Anarchia read through the news again. She took a heavy breath. Epan Separation had thrown off the s of the Pantheon and the vain mask of independence had slipped to reveal the autocracy which hid beh. The poputions were primed. As worried as she was about the militarization, it did provide a ce too. ons could be seized and self-reliance would be guarahrough force, if through nothing else.

  At the end of the day, the simplest questiohe most important: If not her then who? If not now then when?

  Kassandora and Arascus stood in dark uniforms on the rgest KAF airfield in Kirinyaa. She had desighe yout, there was a wall of hangars for the phose were simple round tubes covered in dirt and grass to hide them from above. Then, oher side of the runway was everything and needed for the troops; a mess hall, a unications towers, two radar dishes, plenty of barracks, a and building for the officers. The ttors had returned here after droppihree sisters off in the UNN, and then sixty other jets which had been produced domestically in the try were parked in long lihe former two dwarfed the jets, they were undeniably better, able to serve as transports and fighters and bombers at the same time, yet there were no pns to build any more.

  The Raptors, as reliable as they were, were expensive and huge and guzzled fuel like no other. Their magazines were se that not once had they ever been loaded to capacity and whilst they could carry bombs, they weren’t dedicated bombers that could carpet aire region in hellfire. The fighters were dependable, were cheap and easy to produd losing one wasn’t the end of the world. Frankly, if dedicated transports for Divinity wasn’t required, Kassandora would have deissiohe Raptors already. “I don’t like it.” Kassandora said dryly.

  “e surprised at that.” Arascus replied just as dryly and Kassandora found herself smiling. She khe man was making fun of her, but frankly, she had enough self-awareo know that it was one of her most on phrases.

  “It’s stupid.” Kassandora said.

  “You should have beehen.” Arascus replied quickly. That, Kassandora couldn’t argue with. She should have been there, but she always left the minor trite to her subordinates in some false hope that they wouldn’t make an absolutely despicable decision.

  “I’m annoyed.” Kassandora once again said.

  “Do you want a drink then?” Arascus asked and Kassandora readjusted her high cap. The Sword and Skull emblem was engraved onto it, same as on her belt.

  “Do you have one?” Kassandora asked. Arascus shuffled and pulled out a small bottle of whiskey from his pocket. He passed it to the Goddess of War and she stared at it, utterly fbbergasted. “Why even?”

  “Because I knew we’d see it each other.” Arascus replied as Kassandora took the bottle.

  “So yht whiskey because you were going to meet me?” She still ope, and drank the whole thing in ulp. It wouldn’t be too much for a mortal, for a Divine, and one of Kassandora’s stature, it was barely a teaspoon of alcohol. “You make me out to be some sort of alcoholic.” She passed the empty bottle back to Arascus and the God of Pride stared at it for a few seds.

  “Why are you giving me ay bottle?” Kassandora sighed and looked around the airfield, she had holy thought he would be niough to dispose it for her. A group of engineers were happening to pass by. Of War raised her hand and called them over.

  “I’m still annoyed, just so you know.” Kassandora said angrily as the men ran over. Engineers in dark blue overalls and hands dirty with oil. One of them was carry a tool case, the other a small welder with a mask strapped to his belt.

  “Well I did what I could.” Arascus said as the men engineers formed a rank and pulled a salute. Kassandora returned her oassed one man the empty gss bottle.

  “Throw this away, you’re dismissed.”

  “Yes Goddess!” The man took it gingerly, saluted, and the team quickly skittered away. No doubt they’d have a ugh about disposing the Goddess’ garbage ter. Let them, small things like this were annoying when humans did it, but it made for a funny story when it was a Divine. A flicker of amusement sparked across Kassandora’s fad was quickly put out.

  “And just so you know, I’m still annoyed.” Kassandora said ohey were out of earshot.

  “Well you’re not dru, so you’re annoyed.” Arascus said and Kassandora shook her head, smiling at that. She couldn’t argue with that either, holy, she was impressed that the man could put up with her when she was sober. She wouldn’t be able to put up with herself. “And it’s just a name.”

  “Well it’s a stupid name.” Kassandora said.

  “You weren’t there.” Arascus said and the circle closed again. They could go on like this for hours, and both of them would enjoy each other’s pany for it. The culprit of the Kassandora’s frustration rolled into view. The new missiles for the pnes, designed in Kirinyaa. They were the first of their kind, supposedly they could home in on a target. Kassandora, as always, had wanted a pragmatiame: The GFAFMM1: Guided Fire and Fet Missile Model One.

  But she had not attehe final meeting after the testing trials and instead Arascus had stamped off on the o pay respect to the chief Engineer, it was called after a girl he had a crush on: The Alice Model Missiles. On paper, they were AMMs, iy, everyone just talked of mounting Alices to the jets. It grated on Kassandora terribly. A small car ulling a huge rack with some eighty or so missiles across the runway to the set of jets. A sed car, filled with engineers, was trailing some distance behind it. “I’ve gottes that the UNN is massing aircraft.” Kassandora said dryly. “Most likely they’ll try to strike at Nene.”

  “Most likely.” Arascus agreed. “ these jets get there?”

  “With those.” Kassandora said as she poio the end of the runway. Kassandora had procured ten AA32s, Ausan Airways 32 Series pnes, now verted to ST90T of the KAF. Kassandora smiled proudly, she had hese: SkyTanker-90 Tons. KAF had been training its pilots in the air-refuelling but the system was rgely automatic. All that the pilots really o be capable of was turning the refueling’s system autopilot on, or just keeping the aircraft steady.

  “Those work?” Arascus asked.

  “I’ve seen them.” Kassandora said. “They work.”

