Endless Waltz

By: Daishi Prime

-36 – The Oppenheimer Protocol-

Jasper Reynolds was known as 'Sneezy' to his pilots and crews, due to an unfortunate incident years before at helicopter pilot training at Pensacola involving low-altitude maneuvers, hay-fever, and some forgotten medicines. To the Navy, he was known as Commander Reynolds, squadron commander, Helicopter Squadron Four of Carrier Air Wing Three, the Black Knights. To the men and women flying off the USS Harry S. Truman, he was Black Knight Six, the guy who commanded the guys who fished them out of the drink when things went pear-shaped. He had gotten a lot of beers out of that last one, and rather wished he was earning a few more right then.

The specifics of his current mission were not really that unpleasant, just rather odd. The entire squadron, minus the rescue bird covering launch and recovery at the carrier and Black Knight Three with its burst hydraulic line, was flying in a loose box formation over a semi-random patch of the Atlantic Ocean some two hundred miles west-north-west of the Straights of Gibraltar, with the Truman another hundred miles west of them. The search pattern was a complete waste of time. There was no reason to have this many Seahawks dropping on a single target, but the Admiral had told him to take the whole squadron, so he had taken the whole squadron. They were five miles apart each, which meant their search areas were overlapping massively, and given modern data-transmission speeds, there was little advantage to having more platforms over a single target area like this.

What truly made him wish he was somewhere else was the target. Reynolds was not a fan of sub-hunting on the best of days – he had very nearly gone Coast Guard when he was a kid, but the Navy offered better pay, better training, and better educational opportunities. He was good at anti-submarine warfare – no one made squadron commander if they were bad at ASW – but he preferred search and rescue. SAR was saving lives, and more challenging in a lot of ways. ASW was like shooting fish in a barrel – unaware targets that had little to no chance to escape. ASW against a horde of biological killing machines that rumor said were headed for New York, now, that was unpleasant and frightening.

From the sonar station behind the co-pilot, Deshaun Harrison, the flight engineer and sonar operator, said, "Dome down, getting signal." The Seahawk's dipping sonar, a transducer and receiver on the end of a four-hundred foot cable, was the 'dome', and Harrison was getting some sort of signal. "Biologics," Harrison said after a minute, "lot of 'em. Damn lot of 'em. Sounds like…"

The helicopter suddenly staggered in the air, lurching downwards. Reynolds and his co-pilot, Lieutenant Frank Thoms – Tommy-boy, to the squadron – both swore in unison. Reynolds, in control, pulled at the collective, working the stick to maintain attitude. Harrison in back shouted, "What the hell was that, Sneezy? You run into Rudolph or something?"

"It wasn't air currents," Thoms said, "weather's clear."

Reynolds frowned, trying to figure out what had happened, when Harrison shouted, "Jesus! Two of those things are climbing the line!"

Reynolds twitched, then shouted back, barely remembering the intercom, "Cutting the dome! Jettison, jettison, now, now, now!"

There as a sharp thud, then the Seahawk bounced upwards, suddenly relieved of significant weight, and Reynolds had to fight the controls for a moment. The abrupt altitude and mass changes had cost him his steady hover and level position, which was no doubt going to get his piloting insulted in the ready room during debrief.

Once the helicopter was steady in the air again, Reynolds brought up the squadron frequency, "All Black Knights, retract dome now. Squadron orders, dipping sonar is restricted for mission duration."

Thoms shook his head and muttered, "Should've thought of that," Thoms commented. "Good thing we weren't lower."

"It wasn't that sharp a maneuver," Reynolds replied, "we wouldn't have gone in the drink."

Thoms shook his head, "Not from the jerk, no. But one of those things in here? From scuttlebutt, that would not be a pleasant experience."

Reynolds shook his head, "No, probably not. Get on the horn, though, tell CAG we're confirming the Seed are here, in force. Looks like the whole batch."

"On it," Thoms said.

It took less than a minute to relay the message, time Reynolds spent regaining lost altitude and shifting position slightly. A glance out the side of the helicopter showed heads bobbing in the water, roughly where the dome had gone down. A few more appeared, grey scales hard to see against the green and white of the ocean, bobbing and blinking in a way that reminded him of seals, of all things. Each of them was staring back up at him. Reynolds had seen the footage that leaked out of Hong Kong, and a lot more had been released after the girl in Japan made her speech. He found he had no problems agreeing with the rumored Chinese orders to their troops for dealing with Seed – kill them all, whatever it takes.

He glanced back in time to see Thoms start, then heard, "Ah, roger that, Truman Ops, Passing the comm." Thoms glanced at him, then pointed at the radio.

Reynolds switched his helmet to the Air Wing's frequency, "Truman Ops, this is Black Knight Six Actual. Go ahead."

