Author's Note

Thank you for your patience. As promised, Chapter 13 will follow a few hours after this one.

I was originally able to keep up the once-every-ten-days pace due to the fact that I was able to get writing in during my lunch breaks. Unfortunately, I've had to devote those to dealing with a personal issue that isn't going away any time soon, so I suspect that chapter releases will be slower than I'd hoped.

That said, I am fairly confident that Chapter 14 will be ready within 10 days. We'll see after that. Since the story as a whole has only 18 chapters planned, I guarantee that you do not need to worry about this story being abandoned, and I am hopeful that the whole thing will be over before the summer ends.

In the meantime, let's get back to a more wholesome topic: theater nuclear strategy...

Chapter 12: Cruising Speed

Headquarters, United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan

Part of the Nuclear playbook for the Special Region dictated that, in the event that the Gods did not attack before Clayton was safely on the other side of the Gate, launch control would transfer back to the President, and there would automatically be an "all hands" meeting to discuss the situation and future options. The Ambassador had gone through a pair of false alarms in previous years, but this event, for once, looked serious.

On the video screen across from him, President Mahana folded his arms and said, "Palapon? What's his deal?"

Next to Clayton, a scowling Kengun replied, "He's their god of revenge… and I believe that he was listed as the single dissenting voice to the nuclear pact with Hardy seven years ago."

"No known Apostle, no known center of worship," US Defense Secretary Barton added. "But if any god were to be most likely to break our agreement, Palapon would be at the top of my list."

Japanese Defense Minister Nomura looked up from his notes and asked, "Are you planning to attack?"

"If Palapon tried to attack us the way Hardy did, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and the counterattack would have happened already," Barton pointed out. "The fact that he has not attacked, despite the fact that the details of the intervention were leaked to us, suggests that something else might be happening."

"And this Flat El Coda, we can trust him?" Mahana asked.

"Flat is a trustworthy source," Kengun confirmed. "He isn't like Yanagida; his motives are the safety of his family. He has nothing to gain by triggering thermonuclear war between us and the Gods of Falmart."

The President sat back in his chair, rubbing his forehead, and said, "So, if we have a God intervening, but not for the sake of declaring war, then what's the objective?"

"If I may," Barton said, "The State Department believes that we are being tested. It would be impossible for Palapon to do something like this without the other Gods knowing, and they have not taken steps to intervene themselves, so the obvious conclusion is that we are being tested. They wish to see what degree of intervention they can get away with before we retaliate… much like how NATO and Russian aircraft probe each other's airspace for intercept and detection times.

"The important part is what comes next. Our current nuclear doctrine In Falmart was prompted by a large, conventional attack against Japan and civilians under its protection. This current intervention is not explicitly directed at Japan, and could easily be denied as intervention by either side of the civil war. I guess what I mean to say is… where's our red line?"

Kengun shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and Nomura tapped the table in thought for a moment before pointing out, "The Gods do not know the exact number of bombs that we have over there, but they must know the location of all six launch platforms. This raises an additional series of problems, namely that an escalated conflict means that they can more easily retaliate before we launch a second strike… and the fact that any subsequent strikes will tip them off to the fact that some of the weapons are fakes, and that we haven't deployed as many weapons as we've suggested. If we do strike at the Gods, the attack must be decisive, or else…"

"Could Lelei hold the Gate open long enough and large enough to accomodate a boomer?" Barton asked. "There's an Ohio-class that we can—"

"Excuse me, we're getting off topic," Mahana said. "How far do we let them press? You people know the situation over there better than I do, so tell me what you think."

After thinking about it, Nomura supplied, "The breaking point with Hardy was the death of JSDF personnel. I think we should expand this to include all civilians and military personnel of Earth territories. Furthermore, anything that looks like a non-proxy attack on these groups should be considered a triggering event."

"If I'm understanding you correctly, you are framing this so that Palapon's intervention with Rondel does not merit use of the weapons," Barton said. "Is that correct?"

"We are still Japanese," Kengun firmly stated. "Given the option, we would prefer to avoid using the atomic bomb at all."

"I also understand that this puts responsibility for the outcome of the war against Rondel squarely on Sadera's shoulders," Clayton added. He had been quiet the entire meeting so far, so the statement brought all eyes on him. "Correct?"

