Turning Points

by Silveus

In the future, Nanoha and Company lead the TSAB as they track down the most Powerful Lost Logia in existence, but how did things end up this way, story examines the turning points they lead to the largest Inter-dimensional conflict ever.

4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

January 19th, Outer-dimension, sector Sierra-10, 13:09 UDT

Boop

For the past 3 hours, 14 minutes, and 58 seconds, the small, dimly lit chamber had been completely silent. Prior to those 3 hours, 14 minutes, and 58 seconds there had been quite the racket, and even prior to that, there had been the normal sounds that one would expect, but then came the racket, and then the deathly still silence, and then, on the 11,699 second, that silence was interrupted by a single computerized "Boop."

Boop

A computer panel, overturned in the corner was the source of the sound, if its screens weren't cracked and broken, and had anyone been there to read them, they would have discovered that the, "Boop" was an audio alert accompanying an emergency transmission. But the screens were cracked and shattered, and even if they weren't, there was no one in the chamber to read it, nor was there in any of the adjacent chambers. So the "Boop" continued, repeating every five seconds, until the sender of the emergency message got tired of waiting for a response, and initiated Naval Emergency Protocol M-21, and forced a transmission to connect with the speakers.

"BRRRRRRRZZZZZZZKKKKKKKK"

A loud static burst out the consoles speakers, punctuated by even louder pops. After a second is quieted down, and what might have been words could be heard throughout the static. More time passed and the signal cleared up more.

"BRZZZZ….. Copy? KRZZZZK Repeat…BZZ, Trying….. Frequency."

And with that, the signal was lost for a few seconds, and the silence returned, but it was short lived, seconds later the voice came back, clear.

"Attention transport ship Ovila, you have strayed from your flight plan and have entered restricted space. Do you copy Ovila? Reverse your course now."

Had there been anyone onboard the Ovila, they likely would have come forward and connected and spoke to the operator, however, the Ovila was currently lacking a crew.

"Come in Transport Ship Ovila, this is TSAB Naval Outpost Sierra-10, you are entering a Restricted Area, Halt your progress."

The voice on the transmission paused for a few seconds, hoping that someone on the Ovila would respond, when no one did, a new voice came out over the speakers.

"Transport Ship Ovila, this is Captain Jackard, Commanding Officer of TSAB Navel Outpost Sierra-10, do you have an emergency situation? Come in transport Ship Ovila. We are dispatching ships to escort you out of the Restricted Area. If you do not comply, we will use emergency protocol M-24 to commandeer your ship."

The Emergency Protocol M-20 Series is a list of software commands built into the main computers that most ships traveling through TSAB jurisdiction are required to have. Some ships, the smaller, cheaper, and older ones might not have it, and some less wholesome captains might disable them, but the Ovila was a smaller long range commercial transport, and a more recent model, and since code M-21 worked, it stood to reason that the other codes would too.

"Transport ship Ovila, this is your last warning, reverse course or we will commandeer your ship."

Code M-20 forces a signal link with the target, and M-21 forces audio communication. If anything had made a sound, outpost Sierra-10 would have heard it. M-22 could force open a visual link, but not all ships of the Ovila's size had that capacity, and M-23 could lock anyone in the ship out of the command functions, however, M-24 was the pride and joy of the M-20 series, it allowed a remote user to take over all bridge functions of the ship, this would let the command center at Outpost Sierra-10 remotely control the Ovila.

"Transport Ovila, we are now initiating Emergency Protocol M-24. Standby."

It went without saying that when M-24 was used, so was M-23, it would be disastrous to have to different people trying to control the same ship. It also prevented anyone from doing something drastic now that their ship was no longer theirs. The two protocols don't actually do anything to the ship; just alter who can control it. Which is why, when the people on Outpost Sierra-10 took control and ordered a full stop on the engines, they were supremely confident that this minor incident was now over with.

So it was with utter confusion that the command crew stood slack jawed when the Ovila's engines temporarily stopped, right before they exploded. The aft main engine sputtered to a stop, just like it was supposed to, and then began to vent fuel, which was not a part of stopping, nor was it something the Outpost told it to do. The fuel, an extremely reactive, high yield variant, drifted into the still active sub engines, and immediately ignited. The main engine promptly overloaded, tearing itself free from the main body before exploding. The Ovila, now caught in close proximity to a rather large explosion, was hurled forward on the rapidly expanding shockwave.

The explosion destroyed the remaining two sub-engines, crushed the main cargo bay, and disabled the main power generator. The Ovila was now, in every way that matter, a rapidly moving piece of wreckage, and Outpost Sierra-10 no longer had any control over it.

For a while, the command crew just sat there stunned, and it was only after the Captain spoke that everyone started moving again.

"Get the Shana and the Tririox out there, double time, and dispatch one of the triage ships, the Clasencia should be in that area. How long do we have until it hits the S-Line?"

"Sir, the Tririox is closer, but she is still almost an hour away, the Clasencia and Shana are going to be closer to two, the Ovila is going to break the S-Line in twenty minutes, maybe more if she loses some momentum."

"Captain, we have an unmanned surveillance drone nearby, it won't make it in time to stop the transport from passing the S-line, but it might be able to do something. Should I divert it?"

Captain Jackard paused to think, this was rapidly spiraling out of control. Outpost Sierra-10 was supposed to be a cake walk, a stepping stone from the academy to real command, and it was quickly falling apart. He went from having a ship straying off course to a ship exploding because he gave the order to use M-24, to a ship careening out of control towards an inhabited world. It hadn't quite reached "Catastrophe" level yet, but it was quickly escalating.

"Dispatch the drone, push it for all its worth, our first objective is to stop the Ovila before it crosses the Satellite Line, we will do anything to stop it before that happens. Ensign, if we ram the Ovila with the drone will that stop it?"

"Sir, under normal circumstances, the drone would be too small to stop it, however the transport is already badly damaged, it might stop, or we might be able to push it off course, but, most likely it will just destroy the transport. If there is anyone still on it…"

The junior officer trailed off, his un-spoken words obvious to all, "if anyone is onboard and still alive after the explosion, crashing the drone will kill them"

While the crew came to terms with that, the Captain spoke again.

"We might need to do that, but only if we have nothing else. Now, if we fail to stop it before the S-line, we need to be prepared to minimize the damage. What's our worst case scenario?"

"Uhhh, we fail to stop it and it strikes the planet dead on in a populated area. At its current speed and with our best guesses at its mass, it could create a kinetic shockwave roughly equal to an Arc-en-Ciel Cannon. Depending on where it hits, casualties could be anywhere from a few hundred to over one million."

"Captain, it's unlikely that it will hit dead on, it will almost certainly enter the planets orbit and come in at a slight angel, if we get lucky it will break up in that atmosphere, it will make a spectacle, but no one should get hurt."

Captain Jackard took a second, trying to find a solution. Although he did everything by the book, and even in hind-sight, all of his decisions were sound, allowing a disaster of this scale to happen was bad, and if natives lost their lives, he would be to blame. He needed something, anything to mitigate the damage, both to the planet, and to his career. But no matter how hard he wracked his brain, he came up with nothing.

"Ensign, open a line to Navel Headquarters, priority one, and send it to the terminal in my office. The rest of you, get that drone there as quick as possible."

"Sir, Yes, Sir"

Captain Jackard, now certain that his career was on the fast track to the garbage pile, slowly made his way to his office, sat at his desk and waited for only a few seconds before the screen lit up, showing some nameless junior officer he had never seen before.

"This is Navel Command, we read you Outpost Sierra-10. What is your situation?"

Just as he was about to begin explaining how this disaster started, Captain Jackard remembered an odd fact from his first day on the job, his predecessor, who was now retired, had told him that he should report any unusual occurrences directly to an Admiral Markely. At the time, Captain Jackard had found it highly unusual, that he should bypass the normal chain of command and report to someone he had never heard of, but he hadn't dwelt on it, and soon forgot about it.

"Actually, can you connect me to an Admiral Markely? I am not sure what division he is in."

Sure he had no idea who Admiral Markely was, and had even less of an idea as to why he should be reporting to him, but his predecessor had stressed that point for some reason. And really, at this point in time, the situation couldn't be made much worse, but, if Admiral Markely was someone high up, perhaps he could somehow salvage the situation.

"One moment please."

The junior officer had obviously not expected that what he thought was an emergency call from some far flung outpost would end up being a request for someone's contact information. However, after he had finished punching in the Admirals name, the officer's expression changed.

"Security password?"

Ah, that was right, the old captain had mentioned a password, it was a large one, and the last 5 digits were unique to Jackard, they were the first numbers of his military ID number.

"Umm. Gamma9-BE444 Tango, Alpha, Alpha, umm the rest was… Star, 3g9, no wait, 3e9, and then I think… K-10 Zulu 6HA3, ah the last was, 19-4-66."

"Confirmed... Transferring to Admiral Markely at…Mobile Section 2…"

Captain Jackard had initially assumed that the officer's puzzled expression was due to him asking for Admiral Markely, and then directed at his bumbled attempt to remember the security code, and then, probably the fact that the code worked. But when he read out the words, "Mobile Section 2," Captain Jackard's expression changed to mirror his.

The Mobile Sections were obscured in legends, and Jackard had only ever heard of 3 of them, Section 1 protected the interests of Cranagan, the Capital city of Mid-Childa. They were the most well known, acting as an enhanced police force. Mobile Section 3 was a significantly smaller group, tasked with the protection of the Saint Church, and Section 5 was set up following the first resurgence of the Book of Darkness over 200 years ago. Section 5 was possibly the largest, but it was only active during periods of time when the Book of Darkness was active, however since it had been over 15 years since the last time the Book appeared, Section 5 had disbanded last year.

Captain Jackard could list hundreds of other rumors attributed the various sections, some more ridiculous than others, he had even heard stories about the other sections, but Section 2, there were no stories, no rumors, no legends, nothing, Section 2 might not even exist.

But it obviously did, he was about to speak to an officer from it, an admiral no less. Captain Jackard didn't know what to make of it, was he really about to speak to someone that might not even exist?

And then the screen changed, the junior communications officer was replaced by what Captain Jackard assumed was an ancient dead corpse, right up until it began talking.

"Ah, Captain Gene Jackard, it a pleasure. So how are you fitting in at Sierra-10? It has been what, 8 months, 3 days since you were transferred? I hope you like it; we spent a little extra to make it a bit more comfortable. I just can't stand the metal floors that most long rang outposts have, so we had that carpeting put in, but I must confess, I have never set foot there. Anyway, what brings you my way? Nothing major I hope?"

What he had originally thought of as an ancient dead body had turned out to be an almost as ancient old man. The man, presumably Admiral Markely, was so old; it looked as if he might just turn to dust. All the captain could see what his face, but he was covered in wrinkles, the little hair he had left was pure white, his lips were drawn in, his eyes, which were hidden behind a pair thick glasses, were a sickly yellow color, and his entire head was a fraction the size of a normal one. He looked exactly like a dehydrated body.

"Um, you are Admiral Markely?"

"Oh my, where are my manners? Can't have a proper conversation without proper etiquette, now can we? I am Admiral Winston Markely, Second in command of Mobile Section 2."

All things considered, Captain Jackard had half expected him to deny being in Mobile Section 2, or at the very least, to not just come out and confirm it.

"So, Mobile Section 2…"

"Ah Yes, we do hide ourselves better than the other Mobile Sections, but it is mostly because of our limited scope with what we do, which you will have to forgive me, I am not currently at liberty to say. Now, while I would love to entertain your inquiries, I do believe you had something to tell me that warranted this contact? I apologize; due to our limited budget we aren't able to keep an operative or even a direct link to your base."

"Um, yeah, we have a situation…"

"Go on."

"A commercial transport strayed into restricted space, we tried to contact them, but we were ignored. From what we could tell, the ship was just a normal ship; there was no reason for them to change their flight plan or to ignore us. We considered the possibilities that they might be smugglers, but the ships registry checked out, it was a small transport belonging to a small corporation based on Administered planet 348, Genurd. Um, I gave the order to use Emergency Protocol M-24 to take over the ships operations, but that ended…poorly."

"How so?"

"Err, the engines overloaded and exploded, the ship is now out of control and heading towards the planet."

"And you can't stop it I take it?"

"No, we can't, it's going to pass the satellite line in about fifteen minutes, and then it could go straight into the planet from there."

