Endless Waltz

By: Daishi Prime

-44 – World Aflame-

"Major Farin, status on the subtle knife," Gali said, leaning on his elbows on his console, eyes fixed on the holo display showing the madhouse over New York.

Farin had taken over the investigation and planning regarding the Maricopa and Konoth girls from Captain Wenar when the Protectors had approached the Guard about the possibility they were still able to access Al Hanthis' systems. Farin had not done much to alter their plan, Wenar had known what he was doing, but she had tweaked it somewhat, and the Protectors had offered their own suggestions should it occur again. Sure enough, within minutes of the strike force arriving in London, another subtle knife had occurred, just slightly more advanced than the one in Hong Kong.

Farin replied to his query immediately, "Major Ushan is having trouble communicating with us, but so far we have not lost contact and the subtle knife has not penetrated any further. The previous counter has already been negated, but I should have the Protectors' modified seizure protocol ready to run momentarily." Her professionalism faded into an almost-snarl as she concluded, "We'll catch her this time, sir, and deliver her to the General so she can give the little pest to Master Haen as a get-well present."

Gali grinned behind his hands at her tone. Nobody liked the idea of a subtle knife, of someone re-writing the delicate and personal codes in their implants to make those implants malfunction, or even take control of them. It was one of the private nightmares no one like to talk about, and why such crimes usually carried an otherwise rare death penalty, depending on the severity of the reprogramming done. Even considering that, Farin had taken the attack rather personally, apparently incensed that some 'primitive number-cruncher' dared try something so vile.

He considered her report, and the two overview holos of London and New York, and grimaced as he realized it was time to make a decision. "Captain Gars, status on primary forces?"

With two strike-forces out, two of the Guard's three senior colonels were out as well. Once again, Gali had not cheated as well as his fellows when they 'randomized' who would go and who would stay, so he was stuck minding the shop again. He had given responsibility for coordinating the conquest forces to Gars mostly because he had worked with the younger man in the past and knew he was skilled at keeping multiple operations separate in his mind while working on all of them.

"Primary forces are deployed and engaged," Gars replied immediately. "Resistance is heavier than in North Africa, but still not heavy enough. No enhanced mages, though some of the pseudo-enhanced mages are showing up. There is heavier resistance in Mecca, but that was expected. The only variance from plan so far is the inability to locate the ruling families in some of the coastal states. They are not in their palaces or bunkers, and we don't yet have information on where they went."

"How many states?"

"Six. Four from the United Arab Emirates, the royal family of Bahrain, and the core royal family of Saudi Arabia. It should not be difficult to work around them, however. The governmental structures are basically feudal – without the royals, it will either fall apart completely, in which case the Conclave should be able to install a more coherent local government, or simple transfer of loyalty will keep the unrest to a minimum."

"I think you're being overly optimistic," Gali replied, thinking of the fluctuating levels of violent resistance in the conquered territories. "But that's for later. Is anything critically wrong with accomplishing tonight's objectives?"

Captain Gars shook his head, "No, sir. Operations are on schedule, within acceptable ranges. Nobody is moving too fast or taking too long. Looks good for now."

"All right," Gali sighed, then straightened in his seat and settled his expression into a formally polite mask. Luen had briefed him on her mouse-trap plan, and considering the evidence she had gathered regarding the Blood Penance so far, Gali was morally certain who was responsible, and that they would never manage to pin it on him. Still, he had his orders, and the Conclave itself had authorized stage three of the night's operations, even giving in to the General's suggestion on who should run it for her. So he brought up a communications screen, triggered a certain code, and waited two minutes for it to be answered. Hiding his distaste, Gali said, "Good evening, Lord Protector. The Guards' operations are proceeding on schedule, and it appears all the locals' enhanced mages are fully engaged. Your people are free to proceed."

Yosho nodded politely, "Thank you, Adept. We will be opening the perimeter portals in five minutes then, and the fire teams will deploy five minutes after that."

That was according to plan as well, though Gali doubted the plan – the third stage, at least – would survive much beyond that. There were too many civilians involved for that. "Very good, Lord Protector. The perimeter watch is waiting for your signal, and will be ready to reopen the north portal for returning teams as necessary. If I may, I should get back to the battles."

"Good hunting, Adept," Yosho said, and closed the link.

Gali let his feelings show, then, grimacing and making a slight rude gesture towards where the screen had been. "Gods above please hear my plea and let Luen find something to pin on that bastard," he muttered.

"Hear, hear," rolled back from the lower stations, and Gali blinked, looking about quickly. He could not tell who had said that, though he had a sneaking suspicion it had been everyone.

00000

Watching his latest opponent, bleeding from two nasty wounds but not bound yet, vanish into a teleport, Yussef snarled silently. That had not been Noriko or Tai-yu-sensei using the school's systems, it had been Al Hanthis retrieving their wounded soldier. It was an unpleasantly familiar sight, from New York more so than from Hong Kong. He had only captured two of the seven mages he had faced that night, and did not think anyone else was averaging much better.

He only paused a moment, though, and spun about, aiming Zulfiqar at the other nearby Guard mage. Marcel had the man's attention firmly focused where it belonged, and that gave Yussef all the time in the world to build a Buster Cannon sufficient to take down his shields. 'Marcel,' he warned, just his friend's name.

'Count,' Marcel replied.

