Chapter 17: Contact

"However, it is my judgment in these things that when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success."

—J. Robert Oppenheimer (Scientific Director of the Manhattan Project), 1954

ABOUT HALF AN HOUR EARLIER

Groom Lake AFB "Area 51", Nevada, United States

In the seven years since the nuclear pact with the Gods of Falmart, America had not been idle.

Once the idea of magic had been presented to the Pentagon by DARPA, the Joint Chiefs had written back a short list of things that they were hoping magic would let them do, in the order of how dramatically it could affect future campaigns.

The third-most important item on that list was perfect camouflage. This was realized by the aircraft that Brigadier General Richard Mullan was now watching take to the air. The SR-75 "Abaddon" was the final punch line to an old Air Force budgeting joke that went, "By the time we reach 2030, the US Air Force will only be able to afford one plane." Indeed, the Abaddon program cost the defense department the same as two Gerald Ford class aircraft carriers, but in response the Abaddon was the perfect vehicle. Seconds after its landing gear retracted, the skin of the aircraft seemed to ripple as its SR-Phizon array activated, and the plane vanished from sight. This was accompanied by a peculiar noise as the plane's jet engines suddenly spiked in pitch, then become completely inaudible. If someone had the right tools, they would also notice that the plane had vanished from the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared and radar.

It was as if the plane was never there to begin with.

Shortly after the Korea crisis, the Air Force Chief of Staff had called on Mullan, citing his actions in the Special Region, familiarity with magic users, and his ability to follow commands under pressure as enough to make him the perfect candidate to run DARPA's Magic Applications Program. At first he had been hesitant, but the promise of a promotion and the chance to get away from nuclear weapons was too good to pass up. Through the end of Dirrel's administration and into Mahana's, he'd overseen the fruits of American investigation into the secrets of the Special Region. Not all of them, of course; other departments handled mineral and biological discoveries and their applications—including a project to up-armor MRAPs with synthesized Ice Dragon scales—but that was nothing compared to his three projects.

An aide tapped him on the shoulder. "Orders from Secretary Barton," the aide said. "We are to test fire ADMIT FUSCHIA at the communicated coordinates in twenty minutes."

Mullan frowned. "We've always had our targets in advance. Is this a combat scenario?"

"He didn't say."

"Do we need Presidential authentication?"

The aide thought about it, then said, "Unlike release of nuclear weapons, there is no federal law detailing the use of the project."

This idea didn't sit well with Mullan. "The minute this project goes into the open, I'm writing my Congressman," he muttered. Jamming a binder under one arm, he followed his aide out of the boiling Nevada sun and into the main bunker.

For decades, people had come up with all kinds of crazy stories about Area 51, and on entering the base for the first time, Mullan had discovered every one of them to be false. There were no crashed UFOs, there were no little grey aliens, there were no Nazi flying saucers or extra-dimensional creatures or lizardmen cabals like the conspiracy theorists liked to claim. For the most part, Groom Lake Air Force Base tested aircraft; either experimental aircraft with novel propulsion systems or radar evasion technologies, or captured enemy planes to be used as part of aggressor squadrons. In his time at the base, Mullan had been shocked by the odd inventory of MiGs, Sukhois, and even a Chinese Chengdu J-20, which had arrived in shoebox-sized pieces over the course of four years.

As they passed through the first two security checkpoints, Mullan could hear a loud thrumming from deeper within the complex. He wasn't heading for the source, but he knew what it was.

The second-most important item on the Joint Chiefs list was an Unlimited Energy Supply. Magic hadn't been able to provide that, but it did provide a means of manipulating particles without the aid of magnetic fields, radiation, or any of the other common quantum forces that interfered with high-energy research. As such, the thrumming noise was coming from the cooling system of a small but very capable Cold Fusion reactor that was now powering much of the base. In theory, they could hook it up to the civilian power grid and power all of Las Vegas too, but it was generally agreed that clueing in the world on the accessibility of free electricity would cause a lot of anger amongst energy companies.

