Yeeesh, sorry about bringing this so late. I haven't been able to set time for copying these chapters over from Spacebattles Forums.

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"Ok, so let's begin discussing the issues we have encountered after this first battle."

I began with a short announcement. In front of me was a table, full with papers, writing material, drawings and some reports that were written by the participants of the battle. Standing on the left side of the table were Phoenix and Siren, whereas on the right side were the Secretaries. Facing me on the other side, was Beacon. And finally, right above the table, was a single eyeball hanging like a lamp, Rally's reminder of her ever constant presence.

My heart beat weakly with nervousness. I had spoken with them only a little after they had returned to the base; how would they view my performance as a commander?

With no response, I continued, "Um, ok, first off, I guess the chaff missiles have worked."

"Yeah!" Siren pumped one fist into the air, nearly causing me to jump back. "I was right, eh?"

"Alright, alright, settle down!" I hurriedly tried to stop her from dancing in glee. "Thing is, I have something to say about them! Why the hell weren't they loaded before the battle started?!"

"Ehhh..." All I got was a nervous and cheeky smile in return.

"They better be next time! You know what could have happened if you didn't manage to load them in time? We could have been dead fucking meat!" Part of me was still pissed off that the missiles weren't ready to be fired before the enemy's missile strike came in. "You are a battleship, aren't you? How the fuck did you make such a mistake?"

"Because she's a battleship that doesn't fight, so of course she doesn't know that." From the other end of the table, Beacon's mocking laugh sailed across.

I glared in response. "Hush. You didn't take part, and you didn't even let your forces do so either. Where did all that rhetoric about 'suffering is training' go?"

"Oh, are you getting cocky just after one battle?" More laughter came sailing by.

I didn't respond to that. While Beacon not getting involved in the fighting was nothing special, the fact that she forbade her forces from doing so was disquieting. She herself even tried hiding it, not informing me of the arrangement until we were sorting out the deployments. While I got the idea that maybe she didn't want a would-be in-competent from sending her forces down to the grave, her behavior itself was dis-quietening. There was a chance she might have some ulterior motives...

I shook my head. No time to be paranoid, besides she still stayed on and continued letting us use her resources. No point accusing her of such things now.

"Right!" I quickly switched topics."On other matters, Siren, has the airborne radar been fixed?"

"Yes!" It appears that the scolding that I gave her didn't stick.

"Are you sure it won't fall apart again?" I narrowed my eyes, looking straight into her eyes.

"Absolutely!"

"Have you tested it?" I really did not want another such incident happening again.

Siren looked at me, her cheeky grin fading just a little. I slapped my hand on my face, rubbing it irritably, my glasses be damned. "Goddamnit...go test it right now, make sure the thing ab-sol-ute-ly doesn't shake one fucking bit, you hear me?" I attempted to add some steel into my words at the last bit.

She scampered off, her tail wobbling as she dashed into a doorway, before vanishing down the hallway. I sighed, releasing as much irritation from my mind as possible, before returning my attention to the table. "Ok, what was I saying- that's right about the missiles. Again, they have proven effective, but I would like to remind everyone that there may be a possibility that they may not work on other types of missiles that the humans will field against us."

"How sure are you on this matter?" Phoenix asked.

"Truthfully, almost a hundred percent. Humans have developed a plethora of tracking methods for their weapons, and while most don't work against you all, we already seen that they have produced one that does. And given what I know about human research and development, it would be unwise to assume that they have only one way to solving a solution." I replied.

"Then what do you plan to do if they use 'that' method instead?" Beacon fired off another arguement.

"Must I remind you of all the 'modifications' that he has made me do to myself in the previous days, Beacon? Surely your memory can't be poor as your tact, right?" Rally's dissatisfied tone filled the room.

Beacon countered, "And may I remind you on who went and designed those 'modifications'? The extremely unreliable idiot that just went running out of this room?"

Before the bickering went on, my nervousness caught up, making me laugh. "You are right. If I had tried pulling untested technologies and using them in battle while on the human's side, I would have had my head chopped off and stuck on a pole." As they looked at me, I continued, "Well, at least Siren isn't that unreliable, given at least something works..."

"'Something works', he says." Sarcasm dripped from Beacon's mouth along with the words that flew out of it.

"And do we really need to continue debating this? While I appreciate your skecptism, I do beileve at this point we have gone past beating the dead horse and eating its rotten flesh." I sighed as I uttered the last words.

