Disclaimer: FoZ is not mine, anything you encounter and recognise is probably not mine. I have totally stolen elements and the idea of a Forever War from Expeditionary Force by Craig Alanson. Please, for the Love of God, read that series, or better yet, listen to the audiobooks read by RC Bray. Those two are what inspired me to start writing.
1-2
Settling in
Mechsuits are incredibly heavy. They weigh well over three hundred kilograms because of the sheer mass of the dense hardshell armour that protects us squishy biologicals from all sorts of threats we can encounter. HEAT rifle rounds, fragmentation rocket warheads, kinetic energy slugs, MASER beams, anything our opponents seek to kill us with basically. If we must win, we must carry the core of an incredibly intelligent combat assistant AI, whose job it is to interpret what I want the suit to do from my brain signals. The mechsuit must carry powercells, spare kit and equipment, rations, ammunition, as well as the weapons and the multi-purpose missiles I specialise with who's mission it is to destroy enemy aircraft or ground targets.
Despite weighing so much, the mechsuit is extremely quick in battle. It is not invincible, however. It does not run forever. It requires maintenance. That is going to be my biggest problem.
As Spaceborne Cavalry, we're required to know our kit inside and out. Basic scientific principles, how to perform PMCS (Preventative Maintenance, Checks and Services) whenever I piss off my platoon sergeant, how to find and diagnose problems in the software with assistance from the AI, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, hell, the AI knows how to do most of it. My biggest problem? As parts wear out, I'll be unable to replace them unless I get access to a fabricator.
Why am I talking about this? I dunno. Guess I'm trying to make a plan on how to proceed forwards with this... interesting life. We're standing in front of a wooden door. Louise takes a key and opens the door, and she steps inside, gesturing for me to follow. I move through, and we enter into a large room. It's a rather drab room, I notice. In the far corner, there is a king sized four poster bed, a wardrobe on the other side of the room, some drawers and a table with two rather fancy chairs.
"I'm going to take my armour off, and then we can talk about my role as a familiar, if that's alright with you." I say to her.
"No? You're my familiar, don't be ridiculous." She glares at me. "To think my familiar dare think he's an equal to a noble. Ridiculous!"
"If you keep up that attitude, you won't have a familiar anymore." I say to her, raising an eyebrow. "Suit, begin disassembly." I say. I raise my arms out, and they open up, allowing my arms to get free. The process continues until I'm able to exit my suit, and I stand there in my dark green suit liner. I take my TACPAD and reduce the size before placing it into a pocket.
"Now then. First off, do you have any tea?" I ask her. She nods, before pointing out to the door.
"You'll have to go to the servant-room. It's down the hall, in the last door on the left. You can ask the servant on duty for anything you like."
"Thank you." I turn back to my mechsuit, taking the Model 42A5 pistol from the magnetic lock on the battle belt. I attach it to my own suit liner belt and it forms a magnetic field, keeping the pistol attached.
"I strongly suggest you don't touch the suit. It will electrocute you." I say, before leaving for the servant room. "Suit, feel free to talk to her."
/
"Hello Miss Louise!" A jovial, high pitched voice called out from the direction of the suit.
Louise stared in shock at the strange armour her Familiar wore. It just... talked... to her.
"What are you? A soul weapon?"
"Not at all, Miss Louise. I am a Seventh Generation Combat Artificial Intelligence. You can call me Suit! I basically run this mechsuit."
"Really? What magics do you run on?"
"Magic? No magic here, Miss Louise. Just twenty thousand years worth of scientific progress! And war, I guess. I'm afraid I can't tell you how I work. I don't have the authority to tell a primitive and you wouldn't understand the underlying scientific principles anyway! I mean, seriously! Your people haven't even figured out Electrolysis! And that's the most basic method of conducting electricity! Your magics, however, are most interesting."
"Ele- what? You don't have magic?"
"Not at all. We have a saying. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. There are aliens out there who have much more advanced technology. We are lucky to be protected by our patrons against them."
"Your... patrons? What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting there are other worlds?"