For now, answering the massive energy demand of ADMIT FUSCHIA was enough.

They entered an elevator which demanded Mullan's retina print, fingerprint geometry, spoken code, and quantum-encryption key fob before descending deeper into the facility. Another security checkpoint later, and they were in the control room, overlooking the Holy of Holies.

To one side of the chamber beyond sat a giant cluster of rocket engines. These weren't any normal engines either, they were the product of a 2015 patent by Boeing that used focused lasers to ignite deuterium fuel. In essence, they took the uncontrolled wrath of a hydrogen bomb and refined it into pointed fusion thrust for a rocket...such as the one that NASA hopped to eventually build for Mars missions. Much like the fusion reactor upstairs, it was agreed that news of a nuclear-powered rocket engine would be met poorly by certain sectors of the public, so its only prototype remained hidden in this room, a hundred feet underground.

Across from it lay the one thing that the Pentagon had wanted most. ADMIT FUSCHIA was a bizarrely-shaped machine, the product of careful, compartmentalized effort by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, Fermilab, and Northrop-Grumman. It was boxy and bulky, built as a hollow cube with two open ends, and a layer of armor plating thick enough to take whatever forces were exerted on it.

Mullan explained the situation to the other controllers. Much like a ballistic missile, ADMIT FUSCHIA had people to watch propulsion, navigation, armament, and all of them were carefully trained in their jobs. After all, no one had ever built a device like this before, and so every man and woman in the control room had effectively written the book on its operation and maintenance. Their orders clear, the airmen went to their respective chairs and began the firing process.

"Beginning Phizon cascade," one officer declared. Before them, the unusual machine roared to life as thousands of cooling elements raced to keep a series of finely tuned electromagnetic fled generators under control. A series of alarms went off, and a heavy, polarized glass partition dropped in front of the viewing windows.

"We have coordinates from the NROL-SR constellation," the navigation officer declared. Mullan looked at a screen showing the hard data, and while he didn't understand all of it, he understood enough to know that the target wasn't the usual testing grounds.

That could only mean…

"Well," Mullan said, "They were the ones who told us how to build it, after all."

And with that, the General threw the activation switch on the Air Force's first Tactical Gate Weapon.

Ichijima

A thousand meters in the air off the coast of Ichijima, the fabric of reality itself seemed to bubble and warp. A swirling sphere of red and violet light appeared, spinning and pulsating like something alive, then twisted inward on itself. It appeared to flatten, then seemed to burrow to a deeper inner space, like a giant funnel, and a hole opened up in the sky.

Just as soon as it had opened, light poured forth, brighter than anything else in the sky other than the sun, which was probably appropriate; a similar process was occurring as the nuclear engines smashed hydrogen isotopes together into a heavy isotope of helium.

It was quiet at first, but when the sound finally caught up with the view, it was a tremendous roar that shook the sky and the firmament. This was no mere snap of Thunder, or even the seemingly endless gale of an atomic detonation, this was a banshee's wail.

Like a giant flaming sword, the jet of nuclear fire sliced into the stormfront, causing the clouds to boil off and sweep away under the onslaught, and the heavy winds vanished, as if someone had closed a tap.

The response from Rory was nearly instantaneous. She dropped to her knees, arms cradling her head, jaw gritting against what had to be a sodden spike of pain as her god responded to the attack. Clayton hadn't seen this for himself, but he'd read Mullan's reports about Giselle. He knew what this look from an Apostle meant.

The Ambassador got down on one knee so that the two were eye-level with each other. "We warned the Gods," he hissed. "We told them what the terms of peace were. This is the price of breaking that peace."

"They—survived—last—" Rory gasped.

"They survived one atomic blast. They survived a few seconds of radiation. Not this time. This time, we're going to be here all day long."

Now her face was beginning to twitch. She barely managed to say, "—bluffing—"

"Really?" Clayton replied, "If you're not convinced, that's fine. We've got plenty of time, and the engine isn't even on at full blast yet. If they don't get a cancellation order, the amount of nuclear propellant will be doubled right around...now."

