New Worlds
Prologue
Dustbin
While waiting for Pacifica to retrieve the supplies for tending to Dragunov, Shannon reflected on the latest report from Zefiris. Seness and Eirote had done amazing work, with Natalie's help. Seness had remodeled Scarlet into a hybrid military/civilian organization.
She kept most military technology for herself, away from the politicians and royalty of the world, and mostly focused on rebuilding Skid and uplifting society as a whole. She had reactivated several "satellites", some kind of devices that float high up in the sky. These allowed for accurate weather forecasts up to two weeks in advance for the entirety of Dustbin. Her teams had found, excavated, salvaged, and in one case, managed to reactivate ancient installations all over the planet. Hospitals, universities, administration centers, factories, and she had been so excited when they recovered functional aircraft from that transit hub.
Life in the rural areas was changing a little bit. People could obtain "phones", which let them speak with anyone else with a "phone", anywhere in the world, at any time. They were still expensive, but many rural communities now had solar power systems, which allowed people to charge those "phones", and use or charge other electrical devices. Large farm owners were still working with Seness to devise systems to drastically reduce labor on their farms.
Life in the big and capital cities was changing more drastically. Courtesy of Skid's power plant, Sauer was now wired up in a city-wide electrical grid. The city was bright at night. Industrial facilities had light, and electric and pneumatic tools. Scarlet had built power plants near several other capital cities, which were undergoing similar transitions. People from all over Dustbin flocked to the first modern hospital, built around salvaged equipment from the ancient era. Diseases, conditions, and injuries which could not formerly be diagnosed, let alone treated, were now being corrected.
The brightest minds in the world soaked up incredible amounts of knowledge at Scarlet's university, which educated people in the society and technology of the ancient world. It was an incredibly dynamic environment, with course material changing week-by-week as new discoveries were made. Most alumni ultimately ended up working with Scarlet to further their recovery of the ancient world. Scarlet sold "books" that could display any of the thousands of titles in their database at any time. There had been no progress in finding a way to restore the existence of Providence-era magic, though there was much excitement at the prospect of developing civilian-scale Gigas units for construction work.
Skid itself had been partially restored, raised from the ocean floor, with many of it's non-combat systems at least somewhat operational. Natalie's avatar no longer flickered on the brink of non-existence, though there was still concern about her long-term future in Skid's brain. Seness now had command of a dozen Gigas-type units, in various states of disrepair, housed in one of Skid's hangars.
Their father would have been happy to have seen this world.
Patrol ship Asura, breaking orbit of non-administered planet 97
Admiral Lindy looked around the conference room, confirming everyone was present - Nanoha, Fate, Arf, Chrono, and senior bridge staff. "Let's get started" she said.
"I hope you all enjoyed New Years. Nanoha is a new addition to the ship's crew, and I hope we'll all work well together. Hayate and her Guardians are being allowed to stay behind until Hayate is on her feet. Before proceeding to HQ, we have a very curious job to do. Six months ago, the Time-Space Administration Bureau detected small dimensional disturbances in a world not far from here. There's no record of there ever being anything of interest at these coordinates. Long-distance viewing revealed uninteresting void, as was expected. Four months ago, a re-view showed a shockingly different picture."
The conference room table displayed two views of an Earth-like planet, plus a close-up of a built-up area.
"As you can see, there is now a planet here. There is obvious human habitation – roads, fields and cities, somehow confined to this region over here. You can understand our confusion – not only why is there now a planet here, but why is human activity on it so curiously restricted? The rest of the planet is completely untouched."
The display on the table shifted to night-time views.
"It's so dark" noted Fate.
"Indeed" replied Lindy. "This world appears to be at culture level 2, with roads and cities, but no advanced technology, electricity or magic. We are able to sense Linker Cores, not to an exact location but a general idea of numbers and strength. This world has absolutely no response from a Linker scan. Here's the view from three months ago"
The table display updated, showing little change except for a large object off the coast of one of the cities
Nanoha commented "That doesn't look like a boat".
"It isn't. Without advanced technology like gravitics control, there's absolutely no good reason to build an ocean-going vessel in that kind of shape, and lots of very good reasons not to. Have a look at the density measurement - It's built of something much heavier than conventional metals, and there's no way it's buoyant – something is holding it above the water."
The display updated again.
"Two months ago. Not much visible change during the day, but look at the night-time view"
Everyone around the table gasped. The ship was lit like a rave party, and many of the large roads in the nearby city were bright.
"There's more. One month ago, night-time images. Three large population centers are now electrified. Here's the real kicker – a daytime image captured three days ago"
The table updated to show a zoom-in on the outskirts of one of the cities, with some kind of sleek aircraft travelling inbound.
"So. From empty void to what looks like a level 3 world, or possibly level 4 for that airplane, in the space of six months... Absolutely absurd. Headquarters has had a small team investigating the Infinity Library regarding this issue for some weeks now, and they have discovered nothing, which is almost unheard of. Our job is to find out what the heck is going on. Cross-dimensional tampering of some kind is extremely likely."
The captain turned to the senior navigator. "When do we arrive?"
"We exit dimensional space in about 30 minutes."
"Alright, Exit dimensional space and enter orbit over the inhabited area. I want everyone in this room on the bridge in 20 minutes. Let's see if we can figure this out."