Yes, I know I have to update my other fics, so bear with me!

I don't own Strike Witches.

Prologue

Aachen, Karlsland

"Wing Commander Wilcke, I am pleased to inform you that your request to reactivate the 501st JFW has been approved by the top brass. Congratulations!"

Generalfeldmarschall Von Sperrle stood up and shook the hand of the young commander, with some kind of grumpy smile. A second later, he sat down again so quickly that the chair groaned.

"After the pleasantries, now I have to inform you that I have already received orders concerning your command. You are to relocate with all possible speed!" he said officially, shuffling the papers before him on the desk.

At Minna's formal request of clarification, he added : "You are to report to Colonel Toftoy, Liberion Army Air Force, at Vanderberg Base, for duty."

Vanderberg USAAF Base, United States of Liberion

And so, the reformed 501st JFW arrived, in a sunny day of summer, on the land of the self-proclaimed 'Arsenal of defense'. During the transfer, they had many chances of being shocked by the lack of destruction, rationing, and almost everything that was commonplace in their homes, except maybe Fuso.

When the truck stopped, no one had time to say or do anything proper or else, because a tall, serious-looking officer was there waiting for them. On his epaulette the silver eagle of colonel was proudly shining under the merciless sun of the desert.

While her command was trying to get in some form of military order, Wing Commander Wilcke strode forwards and saluted : "Wing Commander Wilcke, Commanding Officer of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, reporting for duty!"

The colonel returned the salute, then offered his hand to shake. "Welcome, Wing Commander, and all of you. We are glad to have you on board on this!"

"Exactly what this would be?" Lucchini, already bored, said lowly enough, or so she thought; Toftoy gave her a smile, startling her, and answered : "That would be classified, but you'll know, since you'll be part of our program."

He opened his arms, motioning around him, and proclaimed : "What you are seeing is the base of the program that gives us promise to finally finding a way to end this war once for all!" Stunned silence.

"It might be difficult to understand," the colonel added, "but the object of our work here is to take at last the war to our enemies, and try to understand their ultimate nature. Don't ask me for details, because they tell me I'm boring. I will ask our SC to meet with you and explain things better!"

After this, he offered to show them their quarters, which they gladly accepted. Still they wondered who or what the SC was.

As they strode in the middle of the place, four men in civilian attire attracted their notice. One was taller than the others, and was by far the younger of the group; another was instead bulkier, while not being fat; the third and the fourth were instead visibly older, one being almost completely bald, and his toothbrush moustache was as gray as the last man's hair.

Toftoy said : "Well, now you made acquaintance with the Tetrarchy!" Noticing their puzzled glares, he quickly said : "That's how we call them, because they work on the same level, without being hierarchically disposed. Quite an achievement, but that's good, I guess. Better than hear them bickering all day!"

When they reached a brand-new set of barracks, Toftoy stopped. "Here you are. This will be your home for some time; you are free to get it as comfortable as you wish. I must go now, but I will send the SC to you so they might explain you what exactly we are trying to do here, and what will be your mansion." And he took his leave.

The mysterious demeanor was more than enough to occupy all thoughts while everyone was settling down. This of course didn't prevent Erica to be as sloppy as ever, and Barkhorn to start yelling at her to be more like a Karlsland officer ought to be.

Such usual pleasantries were cut short by someone knocking on the door. After receiving permission, nine officers came in. Officers they were, because they were in uniforms (all different), yet they were all boys. The youngest at most was sixteen years-old, while the oldest looked more or less like eighteen years-old.

They stopped in the middle of the common space and saluted. The one in the middle, black hair and a serious, competent look on his face, took one step forward. "I am Captain Amedeo of Savoia of the Sovrana Aeronautica Romagniana, and I would like to present the rest of our Spacenaut Corps!"

"Spacenaut?" the girls all asked themselves. Minna assented, and Amedeo pointed to his right. "Those are Flight Lieutenant Jeremy Tiberius, from Britannian Air Force..." The boy, rather short and small, with big green puppy eyes, gave a hesitant, shy smile. "Sublieutenant Pavel Yegorov, Imperial Army of Orussia..." Much taller and massive, the blonde boy kept his crystal eyes high while saluting formally. "Flying Officer Thomas von Schlanders, Karlsland Air Force..." The only move the perfectly neat officer with perfectly combed and longer than it should have been blonde hair gave was the slightest nod in acknowledgment. "Flying Officer Alain Berger, Free Gallian Air Force..." A toothy smile was the answer to that, with a casual wave of the boy's long dark curls.

The Romagnian officer then pointed to his left. "Here we have First Lieutenant Walter Matthau, Liberion Army Air Force..." The cocky, lanky officer gave a thumbs-up. "Lieutenant Jonathan Glenford for the Navy..." With hair so short it could be barely made up from the skin, the boy made a photogenic smile. "Pilot Officer Valentin Grissom, Faraway Land Air Service..." A polite nod was the only reaction from the shortest yet composed boy. "And, last but not least, First Lieutenant Alexander Leonard, another reject from the Liberion Army..." The grin trembling on the speaker's lips had long prepared them for a parting shot.

"HEY!" was the loud protest from the serious officer, as stern as his seventeen years could make him, and the pilots gave short laughs. "Don't worry, Alex, we know how much you're worth!" Amedeo reassured him nonchalantly, and turned to face the Witches again. But just then, Lucchini spoke up.