The nuclear geyser in the sky doubled in length, and Rory started to reach for her halberd.

"If I die, the ICBMs will be launched," Clayton clarified. "And your gods will burn, just like we promised."

"Then what do you want!?" Rory shrieked. For the briefest moment, the mask slipped away, and Clayton saw the most satisfying thing he'd seen all year; panic from an Apostle.

"I want the gods to hold up their end of the bargain," Clayton said. "I want them to self-police and ensure that none of them ever step out of line again, and I want Palapon to pay an appropriate price for breaking our arrangement."

At that, Rory seemed to droop for a moment, her eyes locked in a faraway stare. Taking a closer look, Clayton could see that her lips were moving, but no sound was coming from her mouth. After a few seconds, she stopped, her eyes went wide, and her face was lit up by a brilliant and terrifying smile.

"Done," she said.

Somewhere between Rondel and Italica

"Push forward!" General Aldo shouted. "Give them no quarter!"

Before them, a group of about two dozen crashed Rondel mages had fled their planes and had banded together into firing lines. From their position atop a hill, they were raining musket and pistol fire down on his men, but the Saderans had the numerical advantage. That, and no matter how much more advanced the Rondel guns were, they were still single-shot weapons with a long reload time and terrible accuracy.

The truth of the matter was more concerning than that. Grey was working to keep his army's attention on the Rondel airfleet remnants, rather than the dark, gusting clouds above. He had no control over the Gods, and all he could do was the task that had been handed to him.

Just as he and his group were about to crest the hill, the air was shattered by a high-pitched uneven keening, like someone was dragging a rake across a chalkboard. The sound seemed to fill the air, the ground… even his equipment seemed to vibrate with the shrill noise.

Was it a magic attack? Grey didn't know. Sound-magic attacks had been rare enough in pre-Gate, pre-Crystal warfare, with commanders preferring to use the few mages at their disposal for anti-artillery shields. With the Focus Crystals knocked out, Grey supposed that a magic adept could still be using magic, but then it would have made more sense for them to stay up in the air, wouldn't it?

Whatever was going on, he had to take that hill. Even if there was a remaining magic user up there. "Keep going!" He shouted at his men over the din.

As his soldiers crested the hill again, they slowed, then came to a standstill. Grey, following right behind them, soon saw why.

The remaining Rondel pilots had abandoned their weapons and were attending to their mages, all of which who were bleeding out of their eyes, ears, and noses.

190,000ft ASL

High above Falmart, Ellie was fighting to keep the Independence upright as it hurtled back through the atmosphere. Outside her windows she could see orangey streaks as the outside air friction dragged at the spacecraft's dragonscale belly, and all around her the ship seemed to be heating up as well. "Five more minutes," she called back to Hector, "Then we'll be slow enough to… hang on, do you hear that?"

It had started as a high pitched ringing in her ears, but it was increasing in volume as they descended. Her first thought was that it was something to do with re-entry… but surely Greta would have mentioned it if that was the case?

"I hear it too," Hector replied. "I do not think it's coming from the headsets eithuuu…."

The sudden slur to the end of his line caught her attention, but the thunk as her flight engineer collapsed against the back of her chair sent her into shock. "Hector!" She called. "Hector, what's happending!?"

The line on her headset remained silent.

She still couldn't turn her head around to see what was going on, and she didn't hear deliberate movement. In fact, she couldn't hear much beyond the ringing noise, which now seemed to be buzzing the bones inside her own head.

Ellie tried to reach a hand over her shoulder to feel for Hector, but he neither took it, nor moved against it, and a particularly hard bump caused him to shift, but only a little, and clearly not of his own volition. It could only mean that the old battlemage was either unconscious… or worse.

