The War Chronicles of a Little Demon

by Sunshine Temple

Tanya defeats Being X but what then? Another cosmic entity sees how Being X violated the rules with mortal free will and offers to re-balance the scales. Tanya ends up in a world that is familiar to the Empire, but also one where being the "Devil of the Rhine" has nowhere near as much stigma. A cross with the Demonic Homeplane / House BlackSky verse as seen in the Return

7. Chapter 7: Meet Interesting People

The War Chronicles of a Little Demon

Set in the Return Verse

A Saga of Tanya the Evil fic thingy.

By Sunshine Temple

Naturally, I do not own Youjo Senki. So here's the disclaimer:

Saga of Tanya the Evil its characters and settings belong Carlo Zen, Shinobu Shinotsuki, and NUT Co., Ltd.

Previous chapters and other works can be found at my fanfiction website.

fic/

Other website Temple of Ranma's Senshi Seifuku

C&C as always is wanted.

Chapter 7: Meet Interesting People.

I stepped onto the launch platform near the bow of the HFV Garuda. The heels of my Ritual plate locked into the stirrups of the launcher. I suppose that was one reason for the ridiculous shape, though there were far better reasons.

My stance was bladed with my left foot a half pace in front of the right. Indicator lights on either side of me turned to amber then shifted to blue as the launcher locked onto my boots. Leaning forward and locking my leg armor, I spread my wings to where they just filled the long passage. The walls were deliberately smooth and lacking in protuberances.

To my left a fleet rating raised her hand, I replied with a thumbs up. The rating looked to her other side and got a thumbs up from VioletBlood who was in the other tube.

The lights turned green.

Ahead of me was what looked like a fifty foot long one-person corridor that opened to the burning sky of dusk. A light ward flickered at the very edge. The tracks ran down and out to the sunset-light.

"Launching, Legionary Flight 3, first set." The fleet officer in the observation spot above us came. "In 4, 3, 2," as she counted down the lights started to flash green and blue.

Looking a bit nervous, Octavia stood a few paces behind me, clearly on the right side of the orange and black hazard stripes.

I nudged my Zephyr; I felt myself pulling forward as my wings and armor strained a bit against the shuttle, but I kept them in check.

"Launch." The lights turned blue and were gone in a blur as the catapult triggered and I shot down the tube. Pressed against the rear of my armor by the acceleration, I put power into my air spirits and my boots came off the shuttle as I launched out into the sky.

The catapult shuttle reached the pneumatic resistors, quickly slowed, and pulled back, resetting the catapult as the system was reenergized and was soon ready to fling two more Ritual Plate into the sky.

But that was all vanishing behind me. Stretching out my wings, I took a moment to enjoy the air over my feathers as I rechecked my telemetry and communications. VioletBlood formed up on my wing.

GreyDawn and Octavia launched momentarily after us and soon took position behind us at a slightly lower altitude.

The twin-hulled 840 foot long mass of our mothership, the HFV Garuda rapidly shrank to a blurry grey dot.

"Diamond Flight 3 has launched," I said over the squadron command channel which was limited to Flight and squadron leaders.

On airships where every pound of weight had to be justified, Ritual Plate catapults had a few things going for them. First, given the relatively light weight of a Pilot and her armor, a system that could accelerate that payload did not have to be terribly heavy.

Second, while Ritual Plate was more than capable of simply jumping out of any open hatch on an airship and flying from there, that was sub-optimal. It would mean the Pilot would have to spend critical moments accelerating to something close to cruise speed, and in the case of a mass launch would leave a lot of Pilots clustered near their airship.

The system was a bit too large to keep on the smallest airship class, the Venture Scout, and the next smallest the Kolibri Patrol could only have one. A Mellona medium carrier could launch 2 Flights at once, and a Nova fleet carrier could launch 2 squadrons, one port, one starboard. But the advantage was that the catapults were an enhancement, not a requirement.

"How kind of you to make it," Prefect Centurion Magnus Quirinus dryly noted. "Form up on the Second Umbra Flight with Primus Mercy Gabinus."

My Flight had finished a patrol and had just taken off our Ritual Plate before the alert came off. Still we had gotten launched before the Umbra Medium VTOLs had gotten loaded with their Legionary payload.

"Okay, girls," Quirinus stated, setting her comms so she could talk to all twelve of her squadron. "Things have fallen apart down on the surface and once again it's up to the Imperial Legion to clean up the mess."