"Unfortunately, yes." The AI sighed. "Our people have been involved in a war that has been fought over millions of years. Many millions of years ago, there were only two species who had developed star travel. The Mantos and the Kondang." A holograph popped up displaying a 3D rendered image of both species. Louise blinked at the sight but remained silent. "On the left, you can see a picture of the Mantos. They are our patrons. They found us and helped us develop, in exchange for helping them prosecute the war against the dishonourable and treacherous Kondang." The Mantos were lizard-like with short, stubby legs and longer arms. They had a long lizard tail and wore simple clothing.
"Here is a hologram of the Kondang." Suit said, generating a hologram of the alien race. They looked a lot like humanoid eagles. They had incredibly sharp talons, no wings but instead feathered arms, and their knees were bent the other way, like a typical bird would have.
"They're assholes." Suit said, as if that answered everything. Louise looked at the Mechsuit.
"I don't believe you."
"Believe what you want. We don't have nor need magic - it's interesting to watch humans take a shit on the laws of physics though. If we can learn how to do that, we'd gain a big edge on our enemies."
At this moment, I entered the room carrying a tray with a teapot and a jug of milk.
"Hello." I said. "Having fun?"
"Oh yes, this has been fun. I've just been briefing her on what we are. I think I may have broken her! :)" Suit said.
"I grinned." I said, a grin on my face. I place the tray down and take two cups, before pouring some tea in both.
Louise finally seemed to recover from the shock.
"Who are you really. Don't lie to me."
I take a long look into her eyes.
"I am Specialist 1st Class Michael Bannon, United Nations Spaceborne Cavalry. Attached to the 17th Spaceborne Cavalry Brigade as an Anti-Air specialist. It is a pleasure to meet you." I hold my hand out to shake hers.
"My name is Louise le Blanc de la Valliere. I am the third daughter of the Valliere Family. Everything your armour said is true? You really are from a different world?" Louise said, looking away. She didn't shake my hand. Rude.
"There are many, many worlds." I said simply. "Now then, let's get started."
/
Captain Riley Wilson, CO of B Company, 2nd Battalion 5th Spaceborne Cavalry played back the footage caught from First Platoon. He couldn't believe his eyes when a green portal opened up directly in front of Specialist Bannon's mechsuit. He watched as the momentum built by the mechsuit failed to move out of the way. He watched as Xiong reached out with his arm to grab him and missed. He watched as Bannon was sucked into the portal. Like magic. That was impossible. Magic didn't exist. Elder Technology?
What the fuck? He knew the Kondang didn't have that capability, or else they'd have bragged about it. He'd have to kick it up the chain to whatever's left of Battalion, then to ONI so they could figure out what the actual fuck happened.
First Platoon had destroyed the company of lightly armoured reservists inside that small town and set up as a blocking force to prevent enemy reinforcements from streaming out of the Capital City to cause problems for the Brigade. Second Platoon had seized a small outpost defended by a platoon of Fudan regulars supported by smart mortars. Third Platoon took out a missile battery on a hillside four kilometres to the North East of First Platoon while Fourth Platoon sat in reserve with the Company HQ.
Lance Corporal Afon Egorov pinged him and told him in text that the antenna is set up and ready for the starships. He pinged back in acknowledgement and they waited.
/
The Light Cruiser UNS Come Together, along with her squadron of five starships jumped into higher planetary orbit around Damone 3. Extremely dense darts the size of a lipstick spat out of her five railguns at thousands of metres per second, hitting targets that were causing problems for the Division on the ground while the sensors reset from the jump. MASER emitters set to a wide setting flashed out from the warship, destroying several stealthed Strategic Defence Platforms that hadn't been used yet. To its credit, the AI controller responded quickly to the sudden threat. It authorised the stealthed platforms to release their payloads, launching missiles, railgun darts and MASER beams at the vulnerable starships.
While the cruiser squadron was engaging targets on the ground and in orbit, her communications array was busy handling traffic from the ground. She received a flash priority message from a Rifle Company, and the AI read it. It promptly thought "oh shit" and immediately forwarded the report to its squishy biological captain. He read it on his implants and approved the proposed course of action.
A laser designator turned towards the FTL drone located thirty light seconds away from the planet and it forwarded the report from the company on the ground. Then the starships broke orbit and performed a blind jump. They were in orbit for fifteen seconds. More than enough time.
