Chapter 755 – Monolith To Industry
They show themselves without showing themselves, they speak without speaking, they see without seeing. How many have been lured and intercepted on their great journey to the lands beyond, how many how times have the gates shut themselves, the reasoning unknown entirely? I cannot say, for I know nothing on these matters, and I do not have the vainglory to claim that I am some expert in them. No, but there have been discoveries made.
They are infallible, and yet they are creatures of existences that only brushes against ours, but brushes nonetheless. And they reveal to me what they wish to reveal and more, in their own existential folly. Whether the sights to witnessed were mistakes, or whether they were on purpose, I cannot say.
I have seen the days of old or of the future, although from which side of the present the viewer is situated at, it is difficult, it is impossible to tell. I have seen Arda clothes in a carapace of steel, and I have seen Arda reach up and out, the stars have come down upon our world, and the sun came down to stop life unready to explore the beauties of worlds beyond.
It is madness. Wholly things that cannot be said, but they must be voiced. I will brave their dreams of catacombs and madnesses of long lost prides, and to report, for those who still have not etched their names onto a rune of endless stone may brave the realms beyond and travel a step further than I. Hopefully.
All Arda facing towards the heavens, ready to claim what fruits universal. All Arda a jailcell, nothing more than a rock to sustain cursed life. All Arda reaching out and through its jailor, and all Arda stricken with the curse of the Sun. A planet of false life that does not carry life, a deity thrown out from courts for misunderstanding. A child left behind closed doors that seeks the warmth of the flames within, forever to be driven out and away.
We shall venture down these paths, I shall venture down these paths, I shall map out the routes that have been found, my life for my makers, their lives for their children, children’s lives for the children of children, and so on, forever. Until,
And then, next time, we shall find the… I confirm what they say about me, for they are not fit to be people, and the only word that is fit is monster, but they are not monsters. But someone, eventually, will find the creatures that thrive on the edge of existence.
And then…
It is left for men better than me to decide what to do with them. For I am Ardan, and my conclusions only prove their thinking and their methods right.
- One of the writings of God Saranael, of Knowledge. This is one of the earliest, most comprehensible, pieces of his madness. Kept in the closed library of Olympiada.
Ultimately, the Imperial Business Directives were one of those things that every commander needed to go through. There was no formal promotion method into the generality of the Empire, it was all done on personal recommendation from someone who was already in the rank, but there were a few patterns that seemed to hold steady no matter how which way one looked at it.
One of them was being an elf. Colonel Mirihovich was no elf, so he could not go down the Iliyal Tremali’s blatant racial nepotism route. Another was a crucial save in a crucial battle, that was always a fast-track. The battle method had finished too though, the only open war now was in the south, where Generals Ekkerson, Zalewski and Sokolowski were holding the line. There was also the Ainai front, although that irradiated, blackened desert was under Iliyal’s command.
Tartarus had begun started to use human meatshields, the prisoners of Khmet who were there when the country had been overtaken. The battles there were tight, organised, and there were three names Mirihovich would trust to that place. Kassandora, Fortia, and Iliyal. Armoured columns would ride out to encircle and cut off, mages and planes would descend from the skies, Fer and her beastmen, along with the Imperial Knights would pounce and enter brutal melees, and they would save and rescue who they could, when they could, and that would be all.
It was a bloody conflict and it was heroic, but it was far too heroic for Mirihovich. He had seen Iliyal’s old plans that were now being used as training tools, and the way the elf could manage the battlefield was beyond what should be possible for mortals. Kassandora’s and Fortia’s sweeping encirclements, timed to almost borderline perfection, with dozens of contingencies that each stemmed themselves a dozen contingencies more, at least had the decency to be fashioned by Divines. Iliyal was simply on another level. So no, that route was out too. Far too much heroism for Mirihovich.
But there was another path, which was worth a promotion that directed right to the best part of the military, were men were sent for retirement and everyone wanted to end up in: Logistics. Those fattened cows had their own offices and their own maids, their own menus and meals and every other benefit that came from such a rank. It was prestigious, it was elite, it barely recruited, if ever. It saw no combat, it was the prim and pretty princess of the Imperial Military, hated by everyone on the front lines because everyone wanted to be there. And, most importantly, it saw no direct combat or anything else of the like.