It was one of the more basic tactics they had worked out, mental coordination of distraction element and strike element. 'Four,' Yussef replied immediately, Buster Cannon half charged. The strike element always began with an even number, allowing the distraction element to control the timing of their evasion.

'Three,' Marcel replied a second later.

'Two,' Yussef shifted position above the fight as Marcel began pressing his attack on the Guard mage, Arondight arcing around faster than a blade that size should. The Guard mage blocked and countered in a single motion, shield on one hand while the other unleashed some sort of bluish-yellow flame.

Marcel rolled out of that, armor appearing more torn and shredded than burned, and whipped Arondight around in a nearly vertical back-hand that just missed the Guard's extended arm. 'One,' Marcel stated, allowing Arondight's momentum to pull him to one side then dropping clear.

'Firing,' Yussef warned, Zulfiqar fairly shaking around the built-up charge. The column of blue that roared away from his device was a good meter wide, and the Guard mage only just noticed it, whipping around and trying to get a shield up, when he should have dodged. The Buster Cannon slammed into his shield, and from Yussef's higher position, rammed the man into a low building below. Marcel and Yussef both hesitated to follow him in, leery of running into a Seed down there, and then came the characteristic glow of an Al Hanthis teleport.

"Three more down," Marcel commented, moving to position by Yussef.

Yussef nodded tiredly, though he and Marcel could only claim partial credit for the third member of that triad. In their initial exchange, the man had gone too high, high enough to clear the anti-air no-fire zone, into the free-fire altitudes. It had been a Spookie that got him, not one of the whatever-they-were weapons the Army had set up on rooftops in New York City, but the gunship had hammered him hard enough that the Circle wolfpacks backing up Yussef and Marcel had sufficed to bind him, one of the two Yussef had seen captured, aside from his own.

The entire Guard force over New York had been making the same sort of unthinking errors repeatedly. They obviously knew where the no-fly zone was, but they frequently crossed into it without paying attention. Their initial entrance had been right on the mark, just like over Hong Kong. But just after the Apollo birds hit, the Guard forces had scattered far and wide over the city, and had since been acting rather discombobulated. They were not uncoordinated, on the triad level, but none of the triads were really supporting each other like they had over Hong Kong, and none of the survivors of triads were reforming on the fly as they had over Hong Kong. That had let Yussef and Marcel – and the rest of the Myrmidons in their pairs – worry about one triad at a time, and the Myrmidons were finding that their devices gave them an edge in terms of power and the flexibility of their automatics.

Which was not to say they had not gotten their fair share of surprises during the night. Looking over Marcel's shredded barrier jacket as it slowly repaired, Yussef asked, "You okay?"

Marcel shrugged, "Didn't expect that last spell, whatever it was."

"Looked like a flamethrower, but…"

Marcel shook his head, "Some sort of particle cloud, like Noriko's Cascade only not blades. Sort of…" he paused, face shifting as he thought it over, then said, "It felt sort of like if you crossed Noriko's Cascade with Toushiro's Shotgun. Nasty, but I bet it's short-range only. It ripped up my barrier jacket, but I'm fine, just a couple scratches."

Yussef nodded slowly, the looked around again and spotted no obvious targets in their engagement area, so he continued the discussion. "How're we doing generally?" He had been too focused on his immediate situation, which was something he was going to have to work on. It should have been Marcel's job to handle tactical concerns, while Yussef monitored and directed the Myrmidons. But Marcel had a better head for keeping track of the others' reports, so…

Marcel took a minute to organize what he had heard from the other Myrmidons and their teachers, then reported, "Better than Hong Kong, worse than we had hoped. Szash has more mages in New York or in London than she brought to Hong Kong, let alone at both cities. There only appears to be a token force suppressing attempts to shift the battle out of normal phase, but she's still brought seventy or eighty mages to each city. Thing is, they don't seem to be quite as good as the crew she brought to Hong Kong, she may have dug into her reserve forces to make two strikes simultaneously. She's down to about sixty mages here in New York, don't know about London yet."

Yussef frowned at that. Only twenty Guard mages down, given how hard he knew his boys were fighting and how many he had personally captured or seen teleported out, meant everyone else had to be screwing up by the numbers. Something about it was not right. "What's the problem?"

Marcel shrugged, "The problem is we've only got one Shamal-baa-chan, and we have no

idea how many healers they have. I've seen at least one mage that I know got teleported out with an injury, back in the fight. Ichigo was just complaining to me about the same thing." He frowned, "Also, I think that they're not just pulling mages for injuries. I think they're teleporting them out, then sending them back to another point in the battle. Sort of their version of the Husker Hail Mary. The triad before last, for instance, that one woman that got too close to the infantry's positions and caught a pair of RPGs. Surprised or not, the missiles didn't hurt her, but they surprised her, and I would lay money against Chen-chi, she called for teleport and came back somewhere else."

"Wonderful," Yussef muttered. If Al Hanthis was being that cagey with their mages, and that slick with redeploying their forces mid-battle, away from their most capable opponents and into more vulnerable locations, this was going to get a lot worse. Attrition was already thinning out the Circles' numbers, and even he and his Myrmidons, supported by their devices, were starting to get tired. The Circles had some mages with healing abilities, but they were not heading wolfpacks. Some of them had even forgone healing at all in order to support wolfpacks. Shamal was doing what she could, but as a device mage she was needed topside as well, providing support to Hayate-sensei and the other high altitude mages. Add that to the teleporting, which the wolfpacks were not capable of, and Al Hanthis appeared to have some rather telling advantages, which had Yussef curious, more than worried, especially as to why the Guard had not already rolled them up. "What about the Seed?"