"Black Knight Six, this is Truman Ops, we are cross-linking you to CNO… now."

Reynolds gave the radio a confused look for a moment. CNO? Who the Hell came up with this joke? Admirals don't waste time talking to…

"Black Knight Six, this is Chief of Naval Operations Actual." That made Reynolds jerk, then share a shocked look with Thoms. They did not recognize the voice, but the call-sign was… hard to question. No one would play a joke this stupid at a time like this. The authentication codes that followed were impossible to question.

Once Thoms and Harrison had the codes confirmed – Harrison had to dig out the squadron code manual to do that – Reynolds said, "Black Knight Six confirms authentication, sir. What do you need?"

"I realize this is unusual, Commander," the CNO said, "but the situation is extremely delicate. Can you confirm one hundred percent that the biologics below your position are Seed of Leviathan and that you are above the main force detected leaving Egypt nine days ago?"

"Ah, not one hundred percent, sir," Reynolds said. It was honest truth and some temporizing, since he was not sure what the CNO wanted. "These things are noisy on the right wavelengths to be Seed, and we got visual on a few. There are a lot of them out there, but they're spread out over a large area. We're also now limited to sonobouys only, using the dome is too dangerous."

"Understood, Commander. How certain are you of your identification of the nature and size of the force?"

Reynolds frowned, thinking it over a moment. For the CNO to be directly contacting a field asset like the Black Knights, they had to be seriously twitchy about something back in Washington. The Seed alone could be it – scuttlebutt said they were headed for New York, which had all sorts of nasty implications – but the CNO sounded almost afraid of the answer. "As certain as humanly possible, sir. They're definitely Seed – we almost had one as a passenger a minute ago – and they're spread out over a wide area moving as a unit. None of my birds are reporting distant matching contacts, either, so they appear to be concentrated over a four mile diameter."

The radio was silent for a time, a minute or two, then the CNO returned. "Understood, Commander, and excellent work. Be advised, USS Rhode Island has just launched on your current coordinates corrected for Seed motion. Get clear. CNO out."

The radio clicked, and for a moment Reynolds' heart froze. The Rhode Island… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that's a boomer! He stared at Thoms a moment, then punched the radio to the squadron frequency while Thoms almost broke one of the displays as he brought up navigation and started putting together an evac route. "All Black Knights, this is Six, prep for emergency squadron maneuvers…"

The Truman's air control staff beat Thoms to the course, coming over the squadron frequency right behind Reynolds, "All Black Knights, come to course zero-eight-zero and climb to Angels ten, speed to one-eight-zero knots. Repeat, all Black Knights to course zero-eight-zero, Angels ten, speed one-eight-zero knots. The battle-group is turning west to evac the area, your minimum time to safe distance is course zero-eight-zero climbing to Angels ten. You should have fuel range for Portugal."

Reynolds banked the helicopter around, but stayed in hover, "All Knights, this is Six, confirm course, altitude and speed from Truman Ops. Execute maneuver immediately, Six is tail."

There were a few seconds hesitation, the other pilots checking their airspace, then rest of the squadron turned to the east almost as one, noses dropping as they accelerated and climbed. Reynolds made sure the rest were in motion, then followed, hauling up on the collective and twisting the throttle to the stops. The time it took the squadron to get underway was brief, but that and the familiarity of the codes and prior training, checking on his squadron, helped settle his initial panic. He had never trained to avoid an inbound 'friendly' nuclear missile, but clearing an area at speed was a familiar necessity.

Calmer or not, he did not stop praying. He had no idea how long until the Rhode Island's missile or missiles hit, or how many warheads were about to detonate behind him. That meant he had only the vaguest idea if his squadron would get clear of the blast. He had even less idea if they could get clear of the blast, or clear of follow-on effects. The helicopters were going flat out, pushing a little past their rated max, and Reynolds could already see warnings blinking on his displays. They would have to hold until after the blast, when the squadron could slow down to a more reasonable pace. If the helicopters did not hold, or did not get far enough away, a few warnings now would not matter, but that was in the hands of maintenance crews back on the ship, more than him. So he reached for every last bit of help he could find, praying silently.

Harrison was not so demure, reciting every prayer he could think of over the helicopter's intercom in a bewildering array of faiths. Reynolds was not sure anyone had ever combined so many religions into one prayer session, but would later commend his flight engineer for his breadth of knowledge.