As Kengun was about to agree, Nomura interrupted him. "That is no longer the case. I have received… pressure from the state department to extend the use of Alnus's JASDF assets to the Imperial forces."

Kengun looked back at him in wide-eyed shock. "Eeeeeh?"

"It wasn't my call," Nomura clarified. "The Minister of Foreign Affairs pressured the Prime Minister into this, against my original suggestion."

Clayton raised an eyebrow. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, huh? He had suspicions about what might have prompted this, but he would keep them to himself until he had proof.

"On the topic of foreign affairs, what's going to happen with Nguyen?" Kengun asked.

"The World Health Organization is going to send a small convoy back to Rondel to arrest him," Barton explained. They're going to have a few UN soldiers with them, with the assurance that US and Japanese forces will intervene if UN peacekeepers come under attack."

"UN Soldiers?" Mahana shot a look at his defense secretary. "How many? From which country?"

"About ten guys from Italy."

The President gave a chuckle. "Italy, huh? Okay, I can live with that. Does that sound good to you, Minister Nomura?"

"The Foreign Ministry has already approved it, Mr. President. Hopefully further involvement or intervention will not be necessary."

"Well, the US stands with you if you need us," Mahana said. "We'd be glad to lend forces from Island One and Alnus, just keep us in the loop, and we'll work with you."

"Thank you, Mr. President." Nomura, then Kengun stood, gave the man a bow, and left the room.

"Thanks for your time, Robert," Barton said, and reached forward to terminate the call when Clayton held up a hand, urging him to wait.

When the door was shut again, Clayton said, "About the nuclear deployment, I wanted to discuss another option."

"What other option?"

"You should be receiving weekly reports on a project with the code name ADMIT FUSCHIA."

If Barton was leaning or slouching to any degree before, he was bolt-upright now. Mahana gave a confused look between the two men and asked, 'What's AD—"

"I'm sorry, Mr. President," Barton said. "That's a Special Access Program. Top Secret, Compartmentalized, the works. Dare I call it a Black Project? I'll tell you if you need to know in the future, but the less you know about it now, the happier you'll be."

Mahana held up his hands and grinned in mock surrender. "Okay, okay! I'll leave the two of you to it! Thank you both for your time, gentlemen!"

They waited again for The President of the United States to leave, exchanged a few more code words, before Barton asked, "Why do you want to use ADMIT FUSCHIA?"

"The alternative is the Bomb," Clayton said. "We've both been there already. So have the Gods, and that means that it won't work."

"How do you figure that?"

Clayton tapped twice on his desk and said, "NUTS theory."

"That's not a clear answer."

"You were a General at USSTRATCOM, so you know the difference between NUTS and MAD, right?"

The Secretary of Defense frowned. "MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, is where any attack on a defender results in the defender absolutely destroying the attacker, while the attacker launches a similar all-killing strike. In a strategic nuclear war, it was a mind game we played with the Russians, and seen as a way of preventing a nuclear war from starting to begin with.

"In the 1980s, Jimmy Carter moved the US to NUTS, or Nuclear Utilization Target Selection, which is a game theory that doesn't make nuclear war winnable, but it does make it survivable...in theory. The idea is that if an attacker uses one nuke on a defender, the defender uses an equal-sized nuke in response, because if the defender used a bigger nuke or more of them, it would result in a second strike from the attacker. The idea is that it gives both parties a chance to de-escalate and step away from a MAD scenario...but I'm still not seeing it. The Gods of Falmart don't have nukes."

"They don't have nukes, but they do have nuclear resistance," Clayton argued. "We know that an atomic weapon can harm the Gods. They know that too. Sure, it hurts them a lot, but the group that took the most damage from the last attack was Carenth. The Gods know that a nuclear attack is survivable, and the only reason why they'd be willing to let Palapon play his game is because they feel that they can take the hit if he screws up and forces us to launch. That's NUTS theory; they think that they can trade one intervention for one nuke. If that's the case, it doesn't stop the Gods from intervention, it just gives them a calculus to decide how often to intervene. If they ever figure out that we've only got three weapons over in Falmart, and they make us use all of them, we're screwed."

