Chapter 65

“The Vultoqi continue to assault the wall,” Melanie announced during the morning meeting.

“And we continue to cut them down as they do,” Heimdor replied.

“Wonder what they’re up to?” I pondered. “Not like we can take a look, either,” I added.

“Not after the last time, no,” Arch agreed.

“Most definitely not,” Roxanne agreed. “Nor at the moment can we infiltrate either. There’s just too many of them moving around and from what we can observe, they have their perimeter ringed with ghosin.”

“Guess we just face it once we’ve done it,” Alice shrugged.

“We do. Hence, for now, we’re going to start on what the Seers have uncovered on Draenoric.”

“Well, it’s totally different to the conquered Earths,” Melanie stated. “It has a population of 3 billion, a lot of open spaces with large palaces in them to house the Orc elite. There is a definite caste system in place, but even the lowest caste is infinitely better off than those on the conquered Earths,” she elaborated.

“No wonder the Orcs at that power plant wanted a transfer out,” I mused.

“Competition for a job on the home world is fierce, particularly amongst the TechnoYr’ch as they call themselves. Their Thaumaturges rarely have cause to leave and the military precious little reason to be there, save in the initial growing of a horde and their training. Though there is at least always one horde stationed there, plus their elite temple guards who are independent of the hordes.”

“All their command staff, from analyst upwards, come from ‘natural’ Orcs according to other data we’ve acquired. It is possible, if unusual, though to come through the ranks, particularly for a clone, though the ‘naturals’ appear to be from those whom they can’t think of anything else to do with and don’t want on the planet,” Roxanne replied.

“Yep, plus Adept seems to be a catch-all term for a certain standing or rank in Orc society as trained on Draenoric,” I added.

“Yes, an Adept can either come from the military or the technocracy. Crnnch was from the technocracy as it wasn’t his job to conquer Nansack, but to subdue it once the fighting had stopped. Placing a civilian in charge of troops is not something our military tend to do, but he also had some training in both disciplines as opposed to the Adept Esira took out on Nansack, who was military to the core,” Arch expanded for us.

“So, how can we topple the Orc society on Draenoric and put Athena in charge? Assuming we can,” Naimh asked.

“Find a way to prevent the priestly caste from blocking her message, would be one. Hitting at the priestly caste and the Thaumaturges is another, particularly as they are vulnerable now. We need to shake the average Orc’s confidence in their rulers,” Roxanne replied.

“Tricky,” I chuckled. “From what we know, the priests monitor the broadcasts and turn the messages off manually.”

“Aye, which is why your mission is to find a place in their wiring to bypass the power to the monitor as triggered by Athena’s message and make their switch all but useless, except when Athena’s not on screen,” Roxanne chuckled.

“Have to be well hidden,” I murmured.

“Take Tirus with you and disguise it as part of something else once you’ve figured out where,” Roxanne advised.

“By your command, Mage Roxanne,” I nodded.

“The rest of you are to begin targeting the manufactories producing luxury goods, not food processing either and most definitely not the ones producing weapons to face the Vultoqi, at least, not yet.”

“No, we want them to have a fighting chance at least,” Arch nodded.

“Also we’ll plan assassinations of any Orcs affecting Brnnt’s and Karkol’s plans to strengthen their military as we’ll need the Orcs at least able to hold their own.”

There were a series of nods as planning began in earnest.

Three days later my regular squad were carefully rooting around behind the walls in the central Orc temple in Draenor, their capital. Tirus was currently using a series of devices to plot the feed and power to the screens in the temple courtyard to enable us to fit a couple of carefully designed ‘switches’ into the circuits that would continue to power them and the Orc version of a server switch to enable Athena’s video to continue uninterrupted. As with any cable runs though, sorting one multicore cable from another without access to a set of drawings was extremely difficult, hence the presence of Tirus, without his powered armour but with a full tool kit of probes and scanners.

“I think it’s these,” he finally announced.

“Want us to put Athena’s video on so you can check?” Róisín asked.

“Please,” he nodded.

‘Abi?‘ I sent out.

‘On it ... now!‘

Within a few seconds of the video appearing the power to the main screens was shut down, causing the file to immediately hide itself until a random activation again. However this was enough time to allow Tirus to at least confirm his suspicions over which cables we had to hack into.