The blast came just over ten minutes later and somewhat north of where they had hovered over the Seed. Their first warning was the light, a flash that was painfully bright even though they were headed directly away from it. Seconds behind it came the blast-front. At twenty nautical miles, it still took both Reynolds and Thoms to hold the aircraft in the air, and they lost a good six thousand feet while struggling against the buffeting and turbulence and malfunctioning instruments, but it was nowhere near as bad as they had expected. Even the fritzing computers could be dealt with, rebooting in seconds. The only moment of real panic Reynolds had was when the turbine engine stuttered and almost died, but it recovered before he could de-couple the main rotor to auto-rotate.

Even before the aircraft was stable again, Reynolds was looking outwards and forwards, checking on the squadron. He counted the aircraft carefully, double-checked, then sighed in relief. During the evac, the squadron had settled into a reverse echelon formation more from habit than any need. That formation was now mostly gone, and the helicopters were scattered over several altitudes and off at multiple bearings generally south of him. But they were all still flying, if raggedly, and Five and Two were even maneuvering to return to formation.

"Uuhhh, Sneezy," Harrison came over the intercom, "you, uh… wanna take a look out to port and, uh… tell me if I need to see the doc when we get back to the ship?"

Still watching his squadron, Reynolds glanced out the windows to his left briefly, noticed nothing but blast-tossed ocean below, and replied, "Why, Harrison? You flash-blinded?"

"Maybe, sir. Or I think maybe the radiation got me… 'cause there's a hot chick out there flying alongside us." That finally broke Reynolds focus, and for a second he debated if he had heard correctly.

Then he looked left. Sure enough, flying along at the same speed as his helicopter, was a woman in a purple coat, some armor on her hands, arms and feet, dark pink or light purple hair in a ridiculously long tail that was whipping in the air behind her. She was close enough to make him nervous, but not close enough to actually crowd him. She met his eyes for a moment, then rolled and dropped, descending beneath the helicopter, where he lost her.

"Thoms…"

"I saw it," Thoms said, shaking his head, "I don't believe it, but I saw it."

Harrison interrupted again, "Uh, she's still there, Sneezy, off to starboard this time."

The radio crackled in his ear, then a new voice said in passable English, "I am Signum, of Hayate Yagami's Wolkenritter, out of Japan. Your aircraft appears stable, and a quick scan reveals no damage to you or your crew. Do you require immediate assistance?"

Reynolds started, then shared a look with Thoms, then shook his head. "Uhm, no ma'am, but thank you for the offer."

"Very good." A purplish glow appeared on the windscreen, resolving into numbers, "if you require assistance prior to reaching the coast, transmit on that frequency and one of my comrades will arrive momentarily to assist. Your pardon, I must check on the rest of the squadron."

The woman – Signum, and wasn't that a weird name – accelerated. It was almost insulting, he was pushing his helo to go as fast as he was, and she just… went faster, without even the decency to have an actual airframe around her. Reynolds watched her go, noted her angling off to port, then keyed the squadron frequency again. "Alright boys and girls, enough of this sloppy flying. Return to formation, Angels ten, and decrease speed to one four zero knots. We're not outrunning Armageddon anymore. Also, be advised, one of the friendly mages is checking up on us, so be polite. We'll maintain current heading of zero-eight-zero and wait for Portugese air traffic control, until Tommy-boy stops trying to stare up the dangerous lady's skirt and focuses on his job again."

Thoms jerked, wrenching his eyes away from Signum to glare at Reynolds, then – very politely, Reynolds was a senior officer after all – flipped him the bird.

00000

Yussef watched the last of the first-years stagger back to the staging section of the workroom, grinning slightly at their exhausted appearance. It had been their first time in his class using the training devices Hayate had issued at the start of the week, and they had all plainly over-estimated how quickly the devices would assimilate and the advantages the training devices would give them. Still, they had not done too badly.

"Not bad," he told them all. They were doing slightly better than he expected, and Chen-chi and Jun even had enough energy left to stop themselves from making rude gestures. The pair settled for muttering at each other in Mandarin too softly for Yussef to hear. "Not bad at all. That was it for the day, so go ahead and get cleaned up. I'll send you all the formal evals in the morning. If you've got questions, feel free to ask over dinner."

He turned to get the door for them, but Mercedes holding up a hand stopped him, but she hesitated when he turned back to her. "Something you need, Mercedes?"

She glanced at her classmates a moment, who all met her gaze but were patently waiting for her. Then she turned back and said, "We, uh, wanted to talk to someone about the next battle."

Yussef blinked, then sighed mentally, turning the not-question over in his mind. They want to go with us, I know it. "You just got your training devices a few days ago. Saeryn and Rhys still have another week to go before their devices are finished. Even then, I doubt Hayate-sensei will let the two of them go. She doesn't like letting us go, she only does because she doesn't have a choice if she wants enough effective mages."