"And your solution to this problem is ADMIT FUSCHIA?"

"The NROL-SR constellation has been completed for over a year, and the ground components were already in place by the time Dirrel's administration ended," Clayton said. "I may not be Secretary of Defense anymore, but I suspect that the project is ready for field use. Am I correct?"

Barton still did not give a clear reply, and folded his hands on the table. "It's less a case of if we can use it and more a case of if we should use it. Talking about Hydrogen bombs is hard already. If we start using ADMIT FUSCHIA, it wouldn't just change the tide of the battle, it would redefine warfare as a whole. Carenth is bad enough, but if Dr. Dawson and President Dirrel hadn't stepped in, the blood of every man woman and child in Bellnahgo would have been on your hands. Depending on how people react once they learn that this thing exists, the outcome could be far, far worse. Are you really willing to carry that weight?"

Clayton could not reply, he opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, but ultimately looked away from the screen.

"Think about it," Barton said. "I'm willing to leave it open as an option, but you think long and hard before you decide to go through with it."

The Secretary of Defense cut the connection, leaving Robert Clayton alone with nothing but a dozen, troubled thoughts.

MIDDAY

Ichijima Island, The Special Region

Ellie had ever known mealtime in two different formats. One involved buying and preparing her own food, the other involved waiting at a table as food was prepared by someone else.

Therefore, it was with a large degree of nervousness and disorientation that she worked to balance her Mess Hall tray as she walked away from the buffet and towards one of the tables. The food smelled well enough, but it came in shapes and consistencies that she wasn't familiar with. The first thing she did was to poke at a small-tube shaped noodle covered in melted cheese with a fork made from some clear, transparent material that was too light and supple to be glass. None of it made sense to her; the fork, the shaped pasta, the evenly melted cheese… and when she finally tasted some she couldn't decide if its strangeness was a symptom of her never experiencing it before, or the chef preparing it wrong.

Around her, members of the JMSDF, JGSDF, US Navy, and US Marine Corps indulged in their own lunches. She spotted a few groups of Falmart natives, some of them demihumans, but was too frightened to approach. After all, McKann had impressed on here that these were Falmart's best scientists and researchers, whereas she was… what was she, exactly? Sure, she had briefly discussed some flight tricks with Greta, but those were all things any six-year-old Monarch could explain. She was hardly an expert of her field.

"May I assume that the seat across from you is not taken?"

Ellie looked up to see Hector, the dark visage of his burned face and black cloak totally at odds with the colorful lunch tray in his hands. She shook her head and gestured to the other side of the table.

Hector himself seemed quiet, ponderous, and regarded the food on his tray with the same level of confusion that Ellie had felt earlier. "Have you any idea what these things are?"

"No? Are you even sure it's food?"

"The American soldier in the line before me requested these items, so I would assume so. This looks like meat. This looks like a plant of some kind… and this is water. I think. What kind of a drink is that?"

Ellie looked to the carton on her tray and the brownish fluid within and shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "But the chef seemed eager to get me to try it."

Hector tried some of the meat and, seeming satisfied, said, "I spent much of yesterday discussing flight wards and explosion magic with Quintal El Korus. From a practicality standpoint, what they've discovered is remarkable. I wonder if there are places on Earth like this too, where a government dumps mountains of money on people to go discover things."

"Who's Quintal?"

"He's Greta's Flight Engineer. The reason why were allowed to come to this island at all was because the Americans and Greta were hoping to make us into a second test flight crew, but I believe that any knowledge they wish to impart could be useful both inside and outside their… space-ship." The mage raised an eyebrow. "Which I hear that you don't plan to fly."

Ellie set her fork down. "I don't want to talk about it."

"From the sound of it, they explained to you what the Night Triangle is, and it's only a matter of time before I encounter Ms. Mercury or Mr. Clayton. We owe them this much."

"I said, I don't want to talk about it."

Hector's lip twitched and the raised eyebrow bent down. "I think you do," he said. "Whatever it is, you haven't talked to anyone yet, and—"

"Fine! You want to know what I think!?" Ellie said, standing up. "I think those things are death traps. They're made of dead parts bolted together in a way-to-hard set that's bound to break, and even if they don't, they treat the slightest error of the pilot as a disaster! Why would anyone stake their life like that!? And have you even seen the spaceship? It looks like it's going to fall apart! You can't see out of it! You're encased in steel and locked in with a vice! I almost died over Italica, I saw how easily these things fall apart, and I can't do that again, I just can't!"