Annotated maps updated on my display. "The Household Fleet has so kindly offered to secure the skies and even loan us one of their squadrons. Our first job is to make sure those Legionaries make it to the ground.

"That means escorting the Umbra mediums as they made their drops and clearing out their landing zones," she continued.

There were several ways to get Legionaries from a troopship up the air to a point on the ground. We were going with the standard.

The most direct was to land the airship. This method had several flaws. The least of which was that an airship needed a rather large space that it could land upon, and would need to retract the ventral tail-fins. The bigger flaw was that a troopship was a large slow target, and one on the ground it became a large, immobile target. This tactic was viable if the troopship was landing at an established base or some other secure location.

A slightly less risky tactic was to take advantage of the fact that Legionaries could fly. However, the further from the landing zone the troopship was the longer of a flight a relatively slow Legionary would be in the air. Such mass paratrooper style drops were once more common. They would have the Legionaries deploy to a somewhat more secured or isolated landing zone, collect on the ground and then march to their target.

The establishment of Long Range Insertion doctrine and various VTOLs reduced that to a vestigial tactic. Though one, that in the right situation, had merit.

I looked over the map. One upside of the long time we had spent waiting during the ceasefire negotiations was that there had been plenty of over flights. So, I had personal experience with the terrain around the resort where the negotiations had taken place, and the nearby city.

I moved my RP Flight over to Second Umbra Flight which had just launched. The seventy foot long VTOLs flew out of the aft amidships port and starboard launch bays with a slight lumber as their stub wings suddenly got more lift. Unlike RP, VTOLs were too large to get catapults.

Primus Mercy Gabinus and her three Pilots were already forming up around their launch ships.

"Primus Centurion Gabinus, how do you want to do this?" I asked her on a private channel, deferring to her seniority. There were several ways to conduct an escort.

Thankful for thaumaturgical based communications, and hoping that they were as secure as the boffins assured, I digested the landing operations plan.

The most common method to deploy Legionaries was using various VTOLs as dropships. There were several types of VTOL from the Spatha Light that could deploy a reinforced Contubernium of ten Legionaries, to a half-Century of forty Legionaries via an Umbra Medium VTOL, to two Centuries totaling 160 Legionaries on Gladius or Pugio Heavy VTOLs.

Which VTOL used depended on the type of Landing, the size of the Landing, what phase of the Landing Operation and what VTOL assets were available to conduct the Drop.

For this operation we had Umbra Mediums, and a smattering of Spatha Lights.

"I'm talking with the Umbra Pilots and with this level of escort we can have the luxury of dedicating a flight to each dropship. I'll take lead Umbra, you can take the wing."

"Confirm." That formation did have the downside of less defensive depth. One could have one flight watch both dropships while another ranged out further, but we have more Fleet Ritual Plate for that role.

Even after deciding on VTOLs, there were still several ways to get one's Legionaries from the dropship to the ground.

The most exotic was to teleport. However that was a very rare talent, one that made Ritual Plate Pilots look common. In the entire Imperial Legions there were maybe a few Cohorts of Broadcast Recon. Being able to do multiple teleports, at least six miles, four times in one day, twice in rapid succession and with reasonable precision and carrying full kit...

Made for a very useful capability for scouting, securing a beachhead, evacuation, the delivery of small but extremely critical cargo, and, obviously, stealth assault. Unfortunately, our Task Force was fresh out of Broadcast Recon. At least we still had plenty of Jammers, in case the enemy had teleport capable assets.

More mundane options were drop from the VTOL in midair using wings, as a type of paratrooper. High altitude or low altitude or deployment were both options. Alternatively, the VTOL can go for a hover, either close to the ground or higher up and deploy that way. Or the VTOL could simply land.

I switched to the Flight channel and addressed my three subordinates. "You heard the Prefect. We'll be part of a two flight group minding a pair of dropships. The trailing one in the formation is our bird; there's over forty of the Imperatrix's finest in there and it's our job to keep them from dying pointlessly before they even hit the ground."

There was a whole trade-off between deploying forces in good order at a location, and unloading equipment, vehicles, or troops at a specific spot, versus exposure of the VTOL to risk.

Much depended on how secure various landing zones were.

Looking over the plans, it seemed that one pair of Umbra mediums was going to land by the resort, deploy their Century and then take on our diplomatic team, and maybe the Alecto one.