And then, as if things couldn't be any worse, she felt a warm feeling well up in her nose, then drip over her lip in a stream that tasted of copper. She instinctively raised her free hand up to her face to wipe at the nosebleed, but her hand ran into the material of her spacesuit.

She hadn't been trained for this. Having the RCS fail had been bad enough, but now her engineer was unresponsive, she was potentially injured, and the spacecraft was in danger of being shaken apart by the unplanned, impossible buzzing.

Ellie looked up at the entry hatch above her head. Even if she could open it against the interior pressure, the plasma outside would fry her instantly… and even if she somehow survived that, she would either asphyxiate in the thin air, or plummet to hear death has her spacesuit kept her wings bound to her back.

For a moment, she was back above Italica, aboard a failing MagThree, her hands full of blood and death rushing for her, but this time there was no escape. She wanted control back, she wanted—

And that was when she realized, her other hand remained steady on the control stick, her feet firmly fixed to the rudder pedals. Even as she had been panicking, her training was still holding some semblance of order.

As her old mentor liked to say, Fly first, panic later.

The Monarch placed her other hand on the stick. Whatever this was, whatever was going on, she would force her way through it. Would she die? In that second, it didn't matter.

This time, she decided, I AM going to land this plane!

Ichijima

"...the baby," Arpeggio muttered as blood began to leak out of her eyes. Flat caught both his son and his wife before she fell to her knees. "Help!" He shouted, eyes wide with terror, "Someone, please!"

"Tell the Gods to stop it this instant!" Clayton yelled, grabbing Rory by the shoulders. This was a counter attack, it had to be. He hadn't been affected yet, but what if it was just a matter of time?

But Rory seemed just as terrified, "You fool, this is your baugghhh—"

She gurgled and coughed up a spout of blood and chunks of gore that hit Clayton all over his tailored suit. The weapon slipped out of her hands and Rory fell, clenching at her own throat.

That's when Kengun pulled out his sidearm. He didn't point it at Clayton, but his intent was clear. "Turn it off."

Clayton spun around to face him and argued, "It's not us!"

"I don't care," Kengun growled. "Whatever it is, turn it off, now!"

Much to his own credit, Clayton actually hesitated. I could always ask them to turn it back on, he supposed. He tapped a few quick instructions into his cellphone, and sent the message.

Above them, the jet of fire finally ceased. The hole to another world shrank in diameter until it disappeared from sight altogether. It was remarkably anticlimactic for something so destructive, but the same could probably said about the end of tornadoes and hurricanes.

But the noise and shaking did not stop, not for another minute, after which the Ambassador could still feel the ringing in his ears. Nearby, a truck from the nearby base with JSDF medics hurriedly went to work assisting Arpeggio and Rory.

Rory, ever the powerful Apostle, was back on her feet in seconds. "It is done," she declared.

"What's done?" Kengun asked.

The Apostle pointed at Clayton. "His request for Palapon; revenge against the god of revenge. The other gods...ate him."

Clayton dropped down next to her so that they were eye-level again. "What do you mean, they ate him?"

Her grin seemed even more menacing through a face smeared with her own blood, which she slowly began to wipe away with the back of her dress sleeve. "The Gods aren't used to pain," she said. "They were only just reminded of it seven years ago, and even then, the burning of the atomic radiation only seared them for so long after the bomb went off. But with the Americans and their new hell-fountain, it never stopped. It just kept going, and going… and you will never believe who snapped first! Zuftmuut! Can you believe it, all that droning about light and order meant nothing—he was gibbering, practically begging for an excuse to put the axe to one of his own, another god."

She giggled at that last point, and continued, "Of course, Elange began rattling off alternatives, but as soon as you offered the option, my Lord and Master Emroy sent the others into a frenzy. Shrieking in pain and desperate, they descended on the whole planet and performed some… adjustments. The diffuse parts of this world that contained essence of Palapon are no more, safely devoured and incorporated into the other gods."