"Not good, not good at all. We need to minimize damage, and exposure. Luckily I already have agents on site, and the TSAB has recently acquired some new assets that can be used here. Also I am going to deploy our headquarters, The Terra, and I'll be taking command. Oh don't worry Captain, you did your job just fine, you followed protocol perfectly, there is just more at stake here than you know, and it is imperative that we handle this delicately."

Captain Jackard felt a momentary bout of nausea well up in his gut. Since his parents had passed on, the TSAB had been his entire life; he had no close friends and no family. If he lost his job over this, he would have nothing; his career had become his entire life.

"So… I am relieved of duty then?"

Saying the words out loud made him feel even worse, for a second he thought he was about to actually be sick.

"No, No, not at all, you did the best you could have done, you simply followed procedure, I was thinking you would retire after this. That is unfortunately what makes this such a sad turn of events. Because you really were a good officer. It does however make things easier on us that you focused so much on your career, not having many contacts out of the navy will help ease your disappearance. Well, I do apologize for this, but, our existence needs to remain a secrete, I'm sure you understand."

Captain Jackard had been listening intently at the beginning, but towards the end, his attention wavered, and by the time Admiral Markely had finished speaking, Captain Jackard wasn't listening at all. He had focused on the strange numbness that somehow started spreading out from the back of his neck, and at the end, well, he was already dead.

"Hmm, so efficient, he was dead before I even finished talking, good job Vier. I didn't even notice you teleporting in, and I was expecting it. I take it you used toxin 3? Or maybe 7? It's hard to tell without actually being there in person"

The body of Captain Jackard suddenly fell from the chair and landed in a heap on the floor. In the now vacant chair, the air shimmered for a second before a deep gray barrier was dropped, revealing a young woman, possibly in her early thirties, wrapped in a black jumpsuit, sitting cross legged in the former captain's chair.

"Three. If you want me to dispose of it now, I can."

All that could be said about the woman was that she was on the smaller side; everything else seemed to change with time. Minor shifts in her cheek bones, a slight lengthening and then reduction in her jaw, her eyes slowly faded color, freckles and a mole would occasionally appear only to fade away later. The entire structure of her face, even her skin tone was in a constant fluid state, slowly melting from one appearance to another, even her voice changed as she spoke.

"Yes, please do. But make sure you get a good look at it first, you need to be him until I get there."

"What about the rest of the base?"

Admiral Markely seemed to pause and consider that for a second.

"No, the base should be fine for now. Only the late captain there and the comm. Officer heard about us, and I just got a report here, saying that a lieutenant junior grade, Mitchell Summers just died in an unexplained teleportation accident."

The Admiral chuckled to himself for a second.

"Now Vier, I will be there with the Terra in about an hour, maintain the situation there, and get ready to have Captain Jackard retire in shame over his failure."

As he was speaking, the odd woman got out of the chair and turned and stared at the body of the Captain, for a little while her body stopped changing forms, but then it rapidly accelerated, and when the blur of changes stopped, her jump suit had stretched to make room for her new form, one that perfectly mirrored the former captain.

"Understood sir. What about the current situation?"

While the voice of a dead captain coming out of what was only seconds ago a woman might have jarred some, Admiral Markley didn't even notice it.

"I only have two agents in a position to do anything at this early stage, and their options will be limited. I will use them as damage control, and leave the main job to the small TSAB garrison on planet. Oh, and get rid of that."

"Yes, Sir. Then I am on standby until the situation develops further?"

As she was speaking, she bent down next to Captain Jackard's corpse, a long metallic spine seemed to grow out of her finger and she roughly stabbed it into his chest. She held it there until she had finished what she wanted to say to the admiral, and then extracted the spine and moved back to the chair. By the time she had sat back down, the body in the room had disintegrated, turned to vapor and was sucked into the air circulation system. The final resting place of Captain Jackard was now an air filter on the 3rd level of Outpost Sierra-10.

"Listen Vier, I want this to go flawlessly, my predecessor allowed two large scale incidents to go down within a year, and that is why she was disposed. I will not allow the same failure to happen on my watch. Understood?"

While she began putting the now unused uniform that was lying on the floor, Vier responded over her shoulder.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, then I will see you planet side."

"Yes, sir."

And with that the line was cut. The assassin Vier performed her duty perfectly, with a sorrowful apology to the crew, Captain Jackard's resignation over his failure in the incident was recorded and accepted by naval command, He would be temporarily relieved by one, Admiral Markely, a good friend of his from way back.

As for the Admiral, whose record was now quite different, he teleported to uninhabited planet 110 where the Terra was currently hidden. As the oddly designed cruiser blasted off of the surface of the small red planet, Admiral Markely sat in the command chair, planning and designing counter plans, and planning contingencies to those plans.

Once the Terra had reached orbit, Admiral Markely gave a single order to his crew.

"Set heading for Non-administered Planet 97."

-Page-

January 19th, Earth, 13:24 UDT

"Everyone, into your positions, our informant has confirmed that the target is in transit, ETA, 40 seconds. Bring up the stealth barrier"

After the speaker had finished, there was a frantic reshuffling, as people quickly moved and hid behind cover, some crouched down behind low objects, while others stood ready inside the doorways leading to the other rooms. There was a light teal glow as magical barriers were put into place, and then all of the lights in the room went off.

All of the figures stood ready, in silence, for twenty seconds.

"ETA is now 15 seconds, get ready."

There was a momentary pause before a second figure spoke up.

"You know, you're awfully into this Signum-san; and kinda good at it."

The tall pink haired knight responded almost immediately, from behind some window curtains.

"I am merely following my mistress's wishes. Also, ambushes are one of the basics of magical combat."

There was another short pause, and then another figure spoke up.

"Ummmm, Signum, you do know that we aren't attacking her right? It's just a surprise."

"I know Mistress; we just hit her with this cut up paper while the rest of you distract her with the flash bangs. I was there for the briefing."

"Oh, ok…Wait, did you say flash bangs?"

Before she could answer, a fourth voice spoke up.

"Ok, everyone, let's put this off until later, the gate is activating and this will be my new daughter's first birthday at home."

At Admiral Lindy's request, the conversation was dropped.

The area around the Teleportation Gate glowed and hummed for a second, and then, with a flash of light, Fate Testarossa-Harlaown appeared on the slightly raised platform hidden in an alcove. As everyone had expected, the Stealth Barrier only hid those behind it, the barrier itself was obvious and Fate immediately sensed it. First her face showed surprise, then confusion, followed by panic, but it was all almost instantaneous, and then her face returned to normal. Out off all the people observing her through scrying lenses, only one person noticed. Noticed the flash of emotions, and noticed that the now calm expression was fake.

Magic, although it is completely different, still functions in many ways as a science. Everything follows an order, and the goal is to discover that order, but even then, there are things that are just plainly impossible. Magic is just pure energy, energy that can be generated and controlled by a person, but it has no mass; unless it is acting upon you, it can't be felt or heard, it has no taste or scent, at least by itself. Magical energy can alter things, and you can feel that, but the energy itself, that is almost unperceivable by normal senses. So it defied common knowledge, and should have been impossible, but Nanoha Takamachi had always been able to sense Fate's magic. She wasn't exactly sure how or why, but Fate's magic brought to mind a sweet and tangy sensation, like orange slices soaked in sugar and honey. The sensation would rush through her body, waking her up and bringing the world into sharper focus, it covered her body in warmth and she felt a feeling of comfort and tranquility. Nanoha could even notice differences based on what Fate's magic was intended for, her feeling were strongly conveyed through the unique feeling that Nanoha received.

Right now, Nanoha was able to taste Fate's magical aura, it was the sharper bitter one, the one that raced though her mind, setting her nerves on edge, making her heart beat and her breath pick up. This was what Fate's magic was like when it was intended for an attack, and Nanoha knew that all too well, she had after all, been on the receiving side of it before.

The plan had been to hide behind the barrier until Fate stepped off of the platform, then they would drop the barrier and surprise her, while Signum and Arf threw confetti at her and used the party favors that Signum had gotten, they had even set it up so that some hundred balloons would fall from the ceiling after they jumped out.

But now that Nanoha had a new insight into Fate's mind, she decided that things needed to go differently. She called up a canceling spell and an unraveling spell at the same time into her left hand, and then jumped forward and struck the barrier, a quick strengthening field allowed her to tear into the barrier's Mana Threads, where she released both spells. The canceling spell shot down each of the threads and knocked out the stealth magic, while the unraveling spell followed after and disintegrated the barrier itself.

It was a good thing it was Yuuno who put the barrier up, if it had been anyone else's, it would have been much harder to break. Nanoha had worked with Yuuno long enough that she recognized the patterns in his magic almost immediately, sure they were way more complicated than the barriers that a normal mage would make, but once she discovered that intricate patterns woven from the Mana Threads were basically the same for all of his spells, learning to bypass them had become so much easier. Nanoha has yet to mention this too him, she just wasn't sure how to tell him that his prided defensive spells had such a huge weakness. But it turned out to be a good thing in the here and now; it allowed her to cut right through the barrier.

Before she had even finisher the jump and landed on the ground, the barrier had broken apart. Right as she landed she sent out a telepathic message to everyone in the room, a single and simple word,

NOW

Signum was the first to act, she had been watching as Nanoha broke the barrier prematurely, and had already changed her plans. Immediately after Nanoha has telepathically yelled, Signum had already triggered the balloons to fall and had launched her box of confetti at Fate.

After a moment's hesitation, everyone else got their act together, and in one big voice, made up of all of her friends and family, they yelled out,

"HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY FATE-CHAN"

Fate was momentarily caught off guard, she hadn't know what to expect when she noticed intruders in her house, but out of all of the scenarios she had thought of, this was not one of them. She abruptly halted her charge and stumbled forward confused and slightly disoriented. Why was there a box of paper being thrown at her? And why was her living room now filling with balloons?

Then her slight disorientation became complete disorientation when Signum's Party Favors went off. In retrospect, telling Signum that party favors were "Like Small Flash bangs" was probably not the best idea, since she went and ordered "Deluxe Micro Flash bangs." Twenty flash bangs, designed for law enforcement use, went off at once in Fate's living room. Blinded and deafened, Fate fell forward, into a pair of outstretched arms, who she immediately recognized as Nanoha's.

The two fell down into a heap, if either of them could hear or see; they would have seen and heard everyone else crashing to the floor, but they couldn't, and all they could currently saw was a white haze.

Unable to communicate in any other way, Nanoha spoke telepathically.

So…Surprise. Happy Birthday Fate.

Thank you Nanoha

Don't worry about it; it's tradition, surprise parties are age honored tradition

No that's not what I meant, I mean, Thank you for that too, I meant, Thank you for…

As Fate paused, Nanoha mentally sighed, she knew Fate would be uncomfortable with this topic, and she herself didn't enjoy it much either, but she knew that despite her discomfort, Fate still felt that she needed to apologize.

Its fine, I saw your face, you were a little too surprised, so I just jumped the gun a little.

…

I guess surprise parties are a bit much, next year will do a regular birthday party.

No. I want a normal party, a normal surprise party. This was just…

Ok, we'll do the same next year; well not the exact same, then it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?

If Fate, or anyone else in the house was currently able to see, they would have seen Nanoha with her trademark grin on her face. Fate had known Nanoha for three years now, which for most people, wasn't that long, but for Fate, 3 years was almost her entire life, and even though she was still blind, she knew Nanoha was currently smiling.

Thank you Nanoha

Those words, even said telepathically, echoed with different emotions.

Plus, this was right off of a mission, your stressed out. Its fine, next year will go smoother. We'll just keep trying until we get it right, hopefully next year we won't go blind or deaf, right?

That made Fate think, she was still unable to see, but her hearing had returned in the form of a dull buzzing sound that blocked everything else.

Why are we blind?

Hmmm, truthfully, I am not really sure; I think there might have been a misunderstanding over what exactly party favors are.

How… why would that…I don't get it.

Hayate and Signum.

Ah.

There was a pause there while Nanoha continued to hold Fate, and Fate tried to figure out how a miscommunication, even one between Hayate and Signum, could have ended up like this. Not that she had a hard time believing it, Hayate and her Knights would frequently get into, Unique, situations, it was just that she couldn't immediately figure out how this had happened. Perhaps it somehow tied in with some kind of Birthday ritual that she was unaware of?

The two sat there for a little while, their senses slowly returning, Nanoha content to just monitor the progress, and Fate still trying to work things out, however eventually Nanoha broke the silence, figuratively speaking.