Mercedes nodded along with him, "We know that, but…" she grimaced, "I don't think I could stand sitting here on my hands during another Hong Kong, Yussef. None of us could. So I… we came up with an idea. We can form a wolfpack. Tai-yu-sensei showed us how, and we've practiced a little. We can do it, for any of us. The training devices help with that a lot, make it much easier."

Yussef shook his head, "That's impressive, Mercedes, but doesn't answer the basic problem – none of you know enough magic yet, especially not with how classes have been disrupted. You're learning enough to protect yourselves here, sure, but everything you've learned about combat magic so far is how to survive it long enough to get help. Even if Hayate-sensei agreed to let you come, there's no way I would let you anywhere near the battle line."

"And that's not what we're thinking," Warner said. "We are not stupid, Yussef."

"Didn't say you are, but even my boys can get more gung-ho than is good for them. A lot of us were rather more eager than we should have been last year. Ask Laura about China sometime – politely, mind you! – or ask Niranjana and Allina about the Ukraine. Hell, ask Marcel about India, especially the lobby fight and Juliet. So what are you thinking about?"

"We'll wolfpack Dider," Mercedes said. "Shamal-sensei's given him enough training he can work with the field medics, get the injured clear and stable, things like that. If it goes off before the Creepy Twin gets their devices done," the twins glared at her in unison, but she ignored them, "they'll help with the wolfpack. If it's after they have their devices, they'll guard the rest of us."

"That's got to be… one of the more intelligent ideas I've heard yet," Yussef said after a moment. "Not bright, mind you, but better than most. I'm not at all sure Didier could function in a combat environment, he's been avoiding this class specifically because of problems with such things. Then there's the fact that, even if you claim you're not going to fight, you're still going to be in a combat zone, and vulnerable."

"We'll stay with the other wolfpacks," Chen-chi argued. "Only Didier'll go out into the fighting, and even then he'll just be doing fetch-and-carry, first aid, stuff like that. We'll be safe."

Yussef shook his head, "Parking you kids amongst a bunch of Circle fanatics, half of whom are liable to be Revenants, while you're spaced out in a ritual at the edge of a combat zone – and the wolfpacks have to be relatively close, or they loose cohesion – is not 'safe', Chen-chi."

"Safer than you second-years," she shot back.

"Probably, but still not safe. Not safe enough for Hayate-sensei. Convince me."

"We will protect them," one of the twins said.

Yussef raised an eyebrow at them. He still could not figure out how Laura told them apart, every time he thought he had it down, they convinced him he was wrong. "How? Your devices are at least a week away from activation, and you'll need at least two weeks after that to adjust to them and learn to use them at anything beyond a basic level."

"We are Circle," the twins replied, then one continued, "we will adjust more quickly than you did. We will not be experimenting with unknowns, merely adapting to greater reserves of power."

Yussef almost told them to 'ask Cid-chan about that', remembering her own activation, but thinking of his missing classmate made him grimace instead. "Yeah, power," he said instead, "power makes a lot of difference, girls."

"We can adapt our basic shields and busters," the other twin continued, "we will protect them, well enough to handle any Revenants."

"All right, if you focus just on those minimal levels, I'll grant you could probably be functional as a static short-term defense. In three weeks, if nothing goes wrong. The Seed are already moving, headed for New York or London. They'll be there in four or five days, with the Guard right there with them." Yussef shook his head again, "I'll bring it up with Hayate-sensei, but there's no way you're going to New York or London, and don't get your hopes up about any future battles.

"Look, I know none of you want to stay behind. I hated it last year, when I had to wait up on the Asura for the Ukraine and China strikes to return, and that was just a few minutes. I understand, really I do. But if we brought you guys along now, we would all spend more time worrying about you than about doing our jobs. We've been having a hard enough time not worrying about each other. After what the Russian did to Cid-chan and Niranjana…" he shrugged, giving them an apologetic look, "I'm sorry, but I don't think it'll happen, and if Hayate-sensei asks my opinion, I'll tell her to turn you down."

"We'll ask her anyhow," Mercedes said, not quite glaring at him. "We'll keep asking."

Yussef grinned at her and nodded, "Good. You also need to work harder in class – this one and all the rest. You might prove me wrong, for which I would be grateful. We need all the mages we can get, just not at the cost of throwing kids who aren't prepared into a firefight. Now, go get cleaned up. You should have some time to accost one of the teachers before dinner, if you really want to."

The first years looked rather unhappy with him – Kaemon and Ekavir looked downright rebellious. But they all recognized by now when he was not going to debate any further, and filed out. Yussef followed, securing the workroom behind them, then headed for the front stairs. He had some work to do in the Library, if he was going to have the evaluations ready by morning.

Vita's telepathic signal interrupted his thoughts, 'They'll have more than five days, Yussef. The stupid Americans just launched a pair of ICBMs off a sub.'