Meanwhile the other Umbra Flight, the one I was assigned to escort would go on a low flight and deploy that Century via airdrop between the resort and the city.

That put the Umbra at less risk, but would scatter out their Legionaries over a larger front. Which could be good or bad.

Keeping an eye on my Gorgon rig intake and the crying feed from the rest of my flight, I linked my Flight channel with that of the dropship pilots. "This is Primus DiamondDust. Aft over-flight is clear."

"We are entering the drop corridor," the Primus Ventus Centurion in charge of the two dropships said in the easy southern Vanis drawl most VTOL pilots seemed to adopt.

"Diamond, contact front!" Gabinus cut in. "We'll take the escort duties."

Hashed symbols popped up as Mercy Gabinus' data popped up on my display. As her flight was escorting the leading Umbra they spotted the probable targets first.

There were a few ways to play this, her flight could go ahead leaving mine advance and spread out to watch both dropships but that would leave the leading Umbra a bit exposed until then, both flights could continue to guard the dropships, or her Flight could spread to watch the rear Umbra while mine raced off to check out the targets.

Every option had risks and tradeoffs, but at least this showed Mercy trusted my Flight and was not some bloodthirster eager to abandon escort duties to go and kill something. I suppose one factor was that my flight had 2 Polyxo advanced suits and Gabinus had none.

"Got it! Flight to me!" I accelerated and adjusted my Gorgon rig intake. I made sure VioletBlood was also trained, and capable at taking in the extra data.

Given the intention of the Gorgon Rig was to be a supplemental reconnaissance suite that was something of a Svalinna light, and thus was intended to send more telemetry back to Flight Ops, and was quite expensive, it was a bit odd to have more than one Gorgon in a Flight.

I disagreed with that assessment and would preferred the Gorgon Rig to be more common. Yes the standard scrying systems were good, but more capability to get targeting info was always a good thing.

"Confirm your camo systems," I ordered as I checked the emissions from my Flight. "I don't want anyone getting tagged because the enemy saw how pretty your flight armor is."

A few miles down-slope of landing zone was a winding road that connected the resort to the small city of Ortov to the north.

My eyes blinked at the signals. Lovely. "VioletBlood, GreyDawn, confirm?" I asked.

VioletBlood gave her assent, and GreyDawn pointed out that there were some more feeds on lines running parallel. I made a note to ensure next time she had a Gorgon rig as well. Damn the expense.

I'd pay for them myself. That would probably help with the custom fitting.

I switched to the command channel. "Prefect Quirinus, Flight Ops, I've got eyes on a multi-Century strength mixed force vectoring into LZ 2." I read off the coordinates. "They look like irregulars, but they do have vehicle mounts."

"We have received," came the crisp voice of the Operations officer who was part of the team on HFV Garuda coordinating the Landing.

"What have we got? I don't want to strafe some Gendarmerie the Queen Vualia sent to help us."

There was a slight chuckle from Quirinus. "And if they're Luxon regulars evacuating their own people?"

"Odd route," I remarked as we raced ahead of the Umbra VTOLs. Whoever this group was they were going to run into our forces not long after they hit the ground.

"Whoever they are, you're clear to attack if they make a hostile move to our forces," Quirinus stated.

I gave a thin smile. That was quite the latitude in force authorization from my direct superior.

As we closed in, the telemetry resolved into more detail.

And behind me, each Umbra released five Contubernium of Legionaries. The troops jumped and used their own wings to arrest their fall, though their heavy equipment, mostly a handful of Marius Mules, dropped by parachute.

Every two Contuberniums shared a Marius strider-style cargo mule. They were often called " the box beetle" or "the Walkin' Coffin" among other nicknames.

If used as a cargo mule, the Marius freed up seventy pounds of gear for each Legionary. It can also be configured with a water tank with a hundred-thirty gallon capacity. Without flight capability, the Marius has some limits in field use, though it can cover broken terrain at speed. They can be used as a stretcher bearer and in all sorts of utility and cargo roles.

The Mule can also be used as a weapons platform. Either supporting a pintle mount for a Minerva tri-barrel rotary cannon, or a launcher box holding eight Vel missiles.

I hissed as a few images flickered as I got a clearer sight of those vehicles and the troops around them. "Transmitting more info. I'm detecting Alecto crew served weapons, tube arcana, and... Luxon dual-purpose guns on those trucks, possibly Hathors."