Um, Fate Chan?

Hmm?

I've been meaning to ask this for a while…

Yes?

What's that smell?

-Page-

January 19th, San Diego, California, 13:31 UDT

JJ Murphy cautiously scanned the faces of the four people across from him, looking for anything, anything to give him the tinniest insight into their minds.

Harold was his normal stoic self; his face looking like it was chiseled from stone. Vinnie was playing with his hair, did that signify something? Or was that just his normal fidgety self? Doug was looking around the table, scanning faces just like JJ was; perhaps he was doing it for the same reason? And Laura, she kept looking down at her lap and then shooting her gaze up, and every time she met anyone's eyes, she would have the biggest smile on her face.

She had to be bluffing, or was about to pull out another ungodly hand.

JJ was one card away from a straight, he had the 4, 5, 6, and 7, all he need was the 8 or the 3, but Harold had the 8 of spades showing, and Laura had the 3 of clubs. JJ had just under a 12% chance of getting the right card, but was it worth trying for?

"Ok males, and female, I'm in."

Well since Vinnie was staying in, he must have something. Now about the others, the pot was already at 40, the stakes weren't necessarily high, but they were high enough that JJ didn't want to throw it away.

"Me too, what about your Harold? You staying in?"

"No. I fold."

So Harold was out, and Doug was in, and now it was JJ's turn to decide.

Well, might as well go for it.

"I'm in. And I raise 15."

"Wow, ok so I fold now."

Vinnie threw down his cards and got up to get coffee. While he was getting up, Doug studied JJ's face.

"I see you, and raise another 15."

JJ smiled, to himself, not outwardly, didn't want to give anything away. Doug's only tell was when he bluffed on a raise. If he had nothing and wanted to bluff, he would always raise again, so he had nothing.

"Um guys? So do I have to put 15, or 30 to stay in?"

And that was Laura, who had insisted that it would be sexism if she wasn't included in the game. And once she forced everyone to relent, she immediately went about reinforcing every stereotype possible. She was way too easy to read, she got hyper when her had was good, and would sigh whenever it wasn't. And if that was all of it, it would have been fine, but instead, she took it a step further, she would ask if her hands were good. "If all of my cards are the same suit, is that good?" "I have four jacks, does that beat having five cards in a row?" "Is it just two pairs even though I have three aces and two kings?" And that was the worst part, she had obscene luck, she had no strategy, no planning, but she just naturally drew the best hands possible. JJ expected her to draw a royal flush at some point. The only thing that made this manageable was the fact she was so easy to read. Everyone would fold when she had good hands, and then make their money back when she had bad ones.

"Laura, come on, this is like the hundredth time you've asked that, you add them together, so it's 30, on top of the ante of 2, so 32 total."

"Oh, ok, well here is 32, oh I am in I guess."

"Ok good, good, I raise another 30, hell let's make it 32, we'll double the current bet."

"Living dangerously man, ok, I'll see that, and raise another 5. Laura you wanna raise?"

"No that's fine. I'll stay in."

With the pot now substantially larger, the last cards were just about to be passed out, it was do or die. Any second now, JJ would know whether or not he will be taking home a nice bonus, or eating nothing but instant packets of ramen noodles until next payday.

Doug dealt the first card to Laura, making a whole dramatic deal of it.

"Aaaaannnndddd, here is your last card Laura, and DON'T flip it over this time. JJ my man, this is your last card, with it we will know how much of a looser you really are. And last, but certainly not least, this card right here, right here in my hand, will be the card that determines how awesome I really am."

Well that was new form of bluffing for Doug, he did have a pair of 5s showing, and he might have even more hidden under his face down card. But if the card that JJ just got, the one he was about to look at, turned out to be a flop, he would lose no matter what. And right as he was about to pick up his last card…

That happened.

A warning alarm originating from a terminal literally 3 feet away went off. Everyone at the table jumped, Laura threw her cards into the air, Vinnie almost fell out of his seat, Doug, who had been dealing, dropped the deck, and Harold, he didn't even flinch. As for JJ, well he had to take a second just to make sure that his heart hadn't stopped with that, pulse was still there though, just moving a lot faster than normal.

"Aw what the hell is that?"

"Laura, you threw your cards, you ruined the game."

"Hey you're the one who dropped the deck."

"Do something about that alarm."

JJ got up and made his way over to the computer. But "Computer" didn't do it justice. The high-tech, classified computer that JJ's job revolved around, the computer that was so confidential that before JJ could even look at it, three different offices had to do background checks; he had to go through six hours of interviews, signed over 100 different papers swearing secrecy. Every day before work, they spent over 30 minutes making sure there was no surveillance equipment on him; he wasn't even allowed to bring a cell phone to work.

And although it was technically his responsibility to check the computer, Vinnie spoke up, needing to reinforce his image as an annoying Know it all.

"It's probably just the scheduled move for today. Remember they are moving GOES-10 into a higher altitude tonight."

"Yeah, but I thought that wasn't till later."

Honestly, JJ had been more focused on the game than the time. He was pretty sure it wasn't time yet, but he wasn't sure. However Harold checked his watch before answering.

"No we still have an hour and 7 minutes until the scheduled transfer of GOES-10"

JJ got to the terminal and disengaged the warning siren before sitting down at the super classified computer, the computer that only 406 people worldwide were qualified to use. Why were so few qualified to use it? Partially because it contained incredibly complex programs, and partially because of the necessary security clearance to even touch it. And the next obvious question would be, "Why, or what does that terminal do?"

Well, that particular computer console is the main radar terminal for the San Diego branch receiving station of Naval Space Command Surveillance System, otherwise known as, Space Fence, a major component of the USA's Space Surveillance Network.

JJ didn't even want to think about how much money his government had poured into this project, a massive radar array, actually 3 arrays, and 6 receiving stations spread across the entire country, a radar system that could track objects the size of a baseball as far out as 30,000 miles, maybe even more. And it does that while those objects fly around at over 100 miles per second.

Now at his computer screens, JJ had a better grasp of the situation, sort of.

"Well it isn't GOES-10. That's still where it supposed to be, I can see it clearly. But, I am picking up something else, that isn't in the registry…"

"Asteroid?"

"ICBM?"

"Spy Satellite?"

"Alien?"

Oddly enough, it was Harold who suggested the Alien.

"Maybe? Its moving fast, really fast. Telemetry is working on that now. I… I have no idea what this is."

It took a second for that to sink in. While there were protocols for this, no one had ever had to deal with it before, so they all just kind of, sat there.

"I think… I think this is bad."

"It could be a missile."

"Who would shoot a missile, the Russians? Chinese? Why would they do that?"

"North Korea maybe?"

"The North can't even make a true nuclear bomb, let alone an ICBM."

"Not to cut you wild speculation short. But I just got telemetry in. It's large, large enough to be either of those things. It's about 100 feet long, and around 40 wide. It's also moving at around 170,000 mph an hour."

"What? That's impossible. ICBMs don't even get close to that."

"How high up is the unidentified?"

"Telemetry is putting it at around 42,000 miles up. We can only get a reading on it due to its size and speed."

"ICBMs don't go that high either, they rarely get past 1000 miles up."

"What should we do?"

"I am running some diagnostics and system checks to make sure this isn't a computer glitch. Someone get on another computer and monitor the telemetry, and someone else double check the registry."

"We're on it."

Laura and Doug ran to adjacent terminals to follow the object while JJ was running the diagnostic.

"Object is rapidly dropping in altitude, and is about to pass the 120th meridian."

"Nothing is coming up in the registry, object is not broadcasting an identification code, and its radar signature is not matching up with any known satellites."

"My tests are showing nothing wrong with the hardware, or software. I… we, need to report this to the SCC."

The rest just sorta stared, not exactly sure what to do, but willing to let JJ call the shots.

"Well Vinnie, you're the comm. guy, make the call."

Vinnie looked utterly horrified that he would have to be the one making the report.

"Oh yeah, I guess I'll go do it."

As he slowly shuffled over to the little red phone that would connect him to the Space Command Center deep inside of the Cheyenne Mountain all the way out in Colorado, JJ almost felt bad for him. He was literally shaking as he picked up the phone. He stood there for a second, before he spoke in a quiet, nervous voice.

"This is operator 6-6-2 from Naval Space Command Surveillance, San Diego branch receiving station. We are looking for confirmation of an unidentified object heading west through sectors 100 to 109."

There was a tense few seconds when Vinnie just stood there listening to the other end of the call, and everyone else just stared.

"Ok. Let me relay that to the radar operator."

Vinnie cupped his hand over the phone's mouthpiece and turned to face JJ.

"They confirmed the object on their screens and also, confirmed it with the High-Altitude array in New-Mexico. Their hardware is different from ours, so we can say it's not a glitch."

"What about the Red River station in Arkansas? Can they see it?"

"Red River is too far away, New-Mexico can only get a reading because they have a larger array."

"Ok, see if they can get confirmation from one of the GEODSS sites, or with the SST."

Vinnie went back to the phone; the conversation seemed to have helped him calm down, at-least he was no longer shaking.

"Requesting visual verification of the unidentified through GEODSS or SST."

There was another pause while the operator on the other end of the line was speaking.

"Ok, understood. We will keep watching on our screens for now. Umm, bye."

With the call over, Vinnie put the phone down and almost collapsed into his chair.

"Um, ok, we have a pending negative on GEODSS confirmation; the ones in Socorro, New-Mexico and Maui, Hawaii are no good for now. Socorro is probably already out of range, and by the time they aim it in the right direction, it will be. And it's still daylight in Hawaii, so unless the Unidentified stays up there for a while, we won't get a look at it with a GEODSS."

"What about a Space Surveillance Telescope?"

"Not good there. There is a storm system moving east through Oregon and into Idaho and Wyoming, none of the sites up north have clear weather. The same weather is blocking line of sight for the Utah site. And the Nevada site is currently down for system maintenance. But there is a Navy ship about 300 miles of the cost that is equipped with a small SST, but they need to deploy the telescope before they can use it. So it's going to be about 15 minutes until we get a look at whatever it is."

"So… they want us to keep monitoring it then?"

"Oh yeah, they do. They said to keep watching it and report any changes. I think Command has people on it too."

"Ah, so I guess we should all just get to work then…"

The five of them nervously went back to their posts and silently monitored the rapidly approaching object. Each of the five had different thoughts running through their heads, "Nuclear War," "Asteroid," Alien Invasion," and while they all though of different things, they all translated into Armageddon, the end of the world. And while they panicked, the high speed object was making its way across the pacific.

With each of them visualizing the world's destruction, it almost came as a relief when Doug broke the silence, unfortunately, the way he went about it wasn't the best.

"Aw…Shit."

When Doug spoke, the others all reacted instantly, their nerves on edge and their senses heightened. Laura and JJ both spun their chairs to face him, Harold just turned his head, and Vinnie jumped and slammed his knees into the underside of his desk. Following the loud bang, the three that weren't Vinnie all asked at the same time,

"What?"

"This is bad. Telemetry has another object in the Unidentified's path. It's on an intercept course. Laura what's the registry on this object?"

Laura spun back to her computer as Doug sent the data over to her. A few taps of the keyboard later, Laura turned back to the others.

"The new object is BSAT-2a. It's a new Japanese Broadcast Satellite. It's owned by NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation."

"Doug, How long until they collide?"

"Uh, not sure, 20 seconds, give or take."

They all turned to face their screens, waiting to see what would happen. And 21 seconds later, the little blip on the screen that was the Unidentified, momentarily overlapped with the blip that was BSAT-2a. And then the screen lost sight of BSAT-2a, but where it had been only moments ago, a rapidly expanding cloud of new targets had appeared. The debris from the impact had created over 100 new targets that were temporarily overloading the receiving stations ability to effectively track anything.

"Vinnie, get on the phone. Report this."

"Oh, Yeah ok."

JJ spared Vinnie a glance before he turned back to the screen. The man's face had glazed over and he was barely responsive. Everyone had known Vinnie was, well a little bit of a sissy, and he defiantly didn't perform well under stress. He made up for it by being a genius, his IQ was in the 140's, but that wasn't helping in this situation.

"This is operator 6-6-2 from Naval Space Command Surveillance, San Diego branch. The Unidentified has just collided with a civilian broadcast satellite of Japanese origin, registry is, BSAT-2a. We have a debris cloud obscuring sensor readings."

