Set immediately after StrikerS and post-StrikerS mangas, but before Sound Stage X. Why yes, that might just be a reference to Material-S you see…

Mistakes

"I miss working with the kids." Vita said, watching Teana and Subaru walk by in the halls of Ground Forces Headquarters.

Shamal smiled. "I doubt they miss you, Vita."

Vita harrumphed…or something like it. It really didn't work well coming from someone of her apparent age. "If you want a good mage, you have to train them until they're proud just to have survived it."

"Simple to say when you do not have to maintain their ability to fight at a moment's notice as well." Zafira noted.

"I went easy on them." Vita sniffed.

Signum had to hide a smile behind her hand for a moment. Regaining her composure, she addressed Hayate. "What next, then?" The classic problem of doing one's job too well as a soldier is that you'll put yourself out of it. Hayate had done her job much too well, and though the Bureau was going to promote her, the purpose for which her unit had been created was no longer valid.

Hayate offered a little shrug. "I don't know. We return to Starburst Station," she used the nickname of most service members for TSAB Headquarters, "and await a crisis that requires our attentions, or other assignment." She glanced at Vita. "Though actually, Vita, I have a request to send one of you to assist with a particular mission that Chrono wants done."

"And I suppose Signum will get it." Vita said. Signum had adapted well to the life of a TSAB mage. She had the obvious skills, the willingness to accept orders, and a degree of professionalism that went down well with most military types. That was the real reason she hadn't been around to help with the training often; detached duty and courtesy visits to other people that Stars and Lightning might be required to work with on the ground, acting as a bridge to the field-grade officers and enlisted of the Ground Forces and Air Force. There were a lot of such people, so she was gone a lot.

Hayate smiled at her youngest knight. Not that calling a Wolkenritter young was saying much when there was good evidence they were at least a millenia old. "Actually, Vita, he requested you by name."

Vita looked confused for a moment. She'd never got on well with Chrono. Oh, sure, she could salute and "sir" and come to attention as well as anybody, years of practice at that by now. But Chrono was a by-the-book sort of officer, and Vita would never be less than a maverick in battle…unless specifically detailed to defend Hayate. At that, Vita was as conscientious as anyone could be. "And what exactly is Chrono giving me that's supposed to get me killed?" Vita asked.

"Vita!" Hayate sounded greatly upset by that remark. "Chrono would never do that." She regarded the young Admiral as the brother she'd never had. And besides, you could count on Chrono to do two things: the best job possible, and to care for those under his command. The man made the term "model officer" inadequate.

"All right, all right." Vita grumped.

Vita paced the bridge of the TSAB cruiser Uhlan.

"Not fond of waiting, Dame Vita?"

Vita shot a glance at al-Faddil. "You are?" She'd managed to get on much better with his Team then the other one aboard, Team 26. Mainly because in Vita's opinion the leader of Team 26 had joined the military so he could exercise his desire to control people. As far as Vita was concerned, placing someone in a posistion of power over other people was not fundementally wrong, but you had to keep a close eye on the ones who wanted power over others as the primary reason for rank. They were liable to turn out bad.

Plus, at least al-Faddil was willing to spar with her. Not that he ever won or anything, but holding out for three minutes was pretty good for an AA-ranker. Mind, it had come as a bit of a shock to get kicked in the head the first time. But ultimately, Vita respected that sort of blunt-force roughhousing, not in the least because everyone else in the Bureau was either scared out of their wits at what she would do to them for it or didn't have their heart in the fight because she looked like a kid. In a very direct and informal way, it showed that he regarded Vita as a serious opponent, a serious person. By the same token, it also showed he wasn't afraid of her. Vita had been asking for and trying for both those things for a long time.

Al-Faddil considered his answer and then shook his head. "When it lets the other guy dig in like he probably is now, no."

"That's what I thought." Vita replied. Team 26's commander, standing nearby, looked offended by the informality with an officer who was technically two grades Vita's senior. Al-Faddil considered the relative rankings irrevelant; as a Wolkenritter, with all the baggage that came attached to that name and the immortal lifetime, Vita deserved every bit of respect he could muster.

Uhlan's captain ignored the byplay. "Have we got a lock yet?"