Before I could continue however, Yuri interrupted me. "What do you mean by 'beating the dead horse and eating its rotten flesh'?"

"Um..." Well, that was surprising. "That...that is a figure of speech. It means...'to constantly talk about a already settled matter.'" At this moment Siren ducked back into the room. "Is the thing actually working now?" I quickly turned to her and asked.

"Ehehe, yes!"

"Good, keep it on. There may be the possibility of any sudden strike on us." I refocused my attention back on the table. "With Siren finally back, I guess we can finally begin discussing the actually important matters here. Basically," I grabbed the pile of paper on the table and shuffled through them, finally picking up two large pieces of paper with drawings on them, "the 'strange' type of shipgirl, as well as the enemy air forces."

"Let us begin with the enemy shipgirls." I took out one of the drawings and laid them on an empty spot on the table. It had a very detailed drawing of the shipgirls in question, one with 4 large turrets and one with six smaller turrets. They didn't really look anywhere different from the other shipgirls I knew, if not for a few features that differentiated them so, such as having a heads-up visor as well as a less 'warship-esque' silhouette on their rigging, and overall having a more 'polished' look in general.

"Firstly, Juri, Yuri, please give us a report of your personal engagements with those shipgirls." I took out my personal notebook and pen, preparing to record down their statements."

Yuri came first. "When you told me to cut off the enemy's escape, I managed to observe them before I attacked. Firstly, their guns were similar to those that killed our old commander - they shot out those blue beams of light, and as I watched, I saw a single salvo of shots kill one of the units under my command. Also, those cannons reloaded faster than any other gun I saw - reloading within a few seconds.

"Hmmm, weapons fire at extremely fast rates, and they are also ridiculously powerful." I quickly wrote those down. "How about their armor?"

"Well," Juri spoke this time, "I was attacking them, and I had planned out an attack path, and when I tried to hit them, one of them just blocked my my sword like nothing!"

"Hmm?" Yuri turned to her sister. "I could cut through one of their armor, even it was only a little."

"Huh?! How does that work?!" Disbelief filled Juri's voice.

"Perhaps you have not charged the magic in your blade? Perhaps that's why the shipgirl blocked you so easily." Yuri suggested. "I managed to destroy one of her turrets by using my spear."

"Oh, did you?" I looked at her. "What happened? Did it just explode, or was there something else?"

"Well, when I stabbed it, it didn't explode first, but it broke. Then, when I pulled the spear out, there was some lightning, I think, before it exploded." Yuri clarified.

"Good." So that clears up the matter; they have magnetic weapons as their main armament. "Cannons are using either railgun or Gauss-based propulsion," I added to the weapons blurb. "Armor...is resistant to melee attacks, but may be vulnerable to magic-based attacks-" Wait.

I asked the Secretaries again, "How about your guns? How effective were they?"

"I didn't get to shoot." Juri muttered- wait, did she just make a pouty face?

Yuri picked up the slack. "Well, I fired my guns, but they didn't really have much effect on the shipgirl, although she did seem to look injured. I guess the bombs and torpedos used also hurt her a little."

"Ohhh-kaaayyy," I started. Putting my notebook into a pocket, I grabbed the drawings and looked at them."Firstly, which of them were you fighting? The one with the bigger turrets or the one with the smaller turrets?"

"The one with the bigger turrets..." Yuri also looked down at the drawings. "You know, now that I look at her more closely, she looks like a battleship."

"Uh-huh. If she was a battleship then it complicates matters - normally your guns wouldn't do that much damage to her in the first place. However, if those bombs and torpedos hurt her..." I looked at Phoenix. "Just how many bombs did your planes shit into her face?"

"If I'm not wrong, at least 15 to 20." I jumped back at the reply.

"Whhhhhhaaattt. What the flying fuck." That's...that's just bullshit. That's just fucking bullshit of the highest order. "Twenty fucking bombs and she only suffered minor damage?"

"Yes." Yuri confirmed. "I saw her after that attack. She was still moving normally."

"Fuck. Me." I rubbed my face with my hands for a moment. "Alright. Did...any of you use magic to boost your shells or bombs?"

"...no." All three looked at each other before answering.

"Hallelujah!" I threw my arms into the air. "Hal-le-fucking-lu-jah!" Thank. Fucking. God. "Resistant to normal shots...but not magicially charged shots." I threw my hands back in the air again, before taking a few deep breaths.