For a second JJ was sort of impressed, Vinnie seemed to be on the ball, but a quick glance told him that he was basically operating on autopilot. JJ wasn't even sure if he was still entirely conscious.

Unfortunately, with JJ's attention focused on his co-worker, he didn't immediately pick up an important detail concerning the Unidentified.

If he had looked, His radar screen would have shown that the Unidentified was still intact, which by itself wasn't really that unreasonable. The more momentum something has when it collides, the more likely that it will just blow through the obstruction and keep on going. But that's not what the screen showed, and when JJ finally turned to look, and saw that the Unidentified seemed to be in the same spot, he almost let out a breath of relief; for a second he thought the object had been stopped.

But then he realized what was really happening and he dove back to his terminal and brought up the telemetry data. His screen didn't show a 3-d image; instead it just showed an overhead overlay of whatever was in the space above North America. Unfortunately that meant that things with different elevations were displayed exactly the same. There was a little info box attached to the radar blips that showed the registry info along with relative speed and altitude, but the Unidentified was in the middle of a debris cloud, that if nothing else, cluttered the screen and made it nearly impossible to tell what was going on.

With the telemetry data being linked with Laura's terminal, JJ could see that the Unidentified's speed had dropped, not a lot, and not enough for its movement to be hidden like that, it was still traveling well over 100,000 MPH. The Unidentified was being displayed in the same place not because it had stopped, but because its direction had changed. Instead of flying across the planet, it was now aimed directly at the planet, flying straight down at over 100,000 mph.

JJ almost felt his brain short out. He could barely comprehend this situation. He knew what was, and what would happen, but he couldn't attribute meaning to it. But he had to, and he forced himself to turn to the rest of the team. He saw Vinnie still on the phone and interrupted whatever they he was saying.

"Vinnie, report this. Object's vector has changed. It's heading straight down towards the planet at 109,500 mph. We will have impact in just over 12 minutes."

The others just sort of stopped; it took a while for them to process that information, that something the size of a three story building was falling dead on towards the Earth, at well over 100 times the speed of sound.

As they came to grasp that concept, their faces all changed to show varying degrees of horror; Laura fell back into her chair and stifled some form of sobbing gasp, Doug just froze with a blank expression on his face, Harold steadily became more upset as he tried to figure out how much damage that this would cause. The only one seemingly unaffected was Vinnie; he just robotically reported JJ's words into the phone's mouthpiece.

JJ went back to his terminal and tried to follow the Object's trajectory. It didn't really matter where it landed, it would cause catastrophic damage no matter what. If it hit the water, which was looking likely, it would spawn massive tidal waves, waves that could easily reach over hundreds of feet and would destroy the coast lines of Asia and America, they would probably reach far enough to damage the Southern Hemisphere. If it hit land, well JJ wasn't exactly sure what it would do, he did know that it would kick up an enormous amount of dust and it could be a repeat of the asteroid collision that cause the extinction of the dinosaurs.

If an Earth destroying disaster wasn't enough, JJ had to consider his own safety. San Diego was clearly within the "Total Destruction" area, when that Thing hit, it could be as little as an hour before the city would be washed away. Hopefully the military would evacuate the base, but that wasn't certain. They might not be able to get enough transport to get everyone away in time.

JJ, and everyone else's, probably millions of people, prospects of survival hinged on whether or not the Unidentified broke up in the atmosphere. And as it continued its decent, now almost half way there, that was looking less and less likely.

JJ turned to the rest of his team, who for the past five minutes since he had told Vinnie what to report, had been staring at his back motionlessly.

"Vinnie, report this to the SCC. The Unidentified's estimated trajectory is going to put in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles off the eastern coast of Japan."

Before he continued, JJ had to take a deep breath. The words he was about to say were going to almost cause him physical pain.

"Recommend the complete evacuation of the Japanese mainland and all outlying islands; along with the entire Chinese coastline, and all other coastal nations. Also suggest preparations to evacuate the American west coast and the Australian region."

As he finished speaking, JJ took the time to assess his team, and was surprised, either they had already worked things out and came to the conclusion he had, and as such, were not surprised by what he had to say, or they had mentally checked out, just like Vinnie apparently had.

Although, apparently Vinnie was still functional enough to report what JJ had said into the phone. With Vinnie droning on in a monotone robotic voice, JJ went back to his terminal, and began monitoring the objects descent.

As Vinnie was just wrapping up his report, JJ went to check the telemetry again to see how much time was left, and oddly enough, the display showed nothing. When JJ went back to the main screen he sputtered in disbelief.

Today had been a rollercoaster of emotions, and this was probably the final hill. He refreshed the display, and again, and again, looked back and brought up the displays records for the last 40 seconds, and then refreshed it one more time for good measure. But, he still had the same issue, and absolutely no explanation.

Without turning, JJ addressed Vinnie over his shoulder.

"Vinnie, report to SCC…that we lost sight of the Unidentified. At 1:02:51, and at an altitude of 4500 miles, the Unidentified disappears from the screens. Request confirmation."

That took his team by surprise, and JJ was sure that they were probably flipping out just like he was, but JJ was just too mentally exhausted to care.

And he really wished that he could chalk this up to some system wide computer glitch, but he couldn't, because the wreckage from BSAT-2a was still there.

JJ fully expected to possibly die in the next few hours, convinced that in minutes the Unidentified would smash into the planet. But hours later, with the destruction of BSAT-2a confirmed, but with no explanation, and no indication that anything had hit the planet, JJ, and his team, along with the rest of the SCC were completely at a loss. There was no seismic activity in the region, no reliable reports of anything seen in the air, no change in the sea level, nothing.

And no matter what anyone said or did, all records showed that there was in fact a large high-speed unidentified object that nearly hit the planet before mysteriously disappearing, but no one had any idea what happened to it. And much later, several hours past when his shift ended, JJ was finally allowed to leave and go home.

He had spent a very long time making reports and reliving the day's events, and all he wanted to do was sleep, sleep for an entire day. And he was just about to leave the building when he remembered he had left his wallet at the poker table in his team's radar room, so he grumbled as he made his way back.

The room was dark, and sectioned off, temporarily disabled waiting for crews to disassemble every piece of equipment to look for glitches or errors. But right now it was empty and quite. JJ drank in the silence, the machines and computers were always making some form of noise, and for the room to be dead silent like this was an interesting experience. JJ walked over to his chair at the table and plopped himself down. The game in front of him was left virtually untouched since the first warning had gone off, the deck still spread across the table from when Doug dropped it, Vinnie's cards were thrown in a pile from when he folded and Harold's were in a nice stack, and Laura's were spread across the table and on the floor from when she had thrown them.

It didn't really matter anymore, the game was over, but JJ was curious about the outcome of the game. He knew it was bad form to look at the other hands, but, well, it didn't matter anymore. He got up and grabbed Harold's nice and tidy stack of cards and spread them out, face down on the table, and then did the same for Vinnie's, and Doug's, and Laura's, and then his own.

JJ idly flipped over Vinnie and Harold's cards one at a time, not that concerned with what they had, after all they had both folded, so it was unlikely they had anything interesting.

And he was right, it looked as if Harold was aiming for a flush, he had 4 diamonds, but he folded without even trying, and Vinnie had 2 pairs, Jacks and twos. Vinnie's hand wasn't great, but it might have won him the game, it's a shame he chickened out at the end.

When they were still playing, hours ago, JJ was convinced that Doug had been bluffing, and that conviction hadn't faded, so when he flipped his cards over and saw that all he had was the pair of 5s that he had from the beginning, JJ mentally smiled to himself.

And next was Laura's hand, but JJ stopped himself short, Laura's hands were always crazy, like the rules of the game didn't apply to them, she always had garbage or the most amazing hands ever. So he put her off until last and instead flipped over his own cards.

He had placed them down in order, so he knew what to expect, but there was still some small thrill as they were revealed; first the 6 of spades, then the 10 of clubs, followed by the 4 of hearts, next was the 9 of hearts, and then the 5 of clubs, and the last card that he knew for sure, the 7 of diamonds.

His original gamble had been a 12% chance, he needed a 3 or 8, but two of them were already in play, and since he had now gone through their hands, he knew that Doug had had another one, so now his odds were about 9.5%.

And without any hesitations, JJ flipped his final card and came face to face with the 3 of spades.

His strait was complete, 3-4-5-6-7, all it a nice little row, if he wasn't so tired he might have laughed, or possibly mourned the loss of the money he would have won. But instead he sat there feeling, empty, like it was a hollow victory. Like it could have been something great, but instead it turned out to be nothing; much like how the world almost ended, but then the Unidentified just disappeared. Unfulfilling, that was the word.

But at least for JJ, there was still one more obstacle to overcome, and that was Laura's hand. This was less of a hurdle to jump and more of a random chance to just fail, but JJ still flipped over her cards. First was Queen of Hearts, next came the King of Hearts, and then the 7 of Diamonds, and then the Jack of Hearts, and last of the cards he had seen, the Ace of Hearts.

Her last card was still hidden, but she already had the Ace, King, Queen, and Jack of Hearts, and with her luck, the face down would be the 10 of Hearts, a true Royal Flush, the Ultimate hand.

Ridiculous, but JJ remembered that that huge smile had remained on her face until the end, and knew that that meant she almost certainly would have completed the hand.

And when he flipped it over, and saw the 10 of Hearts, the final part of the Royal Flush, JJ just cracked up laughing. He fell back into his chair and went hysterical. Laughter really is the best medicine, and with each gasping laugh, he felt the stress bleed from his body. He laughed himself ragged, and eventually the gasping laughs came to an end, and JJ was left silently sitting in his chair, Exhausted, but in a good way.

He continued to sit there, once again just listening to the silence. Eventually he got up and went about cleaning up the room, he ordered the deck of cards and put them back on the shelves, folded up the table and chairs, emptied the forgotten pot of coffee, placed Vinnie's book, The History of Thermodynamics, beside his computer, hung up Doug San Diego Chargers' Jacket, and finally picked Laura's cosmetic bag off of the floor and put it at her workstation.

The room now cleaned and straitened up, JJ went to leave, but paused at the doorway, the day's events still fresh in his mind, ad he knew they always would be. The fear, the confusion and uncertainty, the relief, this day at work would be one of those days that, decades from now, he would tell his grandchildren about. Except that he wouldn't, he was bound by an oath of secrecy to never speak of his job under normal circumstances, and this clearly went beyond that. JJ would never share the events of the day with anyone outside of the SCC. He had no doubt he would spend the next week or so doing nothing but making reports to his superiors and other various government agencies, but after that, he would be forced to sign another secrecy oath, and his reports would be made confidential, and this incident would come to a close, at least for him. Eventually answers would be found, but they would mostly likely never be shared with him, which at this point, was something he would be totally fine with.

And then JJ flipped the light switch and the harsh fluorescent lights went off, and then the room was bathed in silenced and darkness. He turned his back and went into the hall, and then in a final, well something, perhaps a final act of release, JJ turned and slammed the door with all his might.

The aluminum door smashed into place. The bang echoed down the halls and the cheap paintings on the walls rattled. A few people poked their heads out of adjacent rooms, but seeing nothing wrong, went back to what they were doing, they were after all, very, very busy.

And with that, JJ marched out of the building, never once looking back on the room that had left such an impact on him. But if he had, if he had gone back into the room, and taken the time to look around, he might have seen something, interesting. Over by the Registry Terminal, knocked to the floor from when JJ had slammed the door, was Laura's cosmetic bag. Its contents had spilled from the open zipper at the top and an assortment of lip-sticks, eye-liners, and other beauty products were scattered about. However, those were unimportant, what would have made a difference was the deck of cards, the same make, made by the same manufacturers, and in every way identical to the ones they had been playing with. And if anyone had stopped to go through the cards, they would have seen that the deck was missing its Queen and 10 of Hearts, but that it also had a copy of it's 7 of Clubs, and 10 of Spades.

But no one did, and tomorrow crews would begin going through all of the equipment, and no one would see the identical deck that Laura had hidden in her bag.

Just like no one would know what happened to the Unidentified, or what it really was in the first place.

-Page-

January 19th, Earth, 14:48 UDT

Over an hour had passed since the first disastrous attempt at surprising Fate had ended. After the effects of the flash bang had faded and every one had recovered, and the birthday girl had made her way to the bathroom for a much needed shower, they had come to a consensus to try again. While she was occupied, the others had frantically cleaned and repaired the house, the shattered glass and wasted confetti was swept up, the balloons reset, the windows and glass shelves were magical repaired, and the smoke aired out. When they had finished, not a single thing was out of place, even the house's owner herself would be hard pressed to find something wrong.