'SLBMs,' Yussef corrected absently, 'if they came off a sub.'

'Don't get smart with me! They're nukes, whatever you call 'em!'

Yussef shrugged, 'And? The Seed are out to sea, right? I doubt even the US would fire on Seed near a population center of any sort, and shipping is all being diverted from the Seeds' probable course, right? Nothing but Seed and fish to get hurt, so why not?'

Vita was silent for a bit, then snarled, 'Don't get smart with me. Hayate-sama's going ballistic, she's yelling at Hughes and their Admiral Dahvid right now. Signum and I are going to check the blast area, the idiots fired on their own fleet. Hayate is going with us, then we're all going to Washington.'

'Nuking the Atlantic isn't that big a deal,' Yussef said, 'not unless it fails.'

'It's not the Atlantic we're worried about,' Vita said, 'It's Cairo. Enough nukes might be able to crack Al Hanthis' shield, but they'll wipe out Cairo at the same time, probably render the entire Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean uninhabitable. And when was the last time someone exercised restraint in war? If they're willing to nuke the Atlantic, someone'll think to nuke Cairo. We're heading out, you help the cats hold down the fort, right?'

'Right, sensei. Will you be back before Noriko has to go to Tokyo for the press conference tomorrow?'

'Maybe. We'll let you know if we won't.'

The connection faded, and Yussef sighed slightly. He was not going to have time to get the class evaluations ready after all. Instead of settling into the common area when he reached the Library, he headed up stairs and into the office wing, to the one set aside for Hidan. He would need to get a copy of the packet on security for the conference tomorrow, and check in with Lotte-sensei to see if she needed anything while on watch.

His thoughts were interruptded once again when Maunders fell into step next to him. "Al Khan," she said.

"Maunders," he replied cautiously. She had been polite enough, even helpful, when he and the Myrmidons picked her brain the weekend before, though she had been reticent when they showed her the various versions of their Al Hanthis assault plan. She had watched, not said anything insulting, but not said anything very helpful, either. "What can I do for you?"

"We're taking a trip," she said, "you, me, Zafira, Vita."

Yussef almost laughed at that, "Not right now we're not." She gave him a curious look, and he smirked a little, "Let's just say the United States remains the only nation to use a nuclear weapon in anger."

Maunders blanched at that, then asked, "Where?"

"The Atlantic, off Portugal, if I remember right."

Maunders visibly relaxed, then shrugged, "Well, that sucks for Portugal and Spain, they'll get the fallout, but ocean detonations tend to be cleaner – less dirt and debris to get sucked up into the blast and bind the heavy elements. The Seed, I'm guessing?"

Yussef nodded, "Hayate-sensei's on her way there now, then she's going to… express her displeasure in Washington."

Maunders frowned at that, "Displeasure for what? Nukes sound like a good idea to me, at least for something like Seed in the water."

Yussef shrugged, "I actually agree with you, but remember, Hayate-sensei's Japanese. She may have spent a decade off in space, but she was raised here initially. I won't say she's 'irrational' on the subject, but she doesn't think any use of a nuke is a good one. Especially not after what your Grand Circle was apparently planning after Nimrod failed last year. Either way, though… we're not taking a trip today."

Maunders shrugged, "Nope, but it wasn't today anyhow. We've got a meeting on Thursday with the Dogs. You're going to need them, or something like them, for your little strike plan, and they can help you refine that idea better than I can. Once you sell them on it, at least."

00000

Szash was sitting at her desk, clearing out some of her bureaucratic backlog, when a chime sounded and a communications screen appeared. It had the headers for the Guard Operations Bay, so she acknowledged it. Colonel Losius nodded a greeting, then said, "General, sensors have detected what appears to be an attack on the Seed force."

Szash perked up at that, "Really? At sea? How many mages?" If Hayate was going to try to fight Seed in the open, it could be an excellent opportunity to ambush her.

Losius shook his head, "None, ma'am. Some of those submersible naval forces appear to mount long-range ballistic weapons of some sort. We're getting no magic traces from the weapons in flight, but the acceleration rates could only be achieved by magic. I've got some of our technical types started on figuring them out, but that's for the future."

That brought lingering concerns from Hong Kong back to her mind, and she frowned. "How many weapons?"

"Two. They have other fleet elements in the area, including some airborne machines that were over the Seed force, but all such forces just made radical maneuvers to clear the area. Whatever it is, they apparently think it's going to be big. Should we intercept? The weapons will be above the horizon briefly in a minute or so. The timing would be tricky, but doable if we act now."

