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Chapter Text

॥New Space Era 0108

॥ 新的开始( Xīn de Kāishǐ)

॥Shanxi Colony

॥0545 hours

The light of the system's star, Zìyóu, falls softly across the rolling hills and stunning mesas of the independent colony of Shanxi, spilling through windows and across sheets and blankets as the soft morning light creeps closer and closer to the slumbering forms of the people of the colony.

The year is New Space Era One-Oh-Eight, and Humanity is... Not exactly at peace, but by all accounts things are better than they have been for the longest time.

It all started in the year Oh-Ninety, when the Colony of Munzo reorganized itself into the Principality of Zeon, before declaring independence from the United Earth Federation.

That action was the beginning of what would now come to be known as the One Year War, and perhaps, if that was all the horrors that took place over the years to come, then perhaps things would have been different... Maybe peace would have been found sooner? But it is impossible to tell for certain.

The One Year War is to this day the single most destructive conflict in all of Human history - even accounting for what was to follow - and as such is taught heavily in the classes at the Bright Academy, and in no small part it is because it was the first major conflict in which Mobile Suits were heavily used by both sides of the conflict. The closest comparison would be the terrestrial conflicts of the middle east in Oh-Seventy-Seven when the second generation of Knightmare Frames were first used.

The war began with the now infamous 'Three Second Warning' when after just three seconds of declaring their war for independence, the Zeon forces began to attack several of the orbiting colonies, the early stages of the conflict culminating in the death of billions when Zeon pushed a decommissioned Colony out of Orbit in an attempt to destroy a major military complex. As the colony cylinder fell it shattered apart, with the larger half of it crashing atop Sydney, Australia. This, naturally, destroyed the city, but it also permanently altered the very shape of the country, and changed the climate of the entire world.

Though the worst effects of that wouldn't be discovered for another few years.

Among everything else to come out of the One Year War was the discovery of a 'New Type of Human' who had been theorized by space colony scientists prior. Some space-born humans were developing strange abilities. Enhanced senses, faster reaction times, accelerated healing rates, and even a strange ability to detect others like themselves. They quickly began to be known as Newtypes, and though there were only a few at the time, their abilities allowed them to have an outsized effect on the war. They may not have changed the outcome, but they changed the means of war going forwards. At the end of the War, Zeon is defeated, and control of the colony returned to the Federation. Though some rebel elements remained, likely bolstered by the Federation's only real rival - the Holy Empire of Britannia.

But those ten years were known as the 'Decade of Doom'. Not the One Year War. So despite the war raging overhead, that was not the only problem to come to a boil during that first year. It was only a scant few days after Operation British that a pair of sixty-foot tall mechanical monstrosities strode out of the ocean and started to assault Tokyo. The Kikaiju, though at the time no one knew what they were, were able to tear through the few knightmare frames that Tokyo had to defend themselves. Thankfully, before the monsters were able to cause too much destruction, they were fought back by the intervention of a 'Super Weapon Platform' called the Mazinger Z.

It would later be discovered that the Kikaiju were being created and controlled by a mad scientist calling himself Dr. Hell. No other name known. That battle would only be the first battle of what is now known as the Mycenaean War.

A few weeks later, elsewhere in Japan, the Saotome Getter Ray Research Institute came under assault by a mysterious force of strange, shapeshifting aliens creations that would become known to the world as the Invaders. In order to protect the Research Institute, the two lead scientists, a Doctor Saotome, and a Doctor Kisaragi are forced to use an experimental Deep Space Exploration Platform known as the Getter Robo to defend themselves. And over the following months, dedicated pilots for the Getter Robo were found, and the institute would discover the staging ground for the Invaders on the moon as part of what is now known as the First Lunar Conflict.

And all of that is still not everything. Elsewhere in the general area of the Earth Sphere and its colonies, another invasion attempted to sublimate and take control of humans. This time from an inorganic source known as Zonder Metals, which will infest humans, causing them to exhibiting anti-social behavioral patterns. Then the infected began absorbing metals and whatever technology they could into their bodies, before the Zonder Metals metastasize, where they would transform their hosts into towering mechanical threats called Zonders. In response, the Federation established the Gutsy Geoid Guard to hunt down and deal with the Zonder Metal Threat. A process which took over two years, during which they discovered that this was not simply some random happening, but they result of the 31 Machine Primevals, who believe that all life is suffering, and that by converting all organic beings into machines they are saving the universe. This spills out into the Primeval conflict, which ends with many of the members of the GGG banished from the Earth Sphere, their whereabouts still unknown.

Some of your textbooks posit that the Federation could have likely survived any two of the events that were happening, but that all of them happening in the same year was the first nail in the coffin of one of the two primary governments of the era.

Two years later, in the year of Oh-Ninety-Two, a deep space station dedicated to the study of, and artificial creation of the Newtypes who were so instrumental in the events of the One Year War was created in the orbit of Jupiter. This facility is known as the Military Junior Preacademy. Elsewhere, during a further out expedition in orbit of Saturn, a small amount of a mysterious exotic element was detected in the upper atmosphere of the gas giant.

Back on Earth, Doctor Kisaragi of the Getter Ray Research Institute is killed by a criminal organization known as Panther Claw. Though even to this day, the reason for his murder is still unknown. Rumors spread since believe that it has connection to the new Banned Super-AI research project that Doctor Kisaragi assisted the GGG in developing.

While all artificial intelligence are capable of growing and learning and adapting, the Super-AI were supposedly capable of even more. According to the still remaining former members of the GGG, they were capable of gaining a 'Heart', which seems to be best described as the ability to move entirely beyond the limits of their programming and become something more.

Unrelated to all the other troubles occurring within the Federation, on December 24th, 092, a Siberian research project known as the TAROS went critical, detonating and very nearly wiping the city it was based in off the map. At first, it seemed to be little more than an ordinary accident, however in the years to follow it is discovered that a strange mutation occurred to those children born in that six minute time frame - from 11:47 and 11:53 pm KRT. These children have enhanced intelligence, and the ability to intuitively understand many fields of science and technology. As of now, there is little that is known about the 'Whispered' as they have come to be known, with the term only having been introduced to the general public three years ago. Long after the end of the Decade of Doom.

Then, in the year of Oh-Ninety-Five, another new threat appeared, as armies of reptilian humanoids began to rise from underground. They called themselves the Dinosaur Empire, and assaulted cities across the world, the force appeared to have a particular interest in the Getter Ray Research Institute in Japan. Thankfully, developments in energy generation derived from the study of the Super Photonic Energy Reaction that powered the Mazinger Z allowed for the creation of a new generation of larger, more powerful Knightmare frames. These new Knightmare frames stood between four to six meters tall, and are still to this day powered by a new power plant called a Yggdrasil Engine.

Experiments in using the Yggdrasil Engine to power space capable mobile suits are tried - but various particulars of the engine complicate the maneuverability of mobile suits enough that the project ends up scrapped. Little more than a footnote in your history textbook.

During the same year, more of the mysterious particle is detected in the atmospheres of Neptune and Uranus, and new technologies are developed to search for more of the element, as the MJP has only managed to collect less than a mole of the element over the last three years of searching. Those new technologies imply that there would be more of the element found out in the direction of Pluto.

But while the nations that make up the Federation found themselves facing strange new threats from within, that did little to prevent the actions of the greater Federation from creating more threats beyond the grasp of the Earth. In the time following the One Year War, the Federation Created a task force known as the Titans dedicated to preventing uprisings from the colonies such as the Principality of Zeon from forming again. Equally, the Titans acted as an outwards bastion against the Empire of Britannia that was increasing rattling their sabers. After a protest against the increasingly brutal methods that the Titans were using ended with the death of ten million people in Oh-Ninety-Seven - An atrocity that the Federation referred to as 'entirely justified', a group calling themselves the Anti-Earth Union Group is formed, dedicated to fighting the Titans and working to create change in the Federation was formed.

The conflict between the Titans and the AEUG later becomes known as the Gryps Conflict. Through the course of the conflict, it became only more obvious that the Titans were not only acting in flagrant disregard for the Antarctic Treaty that ended the One Year War, but that the Federation was well aware of everything that they were doing, and were actively working to suppress the information and preventing it from reaching the average citizen. During this time, the Titans attempted to drop an unfinished colony cylinder onto the lunar city of Granada, and attempted to unleash a deadly gas attack on Colony 25 of Side Two. These terrible actions lead to the Newtype Ace of Zeon, Char Aznable, to send a message to the people of the Earth Sphere, revealing the actions of the Titans, and to denounce them.

When this caused the Federation to publicly disavow the Titans, it only pushed the already terroristic group to further acts of destruction, killing millions more people when they destroy Colony 18 and Colony 21.

When the destruction began to spread to the Earth, the Federation made a deal with the Leaders of Zeon - Stop the Titans, and the Federation would cede control of the captured home colony back to them. Haman Karn, the leader of Zeon agrees, but after killing off the leaders of the Titans, she then aimed an asteroid at the Lunar city of Granada, and declared that her possession of the Titan super weapon, the Gryps laser would allow her to dictate terms to the Federation. Thankfully, with the assistance of the Super Weapon Platform Combattler V, the AEUG were able to prevent the destruction of Granada and destroy the Gryps laser.

In total, the Gryps conflict lead to the deaths of over one billion people. And it was only the set up for the war that came after. As Karn's Axis Zeon had avoided getting overly involved in the war, waiting for the Titans, the Federation, and the AEUG to wear each other down. It was only eleven days after the end of the Gryps conflict that the first shots of the Neo-Zeon war were fired.

Thankfully, the war lasted for only nine months. There were a great many important battles that took place over the course of the war, without a doubt the most important military action to take place was Axis Zeon's attempted colony drop onto Dublin, Ireland. This destructive attack was only barely stopped by the combined efforts of the many Super Robots - The Getter Robo, Getter Robo G, Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, and Combattler V, along with the efforts of the mobile suits of the AEUG. But when it was discovered that the Federation not only knew about the attack, but had been planning on allowing Ireland to be destroyed. Millions would have died, and the Federation Leadership's only thoughts on the matter would be that the war would be easier to win if the less than two hundred people who made up the AEUG would be removed from the battlefield.

The discontent of this reveal, along with the increasingly weak grip that the Federation held over its nation states left the Federation open for the Holy Empire of Britannia to attack, waging war across the surface and attempting to bring as many nations as it could under its banner. Even managing to claim Japan as a client state during this time.

Out in space, during the early months of Oh-Ninety-Eight, the MJP researchers studying the unknown element had a massive breakthrough. It was discovered that the moon of Pluto, Charon, was actually an artificially created condensation of ice and water, hiding a device of non-human origin. Quickly, Minovsky particle generators were placed in the area around the unknown device to take advantage of the unique attributes of Minovsky particles to hide the device from anyone looking out into space. Over the course of that year, it was determined that the device was some kind of faster-than-light transportation machine, capable of instantly catapulting one of the research ships thirty-six light-years away to the system of Arcturus. Following which, it was discovered that in Arcturus there was a second Xenotech device, this one larger than the other by several kilometers. As the MJP was owned by the Federation at the time, the information about the so called 'Janus Gate' was suppressed by the Federation, though they did begin experiments studying the device in an attempt to reverse engineer the technology involved.

The conflict between the Federation and the Holy Empire of Britannia lasted for nearly a year and a half, before the Federation finally gained the upper hand. Only, in order to gain such, the Federation turned its attention away from space, and before the Federation can dismantle the Empire, the Second Neo-Zeon War kicked off.

Separately, during this time Japan and several other East Asian nations such as the Federation aligned Orb Union began to be attacked by another group of strange monsters known only as the Noise.

While the Second Neo-Zeon War technically lasted only thirteen days, from the twenty-seventh of February to the Twelfth of March, the first signs of the approaching conflict occurred two months previously. In December of the previous year, Char Aznable, now leader of the Zeon Rebellion, appeared in the skies over Earth from seemingly nowhere, before he used a newly created technology that Zeon had access to to tow an abandoned colony cylinder from Earth to the orbit of Mars. A trip that normally takes more than ten months, Char traveled in a single day.

Following this, Char announced the formation of the Martian Zeon Sphere, and once more declared the people of Zeon to be independent of the Federation. The actual events of the Second Neo-Zeon War were focused around Neo-Zeon attempting to, supposedly, 'Free Humanity from the Earth' by dropping a massive asteroid onto the planet. An event that would create a nuclear winter so long lasting that all humans on the planet would be forced to either die, or leave the planet and transition to space colonies.

What records that have been gathered from the Martian Zeons since have determined that Char believed that exposure to space travel was an important part of the development of Newtype abilities.

Thankfully, the efforts of a great many people - ranging from the Ace of the Federation pilots, one Amuro Ray, to the pilots of numerous Super Robots, and even members of the Zeon forces themselves all joined together to try and stop the falling asteroid from causing untold destruction to the Earth. In the end, it was only through the use of another new experimental technology - The Psycho-frame - that allowed the gathered forces to put the Axis asteroid back out of the Earth's gravity well, saving the planet. The Axis Shock event was also the last time that either Amuro Ray or Char Aznable were seen.

Separately, during the chaos of the Axis Drop, the newly crowned Emperor of Britannia, one Lelouch vi Britannia was assassinated. An event that caused further political strife and unrest that pushed the Federation to the very breaking point.

A breaking point that the Federation reached just thirteen months later, when an object known as Laplace's Box was recovered and revealed to all of Humanity, along with the great secret that it holds.

The Federation, since its formation, has been acting in violation of its charter. A fact that the government was aware of, and actively hiding. A government that acts in knowing violation of its own laws is not a government that could be trusted. Especially not when it is revealed that Lelouch's assassination was done by members of the Federation, on the leadership's orders.

The Federation Government never had legitimacy, nor the authority to do the things that it had. Which, on top of the constant failures over the last decade was the final straw that broke the camel's back. After a decade of war and death and destruction and chaos and pain and multiple attempted colony drops, the citizens of the Federation could no longer stand to lay under the boot on their neck.

The scope of the Federation's crimes came as a surprise to many of those in the Federation Military, blindsiding them with the realization of what they have fought and died for. Before those in power have any chance to act, honorable members of the military arrest them. With that, the Federation comes apart - Not exactly peacefully, but nowhere near as destructively as those in power tried to imply that it would without them. Because with the exception of those at the top who were aware of the secrets of the Federation, most people wanted to do the right thing. And now that they had the chance to act, they tried their best.

Without any type of unified government to rule over them, the colonies were suddenly free to rule themselves. The many nations of the world found themselves once more responsible for their own treaties and accords.

That was the state of humanity in the year One Hundred. A state that has, more or less continued to the modern day.

In the early days of year 100, the MJP - now under the control of the newly crowned Queen of the Principality of Britannia - reveals the existence of not only the interstellar transportation device in the Sol sphere, but the second, larger one out in Arcturus, and the three garden worlds that the Federation had discovered in the days since first traveling through the Janus Gates.

Shanxi is the third of the colonies that Humanity has created beyond the edge of the Sol System, having only existed for a scant six years at this point. So far, the colony is only lightly developed, with a mere million people moving onto the planet, and only rudimentary terraforming having been completed. Many of these colonists are from Zeon, the Martian nation aggressively acquiring the rights to mine on as many worlds as they can to gather the resources needed to construct additional colony cylinders in the space above their new home planet.

But while many of the miners are from Zeon, and Shanxi itself is a Chinese colony, the crown jewel of the colony at the moment is the Bright Academy of Military Sciences. The Academy was founded and funded by the Britannian Queen, wanting to create a place away from the chaos of the Sol sphere, where Earthnoids and Spacenoids may come together. Where those of the former Federation could learn side by side with those from Zeon or the newly formed empires of Juipter or Zanscare. It is one of the Queen's core beliefs, that in order to avoid war, the leaders, generals, and admirals of humanity's many nations should be raised and taught together. To create bonds between those at the top of each nation as they grow. The children and the nations both.

Some believe the Queen's ideals to be impossible to achieve, and that the last eight years have been nothing more than a quiet blip in the history of War that humanity has forever known.

And perhaps there is something of a truth to it. Because as the silent sun's ray finally creep over the edge of the covers and onto the face of a young woman, the light slowly rousing them from their slumber, a single damaged ship comes screaming back into the edge of the solar system off in the direction of the closest Xenotech device, one side partially caved in from a blow from an unknown weapon.

But for all that that might be something to worry about, that is something for teachers and adults to think about.

Instead, Lysiethea Williams has something far more important to worry about today. She has a history test, one covering the events of the New Space Era, from the year Double Oh, all the way up to the Sol Sphere Accords, which ratified the existence of the newly formed polities across the Sol Sphere, and forced Zeon to share the Scale Drive technology that allowed for faster than light travel with the rest of humanity. Admittedly, Lys might just have the test in the bag, because she seems to have been studying so hard that even her very dreams were filled with the past.

There is a long moment as you lay there in bed, one arm thrown over your face to keep the light of Zìyóu out of your eyes... But there really isn't anything else that you can do. Groaning, you slowly roll up into a sitting position, bringing a hand up and rubbing at an eye as you let loose a long yawn.

For a moment you glance back towards the bed beneath you, an idle thought of just getting out of bed and closing the curtains tempts you... but no. You might be exhausted, the results of studying so hard for your upcoming test, but doesn't mena that you are going to give into the temptation and let your better habits and tendencies slip because of it.

You've been working and studying as hard as you could over the last few days, and because of that you haven't been sleeping the best. What few dreams you had were all filled with conflict and war, death and destruction and the thundering roar of cannon fire. Not that you've actually ever heard what cannon fire sounds like, outside of movies, but still... You shake your head and turn your thoughts back to the moment, the best option that you have right now is to get a good hot shower to wake yourself the rest of the way up before making your way through Kaishi towards the L-Car to head to the Academy. Grabbing a set of clothes, you idly step over towards the window, looking out over the city.

The early morning light paints the skies in golds and purples and oranges, as the thickest band of clouds starts to form up over towards the mountains just a few miles out of the city. The colony of Shanxi is still young, with only a million people in the three cities that have sprung up on the surface.

Unlike the railed commuter trains that travel along the outsides of space colonies, the more mundane L-Cars here on Shanxi are mostly used to travel along the edges of the three cities, as well as move between them. And it is how most people get around these days. elecars might be a thing that the richest families like your own could buy, but right now there just really aren't enough roads to really need them. Your father only has one because because the Military bases of the planet are a good ways out from the cities themselves, and their locations are carefully guarded secrets.