And when Fate came out of the shower, she was again ambushed by her friends and family. The remaining confetti was tossed over her head, the balloons came down again, and everything went smoothly.

Nanoha's family had prepared dessert from the Midori-ya Cafe; instead of one large cake, they brought dozens of single slices of different kinds of cake. But before the cake, there was a normal dinner, brought over by everyone, Admiral Lindy had brought a tray of finger sandwiches, Suzuki brought a massive sushi tray, Alisa had brought something called rigatoni and meat sauce, Hayate and the rest of the Wolkenritter had prepared the standard o-bento fare, and Arf had brought boxes of dog biscuits, which she and Zafira were quietly enjoying off to the side.

After dinner, they had moved on to the actual party, the cakes were brought out, twelve in all, each with a single candle, that were all promptly blown out. Then the delicious cakes were sampled; there was Banana Crème Cake, Key Lime Pie, Strawberry shortcake, Boston Crème cake, Très Lèches cake, chocolate mousse cake, and so many others.

And then came the presents; which was the only thing familiar to Fate; she had missed her last two birthday parties, but still received presents, which was something of a new experience for her; her mother having never given her anything before. Just like the last two times, the presents flowed in, Admiral Lindy had finally caved in and imported a Mid-Childan OC200 holographic video game system, which Alisa had gotten way too excited about. Nanoha's parents had gotten her a cute little black skirt with matching boots, and her sister Miyuki, who Fate had been spending some time leaning swordsman ship from, gave her a set of specially designed Bokken. Hayate had knitted her a scarf, and along with the rest of her knights, purchased an in home Karaoke Set, Suzuka had presented her with a new cell phone to replace her old outdated one, Alisa gave her an entire makeup kit, along with a box of "Beggin Strips" dog treats as a joke. Chrono gave her a device maintenance kit, but only on the grounds that she stop calling him, Onii-san, he said it was too embarrassing. And finally Yuuno, who gave her a manual on defensive magic, which he had rightfully pointed out, was one of her weaker points.

The only one who hadn't brought a present, seemed to be Nanoha, but no one seemed to take notice of it, and that left Fate slightly puzzled.

Once the presents were given, and Fate shyly expressed her gratitude, the party began to wind down. The adults, at least Nanoha's parents, and Admiral Lindy went about cleaning up the left-over's. Miyuki and her brother Kyouya excused themselves and went back to their family's shop to close up for the night. Chrono and Yūno had to return to the Asura, which was already behind schedule for a small maintenance check. That left Fate, Nanoha, Alisa and Suzuka, Hayate, Vita, Shamal, Signum, Arf and Zafira to lounge around the living area. Tea was served, and the group, wrapped up in blankets and quilts, cuddled into the furniture. With a small fire quietly crackling in the fireplace adding it's warmth to the rapidly cooling home, the group began catching up with each other.

"Fate-Chan, Nanoha-Chan, will you be coming to school more frequently now?"

"Yeah, what's with all the missions you two have been going on? You're missing way to many days; the homeroom teacher is getting concerned. You too Hayate, I know you're in a different class, but you miss more than those two."

The first to speak was Suzuka, always one to be concerned about her friends, and the second was Alisa, hiding her concern behind her gruff demeanor and converting it into annoyance.

"Nyahaha, is Yuzuki-sensei stressing out about our absences again? Well I don't know about Fate-Chan and Hayate-Chan, but I don't have any training schedules for about two weeks, so I will be coming to school every day, unless an emergency pops up."

"Nanoha-Chan, she worries about you."

"Yeah, she thinks you and Fate are becoming delinquents, skipping school all the time."

Nanoha laughed along with Alisa at that comment, but Fate seemed concerned.

"I thought our absences were excused? I was planning on going every day for about a week, but then I have a few days to finish a training regimen and take an exam, do you think I should reschedule the training and come to school more?"

"Fate-Chan, I think the excuse the school was given was that you had a sick relative who you were taking care of; while the school accepted it, it's not very believable."

"Suzuka-Chan is right, it's not a very good excuse, but it gets the job done, at least for now."

Hayate paused and seemed to think something over to herself before continuing.

"I don't know about Nanoha-Chan and Fate-Chan, but I was thinking that at the end of the school year, I might drop out."

The others all had various degrees of surprise shown on their face, the lone exceptions were the Wolkenritter, who carefully tried to hide their disapproval, and Nanoha, who was oddly expressionless.

"Hayate-Chan, how long have you been thinking about this?"

"Yeah, you can't drop out after you finish elementary school."

"Well, I am still not sure. If I start focusing now it will give me a good head start, and school isn't going to be as useful as I would like. I am thinking of moving to Mid, besides you, Suzuka-Chan and Alisa-Chan, I have no real ties to any one on Earth anymore."

The shock on their faces only increased with that comment.

"Hayate-Chan, I am working on the Navy Enforce program, and I have enough time to keep working with school. I don't think you should give up."

"I know, I know Fate-Chan, but there is no real reason for me to stay any longer. I know what I want to do with my future now, we've talked about it before, and moving to Mid and working entirely towards the command track in the ground forces is the best course of action."

Fate paused, seeing the logic in what Hayate had said, but Suzuka and Alisa took up the argument in her stead.

"What about your legs? Ishida-sensei said it could still be almost two years until they fully heal."

"Yeah, and what about your… your house and…your other things?"

Alisa trailed off, unable to find actual reasons as to why this was a bad idea, but irritated none the less.

"Without school I would have more time to work on rehabilitation and I would be able to combine that with a magical based treatment. Shamal thinks that if we really focused I could recover almost all of the damage within a year if we focused on it more."

For the first time since the conversation had started Shamal looked up from the book she had been reading to voice her opinion.

"It's true that you could be back to 100% within a year, but that would require a lot more rehabilitation than what we are currently doing now, and I don't necessarily recommend that. I think you should take your time healing; there is no need to rush it. And as I have also said, I don't think you should leave Earth regardless of your healing, this is your home, and you should enjoy the time you have here."

"I know, but as I have also said before, I really want to get started now, I want to be working hard for my goals, and right now I feel… I feel like I am just wasting time. Our house is just that, a building, and one we barely even use anymore. There is almost nothing left keeping me here, Nanoha-Chan has her family, and both her and Fate-Chan have class with all of you, but I was always alone until I met everyone here."

Everyone quieted down at Hayate's words, their rebuttals seemingly superficial when compared to her reasons. It was Suzuka that spoke first.

"If this is what Hayate-Chan thinks is best, then this is what you should do. I've known since that time in the library when we first met, that Hayate-Chan is very mature and determined."

Shamal looked taken aback by Suzuka's sagely words, even Signum and Vita, who hadn't contributed to the conversation, seemed to be viewing the situation in a new light. However, Alisa was quick to jump in and denounce what Suzuka had said.

"Suzuka, how can you say that? Aren't you the one who became friends with Hayate first? Wont you be upset if she leaves? Who knows when or how often we will be able to see her then. Even Fate and Nanoha think this is bad idea. I mean what about…"

"That's not true."

Alisa trailed off as Nanoha spoke up for the first time in a while.

"What do you mean? What's not true?"

Nanoha paused and bent to pick up her tea and took a quick sip while marshaling her thoughts. While still holding her cup she responded.

"I don't think it's a bad idea, in fact I agree with her."

Now everyone was staring at Nanoha, Alisa was obviously not expecting that, and was now at a loss for words. Eventually Signum asked the question that everyone had been meaning to ask.

"What do you mean?"

Nanoha took another sip, noting that Admiral Lindy seemed to have put crème, and perhaps cinnamon in the black tea, it was weird, but not necessarily bad, and then she gently placed her cup back down on the tiny dish that went with the set.

"I agree with Hayate-Chan, and I am considering doing the same."

"You What?"

Alisa was getting heated now, her outburst slightly louder than it should have been, and it drew the attention of those in the kitchen. Momoko poked her head out from around the kitchen doorway, but seeing nothing amiss; she turned and went back in.

Everyone seemed to sense, wisely, that talking about it in front of the parents was a bad idea, so the conversation simmered down until it was clear the Momoko had started cleaning again.

"Alisa-Chan…"

"No, don't Alisa-Chan me. If Hayate wants to drop out of school and… and do whatever it is that you guys keep going away for, then it isn't my place to say anything. But you, we've been friends for how long now? And you've been thinking about dropping out of school, and moving to another planet? How can you decide that without even discussing it with us? I know we won't have any say in what you do, but how can you not even say anything to us about it? We're friends aren't we?"

As Alisa's increasingly upset outburst ended and silence once again filled the space between the girls, Nanoha leaned back in the sofa and stared up into the ceiling, idly watching the shadows cast from the fire.

Truthfully, Nanoha had only considered the idea of leaving Earth recently, and she hadn't put much thought into it, yet. But the more she did consider it, the more reasonable it seemed, and hearing that Hayate had also been thinking about it had moved it into sharper focus.

Nanoha deliberately drew her words out slowly while still looking up towards the roof.

"It's just… it's not something I have been thinking about much… it's just a thought that I've been toying around with. I do think it's a good idea, especially for Hayate-Chan, but also for me too."

"And what makes you…"

"Alisa-Chan, stop."

Suzuka's normally calm and gentle voice was now firm and slightly harsh. She lightly reached out and pulled Alisa back into the couch they had been sitting in before continuing.

"Nanoha-Chan, perhaps if you shared with us your reasons it would make things a little more clear, and alleviate some of our concerns. You too, Hayate-Chan, even I am a little upset about this."

Since Nanoha seemed to be planning her words with her head still back, Hayate spoke first.

"There just really isn't any reason for me to stay here anymore, and every reason for me to leave. Nanoha-Chan still has family so it's different for her, but I understand what she wants to do."

"And that is? Something that you need to leave Earth for? And what are these reasons? What about school? Don't you need to go to school?"

"No, No we don't."

Since the conversation had started, Fate had remained silent, mostly because she wasn't sure what to think. But now she had something to add, so she answered Alisa's question.

"I love our school, our classmates, and even Yuzuki-sensei. I have fun going and learning, but, everything we learn is…"

Fate trailed off, but Nanoha, who was still staring at the ceiling, finished her thought.

"Useless."

"…yeah…Any class specific to Japan won't help us, Japanese literature and history are just a waste of time. Even language, Japanese isn't even recognized as a spoken language, and English is more of a novelty than anything else."

"Hold on, I heard your… magic staff, talk in English before. Why's that?"

"Yeah, it said 'Defenser Plus' or something."

"Suzuka-Chan, Alisa-Chan that's because you aren't Mages."

"Hayate-Chan, I don't understand how our inability to use magic would make us hear English."

From her position on the sofa, Nanoha sighed heavily before addressing Hayate.

"Go ahead. Tell them."

"Tell us what?"

"That the three of us no longer know how to speak Japanese."

Suzuka and Alisa just blinked as they tried to wrap their heads around that. That somehow, the three people who they were currently in the middle of speaking too, in Japanese, somehow were unable to speak the language.

They both made no progress.

"I…we don't understand."

Nanoha sighed again and then leaned forward, facing her friends again.

"You don't hear it, but we are all speaking Mid-Childan right now. Mid's language is actually a spell, one that conveys meaning. We mean to speak in Japanese, but instead it comes out in Mid-Childan, but because you can only fluently speak Japanese, the spell conveys the meaning to you in the language you know, so Japanese."

"Nanoha-Chan said it well, Mid-Childan is a universal language, as long as the person we are talking to has any kind of spoken language, they will be able to understand us, and as long as the language is downloaded into our devices, or if it's one we already know, we can understand everything they say. It even works for machines and computers. A computer is designed to work in a certain language so it 'hears' us speak in that language."

"And the reason you thought Bardiche spoke in English is because you couldn't understand the full meaning of what he said, so you get an approximation in his default language, which for Mid-Childan devices, is English. Fate-Chan and I could understand him, but because you don't 'speak' Mid-Childan, you only heard the English."

Suzuka seemed to be pondering the meaning of this; that somehow her three friends sitting across from her were speaking in gibberish, but she was hearing fluent Japanese. Alisa however, just took it at face value.

"So, shouldn't those classes be super easy for you? Why are you barely passing them?"

"If the tests were just to repeat lines, or write sentences, we would pass them easily, but errors and incorrect grammar don't translate well. And to actually see the sentence as 'Japanese' requires an awful lot of effort, and we can easily slip and go back to seeing it as Mid-Childan without even realizing it."

"Not to mention that Fate-Chan and Nanoha-Chan are barely even studying it anymore, our problems come from being able to speak Mid-Childan, not a lack of knowledge. And they have been studying to learn how to speak Belkan."

"Belkan?"

Both Suzuka and Alisa asked at the same time, and since Hayate was the Belkan expert, having synchronized with the Book of Darkness, she answered.

"Belkan is the language of the old Belkan Empire; the TSAB that we work for is made out of parts of old Belka, when their civilization collapsed. Belkan is another type of Magic language. It's much more secretive than Mid-Childan. If I don't allow you to understand what I am saying, you won't be able to, normally. If you're a powerful mage, or very skilled in linguistic magic, you can force my words to be heard, but otherwise you won't hear a thing."

"What do you mean we won't hear anything?"

Hayate sorta chuckled to herself, remembering the first time she tried this trick on Nanoha and Fate, without telling them she alternated allowing them to hear her words, both of them were at a loss, but eventually Fate figured it out, probably because she knew more magic history than Nanoha did.

"For example"

Hayate stood and directly faced Suzuka and Alisa.

"…"

And then she sat back down.

"You, you didn't say anything. You just stood up and then sat back down."

Hayate laughed to herself while Nanoha and Fate lightly giggled, even the Wolkenritter flashed small smiles.

"Ok, this time I will let Alisa hear it. 'Das letzte Mal konnte niemand hört mich, dieses Mal können Sie, aber Suzuka kann nicht' there, how's that? You heard it that time right?"

"Yeah, that was German, I think, maybe Russian? So?"

"Wait, you heard that Alisa-Chan? I didn't hear anything."

"This time Suzuka will hear it, 'Und jetzt können Sie mich hören, aber Alisa ist in der Dunkelheit.' see? Belkan language is very similar to an archaic form of German. But because it's magical in nature, you can't learn it in the same way as you would with a normal language. "

"Hayate-Chan learned it and Mid-Childan when she synchronized with Rein for the first time. But Nanoha-Chan and I have to go through the process of reciting a very long verbal spell, with perfect accuracy. We are both about halfway done, but we still have a long way to go."

"But why are you even bothering to learn it if you already have a 'Super Language?' doesn't it seem pointless to learn two?"

"Alisa-Chan is right, it does seem silly."

"It's for our careers."

"Huh?"

"Belkan is more secretive, so a lot of politicians use it when discussing sensitive things; also it's sometimes used to convey military orders and the like. But most importantly, the Saint Church almost exclusively speaks Belkan, and we spend a lot of time working with them, since Hayate-Chan posses a rare Belkan artifact."

"Oh…"

The discussion enter a sorta of lull, Alisa and Suzuka considering what had been said so far, and the others getting ready to answer more questions. Hayate seemed calm, obviously having had this conversation with the Wolkenritter before, now used to the familiar point and counter point that the conversation was turning into. Fate seemed slightly nervous, probably because she hadn't realized that either of her fellow mages were considering this, but seeing the logic in both arguments. And Nanoha, she went back to staring at the ceiling, seemingly deeply in thought. Prior to today, she hadn't really considered the idea, she had played around with it, considered some pros and some cons, but hadn't really figured if it was actually something she wanted to do. But now, having heard Hayate talk about it, and being forced to defend her position, she had started to really consider it.

"Wait, that doesn't matter. Just continue on with what you're doing and keep going to school. You need science and math and such where you're going right?"

Nanoha was about to answer, but instead Fate beat her to it.

"Yes and no. We do need math, magical formula, incantations, and arrays are all heavily based in mathematics, but it's much more advanced than what we are doing in class. Just being able to cast any magic causes you to quickly grasp math much faster than normal. Here, look."

Fate leaned closer out of the fluffy recliner she had been huddled in and extended her arm. Three bright yellow rings formed on her arm, once behind her elbow, one in the middle of her forearm, and one at her wrist. Each ring spun at the same speeds and in the same direction and contained complex magical formulas; each had two separate formulas, one upside down and the other right side. Then, in front of her hand, a small golden magical circle, only about a foot and a half across, flared into existence. Inside of the circle were two identical squares, each rotating in opposite directions, and inside of that was another circle. Each circle spun, the central smaller one spun faster, and each contained the same formula from the smaller rings.

"See, the speed of the rotation of the 3 rings has to be carefully controlled, along with their radius from my arm. Also, if you look close, the Formulas inside are actually rotating at different speeds, and the middle ring's is moving in the opposite direction. And the main circle is the same, the two squares need to be timed up and kept at the right size, they also have to connect to the circles at specific points, so those have to spin at the same exact speeds. It's all very complex geometry, and the formula themselves are basically advanced algebra."

Fate canceled the spell the spell now that her demonstration was done, first the magical circle blinked out of existence, and then the three rings slowly faded away into nothingness. Now that she didn't have enough magical energy to destroy the entire building stored in her arm, Fate leaned back into the sofa and wrapped herself back up in the blankets. Once she was comfortable, she continued where she had left off.

"All that has to be done instantaneously while we prepare the spell. And we can't focus entirely on the array; some spells also require verbal incantations, and most of our spells end up using even more arrays. That would have been a relatively weak Thunder Smasher, but if I wanted to increase the power I could have added another full array under my feet."

"Also, Fate-Chan didn't plan on firing that, but if she had she would have needed to create powerful anti-feedback fields on herself to protect against the recoil and ambient energy that it would give off."

"Not to mention that she would be casting that while already maintaining many other personal field spells, and probably a Flight spell, and those are all very complicated. And she would be doing all of this while fighting something else. She needs to be able to make those arrays without even thinking about it."

Suzuka and Alisa seemed to be deep in thought, both of them knew that their friends were Mages, and they thought that they knew what that meant, but apparently they didn't fully understand what that actually meant. They knew that they spent almost all of their free time training somewhere, either by themselves or taking courses so they could be officially recognized as cadets. And that they routinely went on missions that took them to other planets, but until now, they had never really thought about what any of that meant to them.

Finally Alisa just gave up. She put the small plate of cookies she had been snacking on down on the coffee table, perhaps a little harder than was necessary, then threw off the wool blankets that had been covering her, stood up, and went over to get the TV remote.

"Fine. Whatever. If you guys are all going to move to some other planet that's fine. None of my business. From what you said, you're right; there is no reason for you to stay. Do whatever you want."

"Alisa-Chan…"

"No, its fine. Don't worry about it. Do whatever you want. I don't care. Now I want to watch this Anime, it starts in a minute."

Alisa returned back to the couch she and Suzuka had been sharing, flopped back down and then buried herself in the blankets, she even pulled one over her head.

"Alisa-Chan…"

"Suzuka, I'm fine. I just want to watch this show."

Suzuka moved slightly and rested her shoulder on the bundle of blankets that was Alisa. The mages and knights in the room all looked away and found seemingly mundane things to be fascinating all off a sudden. Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate all turned to watch the TV that Alisa had just turned on, and were all surprised to see nothing but static.

"Fate-Chan, I think your TV is broken."

"I know it worked fine the last time I was home, that was…Tuesday…I think…"

"Maybe the Flash bangs from earlier knocked something loose?"

"Actually, I was wondering, what exactly happened with them?"

The pink haired knight, who had been sitting off to the side reading, visibly blushed at that comment.

"I was told that 'Party Favors' were like miniature flash bangs. So I bought low grade civilian use flash bangs from this mail order catalog."

Signum got up and handed Hayate the magazine she had been reading. On its front were the words, "Frankie & Randolph's Revolutionist catalog, on sale this week only, authentic Israeli gas masks offering complete NBC protection for only 44.99."

The three mages stared at the front cover, at a loss for words. Hayate slowly flipped through the mail order catalog, each page showing things like, refurbished AR-15 assault rifles, tear gas, an insurgency guide, direction on the home production of landmines, a book titled, "Know your enemy, standard police and Swat tactics," and on the last page, was an add offering to sell an old American Sherman tank, price negotiable.

"Signum, where exactly did you get this at? I think almost everything in it illegal in Japan."

"I went to Okinawa and got it from someone named, "Ben." I had to order it through him too; he said they wouldn't ship to Japan. I wasn't aware that this planet repressed its people to the extent that smuggling operations had to form just to ensure the basic safety of the people."

"Signum-san, these things are dangerous, regular people do not need a, Lahti L-39 anti-tank rifle. These things are restricted to protect the safety of the average person."

"That "Ben" person is probably an American soldier, although how he managed to get you these is anyone's guess. What he did was definitely illegal. Signum, don't buy anything else from this guy. I know you won't hurt anyone with it, and that if you wanted too, Levantine would do the job better so that the guns are pointless, but it leaves a paper trail to us, and that's not good."

"Understood, mistress. I am sorry about this mistake"

"Its fine, no harm. It's just if someone starts looking into it, they will quickly discover that you guys don't exist anywhere. As long as no one doubts it, the story about you being distant cousins works, but that will unraveled real quickly if someone snoops around for a little bit. And there is really no solution for that problem; we'd have to run away."

"I apologize mistress."

"It's ok, just be a good kid from now on. No more illegal military hardware, especially in other people's houses."

As she was speaking, Hayate leaned forward and awkwardly patted Signum on the head. The knight, an ancient program of war, looked down and blushed in embarrassment, not so much because of the awkwardness of the situation, but because she genuinely enjoyed the interaction.

"Umm… About the TV, it still doesn't work, and Alisa-Chan's show is on."

The three mages turned to face Suzuka and Alisa, who had both momentarily been forgotten in their silence. With their attention distracted, Signum took her catalog and slipped back into her perch in the rocking chair by the fire.

"Oh yeah, sorry Alisa-Chan, Suzuka-Chan, I'll check the wires, see if anything is loose."

While Fate went over and crawled behind the TV, Nanoha studied her two oldest friends. Suzuka seemed…quiet, more so than normal. Depressed would be taking it too far, and she didn't seem sad, it was more like subdued. She was still leaning up against Alisa, her shoulder resting against the other girls.

And as for Alisa, she was still wrapped in blankets. It was cold, but not that much, Alisa had to be uncomfortably warm wrapped in that much wool. Her face was still obscured by the blankets, hidden in shadows that would have prevented someone from seeing her, but to at least Nanoha, who's eyesight was greatly enhanced due to her magic, slight shadows and dim darkness were practically unnoticeable. She suspected that Fate, Hayate, and her knights could also see just as well, and they were all just politely not mentioning it. If Alisa was already upset, and was going to the lengths of hiding in blankets so as to hide her tears, than no one was going to tell her that her attempts at hiding were for naught.

For possibly the first time ever, Nanoha cursed her magic talents.

On that night, almost 3 years ago, when she had heard Yuuno's telepathic cries for help, her life had irreversibly changed. Discovering her magic had opened a door, allowed her to grasp a future for herself. It gave her a direction, purpose, meaning; things she had always felt were missing from her life, but she couldn't put the emptiness she had felt into words.

But even with her new found power, she had still been aimless, unsure of how exactly to proceed. That loneliness from before, instead of disappearing, had only been amplified. When before, she had felt out of place, like a rock in a river, the water crashed into the stone, but just washing over it, leaving the stone trapped in place, unable to follow the water to its destination, whatever, or wherever that may be. But once she discovered magic, she realized she was fundamentally different, she wasn't a rock, stuck in place, she was an observer standing on the bank, still unable to follow the flow, but now, even unable to come in contact with the water. She had been so utterly alone then, the solitude had a soul crushing finality that almost swallowed her, but instead she threw herself into her task of collecting the Jewel Seeds. If it wasn't for that, and Yuuno's constant reminder that she wasn't entirely alone, the gaping black maul of loneliness would have consumed her.

And then she meant Fate. Another human, another mage, another nine year old girl, struggling under the weight of her identity. When she had first met her, Nanoha had recognized the shadows in the other girls eyes, that dark abyss of loneliness that had haunted her eyes, just like Nanoha's, even her posture and body radiated sadness. Nanoha had impulsively and instinctively pursued her, recognizing her as a kindred spirit. At first, Fate had spurned her efforts, a wall of duty and obligation preventing her from making a connection to Nanoha, but eventually, the wall crumbled and they finally met as people, not opponents on the field of battle, and they just simply talked.