And for logistics, there was one common trait that everyone seemed to have, no matter how low or high the rank was: They had all dealt with the civilian sector to some degree. And what better way was there to deal with the civilian sector than to be part of an Imperial Business Directive?
So Colonel Mirihovich kept on his slow trawl through the Allian testing site. The nation had two companies selected, so a model ICDT tower, a huge heavy weight fashioned out of delicate concrete which was beyond a pain in the ass to move without crumbling. Although if they could lift and move that without it breaking apart, they would be able to move an ICDT tower. It was even larger and heavier than the actual things.
“Sir.” Howard Hammond, or Mister Hammond as Mirihovich called him because the man was a civilian and the military was expected to maintain curtesy since outright respect was a degree too difficult to manage for men who faced a horde that flooded the entire horizon. His compatriots, Albert and Micheal, all of H.A.M. Engineering were walking towards the massive construction.
Allian Aerospace Engineering’s project had been a massive moving platform. It worked, it was rudimentary, it would be cheap although engineers could make everything expensive, that was something Mirihovich had learned over these past few weeks. It barely squeaked out over the IBM’s eight miles an hour, going at ten, and anything else.
HAM’s, since the company that pretended to be named after its founders was actually named after a fucking slice of pigmeat, design visibly better. The chassis was a huge set of treads. “We took the caterpillar tracks from a bagger design and then made them larger. They’re hand-welded, not mass-produced, but easy enough to make. Twenty models, we could be looking at enough treads just by us within six months? With IBM’s backing though…” The man scratched his head. “A matter of weeks? We all know how fast you boys work.”
Mirihovich decided not to rise to the bait and remind the man that there was a difference between the Bureau of Manufacturing and the Military.
So they walked to the colossal moving crane, since that is what it was. “We decided that if you’re going for speed, there isn’t really anything to do about the speed. A machine like this can’t travel fast, it’s logistically impossible.” Howard was obviously the businessman of the group. Albert and Micheal were the engineers.
“I’ve seen it.” Mirihovich said. “There were attempts to make lightning tanks that could go a hundred.” Those were all disasters, treads were not made for that kind of speed. “So?”
“The design moves at the Bureau’s eight miles an hour but it can carry four towers at a time.” Howard said and Mirihovich stopped to do the maths in his head. Four at a time, that was something he had not thought of whatsoever. Even the Doschians had not thought of that, and they had a design that managed to eek out fifteen miles an hour, fast enough that it outdid soldier’s marching pace.
“And that works how?” In the distance, they saw the monolith to industry. Its treads were huge, a house could fit in between them. There were four sets per track, eight in total. Wide enough for a tank column. The whole thing could crush a town and it somehow only managed to leave a pair of river-bed like trenches as it drove forwards. On each side was a steel frame, the sort that Mirihovich had seen been used as skyscraper scaffolding, across it all was a spiderweb of walkways with railings attached, complete with Imperial and Allian flags, and even with H.A.M.’s own logo emblazoned on the side: A fucking smiling pig. The soldiers would love it. Those massive steel frames connected at the top with a crane. His eyes went to the crane and he breathed a sigh of relief. That, at least, looked normal. A claw that would encircle the tower and lift it.
“There’s counterweights for when a slot is unopened to stop it tipping into the ground and keep it stable.” Mirihovich stared at the steel mountain move with a flat glare, he felt his eyes glaze over. It was like watching a Divine in combat and holding fire because the situation was incomprehensible. He had witnessed that twice, both times it was Goddess Anassa of Sorcery in Esberia, appearing over the field and laughing in that mad way she did.
The battle was over by the time her crimson dress appeared, everything else was show. Incomprehensible and undefeatable, a level of power of that Mirihovich simply did not have the fucking mind or willpower to be able to begin comprehending. Now, he watched some construction that looked impossible, that should not move, and yet it did. The comically small cockpit was a speck, it was only visible because of lights mounted from it. Mirihovich tried to think of something to say. The single tower platform had been expected at least. That was huge, but that he could understand. It was a plate with treads.
What the fuck was this? “You don’t have issues with weight distribution?”