  Arascus ughed and shook his head. “Unreal.” He said and Kassandora smiled proudly. It hadn’t even been her idea, some human had voiced it. And o was voiced, it was theorized to be possible. And onething was theorized, all that separated it from reality was simply a matter of problem solving.

  “I’ll be sending the Raptors too, just in case Nene needs pickup.” Kassandora said and Arasodded. “And then I’m going underground.”

  “To see the dwarves?” Arascus asked and Kassandora nodded.

  “To see the dwarves.” She firmed. And Irinika, hopefully, depending on how pressing the situation down there was. If their flict against Tartarus was going on for a whole millennium now, she doubted it would be easy to solve though. “If you need me up here, then give a call. I’ll start ying telephone wires through the ground for unication.”

  “I’ll leave you to it most likely.” Arascus said. “When Neneria es back, it will buy us some breathing room.” Kassandora nodded and agreed, there was no mistake there. “We’ll prepare for the wave and I’ll focus with Helenna and Mam on Epa.”

  “That it will.”

  “I’ll have Iniri rebuild Nanbasa.” Arascus said suddenly.

  “Iniri?” Kassandora asked. “Why not just copy the old blueprint?” If there was one Maisara had done well, it was design Kirinyaa’s coastal cities. It was thanks to Of Order that the evacuations had been so smooth. And city pnning simply wasn’t Iniri’s specialization.

  “Iniri o be shown that she co-exist with modern civilization.” Arascus said. “And I don’t see a better way of showing her rather than making her do it herself.” Kassandora shrugged.

  “And if she doesn’t figure it out?”

  “It’s only oy at the end of the day.” Arascus said. “Whether Nanbasa is optimized as a city or not won’t make or break us. But it could make Iniri.”

  “Mmh.” Kassandora said. Mianaging divinity was Arascus’ speciality, not hers. She was only here to win wars. People were kept happy insofar as they were useful, and Iniri, apart from being a walking granary, simply did not pare to the likes of Anassa and Neneria. Now that Essa was on the verge of joining too, it simply was not on Kassandora’s list of priorities to train Iniri’s fiden the off-ce it somehow made her a petent fighter who could be fielded on the frontlines. Even if she was, her power of growth was so enormous that the woman would o be on the level of Olephia for Kassandora to even sider moving her away from her support role. “Alright.” Was all Kassandora said.

  Not her demes was as simple as that. She wasn’t going to start stepping onto Arascus’ toes when he didn’t step onto hers. “And-“ Arascus’ phoarted t.

  “Well well well.” Kassandora said. “Who is it?” Arascus pulled out a huge phone from his dark coat, it still sat too small in his hand. Kassandora didn’t bother to hide her curiosity, she pressed her cheek into his arm to look at who was ringing. There icture of a beautiful woman standing by the sea-side, her red hair flowing in the wind: Helenna. That was annoying, Kassandora liked her own hair, she didn’t like when others tried to overstep their authority. “Are you going to answer?”

  “I am.” Arascus pressed the green button and then pressed loud-speaker immediately. Kassandora smiled in satisfa at that. She would never admit it to the man, but she was ied in whatever gossip Helenna was about to spill. “Hello, Helenna, you’re on loudspeaker, Kassie hear you.” Kassandora elbow Arascus in the side. He didn’t have to say that.

  The God merely chuckled at her rea. “Oh that’s good.” Helenna said from the other side. “I was actually going to call her , where are you?”

  “At KAFAF-One.” Kassandora smiled at the hat was an excellent name indeed: Kassandora’s Air Force Airfield One. She had blessed KAFAF-Oh it.

  “I hate that name.” Helenna grumbled over the phone. “Whie is that?”

  “The one south-west of CR.” Arascus answered and Kassandora looked around the airfield smugly. Oh? Helenna didn’t like the naming scheme? How sad!

  “I was going to say that I just a report from Arcadia. Alsaria visited, she wants to split the school into detralized colleges. I have a longer report but that’s the short of it.” Arascus looked down at Kassandora and Kassandora looked up at him. She knew what she was thinking, but the God must have been thinking it too.

  “Is she pulling mages away?” Arascus asked. Kassandora sighed, good thing the man did see it.

  “Apparently several hundred already left with her.” Helenna said over the phone. “I don’t have a locatio but…” Helenna trailed off.

  “Not too hard to work out Alsaria needs people to dispel ghosts.” Kassandora said dryly.

  “Mmh.” Helenna’s voice agreed over the phohat’s what I thought too.” There was shuffling of papers and a bang from the other side, as if the phone had just been dropped. Kassandora and Arascus shared a look, and then Helenna spoke again. Not into the phone, but to someone else in the room. “Where the FUCK are the military maps?”

  Mam’s voice, sounding as if it was ever on the verge of telling a joke, souhrough it. “What are you looking for?”

  “Fug Kafaf One.” Helenna shouted and Arascus supressed a chuckle.

  “Ahh yeah.” Mam agreed. “I hate that naming scheme.” Kassandora’s lips cracked into an angry smile. It seemed she was the only one reciated efficy here. Helenuro shout into the phone. “Well whatever, I’ll be there when I find the map. I have the papers for you. Do you have the Ausa meeting today?”

  Kassandora narrowed her eyes at that. “Yoing to Ausa?”

  “Abakwa is holding a celebration to mark the Jungle’s death. I’m taking Essa. He wants to thank her personally. You’re ioo.” Kassandora rolled her eyes.

  “Tell him I’m busy.” Arascus ruffled her hair.

  “I already did.”

  Kassandhe strands of crimson now in her vision, and narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment. “Actually, if yoing, you do something for me?”

  “What?” Arascus asked.

  “Well, they won’t anymore.”

  “Just say it Kassie.”

  “ we have their fleet?”