Chapter 787 – And So We Build A Tower To Pierce The Heavens

I sit here, and I can only weep at the utter abandon that has befallen our people. A thousand years ago, I would have thought this normal. That all call to arms were supposed to be slow and meandering. That it was a shock and a rupture, and it was something you had to shake off in the preparation that we called mobilization. That we had to say our goodbyes and that every issue that could slow it down was a certainty.

And then I went to serve in the Arascan War, and I saw a world that took to mobilization in a matter of hours. Both sides would call up vast reserves of manpower or retool their armies or rewrite their orders at the snap of a finger. Whereas we came out of that war that we should not copy the Ardans in anything, they are correct on this.

A good plan executed right now is better than a perfect plan executed tomorrow.

- Letter to the Conclaves by Archangel Ilahim.

Simon looked up from his controls when he felt Gerald’s hand on his shoulder. Before him, past the massive controls, a mechanical mill wove a four different synthetic clothes into a single weave. He had a pair of robotic hands across the entire structure that could be controlled through the pair of joysticks before the screen, although they were only used when something got wound up. “Is there a problem?” Simon asked.

“For me, less so for you.” Gerald said, the old man was no scientist, nor a manager, nor even a weaver, but he had a vision a long time ago of a cloth that did not break. It was cumbersome, tough, far too heavy to move in, airtight and entirely not fit for anything but thin sheets that could be used in armour or to patch up ships and submarines. Even the Imperial military had rejected the design for clothes, instead resigning the Orthoweave to be a speciality material for command and medical tents. “Manufacturing just called.”

“Manufacturing? Which?” Shouldn’t Simon have been one of the first to know if another of the company’s departments had an issue? “I’m making it.” Gerald’s Wonderweave, as the company was called, was not that large.

“Bureau.” The old man said and stroked his moustache. He took a sigh as Simon stared at him for a moment. Bureau? Which fucking…

“Bureau of?” He said the name as if he was naming a Divine.

“Bureau of.” Gerald said. He pulled out a printed sheet of paper from his pocket. “It got here this morning. They sent five different emails to everyone too. Documentation and everything, it has the Emperor’s stamp on it.” Simon’s eyes almost bulged. Arascus’ own hand had stamped that? “There…” Gerald pursed his lips and scratched the back of his head. “Well, it’s not bad on one hand.”

“Can I read it?”

Gerald held the letter as if it was a sacred artefact. “I’ll…” He began and then got to reading: Dear Mister Gerald Arronstone. We hope this letter reaches you well. A plan is already being put into action regarding the recent news of the Second Arc. In regards to that, your company, specifically the Wonderweave plant, currently serves as the sole producer of Orthoweave which is integral to spacesuit deployment.

We have taken this into account, on the twenty second.” Gerald looked to Simon. “That’s tomorrow.”

“I know.” He still had to get a present for his sweetheart Ellie.

Gerald continued to read. “-second. A minister from the Bureau of Manufacturing will be assigned to you to help scale operations. We appreciate and understand the notion of trade secrets, nevertheless, given the special circumstances, it has become non-negotiable that your production expands.We will not bore you with negotiation, either the Wonderweave plant will be expanded tenfold, or we request your production methods to be given to the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing.”

“Under both options, you shall be compensated. The latter through financial means, the former through acquisition of titles and expansion subsidized in full by the IBM.” Gerald finished and took a deep breath. “I know which option I’m taking.” He said. “But you know how it is here, I’m asking everyone around. Which one do you want to take?”

“The title of course.” Simon said and Gerald chuckled.

“Then that option is winning eighty-six to five right now.” He said. “You’re promoted to department lead, I’ll assign to teaching the new staff when it arrives.”

“Do they say how many?” Simon asked and Gerald turned back to him.

“I didn’t want to scare you but they do at the bottom.” He held the letter up. “Management assistance will be provided, however to make sure you fully understand the severity of the situation. The Empire is currently short of…” Gerald took a deep breath. “Roughly one million suits capable of sustaining life in space.” Simon blinked at the figure.

“What?”

“They’re not joking.” Gerald said. “One of the emails said they’re already sending mobilization letters out and that they expect a hundred thousand by two months as a bare minimum.” He tapped the paper on Simon’s head. “Hope you can teach boy.”

Gerald had not said a word of a lie. A minister working at the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing had to double it check it first with the Bureau of Magic, and then with the Imperial Military when it turned out that the whole was operating under military conscription and not the basic civilian directives. He could not imagine how that looked.

And yet, in the Hallin College of Magic, a dorm of forty two students were experiencing that mobilization right now. Gertrude was in the middle of the group, her legs crossed on the floor as she re-read the letter one more time. By her side, Michael showed his own form to Gertrude. “I have the same one.” She said. All the girls she had shared a room with got the exact same thing.

