Disclaimer: I don't own either of the Code Geass, Gundam Seed or Star wars franchises. This story is not written with commercial purpose in mind. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.

Chapter 6: The First World War

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Part 5

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8 May 2009 A.T.B.

Command bunker

Gawain Naval base

Cam Ranh Bay

People scrambled through the operation's area of the bunker like ants from a kicked anthill. Technicians and officers alike moved with a nervous energy that clung to every single Britannian in the whole base; even in these frankly insane circumstances, Stein's people rose to the challenge. The Admiral bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn't snort at that thought – as if anyone had any other options when the Emperor himself of all people green-lit this insanity when he put one of his spawn in charge. Said madman was currently in his office for a private conversation with the homeland.

Victor secretly prayed in the Gods he didn't believe in that the brat finally saw a bit of sense and was begging the Emperor to be relieved of command, though he suspected his efforts were for naught. He knew the boy – not old enough to be a proper ensign, much less the esteemed rank that nepotism got him, was way over his head and it was going to be Stein's people who did the dying. He couldn't even hope that li Britannia would get himself killed – if that happened on his watch, the consequences didn't bare thinking about, because for some reason the Emperor appeared to like the little madman!

A figure silently came to stand beside the Admiral. They latched the controlled chaos for a few moments before the newcomer broke the silence. "Anything I need to know, sir?" Captain Lev Makensen, Stein's XO, asked innocently. "Are the plans finalized?"

Victor couldn't help it and chuckled bitterly. The mountain of a man towering a head and a half above him just raised an eyebrow a tiny bit. "That bad?" Lev whispered just loud enough to be heard over the constant low level noise of working computers and their operators.

"You already know the plan, Lev." Victor muttered just as quietly as his friend.

The large man blinked a few times while his body stood still as a statue. Seeing from the corner of his eye how his usually calm and laid-back friend flushing red with anger was not something Stein enjoyed experiencing. He had seen Lev enraged just a handful of times and that was a sight to behold. That was saying something, considering that usually Lev was an unflappable, inhumanly calm and patient man. Their last mandatory visit to Pendragon and unavoidable appearance at court that came with Victor's promotion to Admiral was a case of point – Makensen endured the hours upon hours of standing like sore thumbs in the Emperor's audience chamber surrounded by some of the most powerful and dangerous nobles of the Empire as if it was nothing; the same couldn't be said for Stein, who emerged from that little visit as a nervous wreck that Lev had to bring to the closest bar and dose with a few glasses of whiskey before the brand new Admiral could congratulate himself over his survival. It only made sense – the one time before he was at court it was when his father few from grace – Victor's old man blew his brains all over his office at home the same evening. He was very afraid that he might be left with little choice but to follow his father's example if he got home after li Britannia got himself killed – and that was if he was lucky. He could imagine trying to explain to the whole court how he allowed the little bastard to go get himself killed along with too many good men and women!

"There's no bloody plan!" Lev rumbled deep in his chest – a sound reminiscent of a grumpy bear that got its slumber disrupted by its next witless meal.

The Captain's words brought Victor away from the brief slip back memory lane.

"Sure there's one. Arm and fuel up every single combat plane we have and then send them on a glorious charge under the personal command of our resident prince!" Stein sneered.

A glare from his old friend stilled him and he took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. Then did it again and again a few more times until he had his fears under a semblance of control.

"I'm not jesting, Lev! That's the ingenious plan our new royal pain in the ass came with!"

The Captain stared at Victor for a long, long moment and shook his head in disbelief. "What does he think would happen? Get lucky and run into the Chinese?"

"I raised that point, so did the rest of our staff – only to have our concerns brushed away as if they were of no consequences!" Victor looked warily around – that last part came out louder than he intended it to. Luckily, no one but Lev appeared to have heard him.

"Does he know something we don't?" Makensen decided to give the royal the benefit of the doubt.

"I certainly hope so!" Victor's tone made it clear what exactly he thought about that possibility. The Chinese were somewhere off Hainan – as of two days ago. That was all ONI had on them and as far as anyone was willing to tell their Admiral, there was no new news about their location or intentions.

"Do you want me to have a word with the kid? He did look more sensible than most..." Lev wisely didn't say aloud who exactly li Britannia was supposed to be compared with.

"Perhaps you can get to him through that hard head of his..." Victor whispered hopefully.

The two of them glanced at the Admiral's office where li Britannia was speaking with someone over a secure channel.

"Let's just hope someone back home knows more about what the Chinaman's doing than us." Lev jested.

"That would be the day..."

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'Nelly's tired face was a sight for sore eyes. My sister stared at me for long, long moments and eventually let out a sigh of relief.

"You're alive." She deadpanned and narrowed her eyes at me in that fiendish way that as a child was all the warning I got that I had to run the few times I really pissed her off.

Potential Sith in the making or not, that expression made me bloody nervous.

"That's why I'm calling!" I waved nervously.