She was on the edge of tears, and knew she had drawn the attention of half the cafeteria, but she didn't care. None of these people got it, none of them understood what it felt like to be trapped like that.

Hector's response was unusual. The side of his mouth dropped into a frown, and he said, "If your plan was to crash the Rondel plane to begin with, why are you surprised—"

"YOU WEREN'T THERE!" She shrieked.

And as she did so, the scowl dropped off Hector's face and was replaced with...sympathy? No, she told herself. No, he can't get it, because that would mean—

She turned and stormed out of the cafeteria. Ellie didn't want to be near anyone, or talk to anyone. She wanted to fly away, but she couldn't, not with the American air defenses online. Instead, she ran. It didn't matter that she was on an island, and there was nowhere to go. She ran anyway, until the soreness in her leg and arm and wings, reminiscent of the crash, all flared back up and she stumbled and fell to her knees. It was midday, so she felt like the bright blue sky and warm sun were mocking her.

When a shadow finally settled over her minutes later, she was thankful. Immediately less so when it produced a voice. "Well?"

Ellie looked up to find Rory, short as she was, staring down at her, halberd balanced across one shoulder, that same sick grin plastered across her face.

Why won't everyone just LEAVE! Ellie felt her left hand balling into a fist, but was halted when Rory tilted her head and said, "Do it. Let's see how far you get."

She wouldn't get far, of course. Her fists against an Apostle? She'd get chewed up faster than the Rondel MagThree after the Efftoo spotted it.

Without any other options, Ellie screamed, she swore, she lobbed every obscenity she could think of at her, and Rory took it all without so much as a single change of face. After a few minutes the Apostle went so far to cover her mouth to suppress a yawn. When Ellie finally ran out of breath, Rory slowly shook her head. "A pity. For a moment I thought you'd actually try."

"I'll—I'll—" Ellie wheezed, and Rory spun her halberd around so that the bottom of the pole rested at the tip of Ellie's nose. The Apostle gave a slight push, and Ellie toppled over backwards.

"Do you even know what you want?" Rory asked.

After a while, Ellie shook her head.

"Then go find someone who does." Rory leaned in close enough so that they were almost eye to eye. "If you go now, you'll catch her before she leaves."

It took Ellie a moment to realize—she meant Greta! She wasn't sure what the Apostle meant, but she was ready to jump at anything by that point. Rory knew something—was waiting for something—but what?

She scrambled to her feet and looked around, trying to get her bearings, only for Rory to raise her halberd, point, and hiss, "Run."

—-

Ichijima Airstrip

The aircraft on the dirt airstrip was massive, which would have amazed Ellie enough if it was American or Japanese. It was neither. Rather, it was an upscaled, twin-bodied MagThree. Suspended between the two hulls, one of Greta's spacecraft.

Greta herself was standing atop the ship, climbing into in a strange suit—it looked leathery, not in a slick way, but like a water-resistant cloak. She had drawn it most of the way over her shoulders when Ellie finally made it within shouting range. "You made it!" Greta called out to her, clearly excited. "I was just thinking of you! The last Navy weather balloon had some interesting things to say about mid-level winds… but I've been there before. Any thoughts?"

"Just the spin recovery stuff we talked about," Ellie said. Her voice was still hoarse, so she wasn't sure that Greta heard her all the way. Nonetheless, Greta seemed to be giving her full attention and nodded in appreciation, then reached down and offered her hand.

"What are you—"

"Come on up!"

"But—"

"You're not flying anything today, but I figured you might like a look. You'll be back on the ground before we start moving. I promise!"

Ellie gave her an unsure look, but ultimately reached out. Greta grabbed her hand and hauled her on top of the spaceplane, then gestured at the action going on around them. "When the Americans did their version, they dropped it from a B-52," she said. "But I think this design works better. Carol showed me the carrier airplane for SpaceShipOne, and it also looked kind of like this. It didn't come out exactly the same, but that's to meet the needs of magic. It really did a number on the Freedom and Independence—it barely looks like an X-15 anymore, but it still works!"