"Now what is that supposed to mean?" Beacon looked amused.

"It means that we have a way to defea-"

"No, no." She pointed one sharp finger at me, continuing, "What was that? Your shouting and throwing your hands in the air?"

"That's how humans react when something good happens to them." I stared at her for a few moments. "Quite frankly, I actually can picture you trying something like that."

"Hmmm? Me?" She muttered in amusement.

"Anyways, I guess we have gathered what we know on these...shipgirls." I looked back on the drawings. "Their armor, their weapons...well, they are, to speak, far more advanced than what we can field at this point."

"Do you have any clue on how they work?" Juri asked me seriously.

"Well..." I scratched the back of my head. "As I mentioned, I'm a bit clueless on ow magic works here, and so I'm not reaaallly clear...to put it bluntly, I don't. These...these are stuff that goes way beyond what I know. But I can safely say that..that I'm quite sure what kind of weapons they are using."

"Which is?"

"The weapons they are using are most likely magnetically propelled." Grabbing another sheet of paper, I began to sketch another diagram. "There are two methods. Both are similar in that they use electricity to generate magnetic fields to propell those rounds. The first...is the railgun method. Basically, you have a pair of rails and the projectile, you put the projectile in the middile, then you fire electricity through the rails. The rails then generate a magnetic field which shoots the projectile."

I finished the diagram with a flourish. Did I get it right though?

I began work on the other diagram. "As for the other method, its called the 'Gauss gun' or something like that. This time, you have a set of coils. How it works is that you run electricity through each coil in sequence, so that a magnetic field is always right in front of the projectile. The fields than push it out of the barrel."

"What's the difference between the two?" Phoenix asked.

"There isn't much difference...except that...I think, that the Gauss gun allows one's to change the speed of the projectile, and that the railgun is a lot more unstable, but is somewhat more efficient." I paused as I considered my next sentence. "Point is, whichever kind of method they are using, this...'new' kind of shipgirl is capable of inflicting massive damage on our forces, and that we need to be very careful of her...or them." I sighed. "Later, we can hash out how to deal with that problem, but first, lets get to discussing the enemy's air forces."

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I grabbed the second drawing from the pile. It had on it a few drawings of various military planes - all of them post- 21st century era military fighters. I frantically racked my head to identify them. A F/A-18, Sea Harrier, two F-14 Tomcats in seperate wing configurations, and something...I think was a J-15? As far as I knew, they were a collection of all the jet fighters that used to operate on carriers.

Something bothered me. Why such a large collection of different kinds of planes? And why were they of old design? Shouldn't they be somewhat more advanced, like having planes such as F-35s or something more powerful?

I mean, they already had fucking flying battleships, for god's sake. Why are they using airframes that was probably already half a century old at this point?

Maybe they had some upgrades under the hoo-

"Magician?" A voice knocked me out of my reverie. Whoops.

"Oh, sorry." I turned to Phoenix, who was waiting patiently. "I recognise these. Siren."

"Yes?" She looked at me.

"Remember when we discussing jet engines?"

"Y-e-s?"

"Well, the main feature of those aircraft is that they use those instead of normal propeller engines." Before anyone butted in, I continued, "For those of you who ask what are those, lets just say they are a more advanced engine that allows aircraft to move as super fast speeds. Siren, could you pass the jet engine schematic around?" A shuffle was heard as the drawing was passed around for all to see.

"Ok, so the crux of the matter is that all these aircraft, their design - and human air-combat docrrine - is centered based on the jet engine. Those aircraft are designed to be able to manuovre at extremely high speeds, and cruise even faster than those. As a result, dogfighting as you know it wasn't so prevalent any more, simply because it became easier to fire missiles from far away, rather than move close up and chase each other. But that really isn't important." I focused back on the main matter. "Putting it simply, they can just stay at far off distances and launch missiles, and if they wanted to dogfight, they can, and they are far more better at it."

"Nothing we haven't met before." Beacon's bored yawn echoed around the room.

"Well, I just explained how they work, Miss Couldn't-Be-Bothered." I retorted, before continuing. "What's more annoying, is that they are fielding quite a nasty amount of them too. Normally sixty airframes would be one third of a country's airforce. And already one frakking taskforce could field that many, not to mention the ones probably placed as spares on the enemy carrier."

"How do you beat them, then?" Phoenix asked.