Szash considered it, and part of her wanted to eliminate whatever those things were right now. If the locals thought two weapons would suffice against thousands of Seed, that did not bode well for Al Hanthis' prospects, and discouraging their use was a valid objective. But she did not have enough information about the locals' weapons, and still had little idea what they had used against the Seed in Hong Kong so effectively. So she shook her head, "Monitor the situation closely, and see if you can get visual and data feeds of the strike. Let's get as much information as we can, see if these weapons are something we need to fear, or a grand mistake on the locals' part."

Losius nodded and disappeared, then a minute later a quartet of screens appeared – Losius, a view of the open ocean from the a low satellite angle, and two screens of sensor data. "The weapons appear to have broken up," Losius said a few minutes later, "but they did this once before and part of them continued to function. We are now tracking three… no, four descending objects on target to the Seed's general location, and various smaller pieces of debris. The last object will impact approximately two seconds after the first three. A staggered attack? Or a launch error?"

"Something to figure out after the strike," Szash commented, waving a greeting as Eri and Gali walked into her office to share the screens. "Any more launches?"

"No, ma'am. We have nothing on the satellite sensors regarding the launch platform, but I would hazard the vessel has already maneuvered away from those coordinates. There also do not appear to be very many of those ships, based on a quick read of the initial reconnaissance analysis."

"They may not need many of them," Szash said. "Those things are moving fast…"

"Ten seconds to first impacts," Losius said. "Nine… eight… seven…"

Szash was focused on the visual relay, which had enough clarity to show the four objects streaking in. They were burning bright lines across the screen, re-entry friction no-doubt tearing at their outer surfaces, too fast to distinguish as objects. The first three splashed into the ocean with minimal fanfare, and Szash started to tense. Then the fourth streaked in, she saw a brief glare of light, and the screen blanked. She opened her mouth to ask what had happened when the screen faded back in, and Losius swore.

The blast wave was still racing outward, as was the titanic column of vaporized water. The silence of the video stream made it all the more terrible, just a simple visual representation of horrific destruction. Szash could not take her eyes off it, just watched the cloud mushroom out as it reached lower pressures at altitude.

"That… gods above," Losius whispered, "that blast rivaled the L'Arc en Ciel, General. With no magic, no dimensional manipulation, just… gods, I have no idea what could do that."

"Two weapons," Szash said slowly. "Two weapons did that, on a ballistic course, from a mobile submersible weapons platform. I have a new mission for you, Losius. Find every one of those ships, every single one of them, and destroy them. Eri, put together a notice for the Conclave – the Guard will oppose any suggestion to move the city from its current location, and require Conclave authorization to undertake any such movement."

Eri gave her a confused look, "General?"

"Enough of those things, whatever they were, would kill us all in a heartbeat. Why haven't they done it yet?" She pointed at the floor, "Cairo, that's why. Millions of their own people."

"They're barbarians," Losius objected, "friendly casualties wouldn't be enough to stop them, would they?"

Szash shook her head, "That's Protector thinking, Losius. I've met their leaders, we've all studied their rulers, and look what they did in Hong Kong. If they didn't care about casualties, they would have done something like this there. They didn't, they used conventional forces against the Guard and those non-mage formations against the Seed. They won't use these… things, whatever they are, or they already would have. The city stays over Cairo, until this is over. Even after it's over, the shield stays up until we've accounted for every one of those weapons and destroyed them. Gods, could you imagine if they lobbed one of those through the cargo portals, or snuck one in aboard a lighter?" Szash shuddered, then shook her hand. "No, we have to be very careful of those things. We'll probably see one coming, but how big were those terminal weapons? A meter, maybe less?"

"Somewhere around there, ma'am," Losius answered, "I'll have the analysis crews get specifics. Also on the blast size, possible detonation methods and the like. I'm not comfortable with the precision of the timing on those blasts."

That confused Szash for a moment, until Gali grunted and said, "Water compression – the fourth blast forced more energy from the first three into the water to increase the effectiveness against the Seed. Gods, they must have a strike like that pre-programmed. Their computer systems are so crude they'd almost have to, to get that sort of effect from four warheads on two vehicles."

"Got 'em," Eri announced, opening a new screen for them, "off the locals' public networks. They're called 'nuclear warheads'. They use combinations of crude explosives and heavy elements to generate an uncontrolled and uncontained fission reaction. The more advanced ones use that to then power an equally uncontrolled and uncontained fusion reaction in hydrogen. Gods, these people are insane, General. Even if the firestorm doesn't self-sustain, the side-effects of such a blast… they're scattering poisons across the whole planet every time they use one of those things, the radiation pulse will kill everything within kilometers of the blast, and…" Eri shook her head, "they're insane."

"Which means they may use them against us even over Cairo," Losius said.

"Which is why you're going to find every damned one of them," Szash reminded him, "and destroy them."