Down below on the city streets you can see the rest of the city starts to stir awake as well. Construction workers kissing their husbands and wives before they head out for the day, as Frame pilots move pallets of materials from the landing freighter drones that are delivering materials from the closest space port. Most of the people in the city are construction workers after all, as one of the most important parts of any planet side colony is the construction of a Near Crust Bunker. NCBs are exactly what they sound like on the tin - Bunkers constructed deep, deep underground and outfitted with some of the most advanced technologies that humanity has developed in order to create a safe space that could even survive a colony cylinder being dropped on them. The city might be destroyed, and the primary exit and the elevators used to access the surface would definitely be ruined, but the bunkers themselves with the City's three Super Photon Reactors and the Backup Hydroponics would allow a good two million people to survive for months and months and months.

Of course... most of those things aren't entirely up and running quite yet, but the Colony has only been around for a couple of years now, not even a decade, and each new world that humanity has been building colonies on have altered and changed the designs based on the issues and the complications that have arose for the previous builds.

Never again is Humanity going to be pushed to the brink of extinction because some madman decides to drop a colony on a planet. To the point that even the multiple colonies being created are almost explicitly for the same very purpose. No one world would mean the end of humanity any more, and if something like the Masters of Sol or the Invaders or any other insane threat comes for an entire solar system, that too means that humanity will survive.

After another yawn, you lean back from the window, the city is still going to be there, and you really do need a shower. Really... if there is one advantage to being the daughter of the Executive Officer of the all Military forces on the planet, it is the fact that you are stationed in the already complete part of the city, and that means hot water without having to wait for the energy to be partitioned out from the temporary generators.

Stepping out of the shower, you idly wipe at the mirror in the bathroom, clearing away the fog in order to get a good look at yourself.

After making sure that there isn't anything in your teeth and that your hair is fine, you wink at your reflection before giving a little laugh and you finish drying yourself off and getting dressed and ready for the day.

Stopping off in the kitchen, you idly glance over the note that Dad left on the fridge. He's telling you not to forget to eat when you get to the Academy, and wishing you luck on the test. The only major thing that he is mentioning is that he might not be home tonight. Of course, due to your dad's position he can't exactly explain why, but most of the time it ends up being something that he actually can talk about afterwords.

Just a little under a year ago, he ended up having to work all the way through the night because someone mishandled a shipment and ended up ordering a hundred tons of lumber instead of the ten that they were supposed to be. He and the Planetary Governor had to really ride the line hard all through the night to make sure that the colony didn't end up in the red that month.

Grabbing a granola bar, you finish gathering up the rest of the materials that you are going to need for the day, before locking up the house as you step into the morning sun. While you and Dad live in Xīn de Kāishǐ, the Bright Academy where you are studying is actually off in 和平相处( Hépíng Xiāngchǔ) the Colony's capitol. There is a part of you that wishes that you could be living in the actual capitol, which is full on complete unlike Kaishi. But Kaishi is closer to wherever the main military base on the planet is, and that is what really matters for Dad's job.

You take a moment to wave to Miss Katherine, one of your neighbors. She's a widow - her husband died during the last Neo Zeon War, while she was still pregnant. For the time being she's been helping the local school here in Kiashi while raising her own son. "Morning Miss Katherine!" You call out, as you head down the stairs. Leaning back over the railing, the woman gives a quiet puff of the cigarrette in her mouth, even as she waves one hand towards you.

Of course, despite what complaints you have about having to live here in Kaishi, Dad did make sure to try and find somewhere that worked well for you as well. It's less than fifteen blocks to the L-Car station, and there is another car coming through every twenty minutes. Because of that you don't have to wait long before the next car arrives, and you quickly find a seat inside. After a few moments of waiting, there is the click of the doors closing tight, the locks engaging before there is a small pressure pushing you back into your seat as the car starts out from the station, picking up speed.

The three cities of Shanxi might be a distance away from each other, as just one more precaution against the horrors of orbital bombardment, but the L-Cars capable of reaching speeds of 1000 kilometers per hour when moving through the underground tunnels between the cities.

The twenty odd minutes that it takes to get from Kaishi to Heping passes quickly enough as you idly check the news.

The Japanese Government has announced the formation of a new government organization by the name of SONG that is dedicated to developing new technologies to deal with the threat of the ongoing Noise crisis.

The Britannian Queen has announced that she is going to be traveling across the world to each of the nations that had formerly been a part of the Holy Empire in order to discuss the reparations that Britannia still owes to these nations, as well as other nations that are struggling, such as Zilkhstan in order to attempt to shore up the diplomatic relations that Britannia has with the other nations of the Earth.

Further out, the Zascare Empire has announced that it is going to begin using the Guillotine as a means of execution for capitol crimes. Gross, but it isn't like you ever plan on going to Side 2 as it is. Not unless you end up stationed there, but you and Father are both Britannian so that isn't exactly likely, especially given that you have almost more started to see yourself as a Shanxian more than member of Britannia.

Mars is celebrating the birthday of Zeon Zum Deikun, the man whose politics and philosophy led to the formation of Zeon itself.

There doesn't seem to be much news out of the Jupiter Empire, but really that has very rarely been much news from the King of the Planets in all the years that they have been independent.

The rest of the news is just covering the details of rest of the Human Sphere. This company's stock has gone up, and that company's stock has gone down. This actress is having a spat with her husband because he's been cheating on her, and this politician was discovered partaking in insider trading.

You can't help but chuckle, easily noting how he's already announced that he is not going to be running for the next election. After the fall of the Federation, the governments of the earth have found themselves struggling with the sheer demand for visibility and transparency that their constituents are demanding. The people of the Earth do not want to be ruled by a corrupt oligarchical council supposedly beholden to the nations that make it up, yet hides all their darkest secrets from their own populations ever again.

It isn't long before the sensation in the L-Car shifts, the vehicle starting to slow as it comes in to the edges of Hépíng Xiāngchǔ. Your stop is actually the first station that the L-Car stops at in Heping. Once the car finally comes to a stop, you gather up your bag and stand, idly glancing over towards some of the others in the car that give you a bit of a surprised look.

And while it does make sense that ordinary civilians would struggle to keep their balance as everything changes in speed and direction, you are more than used to even worse directional shifts from all the hours that you have put into the Mobile Suit Simulator at the behest of your instructors. Once the car comes to a complete stop, and the doors slide open, you are among the first to get out and into the city proper.

Hépíng Xiāngchǔ is completely different form Kaishi, which does make sense, as this was the first city to be planned, and the first city to be completed. In no small part because of the existence of the Bright Academy.

Of course, that does make sense, because not only the Academy, but the entire city was funded and founded by the Queen of Britannia, Nunnally vi Britannia. The core concept of the Academy, bringing together the next generation of military leaders and thinkers all together into a single school, regardless of their nation of origin so that there would be just one more barrier between humanity and the warfare that nearly destroyed us all.

"Morning, Prez." A voice calls out, and there is a moment as you turn towards the source of the familiar voice, a smile already forming on your face as your best friend, Shinku, jogs up to you.

"Morning Shinku," You call back, giving the taller boy an idle wave as you slow down for a moment, letting your Class Vice President to catch up with you. Despite being only a year younger than you, you don't even come up to Shinku's shoulder, the Zeon born boy towering above pretty much all of his classmates, and even some of the teachers.

"So," Shinku begins, his voice clearly and plainly disinterested, even as he begins to talk. Of course, there is a subtle gleam in the young man's eyes, something that you've seen plenty of times before. Shinku has... Well, some people have disrespectfully referred to it as 'Resting Bitch Face', but the boy does have something of a taciturn composure, never overly emoting with his face.

At the same time, you can feel the excitement and the glee radiating off of him as he starts to speak. "So?" You ask, letting your Vice President match pace with you.

"Did you see the Finals last night?" Shinku asks, and you can't help but sigh, shaking your head. Last night was the Championship Round for the Microframe weight class of the Interplanetary Bot Battle League, or the IBB as most people refer to it. You had been so busy studying for the exam today that you had intentionally made sure to lock yourself in your room so that you wouldn't be tempted to turn on the television in order to watch. "I had a feeling that was how it was going to be." Shinku says, the small, soft smirk the closest that the boy ever gets to grinning unless he's acting as he holds up a thumb drive. "I made sure to record it for you."

There is a part of you that wants to rise up onto your tiptoes in order to try and snatch the thing out of the boy's hands, but you both know that would be an exercise in futility. The damn Zeonite is just too damn tall.

The IBB is the professional civilian mechanized combat league... Well, technically it's more like four related leagues than a single league, given the fact that the competitions are splintered into different weight classes. There is the Fairy Weight class of combat, related to entirely self designed and constructed robots weighing up to 500 pounds. The main notable exception of course, are humanoid styled robots, as those are elsewhere in the competition.

That elsewhere being the next class up, the Microframe class, which consists of humanoid shaped robots ranging in height from .8 meters to 1.6 meters tall, the majority of these machines are controlled primarily through two different control schemes, though a third has become increasingly popular over the last two years.

The first control scheme, which is the most popular due to it's simplicity is a radio wave controller with buttons and dials and a pair of joysticks. The second is much rarer due to the complexities of the set up, and you might even consider it unfair if it weren't for the fact that you've yet to actually see a robot use this style and win even their preliminary rounds - The creators of the robot end up building a rudimentary cockpit in the general styling of the old original Zaku, and use that to control their machines.

However, the third style is the one that has really taken the competition by storm, enough so that the judges have already started talking about splintering these new robots off into their own category next year. This third system has already gotten the nickname of the Excellent Medal scheme. Designed by Excellent Inc, the robots using this control scheme are implanted with a special propitiatory hexagon shaped 'Medal' circuit board, which has a separate learning algorithm built into each of the six sides. This allows the controller of the robot to automate some of the most simple aspects of the actual fight, as the machine learns how to keep itself upright and able to walk and aim adjust on it's own, which the actual pilot uses a pair of haptic interface gloves to control the movement, aiming, and weapon selection of the Medal Bot, or Medabot as some people have started to call them.

Of course, these Medabots are still the most cutting edge piece of equipment on the market, and there are only three of which in the competition, with one of the teams admitting that the Excellent Medal alone cost more than a new elecar. If it weren't for the fact that two of the machines are sponsored by Excellent Inc, as well as this years entire competition, they probably wouldn't have been allowed at all. It was actually the final match, a free for all between the four highest ranking bots that you missed last night, and both of the sponsored Medabots were among the top four.

After that comes the Feather Frame weight class, which actually uses civilian Frames between 3 and 4 meters in height, and are outfitted with a Radio cockpit system, because the competitions are to the destruction of the other machine. Most Feather Machines, as the competitive fighting robots are called are outfitted with exceedingly simply weaponry, at least compared to the kinds of things that you see on the machines that you and the rest of your class are training and learning how to pilot. Rudimentary coil or rail guns, buzzsaws on a stick or jackhammers and piledrivers equipped instead of arms. There is a part of you that really can't imagine taking part in something like that.

Like, there is a part of you that would love to take part, yes, but if the Excellent Medals that the Medabots are using cost more than an Elecar, then a Feather Frame can cost upwards of three times that much. And like, sure... Once you get into the military then You'd probably be able to afford that after a couple of months, but there are so many other things. It's just...

Hard to justify paying so much money for something that would inevitably be destroyed.

That, and the fact that you are an actually trained pilot means that you wouldn't be able to take part in either this or the Heavy weight class anyways, because the actual training would give you an edge that the others simply don't.

And the final class of the competition is the Heavyweight class, which uses specially designed Frames called ARM-Slaves for the Artificial Reticular Mental Master-Slave System that is used to pilot them. These frames stand at between 6 and 8 meters tall, and the few fights that you have seen have all had a... fluidity and grace to them that even the most sophisticated mobile suit struggles to match unless there is a New Type at the helm. But more than that, there are the stranger parts of the way that the robots move - small fidgets and idiosyncrasies that make it look like like it is a piloted machine, and more like there is some kind of instinct behind the movements. Things like the ARM=Slaves shifting back and froth from foot to foot like they are bored or uncomfortable, and you just can't fathom why anyone would put all the work to affect that kind of movement.

Really, it seems almost more like the pilots are directly controlling the machines with their minds, and these tiny give-aways are the same kinds of things that their pilots do. But that's...

Not exactly madness, but certainly a technology that you've never heard of. "So are you going to tell me who won?" You ask Shinku, eyes still locked onto the thumb drive that the Zeonite has in his hands.

"I could." He says simply, "Or, once we finish with classes today, you can convince Celeste to let us hang out at her place, and we could use her home theater." Despite the continuing blank look on the boy's face, you can feel the giddy excitement at the idea of seeing Celeste's home theater set up again. And the girl does have one of the biggest screens that you have ever seen outside of a theater. You've no idea how the girl...

Well, okay, that isn't entirely true. There are several things about the quietest member of your class that has given you reason to think that she might be one of the super rare individuals known as a Whispered. But... Well, that isn't something that you would ever be willing to say out loud, not when there are so many people out there willing to do horrible things in order to get their hands on any whispered in order to get their hands on the advanced technology that they are able to make.

And even then, you aren't actually sure if she is one of those geniuses beyond geniuses... So unless she does something outright impossible, then you are going to keep your theories and your guesses to yourself, because it wouldn't be right to do anything else. She's a member of your class, and that means doing everything that you can to protect her.

And just as that thought starts to cross your head, both you and Shinku pause. Neither of you can put a finger on what it is that is wrong... Just...

No. You blink, turning back away from Shinku and towards the horizon, eyes tracking across the sky. Over the last day and a half there has been... something, you haven't been able to put it into words, hell... It's only now as malicious intent begins to focus down on your surroundings that you ever realize that there is something there.

A threat. Shinku has to notice it as well, given the way that you feel him turn towards you, but-

There, at the very edges of your enhanced senses, you can see the softest of sounds, a high pitched whistling noise, something just beyond the edge of ordinary human hearing. Your instincts and your training come to agreement, and everything clicks together in your head.

You know that sound.

You've heard it a thousand times when the Academy sent out into the rough deserts of Shanxi for live fire training in order to get an understanding of the weapons that you may one day be ordering the usage of.

That's an artillery shell.

Wait? Artillery?!?

In that single fraction of a moment, you start to move. There isn't think to think about how impossible it is for there to be a shell heading towards the Academy, nor what an attack on Shanxi might mean. Instead you barely take more than a step before you turn, and with a second step you dive to the ground, crashing into Shinku, knocking the both of you to the ground.

There is a moment of sound, and you can tell that Shinku is trying to say something, but the words are all but lost as the first shell lands. And maybe it is because the Academy has it's own emergency power supply that generates Minovsky particles around the school itself, but the rising plume of dirt and stone and shattered trees is still a distance away from the school itself.

Which means that the first impact missed the school building itself, and there is a moment of silence, the two of you laying there on the ground before the whistling of another incoming shell starts to ring in your ears. It takes everything that you have to pull yourself back up to your feet, a short gasped out "Run!" Leaving your lips.

You only make it a handful of steps before the next blow crashes into the ground. This one in the opposite direction of the school, missing by the same margins. All across the colony, you can hear the distant sounds of the sirens coming online, their klaxon calls drawing everyone's attention. Already you can see distant frames dropping the loads that they were carrying in order to hurry over to the depot. That is where all the armaments for the Frames are going to be, and there is a part of you that wants to scream at that. If whoever is attacking is going after the school, then they are going to be going after any and all military installations.

And anyone who has any experience with planetside colonies would know that where the Frame Depots are. You start to try and move, struggling to keep your footing as more impacts begin to crash into the dirt, before you hear a shout. "You two!" Comes a bellow, and you turn... One of your teachers is by the door, Instructor Suisei waving a hand towards the two of you. "Come on! There's a bunker under the academy!" He shouts.

"Get a move on! Now!" Without really thinking about it, you do as the teacher orders. After all, they are your teacher, and they know what they are talking about, even if there is a part of you that feels the idea of actually moving in towards the target that is being shot at is the worst possible idea.

Even so, the other part of what the teacher said did manage to click into your head. There is a bunker under the school, and that means somewhere that you can hopefully be safe. So long as there isn't a Orbital drop. Of course, a glance at the sky shows two major things, the first is a lack of falling colony cylinders in the sky, but the other part is that there are ships out in the distance of the sky. They are far enough away that you have a bit of trouble telling exactly what they are... but the general silhouette is one that you can't really recognize. The ships are thin, with angled back wings like a swooping bird of prey.

There is only a moment, as you can see the soft flash of light twinkle from the front of the ships, and a part of you realizes exactly what it is that you are looking at. These ships... they are the source of the incoming fire. Through the halls you start to move, and a part of you can't help but feel quite relieved that the halls seem to be all but empty. You're never the first to school, even if you are by far never the last, but that means that everyone else who was here have already started to move towards the bunker under the school.

The three of you are all but running, even as the ground continue to buck and warp under the forces that the enemy's fire is laying down. Time and again, despite the fact that you can't see the impacts any more, it is clear that they are getting closer and closer with each blast, as the impacts are growing louder and the movement of the ground beneath your feet all the worse. But the two of you don't have far at all to go before your teacher comes to a door, one that you have passed a thousand times before during your time here at the Academy, but one that you have never had a reason to go through, not the least of which being the key card next to the door.

As your teacher quickly swipes the card, there comes another rumble. The doors slide open to show the inside of an elevator, and as the three of you enter, there comes a startled shout of "Wait!"

Rushing down the halls after you is another of your classmates.

It probably says something about how vocal Celeste is that even when the Academy is being bombarded by...

Well to be completely honest, you don't have the slightest idea who it is that is bombarding the academy. But the fact that the Academy is being bombarded, and you are still finding yourself surprised that Celeste actually spoke up says a lot about how vocal the girl can be most of the time.

And well... if the things that you think about the girl are true, the it makes sense why she would work so hard to slip and hide away in the background of the Bright Academy. Those people who are actually publicly known to be Whispered tend to disappear...

Not that that might matter, given everything that is going on at the moment.