“OK, it’s these,” he nodded and then began to peel back the insulation and, using a set of connections that cut through the inner layer, connected the inner core. He then attached a Loegrian battery invertor set to the Orc AC frequency along with a low powered wireless switch to the power lead. He then sealed everything up in a long tube that looked exactly like an Orc cable joint. After that he cut into the video feed and wrapped a combined sensor switch around the data-feed that was barely a few microns thick before gluing the insulation back into place.

“OK, we can test again,” he nodded.

‘Abi?‘ I sent out again.

‘On it ... again, ‘ came a mental chuckle. ‘Now.‘

This time the broadcast began and Tirus monitored the power feed which had been terminated by the Orcs, only for it to remain on thanks to the invertor supply his device was maintaining. His scanners were measuring the video feed and taking readings from it that the switch could read and maintain the power whilst Athena was broadcasting.

“Done,” he finally announced with a grin. “The switch for the power will now only remain on when she’s broadcasting as it recognises her voice and image. Biggest problem might be the Orcs trying to track it down.”

“We had to get into this space slightly out of phase. The Orcs use a cable-draw line to pull stuff through here as I don’t think they realise just how big it is,” I explained.

“Good,” he nodded. “Other than them putting in a new cable or physically destroying the power into the monitors, they won’t find it.”

Our senses showed Athena’s message getting out whilst a frantic Orc priest hammered down on the off switch and turned the air blue with his language. Down in the courtyard many eyes were glued to the screen, watching the action, though not necessarily listening to the dialogue until the end message of hope as her image enthralled those listening.

“Right,” I announced. “One down, several thousand to go,” I finished with a chuckle.

“How could this happen?” Frust almost screeched. “Our temples are supposed to be sacrosanct, yet suddenly they cannot turn off a broadcast once it starts!”

“I’m sure the TechnoYr’ch will find out how ... eventually,” Brnnt replied as the Council had sat through a venomous diatribe by the aggrieved Archimandrite.

“For our supremacy, Beog’s name must be protected!” Ambost added.

“So get your pets in the TechnoYr’ch to do so,” Karkol sneered. “It’s their systems that have been hacked.”

“They would, only your demands for better weapons have them occupied!”

“Don’t be silly. Their system analysts and repair crews are not on the production lines,” Karkol hit back.

“This I know to be true,” Brnnt added.

“You have still disrupted their scheduling; they are having to use their trained staff to do other jobs!” Ambost blustered.

“Like what?” Karkol asked. “Trinket making like that giant video screen your family ordered and had delivered yesterday?”

“Seems like Yr’ch society is still remiss in its responsibilities to our hordes,” Brnnt added caustically. “Particularly with regards to supporting them with the tools they need to do their job. One wonders how our society will react should the Vultoqi manage to get a foothold here. After all, we know they know how to make dimensional gates.”

“Pah! The Vultoqi are caged on Vultoq behind impenetrable walls,” Ambost riposted pompously.

“Walls you declared unnecessary, having assured us Beog had won,” Karkol mocked him.

“Was I not to believe him?” Ambost asked as if astonished.

“I stopped believing him when he more or less proved he wasn’t all powerful, all seeing or all knowing, several decades ago in fact. Oddly enough it didn’t seem to bother him when I drew upon his power,” Karkol shrugged.

“Again you blaspheme our god!” Ambost screeched.

“Our dead god,” Karkol corrected him.

“Beog is not dead!”

“Where is he then? On an extended break?”

“He told us he was seeking answers to the Vultoqi problem. He will return,” Frust countered.

“I doubt it. I suspect the Vultoqi somehow managed to get to him,” Karkol shrugged.

“More likely this Ar-Thenna,” Ambost countered.

“Well, if she did, she’s being very reticent about announcing it, considering she has gained access to the temple broadcasts,” Brnnt replied with a shrug, getting a few nods from the Council, though not many.

“Her people are no doubt the ones who threw us off the conquered worlds. They fight the Vultoqi. They are a powerful enemy, or perhaps a good friend, assuming they’d even talk to us,” Archimandrite Zorst, the youngest of the Council members spoke up at a meeting for the first time ever.

“We do not need allies, we are the Yr’ch!” Takkas thundered, perhaps hoping to cow the junior Archimandrite.

“And they have thrown us off all but three of the conquered worlds without so much as being observed properly. We don’t know their numbers and we don’t know the extent of their powers, nor, indeed, do we know where they are from,” Zorst hit back.

“The Seeker we had investigating them believed their numbers to be as low as two hundred, though now possibly just fewer than five thousand if his beliefs on their attacks on the Vultoqi are to be believed,” Karkol added.