The bombing run had changed the geography of the North.
The Haunted Forest was still burning in patches. The smell of charred pine and ozone hung heavy in the cold air.
Mance Rayder sat in the common room of Castle Black. He was not in chains but he was surrounded by guards armed with Type 3 Rifles.
The King Beyond the Wall looked tired. His cloak of red and black patches was singed.
The door opened.
Robb Stark walked in wearing his bronze crown. Jon Snow stood by his side. Andar entered last carrying a roll of blueprints.
"You have a strange way of greeting guests," Mance said dryly. "Dropping fire from a flying boat."
"You were not a guest Mance," Robb said sitting across from him. "You were an invader. You attacked my realm."
"I was running," Mance corrected. "We are not invading. We are fleeing. The dead are behind us. And they do not sleep."
"We know," Jon said. "We have seen them."
Mance looked at Andar.
"And you," Mance said. " The Black Sorcerer. The wildlings are calling you the Sky God. They say you command the thunder."
"I command physics," Andar said. "And I have a proposition for you."
Andar unrolled the map on the table. It showed the Gift, the strip of land south of the Wall.
"I have one hundred thousand mouths to feed," Andar said. "My factories are hungry for workers. My mines need strong backs. And my army needs scouts who know the true North."
"You want us to kneel?" Mance narrowed his eyes. "We do not kneel."
"I do not care about your knees," Andar said bluntly. "I care about your hands."
He placed a contract on the table.
"I offer you the Gift. You can settle the land. You can farm. You can hunt. In exchange you provide ten thousand laborers for the Industrial Ministry. You will be paid in silver. You will be given warm houses. You will be given medicine."
Mance looked at the paper. He could not read the common tongue well but he understood the tone.
"And if we refuse?"
"Then you go back North," Andar said. "And you die. Either the White Walkers kill you or my airship kills you. It makes no difference to me."
The room was silent. It was a brutal choice. Extinction or Integration.
Mance looked at Jon Snow. He saw the respect Jon had for these men.
"We keep our own laws," Mance bargained.
"Within the Gift yes," Robb agreed. "But outside of it you obey the King's Justice."
Mance took a deep breath. He thought of the women and children freezing in the woods. He thought of the giants who had been turned to mist by the bombs.
"We have no choice," Mance said. "We will take your paper. But know this Southerner. The Free Folk are hard to tame."
"I don't need tame men," Andar smiled. "I need men who can kill zombies."
The Wall Upgrade
The next day the integration began.
The wildlings were allowed through the tunnel. They surrendered their weapons (mostly stone axes and bronze swords) and were issued work tools.
Andar stood on top of the Wall.
The wind was vicious up here seven hundred feet in the air.
"It is too narrow," Andar said measuring the path. "We need to widen the walkway."
"Widen it?" The First Builder of the Night's Watch asked. "My Lord it is ice. We cannot just add more ice."
"We are not adding ice," Andar said. "We are adding a rail line."
He pointed down the length of the massive barrier.
"I want a light gauge railway running the entire length of the Wall. From Eastwatch to the Shadow Tower."
"A train on the Wall?" Jon Snow laughed in disbelief. "Why?"
"Mobility," Andar explained. "Right now if the Walkers attack Eastwatch it takes days to send reinforcements. With a train we can move a thousand men there in an hour."
He turned to the crates that had been hauled up by the winch.
"And we are installing these."
Jory pried open the crate.
Inside sat a heavy brutal machine. It had a water jacket around the barrel and a tripod mount. A belt of ammunition lay beside it.
[Blueprint: Maxim Gun (Early Model)]
[Rate of Fire: 600 rounds per minute]
[Caliber: .45 heavy]
"The Machine Gun," Andar introduced it. "One of these can hold a tunnel against a thousand men. We are going to put one every hundred yards along the Wall."
Jon touched the cold steel of the gun.
"Six hundred rounds a minute?" Jon whispered. "Are there that many bullets in the world?"
