THREE

The meeting continued on after that little bomb with no fanfare as Benny pushed on without slowing. Diur let her features return to a placid look as she rested her hands on her knees as the picture changed again as Benny spoke.

"This is the leader of the Order of the Lion, Delano Sommers." Delano Sommers was a broad, squat man whose broad shoulders filled out his light gray uniform. Black hair was slicked back with streaks of gray through his temples and a wide, bright smile. He looked like a kindly uncle.

"I haven't seen him in a few decades but if he takes the field it will require direct intervention from at least one full B-Grade cultivator. It'd be better to destroy his warship or launch a high yield warhead on his position." The words shattered the image Kon had of the man.

"Would he be worthy?" Daniur asked with a look of interest, leaning forward to stare at the man.

"He'd bury you. You're too new to your power to compete. I'd suggest one of the other B-Grades if direct personal confrontation is unavoidable." Daniur seemed even more interested now rather than discouraged by Benny's words.

"The Order has some two and a half million members, though the vast majority are non-combatants. Current fleet numbers are unknown, but they have at least two battleships that they can call on," the picture changed again to show a pair of monstrous warships floating about.

"Lion's Pride and Lion's Tooth," Benny started but was cut off by Alice snorting loudly as she shook her head. All eyes turned to look at her as she looked at them innocently.

"What? They're stupid names," she said before turning back to look at the floating arsenals.

"There isn't much imagination to the naming conventions admittedly," Benny finally conceded after a moment before turning to look back at the ships.

"The pride is Sommer's personal ship when he takes the field. I don't think either of them will be entering the fight anytime soon. They'll be the dagger to finish off the Confederacy if it goes according to plan. I believe it'll be the Lupine battleship that will be the flagship of the Organo campaign."

The two ships disappeared and a new one snapped into being. Where the human ships had both been long, angular, daggers of steels and cannons, the Lupine ship was different. It was smooth, curved, with few edges. There was an organic feel to it as the teardrop shaped ship seemed to be bigger than the human ones, but it was hard to tell.

"How do you fight ships like that without having battleships of our own?" Kon asked.

"Drown them in blood and steel. Each of these warships will have a small flotilla of support ships. These ships will work as a screening force and act as a mobile anti-missile detachment. They'll have no capital weapons, but they will prevent any type of long range engagement from being successful early on. This leaves getting close and punching it out, which you're not going to win against the battleship. A single battleship of that size will tear through a fleet of capital ships if there isn't an equal or superior ship on the field." Silence filled the room as everyone leaned in to listen to Benny. The old man sighed a bit and wiped at his face, eyes lost to memories before he continued on.

"Pin the battleship against a gravity well and throw hulls at her until you crack her. You'll lose the majority of a fleet doing that, but it can be done. Or, you take her from the inside. Group of saboteurs while they are resupplying or something like that. Sneak an atomic weapon or something similar and detonate it inside of the ship. Even then it's a suicide mission," Benny summarized.

"We need to bring in battleships of our own then," Kon guessed.

"Yes. But human warships won't fire on each other. Not in a big engagement like this. Not unless things have deteriorated much further than I think they have," Benny said.

"Who else has battleships that are willing to fight?" Diur asked, taking up the line of questioning instantly.

"Nobody unless you're willing to give up planets for them. Which means these warships are going to have to be conquered from the inside. I'd prefer if we could capture them, sabotage enough of the power cores on the inside that they go dead in space. Humanity will pay large ransoms to have our battleships back along with non-aggression treaties," Benny said.

"They're too important for us to be losing them." It was an easy thought process. Benny was first and foremost a guardian of humanity. Even now with them looking at a group of traitors who had spilled blood, Benny was looking to reduce the loss of firepower.

"That is far in the future and dealing with maybes, not what is. We should focus more on how Orgo will hold," Daniur said, dismissing the topic with a wave of her hand.

"Orgo, at least from the last few scans I had of it, is woefully underguarded. A handful of orbital defense platforms that are mostly used as customs stations and a small fleet of small capital ships. When the fighting begins the Ulmna should be able to bring forward a fast reactionary fleet to support them. The planet does have massive planetary shields and a few surface to space weapons that will require a ground invasion. Slowing down that invasion and keeping the shield generators intact will be a key part of slowing down the invasion," Benny said, turning to look toward Daniur.

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"We hold the planet until you arrive with reinforcements. Easy enough," the ancient cultivator said.

"You'll likely have to break through a siege, or at least blockade to get to the ground," Benny added. Daniur shrugged before speaking.

"If they don't have the battleship, I will cut our way through them to reach the ground."

"That's one way to do it," Benny said drolly. After that the meeting broke up, Diur and Daniur rising to keep training while the three humans waited till the room was empty before speaking.