"The US Army's going to be a little short of anti-armor weapons in the near future, but so far the battle line is steady. They're falling back slower than the PLA did, or than I understand the British Army is, but they've also got longer lines of fire than London or Hong Kong. New York City was planned out from the start, lots of straight streets going all the way up or across the peninsula, not like London, and the Jersey side of the river is almost as good. Thing is…"

"Seed got into the subway and sewer systems," Yussef said. "Yeah, that's why we put the kids upstairs in the precinct instead of down in the subways with the wolfpacks. How is that going?"

Marcel considered it for a moment, then commented, "I never want to meet a Ranger in a dark alley. Or a tunnel. Or, really, anywhere they have time to prepare and a couple tons of explosives handy. Seed in the tunnels don't have much room to dodge, and the troops down there have a lot of Javelins. They're not winning, but it's basically a stalemate. We're not losing wolfpacks to Seed at least, not yet."

Yussef grimaced a little at that. Stalemate was never a good thing in battle, even when it was what you planned for and better than you had expected. "Remind me when we get back, I want to run some tests with that rebar idea they had over in London. Luke says it's working well, but it's basically improvised, and I'd like something a little more established. And speaking of established, look over there. See those three?"

Marcel nodded, looking south where Yussef had nodded, to three Guard mages slipping north at low level. "They're probably hoping to use the Seed for cover from us, while they cover the Seed from the troops."

"Let's go disabuse them of that notion, shall we?"

00000

Gali looked up at Farin's signal. "Sir," she said, grimacing at her console, then grudgingly admitted, "this kid's better than we expected."

Gali smiled slightly, "Escaped the Protector's mouse-trap, did she?"

Farin's grimace tightened, and she shook her head, "No sir. She was never anywhere near it. She faked me out." Farin paused, schooling her features to a neutral mask, and asked, "Colonel, I am requesting permission to cut Major Ushan out of the network."

Gali blinked, and the command center went still. Cutting someone out of the network was almost never done. Cutting someone off from the network cut them off from almost all communications systems, health monitors, and even the generators that let them exceed mere human limitations. Normally only criminals convicted of felony crimes could be cut from the network, and only the Conclave could authorize such a step against a Master or Master Adept. There were exceptions, but they were drastic and almost unheard of, generally involving a direct and critical threat to the city from the mage in question. For this incident to qualify… "You cannot cleanse the subtle knife from his implants?"

Farin hesitated, then said, "I do not believe so, sir. Not remotely and not in the midst of battle. Sir, I've set of six different trap-and-counter routines. All but the first two should have been lethal, sir, and the last should have back-fed through the intruder's implants and fried her brain outright. Instead, it distracted me while she accessed the health-monitoring software and overrode it. I've already had to cut Major Ushan off from medical and maintenance, and had to lock out half of his implant codes. He can still draw power, and he can still communicate, but at this rate… Colonel, if we give her much longer, she won't be breaching his implants, she'll be in the city's grid. In the Guard's grid."

In the dead silence that report caused, Gali could just hear Whelan, sitting next to Farin, whisper, "Son of a whore, how is she doing this?"

Farin, without looking away from Gali, whapped Whelan on the shoulder, and said, "I have suspicions for how she's doing it, sir, but none of the responses are right for any of them. Her response time is very fast, and she appears to be multitasking. If I didn't know Yagami's people aren't as insane as the other primitivists, I would guess she has multiple independent AIs assisting her."

Gali closed his eyes at that, thinking of what limited information Kriegsen had provided on the mage-engines, what little Yosho had let them find out about the one Morisovitch brought with her. "You may be closer to right than we would prefer, Farin. Cut Major Ushan out of the network and retrieve him, list him as combat ineffective and place him in lockdown. Let me know when he's back, I'll talk to him and explain the situation to him. While you're doing that, Whelan, put together a team of Engineers. You and they will purge Major Ushan's implants completely and totally. Rebuild his implant codes from nothing up – new programs, new authorizations, new identifiers, the works. Start from the initial childhood codes and rebuild his systems from there."

The two acknowledged and turned back to their consoles, and Gali turned back to his. Multiple AIs, he thought with a visceral shiver. AIs, sub-atomic weapons, whatever the hell Yagami is… the longer we're here, the more I think we should have stayed in the Void. It was probably safer!

Even as he thought that, alarms sounded throughout the command bay, only to almost immediately fall silent as consoles blanked, screens vanished, and the lights winked out. "Calmly," Gali shouted over the rising chorus of questions, "Emergency lights should kick on, Jasi, check the power runs, everyone else, reboot your stations…" The emergency lights kicked on, flooding the room in a dim blue glow, and then screens returned, winking back into place, but only showing black. "See," Gali said, "we have procedures for this, people…"

He trailed off as the black screen at his desk changed, a ring of silver fading in. A glance showed the same image appearing on other screens, and his stomach fell out as he realized this was not a power failure. Then a red dot appeared in the center of the silver ring, rising to a steady glow, and a frighteningly mellow voice said in one of the local languages, "Good morning, Dave."