That was when it clicked for Clayton. If he was understanding her correctly, the Gods had needed to filter and remove Palapon from all the SR-phizons on the planet. This involved going through every rock, tree, and animal on the planet, hunting these particles down, and then using the inherent quantum-bending properties of magic to neutralize them all. Magic users or magic-sensitive demihumans like elves or Monarchs probably would have been more affected, as their bodies contained more of the magic-linked particles. Arpeggio, a magic adept, had taken a pretty severe hit, and Rory, an Apostle, had coughed up chunks of her own lungs.

Beside him, Kengun had put his gun away, but the look on his face was no less severe. "That was a Gate," he said, his voice cold, "Right?"

Clayton didn't answer, he just looked back down at the bloody mess that Rory had poured down his front. A whole new weapon, and a whole new slew of unexpected consequences. Thousands, possibly millions of people on this world had collapsed, bleeding out of their orifices, due to his single command. He wondered, just for a moment, how many had been touched by the Gods' panic. "I think…" Clayton said, and shook his head. He didn't know what to think. Instead, he settled on, "I think I should go replace my shirt," and stumbled off.

Behind him, Rory burst out laughing. "Keep it!" she shouted after him, "It suits you!"

Rondel, The Council Building

Chairman Delsus burst into his own office and rushed to his desk, panting in terror and from his chaotic run back through the streets as he watched men, women, and children drop, crying in pain as they suffered the Gods' agony. He still did not know the state of his airfleet, but one thing had become abundantly clear; the Gods were no longer on his side. The Saderans would be coming for him soon, and that meant that he had to escape while there was still time to do so.

He coughed to clear some of the metallic taste from the back of his own mouth, and tried to wash it away with wine from a flask on the table. As he tilted his head back in hopes of drawing a few remaining drops, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, quickly turned to face the visitor… and found a sword a centimeter away from his throat.

Empress Pina Co Lada hardly reacted, adjusting the angle of her blade slightly as she said, "Hamilton, please close the door."

Behind her, the other member of the Rose Guard quietly closed the door to the office. In fact, now that he was paying attention, he realized that there was a whole group of people standing back there; a few choice Saderan soldiers, dark elves holding Earth weapons, Tuka with a bow at the ready, and an exhausted, blood soaked Lelei leaning on one of three JSDF Special Forces soldiers. They had been hiding up against the wall, and Delsus had been in such a panic that he'd rushed right past all of them when entering the room.

As if reading his mind, PIna explained, "Once I heard about the little invisibility trick that you used on Sherry's envoy, I just had to try it myself. We have been in your city since early this morning, and in this room for nearly an hour. You really took your time out there."

Delsus was afraid to turn his head, but he still looked the one easily-recognizable Japanese soldier dead in the eye. "This is your idea, wasn't it."

Itami Youji, not wanting to disturb Lelei with a shrug, simply held up a hand. "Japan offered Sadera help with logistics, and that's exactly what we did. We carried some things and people around, but we're just here as observers. The great tactician you're looking for is the one in front of you with the sword."

"I may not know my way around grand strategy," Pina said, "But small unit operations? I've only spent a lifetime training for that."

"So now what?" Delsus asked. "You ask me to surrender?"

"That would be nice."

"I'll be hanged for treason."

"Maybe."

Delsus couldn't help but grin. This whole act was a farce, and he'd surely be dead within a week. Summoning up the shreds of his courage, he slid his way around the edge of his table, allowing Pina to keep his swordpoint on him. "I have some parchment here," he said.

His hand drifted down to one of the drawers, which he slowly opened, then reached inside. "And might I add," he said, "How thankful I am that you came to see it through in person."

When it whipped his hand out of the drawer, it held a flintlock pistol.

BANG

The sound of the gunshot seemed to hang in the air for an eternity before Delsus realized that the smoke curling up between him and Pina wasn't coming from his own weapon.

Looking down, he saw that the Empress held in her free hand a knockoff of the Rondel gun that had almost been used to assassinate her, back when his grand quest for revenge had just started.

