2. First Day at the Office

Quartermaster Sergeant Frederick Jones strolled along the endless grey corridors of the Time-Space Administration Bureau central office, the people walking past and the ever-shifting green-and-purple miasma outside the windows providing the only splashes of colour. He checked his battered old watch again, relieved to note that they still had twenty minutes until their appointment.

'They', in this case, were him and his old friend and superior officer Quartermaster Gunther Krebs, who nodded to him with typical curtness.

"Brief me."

Gunther was a logistical genius, processing and allocating resources with stoic professionalism, clinical efficiency, and mathematical impartiality. When coupled with his nigh-obsessive standards of cleanliness and frankly lousy aim with an Intelligent Device, his rapid promotion to his current rank had been something of a foregone conclusion, as had been his complete lack of upwards mobility ever since. Gunther didn't mind, though – he'd found his place in the universe.

Fred, on the other hand, was his natural compliment. A second-generation immigrant to Mid-Childa whose family had originated in a small and unregarded part of Earth called Wales, he was blessed with the sort of big, friendly smile that made people want to spill out their life stories to him, ravenous curiosity, and a near-unrivalled talent for office politics. The end result was someone with connections all over the Bureau and information-gathering skills that put some intelligence agents to shame, which almost made up for his general incompetence regarding his actual job.

Not knowing what to do with him, his superiors had aimlessly shuffled him around for a few years before placing him under Gunther, and the two had managed to hit it off famously despite their wildly disparate personalities. They made a formidable team – Fred would keep his boss informed on the latest gossip and office rumours as well as ensuring that he got the supplies he needed, while Gunther would just... well... be Gunther. Though he would never sneeze at a shot at promotion, Fred was content. The pay was enough to keep his family well-maintained and his daughter into a good school, and the little perks they picked up on the side for their work were nice.

"The outfit's called the First Military Expeditionary Force," he began. "Only recently-founded, and pretty small, but they've been hiring talent and lots of it. C.O. is Colonel Hayate Yagami. Early twenties, SS+-ranked mage, recruited after the Book of Darkness Incident and been climbing the ranks like someone strapped a rocket to her tail ever since. Other personnel are from all over the place – Interstellar Navigation Bureau, Disaster Planning, even some clerk from the Infinite Library. Boss, I don't even want to contemplate how contorted the chain of command's going to get. Two common factors, though. First, they tend to be young hotshots with lots of magical power and odds on promotion ranging from 'good' to 'spectacular', just like their boss. Second, most of them were either part of or connected to something called 'Riot Force Six' three years back. Supposedly an artefact-retrieval group, but way overgunned, and involved in some pretty highly-classified stuff. I hear they had something to do with the Scaglietti Incident – you remember that huge ship that got blasted to bits by the fleet?"

Gunther nodded.

"Right. Anyway, what I know is that they got disbanded shortly afterwards and went their separate ways. Tactical training, yadda yadda, cyborg zombies, yadda yadda, environmental protection, yadda yadda. Now they're back together, they've been hiring, and we got headhunted. End of story."

"Cyborg... zombies?"

"You heard me."

There was a brief pause.

"Equipment?"

That was the other thing about Gunther. The man was near-pathologically averse to using any more than the bare minimum of words needed to convey his meaning, and sometimes even balked at that much. Fred always felt as if he had to fill in for both sides of the conversation.

"One Prion-class heavy frigate, the Eventide, fresh off the production lines. Fast, quiet, very heavily-armed for its size – it's even packing an Arc-en-ciel. Long-range patrol vessel for the sorts of places you don't want to send long-ranged patrols into, basically."

"Good ship," Gunther commented, his gaunt, lined face creasing into an approving smile.

"Most of the other equipment requests are classified, but I had a chat to one of the folks in the loading bays, and they've got a year's worth of food supplies on board. That's some pretty deep exploration."

"Another cover-up?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the labcoats in DSS found something bad out there. We'll find out when we get to it, I guess." He glanced at the sign above their heads. "Ah, here we are."