“It’s an adapted design.” Albert said, then looked to Michael. The man sighed, then looked down at the ground.
“The design isn’t original.” The man admitted. “It was originally thought up of when the Eparikan fleets were stuck in the Eparika Colonel. A pair of these, one at the front, another at the back, a ship could be moved across the land.” He pursed his lips. “Of course, that is in theory, the maths works out, I cannot promise whether it would work as the sea has been opened since then.”
“I see.” Mirihovich wrote it down in his notebook. He would make it sound better to the men at the high table, although that was obvious. “It could move vessels on land?”
“In theory, it was originally designed for that.” Michael said. “But as said, we’ve never built one to test. It’s only because of the IBM that we managed to have the manpower to even-“
“I understand Sir.” Mirihovich said even though he did not understand at all. “How have you guys not been contracted already?”
“Sir.” Howard said. “We’ve not had a chance to prove ourselves yet.” The question had been rhetorical, there was no good to it.
“Well you’ve done it now.” Mirihovich said. “Begin the loading test.”
Michael took out a small radio and clicked a button. “Samson, start the loading.” The machine began to whir, grind, scream, for a moment, Mirihovich thought the shrieking steel would fall apart into a million pieces. It would be poetic for such a monument of industry to dissolve like that. And yet, the massive construction did not fall apart.
Treads began to shift, dirt lodged in the tracks, grass, bushes, enough wood to confirm it had rolled over trees on the way here fell from the tracks and from the rear, from two pipes that Mirihovich originally thought had some structural use, a column of white smoke began to rise. “It blows steam?”
“Container ship engines move it, there the only thing with enough power without making it electric. There’s two.” Albert said. “That’s just steam from the cooling.”
“How long until it overheats?” Albert once again elbowed Michael.
“Theoretically, never. It can be refilled with cooling fuelling without turning off, that’s my design. But in reality… About sixteen hours? I’ve truncated the figures to be fifteen. One of the boys said he would risk twenty though.” There would be no risking involved. IBM’s own labrats had already talked of this problem though and said it was negligible. Every design of this size needed its own logistical corps to support it.
“You said electric?” Mirihovich was only catching up as he watched the concrete tower, slightly taller than an actual ICDT tower, slightly heavier, slightly wider, quite sizably more brittle, look like a toothpick compared to the moving city.
“There’s a design we can’t build but it would involve an onboard nuclear reactor.” Michael explained.
“I see.”
Howard seemed to sense the problem as the monument slowly descended upon the tower, from the front left, steel claws extended, the floor dropped out, and the crane shifted so that it would be ready to lift the tower. “Colonel, we were working from the baseline of ship designs, not land vehicles. It takes the same heavy fuel that ships use.”
“That’s not an issue.” Mirihovich whispered in awe, his eyes going wide as the tower was swallowed. Swallowed! Swallowed whole by that factory, more gears shifted and chains descended with that crane hook. They looped around the concrete, the entire building stopped moving. The men on the walkways ran from once location to another looked scaled to ants. The ground shifted. Something moved, the claws at the front retracted.
And it was moving again! Just like that! That was faster that Allian Aerospace’s by what? They had taken an hour to load! And this was? Mirihovich checked his watch. “Five minutes….” He trailed off.
“We tried to make the unloading and loading as fast as possible. The towers are just lowered and raised into position, they’re not shifted around.”
“And you can move ships with this?” Michael had heard it the first time, but he needed to say something.
“Not with this, the inside would have to be redone.”
“Ships are harder because they’re long.” Albert said.
“Gentlemen.” The Colonel said. He should ask more questions but what sort of questions would he ask? The fucking fuel economy? What did that matter when they were staring at something like this? Four towers at a time! The amount of time saved on return trips alone would cut the timeline by more than half! Suddenly the slowest part of Operation Sky’s Return was becoming the fastest one! Everyone else would be waiting!
Mirihovich had been correct to suggest an IBD. The IBM had been correct to forward it. Internal Affairs had been correct to manage it. The Empire was doing as the Empire did.
And right now, they had built something that Mirihovich could see rivalling Divines. “Gentlemen.” Mirihovich said. “Prepare your presentations, I have no questions but the Imperial Bureau of Manufacturing will. I am submitting your design.”