"Razor Extermination!" the simulated Knight Degradation bellowed, bronze-colored magical circles written in a language of elaborate curves Ginga couldn't read forming in front of the gemstones along the midsection. Ginga turned sharply, and only a handful of the sudden blizzard of metal needles grazed her barrier jacket.
"Knuckle Bunker," Blitz Calibur called. Power surged into her left fist, and slammed through the Degredation's own barrier in an explosive burst. It shattered more dramatically than the last one she'd hit; this one hadn't raised its AMF. She continued on, rounding a burned-out office building, and saw her mission objective floating in midair, a curved claw around a levitating red sphere replacing the standard Dalek gunstick, and in a horrifically familiar blue-white color scheme. Its dome whirled to face her as it slid sideways towards the wall.
"Annihilation Bust-" the elite Mage Degredation froze up midspell, then tumbled from the air. Sein waved at Ginga from inside the wall, clutching a hunk of torn wiring in her freshly-issued disruption glove. Ginga smiled and waved back, brought her fist down on the disabled armature to kill the creature inside, then turned around and headed towards the extraction point.
A trio of Knight Degredations intercepted her, swooping out of the sky with four summoned blades apiece dancing in front of them. One blew apart as it left its evasive dance too early and Otto's Ray Storm cored it from a hidden perch, concealed from their more esoteric senses by Stealth Jacket. Ginga swerved towards the leftmost survivor, smashing it apart with another enhanced blow, this one struggling against the AMF. The last one was able to get its blades in play, forcing Ginga to lean rightwards and catch one with her Revolver Knuckle as another tore her jacket along her ribcage. She snapped the caught blade, punched downwards to shatter another, and backed off.
Shorn of two of its blades, the Knight Degredation avoided closing. "Slasher Call," it intoned. More blades began forming. Ginga brought her fist forwards, unleashing Knuckle Bunker's energy pulse from a distance. As planned, it tore into the Degredation before it could restore the AMF it had dropped to replace its blades. Ginga skated past the wreckage and reached the boundary line of the exercise. +++I'm clear, withdraw+++ she sent to her siblings.
"Well done," Knight-Captain Warui told her as she arrived. "I'd rather have more time to train you, of course, but you've impressed me so far. We're shipping out in ten hours, and I'll be glad to have you aboard. In the meantime, get some sleep."
Ginga nodded gratefully, then asked, "Why are you bringing us? Wouldn't it make more sense to bring some other veterans from this time period instead?"
Warui shrugged one shoulder. "It would," she said bluntly. "When Mistress Opel asked me if I thought you'd be ready I told her that after familiarizing you with Daleks I'd approve you for the A-plus slots in a reserve line company, but if you were slated for us I'd want another three months in sims first, and since I couldn't have that I'd rather borrow Tenth Aerial's elites than send you out early. She told the Doctor that, he told her he wanted you anyway, the Librarian stared at nothing for thirty seconds and said if the Doctor wanted you somewhere, that was where you'd go."
"We went to a lot of trouble to get him here so he could tell us what to do," Des added. "Not much point in doing that if we're not going to listen."
Des silently repeated that to herself when the Doctor insisted on having everyone on the bridge again during combat situations. She'd only brought them last time because it seemed less disruptive than finding somewhere to stow them, and now wished she hadn't set that precedent. True, Sanzenko and the crew used a telepathic link to communicate and the cyborg could talk and fly simultaneously just fine, but it was the principle of the thing. Even if Ixpellia looked adorable sitting with her back against Warui's wolf form.
For the moment, they'd run out of things to discuss in transit, and gotten the Doctor familiarized with his comm earring so he didn't have to modify every Device in the TSAB to use telepathy. Sanzenko was wired into her chair, with the TARDIS residents and ground component commanders arrayed behind her, the two command-variant Mariage huddling around their king.
"This is as close as we can get in dimensional space before the disruption field gets too dense," Sanzenko announced. The tactical screen showed the layout of Neverwere patrols, hanging well back from the seething mass of ships around the planet. The Finieno was aiming for a weak point in the patrols, hopefully enough to avoid close range engagement during the approach. "We're about five minutes from the Pflanzenpuppe's reaction zone, and another ten from orbit. Transiting... now."
The ship dropped into normal space, and an alarm shrieked as seven more Neverwere appeared on the map, much closer to the Finieno's arrival point than the rest. Sanzenko raised another screen to show them in visual as their power cores came online. Four cruisers, two battleships, and one ship dwarfing the rest, all in black and red.
"It's a trap," Sanzenko said tightly. "The Hellfire Star was waiting for us. We're being hailed."
A screen formed in the air, separate from the ones the Finieno was projecting for itself, showing a tight zoom on a ten-year-old girl dressed in black and red, faint orange light eddying around her. In her left hand she held a staff, topped with a curved metal section hooking around a blue gemstone and terminating with a spike. A pair of cylindrical radiators and a banana-shaped clip extended from the side just below the gemstone. Her piercing blue eyes surveyed the bridge. Red light struck highlights from her brown hair.
"I am Countess Stern," she announced. "Material of Wisdom, Starlight Destroyer, champion of the Neverwere. Surrender, and your lives will be spared." Then she looked at Des and smiled slightly. "I have missed getting to fight you, Destiny." Des gave her a frustrated glare.