00000

Allina blinked, then frowned. 'You catch that, 'Jana-chan?'

'Someone cut off the counter-intrusion efforts,' Niranjana replied. 'Be cautious. They keep trying to trap us, and this may be another attempt.'

'Well, yeah, but I didn't mean that,' Allina said, then paused. 'That last bit they sent at the Hong Kong Beowulf… that wasn't Al Hanthis code, it was Gatecrasher… sort of, I think, maybe. Looked like it to HAL, at least.'

Niranjana was silent for a time, and Allina let her think it over. She was still working that Master Adept's implants, and giving the poor man fits. The rest of London's defenders were avoiding him – he was high enough it was only Takamachi-sensei and the other device mages, who all knew Allina was targeting him. He had managed a few spells early on, but it was patently obvious to Allina that, with her hashing his implants, he was not going to be doing anything else until they kicked her out.

Part of her felt guilty for that. Given how deeply connected Al Hanthis' implants had to be, being caught between Allina's hacking and the Guard's counter-intrusion efforts had to be rough on him. Remembering her own experience with such an event, and Niranjana's and Noriko's injuries, she knew he was going to be in therapy for a good long while after tonight, if he was lucky. Even with half of Hong Kong and HAL buffering her, Allina felt like her nerves were overloading, a crawling pseudo-static feeling that was entirely in her head, but nonetheless real, so it had to be worse for the poor bastard caught in the middle of it.

The rest of her was utterly terrified of screwing this up. The Hong Kong Beowulf was proving to be a God-awful kludge-fest, but it was a rugged God-awful kludge-fest, and some of what had hit those systems was just plain nasty. Al Hanthis was playing a very serious game, and while Allina had expected that, she was not as mentally prepared for it as she had expected. From what 'Jana and Saraswati were telling her, the Guard's counters had started at 'crippling', and moved almost immediately to 'fatal'. She was getting closer and closer to a breakthrough, had the mage-implants' programming figured out fairly well, and was certain that, with the data they already had, she and 'Jana could find a way to hack Al Hanthis. The question she was now faced with was, was she close enough to make pushing further more dangerous than it was worth?

'We are close, Allina-chan,' 'Jana told her, 'I think one more attempt. If it does not work, then we will have to pull the plug and turn to more general defense of London.'

Allina almost argued for the sake it, but then nodded. 'Yeah, okay. With what we've got so far and the Hong Kong setup, I can probably FUBAR their whole London strike force in a few minutes. Lemme set up… actually, I've been going at this like a sledgehammer. Can I borrow something from you?'

'Jana was silent a moment, then asked in confusion, 'Borrow something from me? Borrow what?'

'Turing's Razor,' Allina replied, and swore she could feel 'Jana start.

'H-how…'

'Oh come on, 'Jana-chan, you did all the programming on your PDA. You've let me in and out of that since, like, January last year, and I've been helping with Saraswati. I think it'll work now.'

'It's not finished,' 'Jana protested, 'I haven't even really tested it on our systems, let alone something as foreign as Al Hanthis' systems.'

'Oh, come on, the new versions of Gatecrasher and Ghostmaker written in Midchildan code aren't really finished either, that's why they're both still version zero point whatever. Come on, 'Jana-chan, loan me the Razor, please? Pretty please with cherry's on top? It'll be subtle and slick and they'll never see it coming after the brute-force approach I've been taking. I'll put up with what's-his-name for a whole week without complaining or sighing or anything.'

'Jana sighed heavily at her, 'His name is Ekavir, as you know perfectly well, and did not Noriko discuss that with you last month? She certainly discussed it with me! But… all right, Saraswati, open link to HAL, initiate Turing's Razor, local control through HAL-Primary.'

Turing's Razor was 'Jana's half-hearted attempt at her own version of Allina's Gatecrasher package. Unlike Gatecrasher, and very much like all of 'Jana's programming, it was tight code working on a subtle plan. Rather than simply hashing its way through firewalls, anti-virus, and whatever login/identification protocols were in place, Turing's Razor went deeper, to the most basic layers of network topology, where the machines themselves talked.

It worked beautifully on traditional Terran networks, subverting TCP/IP with frightening ease by convincing the whole network the intruder was simply another dumb switch. It did not work perfectly, packet-encryption was still a major hurdle for the program to get past, and Allina was fairly sure her Gatecrasher would always be better if all she wanted was to gain access. But Gatecrasher's big problem was the fact that it was exceedingly blatant. Even Ghostmaker, a program Allina had created specifically to clear all traces of Gatecrasher's use, could not actually manage that. The Razor, though, was subtle enough that it was entirely possible they would be able to access a network quickly and not leave obvious traces.

Al Hanthis' network was not built on TCP/IP's layered topology approach, but Allina thought they had an equivalent to a basic switch, something which existed on the network, but simply routed information about without doing any processing or alteration of the data. After pounding away at the Guard mage's link-ups for the past hours, whoever was running their counter-intrusion might miss a subtle attempt. So she set part of the Hong Kong Beowulf to another attempt at Gatecrasher, while she and HAL began trying to insert Turing's Razor into the Guard network.