Veil was probably rolling in his grave at my antics – if there was enough of him left to bury. That was me – Delkatar li Britannia, a disgrace to every self-respecting Sith, who were all hopefully in a galaxy far, far away, a long time ago and safely dead for aeons. One can hope, right?

"You look to be at one piece at least." 'Nelly's expression softened.

"I'll remain that way until tonight too!"

On a second thought, that might not have been the best thing to say. Where's that Sith stoicism and level-headedness when I needed it? Oh, none of that was a typical Sith trait, right. I think the Force was laughing at me too, because right not it just sat there. Observing or just lethargic?

"What trouble did you get yourself in this time?" My sister asked.

"You haven't heard?" I asked hopefully.

"I've been busy. I do have an army to run, if it hadn't slipped your mind." Cornelia snipped at me. Not in the best of moods. Perhaps it was the time – I forgot to check the time-difference. "All I know is that the Federation declared war. Explain. Now." My sister ordered in a no-nonsense clipped tone.

I did so – as fast and with as few words I could manage. "We won the battle with acceptable casualties. The Chinese joined the war as you should know. We got away to our bases mostly intact. Father put me in charge of the whole Pacific Theatre of Operations."

'Nelly face-palmed and muttered something I couldn't hear. "You aren't yanking my chain, are you, little brother?"

"I believe it is a test from father." I shrugged. What else was there to say?

My sister straightened up and removed an errant purple hair from her forehead before focusing her complete attention on me. "That makes sense." She said in a deadly serious tone.

"That's the other reason I'm calling – to give you a head's up. I find it unlikely that I'll be able to keep my abilities under wraps for much longer. The Worst case – it can come out tonight. Please, make sure Euphie and Mother are safe." I implored.

Cornelia sighed and shook her head at me. A chiding expression appeared on her face. "You know I'll do everything I can to protect them, Delkatar. What are you going to do?"

"Even the odds."

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Part 6

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8 May 2009 A.T.B.

Admiral's office

Command bunker

Gawain Naval base

Cam Ranh Bay

After I finished speaking with 'Nelly, who wasn't convinced I knew what in Odin's name I was doing, I relaxed in Stein's chair and opened myself to the Force. For two days now I spent every moment I could get away with submerged in my power exploring all the knowledge Veil had about divining the future, projecting his mind to distant places and generally how to use our gift for remote intelligence gathering. A lot of the more advanced techniques were beyond me at this time, however late last night I figured out I didn't really need them. All that I required of my power was to locate the Chinese fleet, preferably their carriers too.

You see, the sea is generally empty. Unless I knew someone and their Force signature very well I would have hard time locating them in a small city I was in, much less hundreds of kilometres away. However, and this was the important part, I wasn't searching for a particular Force signature. On the contrary – all I had to find was the clustered presence of people where there shouldn't be any – like in the sea off Hainan. Once I figured that out, finding the rough location of the enemy fleet took just a few more hours. With that done, the first critical step of the plan was successful – which in turn meant I had to spent most of the time between then and now fending off polite requests to see sense or at least make some kind of sane plan – one that didn't require for me to lead the bulk of the Britannian Air Force in the region on what everyone believed would be a suicide flight in the unknown.

Obviously, by the time I managed to get a line to my sister, my patience with the people I was in charge of was mostly gone. Oh, I knew where they were coming from. In their shoes I would be doing the same, probably planning to "accident" the crazy bastard preparing to lead a suicide mission for no good reason. My issue was that I couldn't tell them the truth and my paper thin excuses of need to know and intelligence from the homeland wasn't really cutting it. I was pretty sure that only gently using the Force to figure out what exactly to say was the only reason no one had tried to arrange an accident for me and damn the consequences.

Yet was the operative word there and because of that I was glad that the hunt for the Chinese fleet would start in couple of hours. I sent my mind drifting through the Force to confirm that there were no major changes since the last time I did it – the vague impression of clusters of people in the middle of the sea was in the general area where I was expecting them to be.

I smiled and let go of the Force. Given the difference in speed between major surface ships, fighters and bombers, the Chinese had no way to get away safely even if they started running right now. The big question was could we get close enough to them before they figured there was a major raid in progress and scrambled every single fighter that could make it to the region – unfortunately we were going to find out if that was the case or not the hard way.

I couldn't wait to leave – preferably before someone decided to try to frag me on general principle.

While thinking of officers doubting my sanity and ability to command, a pair of them just headed this way. Stein and his XO – who could actually give some Wookies Veil has seen a run for their money in the size department, walked in with concerned expressions on their faces.

"Admiral, Captain." I greeted with a forced smile.

Meanwhile, internally I was chanting that I must not Force Choke either of them, despite how bloody annoying they could get! This was exactly the wrong time to deal with dissent in the ranks... How to play this!? I scrambled for answers until my eyes ran over the computer I used to call 'Nelly.

"Sir!" Makensen saluted crisply as if he was a marine. Scratch that, since becoming the 501st CO, I've seen marines with sloppier salutes.