"The Conclave may want to study them, find out how they tick," Gali said.

"The warheads apparently come in a lot of sizes," Eri added. "There's a reference here to a 'suitcase nuke', something an individual could carry."

Szash shook her head, "Talk with the Protectors, make sure they're aware of all of this, especially those portable weapons. But we are not, under any circumstances, 'studying' these things. Uncontrolled subatomic reactions? They call us dangerous, then do stupid things like this… Losius, go ahead and get started on that. Eri, start waking the next batch of Seed. Same numbers, but we're going to have to be cagier about deploying them. We can send the London force overland, enough to avoid a repeat of this. The New York force is going to be trickier. Maybe seize a good spot west of the city and put together a field activation facility, or send them across where Africa and South America are close together."

"Maybe penny-packets," Eri muttered, "too small to be worth one of those warheads."

"Gali," Szash continued, "talk to the Protectors, like I said. And while you're at it, get that little traitor child of Yosho's in here. I want her properly interrogated, every last thing she knows."

"Ah, that may be difficult," Gali said. "Yosho has handed her over to his father for training."

"His father?" Szash frowned a moment, digging through her memory, then grimaced, "the Forecasters. Wonderful. Those meddlesome airheads won't let her out of their sight. Do it anyway. If they want someone present, they can arrange it themselves, but that kid knows more about those weapons and where we can find them than we do. Losius, coordinate with Gali on that. Eri, once you and Losius have a good handle on these weapons, put together a briefing for me and the platoon commanders. We're all going to need to be aware of these things. If we get too successful, they may use them on us while we're attacking one of their cities… or one of their enemies' cities."

Eri and Gali left, and Losius closed the screens he had sent her. For a moment, Szash simply sat and stared out her window. The scene was peaceful enough, the tops of Al Hanthis' outer towers, the distant tan of the desert, the painfully blue sky, all of it shining under equatorial sun. Most of what she was seeing, though, was that horrifying mushroom cloud.

"They're insane," she muttered, "all of them."

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Author's Note: I'm not entirely positive on the jargon used in the Black Knights scene above, but am comfortable enough with it for this story. I rely mostly on the good Mister Clancy for a lot of it, as well as questioning a Navy pilot I know. HS4 is the Black Knights (or at least, it was the last time I checked on them, and those jet-jockeys trying to claim the name are dirty liars), though it's Pacific Fleet these days, not Atlantic – I took a liberty because I'm partial to the Black Knights.

Regarding the acronyms, it's how Navy pilots talk, though I tried to include the full terminology prior to using the acronyms. ASW is Anti-Submarine Warfare. SAR is Search And Rescue. CNO is Chief of Naval Operations, the highest ranking Admiral in the Navy (reports directly to the Secretary of Defense, who then reports to the President). The 'collective' is the control stick to the pilot's left (the co-pilot also has one to their left) which is a combination of throttle and altitude control, used for vertical maneuvers and acceleration, and usually mounts a few other controls to keep the pilot's hands on the stick & collective as much as possible.

With the nuclear weapons – I know I do not have the physics and long-range effects quite right, but it's a good approximation, especially with four warheads on simultaneous burst. The use of an airburst to 'suppress' a trio of sub-surface bursts and keep the blasts underwater as much as possible may or may not work on such a scale – I've seen it work on small scale, and the physics makes sense to me. As for Al Hanthis not recognizing them – it's a simple matter of divergent technological evolution. Al Hanthis is perfectly well aware of the physics of fission and fusion, but never had cause to extrapolate the physics into a functional weapon like a nuclear warhead. They had L'Arc en Ciel, what would they need with a nuke?

00000

First up, a general response, since a lot of you twigged to the same comment – Sara recognizing Shamal's name. It's been a very long time since it came up, but way back in Path of Vengeance, when Hayate escaped from the Hellblade and first tried to arrest Kriegsen, she mentioned that Sara 'studied Lost Logia extensively'. Her studies were extensive enough to recognize the name of the one of the Book of Darkness' guardians. Her reaction was included mostly for verisimilitude, rather than relevance.

pfeil: The meeting between Sara and Cidela is complicated, in a lot of ways. Pay attention to what Ahmu is telling Natalia in their scenes. 'Time' for this story is very complicated.

Baughn: Don't worry too much, the temporal effects are secondary. They started as something to explain to my satisfaction how Al Hanthis returned, and figuring out/extending the logic behind that gave me Cidela's current predicament, as well as part of how the entire plot will be resolved. I will say that time is not as vulnerable as you're thinking. As I told pfeil, pay attention to Ahmu's lessons for Natalia, especially later, though I have a couple tricks planned for the two of them that will probably confuse/annoy you further.