It almost worked. For a few seconds, as strange data began flowing into her ad-hoc network, Allina thought she had done it. The code coming down the line was pure unadulterated Al Hanthean, data that HAL dutifully recorded without trying to process or translate it. Her breath caught, and she felt that singing pit in her stomach that preceded ultimate victory…

And then it cut off, replaced by a single line of binary chatter that HAL translated automatically. IM SORRY DAVE IM AFRAID I CANT DO THAT.

Then the connection, all their connections to Al Hanthis, went dead, and Allina's target dropped out of London's skies like a stone.

For a moment, Allina just stared at HAL's projection in shock. She had not only been cut off from the Turing's Razor attempt, but completely, totally severed from her target's implants and the network backing those implants up. Someone had just completely and utterly erased hours of effort with no warning, no possibility of a counter. She could just try again with someone else, but singling out a new target in the morass of hostiles over London would be impossible, at best.

Surprise faded, replaced by a weird thrill. Whoever Halley really was, she was good. Good enough that Allina wanted time to think over her next attempt, time to really analyze and understand the data she had gotten tonight already. That time was not available tonight, so she could not go after another specific target like she had at the start. Getting past Halley's counter-efforts would be a matter of luck, not skill, and Allina wanted to prove which of them was better.

'Alright, 'Jana-chan,' she sent, 'time to stop playing scalpel. Can you re-set the comm-sats for me? I want to update round two for what we just learned.'

'It'll take me a couple minutes,' 'Jana replied. 'How large an area does the signal need to cover?'

'Just London,' Allina said, distracted already as she updated the jamming and attack package prepared days before.

It took closer to twenty minutes for Allina to get the programs updated the way she wanted. 'Jana used that time to patch up the Hong Kong Beowulf that would do most of the processing for them, and they were both surprised when she realized someone else, someone in Hong Kong, was doing the same thing.

Just over twenty minutes after getting kicked out of Al Hanthis' network, Allina finished off her updates, and looked up, checking the battlefield. It was still going strong, Guard mages and her teachers flickering about overhead, more Guard mages dodging heavy weapons fire and her classmates below. Allina considered it all for a moment, then grinned in anticipation of the Al Hantheans' coming consternation.

"HAL," She said softly, "initiate Skynet's Howl."

00000

Tired or not, Yussef was starting to feel a little better, at least about his immediate part of the battle. He and Marcel had managed to teleport below the triad, and while that had attracted immediate Seed attention, the two of them had teleported in already going up. After the accidental success with the previous triad, he and Marcel had slammed into the lead member of the triad physically before the Guard mages began to react. The one-two strike of Zulfiqar and Arondight, followed by a pair of short-charged Buster Cannons, had launched the man straight up and into the anti-air free-fire zone. It had not been a Spooky that got him, but a swarm of ten or twelve Stinger missiles from the National Guardsmen below had convinced him to teleport out.

The other two had tried to tag-team Marcel, but he and Yussef were well used to one another by now. Arondight cut through the shield that was supposed to separate them, and Yussef's shield blocked the buster from the other Guard mage. The blocking mage was closer, so Yussef lunged at him, with Marcel cutting up and left just behind him. The Guard mages tried to pincer Yussef, but with Marcel guarding his back and front, he was free to concentrate on his attack. A short-charge Buster Cannon disrupted his target's offense, and then Yussef was on him, Zulfiqar swinging in short sharp arcs.

The Guard mage dropped his attempt at a large shield and instead began blocking with his bare hands. The last-ditch shields the Guard had cooked up to imitate the device mages' barrier jackets covered his hands, and while Zulfiquar shattered one per strike, there were a few hundred palm-sized shields wrapped around Yussef's target. Still, the Guard mage fell back, dropping low, and Yussef mentally assigned himself a time-limit. Marcel would keep the other guy off his back long enough, but he only had a few seconds before he would be low enough to risk Seed intervention.

Then the ditz exploded over the harbor, a titanic blast of raw power. It felt terrifyingly similar to the mission to rescue Cid-chan, and it distracted Yussef and Marcel both. Yussef dodged away from his target, looking east to see a shimmering sphere of white fading out, the waters of the harbor – just barely visible at this angle – whipped up into storm-waves. Then it was his turn to get hit with the blue-yellow not-flame. Marcel was right, it felt more like getting sand-blasted than burned as hundreds of impacts tried to scour away Ward of Honor.

Worse, the spell disrupted his senses, visual and magical, disorienting him slightly. He rolled out of the blast area with a surprised shout, whipping Zulfiqar around, as something huge and grey appeared in his vision. He was a little too quick with the blade, just catching the Seed's jaw but not stopping it, and then he shouted in pain as the creature's jaws slammed shut on his wrist. Impossibly hard teeth backed by artificial muscles drove through his worn-down barrier jacket like it wasn't there, through his skin just as easily, and ground against bone. Only Zulfiqar's grip stopped it from taking his hand clean off, catching like a horse's bit though the Seed's teeth dug halfway through his device as well.

00000

Marcel would be the first to admit that he had less personal experience with Laura's unpredictability than Yussef did. Still, he was better prepared for her detonation over the harbor than Yussef had been. In his mind the twin facts that it was Laura and that Natalia was giving her fits basically guaranteed that, at some point, Laura would do something massively dramatic. After the incident where she and Nanoha-sensei blew out a workroom 'accidentally', Marcel was not particularly surprised at the scale of the blast, either. The precise moment of it was a surprise, certainly, but not such that he lost track of the fight.