"My factories make ten thousand rounds a day," Andar said. "By the time the dead arrive we will have enough lead to build a second wall."
Dragonstone
Three thousand miles south the air was warm and smelled of salt and sulfur.
A fleet of ships anchored in the bay. They did not fly the Stag of Stannis. They flew the three headed Dragon of House Targaryen.
Daenerys Stormborn stood on the beach of her ancestors.
She was beautiful and terrible. Her silver hair blew in the wind. Behind her stood an army of Unsullied their spears shining. Dothraki bloodriders sat on restless horses.
But the true power was in the sky.
SCREEEE.
Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion circled the volcano. They were large now. Their wingspans cast shadows over the castle.
Tyrion Lannister walked beside his Queen. He was now the Hand of the Queen having fled King's Landing after killing his father (in this timeline Tywin died in the privy shortly after losing Casterly Rock to the Starks).
"It is quiet," Daenerys said touching the sand. "Stannis is gone. The castle is empty."
"Stannis died at the Blackwater," Tyrion said. "Or fled. The realm is fractured Your Grace. The Lannisters hold the capital but they are bankrupt. The Tyrells feed them but they are ambitious."
"And the North?" Daenerys asked. "The Usurper's dog Stark?"
"That is... complicated," Tyrion frowned. "Robb Stark has declared independence. He calls himself King in the North. And he has a wizard."
"A wizard?" Daenerys scoffed. "I have dragons."
"This wizard does not use spells," Tyrion warned. "He uses machines. He took my family's home Casterly Rock without losing a man. He makes ships of iron. He makes thunder."
Daenerys looked at her dragons. She felt invincible. She had burned the slavers of Astapor. She had conquered Meereen.
"Iron melts," Daenerys said coldly. "And thunder is just noise."
She turned to her commanders Grey Worm and Daario Naharis.
"Send a raven to Winterfell. Tell the Stark boy to bend the knee. If he refuses I will fly North and I will see if his iron burns."
Winterfell
Two days later.
The telegraph key at the Winterfell station began to click furiously.
Andar was back in his office having flown back on the Leviathan to oversee production.
He read the message.
D-R-A-G-O-N-S-T-O-N-E.
O-C-C-U-P-I-E-D.
T-A-R-G-A-R-Y-E-N.
F-L-E-E-T.
T-H-R-E-E.
D-R-A-G-O-N-S.
Andar put the paper down.
"She is here," Andar said.
Cullen looked worried. "Dragons My Lord. Real dragons. Can the airship fight them?"
"The airship is a balloon filled with explosive gas," Andar said. "If a dragon sneezes on it we die."
He walked to the window.
The Leviathan was being refueled in the hangar. It was a bomber not a fighter. It was slow and clumsy compared to a biological predator.
"We need a counter," Andar muttered.
He opened his System Interface.
[Quest Started: The Last Dragon]
[Objective: Neutralize the Targaryen Threat]
[Enemy Assets: 3 Dragons / 8,000 Unsullied / 10,000 Dothraki]
[Recommended Tech: Anti Aircraft Weaponry]
Andar pulled a fresh sheet of drafting paper.
He began to sketch.
He drew a long barrel. He drew a high angle mount. He drew an explosive shell with a proximity fuse.
"Dragons are fast," Andar said to himself. "But they are flesh. They bleed."
He looked at Cullen.
"Clear the factory floor. Stop the rail production. We are switching to FLAK."
"Flak?" Cullen asked.
"Fliegerabwehrkanone," Andar said using the old tongue of his previous world. "Dragon Slayers."
He looked South.
"If she wants Fire and Blood she will find that we have plenty of both."
..…..
Author Note
Hi guys! Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
I wanted to let you know that I'm releasing bonus chapters for Power Stones. Here are the goals:
25 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
50 Power Stones: 1 Bonus Chapters
75 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
100 Power Stones: 2 Bonus Chapters
Thanks for the support!