Kell Shock: Correction made, thank you! Laura and Nanoha in a workroom are less dangerous than Fate and Nanoha in a workroom, yes, partly because of the lack of rivalry (remember, Laura's willing to see anyone as a 'rival', however fleetingly), but also because Nanoha has a much better idea of what she is doing than Laura. Nanoha's father was sort of 'filling in gaps', though you are right it won't have much direct bearing on the story. Allison is going to have a great deal of difficulty just getting into Al Hanthis, but yes, getting at the shields will be difficult. The scene with Sara was fun to write, largely because it's the first time I've ever actually written her directly. Cid-chan will be getting back, the question is when and what will she do then? As for the next battle, I'm afraid it just got rather decisively delayed, though only a chapter or two. Yes, I know, I'm a horrible tease.

phily: I can't help with the spam filter, but I will say I got some repeat notices of reviews this chapter, and no notice at all of one. I gave Laura the basics of Starlight Breaker for a very specific spell, or actually a set of spells, that is all her, it'll show up soon. Nanoha could build her own bolt drones, the only thing preventing her is style. Including Nanoha's father and siblings is something of a background detail, but was a logical step, given that they would already be familiar with magic thanks to Nanoha. As for Shiro's and Hidan's mutual history, I haven't decided how much to relate in story, but suffice to say they worked together a long time ago. As for the honorifics, it could be either of the things you mentioned, or it could be that Shiro sees Hidan as his equal, while Hidan sees Shiro as 'higher' than him. Also, I've read of some situations where the 'senior' individual is allowed or even expected to be familiar with the 'junior', though I forget the specifics. Kirie's conversation was entirely about the maybe-Allina in Al Hanthis' contacting Niranjana. Either version of Allina has the skills (the set-up is a localized version of one method of hiding a cyber-attack), and the Allina in Al Hanthis has the access. The Allina in Al Hanthis is, technically, a very strong AI, but there's more to her than programming. Your guess about the Seeds' fate was spot on, congratulations:), though Hayate would have a great deal of difficulty doing something similar, since the Seed would be able to largely ignore her heavier strikes. She'd do better than Nanoha or Fate, but not by much. Nukes, without the underlying magical energies to be grounded out, are the most efficient way for dealing with large numbers of Seed. Natalia does have a role to play, but while the Bureau might be willing to give Natalia a chance, they're not who she has to deal with at the moment. The implications are Cidela meeting Sara are complicated and peripheral to the story, so don't worry about them too much, though they will have an impact. I have plans for the Paladins, how they keep each other honest, though as Baughn insists, no human organization is perfect. Willan is similar to Wilhelm in that he's amoral and rather vile, but he has more in common with disconnected bureaucrats than Wilhelm's Knight Templar outlook. Worth keeping an eye on, because he has one more part to play, but not as deliberately personal as Wilhelm is.

hignum: Sara recognized Shamal's name from research. Cidela will get home, the question is when and how. As for romance, there are some characters that I just don't see it being in their personalities, and Signum is a shining example of that, as is Hidan. Both of them are utterly dedicated to Hayate and Noriko, respectively.

Templar Prime: Sara's 'evil genius' line was an old joke in the gamer community, almost word for word, though I've also seen it flipped – "I'm not an evil genius, I'm a mad scientist!" I haven't heard 'Bad Influence', never heard much of Pink's music, nor have I heard any of the Mass Effect sound track. To be honest, the closest I've come to picturing a theme for a new Paladin delivering their oath is Handel's 'Hallelujah Chorus'. Wilhelm was mentioned way back in Path of Vengeance as having been involved in getting Sara's family off Earth and to the Bureau – nothing really ominous in the comment, other than reader knowledge that Wilhelm was going to betray and murder Sara.

Anonymous Reviewer: Not sure who you are, 'cause FFN didn't include any name, but thanks for the review. I'm afraid the prequel is massively stalled – haven't touched it in almost a year, because I can't get any of it to flow right. Laura's take on the Starlight Breaker is a large part of how she will/would destroy the Olympus Mons facility, but she hasn't got it perfected yet.

Nijiru: Laura needs the Starlight Breaker for a specific purpose, and the cumulative effect will still be devastating. Hidan's comment about a 'semi-useful immunity' is a reference to something I've mentioned about him but never shown, the reason why he was sent with Noriko on the Ukraine rescue back in Academy Blues. The Seeds Natalia saw were killed by a pair of Trident II SLBMs each launching a pair of 450kt nominal yield nuclear warheads, which was no doubt close to what you were thinking:). I haven't heard much Welsh music, other than Suo Gan, but I've seen Welsh road signs and matching translations of documents, and good lord is it bad. Almost as bad as Gaelic.