"Normally I would suggest trying to swarm them with more planes, but I highly doubt we can do that at all now. The most obvious method would be simply just upgrading your planes..." I stole a quick glance at Siren while scratching my head, "...but we don't have the time, and most likely we would just mess up anyways...so I'm going to ask that you try strengthening your planes with magic."

Phoenix looked at me with a confused face.

"Ok, I mean that you could use magic to strengthen their armor, or their speed, so that we could at least temporaily boost their combat abilities, make them somewhat more effective -"

In the middle of the sentence, the look on Phoenix's face turned sullen. "Eh? What's wrong?" I asked, when Beacon suddenly started cackling madly.

"Alright, stop that." I shot Beacon a disgusted look, before continuing. "What's going on?" I started again, looking around the whole table, feeling somewhat out of the loop.

"You see Magician, not a lot of us can actually use magic." Siren turned to me, explaining.

Oh.

Oh, shit.

"Magic isn't exactly common here, and it takes quite a while since one's awakening to actually be able to use it. In truth, usually its only commanders or sub-commanders of fleets that can actually efficiently use it." Siren continued, even as I was busy facepalming at my own stupidity. "Its just that over here, the previous commander was trying to teach almost everyone on how to use it."

"And Leviathan was stupid enough not to teach her own replacement on how to use it." Beacon blurted out in mirth. "Ah ha ha ha ha-"

"Do you have anything to add, Beacon, or are you just going be a pile of useless shit with a mouth and constantly insult our own commander?" My head spun around, catching sight of Juri dangerously unsheathing her weapon.

"Oh? You dare challenge me? I suggest-"

"Look, can we get back to the discussion? And Beacon, could you kindly not toss out random insults at everyone?" Before anyone could answer, I snapped, "Good. I'm taking that as a 'yes', so let me kindly fucking continue."

"Back to where we are coming from. I was suggesting the use of magic to boost our airpower, but with Siren's revelation I guess that's kind off impossible at the moment. Actually, Siren, technically speaking, is it possible to teach our carriers how to use magic in any short notice?"

"It takes at least a year to be able to use magic effectively." Siren answered, shaking her head. "A few days is simply impossible." Welp.

"So, I guess we just have ro deal with it then..." I scratched the back of my head. This would mean that we would have to stick to far more defendsive tactics if we had to deploy air forces. Putting the pressure of anti-aircraft fire, ensuring that we always had superior numbers on our side...

"Infuriating. I guess we would just to have to adapt to the evolving situation on the battlefield." I sighed. "And we are back on the subject of countering the power of the 'strange' shipgirls. Juri, Yuri, do you guys have any ideas...?"

"Maybe continuing to fight them at close ranges?" Juri suggested.

I stared at her blankly. "Full on melee? That's...rather dangerous."

"But you see, attacking them at range is also just as dangerous, just that attacking at melee gives you a better chance of doing damage." Yuri pointed on.

"Ok, um, could you explain further?" I leaned in, slowly grasping my fingers over their point.

"Welll..." Juri began, "Right now, we know their guns are powerful, fast firing, and accurate to score hits at far off distances. And that one hit is powerful enough to kill a sister."

"So," Yuri picked up the conversation, "if we try hitting them from far away, most likely they would just destroy us very quickly. But, if we attack with our weapons at short ranges," she drew out her polearm to make a point, "then we can consistently hurt them. Also, when both of us fought them, we noticed that none of them were actually trained to fight like this."

"In the end, both of us believe a close quarters fight is more benefiting to us than them." Juri finished off.

I stood in silence as I pondered their words. Close range fights instead of a safer gunnery duel? Risky, but perhaps...

"Well, you are right, but wouldn't you be stuck in the middle of the enemy formation if you tried that? Besides, didn't you say that using magic was the only way of inflicting any significant damage on them?" I asked.

"We could also be supported by other units." Juri answered.

"Good point, but...that still leaves the problem of magic." A few moments of tense silence followed as I considered her words. "Arrghh...why is it that all the options available to us are all blocked off by the lack of magic?"

"As I said, sadly not everyone was capable and allowed to try using it." Siren answered me.

"Yes, yes, I know." Taking one more long sigh, I looked back at the table. "So right now, I believe that its time to discuss whether these new developments will impact our next move. Actually, before we begin, Phoenix, have you collected any data on the enemy's position?"

"I already have scouts near their position, so I believe we are ready to begin?"