"What's the gameplan?" Alice said, suddenly sharp and alert as she leaned forward. Benny smiled savagely as he leaned forward as the atmosphere changed.

"I have friends, old ones, who don't mind a bit of blood. Armor for the two of you, a few old monsters, and some recruits. We find those who want to settle some debts with Sommers. The Dragon will want to even the score for losing a promising Chapterhouse candidate."

"Jurgen still in the area?" Kon asked.

"Yes. I don't think he'd readily come under my chain of command unless it's by edict, which we can assure with a bit of work. Wild Bunch have already been contacted and they've begun to stage close by."

"My old squadmates?" Alice asked looking at Benny with a suddenly vulnerable look.

"I've been looking quietly but I haven't found them yet. Which by itself is interesting. Once we return to the Oasis I'll have more tools to look for them," Benny said.

"If we're doing this, making a Chapterhouse, I want them involved." Alice spoke with steady resolve, an iron in her voice as she looked at them.

"We're going to need trainers and fighters in the old methods before we can fully transition to the new methods. I have no qualms with them. Kon?" Benn and Alice's eyes both turned to him and he felt a moment of panic that he reigned in before nodding.

"I agree. But…what are we going to do about the non-humans who will be joining us?"

Both of them leaned back and Benny licked his lips before looking over toward Alice. The two of them nodded slowly to each other and Kon felt a heavy weight settle in his gut before Alice spoke.

"Aside from Diur, is there anyone that you'd want to bring in? And even with her, she won't be able to follow your path since she's already established her core. I don't think it's wise to show our secrets to outsiders. Honestly, I'm nervous about bringing in other humans into this as well," Alice said.

"Smart. Have my first mentor whose return from death will make me hesitant to anger. Closer to my own age, an older sister speaking to me rather than the mentor."

"Wisdom there, Kon. I have a few friends, old friends, who will have trustworthy scions that we can take. Old mage families who will be able to adapt well. A few Squires can be obtained, like your friend Mathis. That can be the core of the second generation," Benny said gently.

"We need the cultivators. We need proper body cultivation manuals and techniques to fully utilize them if we're to reach our potential. We have the runes, we have the armor, but we don't have that. I don't see how we can acquire it without bringing them in," Kon argued.

"I don't disagree with that. You have to understand though, the secrets of the full runes are serious. At high enough levels with established large sects that have decent intelligence they know what we do. They don't know how though. That is our edge. That and our armor. To bring in outsiders, we'd either have to buck all of humanity or somehow get the councils to agree." Benny's reasoning was solid and they all fell silent as they thought it over.

"What can we give them outside of runes and armor that will have them joining us and bringing their own secrets without us giving up ours?" Kon finally said as the silence grew heavier.

"As of right now we have the Ulmna's and a few other scattered collections. None of them specialize in body cultivation past D-Grade."

"We don't know if you can keep pushing though D-Grade," Alice said, waving a hand as if it erased the argument.

"We don't know if I can't," Kon countered.

"Regardless if you can or can't, it's getting expensive at nearly an exponential rate. Based off of what the Alchemist gave me to push you through D-Grade we could buy a decent sized freighter with it. That doesn't include how much your armor and the treasures needed to build your runes will cost. This path we are forging is extremely expensive. And we don't have proof it'll be worth it," Benny chimed in.

"Once my body finishes settling we can test to see if I can now handle using a formula," Kon said. Alice had been read in on their plans over the last few days but even with that knowledge she looked curious.

"At least you won't need to use cores to fuel your formula like most mages. You'll be able to take from your environment or even your own body," Benny grumbled.

"These lion fucks, they'll have a bunch of treasures right?" Alice said, greed lighting up her eyes.

"Yes. Normally these types of wars and invasions involve mass looting of the entire region. Any single planets, or even small colonies will be stripped bare up and down the lane. Especially with goblins involved. They'll need rations after all," Benny said.

"Meat is meat," Kon muttered. He remembered watching the videos of the slave pens that the Wild Bunch had liberated.

"Then we have a simple solution to our money problem. We steal what they stole," Alice said with a wide smile.

"It's not stealing if we win. It's just spoils of war," Benny said with his own matching grin.

"You said you were paying for our armor, correct?" Kon said. Benny's smile turned a bit more wooden at that before nodding.

"Two sets of armor will be…expensive. But I have a contact in the Oasis, old friend of mine. Probably get a discount for his work."

"Expensive is an understatement. I still haven't paid off my set of armor, but I don't know who bought that debt after Titan's dissolution," Alice said.

"Something to look into. I'll have to pay it off to prevent anyone from trying to use it as leverage," Benny said. After that their small party broke up, Kon feeling exhausted as he tightened the blanket around his shoulders and headed toward his bed.

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