/
"Yeah, pretty much. Treat me like you would an equal and we'll have no problems between each other. I need to ask you, though. I know your classmates call you "Louise the Zero." What's the deal with that?" I ask her. We had a rather fruitful discussion based on what she expects me to do as her Familiar, and I agreed after I made some of my own demands. Louise scowled.
"Every time I try to cast magic, it blows up in my face. No matter what I cast. The simplest levitation spell to something complicated, like turning a rock into brass or flight. This is why they call me 'Louise the Zero', because I get zero results in magic." She growled bitterly.
"Yeah, I get it." I shrug. "I'm here anyway. You summoned my ass over here, that surely makes you a mage? Right?"
"What does a donkey have to do with this?"
"Oh, um. Bad translation?" I shot a glare over at the suit. "Look, the point is, you did the Familiar summoning ritual and I popped out, right? What were the exact words you said, and how does it go typically?"
Louise paused. "Well, the words are slightly different for everyone, because the familiar a typical noble summons comes from the heart. The spell summons an animal that typically suits your elemental type, so for example if you're an Line Earth mage like Guiche de Gramont, you'd get something like a mole. Or like that blasted Zerbst woman, she's a Triangle Fire Mage and so she summoned a Fire Salamander. Do you understand?" She explained.
"What the hell is a line mage? Dot? Triangle? You still didn't answer my question by the way. What words did you use for your ritual?"
She sighed.
"I'll answer how our magic works first. Mages are divided into four ranks, based on how many elements they can combine into singular spells. There are five elements. Fire, Earth, Water and Air. Void also exists but it's incredibly rare. And every single mage is different. Some have the ability become the best, but some will only be capable of casting a single elemental spell. Now, there are four ranks mages are able to attain. Dot, Line, Triangle and Square. In order for a mage to qualify as a mage, he or she must be capable of casting a simple spell from a single element. That makes them a Dot mage. When a mage is capable of combining two elements into a spell, then they are referred to as a Line mage. The cost for the spell in its Dot phase is reduced by half, while the Line spell's cost is doubled."
"Huh, ok then. So as a typical mage increases their rank and capability in magic, the costs for lower rank spells go down while higher rank spells are doubled? It makes sense, not gonna lie. Anyway, let's get onto the ritual for familiars and shit. What did you say exactly?"
"My powerful servant that exists somewhere in this vast universe, my divine, beautiful, powerful servant, please heed my call! I wish from the very bottom of my heart that you heed my summons, please appear!"
"This... vast... universe? Divine? Beautiful?" I grin at her. She just scowls at me.
"S-shut up, I was desperate. Commoner."
"It's an interesting word choice. I think. Still though, I'd imagine it'll take a lot of... whatever energy you use for your spell to scour the entire universe for the perfect familiar. Especially faster than the speed of light."
"Willpower."
"What?"
"The magical power you speak of is called 'Willpower'. When we run out of it, we can't cast any magic anymore until we recover it. The simpler the spell, the less willpower we use up."
"Right. Still though, for a spell to travel through the universe - the universe - do you understand just how far and long the spell took to scour the universe? I bet it had to scour the different dimensions, including higher spacetime." Louise looked at me like she didn't understand what I'm talking about.
"Louise, you basically took a shit on the laws of physics." I clarified.
"Don't be so uncouth, Familiar." Louise couldn't help but smile at that remark, although it quickly turned into a frown, as if she was deep in thought. I stayed silent, choosing to finish my tea.
"Anyway, when is it time for lunch? I'd love to have some actual food rather than the typical nutrient paste we get as rations." I said, when the silence became too much for me.
"Luncheon will start soon. Would you like me to give you a tour of the school before lunch?" She asked.
"Sure thing, that'll be great. Just give me a second, I gotta secure my mechsuit. I'll have to perform preventative maintenance on it soon anyway." I grab my dataslate, activate it and my options turn on. "Yo, suit. Ping me whenever you detect something close by. Stun anyone who touches you. Got it?"
"Ya, ya. Could you put on your glasses though so I can watch whatever you're doing? I'll grow bored, you know."
"Maybe if you're a good boy."
"Sure." Suit said sarcastically.
"We're good to go." I asked Louise.
We left her room.
/
AN: ok finished cya next time