So he was not as distracted as Yussef when the Laura decided to light up the Tri-State Area. He kept his place and focus, shifting to block the trailing Guard mage's attempt to separate him from Yussef, and saw Yussef's target unload that close-in attack spell. Marcel was not quite quick enough to shield Yussef from the strike, but he had time to set up a massive overhand strike with Arondight, backed by his magic.

The mage caught Marcel's strike on a shield, but Marcel had not been aiming for damage, and Arondight's edge was not sharpened by Marcel's magic. As soon as the blade impacted the shield, the energies flaring along Arondight's spine burst and the weapon accelerated, slamming the Guard mage straight down. The man blasted through the roof of a two story building, terminating his spell, but that impact, more than the rising grey shape, clued in Marcel that they were too low, far too low.

Marcel almost managed to remain calm and logical in the face of his worst nightmare. It was, in a way, the worst nightmare of all of Hayate's students – out of position in front of a charging Seed of Leviathan. A shield, however fast, would have only a slight chance of success. A buster spell would be useless. Nothing direct, was the only coherent thought he managed before Arondight presented, and he took without a thought, a potential course of action.

Carrying through his strike against the Guard mage, he leveled Arondight at where he figured the Seed would be in a couple seconds. He ignored Yussef's shout of surprise and pain, and let his body continue the roll, left hand leaving Arondight's grip to point, fingers spread, at a building miles away in New York City. It was the stuttering line of light that his gaze locked on, and his voice was almost a prayer, "Arondight, Flying Bird Portal."

"Yes, my King," the device replied in a soft Marseille accent, and Marcel felt a horrific amount of power drawn from his linker core and poured through the device.

Two hazy grey fields appeared, one in his line of sight, miles distant and perpendicular to that stuttering line of fire. The other appeared a few meters below and to his right. For about three seconds, out of that hazy grey came a steady stream of twenty millimeter anti-armor rounds, crashing directly into the Seed as it completed its arc and began to descend. The trailer-mounted automated anti-air Gatling, locked onto an airborne target elsewhere, continued to fire its insane rate of fire at whatever it was locked on, but Marcel was forced to cut the portal off after just three seconds.

The Seed jerked at the first impact, then flailed for a second, letting go of Yussef and plummeting earth-ward. Mere proximity to the Seed destabilized the portal, and Marcel was just as glad to let it go before Yussef dropped into the line of fire. Marcel tried to catch Yussef, but the two Guard mages attacked him simultaneously, taking advantage of their sudden advantage. He dodged one buster spell, but the other slammed into his back while he was distracted. Arondight's automatics stopped most of it, and his barrier jacket took the rest, and then the shivering remnants of Laura's magic rippled through the area.

Yussef's training paid off for Marcel, though. Surprised as he was by the second buster, it came from mostly above his position, driving him downward, which was where he wanted to go, in general. He converted the impact into acceleration, avoiding a burst of that not-flame spell just before it would have engulfed him and Yussef. He got an arm around Yussef's waist, and did not bother with trying to arrest their fall, instead pulling a short range teleport to get them clear of the immediate fight.

They popped out low over New York, above one of the hospitals Marcel had ambushed Didier at the day before. There was no ambush this time, and Marcel touched down just beside the ER entrance. At first glance, the place looked like a madhouse, people rushing back and forth dragging wounded walking or pushing gurneys, both loaded and unloaded. But even before Marcel touched down, there was a nurse and a soldier at his side.

"Seed," Marcel told the nurse, "but don't worry about us. I just need a couple minutes of quiet to teleport him out to…"

"No," Yussef rasped, voice harsh. He finally looked up from his injured arm, fixing a rock-steady gaze on the nurse. "There's a Circle healer here?"

The nurse nodded slowly, "Yes, two of them. Let me see your arm, son…"

Yussef slung Zulfiqar over his shoulder and pulled away from Marcel before holding out his injured hand. "I have some internal injuries as well, I think. My back and guts hurt."

The nurse took Yussef's forearm in her hand and frowned as she studied it. "You're not bleeding very much, but… Jesus," her inspection pulled the wound apart, and Marcel felt his stomach heave as he realized he could see the bones of Yussef's wrist. "That's deep," the nurse continued, "but…"

"Minor shields to keep the blood loss to a minimum," Yussef said, "something I put in Zulfiqar's automatics over the summer. I'll keep for a bit, but I need to get back out there."

"Yussef, you know Hayate-sensei's rules for us," Marcel protested. Those rules were direct and simple, if not quite as draconian as her rules for the first-years. 'Injured and out', Yussef had labeled it. Any injury bad enough to need medical attention meant the injured student was to teleport out to the campus, unless the injury was bad enough to need Shamal-sensei's attentions, in which case they were to teleport somewhere safe and call her for help. Hayate-sensei was relying on them to obey that rule, since Tai-yu-sensei and Noriko were fully involved in capturing as many Guard mages as they could, but it would not be long before one of them noticed and pulled Yussef out whatever he wanted.

Yussef shook his head, though. "Not tonight. Too many Guard mages, too few of us. Where are the Circle healers?"

It was not the nurse that answered, but the soldier. "Inside, sir, I'll show you. Ma'am," he touched the nurse's shoulder, "there's another ambulance coming in. I'll see to these two."

