Chapter 2: The War of the witches

7 months since inter-universe jump

Arcturus station

Admiralty meeting room

"Well the shit has hit the fan now, hasn't it." commented the Admiral sitting at the conference table.

"Well I don't think anyone expected this to happen!" Another admiral said.

"True, who would've expected a multiway Civil War," Lieutenant Admiral Hackett, now in charge of Witch operations and study, commented, "Especially with the sudden emergence of so many witches; they are appearing all across Systems Alliance space."

It was true, not long after the arrival of the 501st witches had begun popping up all across alliance space. This could lead to various dissident groups suddenly having access to soldiers who were able to carry and use weapons equivalent to 40 mm automatics.

This has led to multiple factions appearing and laying claim to varying colonies. The problem was that some of these factions were religious extremists. One of them was an extremis group who viewed witches as an affront and the executed them whenever they turned up. Another group who viewed witches as goddesses and put them in positions of power, the problem with this group was that they were led by a deranged zealot who had barely managed to escape the slave breeding program of another faction.

The alliance was barely holding on due to superior numbers, better equipment, better training and better understanding of witches in general thanks to the 501st. The Admirals were unwilling to put the 501st on the front lines due to so many of them being underage. Hell, witches in general were not being put on the front lines by the alliance as a result of not being able to have magic much beyond 20.

"On the subject of witches, Have we figured out any method of enabling witches to maintain their powers?"

"Not yet, we are making progress and we have determined that the 501st will maintain their powers indefinitely, however this is due to them being part Neuroi." Came Lieutenant Admiral Hackett's reply,"As such we are unsure if studying them any further will yield useful results in that department."

Murmurs went round the table at this.

"Keep working on that Lieutenant Admiral. Now moving on, what is the progress on project Yamato?"

The Admiral charge of project Yamato nodded while clearing his throat, "We've managed to make quite a bit of progress, In particular we have managed to figure out how to utilise a Neuroi core as a power source as well as a static charge dump for the element zero core, enabling us to increase the ships size from 1 1/2 km up to the desired 4 km with out overuse of element zero. Furthermore we believe that this will enable us to create warships which will not require refuelling as examination shows that Neuroi draw power from the own existence in some manner, How this is achieved is unknown but I'll leave finding that out to the Scientists."

The Admiral Of the fleet blinked, "Where did you get a Neuroi core form?"

"Miss Miyafuji volunteered to have a fragment of her core removed for further study as long as it was non-damaging, it took quite some time to manage but we succeeded in doing so. Since then the fragment has grown into a full core."

There were further murmurings around the table.

"Alright I'm authorising the construction of the 4 km design and construction is to begin immediately."

"Sir are you sure you wish to authorise that? You haven't even seen the schematics."

"We need a show of force to get some of the colonies back in line and to show that we can protect them. I also trust our engineers to have designed a workable ship and not Some goddamn vanity project that will never work!"

"Understood sir"

"Good I'm also authorising the use of witches in combat, in particular the strike witches who will now be classified as the first witches division."

The table was completely silent.

"Are you absolutely certain that's wise?"

"I'm not really sure we have a choice. Lieutenant Admiral Hackett you're in charge of them."

"Understood sir."

The Admiral of the fleet took a deep breath before standing up, "There is one last thing I need to mention before we return to our posts, The alliance Parliament has formally authorised The military to take over governance for the duration of this crisis."

Dead silence was his only reply.

"When was this agreed-upon?" The question was not asked by an Admiral, but by the record keeper sitting in the back corner of the room.

"Less than an hour before we began this meeting, they're going to announce it at noon tomorrow." Came the grim apply.

The next morning lieutenant Admiral Hackett stood in front of the large apartment that the 501st had been given while their paperwork was sorted out. Taking a breath he reached out and triggered the doorbell, he was not going to enjoy this.

Codex: Witch squadron identification

The Alliance's method for identifying the type of witches in a division is simple, any with 100 as part of their number use land-strikers, any with 200 use airspace-strikers. However there are divisions that don't follow these rules, such as the 1st Strike Witches who use both and the 2nd Research Witches who develop and test new Strikers and weapons.