Ellie asked about the strange English names, so Greta clarified, "They show movies at the base sometimes, and one time there was this movie with two spaceplanes that use an atom bomb to blow up a—but that's not really important. The names sounded cool, so I decided to keep them." She knocked twice on the hull beneath her and added, "This is the Freedom, by the way. Independence is back at the hangar."

"And an X-15?"

Greta reached inside the strange outfit and pulled out a stiff piece of paper. On closer inspection, Ellie could see that it wasn't normal parchment, but something Earth-made; glossy, with a picture covering one side. The picture was of a black Earth airplane with stubby wings and wheeled landing gear… yet it had some of the similar, rough, bolted together qualities that were apparent in Greta's airplane. Framing the picture, a collection of engineering views presented just enough information that one could probably figure out the dimensions and panel sizes. "Turn it over!" Greta urged.

On the back, a series of scribbles in Japanese text. "What does it say?" Ellie asked.

The older pilot didn't even glance down at the words; she had clearly memorized them. "It says, Because you're worth it too! Can't wait to see it fly! Best wishes, Carol Dawson."

"Carol must be amazing."

"When they let me see her, I'll introduce you!"

Ellie smiled. "Three months, right?"

But rather than the supportive effect she'd hoped for, Greta's smile faltered, if only for a moment. "That's right," she said. "Anyway, time for me to get suited up!"

There was a pair of American support staff atop the plane, probably making final preparations with the Lockheed-Martin box. One of them handed a small machine to Greta who slipped it around one ear, then shifted the remainder of the suit over her body and head. The only way Greta could see out was through a pair of glass circular windows in the suit near where her eyes were, and she slid open another small spring-loaded hatch near the side of her head by twisting it. "It's not much," she said, "The Blue Origin space suits were much better, and much easier to get into, but for the technology we have, simple seemed like the way to go. This design is actually based off of an old Russian space suit called Orlan, and I like it because there's only one opening that needs to be sealed up."

Ellie shuddered at the idea. Being locked into a metal box was bad enough, but being locked into an airtight body-bag too? Which was when she realized, "How do you breathe in that?"

"There's no air up there, so we need to carry that too," Greta admitted. "The inside of the spacecraft maintains some pressure, but, after a certain altitude, the rest gets put in through a pipe, which gets connected to this part here." She pointed to the open port for clarification. "If it were a longer flight, bad air buildup might be a problem, but these flights don't need to stay pressurized for longer than half an hour or so."

She moved to stuff the postcard into the suit, but hesitated and offered it to Ellie. "I usually leave it with the Americans," Greta said. "But this time… I feel like giving it to you."

"Why?"

"I've leaned on the Americans a lot over the years, and today… today I figure it's time to start showing them that Falmart can do cool things too." She winked. "The highest Neil Armstrong ever went in an X-15 was two hundred and seven thousand feet. Today, I plan to beat him."

Ellie didn't know who Neil Armstrong was, but as she was guided off of the spacecraft, she took one final look at Greta. Obscured as her face was by the space suit, she exuded the confidence of an engineer with pride in her invention, and a clear expectation to succeed. She gave Ellie one last wave, then followed her flight engineer into the spaceplane.

Once Ellie and the ground crew were out of the way, the Super-MagThree rushed into motion. Six flight magicians, all operating in concert, muttered their enchantments into the spaces between the wings, and the giant wood aircraft started its way down the airstrip. As she watched them go, one of the American sailors tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Are ya gonna listen in?"

Ellie gave him a quizzical look, so the sailors waved her to follow, and Ellie soon found herself on the beach, where a number of other sailors, marines, and JMSDF personnel had gathered. Many of them were passing out heavy combined-spyglasses—"Binoculars"—while others had set up one of the noise boxes, which was presently reverberating with Greta's voice. "Five thousand feet, looking good so far," she was saying.

Commander McKann was there too, so Ellie asked him how they could possibly be hearing Greta from so far away. "They've got a radio onboard," he explained. "It's built into the avionics box from Skunkworks. Makes it so that all the flight data makes it to the ground safely, regardless of how the flight itself turns out...but Greta's a good pilot. I have high hopes."