The whole time the Circle mage was closing Yussef's wounds – and there were more than just the wrist and internal injuries, reflecting the damage the Seed had done to Zulfiqar – half of Marcel was caught up in a moral quandary. The other half was watching that Circle mage like a hungry hawk watching a rabbit. He was supposed to report Yussef's injury and have him pulled out. It was in the rules they had been given to allow them to assist, and it would keep Yussef safe. Even the Circle mage's healing was not going to completely close those wounds, the man was simply not up to Shamal-baa-chan's or Cid-chan's level.

But fifteen minutes later, when Yussef took to the skies once more, Marcel found himself following, still doubting but following. He simply could not bring himself to betray Yussef.

00000

Hughes considered Marterosian for a few seconds when the man stood up from his desk and started towards him across the quietly busy command center. Marterosian was coordinating the Circles' monitoring and support efforts outside the immediate battle-zones of New York, London, and the Middle East. He was not handling southern Europe or central Africa, other Adepts had those duties since Al Hanthis could have attacked in those directions as well. But he certainly had more to do than get up and walk back to Hughes' desk.

From the expression on Marterosian's face, Hughes decided almost immediately that it was bad news, and not related to the various attacks. So, he thought, either Al Hanthis is pulling off a second conquest strike, or they've remotely activated something Containment doesn't want to admit to hiding.

Marterosian stepped around Hughes' desk and leaned down, while Hughes turned his head towards the younger man. "Something wrong?"

"Yes, Master Adept. Al Hanthis mages have appeared outside the combat zones."

"Where?"

Marterosian paused, then said, "Argentina, the American Mid-west and California, China, India… about a hundred reported sightings so far. Not the Guard, they aren't wearing any sort of uniforms that anyone has reported, but definitely Al Hanthis."

Hughes blinked at that, but he had spent the entire battle so far waiting for the other shoe to drop. Al Hanthis had pulled out too many surprises already, and demonstrated a ruthless disregard for the norms of conventional warfare that he was used to. So he made a 'continue' gesture, and Marterosian obliged, "They're attacking farms, sir. Not the homes, but the storage silos and barns, and setting fire to the crops in the fields. Mage-fires, set-spells that will support and spread the flames despite weather or firefighters. They'll burn out anyway in a couple hours, but…"

"But they'll destroy the fields they're set in, and the neighboring fields," Hughes said, nodding. After a second, though he shook his head and gave a wry smile. "You have to hand it to whoever planned this out, they're a bloody genius at force efficiency. Twice now they've suckered us into static positions then unleashed more forces than we thought they could spare, and each time to powerful effect. Cairo, Hong Kong and North Africa, the Japanese Imperial Family, now this… they're doing an excellent job of force-projection and force-multiplication." He frowned, thinking over the list of targets and methods Al Hanthis had used so far. Something about it was niggling at the back of his mind, something in the pattern that was not what it should have been. But it was not coming forward, so after a few minutes, he ignored it to focus on the immediate issue.

"Marterosian, put out the call to all Circle mages in the attacked areas. They are to rally near each fire, but they are not to engage the Al Hantheans. We don't have Ops mages or wolf-packs out there, so they couldn't stop those strike groups if they tried. Their mission will be to wait until the Al Hantheans leave, then move in and suppress the fires by magic. Get them moving fast, we should be able to minimize the damage."

Marterosian shook his head, "It's not the damage to the crops that needs to be minimized, sir. Some of these sites are public. At least one, in Argentina, already has a news crew on-site. Between this and Japan, they're going to convince the world that they can get anyone, anytime, and even if they don't go for you directly, they can get you indirectly."

"Maybe," Hughes agreed, "but the downside to psychological warfare remains the same, regardless of the combatants." Marterosian frowned and shook his head to indicate he did not understand. "Backlash. Psychological warfare is all about confusion and fear, Marterosian. You make your enemy too confused and too afraid to fight back effectively, make them surrender rather than fight. But for every Vichy France, you get a General McAuliffe. This sort of approach is just as likely to result in stiffer resistance, especially with the outright atrocity of the attack on the Japanese. People can be dismayed and agonized over children dying in war, but to see them murdered in their beds? This latest maneuver is going to provoke a reaction, and it's not going to be well thought-out unless I can convince the Joint Chiefs that Hayate's right about being able to get through Al Hanthis' shield. But that reaction is not going to be surrender, whatever it is, and it's going to make the post-war situation all the worse."

00000

Author's Notes

So, fourth job in a single year. That's a record for me. Good news, it means I'm no longer unemployed and whining about it. Bad news, it means my schedule's been FUBAR since, basically, last November. I still have not gotten back into a writing schedule like I had in years past (I don't write at lunch any more, for instance), and it'll be a few months before I'm really settled in the new job. But, a couple months between chapters is better than a year, and I've already got a couple pages of the next chapter written out (i.e.: I should have posted this a week or so ago).