"You're... Captain Savoia? That means you're..." Her teammates had never heard her so hesitant or so uncertain. The Romagnian boy sighed and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, my full name is Amedeo Francesco Umberto di Savoia, and I would be the second cousin of Duchess Maria of Romagna, not to mention heir to the throne of the Duchy of Venezia. But I am not here as royalty, I am an officer like everyone else. And I would be grateful if I were to be treated as such!" His powerful glare left them virtually no choice.

"Of course!" they assured, and he relaxed visibly, returning to his more amiable tone.

"Now, about the qualification we told you about... we are spacenauts, or we are going to be soon enough, we hope!" He briefly laughed at his own small joke, then he went on. "Basically, it means we're going into space!"

Before anyone else spoke, one harsh comment was heard in the room. "That's impossible!" Of course it came from Perrine, who had crossed her arms, and was now wearing a really acid glare.

Amedeo nodded towards her. "Your reaction is understandable, it is really a big leap. Yet, while our technology is basically primitive, and we are moving into a completely new territory, the theory is already quite solid. Add another occurrence, and it'll become clear that we are neither madmen neither lunatics!" His colleagues nodded solemnly.

The Gallian witch was visibly annoyed. "Then I'd be grateful if you were kind enough to stop speaking with riddles and explaining to use how exactly are you getting into space and what is this 'occurrence' you spoke of! I thought that the scion of a royal house would know more of courtesy!"

For a split second, a really uncomfortable silence settled in the room, as the Romagnian officer glared at her in such a manner that Perrine immediately regretted having spoken so harshly.

Then, he moved towards a window, and motioned for everyone to come near. Producing a pair of binoculars, he pointed outwards and said : "There. This is how we'll soon reach space!"

Minna was the first one to look in the binoculars. She furrowed her brow. "What are those?" She was seeing long, cylindrical shapes erected in a distance, flanked by some kind of supporting towers.

Von Schlanders explained : "You are looking towards the launch complex for the Redstone launch vehicle... the Redstone rocket!" He had added the last sentence when he had seen the dumbfounded looks on the witches' faces.

Yoshika exclaimed : "Rockets?! Are you using rockets? But... I thought those were only for... writers!"

Instead of the laughter she expected, the spacenauts smiled and nodded. "That's what we thought, too! But now, after having been introduced to the Tetrarchy, we changed our minds!" Alex said cheerfully.

"Perhaps you would like to see a model of the rocket and of its payload!" suggested Valentin when they were done sightseeing. They turned around, and saw in his left hand a small model of the rocket, a tall cylinder topped by a cone-shaped structure. "It's the protective canopy for the capsule. After the rocket reaches space, it will fall off, and reveal the capsule beneath!" And he lifted his other hand, on which there was a model of a hybrid between a sphere and a cone, with two or three antennas protruding.

"This is the model of the Vostok spacecraft on which we'll fly!" sentenced solemnly Yegorov, and looking at the surprised look on Sanya's face, smiled : "Yes, since it was designed by the team of Dr. Korolov, it was given an Orussian name. Quite appropriate, if we think we launch towards the east!"

"This still doesn't explain anything!" Perrine interrupted the show. "I am not an expert of rocket engineering, but I heard it was really difficult, and it was about these rockets used against the Neuroi on the battlefield. How it is humanely possible to build such a large rocket, put on top of it a capsule with a... spacenaut, and then hope it reaches space without exploding or shutting down? The technology level is not high enough to provide this!"

By the looks on her friends' faces, she had scored a point. While all this was interesting, it didn't explain how it was feasible. Amedeo pouted, and said : "You are absolutely right, Flying Officer Clostermann! Our current technology is capable of building such a rocket, but lacks capability of producing a fitting control system. In an uncontrolled launch, such a vehicle would undoubtedly fail."

He paused, then exhaled and said : "But where technology fails, something else might succeed. Like magic!" And he lifted his right hand, and a light blue aura emanated from it. Gesture and aura emulated by his fellow officers, all serious-looking now.

For four seconds, silence.

Then... "WHAT?!"

Post Scriptum

Some explanation.

Someone may found it preposterous I'm going to switch the space programs of the 60s in the mid-40s, but I thought that making them magicians would make up for the technology.

The nine magicians are equivalent to astronauts and cosmonauts of the USA and the URSS :

Amedeo di Savoia = split between Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov

Jeremy Tiberius = German Titov

Alexander Leonov = Alexei Leonov

Valentin Grissom = split between Valentin Bondarenko and Virgil "Gus" Grissom

Thomas "Tommy" Von Schlanders = Donald "Deke" Slayton

Pavel Yegorov = split between Pavel Popovich and Boris Yegorov

Alain Berger = Alan Shepard

Walther "Wally" Matthau = Walther "Wally" Schirra

Jonathan Glenford = John Glenn

Others may come in later chapters.

Basically, the idea behind my fic is this : male magicians are way rarer than witches (in fact they were discovered just now), and have a different kind of magic, less suitable for fighting, more suitable for more durable, controlled efforts, like space travel. I'll elaborate in the next chapters.

And yes, the name of Wally is a pun on the name of the great actor, Walther Matthau, which I greatly appreciate! I simply couldn't resist!