I returned the salute and grinned. This time it was even genuine. "Good news, gentlemen! I just got the rough area where the Chinese fleet was a few hours ago." I creatively interpreted the truth. "We're going hunting."

Whatever those two expected me to say, this wasn't it. They actually perked up and the cloud of gloom and doom that hang over Stein ever since he spoke with my father – with the brief exception of the few hours he spent plastered after that little chat, suddenly lifted.

"That's a great news!" The Admiral stammered and smiled nervously.

"The designated squadrons are ready for deployment I hope?" I did cut off those orders hours ago after all.

"All fuelled and are currently arming and undergoing final checks." Makensen reported dutifully. His voice was calmer than a Jedi's, however I could acutely feel how relieved he felt at the news.

Huh. Was it desperation that made them buy my words at a face value without demanding details? Perhaps they were grasping at straws as the saying goes.

At any rate, it was a good thing that I spent hours making sure I could plot the general search area on a map in preparation for tonight's operation. Otherwise, things could have got mightily awkward, especially considering I already sent most of our fleet elements in the region sailing towards Hainan thirty hours ago.

"I need a map." I demanded. "We have to cobble together a briefing." I blithely ignored that my original plan called for just ordering the fighters and bombers to follow me in the night on blind faith and fear of the reprecusions of refusing...

That wasn't one of my best moments, but thankfully I didn't say that aloud. On the downside, playing things too close to my chest did cause almost everyone doubt my sanity and qualifications to lead...

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9 May 2009 A.T.B.

Pilots briefing room

Gawain Naval base

Cam Ranh Bay

Maya scowled at the far wall where a projected map showed two large circled areas of water. This was why she had been grounded for over a day now? A glorified babysitting gig watching over a bunch of heavy, slow and blind bombers stumble in the dark?

The pilots of said glorified bomb buses, who sat to the right, didn't like it either by the disgruntled sounds they were making. A night attack on not one, but two enemy CBGs!? Even if the Chinese ground based aviation got grounded for some reason, breaking through all the escorts and the thirty or so fighters each of those carriers should have was going to take Loki's own luck!

"Questions?" The terribly young and even more terribly cheerful man who gave the briefing asked.

The first answer he got were the combined punishing glares of nearly three hundred pilots. However, for some reason no one voiced their displeasure besides some level of angry grumbling. Maya looked around in confusion – she knew some of these pilots and they tended to say what was on their minds when some bloody REMF thought up a plan that would get most of them killed for no good reason. Maya waited a few more seconds for someone to find their balls and when they suffered a critical failure at that task, she glowered in all directions before getting to her feet.

"I do...!" Brightman's tone was just the right side of disrespectful. "Sir." She added after the briefest of pauses.

"And you are?"

"Major Maya Brightman, CO, Sabre Squadron." She introduced herself automatically. "I do have a few reservations about this plan. It's very thin on details."

The plan was bare-bones at best – fly in three waves – fighter screen, bombers with escorts and another group of fighters flying CAP between the strike force and the Chinese mainland. If practical, attempt multi-axis attack once the enemy fleet is located, if not – hit them like a sledgehammer.

That was it.

"Well, Major, we kinda lack enough detailed Intel for a more detailed plan. At this moment, the two Chinese CBGs are moving in to link together – which will happen in less than thirty six hours – if we're lucky. We need to hit them before that happens and tonight is going to be our best chance. The Essex is launching its AWACSs as we speak and they will do their best to locate our quarry while we're still en route."

"I see, sir." Yep. Bloody fool of a REMF. Maya was going to figure who that bastard was and if one of her people didn't make it through this suicide of a mission, she was going to end him!

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Scratch that, the bastard responsible for this was going to die! Maya glared balefully at the plane waiting for her.

It wasn't her Eagle damn it but a two seater command Falcon. She was more than qualified for it – it was the bird she flew for her first two years after the academy, but that didn't matter! It wasn't her lovely Eagle!

"Major, I'm glad you made it!" A familiar, too cheerful voice exclaimed from behind her.

Maya whirled around and opened her mouth to bit off the head of the bloody fool who... She stood so straight that her spine felt a pole and snapped to attention before her conscious mind could register what her yes were telling her – the Admiral in charge of the whole base was right here, standing a step behind the cocky bastard who gave the briefing. That little REMF was grinning at her like a fool and wore a pilot's suit. He held a helmet too...

There was no way the Gods were this vicious... Right? Why her?

"Major, I don't believe we got properly introduced. Colonel Delkatar li Britannia – acting theatre commander for this little war of ours at your service. I understand you'll be my pilot for tonight's little exercise?"

li Britannia?! Maya looked hopefully at the Admiral. This had to be some kind of joke, right? Perhaps she got shot down by the Chinese and this was her sorry excuse for an afterlife?

Admiral Stein just shook his head. Was that a commiserating look he sent her? Then the family name finally registered properly. Li Britannia. Oh. Maya blanched.

The prince just smiled and said something, but his words got swallowed by the roar of launching planes.