"I...guess. As usual, we will wait until midnight to execute it."

"Again, how sure are you on its success?" Beacon asked, dead serious this time. "As much as we have gone over it, it still sounds incredibly dangerous, considering the circumstances.

"Agreed. The entire success of this plan relies on my safety. I hope that you are still confident in it." Rally chimed in, as expected.

"I am." I answered. "One last check - how ready are the forces?"

"Ummmm...the 'mages', as you called them, are still sleeping off their tiredness. They may wake up by midnight...although I won't gamble on that!" Siren answered.

Damn. I knew that forcing a near-constant storm had its consequences on the magic-users - and I had lost that bet.

"Nevermind, looks like we can't slow the enemy then. Nevertheless, we should start preparing..."

===============

"How are the patients, doctor?"

Admiral Zhang faced the Tsukyumori's head medical officer, at the main door to the on-board medical facility, his hands clasping his cap at his waist.

Doctor Sumin sighed, before responding, "They will be fine, although I believe some of them will not be fit for action anytime soon. And yes, either than the mental and nervous backlash from having her turret destroyed, 'she' is fine." The female officer flashed a knowing look.

Zhang let his shoulders droop in relief. Despite having being mapped out and almost completely explored, shipgirl biology was still as confusing as ever to the layman. Injuries inflicted on rigging often caused some 'effect' on their welders, with said effects ranging from slight concussions to being plunged into near-catatonic states.

Regardless, it was best to let them go on their work. Zhang nodded, and turned on his bootheel, while placing his cap back on his head. The armored doors whirred as they closed shut behind him.

He checked his watch. "Looks like the emergency meeting will begin soon," he muttered out loud. Changing his route, he headed straight for the Tsukyumori's CIC.

As he walked, a feeling of regret and disappointment descended upon him, as he thought of his injured and deceased soldiers. If he only knew that the whole thing was a trap all along...what a fool he was, underestimating the enemy like this, he thought-

A sudden vibration shook his right arm. Raising the device right in front of him, he checked the notification.

It was a damage report on the Mark IX rigging that the leader of Phi Squadron wielded, sent by their personal maintenance engineer. Reading it, his thoughts wandered to his erstwhile companion, currently lying prone in a bed in the room he just left. Attacked by an Abyssal wielding some sort of weapon...

Speaking of which...his eyes narrowed as he thought of the enemy. Moving in concert, staging a trap that killed at least 15 and injured more...

Frustration and confusion filled up inside him. Just a week they had not mastered this kind of tactics, yet now they were demonstrating them, even if their formations were shoddy and easily out-maneuvered. It did not make sense to him, not even in the slightest.

"Admiral." Startled from his reverie, the admiral looked up to see a dark-haired, young woman saluting, at the other side of the junction he was standing at. Jae-Hee's face stared back impassionedly as she waited for his response.

"Oh, Sergeant." Zhang nodded, before recontinuing his walk. Phi Squadron's second-in-command followed behind, for she had been summoned to the CIC by himself.

Both of them walked in silence, the admiral having nothing of worth to say to Hinata's enigmatic squad- and soulmate.

Several tens of meters of corridor and a elevator ride later, both of them stood before the armored doors to the CIC, with Zhang identifying himself to the on-board security system. A glow of green light indicated the system's acceptance of his particulars, and the double doors slid open.

Inside, a smaller number of staff filled the room compared to the previous time he used it, mainly due to the fact this meeting was wrapped under a few layers of confidentiality. Papers or datapads were not scattered over the table as usual but instead obsessively arranged neatly according to their users.

And on the screen at the far side of the room, there was the window of the communications software installed. Two boxes on the left with the words 'SOUND ONLY' on them indicated the participation of the commanders of the other two battlegroups in this conference.

The rest of the screen was dominated by a live feed with a grizzled figure sitting at a desk, a cup of water at his side, with the flag of the East Asian Confederation displayed on the wall behind him.

Admiral Zhang saluted his direct superior. "First Admiral."

"Good evening, Rear Admiral." First Admiral Goto motioned for him to take a seat.

Both Zhang and Jae-Hee sat down in their chairs. Both of them sat up, backs straight as they focused on his battle-scarred, white-bearded face.

"Sergeant Kim," Goto opened up with a hoarse, yet clear voice. "Describe your encounter with the Abyssal units."