“Do you think it’s Arcadia then?” Jan’s voice silenced the room of students. “Since we’ve all got the same one.”

“It has to be the Second Arc.” Gertrude replied back to him. “But this?”

“Has everyone got the same?” Jan said, he held his own paper up. “The one that starts with Official Call to Arms? That one?”

“By the fucking Army, yes!” Gertrude shouted. “We have to take it to a teacher, they can’t just…” She looked down at the slip, her eyes scanning the piece of paper once again: Active combat is not expected. Somehow, she preferred if those words were not included. Why was it the Imperial Military if active combat was not expected?

“I’m not going to the Sassara!” Michael said.

“You fucking are!” Heinrich said a seat further away. “Good fucking luck if you try to run.”

“It might be that!” Imelda squeaked from the side. “Maybe it’s something to do with the clean-up?”

“So they’re calling all students to it too?” Jan said. “That doesn’t add up.” The room descended into chaos for the good part of a quarter hour. Students opened bottles and theatrically poured their final drinks, a few disappeared into their rooms to ring their families, a few reported that other mages in the civilian sector also got the letter. Allanie’s father was a mage, and he had been working on a construction but he apparently got it today too.

And then the room fell silent when their dorm head, Mrs Yerin stepped in through the door. She was dressed in full magician’s dress, the same formal style that was only used at graduation. The woman was a hard-ass, although every teacher was. Gertrude herself missed the conscription call to the Surface War against Tartarus by a month, the others weren’t that lucky. “Silence!” Yerin shouted. “Calm down everyone. Calm down. I will explain the situation, or do the most I can although I’ve not been told myself.”

“Mrs!” Gertrude shouted. “We’ve been conscripted! Look! It’s a Call to Arms notice!” She waved her piece of paper as if the teacher was supposed to do anything about it. “What do we do now?!” Mrs Yerin sighed, she reached into a pocket on the inside of her dress and the entire room went silent. Even the students that were drinking put their cups and bottles down slowly as to not make a sound.

Yerin held the notice with her arm straight and her eyes hard. Gertrude was too far to read it, but she could make the crest at the top of the letter. The same Imperial Eagle carrying a blade in its beak that was on her own. “I have too.”

It had to be Arcadia. They were working on some special project. Or some spell. Or something else. Gertrude was sure of it. They were going to the Sassara to learn how to deflect the Second Arc. She could not imagine what they were doing in Arcadia.

Yet in Arcadia, battlemage Piotr wiped the sweat off his brow as he finally took another breath from this fucking endless nightmare of a job. Goddess Elassa had not set a target figure or a quota, instead, she a date. And you were supposed to last to that date, and it was a marathon and not a sprint and everyone got told that everyday, but this marathon felt like running a sprint.

“I’m out, this one’s done.” Piotr stepped back and pulled up his shirt wipe his shirt. The dresses and the uniforms had been exchanged for casual clothes a week ago and the fact that it saved everyone ten minutes in the morning and twenty minutes at night meant they could increase the average by another quarter of an island a day.

“Did you run checks?” Samantha said. Also a battlemage, although those titles were worthless here. They were Arcadian Thoroughbreds all, a higher class of magician than those from the national colleges. Most of them had served in Ainai, only to be recalled and then used as the supporting magicians during the ICDT assault which cancelled the apocalypse.

“Ran all, it fits.” Piotr said but he still turned around, the shirt didn’t quite sit right when it was wet with sweat. His eyes wondered over the massive steel roots, carved entirely out of magic, that held the gigantic white diamond, that thing was larger than he was, almost as large as a small car, connected to the island. It was the most vulnerable part of the island.

“Super.” Samantha said as she stepped in and began to wave her own staff. “We’ve got a new batch of clerics, they’re in the old apothecary. Go to them before you sleep.” Rock shifted underneath them and was pulled up into the island. Piotr waved his hand in a meaningless gesture and stepped away. The first few times, they had all stayed to watch and feel for the magic being used just so that they see techniques and who cast how.

But no one was watching by the time the first trains to Arcadia had started to arrive, bringing iron raw and refined, and chromium, and titanium, and everything else that would be sprinkled into the floating island to stop a giant piece of dirt from disintegrating in the air. Piotr didn’t even have the energy to argue with Samantha, he gave another meaningless wave to Jade, then one to Soli, and struggled to keep his hand closed over his own staff. Since when was a crystal affixed onto a piece of wood so heavy? To the old apothecary then.

He trailed around a building, a fresh pair were coming from the dorms to fill in on another of the islands and… at this, he would stop. Goddess Elassa stood in the middle of a field as four trucks reversed next to her and began to tip their loads. Each one with pristine white gems, what a journey those crystals had. From being Tartarian ash, to being blasted into Arda’s atmosphere, to being transmuted and falling to the Sassara, to being loaded onto a barge, taken to Atny by vessel, and then driven to Arcadia.