The door slid open obligingly. Inside was the sort of chaos that inevitably occurs when a lot of people try to do a lot of things in very little time. A short, blue-haired girl was desperately trying to stuff a bewildering array of apparel into a tiny suitcase whilst being berated by a clearly exasperated redhead, someone else's Barrier Jacket kept switching on and off at random intervals, a can of meat had spilled across the floor for no readily-apparent reason, and two large dogs were picking their way daintily through the whole melee with military-issue backpacks clutched in their mouths.

"May I help you?" a voice from behind them asked.

Fred turned around with a start. The speaker was a tall, stern-faced woman with pink hair and oddly-shaped eyes who had a tiny winged humanoid sat on her shoulder dressed in a miniature version of the brown TSAB uniform. Despite all this, she managed to look like a veritable bastion of sanity compared to the mayhem around them.

"Umm... yes please. We're looking for Colonel Yagami, Captain...?"

"Signum," the woman replied. "Mistress Hayate is in her office. I will take you to her."

'Mistress Hayate'? Oh, right, must be one of those bodyguards Yagami's supposed to have. Scary lady.

"And you are?" Captain Signum asked as they carefully skirted around the meat spillage.

"Quartermaster Sergeant Jones and Quartermaster Krebs."

She inclined her head to indicate Gunther. "Does he speak?"

Gunther grinned. "Sometimes."

Her face betrayed the faintest flicker of a smile.

Colonel Yagami's office was a welcome haven of tranquillity. Three young women were sat on the desk, chatting idly to each other, while another of the little familiars swooped around behind them, busily sorting paperwork.

Hayate Yagami.

Fate Testarossa-Harlaown.

Nanoha Takamachi.

It wasn't every day that you got to meet three of the Bureau's most powerful combat mages at once.

Fred had mixed feelings about the newest wave of recruits. On the one hand, he couldn't help but dislike the fact that they were effectively hiring child soldiers, some of them younger than his own daughter. On the other hand, he felt a disproportionate, almost paternal amount of pride for those brave boys and girls who had managed to pass through their trial by fire.

These three had done that and much, much more. They were legends, an inspiration to their peers and the subject of more stories than soldiers twice their age. Hayate had gone from a half-paralysed suspected criminal to the army's youngest colonel. Fate had taken down the notorious terrorist Jail Scaglietti and two of his elite bodyguards by herself. Nanoha had refused more promotions than Fred had been offered in his entire life to remain on the front lines.

Fred had seen a few legends in his forty years. He fervently hoped that these ones would live a bit longer than the others.

Hayate was the shortest of the three, a vaguely motherly-looking brown-haired girl who gave them a friendly nod as they approached.

"Ah, you'd be Captain Krebs and Sergeant-Major Jones, yes? Pleased to meet you. This is Nanoha" – the auburn-haired girl on her left waved – "this is Fate" – the blonde on her right gave a grave smile – "and this" – she indicated the small maelstrom of activity behind her – "is my assistant, Reinforce Zwei."

Both men saluted.

"Colonel Yagami. It's an honour," Fred stated in his most professional tone.

"Oh, no need to be so formal. Just call me Hayate. Everyone else does." She turned to her subordinate. "Fate, would you be a dear and check with Navigation? I'd like to make sure we have a clear route out for the launch."

The girl nodded. "Understood."

"Oh, and Nanoha, I think things are starting to get slightly out of control out there. Would you mind trying to calm everyone down a bit?"

Nanoha smiled. "It is rather noisy, isn't it? I'll see what I can do."

The two captains got up and walked out of the room, exchanging a quick peck on the cheek before heading off to their respective tasks. From the direction of the locker room there was the crackle of a magical explosion, followed by a few screams.

Fred blinked. "Oh. I wasn't aware that they were..."

"Friends?" Hayate asked, smiling sweetly.

He frantically attempted to backpedal. "Ah... sorry, I didn't mean to... um..."

She laughed. "Don't worry, you didn't. Just an old Section Six in-joke. We have a pretty loose definition of friendship around here. 'Befriending', too, though you really don't want to be on the receiving end of that. Yes, they've been together for quite a while. Finally got it formalised a couple of months back. All the old crowd got to attend. Yuuno was best man, of course..."

She trailed off for a second, clearly reliving a happy memory.

Signum cleared her throat discreetly, and Hayate looked up with a guilty expression.

"Oh, sorry, I was getting distracted. Not had much sleep lately, though I suppose that's not really an excuse. Anyway, welcome to the First Military Expeditionary Force. As you've probably noticed, I run a fairly loose ship. Everyone here's seen a fair measure of action, and most of them have served together before, so I trust them to know who to listen to when the shooting starts. Most of the time, anyway. You two came highly recommended, so I won't tell you how to do what you do. The engineering, maintenance, and catering staffs have all been informed of your arrival, and look forward to meeting you. The one rule I will mention is that everyone on this ship is expected to attend a minimum of three hours' combat training per week with Captain Takamachi. Don't worry – she's very good at her job."

Her face abruptly grew serious.

"One last thing – if you have any prejudices against artificial humans, now is the time to leave them at the door. We have clones, familiars, sentient programs, combat cyborgs... the full set, basically."

"And Rein!" the silver-haired paper-shuffler piped cheerily.

"Hey! What about me?" her shoulder-seated compatriot objected.

"Oh, I left you out on purpose," Rein replied with a dismissive toss of her head.

In a matter of seconds, green and purple streaks of light were flickering across the room as the two tiny girls chased each other around, volleying high-pitched insults. Hayate and Signum rolled their eyes.

"No problems over here," Fred assured them. "Everyone starts to look the same once they come back for the third tray of food."

"Disbelieving." Gunther elaborated.

Hayate's eyes widened. "Wait, are you telling me you've found a way to make shipboard rations taste good?"

Fred beamed with reflected pride. "Yep. Not my department, but he says it's all in how you balance the condiments. Well... something like that."

She grinned. "You know, I might have to have a talk with you at some point, captain. I'm something of a cook myself, you see."

Gunther saluted. "Ma'am."

"Well then, let's get started. Signum will show you to the ship – you can get settled in. Briefing's in two hours in the main theatre. I'm sure you're wondering what all this is about."

Another round of salutes, and the two men left the room, accompanied by Signum and her (badly bruised) companion, who loftily introduced herself as Agito, a Unison Device. Whatever that was. She'd been idly playing with a fireball the size of her head when she mentioned it, so Fred had decided that pressing the matter would not be wise.

The main locker room was rather more ordered than it had been when they last saw it, though he wasn't sure that the scorch marks on the ceiling had been there before. The two dogs were still ferrying things back and forth, while the blue-haired girl was clearing away debris with an ancient-looking plastic broom.

"Briefing in two hours, Subaru," Signum informed her.

Subaru looked up with a start and attempted an awkward salute, almost hitting herself over the head with the broom handle in the process. "Oh, um... right. Thanks for the heads-up, Captain Signum. Just finishing off here. It's not as easy as it looks."

"Pushing too hard," Gunther commented.

The other three turned to look at him.

"Umm... what do you mean, please, sir?" Subaru asked tentatively.

"Lighter brushing works better," he explained. "Also, remember to check the corners. Dirt always builds up there."

As Subaru stuttered her thanks, Signum shot Fred a quizzical glance at the quartermaster's unusual verbosity.

"He likes things tidy," he said with a shrug.


The Eventide was a big ship, a hundred and fifty metres long including the two enormous Arc-en-ciel projector fins. Nevertheless, it was dwarfed by the hangar it was currently berthed in. From their position atop the boarding walkway, Fred could see the tiny specks of the deck crew scurrying back and forth, carrying out the last pre-flight checks. Glowing runes criss-crossed the air, massive containers suspended by raw magic.

A girl who looked to be no more than eight years old stumped past with the bearing of a drill sergeant, a gigantic hammer slung casually over one shoulder. She looked up, and he saw that she had the same curiously elongated eyes as Signum.

"Hey, Boob Monster, are these the logistics boys? Sure hope so, because things are really getting choked up down there."

Fred looked straight ahead, his face an expressionless mask. The slightest snigger, he knew, would be an open invitation to swift and painful death.

"They are indeed," Signum replied stiffly. "Vita, shouldn't you be helping Hayate with her packing?"

"Oh, right, yeah, I should probably get going. See ya." She inspected the two men for a second. "You know, I think you should get the fat one to the infirmary. Doesn't look too healthy."

Fred seized the opportunity like a drowning man thrown a lifeline. "Actually, she might have a point. I have been feeling a bit unwell. Don't think my lunch agreed with me. Best get it checked, right? Come on, boss, we're leaving."

With that, he scuttled off down the walkway, dragging Gunther behind him.

"Explain?" the older man gasped, pushing up his glasses with his free hand.

"I'm saving both our lives," he replied, and the laughter came bubbling out as he prayed with all his heart that Captain Signum was out of earshot.

Behind them, the two Wolkenritter shared a bemused glance.


As they reached the Eventide's main cargo bays, Fred saw that Vita's analysis of the situation was rather more literal than he had expected. The cargo had mostly been left unsorted, and was stacked in a huge pile that blocked several passageways and had created a not insignificant queue of waiting deck-workers, some of them levitating containers bigger than they were. Gunther's face lit up – he was in his element here.

He strode over to the nearest worker and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Who's in charge?"

A panicked jerk of a thumb, and a short man in a blue coat several sizes too big found Gunther bearing down on him like the incarnate wrath of the Sankt Kaiser.

"Captain Krebs. Quartermaster."

"Oh, um... good to see you. I'm Sergeant D'Angelo. I've almost got things under control here, but there's been a few... complications. You know how it is."

He grinned nervously. Gunther stared at him for a moment, and then thrust out his hand.

"Inventory."

"Right! Certainly! I'll just... um... go get it, shall I?"

The sergeant fled as fast as his dignity would allow. An emerald-green glow surrounded Gunther as he cast a loudspeaker spell on himself, and stepped up to the edge of the gantry.

"Cancel loading. I repeat, cancel loading."

The hubbub below ceased, and there was a series of gentle thuds as airborne containers were lowered to the ground.

"You!" He pointed imperiously at one of the lifters. "Sort the cargo. Red left, blue right."

The man saluted.

"You! Hangar supervisor here. Now."

An NCO nodded in acknowledgement, and bolted from the room.

Sergeant D'Angelo returned, red-faced and sweating heavily, a datapad clutched in his hand. Gunther skimmed its contents for a moment, and then returned to barking orders. Fred watched as order was gradually restored, before wandering off into the bowels of the ship.

Time to meet the rest of the crew.


The Eventide's briefing room was arranged in the classic semicircular theatre design, with a large holographic projector on the central stage. The maintenance crews were still busy preparing the ship, but all officers, front-line personnel, and civilian assets were in attendance. An unfortunate incident with a ration shipment two years out of date had delayed Fred and Gunther's arrival, and they were stuck with the seats near the back, next to a lady and gentleman whose large, bushy tails strongly hinted at the whereabouts of the two dogs they had seen earlier.

Hayate and Fate were fielding the briefing, along with a bespectacled, slightly feminine-looking young man who had introduced himself to Fred earlier as one Yuuno Scrya of the Infinite Library. The display was currently showing a stylised map of the known multiverse, with a large, angry red marker labelled 'Probable Breach Point' on the edge of the dimensional wound that was Chaotic Space.

"Two weeks ago by our reckoning," Fate began, "Interstellar Navigation's Deep Space Surveillance department picked up a dimensional disturbance of massive proportions originating from the unexplored universe designated U7W-1T4."

She indicated the marker.

"Though the universe itself is just on the friendly side of the divide between Wild Space and Chaotic Space, the disturbance originated from inside the Great Wall."

Corporal Nakajima raised her hand.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but what do you mean by 'by our reckoning'?"

Yuuno cleared his throat. "I'll field this one. Time doesn't flow normally in Chaotic Space, an effect that also occurs to a lesser extent in the Wild Space surrounding it. Among other things, this makes limited time travel possible, though engaging in this is of course illegal due to the dangers it poses and the stress it exerts on the space/time continuum. In fact, some scholars have hypothesised that given the artificial nature of the Great Wall, Chaotic Space itself may be the result of an ancient, failed time-travel experiment."

"Who would have been capable of that?" Subaru's redheaded friend asked.

"Several theories exist. The lost civilisation of Al-Hazard is the most obvious option – we're pretty sure that they created the Great Wall, anyway. That said, it is equally possible that they did so to amend the mistake of an even earlier set of precursors – as an archaeologist, I can assure you that they were by no means the first."

"Al-Hazard... the place my mother sought to reach." Fate said softly.

A few of the veterans looked less than pleased at the memory – Fred had accessed the file on the Testarossa Incident in his spare time, and had a good idea why. For such a small-scale operation, it had been very ugly indeed.

"Indeed so. As a matter of fact, the disturbance occurred quite close to the Garden of Time's last known position, though a connection between the two seems highly unlikely even given the aforementioned time-distortion effect. Employment of a Lost Logia artefact similar to the ones used by Precia Testarossa is not out of the question, though, whether intentional or otherwise."

"So... we're dealing with a malfunctioning device that may have been created by people who were myths of the myths of the Belkans?" Vita summarised. Everyone heard the unspoken words at the end of that – It was a malfunction, right? Please tell me it was a malfunction.

"We honestly can't be sure." Yuuno replied wearily. "Chaotic Space is, to borrow a phrase from Earth, terra incognita. All our knowledge of the realms beyond the Great Wall is rooted in academic speculation. The disturbance might be a result of mechanical failure in the Wall, a natural occurrence like the eruption of a supervolcano, or even an effect of an external factor being introduced."

"An external factor... from inside the Wall?" the enormous, grey-haired wolf-man near the two logisticians asked.

"Precisely. Though it is difficult, even impossible for ordinary life to survive very long in Chaotic Space, other forms of sentience, even ones existing without Linker Cores, are theoretically possible, particularly in a near-infinite multiverse such as our own."

That observation caused a lot of perturbed muttering.

"Our mission profile is fairly straightforward," Hayate said, pointedly raising her voice above the noise. "We will go in, investigate the disturbance, and get out. No unnecessary heroics – whatever caused this, the fact remains that it sent a shockwave across the entire multiverse, and I, for one, have no intention of being at ground zero if it does so again."

Nanoha raised a hand. "Will we be employing power limiters?"

"Command placed that at the discretion of the expedition leader. So... no."

There were a few chuckles from the front row.

"Any further questions?" Hayate asked. "No? Very well. Dismissed."

As the crew rose from their seats, Fred turned to the dog-lady. "You all seem very relaxed about this. Do you do these things often?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, mostly we just deal with galactic or universal threats. This sort of thing's more of a weekly event."

He forced a smile. "Ah. That's all right, then."


Author's Notes: Very well, a confession. So far, the only Nanoha media I have encountered first-hand are the three anime series - the various manga and Sound Stages (particularly and especially Sound Stage X) are only known to me via summaries from elsewhere. As for ViVid and the fourth-season stuff... well, I'm sure it's all fine and dandy, but let's just assume that the formation of the First Expeditionary Force moved the setting into an alternate continuity prior to all that happening. My head hurts less that way.

Anyways, on with the story. Oh, and the Nanoha/Fate stuff wasn't just me being a yuri fanboy (admittedly, I am, but that's neither here nor there) - I just considered it a logical progression from StrikerS. I mean, come on, they were sharing a bed and adopting a daughter together by that point. I mean, sure, it is technically possible to do all that in a 100% platonic, innocent manner, but frankly, I think Occam's Razor would like a word with you.