The world around him took on a foggy, almost dreamlike wobble as he fell back into his office chair, clutching at the wound in his chest. "You—" he gasped, "don't—have—those—yet—"

Pina smiled. "This is our first prototype," she said, then displayed the weapon's novel feature.

She pulled the other trigger, and the second barrel went off, ending the objective, the war, and Chairman Delsus's miserable life.

Above New Alnus Settlement

The hard part was over. The Independence had finished its descent through the worst part of reentry, and Ellie heard a thudding noise against the spacecraft hull as it dropped back below the speed of sound, followed by the usual roaring and rushing as air continued to blow past them.

The approach to Alnus was exactly as she'd remembered it in the MagThree, but where the MagThree seemed to easily float through the air, Greta's ship had the lifting properties of a clay bowl. If Hector was still lucid she could have made a powered approach, but with him out of the action, she would need to glide her way in...which meant that she needed to get it right on the first try.

She carefully lowered the nose so that they were aimed at the nearer end of the runway and watched the altimeter on the Lockheed Martin box spin around the dial. At a certain number, she reached over to a lever on the left side of her compartment and pulled it. This time, Ellie heard a creaking beneath her as the landing skids deployed from the head shield, and the noisiness outside increased as they dragged at the airflow.

All according to plan.

As she neared the end of the runway, she pulled the nose of the vehicle back up, simultaneously preparing for landing and dropping her airspeed. Outside the windows, the runway was hardly visible. All she could do was trust in her instruments and wait.

The rear skids contacted with a shock that threw her up in her seat, and she had to fight to grab at one last handle to engage the air brakes. Fortunately, the same seatbelt kept her from crashing across the cabin, and eventually knocked her back against the seat cushions as the vehicle came to a complete stop.

Not willing to wait a minute more, Ellie detached her suit from the life support system nozzle and turned around to face her crewmate. Hector was still slumped over in his chair, but as she raised his head, she could see that he was indeed awake, and was trying to blink congealing blood out of his eyes. "Can you hear me!" she cried, "Are you alright?"

Hector shook his head, opened the vent port on the side of his spacesuit, and asked, "What happened?"

"I don't know. We landed at Alnus."

They heard the rumble of a motor vehicle outside, followed by a clanging on the access hatch. Ellie scrambled to get out of the way as the hatch opened inward, and the two were met with the smiling face of Hatori the JSDF test pilot. "We were tracking you the whole way," he said. "Great landing!"

"Did we succeed?" Hector asked.

"Sure did! Knocked every last one of those Rondel idiots out of the sky! We're still waiting on word from Ichijima to explain everything that happened after that, but congratulations, you're heroes and you're astronauts!"

Ellie didn't know what to do or say. After all the intensity, her nerves had finally worn out, and she was simply exhausted. "That's… that's great…" she said. "Can I take off—"

"Both of you need to stay in there for just a little while longer," Hatori interrupted, "So buckle back up!"

"But we just landed!"

"We need to get you off the runway before the F-2s run out of fuel!"

Ellie sighed and dropped back into her seat. Compared to the intensity of the flight, the truck that hauled their ship away made for an anticlimactic end to their travels.

"Hey, Ellie," Hector said, reaching up and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Yes?"

"You did it. What you were trying to do this whole time. You visited the place where the Night Triangle flies."

Ellie nodded.

"Did you find what you were looking for up there?"

She thought about the postcard in her pocket, presented to her by Greta with the English scrawl, Because you're worth it too! Perhaps she hadn't seen the Night Triangle up close, but she had found confidence in herself in the process, and that was worth far more to her than a trio of glowing dots.

"Yeah. I did."

Author's note

The depiction of an opening and closing Gate is based off of the one that appears at Alnus and disgorges alien space bugs in Yannai's original Gate Light Novel, Volume 10, chapters 9 and 10. I like to think that the American's first stab at the technology looks the same way as ADMIT FUSCHIA is, like Pina's pistol, a prototype, imperfect adaptation of found/observed technology.