"Your negotiating position isn't as good as you think," Colonel Mazda said, folding her arms. "You can't destroy us before the derelicts arrive."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," Stern replied calmly. "But I risk little in the attempt, while you risk everything."
"But if you succeed," the Doctor said, "you lose quite a lot." Stern looked at him curiously. "If you destroy this ship, you'll be weakening the TSAB against the Daleks. Without that pressuring them, the Daleks will be able to focus their attention on you. But if you don't stop us, we'll take this weapon and deploy it against the Daleks."
Stern frowned and opened her mouth to reply, when a voice broke in from offscreen. "Hey, Stern," an irritated girl yelled, "Stop talking to them already and attack them!"
Stern glanced aside and bowed her head. "Yes, my king," she said, and the screen winked out. Every Neverwere ship in the system adjusted course, heading towards the Finieno.
"Was she on the bridge or in the nexus?" Sanzenko asked.
"Nexus," Des said darkly. "You can tell by the red. She lights her bridge like a normal person." Sanzenko sighed.
"Now would be an excellent time to hear you weren't bluffing," the Doctor told Mazda.
"The odds aren't as good as I'd like," she replied. "Technologically, they're antiques, but- well, you know more than me. Thankfully they're more tough than deadly, and we're still well clear of the regular patrols. We'll probably make it, but there's no guarantee. Ix?"
Ixpellia nodded and took a deep breath. +++Defenders of Galea, attend and obey! Your king commands your aid! Proceed to our side without delay and burn our foes to ash!+++ She sighed and settled back, then muttered "I can't believe I used to talk like that."
"Setting counter-magical configuration," Sanzenko announced. "Three, two, one, initiating." The main screens vanished, replaced by a trio of lower-resolution holograms showing the map, a frontal view, and a rear view. Barrier jackets fuzzed away, revealing the standard uniforms. The ship turned, slightly more sluggishly than usual, and oriented towards the Hellfire Star's escorts, focusing on a battleship nearly as large as the Finieno, only around half the size of the Neverwere flagship.
The Finieno fired first, the ship rocking. This time, no magical circles appeared on the screen and the projectiles were visibly slower than before. The battleship evaded two of the rounds, and the other two vanished short of its barrier in the furious white of the minefield as they shifted into the Time Vortex. Then the Neverwere returned fire in a storm of magical beams, and the reason the Finieno had half-crippled itself became clear.
If the full power of the barrage had struck the Finieno, it would have burned into vapor, but instead the incoming fire distorted and shriveled as it neared. The smaller beams disappeared entirely under the might of the Finieno's AMF, and the rest were met by a mechanical forcefield.
Sanzenko grinned exultantly and maneuvered the ship back onto target, letting momentum keep them on course for the planet. The gunners picked their moment and the railguns fired again, this time only losing one round to the Vortex with the rest hitting their target dead on, smashing through the ship's barrier. Fire bloomed momentarily before vacuum pulled the oxygen away, and the Neverwere ship staggered out of formation. The characteristic orange light brightened and gathered around the rents. Then the Doctor's screwdriver whined and the light blinked out.
"How did you do that?" Warui asked him as Sanzenko decided to retarget rather than continue pounding the battleship, twisting the ship to evade the Hellfire Star's main battery and letting the rest of the retaliatory barrage crumble under the AMF.
"Old war tactic," the Doctor explained. "Can't normally disrupt their ambient Vortex energy, but when they concentrate it to revert a TARDIS can cancel it out. I have it rigged up on remote. They'll be able to accumulate more, but it'll be several hours."
"In other words, long after Ix's subjects get here," Mazda said, nodding at the rear view hologram. Two dozen Dalek saucers escorted a Neverwere battleship towards them, this one without light swirling around it. Even with the grainy resolution of the electronic hologram, they could see great tears in the armor of most of the ships. Some of the Dalek saucers had sections buckled inwards as though they'd been crushed in an enormous hand, and the Neverwere battleship's bridge was open to space. Dead wood and withered vines coated them all, running in through the breaches. More clusters of dead ships trailed along behind.
Subaru frowned at them. "Wait, if Ixy can command them to help us, why couldn't we bring other ships?"
"With no brain to reconstruct, the Pflanzenpuppe are too simple-minded," one of Ixpellia's bodyguards replied dismissively. "Even the crudest of Galea's weapons will recognize the presence of their king, but they barely have the wit to control the ships. Do not stray far from her majesty when we land."
"If they aren't attacking the ship because she is aboard," Otto said, "what will happen when she descends to the planet?"
There was a long, awkward silence, broken only by the rumble of another two railgun volleys.
"I could order them to send all warships to the outer system before teleporting down," Ixpellia suggested.
"Good idea," the Doctor said. Another barrage flashed towards them and withered. "You'd think they'd have figured out only the big guns work on us by now."
"They knew that from the start. They're setting up for their Countess," Mazda said tensely. An enormous vermillion circle formed around the Hellfire Star, Midchildan runes scribed along its outer edge. Blazing sparks formed around the entire formation, melding with the Vortex light rising off the Neverwere ships and gathering in front of the Hellfire Star. A firey orb grew, rings of light expanding around it.
"Saint King preserve us," Warui prayed. "Cast your holy armor before us."
+++Ship-amplified Breaker incoming!+++ Sanzenko broadcast.