Thankfully, despite everything that should have stopped Instructor Suisei from keeping the doors open, the red haired instructor manages to keep the doors open for just long enough that Celeste was able to dive forward, sliding back to hit against the far wall of the elevator before the doors slam close with a kind of finality that makes you swallow nervously just hearing.

That...

That isn't the kind of sound that doors make when they would stop if there was something stuck in between then, and there is a detached part of yourself that realizes that does make sense. After all, this is going down to the Shelter under the school, and the only reason that anyone has to access this elevator, or the other two in the other two buildings of the campus are if something was going very wrong.

If that is the case... Well, then it is better to lose a limb than it is for everyone else in the elevator to die. It's a horrible thing to think, but this is not a good situation, and... and...

There is a part of you that wants to panic. There is a part of you that wants to scream and shout and just demand answers from the world. What the hell is going on?

Today was just supposed to be an exam covering the major conflicts of the Decade of Doom, their causes and the results that came from them. Not...

Not all of this. At the same time however, there is another part of you that can't help but wonder if this is something more. A drill or a test that you simply haven't studied for. This wouldn't be the first time that you have heard of the Headmaster of the Academy doing something strange and out of the ordinary in order to test his students. Two years ago, in the first year that the Academy was running, the headmaster actually got the Police to dress up as terrorists and use paintball guns to attack the students. Several people were injured because paintballs might not be lethal ordinance, that doesn't stop them from being potentially harmful, and one of the officers was put into the hospital when one of the students ended up breaking the arm of his 'attacker'.

But while all of those emotions are trying to overflow over you, there is something much more important happening. With a single breath you focus again, pushing all your fears and your worries off to one side. You see them, you understand them, and you even feel them, but that doesn't mean that you are going to stop yourself from acting.

This might be some kind of insane test that the Headmaster is doing, but it is entirely possible that this isn't. Maybe there is some little Zeon Remnant group that thinks that Char was right in trying to drop the Axis asteroid on the Earth and is trying to punish all planet born societies, regardless of the fact that there are people from Zeon here on Shanxi.

Or it could be something from the Zanscare, or out from near Jupiter... Then there are all the many different nations of the Earth. Any of them, particularly any of the ones that were never happy with the Holy Britannian Empire could have decided that since the Queen was one of the people who worked to establish the Bright Academy that it was fair gain. And all of those are just the things that you can think of right off the top of your head.

So this might be a test, but it might not, and if it isn't then you need to do everything that you can as the Class President of your class to make sure that all of your classmates get out of this as well as they can. With that in mind, you are down next to Celeste, carefully holding out a hand and helping the girl back to her feet.

Shinku is standing there, pointedly staring not at the two of you, but instead at the wall, even as Instructor Suisei gives the younger boy a soft smile of his own. Of course, while that is what the two of them are doing, there is the soft comforting confidence of Shinku sliding against the edge of your consciousness, while the ever slightly bitter sense of Instructor Suisei's feelings make it clear that is proud of your actions.

The rest of the ride down, down, down, in the depths of the earth below the academy is silent, both out of respect for Celeste's disposition, as well out of the sheer stresses that the situation is bringing out in everyone. The shorter girl is coiled up tight against your side, her head buried into her shoulder as she seeks some kind of comfort from you. There's fear and horror and a sense of guilt all there...

But there is also that ever present warmth that the girl feels towards you. She isn't the only one who feels that way, several of your classmates, both boys and girls feel that way towards you... and you aren't entirely sure what it means.

There are so many emotions across those that you have felt all your life, and this one is one that you can... You can only barely remember feeling something like this between your Father and your Mother. But that was long ago when you were small and young, these days the few times that you see Mother see is...

Well, her emotions are pale and bitter in a way similar to the instructors, but there is something black and sharp there too. You don't know what it is, it is something that you have only felt a few times in your life, and never acutely with the source of the emotion being there in the same room as you. All Father will say is that Mother decided that it would be best for her to return home, to Zeon.

And that is really all that you can get out of Mother as well, either way it doesn't really matter. What matters is the fact that Celeste clearly needs some kind of comfort, and you find yourself softly whispering in her ear as you carefully rub small circles across her back, focusing your mind on all the warmer feelings that you have for everyone. The joy that you have when piloting the Mobile Suit simulator and passing a complicated test like a puzzle, or the enjoyment that you get out of Junpei's stupid jokes and Mitch's wry humor.

The fun that you have with Shinku, the both of you watching the competitions together, cheering for opposite teams because it's funner that way, no matter what the sport or even if the two of you have any idea what the rules of the game are. Like... Baseball.

You still don't understand that Earther game, but there is nothing like getting to gloat because you team ran the circle faster than the other team. There are still shuddering impacts every few seconds, each one making Celeste hug you tighter, and each one making you think that this might not actually be a test.

Once or twice the lights above ever flicker leaving the three of you in the dark for a few moments

before the elevator finally slows to a stop, and the doors slide open.

Chapter Text

As the three of you step out through the elevator doors and into the bunker underneath the school, there is a distinct moment of confusion echoing across each of you, Shinku, Instructor Suisei and even Celeste...

Because you have seen bunkers before. You have ever been down into the emergency bunker under each of the three cities a few times with your father... This is not a Bunker.

"What...?" You mutter softly, brow furrowing. You've seen something like this before. Multiple times even. But never to a scale like this. This is a hanger, and given the way that the metal floor stretches out before beginning to tilt upwards so that in the far distance you can't even see the end of the tunnel.

But that is nothing compared to the single ship that is stored in the hanger, something massive and unlike anything that you have ever seen before.

The ship towers high above your head, and stretches out ahead of you for longer than any ship that you have ever seen before. It has to be somewhere in the range of twice the size of the Gondwana-Class Supercarrier that Shinku showed you the one time that you visited Zeon two years ago.

But while you stand there gawking at the massive piece of impossibly huge technology in front of you, Shinku and the others seem to have been looking around, as Shinku softly elbows you in the side, before motioning over towards where a large group of people are standing, huddled in the shadow of the massive ship above. These have to be the people from the other two buildings... It's actually a bit surprising that there are already that many people down here. Hopefully you'll be able to find another the class presidents for the other classes, and if you are really lucky perhaps even a handful of the teachers as well.

With nothing else that you can do, your little group of four starts to make your way over towards the rest of the group, hoping to be able to get some kind of explanation for what is going on.

So there's Mitch, and there's Junpei. Alice and Micheal and Maylin and- One by one you count off the twelve students from your class. They are all there, as are a number of different people that you recognize from around Campus, even if you've never actually met them directly. But the real thing that you are noticing is the fact that it isn't just students here, but there are actually others as well.

Of course, it does make sense, after all... The Bright Academy is out near the edge of the Capitol, which means that the underground Bunker under the school is going to be closer than the Bunker in the center of the city, so the people living out near the edges would naturally head there instead of in towards the center of the city.

There's just one unexpected problem, that being the state of the bunker here under the school.

...Wait.

You start to look over the group once again - There are all thirteen of the students from your class, but when you start counting the number of other people around your age... There are two classes per year, and four years over the course of the Academy. If every single student was here, that would just be just over a hundred people wearing the student uniforms. Instead, there are just over five dozen. So there is a good forty-ish percent of people who should be here that aren't. You... you don't know how to feel about that, and there is a part of you that very much doesn't want to try and think about where they probably are.

Beyond that, there are two dozen people wearing the other major school uniforms. They might be teachers or administrators or staff and janitors and cooks and all the different parts of the school that you don't have the best understanding of, even if your classes about the nature of Supplies and what it takes to keep an army moving does give you the faintest idea of what kinds of roles they might supply. Then there is just over a dozen different adults and teens, people unrelated to the Academy, but who must have come down here with the very final group that your eyes catch hold of. Just under a dozen small children.

Where are the Teachers?

Where are any of [I]your[/I] teachers? Your tactics teacher? Your Engineering teacher? The munitions teacher?

As that thought crosses your mind a second time, you finally catch sight of [I]One[/I] teacher. Just one. Miss Jane is your Homeroom teacher, as well as being one of the school therapists and a Guidance Councilor.

Miss Jane is kneeling next to a visibly pregnant woman, carefully speaking with her in quiet tones. The woman that she is helping is quiet, her shoulders visibly shaking as she continues to sob into her hands. There is a part of you that wants to reach out and say something, but you don't really know what it would be that you would say in a situation like that.

Before you can try to figure out the right thing to say, Miss Jane glances up, her eyes trailing out across the group like she is looking for someone, and you can see the woman's face light up just a little as she spots you. "Ah!" Giving a quick turn back to the pregnant woman, Miss Jane carefully whispers something to the woman, before rising to her feet and moving over towards you the others. "Lysithea, it is good to see you are well. Shinku." she gives the boy a nod, one that he returns. "Celeste." The girl doesn't quite answer, instead simply sliding back behind you, even as she peaks out and gives the faintest of waves. "You." Unlike the cheerful way that she greets you and the other students, her acknowledgment of Instructor Suisei is frosty and harsh.

You've... Never actually seen them interact before, but now that you are thinking about it, at any of the assemblies that the School had, Suisei always made sure to keep as far as he could away from Miss Jane.

"Jane." Instructor Suisei responds, not looking at the woman directly, and you can feel the thick sour feeling that is always there around him become even thicker as he realizes the same thing that you are. He and Miss Jane are the only teachers here. They are the people who are going to be in charge of all of this.

With a long sigh, Miss Jane just shakes her head. "Right... this is a thing. So we've got a bit of a problem."

"I'm guessing the fact that this isn't a Bunker is just a facet of the issue?" Instructor Suisei says softly, continuing to refuse to look at Miss Jane.

There is a moment of silence, before Miss Jane takes a deep breath, letting loose a long sigh. "Yeah, it's a hanger." Miss Jane starts to explain. "Which is problematic enough, because there isn't any food or shelter or even medical supplies. But the real problem is that the elevators are refusing to return to the surface." The teacher gives one more glance around the rest of the room. "And there isn't anything that we can use to try and defend the civilians if the worst happens."

There is a moment where Shinku glances up towards the ship, trying to get a good idea of what is all going on. "What about the Ship itself?" He asks, and Miss Jane just shakes her head.

"You'd have to get up to the catwalks off those pylons." Miss Jane explains, "And there are freight elevators that are clearly designed to move supplies and crew onto the ship, but we haven't been able to get those working either. My Keycard doesn't work with it."

All together there is a thick miasma of fear and worry that permeates the entire group, particularly the civilians, but the rest of the students are left huddling together, eyes either locked on the massive parked ship or the doors of the elevators. They don't have the slightest idea of what to do, and they don't seem to have a goal either. There has to be something that you can do however... You're the Class President of your class, and that means that you are the one who has to step up and get something done.

After taking a moment, you think back and forth, before lightly tapping Celeste on the shoulder, before stepping off to one side. Quietly, the girl starts to follow after you, and you give her the softest of smile.s. Turning back to Miss Jane, you give her a small nod. "I'm going to go and see if there is anything that I might be able to do with the Pylon." You say, glancing up towards the ceiling. "I might try and climb up the outside... See if I can unlock the thing from the top."

Miss Jane frowns as you say that, but before she has a chance to say anything more, you press on. "Shinku," You say, and your vice president snaps to attention, bringing a hand up in a quick salute. "Can you get a roster of everyone who is here. Names, ages, and if they aren't students then occupations. If we're going to be stuck in here for the long haul, we need to have an idea of what everyone can bring to the table."

"At your orders, Prez." Shinku says, her tone flat, but there is that same tiny smile on his face, and his emotions ring with a confidence in your orders. Shinku trusts that you've got a plan, even if at the moment you really don't.

Suisei stares at you for a moment, before the man gives you a small smile of his own. "And myself?" He asks. There is a moment where you aren't sure what he is asking, but as the seconds pass it becomes clear. He's asking what you want him to do. That's...

That is a good question. Turning back to Miss Jane, "You said that there isn't anything around that we can use?" You ask, "There isn't an armory or anything like that?" Miss Jane shakes her head, and you take a moment to think, before something clicks. "Right... It might not be the biggest problem, but everyone's morale is certainly collapsing. Sitting around and doing nothing is doing no one any favors. Instructor Suisei... Once Shinku has everyone's information, I want you to take the students... and I guess anyone else who is interested and just... Teach them something. Something to keep their minds off of what is going on at the moment. Miss Jane, I'd like you to work with the civilians, I don't... really have an idea for what it is that you can do." You say, before of all people Celeste speaks her, her words very soft.

"Tell the little ones stories." The girl says softly, and you can't help but nod at that.

"That's... As good an idea as any." You say, and there is a moment where Miss Jane looks like she is about to say something, before glances over towards Suisei. She stares at the man, eyes narrowing before she gives you a sharp nod. You don't have any idea what is going on there, but that's fine. Your teacher is going to help, and that is what matters.

With that agreement made, the group splits off into their different directions, everyone following the instructions that you've given them. This...

There is a moment of silence as you watch your teachers fall in line, doing what you are asking them to. That is a distinctly strange feeling, but you quickly shrug the confusion off, before you and Celeste start to move towards the freight elevator. There is a part of you that really hopes that the girl will be able to pull off face plate and do... [I]something[/I] to hack into the thing, because while you are completely willing to do what you said and climb up the outside of the pylon...

Well, that's not exactly something that you are enthused to actually do, but when it comes down to it you have both the training and the skills so you'll do it if you have to.

There is a part of you that is worried about potentially falling, those thoughts cycling round and around in your head, before you finally blink and realize that you are standing in front of the door. "So this is the elevator..." You mutter softly, reaching out with one hand and running it across the metal plate next to the door. The moment that you do, the little red light above the plate switches to green, and with a heavy echoing groan that everyone can hear the door starts to slowly slide open.

You don't have the slightest idea what it is that you've done, but it certainly has opened the door. The important thing of course, is the fact that the doors are starting to open, and the stupid elevator isn't even all the way open before the majority of the people have arrived.

As the gathered students and civilians start to gather around the still opening door, Miss Jane approaches you, a very odd look on her face. "How in the world did you get that open?" She asks. "I tried for close to five minutes before you arrived and couldn't get it to budge."

"I have no idea." You admit, looking over towards the metal plate with the light above it. "I just touched that thing, and the led switched from red to green."

Miss Jane continues to stare at you for a long moment, her eyes sharper than knives, before she gives a soft sigh and nods. "I don't believe that you are lying... But this is a little too easy for my liking."

"Easy or not, what matters is that if this is a ship, there should be an armory." Shinku says, not even waiting for anyone else and moving forward to get onto the ship. "And that means we'd have a way to protect these civilians. So let's stop dawdling and start get a move on." The young man sounds angry, but you can tell that he is just annoyed, both at how this whole thing has interrupted what he was in the middle of doing, as well as the fact that Miss Jane seems to be almost suspicious of you.

With a bit of a snort, you roll your eyes before following behind. "Yeah, yeah." You call out. "It'll probably be for the best if we start getting people into the ship, since there isn't exactly anything approaching cover down there."

It is clear that Miss Jane definitely agrees, given the way that she moves over to one side. "Alright," she calls out. "Children and the Elderly first." Your homeroom teacher says, as she and Instructor Suisei start to help get as many people as they can into the freight elevator. As it is, even with the elevator being as large as it is, there is still close to a hundred people that need to get up into the ship, which means that it takes a whole two loads, and then the small handful of people left for the third to get everyone up to the doors into the ship.

Without even thinking about it, you wait until everyone manages to reach the top, before turning and heading towards the doors of the ship with Shinku and Celeste at your side. The outer doors of the ship open with a quiet hiss, revealing a small airlock. Pressing on, you start to make your way through the halls of the ship, trying to find the armory that everyone is looking for.

There is a moment of darkness, before pair by pair the lights at the top of the hallways come on. Reaching the first major intersection, there is a moment of pause as you try to guess which direction that you need to head down in order to find the Armory. Back and forth you glance before you do what you always end up doing when there are simply too many choices.

"Shinku. We're near the back of the ship, and the front is that way." You say pointing towards the front of ship, take a group of... I don't know. Eight or nine students with you and split off from the rest of us. There is way too much ship, and not enough of use to be able to find everything with any amount of speed." You explain, and your Vice President nods, sharply.

Turning, he quickly names off a handful of the students that you only barely know, before Instructor Suisei steps forward as well. He gives you an odd look. Despite the glasses that he always wears, it is like the man is... judging you?

Weighing you. Measuring you.

But you can't tell exactly what he is feeling. "I think it would be for the best if there is a teacher accompanying them." Suisei says, "By your leave?"

...Is he...

Instructor Suisei seems to almost be asking for your permission to join up with the group that you are splintering off from the rest, and you don't have the slightest idea what exactly is going on. Especially given the looks that Miss Jane is giving him. After a moment of confusion and silence, you give a sharp nod. "Yes, that is a good idea. Having someone with more experience along with them will be useful if something goes wrong."

Of course, given their similar natures, your confusion is picked up by both Instructor Suisei himself, as well as your Vice President, to say nothing of the other New Types among the students and the rest of the survivors. Once that is all decided, your two groups split apart, each doing down a different arm of the T-section. Your group heads off to the left, while Shinku moves off towards the right.

And for the most part, the different sections of the ship that you move through are every bit what you would have expected from them. The hallways are hallways, and the handful of storage rooms you encounter are... Well, not full, but certain more filled than you would have expected out of some secret underground ship that was empty. Annoyingly, the terminals in each of the storage rooms you move through are all inactive, but there is thankfully a clip board attached to a cord on the wall that seems to cover everything in the rooms.

But when you actually take a quick glance through the lists, you have to sigh. There isn't anything that would be particularly useful at this moment, not in any of these rooms at least. Of course, with the soft shudders that still quietly thumping away in the background, whatever is causing the shelling of the city hasn't stopped, and that means that you don't have the time to really go through everything with a fine toothed comb. Not that you really have a need to, it's clear that there aren't going to be any weapons stored in these general storage rooms. If you want to find something to help protect the citizens, you're going to need to find an Armory.

That... Is just about what you expected, but it doesn't make the bitter worry any easier to swallow. Thankfully, as you all start to move through the ship, you soon reach a set of stairs, and the single thing that you had been hoping to find most of all.

A map of the ship.

Which... naturally says the one thing that you had hoped that it wouldn't. If you actually wanted to reach the Armory, you needed to have gone the other way - the way that you sent Shinku.