A short ahem filled the room as Jae-Hee cleared her throat to begin speaking. "During the second stage of the battle, as we were beyinning our retreat, I spotted the enemy suddenly teleporting on top of a shipgirl, and eliminate her with a melee weapon."

"Hold up." Goto stopped her, and asked, "you said 'teleporting', am I right?"

"Yes." Jae-Hee replied.

"And your grounds for saying that is...?"

"The enemy suddenly appeared out of nowhere, right on top of the other shipgirl unit. Besides, there is already precedent for that - the enemy appearing out of nowhere right behind our formation at the start of the battle." Jae-Hee answered without missing a beat.

"Very well." The First Admiral's face betrayed no sign of emotion to that statement. "Then, please describe the features of that Abyssal."

"It was a humanoid Abyssal, specifically the type known as the 'Ri'-Class heavy cruiser. Other than that, she was wielding a sword similar in shape to a katana."

"I see. Continue with your description of the encounter with the Abyssal." The First Admiral leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk.

"After it made its first strike, it teleported on me. I managed to block its attack with my armor, and I got a good look at it. Afterwards, I pushed it off, then began firing at it. It teleported a few times, then my squadmate, Sergeant Chang, also began laying down fire. It then disappeared after that."

"Hmmm, I see." All of them waited with bated breath for the First Admiral's response. "Rear Admiral Zhang, didn't you say that another unit of yours had a more prolonged engagment with that kind of Abyssal?"

"Apologies, sir." Zhang bowed his head. "The shipgirl who was involved is currently incapiciated, and thus is unable to attend this meeting."

"I see." Zhang detected a tinge of sympathy in his superior's voice. At this, he stood up, quickly letting out words that he want ed to say. "With respect sir, I would like to personally apologise-"

"There's no need for that." Goto rather harshly cut off Zhang. As the relatively junior officer looked up, Goto continued gravely, "This is a completely unprecedented situation, and given the circumstances you were in, we were absolutely fortunate that we didn't lose any more units than we needed to."

Regarding his superior's words carefully, Zhang sat back down on his chair. Pulling his hankerchief out of his pocket, he wiped off the various bodily fluids on his face as calmed down.

Doing so, he cleared his throat, and told one of his staff, "Kindly give the assessment of the enemy's tactics and formation to the First Admiral."

"Yes, sir!" The younger man jumped to his feet, while bringing up a file on a datapad. "Firstly, the enemy has shown itself capable of large scale planning. It had already prepared for our arrival, and has purposely manipulated the battlefield to lure us out into the trap."

"The enemy is also capable of deploying their resources effectively, as shown by withholding their air forces and managing them, till they were able to force aircover away from our forces. As for their responsiveness to our moves, they have demonstrated it, mainly shown in the adaptiveness of their formations. Speaking of which," the officer paused for a second, "their movements are a major thing we found lacking in - mainly, they attempted to replicate human formations without much training."

"Lastly, their new capabilities. Already by the end of the recent battle, we have concluded that the enemy has shown drastic improvements in both magic and technology. From demonstrating use of crude missiles as well as being able to block our targeting solutions, all these point to a sudden increase in knowledge."

Concluding on that point, the officer closed the report, and sat back down. Silence filled the room for a few minutes.

"Admirals, " the First Admiral began slowly, "have all of you heard about the 2078 Dossier?"

"2078 Dossier?" Confusion filled the comm channels. Zhang and his staff looked at each other, questions in their minds.

"The '78 Dossier was a joint project between the EAC, EU and the NAF in 2078 to determine the level of threat and intelligence that could be displayed by the Abyssals. Basically, several military operations were launched with the goal of observing and studying Abyssal behavior, with the question on whether Abyssals were truely sentinent, and if they were, a possibility of them achieving sapience."

Silence greeted his words. "The Dossier judged that Abyssals were 'sentient', but put the possibility of them achieving sapience 'unlikely'." Goto sighed. "It now seems that this threat is far greater than we think, given your recent encounter with them."

As silence continued to persist, the First Admiral took a sip of water, before continuing. "Nevertheless, High Command has been discussing this, and I have only adjourned the meeting to give you your new orders. Rear Admirals Zhang, Sun and Mizuki," After each admiral gave their affirmations, he ordered, "Your new orders - forego capturing the Abyssal base, and use any means to destroy it. As for any problems with the enemy's pseudo-ECM, replace the missile cells with T-23 'Raiden' anti-structure missiles, and directly plot out their attack trajectories. That's all, and dismissed."