Given the Mules were very rugged, and unmanned multi-legged cargo walker golems, they could be mounted with extreme low altitude parachutes and survive being pushed out of the back of an Umbra. As they were being done right now.

I gave a sigh of relief as it looked like the forty odd Legionaries managed to get out of their dropships and onto the ground. They started taking formation, but I would have to leave their direct support to Mercy and her Flight.

"Diamond Flight, we have confirmation," the cool voice of Flight Ops stated. "Alecto, Luxon, and Vualia deny having forces at that location. Weapons free. Weapons free."

I switched to my Flight channel. "You heard Command. Strafe spread. Dash speed. VioletBlood, Octavia target those trucks, they look soft-skinned and are probably our biggest threat. GreyDawn, support Octavia and harrow their infantry."

Trusting VioletBlood to the ground targeting, I expanded my scrying. The four of us accelerated. This was a juicy target but that made it a potential trap. And to my disquiet we were now the forward-most Ritual Plate Flight .

In a couple beats the irregulars came into range. First with the longer range Pilum Projectors. "Hold unless they detect us." I noted.

About half of the mass of troops were mounted on what looked like regular logging trucks. Another group were on the running boards of the Luxon technicals. It looked like those guns were not energized.

And then they were in Falx Projector range. "Fire," I ordered.

This was the moment. As much as I had GreyDawn watching Octavia, it was VioletBlood who had yet to fire a shot in anger.

My concerns were abated as massive purple blasts from her Pilum projector streaked down and blew apart two of the Luxon anti-air vehicles.

Shrapnel scythed through the air and limbs parted as the power systems of the Luxon guns detonated. And the luckless irregulars on the running boards died.

I gave that a bare notice as I opened up with my own Falx. Compared to the Pilum projector, the purple-orange bundles of arcane energy I launched were puny. But there were a lot of them and they spread out as I raked my gauntlets over the crowd.

Behind us, GreyDawn's firing swept through the enemy, her own anti-infantry weapons fire living up to its name. Octavia took out one of the Luxon anti-air vehicles.

And just like that we had passed over the enemy.

There were several schools of thought for Ritual Plate in a ground attack role. Of primary consideration were: how fast and at what altitude? Increasing those factors, in general, decreased the risk to a Pilot, but decreased both targeting accuracy and time on target.

There was more to it than that, and a lot of it depended on the situation, the nature of the targets, their support, and one's own support. For example what anti-air assets did the target have?

Right now, I was worried about those Luxon guns. I was not sure the exact model, but they were probably a variant of their Hathor dual-purpose arcane cannons. Their main weapon consisted of a cooling-finned, steel sheath over a crystalline barrel fed by arcane accumulators.

In the anti-air role, they had a good rate of fire but a somewhat anemic charge for their weight and power requirements. And while their traverse was fast enough, their elevation controls were a bit lacking. Still, an organized, and alert Hathor battery could at least keep Ritual Plate from simply hovering just out of small arms range and bombarding ground troops.

However, for an indirect anti-ground role they had a rather good power, an impressive rate of fire, but a not great barrel life. And in honesty that was where the Hathor really shined. Being able to quickly retarget and have a powerful charge made it useful as a quick-firing bit of light field artillery.

Such guns needed a rather heavy support train, which was why House BlackSky generally preferred more conventional barrels for their ground vehicles, and focused on arcane munitions.

"Nice shooting, Everyone good?" I asked putting in some support to VioletBlood and Octavia as we spiraled up and flipped over.

I made sure to get their affirmations before going to the next part. I angled so that we were once again on a vector that would cross the enemy. The key was to keep hitting them from different angles and to not let up.

"Great! The milk run is over and even House-less scum will be ready for us now!" I said with false cheer.

Blinking my display I could see that the enemy column had stopped and tried to dig in. I also caught some backscatter and pings from a targeting array.

"I'm reading one, no two, active Hathor guns!" VioletBlood cried.

"Better us than the Legionaries on the ground," I stated as we raced in. At the moment we were out of their range, but they were also out of Pilum range. "On my mark..."

I waited for the trill in my ear of active targeting to hit. And streamers of green energy to burst out.

"Dive!" I cried as the four of us dropped to just above the trees and went in a broad arc. Fortunately, my Flight was skilled enough to keep up.