McKann passed her his set of binoculars and helped point her to the right place. Ellie had operated ship spyglasses before, so the experience wasn't entirely new, but the level of magnification was unprecedented. She could see the whole of the spaceplane and its carrier aircraft as they climbed.

"Five seconds to detach," she heard Greta said. "Two, one, now."

The spaceplane dropped from where it had sat, suspended between the two fuselages, and then it took off like…

She had a mental image of Bozes's daughter, hands above her head and shouting, "VOOM!" She still had no idea what a rocket was, but the motion seemed to fit.

"Approaching thirty thousand," Greta said. "Airspeed...okay, now!"

There was a bright blue flash and, for a moment, Ellie feared that the spacecraft had exploded, but no, it was a stream of concentrated magical energy being forced out of the rear exhaust port and the tiny ship continued to accelerate. In fact, if not for the lightning-blue exhaust, Ellie would have probably lost it against the sky already.

"Looking stable!" Greta said. To Ellie her voice sounded labored and she wondered why. Perhaps it was similar to the strain on her wings during a dive? Or were there other forces at work on the way up to space?

A few seconds passed, and Greta reported, "One hundred thousand," then, a few minutes later, "Are you… okay, engine out. We're on ballistic flight."

"What happened?" Ellie asked.

McKann shrugged. "It's a test flight, so they probably loaded less fuel than the maximum load. They're still going up right now, just like a rock will keep going up for a while after it leaves your hand when you throw it. After a certain point they'll slow enough to come back down."

"Two hundred and still climbing!" Greta cheered from the radio. "Looking good up here. Rate of climb is starting to go down, I'm going to try the RCS system… wow! Okay, hang on a second…"

"Can you ask her what's going on?" Ellie asked.

McKann shook his head. "Out of range. A long range receiver would add extra weight, so Greta left it off."

"Just a… okay, there we go," Greta finished. "RCS works, but the force I'm getting from each thruster is a little different. Regimus, if you're listening, make a note to ask the Japanese and Americans if there's such a thing as an air pressure gauge… and if we can borrow one."

The men and women around her laughed. Those that did not speak fluent Imperial waited as their comrades translated, followed by a second, weaker wave of laughter.

"Everything else seems to be working just fine!" Greta concluded. "Conducted a full roll without any problems… we're still a bit too deep in the atmosphere for me to feel safe with a pitch-over...okay, that's all for now. We're descending."

After another few minutes, one of the sailors pointed and everyone turned their binoculars in that direction. It took Ellie an extra moment, but she eventually found the spaceplane as a dark speck against the sky. A few minutes later, and she could see features on the plane as it descended. "Okay," Greta said. "We're almost done with our reentry turns. Altitude—wait—"

And as Ellie watched, the spaceplane began to tilt down and turn.

A stall? Ellie wondered. No, a spin! She had warned Greta about these. Greta had never encountered one before Ellie had mentioned them, so Ellie had taken great pains the day before to go over stall recovery procedures with Greta, including some time to figure out the cockpit controls that would let Greta recover on her flight.

And indeed, at this distance, Ellie could barely see the control surfaces as Greta bent the rudder away from the spin and pushed the elevator forward… but nothing happened.

Which was when Ellie realized, the recovery maneuver had failed! The stubby control surfaces were designed with an emphasis on speed over mobility, and so the aircraft was not creating enough drag to cancel out the spin. She muttered under her breath, "No, no, no."

But Greta couldn't hear her, and the only indicator they heard from the radio was a grunt and muttered, "Come on, come on," as she continued to fight with the controls.

Ellie lowered the binoculars. The falling craft was close enough that they could see it, and the surface of the ocean it was approaching.

"Do something!" Ellie cried, then, looking at the military men around her, shouted, "Do something!"

But the beach was dead silent. The only one who reacted was McKann, who hissed into a small radio handset, "Medevac, pararescue, move it!"

Whatever that was supposed to do, there was no time left. Just above the waves, there was a bright blue flash, and the plane suddenly decelerated… nowhere near fast enough.

The last they heard from the radio was a resigned "Oh," When the spaceplane hit the water, it was still moving over sixty miles per hour.