"Trying sir." That would be the local equivalent of Amy Linetta. "Thunderstorm over the target area. I have ghosting, interference, and opacity. Sensor conditions suck, sir." There was an unspoken "stop asking me and I'll get this done faster" in the reply. Everyone was on edge. There was a known serial-killer mage down there. Twenty-nine known murders to their credit. Everyone aboard wanted a shot at the woman, and today was one of those rare, wonderful days when being charged with the breaking people and things seemed more like priviledge than a duty.

"Sir there have to be multiple mages down there, even with the ghosting I'm getting too many returns."

"Captain, it's not getting any better here. We should deploy." Mage Team 26's commander.

Al-Faddil nodded. "Sir, we've got good maps of the ground, we can forgo a midair deployment and you can guide us to the targets on the ground. It may not be fun, but our Devices have infrared, we'll be able to see." The Bureau was many things, but it was rarely outright stupid. They had watched the development of such things on other worlds and seen its effectiveness, and so spent much time and effort on developing analogues to infrared and low-light technology for their soldiers.

Vita winced. She hadn't had to fight in the rain in a long time. "No flight. Ugly."

"You're short enough you can hov-" Team 26's commander would swear later than Vita had momentarily transformed into the avatar of death itself.

The captain conceded the point to his specialists. "All right, go."

"Camp."

"And we were worried they'd know we got here."

"Quiet. Maybe they do." Team 26's commander again. Vita was beginning to loathe that man.

She huddled in her Barrier Jacket. "I hate fighting in the rain." Actually she didn't. She just hated this whole situation. She appreciated the logic of surrounding the camp first, but inwardly she raged. There was a killer in there, and finally, finally it was someone she could strike at. Waiting held absolutely no appeal.

"Go."

The resulting fullisade of magic tore the tents to shreds and knocked out most of the people in it. Most of the Mage Team members moved in to secure the prisoners. Vita noted at least three people, three mages, still up and trying to make a run for it. Vita went after the strongest one, who registered as at least AAA to her.

"Hey you!" Vita hit the woman, or tried to, but only managed to take off the hood of the cloak she was wearing over her Barrier Jacket. Vita was instantly struck by the resemblence to Nanoha. It stayed her hand a moment, a mistake which cost her getting stabbed in the chest.

Wolkenritter are not human. They look human. They act human. A priviledged few among the Bureau who had shaken hands with them knew they felt human. Familars that had encountered them, however, knew the truth, because they didn't smell human. No one had been so lucky as to yet discover that even with an ear placed against their chest, neither breathing nor heartbeat could be heard by normal human ears.

A Wolkenritter is made of condensed magic. Anything which does not damage their Linker Core is, in theory, irrevelant to their continued functioning. In practice this isn't true, as the pyschological shock of truly horrific injury will cause them to "lose their grip" on existence. But had the woman, mage, and serial killer really been up on her game, she would have known that stabbing Vita in the chest, even through her apparent heart, wasn't going to kill the Iron Knight.

In fact, it really only bought five seconds to run while Vita pulled the Device out of her chest. It also made Vita mad.

The bit about the Starlight Breaker coming at her might hurt, however.

"Interceptor Shift." It looked rather like her own Swallow Flyer or Nanoha's Axel Shooter in a dark blue, but it didn't act like it. For one thing, there were about twenty of them. For another, they must have had some kind of disruptive effect, because each one damaged the cohesion of the beam shooting at her, causing it grow branches and tributaries firing off from the place it was hit by each packet. Each one sapped the beam's power, diverting a portion.

The terminal effect of the Starlight Breaker in the end turned out to be similar to a light sunburn. That wasn't going to even rate Vita's notice as she flew straight at the woman and hit her as hard as she could.

The resulting crack and compacting were pretty clearly lethal, and Vita blinked.

"Primary target dealt with," al-Faddil's voice. Then, softer. "She did try to kill you."

"I didn't mean to kill her." Vita replied.

"She meant to kill you. Fair shot at it too."

Vita looked down at her chest and appeared to now notice the fact she'd been stabbed. "I could have taken her down without it. No excuse."

"Not for you, maybe, but enough for us." Al-Faddil pulled up a holowindow. "Uhlan. Two to recover, one wounded."