war, his face surly and grim, his gait measured and directed, and his aura hard and determined. In such a state, he was undisturbed until he reached the comms room that Valeria had redirected the call to. It was suitably private, and Leon had no reservations about Valeria redirecting the call, but speaking with Justin always tested his patience no matter where he spoke to the man.

"… about the cistern on the south side?" Valeria asked as Leon pushed the door open. She whipped around, her silver hair, held in a loose braid, slicing through the air almost as sharply as her glaive. Her sapphire eyes were initially narrowed in anger, but softened as she beheld Leon, and softened further when he firmly shut the door behind him. She'd been speaking with a projection of her father and had been examining another projection in front of Justin.

"Leon," Justin said, a warmth in his voice that Leon wasn't expecting overmuch.

"I hope I didn't contact you at a bad time." Leon's left eye twitched. He'd certainly rather be inspecting the dreadnoughts he'd put so much time into helping to design than deal with Justin, but he'd hardly say so out loud.

"No," he lied.

"Though I presume you have a reason for calling on such a short notice?"

"My mother!" Valeria declared, throwing Leon a little off-kilter from the energy behind her voice.

"We have a way in!"

"Something like that," Justin said with a grimace.

"I have enough to call you, Leon. I have a chance." Leon met Valeria's gaze. The hope he saw there melted any antipathy he'd built up over the return journey to Westmount. He stifled a sigh and took a seat.

"All right. What are we looking at?" Valeria, beaming in a way that he didn't see often from her, sat next to him and clung to his arm. At the same time, Justin let out the sigh that Leon didn't.

"Torn Sky," he stated as he sucked in another breath, and the projection that Valeria had been carefully inspecting zoomed out into a massive city plan.

"Kamran's capital city, named in honor of his role in your Clan's downfall." For a single moment, all the antipathy that Leon had just let go came back, boiling through his aura. And then Leon seized control again, suppressing all of that energy until it could be put to better use.

"It's one of the largest and most well-defended cities in the Nexus," Justin continued.

"And Kamran's palace at its center is even more so. And my wife is at the most protected part of the palace."

"And you have a way in?" Leon asked, mildly skeptical.

"Some decades ago," Justin explained, "Anakes Auset and Halbast took the architect who designed Torn Sky and Kamran's palace prisoner, and I was able to get as complete a picture of their defenses as is possible to get. It's taken half a century, but combined with what few contacts I still have in the city, those plans have opened a window for me."

"For us," Valeria insisted.

"My father can't do this alone, Leon. We have to help him." Her eyes flashed with determination, and even if he were a thousand times stronger, Leon wouldn't have been able to refuse her. He'd hesitate to help Justin, but to free her mother… Well, he knew that pain, and he'd move entire planes with his bare hands if it would help spring Ariana from whatever madhouse Kamran had locked her in.

"All right," Leon said.

"Where do we start?"