Fate then became a friend, a partner, a confident, a comrade, and so much more. Fate, like Nanoha, was an incomplete person, lacking a complete identity, a purpose, always wandering aimlessly, or at the whims of another. And together, they supported each other, using their strengths to compliment the other, to fill in the missing gaps. Together, they could be whole people, with meaning and direction.

But that was 3 years ago now, and after they had become friends, they had encounter Hayate, another similar being. Cursed with a weakened body, and with the same solitude that had come to dominate Nanoha's and Fate's lives, Hayate was very similar to them, but she had the Wolkenritter. Her knights, her family, her children as she called them; they filled the gaps in her heart, made her complete. In many ways Hayate was more mature than Fate and Nanoha, maybe because her problem had an actual physical manifestation in the form of her weakening body; Hayate was better able to come to terms with it. Whereas Nanoha agonized over her loneliness, but was unable to pinpoint exactly what bothered her, Hayate could see her deficiency for what it was, and then work with it. By the time they had meet each other, Hayate had recovered further than Nanoha and Fate had, she was already moving on to a new future while they were still nursing wounds.

Eventually, they recovered and moved on as well and all three of them began working with the TSAB. They even had a small outline of a long term plan, so they all moved towards their goals. Every day, they happily moved forward, afraid that if the idled, they would stagnate and get left behind again.

But that constant progress, the never ending march forward, apparently had consequences. It was obvious now, that instead of rejoining the river with everyone else, Nanoha had left that path behind and embarked on a new one, one that was currently, and would even more in the future, take her further and further away from her friends and family.

Suzuka and Alisa had been her closest friends for as long as she could remember, in fact, they were her only friends, and that was another one of her failings. Her two friends, they are the ones who made the friendship work, keeping Nanoha engaged and connected, otherwise she would have stayed in place while they drifted away. And for all their loyalty, for all that time spent slowing themselves down to drag her along with them, Nanoha was going to respond by leaving them behind, to spurn their help and turn away from them.

While that fact upset her, and she did feel guilty, it was something that couldn't be helped. Nanoha was no longer able to follow them, caught in the tides, unable to turn away from the new path she had forged. She understood that it was inevitable, Earth had become a cage, one that she would eventually leave, but her friends, they would stay; they were just as powerless to follow Nanoha as she was to follow them.

Nanoha knew that they would part, but it didn't have to be an absolute parting, she didn't need to cut ties completely, they could still stay connected. And fortune was on their side; Suzuka was the heir from a well established and wealthy family, and Alisa was the heir to a huge communications conglomerate, both had potential to help the TSAB. When the two took over their families, Suzuka's contacts in the political world and Alisa's contacts to the business world could prove invaluable to the TSAB as civilian contractors.

Of course, that wasn't going to happened, if it ever did, now, or even soon. It would come much later, at least not until they took over their families and she had formed a place for herself in the TSAB. For now they would drift apart, but later, under their own power, they would bridge the gap and reunite. That's why she was considering moving from earth, the sooner she cemented herself within the TSAB, the sooner she would have the ability to go back to Suzuka and Alisa.

But that was talk for the future, and now, her diverging path was causing her friends pain. She understood that they would both eventually come around and see the benefits of her leaving Earth, because it really was in her best interests, and once she calmed down, Alisa would realize that too.

It was unfortunate, but that was just a part of growing up, eventually there would be partings, and as sad as it was, there was really nothing that could be done about it. Nanoha knew and understood that, but that didn't make her feel any better about it, she still felt the guilt. And she was genuinely sorry that she was hurting her friends, but what was really upsetting her, and making her curse her magic, was the invasion of Alisa's privacy she was currently committing; and unable to stop.

When she had first become a mage, Nanoha was immediately awed by how powerful she had felt. She had no one to compare too, so she didn't know exactly how strong she was, or how much raw mana she possessed, but she could feel the strength coursing through her body. When she put Raising Heart back into standby and powered down, she had always assumed she had returned to normal, but it wasn't until much later that she realized that she hadn't. In the same way that you don't notice yourself growing taller until you look at something and say, "Wow, last year I couldn't look over this counter, and now I am a head taller than it," Nanoha hadn't known that as she developed her magic, she was also physically becoming stronger. Now, it took actual concentration to not crush things she held, to not break the ground as she stepped across it, to not hurl a pen through the wall when her classmate asked her to "Toss" it to her, to not accidentally initiate a Flash Move when she meant to run. And that was just the physical power side of things, her vision, her hearing, her sense of scent, even her ability to feel air currents had increased exponentially. Now she could hear a chopstick falling in the crowded cafeteria, and immediately pinpoint its location, not to mention she could hear, and keep track of every conversation happening. She could see in anything less than absolute darkness, read manga over peoples shoulders, from across the street, she could even pick out individual people on trains as the speed past.

All of which meant, that she could clearly see Alisa as she huddled under the blankets, softly swiping away the tears as their made their trek down her cheeks, she could clearly hear as she struggled to choke back small sobs.

Alisa was crying, and her pride was forcing herself to hid it, and Nanoha was watching her as plain as day. Her magic was preventing her from allowing her friend the dignity to cry in private, and she didn't even know it. Nanoha was currently acting like some creepy stalker, peering in from the bushes at her friends, and she hated every minute of it.

And there was nothing she could do about it; she couldn't tone down her vision and hearing, she couldn't leave the room, and she obviously couldn't mention it to Alisa, what would she say? "Alisa-Chan, I just want you to know that I can completely see through your attempts at hiding your tears, I suggest you go into another room, oh wait, I could probably still hear you, why don't you just go outside?"

No, that clearly wasn't an option. In fact, she had no options other than pretend to not notice, which she noticed everyone else was doing. Signum seemed to be able to ignore it completely, along with Zafira, the two of them were oblivious. Arf was too busy eating another box of dog biscuits to notice, but Shamal and Vita, both of which were off to the side, kept pausing in their reading and shooting glances at the couple huddled in the couch. Even Hayate, who was attempting to help Fate fix the TV, seemed oddly stiff and was refusing to look in their general direction.

What she wanted more than anything; was a distraction. Anything to occupy her attention, hopefully long enough to let Alisa calm down, but at this point, she would take any reprieve she could get.

And as luck would have it, she immediately got her wish.

A low chime echoed out through the house, initially catching everyone off guard. It took her awhile to figure out what exactly made that sound, and right as she was about to nail it down, Arf beat her too it. The familiar forced down another mouthful of doggy treats and called out to Fate, who was currently still behind the TV, but was working her way out.

"Oooo, Fate, Hey Fate. It's the doorbell; can I go see who it is?"

Instead of answering her familiar, at least verbally, Fate drew her magic into herself; instinctively and immediately covering herself in various Strengthening and Defensive Fields. With each Field that went up, a pulse of magical energy rolled off of her and washed into the others, and this time there wasn't a powerful barrier blocking it, so all of the mages and knights in the room picked up on it.

Like a set of dominoes falling over, Fate's spells set off a chain reaction, the others all started throwing their own Fields up and moving into more aggressive combative stances. The Wolkenritter all immediately took of protective stances around Hayate, who's only change was to sit up straighter. Arf, who now realized something was wrong, maintained her human form for the moment, but crouched low, ready to pounce towards the door.

And Nanoha also moved into action, she shot up out of her seat while calling up her own defensive fields, and stood in-front of Alisa and Suzuka, ready to shield them from just about anything.

With eight different Ace class mages, and one Ace class Familair all quickly maximizing their defenses, and none of them being subtle about it, the room quickly became flooded with ambient magical energy, so much so that even non-mages, like Alisa and Suzuka, could feel it, and it was not a pleasant feeling.

When the first of Fate's Fields activated and the pulse spread out, it was like getting a small chill, like when the wind blows on your neck, you reflexively shiver for a second. But as the pulses increased, and started coming from different directions and sources, the effect quickly escalated. Now the two felt as if they were locked in a room with a large predator, a lion or a bear, and that it was watching them, stalking them, ready to pounce and devour them. The threat of impending violence was almost a physical force, pushing them down, stifling their breath. Their Fight of Flight reflex was screaming at them to turn and run, but with no source of fear, nothing to actually flee from, they just froze up in their spots, not moving a muscle, not even breathing for fear that any movement would trigger the hidden beast to strike.

Until Nanoha moved in-front of them. Once she got there she flexed her own magical aura out and used it to cover them, diverting the waves of pure power radiating from the others. Not satisfied just blocking that, she also called up a few defensive fields and placed them over top of her friends, and then surrounded them with an invisible barrier, and then as an afterthought, summoned four Axel Shooter orbs behind the sofa they were sharing; just in case.

Now no longer being crushed by the still increasing magical energies in the room, Alisa recovered enough to move. First she nudged Suzuka back, deeper into the blankets, and then moved slightly forward and in-front of her, attempting to protect her from whatever had left them trembling. Once she was confident that she was doing her upmost to keep her friend safe, she attempted to ask something, but instead choked on her own words. After a few dry gasps for air, she managed to croak out some words; whether her voice was ragged due to her previous crying, or the ordeal she was currently in, Nanoha couldn't say.

"What, what's going on? What… What was… What just happened?"

Nanoha winced at her friend's voice, she sounded very haggard, but she couldn't spare her a glance, and answered curtly over her shoulder without taking her eyes off of the door in the foyer.

"Sorry, Not sure. Don't move, and do NOT get off of the couch. If anything happens, I'll take you out. We'll go right through that wall and then strait out. Don't worry, I, we, won't let anything happen."

Nanoha intended to calm them down with that assurance, but the fact that the first plan was to break through a wall and leave a fifty story building was not something that inspires confidence, and the two girls huddled on the couch acted appropriately. Once Nanoha moved to shield them, and the onslaught of magic stopped, they were mainly feeling relief, relief that whatever was doing that to them had stopped, and that feeling of relief had just been replaced with extreme panic. But before they could say anything else, the door chimed again.

Without a word, Fate slowly but surely walked over to the door. To a casual observer, it would seem that she was walking leisurely, taking her time while she strolled over to the door, however, to the expert eyes of the people in the room, Fate was a loaded weapon, seconds from going off. Every muscle in her body was pulled taught in anticipation, Fate, like everyone else in the room, was ready, to without a moment's hesitation, unload enough firepower on that door to level the building.

Once she got to the door, she momentarily paused. Just long enough to sense the auras of her friends, never once taking her eyes of the door. Confident that they were all as ready as they were going to be, she reached forward the doorknob and gently turned it, and then slowly, very slowly pulled the door open.

And came face to face with a man, a strange man she had never met before. He was old, past his 60's, possibly well past his 60's. He wore a full black suit, a white shirt covered in a gray vest peaked out from his partially opened jacket, he even had a matching top hat and a gold handled cane. The hair that was visible was a salt and pepper gray, and it matched his well trimmed bushy mustache. His face was wrinkled and pale, but without any blemishes, and his nose was slightly bent, as if it was broken once in his youth and was never corrected. He wore a monocle over his left eye, which slightly obscured his brilliant blue eyes.

He was the perfect image of a charming English gentleman from the turn of the last century, and his completely disarming demeanor almost allowed Fate to relax, almost.

Then, seeing that she had opened the door, he smiled, a full face smile that seemed to show nothing but joy, his eyes sparkled and for a moment, Fate thought she was gazing into an ocean.

Her first thought after opening the door was,

[His eyes are just like Nanoha's.]

With Fate's momentary lapse in attention, the man swiftly swept his hat off of his head and bent into a half bow. From his bent position he addressed the girl in the door.

"Ah Miss Fate Testarossa-Harlaown I presume? Is your mother, Admiral Lindy in?"

His voice was like a harp, each syllable a beautiful ringing that flowed like water and gently wrapped Fate in its embrace.

However, she was still cautious, and just because he knew who she was and who Admiral Lindy was, didn't mean he was harmless, Even if he seemed to be exactly that. But she sensed almost no magic from him, he did have a magical aura that any mage would have, but he had no active spells. Unsure of exactly how to proceed, she fell back to the basics of what to do in this type of situation.

"May I ask why? And who is inquiring?"

"It's a rather urgent matter, and as I can see from the static on that television, the issue is quite important."

Fate, and everyone else turned to look at the TV, attempting, but not succeeding at seeing the connection. Fate turned back to the man and was about to speak, but before she could, he answered her second question from before.

"Oh, and tell the good Admiral that I am Vice Admiral Markely of 11t fleet's disaster management section. We have an emergency situation."

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Universal Dimensional Time. (UDT)

UDT is how the TSAB, Irlian Empire, Free Trade Union, and the Allied States keep track of time. It's based off of the degradation of dimensional partials, and is exactly constant.

There are no time zones, or any other variations to it, if its 14:45 on Mid-Childa, it's the same time on Earth, Oridian, Taleron, and any other planets.

For the sake of simplicity in the story, UDT works on a 24 hour 60 minute 60 second scale, which doesn't make tons of sense, but is easier than dealing with something that has 20 hour days, 50 minute hours and 50 minute seconds. Also, UDT doesn't match with local times, so it may be 20:30 UDT and on the American eastern coast, 4:33 EST.

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Emergency Naval Protocol M Series

A grouping of computer commands installed in most ships, civilian or military that travel within TSAB jurisdiction. The M series is relatively new, and some ships haven't made the upgrade. The TSAB offers incentives to ship owners and captains to install the series, but also allows temporary pardons for smaller ships, or financially strapped captains.

The M series are basically remote commands, each one able to be initiated by outside sources, usually TSAB ships or basses.

M-20 Forces a signal link to the ship in question. M-20 has to be used to allow the others to work; it's basically opening the door for the others.

M-21 opens up audio communications with the target, both allowing the TSAB to speak too, and hear anything happening on the ship.

M-22 is similar to M-21, but involves video communications. Not all ships are equipped with the necessary equipment to display holo images, nor are all ships covered in cameras that can report back.

M-23 blocks all command functions from the inside of the ship, preventing the crew from doing higher level tasks. Doors will still open and communications will still work, but actually control of the ship, and any weapons will be locked out.

M-24 gives the functions that M-23 blocks, to the controller, allowing the TSAB to remotely control the ship. M-24 is used when ships are abandoned or their crews are incapacitated. M-24 is almost always used with M-23 already active; otherwise the crew could just reassert control.

M-25 is an advanced version of M-23, in addition to blocking command functions; it locks down all aspects of the ship, preventing the crew from doing anything.

M-26 causes the ship in question to power down its main engines, switching to batteries to maintain minimal life support.

M-27 is the final M series code, and it causes the ship to self destruct. Use of M-27 is limited to a very select few TSAB officers.

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Ovila

A commercial transport craft owned by Veriz-Tech industries, a small defense contractor based on Genurd.

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Outpost Sierra-10

TSAB long range monitoring Outpost. The TSAB has thousands of these varying in size and complexity. Basically the monitoring stations are positioned in places that the TSAB doesn't have a real presence, either legitimate star basses, or controlled planets. The outposts have limited military forces and are only used to monitor and maintain the far flung reaches of the TSAB's space.

Outpost Sierra-10 is unique due to its relatively small size and unimportance, but the fact that it has state of the art equipment and is considered very luxurious to work on.

Captain Gene Jackard is the commanding officer of Sierra-10

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Jackard, Gene, Captain, Human

Born April 2nd, 1963.

Captain Jackard is a career military officer in the TSAB. He has served for over 10 years in the officer corps and rose in the ranks slowly. He is very dedicated to his job and his position.

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Shana, Corvette. TSAB

A small TSAB patrol vessel, Corvette class, the Shana along with the Tririox, are both stationed within Sector Sierra.

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Tririox, Corvette. TSAB

Another small patrol vessel, that along with the Shana, patrols Sector Sierra.

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Clasencia, Corvette, Medical Ship. TSAB

TheClasencia is an emergency medical ship, she only has token weapons and little shields or armor, but she has a massive high tech medical bay designed for emergency medical treatment.

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S-Line/Satellite Line.

The S-Line is a term that refers to the position of satellites around a planet. It usually refers to the point that said satellites can sense or target something, not the actually point where the satellites sit.

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Markly, Winston. Admiral. Human.

Admiral Winston Markly is the commanding officer of Mobile Section 2. What exactly he does, or what his section does, is currently unknown. Markly seems to have some grasp of Transformation Magic, able to alter his appearance. The fact that his true appearance is also an unknown, means that there is no reliable data on his age, or any other physical characteristics.

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Transformation Magic.

An odd type of magic that is not unique to Belka or Mid-Childan styles of magic. Transformation magic alters the targets physical characteristics, usually used for espionage to alter appearances. However, transformation magic can be used to more radically change a physical body, and is able to harden skin and bones, restructure internal organs. It can even do more extreme things, like doubling size, or turning the person into a more beastlike creature.

Familiars use an instinctive form of Transformation magic when they switch from human to animal forms.

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Mobile Sections

The Mobile Sections, otherwise known as Riot Forces, are fully autonomous military divisions that exist outside of the normal chain of command, and they don't belong to any of the specific branches.

Mobile Sections usually are designed with specific goals, and disband at the conclusion of their objectives. They are usually covert, although Mobile Sections 1,3, 5, and later, 6, are pretty well known, while the existence of 2 and 4 are up to debate.

Mobile Section 1.

Mobile section one is the guardian of Cranagan, and to a lesser extent, Mid-Childa as a whole. They have a slight navy consisting of smaller atmospheric entry capable ships with light weapons.

They are sort of a royal guard/ secret service, protecting politicians and the like.

Prior to the Strikers Season, TSAB high command attached Jail Scaglietti to their command, he, along with the high command, reduced their funding and supplies, weakening them as a whole so that they were mostly inconsequential during his attack.

Mobile Section 2

Mobile Section Two has the distinction of being the best hidden out of the other Mobile Sections. The only definitive proof that it even exists is the fact that there is a mobile Section 3. No rumors exist about the section, there are no records of anything having to do with it.

However, recently some information has surfaced, an Admiral Winston Markly is the current commanding officer of Mobile Section 2. Also, they have in the resourced pool, an assassin by the name of Vier, who is a master of infiltration, and they also have an older model battle cruiser, the Terra that has been heavily modified.

Mobile Section 3

Mobile section 3 is similar to Section 1, in that they are both not hidden from public view. Section three was set up at the founding of the TSAB along with Sections 1, and likely Section 2. Section 3's original job was to both protect the Saint's Church, and to also keep an eye on them.

Following the collapse of the Ancient Belkan Empire and the following Dark Ages, many remaining parts of the empire still tried to wage war or reclaim their past glory, this lead to a general distrust of any practitioners of Belkan magic. The Saint's church, with its heavy ties to the Sankt Kaiser was viewed as a threat, so Section 3 was always kept slightly more powerful than the church to prevent the church from doing anything rash. But at the same time, they also prevented angry people from trying to attack the church.

That was long ago, now Section three no longer has to worry about those issues, instead it works hand in hand with church, helping its Combat Nuns and Priest Knights in the tracking down and collection of Belkan artifacts and Lost Logia. The act as honor guards to Church officials and politicians, and they use their naval assets to ferry the paramilitary units of the church to their destinations, since the terms on the church's treaty with the TSAB forbids them from having any ships larger than a corvette.

Section three also acts as the TSAB liaison to the Churches Self Administration zone, an autonomous section of Mid-Childa that is controlled by the church.

Mobile Section 4

Mobile Section 4 has the dubious honor of being the only Section that elicits a response of fear in people. What exactly section four does is unknown, and unlike the other sections, the TSAB classifies any information regarding it. However, rumors still exist, and the little information out there paints a bad image.

Section four is often involved with neutral worlds, un-administered worlds, and non-inhabited worlds, usually performing activities that are at best, questionable, and at worst, completely illegal.

Besides rumors, no concrete data exists about the section.

Mobile Section 5

Section five is unique in that is only active for limited times. Section Five forms at each resurgence of the Book of Darkness, tracks it down and attempts to destroy it for good, and then disbands temporarily until it appears again.

Section five, when fully active, is probably the largest, containing large amounts of naval assets and ace and striker forces. When not fully active, it mostly consists of researchers who try to come up with new ways to permanently destroy the book.

The last resurgence of the book appeared on a Non-administered world, and went largely unknown until its conclusion, its small profile prevented section five from mobilizing, and now that the Book is no longer a threat, the section will likely never be fully active again, and will eventually disband.

However, the research division is still active and trying to pry information from the book, its knights, and its master.

One known member is Mariel Atenza.

Mobile Section 6

Section 6, along with 7, are temporary sections, forming to handle specific threats and then disbanding, only to reform later with completely different personnel and assets to deal with different situations.

Section 6 is formed during the Strikers season under the command of Hayate to search for the relics, and deal with the threat of Jail Scaglietti.

Mobile Section 7

Mobile Section works exactly like section 6, but it is active much less frequently, only forming when section six is already active. Section 7 has only been active twice, and both times it was mostly unimportant and less impressive than what Section 6 was doing.

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Vier, Full Name Unknown, Rank Unknown, Assassin, Possibly Human.

The Assassin known as Vier works directly under Admiral Markly, her exact rank, and even species is unknown. Vier uses a form of transformation magic that keeps her form in a near constant state of change. She is able to hold certain forms, but then she goes back to normal.

She is also a master of poisons, able to alter her biochemistry to make her immune to certain toxins, and to make her own blood a deadly poison.

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Mana Threads.

Mana threads are the building blocks are almost all spells. Anything that a particular form and isn't just uncontrolled energy is made of mana threads. The threads are woven through the spell, in the incantation, and in the arrays, and then they physically make up the spell.

In regards to barriers, the threads are woven together to make the barrier, otherwise it would be a loose assortment of energy with no cohesive whole, the threads hold it together and make it into an actual "Wall" that blocks things.

Single threads are like atoms, they combine to form molecules and then are copied and become actual spells.

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GEOS-10. Satellite, American.

See real world references section.

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Naval Space Command Surveillance System (Space Fence). American.

See real world reference section.

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Space Surveillance Network. American

See real world reference section.

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Space Command Center. American

See real world reference section.

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GEODSS. American.

See real world reference section.

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Space Surveillance Telescope. American.

See real world reference section.

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BSAT-2a, broadcasting satellite. Japanese.

Guess what? See real world reference section.

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Mid-Childan. Language.

The Mid-Childan language is both a simple and super complex spell. It's simple in that it requires almost no energy to cast or maintain, but its complex in that it takes at least a year to fully "Cast"

Instead of learning a language in the traditional sense, Mid-Childan children are instead walked through the process of reciting the spell. Since the spell conveys concepts, actual wording is unimportant; the children just need to imagine the concepts.

Once cast, the spell requires almost no maintenance, and stays active until the death of the user. Non-mages, those who completely lack a Linker Core, require a either a battery source to keep the spell active, or just use a specially designed device that has the spell loaded in, known as a translator.

The spell conveys meaning, as long as either speaker's language has a concept that means roughly what is trying to be said, they will understand.

Mid-Childan is based off of a form of old English.

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Belkan. Language.

Belkan language is similar to Mid-Childan in that it's not a traditional language, but a spell. Like Mid-Childan, it requires almost no mana to maintain, and is always active. Unlike Mid-Childan, it does not convey meaning, nor is it a universal language.

Instead, Belkan speakers can selectively choose who can hear the words, making it a more secretive language. In this sense, Belkan is the opposite of Mid-Childan.

Belkan is based off of a form of archaic German.

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Real World References.

GOES-10

Geostationary Operational environmental Satellite number 10 is an American weather satellite used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). GOES-10 was in operation from late July 1998 to December 2009.

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Naval Space Command Surveillance System (Space Fence)

In 2003, the Space Fence was under the command of the US Navy, Currently in the real world; it is under the command of the US Air Force.

Space Fence can track objects as small as 10 cm across out to distance of around 30,000 miles.

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Space Surveillance Network (SSN)

The SSN has been in operation since 1957, and since then has tracked over 24,000 objects, it currently tracks about 8000, mostly debris, only a small percent, about 7%, are satellites.

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Space Surveillance Telescope (SST)

The SST are high tech telescopes used to view a wide area of space, used for tracking Earth based objects and also to keep an eye out for asteroids.

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Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance. (GEODSS)

These devices us cameras to track objects further out than the Space Fence and possibly the SST's. Currently, and at the time of the story, there are three Active GEODSS Sites. They are able to track large objects over hundreds of thousands of miles away.

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BSAT-2a

BSAT-2a is a Japanese commercial broadcasting satellite with majority ownership from NHK, the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation. BSAT-2a provides home phone, TV and internet service.