I pushed my Zephyr as hard as they could go in a straight descent, but the trigonometry was brutal. The Hathor guns fired above us and tried to track down.

"Any time now," I murmured just as VioletBlood and GreyDawn blew the remaining the enemy anti-air guns apart.

And then we were among them. My first couple targets were light bursts of Falx fire over clusters of the enemy.

Rifle fire shot up, some of it full or tracers as they ineffectively fired into the night.

But then a couple of irregulars shouldered Alecton man-portable Boudica anti-air launchers. VioletBlood snap maneuvered, her thrust suddenly vectoring to the side as she twisted and launched her own wide stream of Falx fire. One warhead blew up prematurely and sent a cone of shrapnel that blasted just to the side of her wards, causing the arcane shields to light up.

The other came up aft of her but was blown apart when I rolled and launched a high power Pilum bolt that utterly vaporized the enemy missile while it was yards from my wingwoman. The backwash from the heavy anti-armor shot probably cooked her wards more than the missile going off.

Meanwhile Octavia blasted their crews apart before they could reload their missile tubes.

"Keep in formation!" I cried to one of my green Pilots. I could just tell she was burning with rage and wanted to make the fight personal. After all, her Flight Leader became an Ace with just a sword.

"What was that!" VioletBlood cried as we raced out of range.

"Mind your targets. Just because we took out their big weapons doesn't mean they're without claws," I admonished as we turned and came back for a third sweep.

This time we were able to go at a higher altitude and slowed a bit. Concentrated Falx fire from all four of us broke the force and they splintered in all directions.

Most of the rabble leaving their wounded behind. I gave a snort in derision as we pulled back to Landing Zone Two.

"Century Two this is Diamond Flight. We just scratched an enemy formation to your North. We took out their vehicle-mounted guns. Estimate two to three centuries of casualties but expect some of their runners, about half century, to hit your lines," I transmitted to their command channel.

"This is Centurion Claudia. Good shooting Diamond Flight. Can you give us some targeting? My mortar Contuberniums is ready to fire and my grenadiers are in position."

"Giving data now," I quickly told GreyDawn to take Octavia have her act in a spotter role. Maybe that would state her bloodlust somewhat.

I also put in a tiny wince.

An Infantry Century was Commanded by a Centurion assisted by an Optio as a 2nd and Tesserarius as 3rd. It consisted of ten Contuberniums with the Centurion and her staff sometimes as supernumeraries or more-often part of their own individual Contubernium. Six were Infantry Contubernium, five standard hoof-sloggers, one a veteran group. Preferably, the first Evocatus Contubernium consisted of veterans on their second twenty year term.

Rounding out the Century was a Medicae Contubernium, a Mortar Contubernium, and a pair of Grenadier Contuberniums. The Mortar Contubernium consists of two to two mortar tubes that can be kept as a battery or split into two separate teams. They provided indirect fire support at the century level.

And honestly giving them targeting data via Ritual Plate was overkill.

The small mortar battery started firing, adjusting their aim based on what GreyDawn and Octavia were telling them. I noticed Centurion Claudia was not targeting the enemy troops who were closest to her line.

Darkness came quickly this far down South, not that it made much of a difference give our natural night vision, but the psychological effect was still there.

Especially when you were broken by an air attack and were still being attacked from behind.

In a way the evocation grenadiers were worse.

A Grenadier Contubernium had two to four arcane grenadiers with the rest providing security and carrying ammunition. They were arcanists of mild to moderate power who could empower their grenades with greater power, used kinetomacy skills to help lob the shells with greater accuracy, and other talents that allowed them to use their weapons to great effect.

Evocation grenadiers were devastating in ground combat. From the amount of fire it seemed that this century had a higher number of grenadiers.

They used the Model 45 grenade launcher. A beast of dulled, but engraved, brass fittings and steel that looked like the oversized pump shotgun it basically was. The Model 45 has a deceptively long range, especially in talented hands.

Grenadiers could be used with the line Legionaries giving direct, sometimes indirect, heavy fire support. Such as in this case where they threaded with the standard infantry providing another layer of fire support.

Line legionaries also opened up with their battle rifles and their squad support weapons, but it was more of a mopping up operation after the evocation grenadiers sprung their ambush.

I wondered if Claudia had used her sharpshooters as well. Administratively, sharpshooters were put in the Grenadier Contuberniums. Though the sniper and observer pairs were typically detached and worked directly under the Centurion.

"Targets north of LZ 2 neutralized," I stated over the command channel. I glanced to confirm the power, weapons, and systems status of my Flight. "Flight 3 is nominal." I then read off our power and weapons figures. I included that my capacitor earrings were still at full.

"Understood. Move to patrol over the resort we're taking out most of our negotiation team in three," Quirinus said. "We've got an escort party lined up.

As I had us fly back up to the resort, I pondered my squadron commander's words. Some of our people were... staying? And they had not all left?

Granted that little ground attack had not taken too long, but air mobility was House BlackSky's focus. It was what the Legions and the Fleet trained to do, why would it take so long to load a bunch of negotiators and diplomats onto a transport and get them out?

Were the other factions worried that House BlackSky would abandon them?

I suppose I could understand that worry.

This was Luxon and Vualia's war, with Alecto's help.

At least I had gotten a good strafing run to get my baroness wingwoman blooded. And Octavia's experience had shown through; all in all, not too bad.

And a straightforward attack like that did not expose the performance differences between the two types of suits in my Flight.

A chime came in my ear as Flight Ops cut into the command channel. "Attention. Attention. Luxon Ritual Plate in squadron strength and Scarab transport are on approach to LZ 1." She then read off the vector.

I tensed. Lovely. Luxon had a fair bit of heavy air units that were spirit-inhabited golems. Which made for good bombers and heavy attack craft. However, they maintained a strong Air Corps of House Elena-derived Ritual Plate.

The presence of the Scarab, a major piece of kit, all but eliminated the chance that these were "irregular" forces who are "unaffiliated" with House Luxon. Not that a squadron of Ritual Plate was inexpensive in terms of skilled upkeep, but at least you could store an RP suit just about anywhere.

"This Luxon force is authorized. Repeat. Authorized." The cool voice of Fight Ops stressed. "They are there to evacuate the Luxon delegation."

Seeing the new returns from my Gorgon rig matched up the declared vector, my tension eased a bit. No wonder our people were holding back. These negotiations were in Vualia territory, and Luxon was the obvious aggressor and occupier in this conflict.

Not that being a belligerent, imperialistic invader came with much stigma in this world. All the Diyu Great Houses were aggressive and bellicose, if only to ensure their continued survival.

Still, it was entirely sensible to wait until the Luxon delegation was out of the conflict zone. And it was reassuring that they had cleared their travel path with BlackSkyvian Flight Ops.

I suppose no one wanted to have a VTOL full of diplomats get shot down.

Well... I'm guessing the colorfully armed irregulars, whoever they were, would like that.

"Everyone stay on alert," Quirinus reminded us, talking to her Flight leaders. "These might not be the same Luxon fliers that Flight Ops was told about, and even if they are, we've only got their word they're peaceable."

"Understood." I sighed. The Prefect Centurion was not wrong. I then relayed my orders to my Flight.

It did not take long for the Luxon formation to arrive. My disquiet grew as the imagery came in and I got a clear view of the approaching Ritual Plate. Well as clear as I could make out from the dark grey and sky-dark blues their camouflage systems cast the suits in.

"Are those Anupet multi-roles?" VioletBlood asked as we maneuvered to a higher altitude.

"That is my guess," I noted. The Anupet was House Luxon's answer to the Polyxo Advanced multi-role we were currently wearing. With a smaller Ritual Plate force, House Luxon wanted more flexibility and was willing to spend to have their elite get a parity, at least on an arcane and technical level, with BlackSkyvian hardware.

In the Anupet's favor, House Luxon used fixed wing craft for their strike and bomber roles. Thus the Luxon suit only had to be able to swap between ground support and air superiority. That simplified that model's logistical infrastructure, and their Pilot training.

"Watch your weapons systems everyone; let them make the hostile move," I said as my Flight took a place that would give us an over watch of the Luxon landing.

In the center of the Luxon squadron was a rounded, almost bulbous, form of the Scarab transport. With twin pairs of adjustable-sweep wings, propulsion pods in the nose and end of the fuselage and a long twin boom tail, the VTOL looked more like a dragonfly than a beetle.

It was also at least 50% larger than an Umbra.

Which made sense, House Luxon's doctrine more centered on local mobility from garrison posts. