Endless Waltz

By: Daishi Prime

-40 – Know Your Enemy-

Luen leaned back in her chair, frowning at the screen showing the latest of her team's unified status reports, which she had just finished reading. There had been nothing new in it, nothing she had not already heard from the two journeymen and three apprentices she had co-opted into assisting with her investigation.

As she expected, they had been completely unable to identify the mages she remembered from the warehouse – neither the two Masters, nor the members of their staff. The criminals' disguises had been too complete, too thorough, and she herself had not been expecting anything of the sort at the time. The best she had managed to do was match the faces on some of the apprentices to other apprentices – who had been confirmed in other locations at the time in question, confirmed by their implants, witnesses, and security video. Implant tracking was illegal after one achieved Journeyman rank, but even if it had not been, Luen doubted she would have been able to find the two Masters.

She had gotten one stroke of luck, when one of the apprentices helping her identified the spell used. Blood Penance was not well known by name, but it was a common mythical ability of the Warlords, 'to strike down those who opposed them, unto the tenth generation'. While the 'tenth generation' part proved an exaggeration, it was obviously the spell used, and hyperbole was common when researching the Warlords' more vicious spells. There were records of the Blood Penance in the city's Grand Library, in the Master rank archives. The apprentice had not been able to access the files himself, but he had been able to determine via a lot of work – and some programming Luen declined to look at too closely – how many times those files had been accessed, and by whom. They had been accessed rather frequently after the ritual was used and publicized, but in recent history before it was used they had been accessed by six members of the Conclave.

The problem she faced now was, based on quiet investigation of the six, any of them were just as likely to have been involved, and one of them was Lord Protector Yosho. Any of the six in question had subordinates, from Willan's research and development company and political connections, to Domor's manufacturing conglomerate, to Yosho's Protectors. Any of them could have found two loyal Masters to execute a complicated ritual of questionable legality. Any of them could have made a deal with the Lord Protector or the General to acquire the targeting data they needed, and Willan, at least, could possibly have acquired the needed targeting data from local resources he was quietly cultivating. He was one of those who was already establishing local business ties, and had teamed up with an idle Master who was expert in engineering to reopen and maintain the Suez Canal.

"Okay, so we've got six candidates," she said, glancing over her five-man staff. "Suggestions?"

Journeyman Captain Falgen shrugged, "Ask them? If we start asking around, we'll probably spook them."

Journeyman First Lieutenant Bres shook her head, "If we ask them all we'll get is a run-around. Whoever we spook would be someone with something else to hide that panicked for the wrong reason. Anyone guilty of this that's this good at covering their tracks won't panic. They'll have plans in place to deal with anyone looking into it."

Luen nodded, "True, Bres." That was why she had selected Bres. She was a little low in rank, but she was also a cross-trained Protector, unlike the rest of Luen's team. "We need some way to confirm which of them used the ritual, without scaring them into going to ground."

One of the apprentices asked softly, "What about doing it again?" Luen fixed the young man with a questioning look, making him pale and flinch. Instead of reprimanding him, though, she made a 'continue' gesture. He had to swallow and work himself up to it, but he said, "Could we… I don't know, give them more data and another 'secure location', then catch them in the act?"

"I like it," Falgen commented after a second. "We give them appropriate targeting data – doesn't even have to be real data, just convincing, and arrange for a couple squads of the Guard to be secreted about wherever we arrange for them to perform the ritual."

Bres shook her head, "It won't work. First, it's entrapment, and the Conclave would never stand for it. Second, they'll have to realize the data did not come from the same source as last time. It also won't work if the Lord Protector is the one who enacted the ritual in the first place, like the General thinks. He'll know he's not requesting the ritual, and he'll be more interested in finding out who has the targeting data than in executing it."

"So we don't involve him," Luen said. She still did not think the Lord Protector was involved, but was willing to work on that assumption, in order to prove he was not. "We ask the General for five different sets of targeting data from her archive. Then we pick a couple warehouses in one of the outlying cities taken in the first wave… maybe Tripoli? It's calm enough for this. Someplace outside Cairo, so we don't have to involve the Protectors at all. Bres, get five locations set up, close together so we can place our force centrally. Falgen, arrange two squads from the Guard for the ambush. I'll talk with the General, and put together the messages for the suspects."