Phalanx CIWS/Centurion C-RAM: The Phalanx CIWS (Close In Weapon System, pronounced 'Sea-Whizz') was, for many years, the US Navy's last-ditch close-in air defense system. It incorporated a radar, an infra-red sight, a 20mm Gatling, and an automated threat response system, all of it on a quick-motion turret. It's visible on the ships as a bright white dome-topped cylinder – the radar housing atop the turret – which is usually placed fairly high up in the superstructure. A few years ago, the Navy began partially phasing the Phalanx out, replacing some of them with a longer-ranged missile system – still looks mostly the same, just an eleven-shot box-launcher instead of a big Gatling, and I believe the radar is different as well. The Army, seeing those perfectly good high-rate-of-fire guns sitting around, mounted the entire turret assembly on a flat-bed, hooked up a generator, and parked a bunch of them in Iraq for mortar defense. The resultant Centurion C-RAM (Counter Rocket Artillery Mortar) version is supposed to use high explosive rounds, but for targets like Al Hanthis' Guard, armor-piercing is a safer bet. The 'insane rate of fire' Marcel referenced is between fifty and seventy-five rounds per second, depending on how the mount is programmed.

Vichy France / General McAuliffe: Vichy France was the subordinate regime the Nazis installed in France after they took Paris in World War II. While some members of the Vichy government covertly assisted the French Resistance, it is generally accepted as a collaborationist regime. General McAuliffe was in command of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. He and his paras held Bastogne for days despite being entirely surrounded by the Germans. His response to the Germans' demand for his surrender, once Bastogne was surrounded? "Nuts." To this day, the survivors of Bastogne insist they did not need to be rescued by Allied forces.

00000

Endymion2314: I've actually had several ideas for Laura's death, including one (since discarded) at the climax of this story. My original plan for this story was to have Laura go out in a sacrificial strike to bring down Kriegsen in a particularly poetic way. But my plans for the in-story future evolved rather rapidly to involve the Twilight Paladins in a particular role, which requires Laura's continued existence at least past the end of Endless Waltz. As for Natalia's fatalistic outlook, her own actions and Ahmu's lessons have already demonstrated that there is a fundamental flaw there.

Happerry: Here's 'what happens next' for you, focusing on New York this time.

Spica75: The problem with all the new guns is that they don't have the service life of Ma Deuce. They may be better in technical specs, but I'll be impressed when they still have that reputation after thirty years. I've seen too many 'better' tools that prove lacking in staying power, for a lot of reasons. Of course, I'm an inveterate WWII tech junkie, so, yeah.

Rathmun: Yup, still around, and happy (belated) birthday.

PokemonJoe1: There are any number of ways Laura could improve Death Blossom, but it won't ever be a long-range buster spell. Laura doesn't have Nanoha's level of control – she can contain that level of power, but collating it into a beam is beyond her. Got some plans for Cid-chan to show up next chapter, but Noriko won't appear again until they get back to the Academy.

pfeil: Hope you're still reading.

Kell Shock: It was supposed to be "split into four more". Natalia's been looking through the Null Space, yes, but that's how all the Forecasters' work. Laura's future life-span is worrisome, but I have plans for her kids already, though I may change those due to various issues. As for the world's militaries not being able to hurt a Seed w/ bullets, it's not just that. There are big enough guns – the main cannon on most modern tanks, loaded with anti-tank rounds instead of high-explosive, would splatter a Seed – if it could track around fast enough. Try looking at it from Al Hanthis' side, though – they've never encountered anyone who can take Seed down without mages. Missiles may be expensive, but they're cheaper and faster to produce than mages (or soldiers, for that matter).

MaZe-Pallas: Nanoha won't be a Deva mage, largely because she's already too powerful for me to write easily. I rather imagine that having Nanoha overhead during a battle is rather more like Laura's interference over New York above – the wrath of the gods messing up everyone, rather than just pausing things a moment. I still haven't found a scene to show it that works for me, though. Couple more chances for me to try in this story.

The Mad Metamorphmagus: Last chapter, and this one to an extent, were definitely more action-oriented than character-oriented, though I do get what you mean about characters slipping. In this one, Allina's reaction to losing her connection to Major Ushan was originally another rage-fest, except that I realized she wouldn't react to a loss like that. Getting kicked out of a network is a challenge, not an insult. I'm not going to be spending time on the reactions of anyone at the campus during the fight, though I do have a scene half-planned for when everyone gets home.

Jack Inqu: Of all the attempts I made to write out Nanoha's side of the battle, Yuuno's not-really-a-joke was the only part that felt right, and even then I kept having to re-write it. Last chapter was supposed to be Allison's chance to shine, though I have another scene for her planned next chapter as part of the wrap-up of London and New York. As for Natalia's ability to predict the future, I'm not a big fan of Destiny either. If you think back over everything I've put in this story about how Natalia's eye works, how Ahmu's and the other Forecasters' abilities work, I don't think you'll be too upset.

Jammin-2099: Turns out I didn't use Esien twice. Esien is, in fact, the Master Adept running the Yellowstone Containment Facility. Yuuno's supervisor was Admiral Esoran. Close, but not quite (much to my relief. I hate duplicating names without meaning to, and had no ready excuse as to why…) To be honest, about your previous review's comment on Nanoha's contribution in Academy Blues, it bothers me too, mostly because I originally did screw it up. But, eh, mistakes happen. Thanks for still reading!

FabienLeLez: Sorry for the long delay, but last year was rough. Yuuno's device is, in fact, named 'Desu'. It's not a reference to Rozen Maiden, but the word 'desu' is frequently used by ditzy characters or to indicate ditzy/spaced-out moments. Yuuno really doesn't like having a device, but isn't cruel by nature, so he named it something silly. As I've mentioned to others above about Laura's predicted death, go back and look at how the precognitive ability Natalia is using works – it looks across the nothingness between all dimensions and times.