Goddess Anassa appeared in the air, at this point, every mage in Arcadia had gotten used to the Goddess of Sorcery watching over them. Goddess Elassa raised her own staff into the air, her body absolutely smattered with jewellery, from necklace to earring to rings on her fingers, all with their own fat gemstones. That was how the mages in the books looked like, with all their gear. Piotr felt the flows and tried to look at the weaves Elassa was creating.

And he decided to simply gaze in awe when he saw the amount of individual threads and channels Elassa commanded, and how they burned and shimmered and froze, all at the same time. The crystals which had been directly dumped onto the grass started to shift and roll and fuse. Elassa’s responsibility here was solely the production and charging of those massive gemstones.

A shadow swallowed Piotr, the silhouette of an island eclipsed the sun setting in the distance. Piotr turned to it, then to Elassa, then decided to go back to the apothecary. Even rest was on a schedule here. And above him, the island slowly floated, steered by a trio of mages who worked in shift rotations. Each one taking over as another grew tired. Each one with a pair of clerics aboard. They all went to the same destination on the border between Rilia and Doschia.

And yet, as they slowly glided through the sky, the they would pass over factories that were constantly churning away. Northern Rilia itself, and the piece of Doschia that jutted outwards, and this entire region of Epa had slowly grown into a manufacturing depot. Factories that once made alloys for rifles had been retooled to now roll heavy metals. Massive glass factories had been given the recipes on installing carbon-fibre to their sheets.

A train command by Conductor Eli slowly began to accelerate on new rail that had been laid down specifically for this job. His train has four wagons, the same identical box on all of them. Not yet furnished inside but fully functional otherwise, it just needed to be hooked up to the generators and the lights and oxygen recyclers within would turn on. Eli had stepped into them once, out of sheer curiosity, when he was waiting for a large to crane to load the other cars.

They were all white and grey inside, and that was pretty much it. He had expected that the prefabricated space-bases would have televisions mounted into their walls, or maybe crazy plants he had never seen before. Or magical devices, or hoverboards, or something like that. It was almost disappointing how banal they were. Just massive armoured boxes made to resist a vacuum and that was it.

So Eli drove his train to Pheonix Hatchery, as the base had started to be called. Along coastline, past cities, into mountains and through tunnels, along a very gentle gradient that was almost flat. Trains could not climb fast after all. He had stopped slowing down to get a catch of the views, the lush forests and the rolling hills, all interspersed by homes which at night looked more like glowing swarms of fireflies. Towards the massive, snow-capped mountains that lay in Northern Rilia.

All the way to Pheonix Hatchery. The name fit, for one, this base housed the empty islands from Arcadia. It was the place where Arda would secure its birthing pains from annihilation. And it fit, because the entire region had been turned into a burning hotspot of conglomerated, prefabricated, industry where it was difficult to look anywhere but up because of the amount of welding torches that constantly swarmed the islands themselves.

Here, the structures were being linked up by giant steel struts that had to be melded together. Each one with a flat walkway on top of it, although from what Eli had heard, the walkways would be used for drawing massive ritual circles, each one miles wide. The skeleton of steel reminded him of a diagram he had seen in a book once, the bones in the wings of a dragon. How those islands were supposed to connect, he did not know. He was only here to drive a train there and back and make the route once a day.

The islands themselves hovered in the air, never ever truly landing as mages idled about and waited for a plane to pick them up and transport them back to their school so they could make this trip yet again, with yet another island. Military transport helicopters and huge cranes, depending on how important the cargo was, would make trips there and back constantly. The helicopters carried people and food and refreshments for the workers. The cranes would carefully grab the structures.

Eli came to a stop in the waiting bay. He knew most of the drivers here already, although they rarely talked in person and just over the radio. Ahead was Mikael, from Doschia. He drove an absolute beauty, a wholly modern armoured train, complete with military personnel aboard it. Although that too made sense. Mikael’s train had radiation warnings stamped over its sides. He brought the modular nuclear reactors, still unlit… hopefully, that would power the bases in space.

One arm came down, then another. Men scurried around Mikael’s train as Eli opened a bag of sweets and threw one in his mouth. He watched as they fastened the massive claws, bolted everything in, and they wave and shine green lights. And up one reactor went. And then down onto an island. And half an hour later, up went the next reactor. And Mikael drove away.

Eli’s own light turned green and he turned the idling engine back to first gear. His massive beast rolled onto the unloading bay. And now for the hour of waiting. After this hour, he would drive another thirty minutes to his station and then get to sleep.

Tomorrow, he would do it all over again.

And the tomorrow after tomorrow too.

But eventually, there’d come a tomorrow that would only be seen because of the work given today.