Bres asked, "What if one of them follows through who wasn't part of the original ritual? If one of them thinks they have an official but covert request for assistance, we could be entrapping a Master Adept and two Masters who are otherwise innocent."

Luen shook her head, "Couldn't care less. Anyone who would use the Blood Penance deserves whatever the General's going to do to them. We catch them, we question them, and we hand them and whatever they give up over to the General."

"How are we going to get them to talk? They're going to know the limits of what we can do to question them just as well as we do, and we don't have an interrogator available. The Guard ones can't touch a citizen, not even another Guard mage."

Luen raised an eyebrow. "Limits? I told you what the General's orders were – 'intact, and able to be made coherent'. These people used me, used the Guard, to commit mass murder, Bres. Murder of civilians and children."

"I understand that, ma'am, but there are laws we cannot break."

"We can't," Falgen commented, "but who knows what the local's laws regarding questioning prisoners are?"

"Something called the Geneva Conventions," Luen said, shaking her head. "The General had it looked into between Cairo and Hong Kong. Those 'conventions' are more restrictive than what we can do, in this case."

Falgen nodded, then asked, "But will our theoretical murderers know that? And will they believe us when we muse in front of them about the possibilities of extradition? After all, we could very well use them to get Japan out of the war, take Hayate and her crew out of the picture, and there goes the strongest force in our way. Yeah, sure, fine," he waved away the incipient objections, "that's nothing but pure hope, the Japanese would gut us as soon as talk to us. But we're the Guard. We're supposed to be muscle-brained political ignoramuses. Diplomacy for us begins with buster spells and ends with shields, everyone knows that. So whoever we catch, unless they're Guard themselves, will believe that we would hand them over to the Japanese. And who knows what those barbarians would do to the people that murdered their ruler and his entire family?"

"I like it," Luen said.

"Even better, it's legal," Bres said, "so long as we don't actually hand them over."

"It's called extradition, Bres," Luen said, "and if I think for one second that handing them over to the Japanese will result in these murdering bastards being punished appropriately, I'll do it, and damn the General's plans. All right, you all know your parts, let's get to it."

00000

Szash looked up as Eri stuck her head in her office. "Yes?"

"We may have a… situation."

Szash grimaced, dreading that term. "Why do you never bring me good news?"

Eri shrugged and strolled in, waving a screen into existence. It showed a fracture in progress, a rather impressive one. Then Szash saw the location coordinates, and choked. "Japan? Hayate!"

Eri nodded, "We're having trouble pulling an identifiable mage signature from the raw power, but what we have matches her magic and her use of it."

"Can we target it with anything?"

Eri shook her head. "Not on this short notice, and the fracture is making the usual teleport lock problems we have with Japan worse. This… it started as a Class Three, and it's now a Class Two, though it seems to be stabilizing. We could build four generators off whatever stupidity she's up to right now."

"She's not up to something stupid," Szash said, leaning back and thinking over Hayate as she studied the data. "Hayate's young, but so am I."

"Tche, you're twice her age, General, more."

Szash shrugged. "Close enough, if you adjust for the way the Terrans measure age. By their standards I should be thinking about retirement and Yosho should be letting his grandkids take care of him. Would that were what he's actually doing."

"Yosho doesn't have any grandkids," Eri protested, "he's married to his job."

"He's married to power, which is the exact opposite of Hayate. She's not doing something 'stupid', Eri, at least not for the sake of stupidity."

"An uncontained fracture seems fairly stupid to me, ma'am."

Szash shook her head, "Her magic is strange, remember? It all registers as fractures, of one sort or another. No, she's doing something proactive, something against us. The question is, what? What would Hayate be doing in Japan that would require this much energy?"

"Caeghlin? Between this and Potsdam, she may think we're too distracted to notice her attempts to escape."

Szash shook her head again, "I got a message this morning, from… someone claiming to be the 'former' Keeper of the Futures. She said Caeghlin was already out of the city, among other things. No…" Szash paused, turning over what Eri had said, "not Caeghlin… Potsdam." She brought up another screen by Eri's, patching into the sensor to study Potsdam. It took four minutes to find what she was looking for, faint traces of local instability. "She's going after Potsdam."

"From Japan? You think it's some sort of mass teleport?"

Szash shook her head, "No, we have a read on what her teleports look like from her visit before Cairo, and this isn't it. It's taking too long, for one thing. This is an attack, a frighteningly powerful one. Get the second wave of fortification platforms through, and pass a warning on to the advance force. I don't think she'll be able to punch through two layers of shields, but make sure they keep the first wave of Seed in close to disperse whatever does get through. How's the transfer on the civilians going?"

Eri looked like she was going to argue about that, then paused to study the readings from both screens again. "All right, ma'am, they'll be underway in ten minutes. It's almost time to send them through anyhow. The civilians are mostly evacuated, about seventy percent, but there are a lot of them – two colleges in town, both still in session. Something to consider – those aircraft of theirs haven't been terribly effective, except for the last one that surprised us, but Hayate's surprise is probably going to hit rather close to when the ground troops finally arrive."

Szash waved that away, "Those aren't a worry, unless Hayate completely flattens the shields, which I doubt. Keep an eye on the aircraft, one might be carrying the aircraft or cruise-missile nuclear bombs Morisovitch warned us about, but priority goes to getting both shields up."

"Yes ma'am," Eri said, "I'll start assembling a third set of fortification platforms as well. A strike that gets through the first will probably blow out most of those, possibly some of the second as well. Should be quit the light show."

"Yes, it probably is," Szash agreed, "see if you can get me some live overheads of Japan. Whatever she's doing has to be visible, and I'm curious."

00000

It was disgustingly late, or early depending on your definition, but the Academy's valley was lit up brilliantly. Floating in the air just inside the teleport barrier, Noriko could feel the power shivering in the air. Excess power floating loose was a common side-effect of high-end spells, especially Deva spells. But this time, it was not power leaking from the structure and the mage, it was resonance, awful resonance. It was making the air ripple and flow around the seven figures taking shape in the air. The resonance was getting so bad, Noriko was having to shield Laura from it despite the strongest shields Laura could maintain herself, much to her friend's chagrin.

"Man, remind me never to punk off to Hayate-sensei again," Laura complained, holding her stomach and glaring upwards through the light. "She wouldn't even have to hit me with this thing and I'd be down for the count."

Noriko glanced at her, concerned, then back at the spell. "Do you want to move further away? We can watch from inside a workroom. Hidan would be happier with that." He was standing atop the classroom building, glaring up at her for taking the risk of exposing herself like this. Noriko knew he was glaring, because she could see him clearly every time she looked in his direction, thanks to the light Hayate's spell was generating.

Laura grunted, then refused. "Nah. It'd lose the whole immediacy thing. Here's fine."

An unsteady rent in reality opened, and Takashi stepped out of it, trailed by Akira, who flickered briefly, before stabilizing and glaring up at the light show. They appeared just above the teleport barrier and off to Noriko's left, above the pass to the train-tracks. He studied the scene for a few moments, then drifted over to Signum who was just a few meters above Noriko and Laura. "Would someone mind explaining to me why my musume decided to upend reality today?"

"She is intervening in the Potsdam situation," Signum replied. "The Americans refused us permission to go help directly, so she is helping indirectly."

"Which would be an excellent reason to send me," Takashi replied, then grinned, looking up. "Of course, at this time, I would have to decline such a request. I'm not stupid enough to be on the other end of this spell."

"You've seen it before? She would not tell us what she is doing."

"Seen it? No. But I know it." Takashi chuckled darkly, and gestured broadly. "Those figures forming out of power and will are representative of seven angels, Cherubim, the very Voice of God."

"Oh, crap," Noriko heard Laura mutter.

Looking over, Noriko found Laura was staring at Takashi, paler than she had been a moment before. "Laura? What is it, Laura?"

"And the Seventh Angel poured forth his bowl, saying, 'It Is Done'," Laura replied. "She's triggering Armageddon."

"Very good, little Paladin," Takashi called down, "you know your religious references."

"Uh, hello, Christian! Well, technically, Mom and Dad aren't real determined about that stuff. But still! This is bad!"

"Just watch. We are safe enough, here," Takashi said. "The distortion and interference from the spell will defeat any attempt to launch a strike now. I am rather curious, though… Sara never would attempt this spell. It was too much of a spectacle, there was really no target worthy of it, and it plays merry hob with our linker cores. I sensed it forming all the way from Alexandria. In this case, though… I'm guessing she wants the range over power?"

"That was what she hinted at," Signum replied sourly, "but she is being remarkably uninformative about this. Also, arcing the strike around the planet will require a great deal of the energy."

"It's still going to be a monstrous impact," his grin returned. "That should be a sight to see. Akira, go record it for me, but don't get too close. I don't want to have to reconstitute you again."

'Hey, Noriko.' Allison's mental voice distracted her from Takashi. 'What's wrong at the campus? I can't get a lock for teleport anywhere closer than Tokyo Bay!'

'Allison! You made it out?'

Noriko could hear Allion's derisive snort, 'Well, yeah. Even made a bit of a mess to keep the bastards on their toes. But why can't I get home?'

'Hayate-sensei is… sending a message, to Al Hanthis and the Americans. You might want to wait until it's over.'

'Ah, damn, I bet it's really awesome to see, isn't it?'

Noriko shook her head slightly, staring up at the incandescent white figure amidst the forming angels. The Cherubim were facing outwards, robes and feet now solid and distinct, everything from the lower torsos transparent but distinctly formed. Hayate-sensei floated in the precise center of their circle, rotating slowly, Reinforce in her right hand, the Sword of Light in her left. There was no plainly visible connection between her and the forms, but Noriko could almost see reality twisting from Hayate-sensei to her constructs. 'It is terrifying, Allison. Utterly terrifying. No one person should have such power.'

'Sucks to be us, then. I'm inbound by air, since I can't get home the easy way. I'll be there in… an hour or so? See you then.'

'I will let everyone know,' Noriko relayed.

"Signum-sensei," she called, while also sending it telepathically to everyone except Hayate-sensei. No one beyond her immediate vicinity would be able to hear her over the dull roar of turbulence and resonance. "Allison just contacted me. She made it out of Al Hanthis, but could not teleport closer to here than Tokyo. She's flying direct now, says she'll be here in an hour or so."

"Good news followed by bad," Takashi said, then jerked his chin up, "Hayate is faltering. She cannot sustain this load much longer."

"What will happen if she does not complete the spell?"

Takashi shook his head, "I have no idea. Sara never let me look at the actual structure of Armageddon, only the overviews. She was afraid I would use it."

From within the half-formed angels, Hayate-sensei's voice sounded, shaking through the turbulence. "I break the Seventh Seal, and thus set loose Hell itself upon my foe! Armageddon… Arise!"

The gathered figures shuddered, then unraveled, all the gathered energies spiraling about Hayate-sensei, rising up. The flows merged rapidly then burst upwards into the sky. The painstakingly built figures flowed away far more rapidly than they had formed, but not quite completely. The swirling mass became a cone, then a lance of light launching into the darkening sky. Noriko could just barely make out the beam arcing over, just a little east of north, before even that brilliant light was lost with distance.

00000

In eight hours, the United States Air Force accomplished next to nothing against Al Hanthis' seizure of Potsdam. The initial strike by a squadron of F-15 Eagles was utterly smashed by a quartet of Guard mages. The Guard intercepted them some twenty miles from Potsdam, and the last plane went down on the shield itself seconds after releasing its load of iron bombs. The combined impact and detonation destabilized the shield locally for a few seconds, but did not bring it down. Most of the crews ejected, but four pilots and two weapon systems officers died with their planes, and five others landed within range of the Seed patrolling the perimeter.

After the first F-15s, two more tactical strikes were sent in, meeting similar fates. No pilots went down over the town itself in the later strikes, but two more squadrons were completely destroyed. A pair of F-117 Nighthawks tried to slide in with thermobaric bombs between the second and third tactical strikes. The thermobarics would be less effective in open air than the enclosed bunkers they were designed for, but still more effective, pound for pound, than conventional bombs. Unfortunately for the F-117s, Al Hanthis did not utilize radar to detect incoming aircraft, and both planes were destroyed well short of their target.

As had proven the case innumerable times since the 1950s, the venerable B-52 proved itself the most effective strike aircraft in the arsenal. Flying at forty-five thousand feet, the Guard apparently missed the huge plane's approach, or dismissed it as civilian traffic. One of the ancient aircraft passed ten miles west of Potsdam an hour before the Army arrived, cavernous bomb bay full of JDAM bombs. Guided by GPS receivers, almost every bomb hit the shield in a tremendous rolling blast that still shook the ground like an earthquake. The Al Hanthean's shield failed under the bombardment, but flickered back into existence within ten minutes, with the Army force still forty minutes distant. A second, heavier strike was ordered, planned for two hours later. Long before then, Hayate's contribution to the battle arrived.

Four things preserved the Al Hanthis force in Potsdam that cold February morning – range, planning, luck, and restraint.

The first and most critical was simple range. For a spell crafted by a single human being to reach across such titanic distances was an incredible achievement in and of itself, and a large fraction of Armageddon's terrible power was expended in transit, arcing the path of a beam meant to be ruler-straight, and containing all that power while it traversed the distance. What reached Potsdam was still a world-ending strike, but distance attenuated it.

The second element, planning, was readily apparent. After distance, the two layers of shields generated by two groups of fortification platforms absorbed most of what remained of the Armageddon strike. It shattered the first shield in under a second, burning out all ten platforms moments before vaporizing them. The second shield, in place minutes after the B-52 strike, held for almost two seconds, and five of the fifteen platforms survived their shield's destruction and the overflow of the spell.

Luck played its part as well, on several levels. The Seed activation crews had hit their stride within three hours of arrival, and almost six hundred Seed were active. While they had been deployed at ground-level as a last-ditch effort at dispelling any over-flow from the second shield layer, they were not high enough to interfere with either shield. With the Guard mages occupied maintaining their own shield over what remained of the town's population and their temporary headquarters, the Seed were free to roam at will within the confines of the town. Most of them, sensing the magic of the Armageddon spell long before it arrived, found ways to go upwards in spite of their orders, climbing buildings and trees, looking for the mage who's signature did not match their recognition programming. The last stage of the Armageddon strike washed over the Seed and, first locally and then generally, destabilized even as it overcame their innate immunity and seared them out of existence. The precisely choreographed energies broke free and, while the resultant blast was impressive, it was unfocused and disbursed, instead of a concentrated hammer.

Lastly there was Hayate's restraint. She had no wish to destroy the town of Potsdam, no wish to kill its citizens, or even the Al Hanthis invaders. She had little to no way to judge how much power Armageddon would require for its course and its target, but did know she would have to punch through one automatic shield and however many Guard mages were present, in order to give the Americans their opening. So instead of targeting Potsdam itself, she targeted a point in space at an altitude of some fifty feet above the center of town, and shaped the spell's release into a lateral circular blast. The destabilizing influence of the Seed merely accelerated what she had built into the strike.

Potsdam was built in hill country, at the low point amidst several hills, and Armageddon's blast front flared horizontally before loosing all cohesion and devolving into a spherical blast. The private university up the hill took the most damage, almost every structure was flattened. Taller buildings in town lost upper floors and towers, causing structural damage sufficient to collapse several of them. Once the blast lost cohesion, the resulting explosion washed over the town shattering windows, cracking brick and concrete walls, and outright demolishing lighter construction. Most of the buildings that survived the blast would subsequently be condemned as irreparable.

For the Al Hanthis mages holed up in the center of town, using the private university's town campus administration building for cover, it was an awe-inspiring display of raw power and lunatic ambition. Their collective shield over the building's ground floor held, as only the destabilized final blast reached it, and the evac-portal only fluctuated, it did not fail, but they knew of only one spell that could rival Hayate's strike, and only the General could call that down. For their fellows out at the public university campus, there was somewhat more fear as they had a clearer view of the attack, but there were more of them and they had a vital mission – almost a third of the town's population was still there, under the second team's shield as they were evacuated to Egypt. Szash's orders on civilian casualties had been clear and draconian, and none of them were willing to let her down, even if the insane locals did not seem to care about such things.

In the end, it was the Seed who came off the worst. Some four hundred were destroyed by Armageddon, including three of the seven Alphas that had come through in the initial insertion. The remaining four Alphas and three hundred or so normal Seed survived the strike, unable to get high enough to be caught in the initial stages of the strike, and rugged enough to survive the physical effects of the destabilized blast.

Worst of all for Hayate and the Americans, the stasis pods used to store and transport the Seed functioned precisely as designed. Lacking the magic-resistance of their slumbering cargo, the pods' solid outer shells and fluid-filled interiors absorbed the blast without harming the Seed inside, and, in the face of such an attack, they collapsed, breaking apart in precisely calibrated patterns. The containment fluid flowed away and, slowly, six thousand Seed began to struggle awake, lacking in mission, lacking in guidance, driven only by their fundamental programming.

Ten minutes later, mission essentially accomplished, the Al Hanthis forces withdrew from Potsdam completely.

00000

Hecht shifted in his foxhole again, then flinched when Schaunberg kicked his left heel. "Sst," the sergeant hissed, "be still."

"This is lunacy," Hecht hissed back. "They are going through France." Seed had been sighted days before, moving north through Italy, filtering northward in small groups through wilderness areas, sewer systems, swimming the coast. Some had even been reported following less-traveled roads, or moving through rural yards in the dead of night. The battalion had been mobilized to intercept any that entered or passed through Germany, though Hecht thought – and prayed – that none would come through. The creatures – fit to slaughter armies, according to rumors and news out of Hong Kong – were headed for England, after all, and that meant the French coast, not Germany.

"They crossed Switzerland," Schaunberg replied, still whispering quietly enough the men in the neighboring foxholes would not hear, "which we share a border with. Some will come this way, headed for Belgium."

"We still should not be here. Trying to ambush creatures like this? In this terrain?"

"Are you a colonel, now? A general, to make such decisions? No? Then be still! We do not know when they will come through this stretch, and I do not want our ambush to be given away by your caterwauling like a babe!"

Hecht started to protest again, but Schaunberg jabbed a finger at him, glaring, so he subsided, verbally. Mentally he continued to berate the pea-brained idiots that sent the Bundeswehr – especially his part of the Bundeswehr – into the deepest reaches of the Palatinate Forest Nature Park to try and ambush what were apparently the most dangerous predators the world had ever seen. They were still finding some in Hong Kong, and loosing entire companies when they did, from the sound of it.

Hecht was no fool. He had seen the coverage of Hong Kong, seen the reports of these 'Seed of Leviathan'. Even the superhuman mages feared these things. The Chinese had proven it took armor and explosives just to slow them down, and the Americans had proven it took outright nukes to actually stop them. A mechanized infantry battalion – currently sorely lacking the (comfortably armored) vehicles needed to qualify for the 'mechanized' part – was not going to do more than give the damn things a hearty meal. Even with the ridiculous number of extra Panzerfausts and MILANs they had all been issued, Hecht saw no point in being out there.

The Panzerfaust 3s everyone had been issued – one launcher and four warheads each, for their forward platoon – were scant comfort. The platoon had also been issued a pair of MILAN launchers, which were only somewhat more heartening. According to rumors out of Hong Kong, only massed volleys reminiscent of the Napoleonic wars had managed to even touch a Seed of Leviathan. Yet in order to catch the Seed that had been studiously avoiding habitations, the platoon was spread out over about hundred meters of front, deep in un-traveled reaches of an overgrown forest, and the Lieutenant had his squad way down at the other end of the position. By the time they saw the damn Seed, the blasted things would be on top of them. Even worse, this was apparently every Panzerfaust 3 in the arsenals, from every unit in the Bundeswehr. There would be no resupply, if they survived long enough for such concerns.

A crackle in his ear distracted him, the radio kicking on. "Contact," Gruber murmured. Hecht tensed, and scrabbled to get his launcher in hand. Gruber was four meters from his position, the next foxhole to his left.

Schaunberg kicked him again, while replying, "Where?"

"Due south my post," Gruber replied, "rock outcropping, fifty meters. It's on all fours, crawling around the west side of the rock. Sniffing the air, looks like. I think it's a scout. Permission to engage?"

"Negative," Schaunberg replied, "pack hunters, remember? Lunden, call the Lieutenant, everyone else, eyes open and out. Find the rest of the pack."

Hecht would have done that, but he wanted to be certain of the known threat before he went looking for more. The problem was, he could only see the top of the outcropping Gruber reported. There was a tree and what looked like a holly bush in the way from his angle. Schaunberg was looking dead-on at the tree, but Hecht could see the outcropping over the undergrowth. Fingering his Panzerfaust's trigger, he lined the launcher up on the outcropping, waiting, feeling the tension rising.

"Sergeant," Gruber said, "I think it's one of the big ones, the leaders. It just passed the ranging stake I left out, it's got to be over two meters if it was upright. Permission to fire?"

"Negative," Schaunberg repeated. "Platoon, report in, any further contacts?"

Response was an immediate chorus of, "Negative."

Hecht grimaced, gripping the Panzerfaust missile tighter. He tried to force himself to scan, to check for other Seed, but was too nervous about the one he could not see ahead of him to turn his head far. Something indistinct moved on the other side of the bushes, and he almost pulled the trigger, but discipline held. "Possible sighting on Gruber's contact," he muttered, not bothering with the radio.

The first answer was a huff of air, blowing across the back of his neck under the edge of his helmet. His own breath froze and his blood congealed. Then Schaunberg saved him, lunging out of the foxhole and shouting into his radio, "Contact to rear! They surrounded us!" The roar of his G36 on full-auto deafened Hecht even as he dove for the bottom of the shallow foxhole.

The Seed behind Hecht lunged silently at Schaunberg, five-five-six ammo whining off its scales. A passing swipe caught Hecht's harness and ripped it while flipping him into the wall of the foxhole. Stunned for a moment, Hecht was amazed a ricochet did not hit him immediately even as he felt something tug at his leg and side. Most of him was praying to God as he slid down and rolled onto his back, struggling to get the too-long Panzerfaust around and aimed. It was going to burn the hell out of his back and shoulder, with nowhere in the bottom of the trench for the backblast, but that was better than getting eaten.

He had to tune out Schaunberg's screaming to get the weapon around, and the Seed was just turning back towards him when it lined up on the thing's chest. "Let's see you dodge this," he muttered, and pulled the trigger.

00000

Ganen grimaced at the screams and explosions. It was not difficult for him to imagine the picture on the ground. There were no mages in that force in the woods, which was largely the reason he had directed the Seed towards it. But the Seed would not be merciful to those troops because of a lack of mages – quite the opposite, those troops were the target of this particular pack. The creatures had orders to acquire live prisoners, but they lacked the judgment and restraint of humans, and Ganen expected few to no prisoners, since the locals had not been smart enough not to resist.

The fight was mercifully brief, from the sound of it, maybe a minute and a half of explosions and gunfire. Ganen gave the Seed another two minutes to secure the site, but he was facing a time-crunch himself. The nearest local force was five minutes away on foot and he had until then to get what he was after. The nearby forces would probably delay, fearing being ambushed by Seed themselves, but they would not wait long. So he dropped into the trees himself, aiming for the peculiar null that was the greatest concentration of Seed.

Just as he reached ground-level something large lunged at him and slammed into his shields, causing them to fail almost instantly. Ganen shouted in surprise and twisted away, feeling claws rake across his side. The Seed did not get a grip, though, and Ganen rolled away and rocketed upwards again. He glimpsed more Seed piling onto the one that attacked him, then branches blocked the view. For a few seconds there was a silent brawl below him, no sound but heavy bodies slamming into things, followed by silence.

Cautiously, Ganen returned to ground level, more shields up and a teleport ready, but the remaining Seed – six of the original eight, including the Alpha, all but the Alpha damaged – were spreading out to a perimeter again. The Seed that had attacked him was dismembered, still twitching, but he could see why it had done so – there was a fist-sized crater blasted out of its chest, right into the heaviest protection around the creature's brain. It had not, quite, penetrated the brain case, but would have rattled the construct badly, possibly enough for it to forget its recognition programming.

"Gods, I hate these things," he muttered, glaring cautiously at the other Seed. That was not a comforting sight, even without them attacking him. One was missing its lower arm, another had a chunk taken out of its leg and a long wound across its back, and the rest were similarly torn up. "What in all that's holy could do that? Seed are supposed to be indestructible." He had not quite believed the analysis reports of the Hong Kong raid, not believed such primitive people could actually hurt, let alone kill, a Seed. Seeing proof that they could made him far more nervous about the entire war.

He stared for a few seconds longer, then shook it off. Rifling through the trenches the infantry had dug, he pulled as many examples of their weaponry as he could find. He thought he figured out what they used to injure the Seed – A long irregular gray tube with a green bulb at one end with a long blunt spike out the tip. There were a ridiculous number of such weapons, one per trench at least, and they were the only things big enough to look like they could harm a Seed and numerous enough to have damaged so many Seed at once, so he figured they were what he was looking for. The Morisovitch girl had talked about missiles and grenades, and these fit the bill, but the General wanted everything, so he collected everything.

He found a single survivor badly burned in the bottom of one trench, and teleported him directly back to Cairo for care. The rest of the soldiers had suffered the fate of all those who tried to fight Seed in close quarters. Enemy or not, Ganen cursed the commander that deployed them here, in terrain that gave the Seed every advantage. There was no excuse for such stupidity in a commander.

Once he had them all collected, he gestured towards the Alpha. "Return to base for repair." The Alpha bowed its head briefly, then turned and silently loped off into the woods, the other Seed following it.

Ganen could hear people moving in the woods now, and gathered the salvaged weapons with a gesture. The magic wrapped them into a convenient bundle, and he lifted off before the local reinforcements could spot him and start taking shots. 'Control, this is Journeyman Ganen. I have the local weapon examples the General wanted. Returning to Cairo via teleport.'

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Author's Notes: JDAM stands for 'Joint Direct Attack Munition', a sleeve mounted on a 'dumb' bomb that utilizes GPS to guide the weapon to a programmed target point – it's the cheapest way to get a 'smart' weapon, and effectively as accurate as laser-guided munitions. The Panzerfaust 3 is Germany's current home-grown equivalent to the Russians' RPG-7, though it has a 40-133% better penetration vs. steel armor than the RPG-7, depending on variants compared. The MILAN is an old French-designed anti-tank missile fired from a tripod and wire-guided to the target. Both are currently deployed by the Bundeswehr. Despite its size and fixed-position firing tripod, the MILAN actually has a fair chance ('fair', mind you, not 'good') of hitting a Seed, so long as the shooter can keep his sight on the Seed, and its big heavy warhead will definitely piss off said Seed. 'Five-five-six ammo' is one of the usual ways of referring to ammunition caliber, in this case 5.56mm assault rifle rounds.

Clarkson University is in Potsdam, one of the better engineering schools in the US. There's the main campus up on a hill across the river from the town to the south-west, and an administrative campus (the original University) in the town center. State University of New York (SUNY) Potsdam is south-east of town. The two universities are basically Potsdam's reason for existing.

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Daughter of ether: Natalia's Precia persona is quite deliberately modeled on the original. Fate would not react well to an encounter with the persona, but the persona/personality is perfectly well aware of that. They'll both avoid Fate as much as possible (and remember, Natalia's going to New York, while Fate and Laura are assigned to defend London).

Templar Prime: Cidela's particular issue is precisely a 'time-travel' one, namely that she's become somewhat disconnected from reality in the Void – which is outside of time. Unfortunately, if that's not your cup of tea, it'll get a little worse before it gets better. Hope this was exciting enough for you.

hignum: While I understand the desire to ask questions, you have to know I'm not going to answer anything along the lines of 'does X die?':). Hayate was planning the Armageddon strike, an attempt to demonstrate to Al Hanthis the futility of this war. Shamal does have two things to help her through Cidela's predicament – her existing family of Hayate and the other Wolkenritter, and the fact that all of them believe Cidela's return is only a matter of time. Updates are a bit of an issue recently as I've gotten ideas for other fics that are distracting, and I'm planning an attempt at NaNoWriMo. But the next chapter is mostly done, and there are two Side Stories in progress both set around the New York/London battle.

Filraen: Hayate's using a loophole – the Americans told her not to go to Potsdam, so she isn't, she's just striking at Al Hanthis from Japan, where Noriko's promise to the world holds greater sway. 'Outsider' viewpoints like Singh in Hong Kong & Hecht's above will show up a few more times – I've got one planned for London and several short ones for later battles. I've only got one more 'visit' planned for Cidela, but you'll have to wait for it, it's a bit away. You're right about both corrections, which I've posted – thanks!

Kell Shock: You and Filraen found the 'quite/quiet' one (should've been 'quiet'), and the 'city Hayate' one (deliver the city to Hayate), so thank you for that! As for 'comm.', blame MS Word's auto-correct features – as 'comm.' is a short-hand for 'communication' or 'communication device', and thus technically should have the period, though it's commonly dropped. I won't comment on the future the Forecasters attempted to avert by arranging Allison's escape, because they very well may have failed to avert it – not every Forecaster is working with them, and there are past Forecasters and future Forecasters that may very well have been working at cross-purposes, or deeper purposes. The Witch that spoke to Chrono is one of those other Forecasters, though her purposes are somewhat different from Ollan's and Ahmu's. Hayate's strike was aimed at Potsdam (remember, she's unwilling to risk causing a dimensional dislocation by half-destroying the city), and mobile shield generators cannot match the city's shields. Lastly, just because Ahmu's no longer publicly walking around doesn't mean he's gone – who do you think gave Yosho his first lessons in being a manipulative bastard?:) He's still got a part to play.

Haskell: Here's the latest chapter, and I'm glad you've liked it so far. Thanks!