With a bit of a sigh, you turn back to the group. "Miss Jane, could I get your opinion for a moment?" You ask. The teacher has been acting weird since you first arrived in this strange Hanger, and you haven't quite been able to put a finger on why. So hopefully asking her opinion might do something to mend whatever fence you somehow managed to break.

As your homeroom teacher starts to approach, Celeste does as well, standing next to you, but just barely between you and Miss Jane, which is... Not at all how Celeste normally acts. The shorter girl stares up at you for a moment, before she reaches out and puts one finger right on the map, pointing at the Ship's power plant.

There is a moment where you spot Miss Jane staring at the two of you, something of a soft smile on her face, and a kind warmth radiating off the teacher. The moment that she sees that you see her, the smile blooms even brighter, though there is something else there as well. Whatever the case, the teacher steps past the last of the students and visibly brightens yet even further when she realizes what it is that you have found.

You don't have a clue how someone can be as brilliantly happy as the teacher is at the moment. Which only makes the fact that she is suddenly treating you like normal all the more confusing. "Ah, good. a map of the ship. Let's see..." She says softly, glancing things over, even taking a moment to note the spot that Celeste is pointing out. "The barracks are neat the very middle of the ship, and we would be passing by the Engineering Core in order to reach there..." She explains, before glancing down at Celeste. "I'm assuming you want to take a look at the Powerplant and the engines, right?" She asks, but she pushes on without even getting an answer. "Edward... might actually have a point, fool that he is." She says. "You'd have to ask Miss Williams about checking out the Engineering block, but it is on our way." She says, turning to you with a smirk on her face. "How about it?"

Seriously, given what she just said it is becoming increasingly obvious that your teachers are up to something, but you don't have the slightest idea what it is. Regardless, now you find yourself faced with one of the most dangerous threats that you will ever come across, no matter how many wars that you find yourself fighting in.

Celeste is standing there, eyes all but sparkling as she continues to point at the Engineering block... There is a moment that you try to struggle against the cuteness, but it is a losing battle from the very start. "Fine." You say with a bit of a chuckle. "We can stop by and check out the engine on the way to the Barracks." You say simply, before turning back to Miss Jane. "When we reach that point, I'd like you to take guide the civilians the rest of the way, I'll make sure to leave you a handful of students, but this is a... Well, the engine of a dreadnought. Any of the students who are looking into engineering classes would certainly like to have the chance to see that for themselves, right?"

There isn't quiet a cheer from the other students, but there are definitely sounds of agreement coming from some of the students. Miss Jane gives you another odd look, before she nods. "Delegating... That is exactly what is needed at a time like this." The teacher says. "Of course, you've already shown some ability to do just that."

...All of this is just really making you worried about whatever it is that your teachers are thinking and planning behind your back. Of course, that really only leaves one major problem that you are going to have to deal with at the moment.

And that is the fact that the Barracks are up eight decks from where you are now. Thankfully, it seems that there are stairs for when the ship is docked and the like, but they aren't a lot of them. It would be so much easier to use the Grav shafts when the ship is in space and you don't have to worry about gravity, and can simply float from floor to floor.

"Well..." You say, turning towards everyone. "Good news is that we've found the barracks." You announce, and you can see the way that all the civilians perk up at that. It's only been a short time, but they are already starting to flag. "However, the bad news is that they are up eight decks, which means we've still got some walking ahead of us." you say, much to the groaning of the civilians.

Now that you have a goal however, the time seems to pass even quicker as the group starts to move, taking the stairs as quickly as they can in order to get to somewhere safe as fast as they can. There are even civilians taking the steps two by two.

Once you reach the center floor of the ship, you give a short nod to Miss Jane, as you, Celeste and a handful of the other students break off from the rest of the civilians in order to get a better look at the Engines of the ship. This is a pretty unique opportunity for any of the students studying military engineering after all.

Standing outside of Engineering Central Control however, there are several signs on the door that leave you feeling a little... Stumped, for lack of a better word. There are all the ordinary signs - Dangerous mechanisms, radiation warnings, voltage warnings, however there are three that you do not recognize. The center most of which is almost like a radiation symbol, but tilted.

There is a moment of silence as everyone stands there, not really willing to push further on, given the fact that they don't know what that symbol means. And you just...

How is it that you don't recognize the symbol. You've been on the Command track for the entire time that you have been in the Academy, and one of the important classes that you had to take was covering all the major warning signs across the Human Sphere.

"No." Celeste says quietly next to you, and in the time that it takes you to glance down towards the girl, she is already on the move, having pushed past the door and into the room beyond. Trying to keep up, the rest of the group of students follow after.

The strangest thing is that that wasn't a 'No' of worry or horror, but one of just pure excitement and disbelief. Like she can't imagine that what she is looking at is really what she is looking at. All you can hope to do is get the answer from the girl when you catch up to h-

Having made your way through the control room and further into the Engineering Block, you find Celeste standing on one side of... Well, at a first glance it looks like glass, but there is a faint tinting to the material. On top of that, there is what looks to be a mesh on the inside of the glass... but it is when you lay a hand against the metal that you realize that it isn't glass at all.

Transparent Metals are among some of the hardest things to make, especially if you are going to do things like leave them with a mesh inside... Of course, you only can be distracted by the metal for a moment before your eyes catch sight of what is on the other side... Inside of the room on the other side of the glass are three pillars, each about two decks tall, with a total of what looks to be nine... metal boxes on each of the pillars, stacked three high to a side.

You've never seen a Ship's power plant like this before. This isn't a Nuclear plant... You don't know what this is.

By now the rest of the students have caught up, each one looking through the window with the same confusion that you have. Yet the glee and the excitement and the sheer disbelief rolling off of Celeste is so much stronger than what they are all feeling.

The girl has to know what these are. And before you even have a chance to ask, Celeste answers. "Getter Ray Reactors." The words are quiet, but just hearing that is enough to send a shiver down your spine, because you had to be mishearing her.

She couldn't have just said what you think she just said. That would be...

"I..." Celeste barely whispers her next words out. "I've only theorized... A Getter Singularity Reactor..." You have so many questions about what the girl is talking about, but before you have a chance, she pushes back through the rest of the crowd of students, everyone just as stunned by the words that she has said as you are.

However, as the girl starts to move you rouse yourself from your confusion. "Everyone. Follow Celeste." You say, not really sure what else there is to say at this point. If Celeste is right, and that that has something to do with Getter Technology... And she said Reactor there at the end.

There is a part of you that expects someone to step up and argue against your order, but instead everyone just kind of falls in line. The whole thing is a little weird to be honest, but everyone seems to be acting like you know what you are doing... And you don't have the slightest idea how to inform them that you are riding by the seat of your pants at the moment.

Once everyone gets into the control room, the almost jitteringly giddy Celeste continues looking over the switch board that controls everything, before she finds what she is looking for. Then with a click the plastic case flips open, and the girl presses the button beneath. There is a thundering [I]BOOM[/I], something that echoes through the floor with a shudder that you feel in your bones. A few moments pass, and a second [I]BOOM[/I] echoes out. The same few moments pass, before the third comes around, [I]BOOM[/I]ing one final time. As the last of the three echoes out, there comes a deep hum that runs through the whole of the Engineering block growing louder and louder, before it starts to go quiet.

There is a moment where Celeste stands there, almost wilting under the confused looks that everyone is giving her. So the girl does what she does most naturally, hiding away behind you. And while there is a part of you that wants to ask the girl what is going on, the truth is that you have a pretty good idea, all things considered.

After all, the girl was just looking at what she seemed to think was the power plant for the ship... Instead, there is a moment where you turn and give her the faintest of looks. "Would it be safe to go take a look?" You ask, and Celeste slowly nods.

With the confirmation that you needed, the group moves back to the window that you had last seen Celeste at. Staring through the window, there is something like a moment of terror that grabs hold of your soul, but only for a moment. Within the room inside, you can see each of the three pillars spinning about the room so fast that they are almost blurring to your vision.

You can only barely tell what is happening on the reactors themselves, and that is only because of the sheer amount of light in the room. But the nine reactors connected to each of the pillars are also rotating, with the middle three reactors on each pillar spinning in the opposite direction of the reactors above and below. The entire room has is bathed in the glowing green of Getter Rays, and there is a good reason for that. In the very center of the room, in the middle of the three spinning pillars is a ten foot wide sphere of pulsing energy, so deep green that it seems almost black. That is the source of the light, and the source of the moment of fear that took hold of you.

The only thing that your brain can try to use to compare it to would be looking directly at the ongoings of a nuclear reactor. A feeling only made stronger by the fact that the floor beneath your feet is shuddering and shaking from the sheer power that the Reactor is putting out.

"Holy Fuck..." Someone mutters. "That thing is powering our ship?"

"But... How?" Someone else asks, "I thought Doctor Saotome took his research to the Grave."

And a third. "Do you think that a..." The words are barely muttered, before the group glances over towards you and goes quiet... You have an idea what they are thinking, and you don't have any idea how to tell them they are wrong without making them think that you are just covering for Celeste. And the fact of the matter is that you might be. Especially given that thing she said about theorizing.

That is something that you are going to have to deal with at some later point. Right now however, there is just something more that you need to worry about. The ship's engines have been turned on, but while you don't know a lot about the engineering side of things, you do know that it isn't even completely that simple. There are other parts of bringing a ship online beyond just the power plant itself.

Thankfully, it seems that Celeste already has that covered, as the group returns to the command room, the girl is carefully moving from spot to spot, hitting switches and flipping levers, all the different things that the ship needs to get itself up and running properly. Which now that you are thinking about that...

Is that even what you want to do? Like... This whole thing is a massive underground ship in a hanger that shouldn't be here. Why the hell are you guys starting it up? And of course, while you are thinking that, you aren't exactly telling the girl not to do so. Probably because at this point it's really the only way that you are going to get out of here. If the curve of the hanger exit continues the way that it is, it would eventually hit vertical, and there would be simply no escape that way. Especially because you would have known about any massive hole leading down into the planet's underground. So the exit has to be hidden, and that means that even if you could get the civilians to climb...

That would not be a way out. The worst part of all of this is the fact that you are going to have to leave Celeste here, at least for the moment, because she seems to be the only one who knows how to work all of this... That is unless...

"Alright, you lot wanted to come and see this because you are studying engineering and how to run all of this, right?" You ask, and now that everyone (other than Celeste) is paying attention to you, there are a handful of nods among the half dozen people. "Well, then what are you waiting for?" You ask. "Celeste doesn't have enough hands to run this all on her own." There is something really amusing about the way that the group pauses for a moment, realizing what it is that you are telling them, and almost as one the group just lights up, before splintering apart.

One by one the different students leap towards a station, each finding a place. The confused and worried silence falls away into an almost familiar chatter. The actual things being said are all different, but the back and forth of stations reporting as everything goes as it should is still familiar from the bridge simulations that you have been in charge of in the past. "Celeste." You call out, watching as the girl moves from station to station, not saying anything, but still watching as the group does what they need to. "You good?" You ask, and the girl just nods.

With that in mind, you take one final look back at Celeste and the rest of the engineering students as they settle into a calm, everything happening the way that it is supposed to. If Celeste thinks that everything is fine, then that is good, even if you are worried about leaving her alone with the others given how much she struggles to communicate with some people. For now, the only thing that you can do is trust her.

Following the instructions of the map that you found, one that you continued to find on each floor at the edge of the stairs, it doesn't take long at all to reach the Barracks. And the Barracks aren't anything like what you might have expected.

Entering into the Barracks, you find an open area, two decks high that runs a good two hundred meters along the... This would be along the width of the ship, not the length. Every few meters, there are a pair of doors along the walls, and a quick glance inside shows something that you really didn't expect.

Each of the rooms is an individual quarter. Of course, even in comparson to just the One Year War, the amount of crew required to pilot a War ship has been ever so slightly dropping. And when the fact is combined with the fact that once you reach a certain point the number of additional crew members really doesn't increase that much, so for a massive ship like this one...

It does kind of make sense that there would eventually come a point where there would be the room for every crew member to have their own quarters like this.

"Impressive isn't it." Miss Jane says, leaning against the rail on the other side of the gap that is in between the two decks. Down below you can see there is some plant life set in a raised divider that has seats all around it. "I can't imagine how much this thing must have cost to build..." Jane continues to say, shaking her head. "But the more I see, the more things I have to wonder about all of this."

"Oh?" You have to ask, trying to figure out what it is that your teacher is getting at.

"Every bunk room has Looking Glass technology, and their own Wash Centers." There is a moment of silence. "Frankly, the shower heads are something else. But that's just your run of the mill strange. That isn't touching on the fact that this ship... well, [I]exists[/I] at all." She says. "This Hanger, the ship. None of it should be here." That... That is true, this is supposed to be an underground Bunker after all. "And just..." Your teacher sighs, shaking her head. "The fact that this thing was under the school... That means that the Headmaster had to have known about it. But... I can't imagine him embezzling funds. Even if he was... This isn't the kind of thing that those funds would be able to cover. This is insanely expensive. Beyond Prohibitively expensive."

"...And then there is the fact that it let me in, isn't there?" You ask, and the Teacher sighs at that, again.

"And then there is the fact that the Ship is reacting to you. While you were gone, the whole ship seemed to shake before the lights brightened up." Your teacher explains. "There was a bit of worry that the ship was going to explode from the Civilians, but to me it felt like a ship coming online for the first time."

"I actually have the answer to that." You admit, which just gets a chuckle and a smile out of your homeroom teacher.

"I assume it has something to do with the fact that none of the students returned with you?"

You give your own chuckle. "Okay, actually let me rephrase that. I have my own question related to that." A statement that makes Miss Jane raise an eyebrow. "This ship isn't using an ordinary Power Plant." You scratch at the back of your head, trying to figure out the right way to explain this all. "It was..." God, seriously... how do you say this and not immediately sound insane. Taking a deep breath, you push on. "Celeste called it a Getter Singularity Reactor."

The way that Miss Jane's grip on the rail she is leaning on makes her almost fall before she catches herself would be amusing in any situation other than this one. "I... [I]WHAT?!?[/I]" The teacher asks, struggling to keep her voice down. "A... A... Did you say Getter? As in Getter Rays?"

"Yeah... The whole Ship is running on them." You explain to the Teacher. "Admittedly, when the rest of the engineering students started working with Celeste, I did hear someone mention that the ship's Minovsky Particle Generators were online, and that the I-Fields were at full power. So... I don't even know. I'm starting to think that the only way out of this Hanger..."

"Is by getting the ship running. Okay... that is another question that leaves me completely baffled. At least I have a theory about why the ship is reacting to you."

That makes you perk up, but before Miss Jane can try to explain anything, the woman stands back up. "Since I think you might be right, we might as well get started heading towards the Bridge." Miss Jane says.

There is a part of you that wants to groan, because this whole area is near the back of the ship, and if the Bridge is where it should be, then there has to be something like a kilometer walk, in addition to however many flights of stairs to get up to the top of the ship.

Something of your apprehension must have shown through to Miss Jane, because the teacher gives you a smile of her own. "I can tell what you are worried about, and I do have some good news on that front. Follow me."

There is a part of you that wants to just leap over the space inbetween, but you aren't sure that you'd actually make it, and that would just...

Falling an entire deck would possibly break an ankle. Even if it didn't, it would certainly strain it. Thankfully, about ten meters down the way, there is a little bridge that connects the two sides of the second floor of the room, And now that you are looking, you can see more of them every ten-ish meters, making it relatively easy to move from one side of the room to the other.

Once you manage to cross over to her side of the... Well, these really aren't barracks, but it's more of the Private Quarters. Regardless, the teacher leads you over towards a set of stairs.that rise up out of the Quarters and into what you were assuming would be the halls of the Ship, but instead it looks more like you are in a L-car station. Not the least reason of which being the L-Car sitting there on the line.

As the two of you step into the L-Car, you notice that there is no lead car, and instead the is a simple terminal which has four different options on it.

Bridge, Hanger Bay, Security, Quarters

Naturally, as the L-Car is at the Private Quarters, it makes sense that the Quarters button is grayed out, and unable to be activated. Your teacher leans over, hitting the Bridge button before taking a seat. Following her head, you watch as the car starts to accelerate, sliding forwards along the length of the ship. One by one, the different stations roll by the car, until eventually, the L-Car comes to a stop at the foremost of the stations.

And as the two of you step out into the ship, you can already hear the sounds of people moving about above. Stepping forwards, you only barely notice the way that Miss Jane falls back a little, letting you lead out in front of her. Again, the teachers around you are acting weird, and you just aren't sure what is going on.

Really, at some point you are going to have to sit the two of them down and demand an explanation for what is going on.

Once you head up one deck, the doors in front of you slide open with a hum of energy as the noise gets even louder.

Of course, the first thing beyond the door is yet another set of stairs, and there is a short moment where you wonder what the point of it all is, before you hear a familiar voice. "Do you see the commands there on the terminal, Miss Elaina?" Instructor Suisei asks.

"Yes sir." The girl answers, quickly. Because despite the fact that you have always gotten along with the Instructor, he apparently has something of a reputation for being scary. Personally you don't see it, and it always confuses you when people act like that around him.

"Can you tell me which one of those would disable the I-Field?" The instructor asks.

"Uhh..." You can't yet see the girl, but the clearly nervous answer she gives tells you everything that you need to know. And apparently everything that Suisei needs to know as well.

"How about you, Mister Anderson?" Instructor Suisei continues.

"This one sir." The young man's voice comes through clearly. You don't know either an Anderson or an Elaina, which means that they have to be of the one of the other classes. Reaching the top of the stairs, you come to a stop for a moment, staring at the ceiling, which impossibly shows the ceiling of the Hanger. There is a moment where you wonder if this is somehow close enough to the top of the ship for a view of the outside to really be there, but a glance around the rest of the Bridge explains perfectly well. That's just a looking glass, as the rest of the walls of the Bridge also show the outside world, and there simply isn't any way for every wall to show the outside like that. "That is correct, Mister Anderson." Suisei says, walking across the bridge over towards one of the other terminals. "Now, since Miss Williams has arrived, I think we've had enough practice and that it is time for your final."

There is something almost gleeful in his words. "And for a bit of motivation, if you pass then we all get to live!"

Miss Jane behind you chokes, before she sighs. "That asshole is the same that he's always been. But... time to see if he's right or not."

"If he's... right?" You start to ask, and Miss Jane just shakes her head.

"Well, come and see." The teacher says, pointing to the table in the center of the bridge, and the chair set right next to it. "This is the Captain's chair." Miss Jane says.

"Once Shinku and myself found the L-car," Instructor Suisei says, "we immediately decided to check out the bridge. Once there we noticed that the systems were on low power, and that one of the ways to activate everything was for the Captain to sit in the chair." Wait... He can't seriously mean... "Every since one of us tried to sit in the chair. Nothing."

"While you were down in the Engineering Core, we found the rail line ourselves," Miss Jane explains, "And after meeting back up with Suisei we decided to test and see if any of the other students were able to get the ship running. Not a single one could."

...You are starting to get an idea where this might be going, and every single cell of yourself is just.

No.

No, you cannot be hearing what you think you are hearing. That would be just pure madness.

Yet the look that Instructor Suisei gives you, one of total confidence, one that isn't in the slightest afraid. His emotions reach out to you, even further reinforcing that sense that he believes in you. "Prez." Shinku starts to say, before pausing. "Apologies, [I]Captain[/I]." In that moment, with that one word it is like everything that you are just wants to leap right out of your skin and go screaming into the gunfire up above.

You... The captain of a dreadnought? You haven't even finished your schooling yet.

"The instructor's theory is sound." Shinku continues, with that faint smile of his on his face, confidence in your clear. "No one else was able to manage to activate the lift. We even have a theory as to why." Well that is good, because you don't have the slightest idea how this could be possible.

Suisei is the next one to stand next to you, before pointing to the hand scanner on the arm of the chair. "Your father is the supreme commander of the Shanxi Forces." Suisei says, "And it appears that this ship is genetically locked. Our current best guess it that your DNA is close enough to your father's to be able to pass muster." You aren't entirely sure that makes sense... but even then... Why would that make you the Captain, and not- The instructor puts a hand on your shoulder. "Given the attack on the Academy, we are looking at war. To put it bluntly, everyone on this bridge was going to be granted a War-time graduation, straight into service. The same is happening here, and as the only Class President to make it down onto the ship, the best candidate for leadership is you, Lysithea. I am..." The instructor pauses for a moment. "Putting myself in a leadership position would be a mistake. I am not fit for that role. Not anymore."

"And I was a Mobile Suit pilot." Miss Jane says. "I never actually went to an Academy. The specifics don't matter, but I... [I]Borrowed[/I]. A Zaku from a Neo Zeon pilot, and after doing a bit of work to make sure that I wasn't with them... Things happened, and I ended up on the Londo Bell under Captain Bright. You are actually the most qualified person here to be the Captain, even if this gene lock thing is bunk. Not that that would matter, because if we can't get the ship started, then we aren't moving at all."

There is only one thing that you can do here and now, even if the mere idea of it fills you with a terror that you don't know how to describe. You... In a position of power like that, without even managing to graduate. Like... Instructor Suisei is right, you are likely going to be given some kind of wartime graduation because of this, but that would just put you on a ship somewhere, not in charge of one. You aren't ready for this.

But as you look between the students, your teachers and your Vice President... You think you might actually be able to do this.

God, that sounds absolutely insane... but you might actually - You move, without even really thinking about it, and it is only as your hand lands on the scanner that you realize what you've done.

You've accepted the position of the Captain. Why in the world did you just do that?

But as the scanner finishes reading your palm, there comes a [I]Breep[/I], followed by a message appearing on the table in front of the group.

[FONT=times new roman]Welcome Captain Williams[/FONT]

There is a distinct moment, each of you sitting there and looking at the message on the table, before you close your eyes and take a deep breath. "Alright then, if this is going to be the way that things are." You say, before spinning your chair around to face the front of the ship, and the rest of the consoles. Two quick taps on the touchscreen on your other armrest brings up the ship's communications systems. "Bridge to Engineering. Celeste, do you hear me?"

"Uh?!?" The girl sputters out, and you can't help but chuckle. "I-I... Yes!" The girl says, stuttering over herself.

"Is the engine clear for lift off?" You ask, "It looks like the only way we are getting out of here is to fly out."

"I... I mean..." The girl takes a breath, she closes her eyes. "Yes Ma'am." There is something a little different in Celeste's words, let alone the fact that she is talking as much as she is at the moment. "Power... Green. Engines.... Green. Ready, set!"

"Helm?" You speak up, trying to get an idea of which station that you are even looking for, before Miss Jane points to one station, and Junpei sitting there, looking absolutely terrified.

"YES! Captain!" The young man calls out, eyes wide.

"Activate the launch sequence." you call out, and there is a moment of near panic, before the boy slaps his cheeks, and turns back to the console. You can hear him nervously muttering under his breath, and from the sounds of it he is checking each of the steps that he has to go through in order to do as you've ordered.

Until finally, with a call of "Launch Sequence ready, Captain." He turns back to give you one last look. And with a nod from you, he turns back to the screen. "Launch codes received by the Underground Hanger. Bay Door is beginning the Opening sequence. Engines responding cleanly." You start to feel the acceleration of the ship as it begins to start rolling forwards.

"Ah, wait. There's something important that we forgot." Suisei says, turning to you. There is a moment of pure disbelief as you watch the Instructor stand there, completely unmoved by the building acceleration of the ship.

"Something important?" Miss Jane asks, glancing over towards Suisei with a very odd look on her face. "And what would that be?"

"We need to name the Ship." The Instructor says, turning his eyes towards you, only now grabbing hold of the nearest seat as the ship builds more and more speed.

Miss Jane just groans, but for the first time in all the time that you have ever seen them interact, there is something beyond the usual bitterness between them.

But that is a very good point, the ship does need a name. It's bad luck for a ship to leave it's first dock without a name, and that is as close to this as you are ever going to know.

You take a moment to look between Seisui and Miss Jane, before the name that is just there on the tip of your tongue slips through. "She'll be the Harmonia." You say softly, and there is just something about the name, something that just fits. You can't quite explain why, and you can't exactly explain how... It just does.

Chapter Text

Days ago...

System 9825-F-R314 is a simple, small system. With a unary class F star, five planets orbiting it, one of which is habitable, and a grand total of eight moons along with two asteroid belts there is very little that actually stands out about the system, particularly for the Turian Hierarchy, as the single habitable planet has yet to develop anything more evolved than base lichens. The only feature that the system has which is of any interest to anyone would be the inactive Primary Relay orbiting out near the edge of the system.

That is Primary Relay 314.

Based on a handful of ancient Prothean maps that the Asari and the Batarians have managed to acquire, the theory is that Relay 314 and it's pair are the only Primary relays entering into the Orious Arm of the galaxy, a place that has long held wonder and curiosity for the Citadel Council species as every Relay map that has been recovered from the era of the Protheans implies that there are almost no relays across that entire area of space.

No one knows if that is simply because the Protheans never explored that arm of the galaxy, or because there was some other power in that area which refused to work with the Protheans or a million other different reasons. What is known is that the relay is inactive, and as a Primary Relay with it's partner being thousands of light-years from the closest known relay, that even if someone where to set off on an expedition to find the other end, it would be hundreds of years before they managed to arrive.

Near the edge of the system, there is a faint blue glow in the distance, the light pale and thin for a moment before all at once the glow rockets forward and snaps to a stop as a ship appears. A moment later the ship three more blurs of light appear, as three more ships arrive next to their leader.

Each of the four ships are just under two hundred meters long, with a wedge shaped hull and swept back wings. There is a moment of silence between the four before "Hawk Two Reporting." "Hawk Three Reporting." "Hawk Four Reporting." Each of the three arriving after the first calls out.

"Hawk One Registering." The captain of the first ship answers back, glancing over the instruments before him. These ships are part of vanguard of the Thirty-Fifth Patrol Fleet, something considered among the most prestigious positions within the entire Hierarchy's militaries. "Start preliminary scans." Captain Gaiaus Calaniv says, both to his own bridge, as well as to the others of the Hawk Vanguard. "Whispers have it that the Batarians have a pirate outpost not too far from here, and the Admiral would like to get the Relay check out of the way so that we can catch ourselves some four eyed shitstains." The soft chuckles rolling across the Bridge of Hawk One brings a soft smile to the Captain's face.

Over the last few months, the Batarians have been getting... Antsy. The exact reason is something that the Captain doesn't know, and to be entirely honest he doesn't care. Before he can think about any of that further, there comes a surprised beep from the console next to him. given the tone, that would have been the Communications console,. and a quick tap of a claw brings up the proper screen, even as the officer himself speaks up.

"Captain!" The Communications officer calls out. "Mass Shadow Scans are picking up something... Odd." That manages to get a bit of a surprised flare out of the captain's crest, who brings up the information on his own terminal. Indeed, while the other scans aren't picking up anything, there is something giving off a thermal reading, at the same place that there is an almost worryingly heavy mass reading.

"Hawk Flight," The captain says, bringing up communications with the rest of the vanguard group. "My Mass Shadow Scans are picking up a reading near the Garden world that isn't being picked up by any other scans. Can you replicate?"

There is a few moments of silence, before a quick flurry of confirmations. The other ships too are finding the same results from their own scans. "Continue your own scans, and stay back from the planet. I'll inform the Admiral when the rest of the fleet arrives." Gaiaus instructs the other captains, before turning his own attention to the communications officer. "Continue tracking the unknown. I want to know the moment that they attempt anything."

The chorus of agreements are music to the Turian Captain's ears, and there are a few long minutes as the ships continue their own work. Once again, it isn't far from the edge of the system where the glimmering blue glow begins to appear before one by one by one dozens of different ships begin to appear, each rocketing to a stop as they come to their own position in the arriving fleet's flanks.

Floating there in the center of the fleet is the Turian Dreadnought the PHS Diatryma. Once the rest of the fleet snaps into place behind the largest ship, the captain of Hawk One quickly sends a message to the flagship, and after only a few moment the call goes through.

"Captain. Status." The famous Admiral Tibirus Micon all but demands. Of course, the captain has long since grown used to the very brunt way that the Admiral acts. The benefits of having been an Admiral for nearly fifty years the captain idly supposes, but that doesn't matter in the here and now.

"No major changes to the system have been detected since the last patrol records of two months ago." The Captain reports, "However, there appears to be... something... in the orbit of the Garden world."

"Elaborate, Captain." The Admiral orders, his tone low, quiet and more than a little dangerous. The Admiral is... Well, to call him rigid and inflexible would be an understatement, as Admiral Micon is well known in the military to be among the most detail oriented leaders of the entire Turian Military complex. A decorated veteran of dozens of offenses, against pirates and marauders, and even taking part in the Campaign that occurred nearly forty years ago when the newest Turian colony decided that it didn't need the Hierarchy.

There are few things that the Admiral dislikes more than when someone breeches protocol, such as a Vanguard captain calling the fleetship without something important to say. It is entirely possible that with this single decision Captain Calaniv will have completely and totally stalled his career, the Admiral's word enough to destroy any future that he might have.

"Upon entering the system, Hawk Flight began routine scanning of the system. With one exception everything appears to be within deviance of the last visit two months ago." The Captain explains. "However, both Mass Shadow scans and Thermal scans picked up..." The Captain pauses one more time. "To be entirely honest, Admiral, I am not sure what our scans are picking up. The Mass Shadow is registering something far heavier than even your own ship, but visual scans are simply receiving some kind of scrambled data. Given the fact that all four members of Hawk Flight received the same results from their own scans, I do not believe that this is the result of mechanical failure. Furthermore it does not appear to be natural in origin and was not here during the last scans. As such, I have directed the matter to your, Admiral."

There is a moment of silence, thoughtful and quiet. "I see... Thank you for bringing this to my attention." Admiral says. "Continue handing the rest of the scanning of the system. I shall lead the fleet towards the unknown." The Admiral confirms, before closing the communication. Sitting in his command unit at the top and the back of the bridge, the Admiral turns towards the ensigns in charge of the ship's sensor. "Ensign Plautos, initiate a Mass Shadow scan of the Garden world. Ensign Cittinis, initiate a LIDAR burst towards the planet. Ensign Fronto, initiate a Thermal wide angle scan across the planet." Turning back towards the helm, the admiral opens a communication with the entire fleet. "Thirty-fifth Patrol Fleet. Hawk Flight has detected an unknown phenomenon near the garden planet of the system. All ships, quarter impulse towards the planet."

Sitting back, the Admiral closes his eyes for just a moment, allowing the sounds of the bridge roll over him like a comforting blanket of noise. The Ensigns speaking with their superiors in their own blacks, while the officers continue to run each section of the ship like a well oiled machine. This is the life that the Turian Admiral has been living for close to one hundred years at this point, and in fact that man's ninety-eighth birthday is only a few weeks away. There is a part of the elder Turian who hopes that everything goes according to how they have gone for years now, such that he will be home in time for his birthday. His great grandson should be turning fifteen soon, and the Admiral idly contemplates what to give the boy for his graduation from the Academy and his entrance into the Military.

...Unfortunately, there are many things that the Admiral could have expected, and could have hoped for, but there are times when life simply decides to throw a fastball instead. It is just over an hour and a half later when the Sensor Suite Ensigns begin to quickly chatter among themselves, the worry in their voices pulling the Admiral out of the not quite rest that he was taking. After a moment the Lieutenant Commander in charge of that section of the bridge approaches the Command Unit, giving a sharp Palaven Salute to the Admiral.

"Admiral." The Commander says, "The Mass Shadow scans are picking up movement. Whatever it is that we are approaching appears to have detected us."

"Now?" The Admiral notes with mild amusement. It's been an hour and a half since they arrived in the system, for this unknown phenomenon to have only noticed now raises many a question. Then again, "It could be that they are only now realizing that we can detect them. We may be dealing with an experimental stealth craft..."

One of the Ensigns approaches, not to the Command Unit, where they are most certainly not allowed, but close enough to gain the attention of the Commander. "Commander Gracilis." The Ensigns speaks softly, "I apologize for approaching, but the Visual scans are changing."

"Changing?" The Commander asks, both making sure to keep a respectful amount of attention on the Admiral without ignoring his subordinate as well.

"As the group is leaving the planetary orbit, our visual resolution is increasing. We have been able to determine that it is a patrol group of roughly one dozen ships."

A dozen ships... and yet supposedly all together they outweigh the Diatryma? Interesting... Or perhaps worrying.

"Sizes, ensign?" The Admiral asks, turning his attention to the youth in front of him. There is a distinct moment where the young man's eyes go wide, and even underneath his carapace the Admiral can see the boy go pale. Heh. There is always something always amusing about how the children react when he starts to speak to them directly and unexpectedly.

The young Ensign gives a... Rather sharp salute, given that he wasn't able to stop himself in time and full on smacks himself in the face. Of course, there is a part of the old Admiral that wants to chide the youth for such a simple and obvious mistake, but seeing the way his gaze drops even as he holds the salute is enough of a reprimand. Taking a breath, the young soldier gives a sharp nod. "One of the ships is roughly six hundred and fifty meters long. Three are roughly four hundred meters long. Four of the ships are three hundred and fifty meters long, . Finally, there are two that are between one hundred and two hundred meters long, and and two whose sizes are... uncertain. They are at most one hundred meters long, but the actual sizes..." the ensign shakes his head. "Whatever is causing the fogging that is working to hide them from visual sensors makes that impossible to tell from a single glance."

There is a tiny part of the admiral that is frankly fascinated by what he is hearing. Whoever it is near the garden world is using some kind of revolutionary new stealth technology...

Something that actually hides the ship from the viewers eyes.

Had he been asked about such a thing even a few hours ago, the admiral would have dismissed such an idea as nonsensical. The kind of thing that you would see in a movie. Only that very thing is now right in front of him.

There is a small part of the Turian, a part that not so coincidentally sounds like his now dead wife that wants nothing more than to sit down with these strangers and grill them for every ounce of information that they can get about this new technology. Of course, He was always the more... subtle of the two. She'd be here on the bridge, clacking her claws together and all but whispering in his ears that they should go and strip the metal from the very ships. Take everything that isn't nailed down, and just for good measure bring a tool box so that they can peel out every screw as they go.

In the end however, what truly matters is the fact that the fleet has discovered the ships, which means that their stealth technology is not perfect. "If the ships are starting to move, then it is simple enough to guess that they have likely detected us." the Admiral says, before bringing the connection up with the fleet once more. "All ships, increase to three quarters impulse. We will not allow these unknown ships to give us the slip."

By the admiral's command, the thirty-fifth patrol fleet begins to accelerate, starting to eat into the distance between the smaller group of ships and the fleet. With each passing moment, the visibility of the new ships becomes clearer and clearer, until something begins to become entirely clear.

The design philosophy of the new ships is distinctly different from the designs of the major polities within both Citadel Space and Terminus space. It is possible that this is just some new design from a startup that the Hierarchy admiral has never seen before, but...

But... Well, it isn't easy for the admiral to put a claw on what the 'but' in the situation is, just that he has a distinct feeling that the situation isn't as simple as that. He isn't sure what exactly is going on... Just that there is more to this situation than meets the eye.

The patrol fleet continues to get closer and closer, even as the new ships themselves start to move away from the planet...

And towards the Relay.

The admiral sits up further, before glancing over towards the tactical officer. "Commander Symanchu, check those ships against the Hierarchy's database." the Admiral demands. "There is a distinct chance that we are about to be initiating first contact."

That statement almost brings the ship up silent for a moment, as what the admiral says starts to sink in, and the realization of what it might be that is happening.

If the admiral is right... If this is a first contact situation, then that means that there is a very serious chance that the unknown species might do something that could cause a lot of problems. Particularly due to the fact that they are approaching the Relay.

New species or not, the fact that they know nothing about the Relays or not, the fact of the matter is that if these unknowns try to activate the Relay, there is nothing that the Admiral will be able to do but attempt to stop them. That is his mission, that is the entire point of the patrol fleet passing through these systems.

It is not something as simple or as clean as a matter of one nation inflicting their rules on another, but a potential threat to every civilization within not only citadel space but the Terminus systems as well. It is because of that that the admiral watches with bated breath as the ships continue to move closer and closer.

Damn it, the Turian is able to see the ships on the main view finder now, and he even recognizes the particular strategy that they are taking part in. The larger ships are acting as escorts for the smaller ship in the center of them all.

"Communication Core." The Admiral says, turning his attention to the Commander and the ensigns that serve under him. "Begin hailing the unknown ships. There is a chance that this is a first contact situation, so make sure to use every method of contact available within your abilities, even those actions that are considered primitive."

As soon as he finishes speaking the Admiral once again pulls an alert through the entire fleet. "All ships, full impulse is authorized. Begin attempting to gain contact with the unknowns. We cannot allow them to access the Relay."

There is a soft shudder than runs through the bridge as the flagship's engines push themselves to the operating max, and the admiral watches as the ships continue to get closer and closer to the Relay. They may be slower than the Patrol fleet, but that doesn't mean that the distances between them is disappearing fast enough.

Claws grip tighter and tighter around the arms of the command unit as the admiral leans forward, wishing with everything that he has that the situation doesn't reach the one point that he knows it coming.

If the Communication Core is unable to stop them, then the only option that the admiral will have to try and stop this from passing the point of no return would be a warning shot off the bows of the unknown fleet.

The admiral takes one last breath before he steels his resolve. He may not want to do this, but he doesn't have any better option. Clamping down on his worries and his fears, he does not allow his emotions to control him, but instead uses them as fuel to keep the worst from happening. "Gunnery Core." The admiral says softly, but firmly. "Calculate a firing solution - eleven degrees off of the front ship."

There is a moment of silence, and the admiral wonders if someone is going to speak up. That is the worst part of the man, the part that enjoys ripping and tearing into those who defy him, but his bridge crew is well trained, they are intelligent and they know what they are doing.

In fact, based on the words splintering across the Gunnery Core, the Commander there has already figured out what it is that he is planning on doing, and are working to make sure that the math and the angle is perfect.

"Firing solution acquired." The core commander says.

"Keep gun ports closed until it becomes clear that we have no other option." The admiral orders, and the man can all but feel the tension across the bridge start to wane.

...But as the minutes continue to pass, the unknown ships get closer and closer to the relay, all without a single response to anything that the Communication Core is able to send out... Until finally, with a sigh of frustration, the admiral turns to the Gunnery Core. "Open the gun ports." The admiral calls out. "Lay the guns."

"Opening gun ports." One of the ensigns in the Gunnery Core calls out.

"Laying Guns." Another calls out.

The admiral watches, taking a careful breath. "On my mark. Three." The admiral starts to count down, watching as the unknown ships continue forwards. "Two." The communication core continues, the admiral hearing as their work becomes more and more frantic as they attempt to find some way to stop this. "One." But it seems that there work is in vain. "MARK!"

There is a soft shudder as one of the heavy guns along the side of the dreadnought fires off, the heavy bullet spinning out into the depths of space at a heavy percentage of the speed of light. There are mere moments between the bullet leaving and it passing through the space in fro-

Suddenly, as the bullet passes into the fuzzy and indistinct space around the unknown ships, the bullet seems to leap off to one side. Horror crashes across the bridge as everyone realizes that in addition to all the other effects that the unknown stealth effect has, there is a degree of light refraction. It changes where everything seems to be. But the bullet has been fired, it has traveled the distance. There is nothing that can be done as the heavy round slams into the second ship from the front of the ground. There is no flash of kinetic barriers, instead the ship buckles, nearly folding in half before the ship ignites, exploding into a cloud of brilliant red-gold flames.

That wasn't the blue and white explosion of sundering mass effect fields, which raises only more questions that the admiral's mistake has already prevented them from learning the answers. The disparate members of the unknown group of ships scatter apart for a moment, dodging around the explosion before they fall back into formation, coming around to face the Turian forces.

There is a single moment where the old admiral wishes that he would have just taken a few more moments to try and understand the new unknown technology in front of him before acting... but the past is the past, and he will not let those under his command suffer for the mistake that he has done.

Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do, doubling down on the mistake that he has already made, but in order to protect those under his domain... the old admiral makes a simple decision. Opening a fleet wide channel, the Admiral takes a deep breath as he begins to give orders, this battle has begun with his mistake, but he will make sure it doesn't end that way either.

Now...

There is an old saying on Palavan - War, War never changes - Personally, Captain Allectia Kryik of the Hell Divers would like to find which idiotic ancestor came up with that statement and bring them here to the unknown alien world.

So far it has only been a few hours since the so called 'Peace Keeping Operation' began, and in that time everything has already gone sideways more than once. They've gone sideways over and over and over again. The first place where everything went to shit was just moments after the operation began. The first drop pods were launched, only for some kind of hidden underground turrets to pop up and start firing in order to take down the pods.

That was a problem in and of itself, but then comes the fact that the turrets are firing some kind of particle blast. These unknown aliens have ancestor-damned Directed Energy Weapons. The only people who have things like that are the super classified Salarian Prototypes that no one is supposed to know about, and whoever not only manages to encounter the geth, but survives and gets their hands on a Geth Plasma rifle.

But do the elites of the most prestigious patrol fleet of the Turian Hierarchy have access to that?

No!

Of course not. Thankfully, the captain is a little mollified when she realizes that the actual aliens themselves aren't fielding handheld versions of the technology, instead relying on electromagnetic coils to fire the heavy slugs that their guns fire.

And that is one thing that the Turian ground forces are very, very thankful for. For some reason, the aliens aren't using Element Zero technology in their weapons, and that means that the bullets that are being fired at them are much slower. Admittedly, yes, that does mean that the bullets themselves are larger, but ironically enough that is actually working against the unknown species.

Because this means that without having to worry about the extreme over penetration that you would get out of a Citadel round, the actual danger of the bullets is distinctly different from those that the ground forces have had to face before. After just the first handful of clashes, one of the soldiers began realizing the differences in the rounds. With a quick bit of math and some on the fly programming patches, the Turian forces have altered the parameters of their kinetic barriers.

Citadel rounds need to have over 95% of their speed and force bled off of them in order to slow them enough that they can't puncture through the armor of the Hierarchy. On the other hand, just slowing down these bullets some 60% of their velocity means that the rounds will ricochet off instead of penetrating. It's still painful, but the impacts aren't enough to crack a Turian's carapace, let alone break a bone.

Now of course, the actual sweet spot is something like 73%, which is enough energy bled off to keep the bullets from even bruising, but most of the Turians on the ground are going for something of a middle ground between the two, because every percent more that the bullets are slowed are just a few fewer bullets that the barriers can take before they shatter.

Unfortunately, it appears that that is the single real advantage that the Turians have in this hellhole of a situation that they have found themselves in. Because on top of the directed energy weapon encampments, there are also double digit meter tall mechanical monstrosities that the unknown species like to bring out to fuck with the ground forces.

The smaller of the Mega Mechs, as the ground forces have started calling them, stand between three to five meters tall. And those are the smaller ones. If there is something else that can be considered quote unquote good, it would be the fact that the smaller of the Mega Mechs are unable to use the directed energy weapons as well, either because they simply don't have enough power to power the particle weapons, or because they don't have the strength to lift the things.

But the same cannot be said of the larger Mega Mechs. Standing somewhere in the general ballpark of twenty meters tall, the damned things are closer to being walking buildings than weapons of war. Allectia is to have nightmares about the sounds she heard when one of the larger Mega Mechs stepping on some of the Turian ground forces. The way that those soldiers screamed...

In the end, the Turian forces did manage to get the last laugh. It wasn't easy, but there are few things that the Hell Divers do that are. The Captain's forces managed to use most of their heavy ordinance and their entire supply of explosives, but they managed to fell a single one of the larger Mega Mechs, one of the green single eyed ones that the Hell Divers are calling the Cyclops.

Of course, now that the primary bombardment is done, and the Hell Divers made landfall before managing to clear out a landing zone, the fleet in orbit can start sending down the Turian Forces Armor. Those damned walking machines might be capable of using any number of different weapons, but as far as the Hover Tanks are going to be concerned - those things are just going to be target practice.

At least... That is what the Captain sincerely hopes happens... Because the idea of having to face more of those horrible machines...

Especially because of the one final issue that has been turning this invasion into a living hell the likes of which that Turian captain has never experienced before. For some reason, on top of all the other issues that the Mega Mechs have presented to the Hell Divers, the single most problematic thing has been the...

Well, some of the stupider grunts are calling it the Anti-Tech field, but given that it doesn't actually effect any of the technicians all that badly because they have hardened tech to avoid the issues of EMPs, it seems to be more of an Electromagnetic bubble around the machines, which make it so that any tech that gets too close to them is ruined.

Omnitools are wiped and trashed, the automatic ammo counters in their smart guns are scrambled, and even things like radios and communicators simply don't work anymore. The how and the why are really beyond the Hell Divers...

What isn't entirely beyond the Hell Divers on the other hand are levers and buttons. You'd be hard pressed to find a Hell Diver who didn't have a dangerously low tolerance for buttons. They exist to be pressed after all, just like levers are made to be pulled.

If the girl's brother were here, he'd be scoffing at her, calling her a marker eating Hell Diver, but that doesn't matter.

What matters is that they managed to damage one of the Mega Mechs. It isn't fully functional, but the arms still work, and if Lieutenant Dioclentius can figure out the controls of the machine, the it might just be possible for the Hell Divers to sit the thing up and use it like a turret to help defend the Drop Zone.

As the Captain thinks all of this, there comes a rumbling from somewhere down below. For some reason, a trill of dread runs up the Captain's spine. Slowly, off in the distance something shifts, and the turian woman watches as an entire section of the forest out in the distance starts to rise up. Below the trees and grass and dirt are massive metal plates and humongous gears and cogs, all moving in unison as the entire forest section splits down the center, pulling away and opening up.

Allectia Kryik stares in confusion at the massive hole that has just opened up. The rumbling and the roaring is only building higher. Overhead, one of the alien fighter aircraft soars over the massive chasm, followed closely by a Turian fighter - only, as the fighter reaches the center of the massive chasm, a blur of deep blue rockets up out of the hole. It doesn't just slam into the fighter, but pass right through the smaller ship, reducing the turian inside into little more than paste.

The Captain can't say that she is happy to see this, but she has to admit a little relief, both that that loyal soldier of the Hierarchy wouldn't have suffered, but also that he didn't have to see the titan of a machine rising up out of the planet.

What is it with this race and building such insane structures? It's only as the machine makes its way completely free does the Captain realize that she is looking at a ship. Something larger than even the Diatryma. And it was underground. It is launching.

There aren't words for the sheer horror that runs through the Captain at that one simple realization.

It's possible for a ship to be that big.

As the ship rises through the air, there comes a burst of weapons fire from the ship towards a group of Turian fighters.

As the Acceleration builds further, there is a moment where the two teachers glance back and forth at each other, and there is a part of you that thinks that they are almost challenging each other. Daring the other to be the first one to move towards one of the still available seats, a game of idiotic chicken that continues even as the runway that this monster of a ship is riding begins to tilt upwards.

First slowly, but with each passing moment the incline increases, and the two have to put more and more effort into keeping their own positions. Thankfully, Miss Jane clearly is the smarter of the two, as she is the one that breaks first, moving towards the closest seat and settling in, a quick click of the restraints locking her in place.

Seisui simply gives the woman a smug look, before he too moves towards one of the other seats, collapsing down into the chair as the floor finally tilts far enough that he could no longer keep his balance. There is a distinct moment, before the other teacher too locks himself in place. Faster and faster the ship continues to go, until finally the ship itself is vertical, the weight of the acceleration pushing you back into your seat and making it almost hard to breath. Light appears from above, as the doors to the massive hanger finally come free.

Just as you had been worried about, the whole thing is somehow hidden underground, and above you can see fighters flicking back and forth across the space that your are about to come roaring through. There is a moment where the screen clearly shows a human fighter jet, only for it to bank away. And right as you lift out, through the hole in the world and into the sky, there comes a fighter with a design you've never seen before. It doesn't matter, the ship is barely more than a fly in front of the windshield that is your ship as it crashes straight through the unknown ship. Strangely, the explosion that slides across the front of the Harmonia is a bluish white instead of the red and yellow that explosions normally are.

"Gunnery!" You call out, glancing over towards the three stations, each with a different classmate. "You can see those ships with the swept back wings?"

"Yes Captain!" The students call out, and there is a distinct moment as you somberly realize what you are about to order, and what that means for the people at those stations.

"I'd prefer if you all make them disappear." You order. "Weapons free."

"By your order." One of the older students, the Anderson that Suisei was talking to when you first arrived on the bridge answers. And with that, the weapons of your ship begin to unleash their power on the forces of the unknown attackers.

As the Harmonia continues to rise, there comes a sudden bleeping warning from the console next to the Captain's chair. Carefully reaching out, you tap the alert, and almost at the exact same moment, there comes a call from the Communications Officer. "Captain!" The girl calls out. "Sensors are picking up... I.. It's a mobile suit, and the register says that it's one of ours?"

"On screen." You order, and with a click of only a few buttons, the front camera view shifts and changes, watching as a Mobile Suit rises out of the forest.

You can't say that you have ever seen a Mobile Suit quite like the one that rises out of the forest, the massive jet booster on its back struggling for a brief moment against the planet's gravity before the increasing acceleration smooths out and the suit quickly manages to rocket first past the Harmonia and towards the sky.

There is a small part of you that can't help but want to think that the suit is some kind of command unit, given the clear inspiration that the paint job has taken from the most famous commander to have risen out of the eighteen years of Mobile Suit warfare, the man known as the Red Comet and the red Zaku line units that he used over the course of the One Year War.

At the same time, the thing that really sticks out in your head is the fact that your Comms officer referred to the suit as being one of yours... And if that is true, then...

You glance back towards your quivering comms officer, and a moment of realization hits you. Worry starts to gnaw at your gut. You ship is utterly massive. Larger than any that you've ever seen before. And basic physics tells you that the larger an object is, the more force is required to push and overcome the gravity well of a planet. The forces already at play are almost more than some of your officers can handle... But they have all had training to handle this. It is going to be so much worse for the civilians down in the guts of the ships trying to settle into their personal quarters, or the other students down in engineering.

For the moment, you have to hope that there isn't anyone who has gotten too badly hurt, even if the rational part of your mind knows that there is all but zero chance of that having happened. Someone, somewhere in this ship has gotten injured because of what you've chosen to do. And the best that you can hope for is that they aren't dead.

But the consequences of your actions is something that you will have to deal with in the future, once the ship is no longer in danger of being blown out of the sky by whoever is attacking. Instead you take a breath, and you focus your attention on the girl in the communications officer's chair. "Get me in contact with that suit." You order, even as your hands grasp tightly against the arms of your captain's seat.

Then, even as you give the order, you feel something start to change, the pressure against you sliding slowly up and back... The feeling is familiar, but with the slowly increasing number of explosions appearing in the air around the ship you really don't have the time to try and focus on that.

"Connection established!" The girl in the Comms officer chair responds, as a section of the forwards viewing screen separates off, and before the video feed even connects, you already can hear an angry voice from the other side.

"You! Stupid!" A gruff, but not masculine voice growls out as the cockpit camera comes online, revealing the figure within the unknown machine.

Inside of the machine's cockpit, the dark haired girl leans this way and that, her hands leaping from console to console as she continues to press buttons and work at locked, immobile levers as she grumbles angrily. "What kind of idiotic imbecilic troglodyte installs a dumb ass fucking override that completely locks the pilot out of the controls in the middle of an attack?!?" The girl rants, before she leans back, running her hands through her hair. As she does, she spots the communication window open on the panoramic screens. She pauses, blinking in surprise.

"Oh... Uhh... hello there?" The girl offers, even as she continues to glance between the window and the controls around her. "Who are... Wait, I've seen that bridge before, the eggheads that built my Barby used that during all of his testing and construction. Who are you, and how are you on the bridge?" The woman asks, and there is a distinct moment where you aren't entirely sure how to answer her question.

You aren't really sure what it is that you want to say, but before things can continue too much further, you hear Miss Jane give a loud, very obvious cough. "Captain, you should introduce yourself." The woman points out, which just makes your face go a little red as you realize that she is indeed correct.

Right. Right. "I am Captain Williams of the Harmonia." You announce, and even as you say that little bit, the girl in the cockpit, who honestly looks like she might even be younger than you, not by a lot, but by a little perks up.

"Wait... You're Captain Williams?" The girl asks, and there is just something... Not exactly dismissive in the girl's tone, but certainly something that leaves you almost bristling for a moment. "You're different than what the Eggheads prepared me for, but that doesn't really matter." The girl says, leaning back in her seat before she snaps off a sharp salute. "Pilot Lillian N of the Gundam Barbatos G, at your command ma'am."

Of course, while you can't see over your shoulders towards where Ins- To where Edward and Jane are, you can still feel the way that they look over at each other. They've accepted you as their captain, so you need to do everything that you can to live up to their expectations, which means that you can't keep calling them by the old titles that they have been using up until now.

As you try to internalize those thoughts, you can see the viewing windows starting to tilt as the nose of the Harmonia begins to dip, dropping just enough that the ship isn't flying directly up, but instead at an angle in order to make escaping the planet's gravity easier. However, as you do there comes a heavy shudder that runs through the bridge, followed quickly by exclamations from the others around you.

"Captain!" One calls out. "Multiple impacts from enemy attacks. The I-Field did nothing... It's... The enemies are using... Kinetic Weaponry?"

"Hull breaches on Decks One, Three-A, and Six-C detected." Another student calls out. "Emergency Sealing has successfully closed the breaches, but we can't keep taking hits like this."

"...Fuck." Lillian says quietly as she continues messing with her controls. "Barby has taken me up over your ship, but I don't have any controls, and I know that the six frames on your Harmonia are Space Frames, which means they don't have any atmospheric flight capabilities.." The girl growls out, "If I can't get control back, you're going to be little more than a fish in a barrel for these idiots."

There is something about that which confuses you. Why in the world would that mobile suit's override bring the Barbatos G above the Harmonia? You quickly glance across the bridge - You know what you are looking for, but not which station that it would likely be found at. Ah, there!

"What is the status of the launching and recovery systems?" You call out, and there is a moment as the different members of the bridge all struggle to find the information that you need, before the student at one of the stations turns... Anderson, you think the boy's name was, calling out. "Both Catapults are fully functioning. However there is some kind of override active on the Launch Elevator, it has begun moving."

Well, at the very least, that gives you an idea of what is happening here, and why. If the override taking control of the elevator away from you is the same override affecting the Barbatos, then that means that it is likely that the suit is attempting to dock.

"Gunnery, focus your fire on any of the ships that appear to be heading for the Barbatos. I don't think that we have a way to override the lockout from here, but we need to make sure that our new friend manages to hitch a ride before we get out of the atmosphere and can really start fighting." You order, taking another glance around the bridge as you try and figure out what else it is that you can do.

Thankfully, with all the work that the Gunnery is giving to make sure that nothing manages to get close to either the Harmonia or the approaching Gundam it doesn't take long at all before you hear the heavy thud echo through the comm link as the towering machine lands down onto the elevator deck. The sound is followed by a handful of heavy clicking sounds as the massive arm supporting the mobile suit locks into place, and the entire elevator beings to lower once again, drawing the Barbatos and its pilot into the Harmonia.

Anderson checks the screen in front of him, before the young man nods to himself. "The Barbatos has docked."

That is one less thing that you need to worry about, at least for now. Instead, you need to figure out what needs to happen next. Across the view ports, the blue of the sky begins to darken towards purple as the ship pushes higher and higher into the upper atmosphere. With a moment of thought, you know what you need to do, but you aren't entirely sure how to do it.

When you first arrived on the Bridge, you noticed that there was a Holo table right behind the Captain's chair, and even as you sit there, you can glance over a shoulder to see the thing. Now how do you... A couple of quick looks about the seat reveals what you are looking for - A level near the bottom of your chair. A quick pull and you nearly swing around back just from the forces at play, but you manage to swivel back in order to face the table.

A glance over the thing doesn't answer exactly what you had been hoping to find... but there is a part of you that is just relying on hope at the moment. So far, pretty much everything has just started working the moment that you lay a hand on it, and maybe this is going to be the same. Pressing a palm against the top of the table, there comes a soft glow that runs from the top of your fingertips to the butt of your palm and back again. Then the rest of the table begins to light up again, before the holographic images begin to fall into place as the scanned information is rendered into something that you can actually use. First is the rolling landscape of the planet and the city below, with a single blue diamond that represents the Harmonia, based on the floating tag next to it.

Which does raise more questions. You just decided on the ship's name, but somehow it already knows that it is the Harmonia. Whatever. Not important right now, you'll have to try and figure that out later.

Next to appear are the numerous green dots on the ground with a few in the air that seem to represent the different mobile suits and frames that the defenders have control of. Then green triangles up in air that would represent the ships fighting on behalf of the colony. Before finally, the red triangles and red diamonds begin to appear across the holotable. Most of the red triangles are in combat with the green triangles, while the majority of the red diamonds are still higher up.

There is just so much going on in the field, and you are struggling to try and keep track of all the movement and all the action. However, before you have a chance to even start to sort things in your head, there comes a cheerful little brrreep! from the table as a different comms window opens up, this time over the table.

"Unknown Aircraft, identi-" You father is on the other side of the screen, angrily scowling as the words spill out of his mouth before he pauses. You aren't sure what your father had been expecting, but given how confused he looks right now, it certainly wasn't you.

"Uhhh... Hi Dad?" You offer, and there is a quiet groan from where Edward sits, one hand over his face as as Jane just shakes her head. Realizing what you just said, you can't help but cough in embarrassment. "This is... Acting Captain Williams of the Harmonia." You say, trying to put on a bit of a more serious front in front of your father.

"...Acting Captain." Your father repeats, before glancing around to the rest of the things around him. You can see a direct moment where he is thinking about something, but you aren't sure what. Turning back to the comm window, the man gives you a solid stare. "Acting Captain Williams, where did you find that ship?" Your father- No. The General in charge of all military operations on Shanxi asks.

Sitting up as straight as you can, despite the pull of the forces effecting the ship, you give the General a sharp salute. "The ship was discovered in a hanger hidden under the Bright Academy." You explain simply, and the general gives a soft sigh, nodding as if that was somehow expected.

"Very well." The general says, sounding less than pleased with that information. He takes a deep breath, the air hissing through his teeth. "Captain, I am giving you this directive. Reach the Sol Sphere and inform the nations of humanity what is happening here. Inform humanity that our eight years of peace have come to an end, and that War has returned."

That isn't exactly an narrow set of instructions, but at the same time there is just so much going on right now, you need to figure out how to handle things yourself if you want a solution. But this at the very least gives you a direction for how to handle things at the moment.

Really, there are only two final things that need to be said. Glancing over towards the rest of the Holo table, you start to feel the soft shift as the planet's gravity begins to have less and less pull as the Harmonia begins to finally push through and into space. "Father, stay safe. We'll be back."

Chapter Text

As the Barbatos slowly starts to drop down towards the top of the Harmonia, there is a moment where Lillian pulls her hands back from the controls. At this point, as much as she wants to get out there and give a bloody nose to whichever fools have gone and attacked the Colony, the fact is that as close as she is to the ship, if things were to pass back into her control without any warning, the Barbatos would likely crash and do more harm to the ship than good.

So instead the girl sits there, arms crossed with a frown on her face as the ship carefully clangs down onto the retrieval elevator, the heavy clicks echoing through the frame of the Gundam as the supporting arm braces against the back of the massive war machine in order to prevent it from falling backwards as the ship continues to accelerate.

At the very least, despite all the other problems that the pilot has, Lillian is able to recognize and appreciate the sheer level of complexity and programming skill required to take command of her Barbatos from her in order to maneuver the machine into the skies as well as matching the Delta-V of the Harmonia.

That doesn't mean that the girl isn't uncomfortable watching as the sky slowly slides up and out of her view as the machine is drawn down into the guts of the ship, down into it's position of prominence in Hanger 1.

Really, the worst part of all of it is the fact that until such a time as the ship actually manages to get out of the planet's gravity well, the girl is going to be trapped here in the cockpit, the forces at play making it all but impossible to climb out of the cockpit, let alone get across the hanger towards the elevators.

Actually no... Now that the girl is thinking about it, the actual worst part of all of this is the fact that trapped in her cockpit at the moment means that the girl doesn't have the slightest idea what is happening up on the bridge, or more importantly further out into battlefield.

All she can do is wait and hope that it doesn't take too long before she can start to move.

The Harmonia continues to rise higher and higher through the skies, the blue almost all but gone as the first stars manage to peak through the last remnants of the atmosphere, and as that pull of the planet gives way to the weightlessness of space, so to does the Holotable change it's view of the battlefield. With an audible click, the entire image changes, pulling back such that the planet hovers there in a glimmering representation of the solar system.

This isn't everything that the ship's sensors are able to pick up, but it does cover the important information that the Captain certainly needs at a glance. You've only seen a few holo tables such as this one, but even among those that you have seen, this one is by far the more impressive of them all.

Which is just what makes all of this so... So...

...So something. There is something about all of that bothers you. Something that isn't right.

There is something wrong here.

There is something about the information on the Holotable that just doesn't sit right with you. There is the location of the Harmonia, marked with the same diamond symbol that it always has shown, along with a helpful little tag that marks the ship as the XSD Harmonia. Below the name there are a handful of little symbols... You've seen most of them in your tactics class, but at this exact moment you aren't really focusing on them to have an idea what they might mean.

Probably a register of what Mobile Suits are within the ship at a glance to be able to better plan, but only one of the symbols that you can see there looks to be a Mobile Suit Sigil...

Whatever. That isn't the part of this that feels wrong, so you can ignore that as being the problem for the moment. There's the scattered remnants of the Shanxi defense flight, but given the fact that there were less than 30 ships set to protect the still unfinished colony, it really isn't a surprise that they are scattered before this fleet of over three hundred vess...

Huh.

That... That's it.

That is the problem that you have been trying to click together in your head. There are over three hundred different vessels across the enemy fleet.

How in the world do you know that? Given how close the different ships are to one another, their collective I-Fields should have made it impossible for even the Navigational LIDAR system to have been able to detect the ships at all, and while the ship's sensors should have been able to come up with something of an estimate, to clearly be able to mark out each ship of the opposing forces like that is utterly strange.

You've never seen anything like this in all your years of training. It's almost like the unknown ships that are attacking don't have I-fields. Then again, they also struck with Kinetic based weaponry...

Just who in the world are these people? And what in the world is going on with their tech?

Those are questions that you have, but right now, with everything that is going on, you don't have the time to ask that. Instead, you just need to focus on getting out of here and back to the Sol Sphere in order to bring down the all the forces that Humanity has to bear on this threat.

Instead, you need to focus on pushing through, on getting past the attackers and making sure that you can get back to the Earth.

As you start to look over the forces arrayed before you, an idea begins to percolate in your head. A terrible idea, one that probably isn't going to work...

But you've been told to get through to the other side, and while a glance over towards the planet's sun does give you the hint of another idea... Performing a slingshot around a star is one of the most complex maneuvers that you know of, and if it goes wrong it can go terribly, horribly wrong.

No, instead you are going to go with the one idea that the forces arrayed against it would never expect. A pull of the lever at the bottom of your seat allows you to spin back around to face the front of the ship once more. "Shinku!" You call out towards the Helm where your Vice President continues to handle the ship. The boy might not turn to look at you, but you can feel his attention sharpening away from the console and towards you. "The Janus Gate is on the other side of the enemy fleet." You call out. "We're going to push right through their center."

Edward tenses from where he sits next to you, and you can feel the apprehension he has for the idea, but at the same time Jane just laughs. "Going to try and throw them off?" The teacher asks, "Ballsy. Dangerous, but ballsy."

"Do you have a plan, Captain?" Edward asks, and you nod, a grin starting to cross your face.

"Shinku, you remember the season finale of Dreis Ranger, right?" You ask. There is a moment of silence, no one seeming to understand the nonsequiter before Shinku chuckles.

"Ah..." The young man says, leaning forwards over the console as his hands grip the controls. "I think I know what you're talking about. Just make sure that we have the suppressing fire to keep them on their toes."

"Gunnery!" You order, as you start to outline your plan for the rest of the bridge to understand, Edward chuckling softly under his breath as he hears what it is that you are wanting to achieve.

After what felt like an eternity of waiting, Lillian finally manages to take an unencumbered breath as she feels the last tendrils of Shanxi's gravity finally slip free of the girl. Leaning forwards, the girl disengages the harness, before opening the cockpit of her glorious Barbatos. Kicking off, the girl drifts out across the hanger.

As she lands softly at the other end of the hanger, the girl takes a single moment to just... take in the sensation of being in Zero gravity. This is only the third time that she has ever been to space, as nearly all the training that she has been doing towards joining Captain Williams has been hidden underground.

And while this Captain Williams is a young woman instead of the dark haired man that her trainers prepared her to work with... Well, that really doesn't matter to the girl if it gets her away from the labs that she has been a part of for so long.

Lillian only allows herself to revel in the sensation of being free for but a moment, because this might be the thing that she has been training for for so long, it is also a combat situation, and that means that she needs to get to the bridge in order to understand what the hell is going on.

A few careful maneuvers, and the girl lands barely before the L-car station that runs through the ship. Idly hitting the button that calls the car, the girl finds herself waiting...

Which she hates.

She hates waiting, she hates sitting by and doing nothing.

It reminds her too much of... No. The girl refuses to even think about that. Thankfully, she doesn't have to sit by and try to struggle against the darker parts of her own mind for long, as the L-car quickly arrives. There is a brief moment where the girl wonders just how this is all going to work, the L-car while in space.

She's never been on a ship that had something like this before... Well, technically she has been on the Harmonia while it was still in the hanger, but never while it was in the air. Or in space. As the doors of the L-car open, the girl casually floats inside. Hitting the button for the bridge the car doesn't begin to move immediately, and instead there is a soft series of chimes, as somehow the bottom of the car starts to pull at her.

The first chime the pull is barely there, the second enough that her feet hit the ground, and by the third she is fully standing. Five full chimes go off, before the girl finds herself once against standing under the weight of a planet's gravity. How is such a thing even possible?

Lillian has never heard of a technology such as this one, which... Admittedly, there are a lot of things that the girl has never heard of before, but she tends to have a good grasp of mechanical things after all. The eggheads who...

They taught the girl... At least half of what she knows about the Barbatos and it's abilities, how to work and repair and tune the complex machinery that makes up her Barby.

So an artificial gravity system like this one... That is something entirely new to the girl. None the less, it allows her to quickly ride the L-car through the ship and towards the bridge.

Arriving at the end of the line, those same chimes play back in opposite order, and with each one the girl can feel the effects of gravity slowly rolling away until once more she is floating there in the center of the L-car. Pushing forwards, the girl enters into the...

Strangely empty bridge. Admittedly, the few times that Lillian had actually been up on the bridge before there had been dozens upon dozens of different scientists, each moving from terminal to terminal as they installed all the different machines and terminals into the bridge, while others worked to program all the complicated mechanisms that the ship would need to function as it should.

Among the different things that they would have installed would be the stupid program that stole control of her Barby from her.

That... was a bridge that was in the middle of being built, not the bridge while it was in use, so that might not be a perfect comparison. Even so, there are less than a dozen people working on the bridge now, which is nowhere near the thirty total stations that the bridge has room for. That's not even counting the Captain and the Executive Officer's chairs either.

Regardless of that however, the Captain stands tall, quickly throwing orders back and forth between the different people along the bridge, and a glance towards the Looking Glasses makes it entirely clear why that is.

So far the first part of your plan has worked like a dream. To explain the plan in the simplest of terms, there are a lot of things that an enemy might expect out of a two kilometer long ship like the one that you've found yourself becoming the captain of. The most obvious tactic that they'd be expecting out of a ship like this one would be to circle around the far edge of the battlefield, instead relying on whatever complement of Ace piloted mobile suits to actually fight the war.

If the ship was some kind of battleship, then it might be expected for you to hold back and figure out the proper firing range for your weapons in order to take down as many ships as you can in as few shots as you can.

You've not done either of those things.

Instead you've charged straight forwards guns blazing the entire while, aiming not at the fleet, but at the alien Janus Gate beyond the fleet. The enemy didn't have the slightest idea how to handle that, especially since it turns out the Harmonia is quite a bit faster than you would have expected given it's sheer size.

Rather than potentially shatter across the Harmonia's bow, the enemy ships starts to scatter apart, allowing the ship to continue straight through, unimpeded by the sweptback ships.

However, now that you've pushed into the center of the enemy forces, you are reaching the most dangerous part of your plan.

Having scattered the enemy fleet's vanguard and pressing on through further, you are now in the center of it all. What that means is that if the enemy were to start trying to shoot now...

Well, there isn't exactly a lot of space for Shinku to try and maneuver around, not when they strikes would be coming from every angle. Of course, but the same token, it is also one of the potentially safest parts of your plan, given that if the enemy does shoot, and they miss... Well, the other only thing around for them to hit would be their own allies.

That is the real nature of the gamble, to be honest. Because there are people out there who are more then willing to try burn down their own allies in order to get even the slightest of hits against the enemy. The Titans, for instance, were almost happy to turn on each other at the end of the day.

All at once, the results of your gamble come through as you, Shinku, Anderson, Edward, and the arriving Lillian all pause, turning to one side as one. Before you even have a chance to say anything, the ship starts to tilt, and there is a blaze of light that goes soaring by the end of the Looking Glass.

Whoever these enemies are... It is clear that being there in the center of it all, they are willing to try and strike at you all, regardless of what it might mean for their own allies.

And at the moment, the Harmonia is surrounded.

There is a part of you that is utterly confused by the tiny slivers of burning light that come soaring past the edge of the ship as Shinku uses every inch and instance of his instinct to push and pull back and forth, barely managing to maneuver, like a mad touhou player dodging every drop of rain.

The only difference being the fact that somehow, impossibly Shinku is actually managing it. There is a part of you that just fails to understand how this could be happening, surely the Gunners of the other ships would have to be able to get a good look from this distance...

The fact that so many of the shots are going so wide... There is a part of you that is whispering something utterly nonsensical. Something that you couldn't possibly actually believe...

And yet each and every time that something new is revealed about the attackers... there is a part of you that has to start to wonder...

These attackers aren't using I-fields to protect themselves, that much is obvious based on the fact that you are actually managing to keep track of them through the Holo Table.

These weapons.., the few impacts that struck against the hull during the early parts of lifting off were mass based weapons. Actual shells, like the kinds of things that infantry still use.

And now so many of their shots are so far off the mark that Shinku isn't even having to dodge them. Like they don't know how to handle the Minovsky effect on scanners and the like.

Are these... Are these people some kind of... like, potential human group that snuck out of the Earth sphere through the Janus Gate before the Decade of Doom and the discovery of Minovsky Physics?

Or are they just another alien threat come to attack humanity?

It sounds a little crazy to say that, but at the same time it almost makes more sense than anything else.

the only thing is that you've...

Well, you've never heard of a species of aliens that would actually invade with an armada and a fleet like this. Normally... Well, they either fly through space unbothered by the void like the Invaders, or they construct their own Super Weapons Platforms for their attacks, like the Campbellans did.

Doing this... It just goes against everything that you understand of the alien races that have attacked humanity in the past.

From side to side and back and forth the Harmonia rocks, and all the while you can feel the stress pressing against Shinku as his mind struggles to keep track of all the different things that are happening around you all. Yet somehow... As the sweat starts to pour down your face, and as the sweat starts to pour down Edward and Lillian's faces, the stress becomes less and less on the helmsman.

This... You've never felt something like this before, and it very much is centered around your teacher, your executive officer, the man sweating harder than any of the others. Here in this moment you can almost hear... whispers... Bare sounds that dance there at the edges of your thoughts.

The words are familiar, but the voices unlike any that you have ever heard before. The words, they are like an itch against the whole of yourself, and not in a good way. Not in a kind way.

A part of you tries to follow after the sounds, but before you have a chance there is a hand at your shoulder. Jane is there, her eyes sharp and hard for a moment as she pulls you back. Not so much with her words, but instead the moment that you look to the woman, there are just so many different feelings there, all bottled up into a mix that there are no words to describe.

So many different emotions, all so different from one another, and yet so connected. Fear and hate and love and joy and sadness and misery and as it all is there, you hear the whispers no more.

That... Whatever that was, it was not a good thing, and it was not something that you want to feel again, not so long as it leaves you shivering with chills.

Beyond that, there is something else, something important that you barely manage to click together in this moment that everything falls together again.

The rain of bullets have come to an end, and the ships are all behind you. A turn towards the Holo table confirms what you both hoped... and what you've feared.

The unknown fleet isn't following. Instead, now that you've managed to push through, the formation starts to close again, only slowed by the way that they have to continue to struggle against your own weapon's fire. The strange thing is that the fleet isn't continuing to fire at the Harmonia, and instead turning it's attention back to the planet. Either to create a blockade, or to continue the assault on the surface you aren't sure.

For now, what matters is getting everything ready, and through the Janus Gate towards the Earth. Of course, even then once you move through the gate there will still be four days of travel...

Chapter Text

???

Somewhere in the Sol System, far from the front lines of Shanxi, there stands a building. An entirely ordinary building, it doesn't stand out in any way - not in looks or construction or materials. Two stories tall, it has an rather unassuming exterior, with fading red brickwork that shows that it has been here like this for year and years and years on now.

Every day, thousands of people walk along the sidewalk next to the building, giving it not a single thought in their heads, as there is nothing about the building worth thinking about. The name of the company over the front door is one that they can all... vaguely be certain that they have heard of, but at the same time...

Eh... Maybe not?

The logo... Most people would say that it is familiar, even if they can't say where they've seen it before. It is vague and generic enough that it is hard to keep track of. So those people go about their days, entirely unaware of the truth, and what is happening down deep beneath their feet.

Somewhere far below the ground, a figure sits at a desk, idly glancing back and forth between multiple tablets, computers, and screens, checking each one for different things. They are referred to only as the Minister. There are so many things happening within the Human sphere, and for the Minister's plans to come to fruition, they and the organization that they control must ready themselves.

The day is coming.

Soon.

But for the time being, in order to protect the perfect future, now is a time for quiet. A time for carefully monitoring and watching the many governments and organizations of the human sphere. Some of them think to make a difference, while others are only interested in carving out their own little fiefdoms on the ground or among the stars.

Zeon and the rising Zanscare Queendom are obvious ones that need to be watched, while the arrogant Jupiter Empire must be kept in check. Then there are the nations of the now fractured Earth, and the many factions infecting their lands. Organizations such as the Saotome Institute Remnants - scattered to the winds after the destruction of Pittsburg and the death of Musashi, the Photon Power Laboratory - which even now continue working to spread Super Photon Power across the Human Sphere, The Nanbara Connection - Still jealously guarding the secrets to the creation of Super Electromagnetic Steel and working to uphold the fragile peace between Humanity and the Campbellians. There are still yet others, such as the remnants of the Dinosaur Empire cast out towards the edge of the Solar system, and so many others.

But there is one particular organization that the Minister continues to watch with a quiet rage.

Honestly, calling them an organization isn't accurate. They are barely more than an idea at this point, one that some are calling a movement, but if the shrouded figure has anything to say about it, that it all that they will ever be.

The Orchestration

Or the Orchids as they are starting to call themselves. The figure scoffs, shaking their head. The Orchids have been calling for the nations of the Earth, the colonies still under their control, and the now independent spacefaring nation of the human sphere to come together - Not under the control of single guiding light, but instead each individually, as if they were instruments playing the same music in harmony.

Time and again the Minister has worked to undermine the development of such foolish ideas... and yet every time they manage to bounce back. It is utterly ridiculous, and the Minister isn't sure how it keeps happening.

But before the Minister has a chance to look over any more of the documents that they have been collecting from the hundreds of contacts and the thousands of connects that have been gathered before them, there comes the soft click-clack of heels against the tile flooring as the Minister's second in command approaches.

"Prime Minister." The Assistant says, carefully placing a single tablet down onto the Minister's desk. "We have news from one of our Assets on Shanxi." The dark haired woman says, flicking her head to get her hair out of her eyes. "The Colony is under attack from an unknown enemy. I have already taken the liberties of assigning Project W to preventing the spread of information. It has managed to convince the Source that allowing the Whispered to be aware of the attack would be counter productive to it's goals."

"An attack... On Shanxi?" The Prime Minister asks, taking a moment to glance towards the other tablets littering the desk. None of the other forces have so much as moved a single toe out of line from what is expected, and this attack... It is very much not expected.

"Indeed." The assistant says, glancing down at the screen she placed on the table. "According to our User, the technology that the attackers are using fails to match design principles of known factions, and doesn't match anything gleaned from the source. It is possible that this is an external alien threat."

That actually brings a momentary smile from the Prime Minister, fingers carefully lacing as the figure nods. "Interesting. We can use this to our advantage. Good job. It seems that our time tables are changing. We should prepare for the works ahead." A beat of silence. "A pity that the Magnum Opus was on Shanxi. It would have been so very useful for handling the works to come."

"Well, we can't have everything." Another long moment of silence, before the Assistant smiles. "As for your lunch, Minister?"

"Hmm..." The figure leans back in their chair for a moment. "I believe that I will have a Louis XIII Pizza."

The assistant nods. "With the UC Double Zeta vintage, or the 1945?"

A long moment of thought, before the figure grins. "I think today is a good day. Humanity is under siege once more. I'll have the 1774 Vercel."

"At your order, Minister." The assistant confirms, before turning and leaving the room. There is a part of the Minister that wants to take the moment and just watch, what is that old phrase? 'Hate to see you go, love to watch you leave' But there is a great deal of work to be done, so much that must be handled before the news returns. Glancing over the tablet that the assistant left, the Minister sighs.

Given the orbital control of the situation, it may very well be weeks before Humanity learns of the assault on the colony. Which is more than enough time for their plans to come to fruition.

Turian 35th Patrol Fleet
Orbit over Unknown Race's planet
Codename 'Greenspot'

There is a long moment as the Helmsman of the PHS Diatryma watches the drop pods begin to fall towards the planet below, followed swiftly by the fleet of Interceptors readying themselves to face off against the planetary forces below.

From his position in control of the ship, the young Turian is able to see the world so far below. At the distace that the fleet is from the planet, it looks like a toy, something that the navyman would be able to simply reach out and grab hold of with one hand.

The Helldivers in their drop pods are supposed to work to remove the ground forces from their own landing points in order for the Patrol Fleet to carry out it's mission. A mission that young Reitok Vinonia finds himself... struggling to understand.

Of course, young Reitok Vinonia is but a mere helmsman just over twenty years of age, it is not his place to understand the greater whys of the missions that the Admiral is ordering. He is a helmsman, all he is supposed to do is focus on his job, doing the best of what he is ordered such that one day he will gain the promotions that he needs to move on up in the world. His job is just to move the dreadnought at the center of the fleet from place to place as the Admiral or the Captain orders.

It most certainly wasn't his job to wonder about why the Turian Patrol Fleet was going after some strange unknown race. The group that the Patrol Fleet first encountered might have attempted to open a Prime Relay, but at the same time it is more than obvious that the only reason that they did something like that was after realizing that they were being chased by the Turian forces. And really, what kind of ship wouldn't end up panicking and going for the closest escape when they come face to face with the most advanced military in the galaxy?

Again, yes, they did [I]try[/I] to open a Relay, but the Admiral made sure that they didn't succeed. The unknown aliens failed, so there isn't a reason to chase after them... right?

Especially not destroying several of the ships and then chasing the last one down, all but stalking it from the edge of sensor range in order to find where the ships came from. There is a part of the young man that wants to ask. There is a part of the young man who can't help but feel that the Admiral is doing the wrong thing. This is a first contact situation, the strange metals and the utter lack of Element zero that the destroyed ships had on them makes that clear.

Of course, the lack of Element Zero raises a lot of questions, question that Helmsman Reitok Vinonia certainly doesn't have the answers to, and to be honest it looks like the Admiral doesn't have the answers to these things either.

...Not that the Vinonia would ever say something like that out loud. Questioning your superior is a good way to end up thrown into the brig, and there are plenty of other Turians among the entire fleet that have the ability to pilot this ship. Everything considered, despite all the reservations that the man has about the orders being given, the only real option that he has at the moment is to do as he is told. There has to be a reason for the things that the Admiral is doing, even if it seems like he is just as uncertain. That's the entire point of the admiralty, right?

They have the experience to handle just about any situation that could possibly occur. That is why the Thirty-Fifth is such a large fleet. The borders that it patrols not only contains the vast majority of the inactive Prime Relays in Citadel Space, but it also travels the entire length of the Terminus space border. As such, the Helmsman has been involved in a number of battles over the few short months since he was granted such a prestigious position...

This isn't even the first blockade and invasion that the young man has been involved in, but that doesn't mean that he is okay with this one, because this is distinctly different.

When blockading a Batarian Slavers Colony, or invading a Mercenary Asteroid base... Those are all encounters against equals. Like... Not... equals, equals. But the technology of the Batarians and the mercenaries are all the same kinds of technology that the Turians use, even if it is a couple of decades, maybe even centuries out of date.

The ships of this unknown race on the other hand, it took everything that Vinonia had to keep the Dreadnought from overtaking the ship that they had stalked back to this system. It had taken a day and a half of following the pitiful little thing, when it would have taken the fleet less than a day to travel that distance on their own.

And that isn't even taking account of the fact that this race doesn't seem to have a lick of Element Zero across any of their ships. Which questions about how they were traveling faster than light to begin with, but...

Well, combine that with the fact that this race was actually willing to open a Relay at all, and it all paints the picture of a young race. A primitive race that hasn't seen the horrors of the void yet. One that doesn't know the dangers of what they do.

And because of all of that, this is less a blockade over a colony world, or an invasion of an enemy force...

Instead, this is more like bullying a small and particularly stupid child. It doesn't make Vinonia feel any better about what is happening, with the only relief that the young man has is the fact that he isn't actively involved in any of this. So long as everything continues the way that it has so far, then he will never ever have to lay an eye on this unknown race. They made a mistake, and now they will have to suffer the consequences of their actions...

"Ad-admiral!" One of the Turians sitting over in the Sensor block calls out, eyes wide and crest flaring as the man stares at the screen in front of him. "Detecting a ship exiting the planet's atmosphere..." The Turian continues. "While the alien stealth tech is complicating things..." There is another moment of silence, the Turian leaning down towards the screen in order to get a better look.

Because of that, the unknown speaker completely ignores the frosty glare that Admiral Micon is shooting the Ensign. This is all but certain to be the end of that soldier's career. The next stop within Turian space, they'll likely be booted onto the planet with severance pay and a ticket back to their colony of origin. There is very little that the young man could say to stop what has already started.

"Ship is at minimum... Seven fifty... No. Eight hundred meters. Almost certainly larger."

That... Might actually be something that could stop the end of their career, if the ship is actually as big as what the ensign says, but 'exiting the planet's atmosphere'? A ship that size? That's all but preposterous.

A moment of silence, before the Admiral nods. "Bring it onto the central display." The Admiral calls out, and with a handful of quick key strokes, the front viewing screen zooms in towards the planet, and the ship rising out above the clouds.

There is a moment of silence across the bridge as everyone takes a look at the actual ship, watching it continues to tilt up further and further until it is moving out almost perpendicular to the planet. Just on the view screen alone, the ship looks absolutely massive, and it might just be the fact that the screen is zoomed in so far, but that looks a lot larger than 800  meters.

That looks to be at least twelve hundred, and given the port just under the tip...

Well, that's a spinal cannon. Vinonia would recognize one of those with ease, having seen so very many of them over the years.

"That's a dreadnought." Helmsman Vinonia whispers, confused and utterly thrown by the idea of such a young race managing to construct something of such a size. More than that, it is something that is actually lifting off from the planet and into the space.

A dreadnought. Escaping a gravity well. That's just... "Admiral!" A captain in the Sensor core calls out, different from the one who first detected the ship. "Visual Comparison scan completed." It is only as the young woman continues to speak that the Helmsman can hear the soft quivering in her voice. "Unknown Dreadnought is registering at just over Twenty one twenty meters in length."

...

No. The Helmsman sits there for a moment, ignoring the utter confusion on the bridge as he tries to comprehend such a length. To comprehend a ship of such a size actually pushing through and off of a planet.

The sheering forces would be insane. The kinds of material that would be required to survive something like that would be insane, even with element zero lessening the inertial effects. Could it be that the materials used in the construction of the other ships is actually hard enough to handle that? After all, the ship that they were following managed to tank a hit from one of the cruisers and continue moving...

Then again, there is that same lack of element zero among the remnants that the other ships recovered... Could it be that they have managed to artificially replicate the effects of Element Zero without it? There are just so many questions, and once again the Helmsman is left wondering why it is that the Admiral is taking the actions that he has. Wondering what is the end goal of this whole invasion.

"Admiral!" Another calls out. "The Ship is turning towards the fleet."

The Admiral slaps the panel next to him, bringing up the ship wide communications. "All hands! Prepare for evasive maneuvers! Unknown enemy dreadnought is-" He starts to order, before the ship begins to accelerate.

The enemy ship isn't opening the Spinal Gunport, but instead pushing closer and closer to the other ships. Notably, it is also moving faster than the other ships that this race have fielded up to this point.

What in the world is that ship planning? Vinonia has never seen a capitol ship start to act like this before. Of course, that could be part of the fact that this is a new species, one that doesn't really understand how best to fight against such a skilled force as that of the Turian military.

"Dreadnought is-" Those are the only words that the Sensor Captain has a chance to say before the Admiral roars back into the fleet wide communications.

"ALL SHIPS! EVASIVE MANUEVERS! NOW!" The admiral roars, and Helmsman Vinonia is already moving before his brain has a chance to figure out exactly what is going on, but as the Dreadnought dips to one side, the planet tilting across the side as all of a sudden a brilliant beam of sparkling golden light spears out from the unknown ship and through the fleet.

It is only as the Helmsman takes a moment to really understand what the hell is going on, that everything clicks together.

Somehow... the Unknown Dreadnought just fired out some kind of... Beam weapon. But those don't look like emitter arrays? How did they manage to keep the proper lensing for a target at the kinds of distance that the attack is firing off at? There are so many different questions bouncing around in the head of Helmsman Vinonia. None of them really matter, not where there is a fight going on. The Admiral will answer those questions. All that Vinonia can focus on is making sure that the following attacks from the unknown ship continue to avoid striking the Diatryma.

"Multiple ships reporting mission killed!" One of the other corps calls out the words flowing over the Helmsman like water, the young man missing what is really being said. The speaking turian at the terminal having one hand to the comm unit at her ear as she continues to look over one of the terminals in front of her. "PHS Gravitas, PHS Abrasion, and PHS Burrowatch destroyed. All hands lost. Additionally, the PHS Titan is reporting direct impact. The Cruiser's barriers have been reduced to less than three percent power, and the heat from the weapon has shredded the ablative layer on the subdecks."

Activating the fleet wide comms again, the Admiral begins to quickly bark out different orders. "All ships, splinter like the leaves of the Palavenian Yeiso Tree." Out of all the many things that the Admiral has said, this is one of the things that the Helmsman actually understands the best, watching still as he struggles to keep ahead of the enemy fire power. Beam weapons. The only race that Vinonia knows of that has something like this would be the Salarians, but even there weapons have ranges in only a few thousand kilometers. The worst part is that the ship is all but directly over one of the cities that this species has built. Because of that, the Turian fleet cannot really fire back, not yet.

But that is the point of the maneuver. The Yeiso tree is a plant native to the Turian homeworld, and one that was used in ancient times as a sort of temporary prison. Like so many other species on Palaven, the Yeiso tree grew under the harsh light of the planet's star, and developed one of the most... unusual means of gathering the resources that it could. the branches of the Yeiso tree curl and coil out, intertwining with the branches of nearby trees. Combine that with the fact that the leaves of the tree are sharp and serrated, with the worst edges pointing inwards. The tree gets a decent amount of its nutrients from the blood of animals who don't recognize the branches among the others of other plants and slice themselves on the sharp leaves.

When grown all on their own, the branches curl up and then back around in on itself, creating a bulb like structure from which there isn't anyway to leave without slicing yourself to ribbons on.

Thus, the plan is simple - the fleet will scatter, moving according to a very specific set up that the admiral has created that allows nearly every ship to have a clear line of fire down wind from itself, so that any ship trapped in the center would be wiped out and torn to shreds by the falling deluge of bullets like rain falling from the heavens.

It would be all but impossible for any ship to manage to avoid that.

...


...

Any ship it seems, other than the insane super dreadnought piloted by someone from the unknown race. The way that the whole thing seems to have just... The movements of the ship within the center of it all is unlike anything that any member of the fleet has ever seen. Back and forth and side to side, tilting and rolling. Vinonia can't even imagine the kinds of stress and focus that it would have taken to be able to see where every blow could come from and keep track of it all.

If he were to try something like that, then the young turian's brain would have likely burst. Igniting into flame and exploding with enough force to kill everyone around him. That's an exaggeration of course. The truth of the matter is that they just would have failed, and died under that deluge.

As the ship continues outwards towards the Relay, the fleet starts to move, before the Admiral calls out across the comms one final time.

"All ships fall back." The admiral says, something that leaves the helmsman entirely baffled. Why in the world would he not have someone try and stop that ship from getting reaching one of their other colonies...

Across the comms, there comes a surprised shout. "I... Admiral, what?" One of the captains of the other ships calls out. From the sound of it, the captain is just as confused as Vinonia himself is. "That damned thing nearly killed my ship."

"Exactly." The admiral says, almost dismissively. "What exactly do you think that a single ship is going to manage to do against something that acrobatic? Fire off more shots that are going to miss?"

However, the events taking place don't leave the helmsman with much time to wait and see and figure out what is going on, instead he has to keep moving. The ship might be pushing back and away from the fleet, towards the Relay... but that doesn't mean that it is out of range. Again and again, more golden beams lance out from the massive machine until it reaches the relay, disappearing in a flash of brilliant blue.

"...Communications Corp." The Admiral calls out as the man collapses back in his chair with a long sigh. "Ready the Bouy extender ship." The man says softly, rubbing at his crest with one hand. "I need to speak with the Primarch immediately."

Everyone scurries to collect the information that the man calls for, even as he opens the fleet wide channel one more time. "Report. How are the damages looking? How many ships did we lose?"

"Twenty-one ships have been lost with all hands, Admiral. An additional 70 are reporting Mission Killed status. It is currently unclear how many we will be able to repair with the industrial omniforges."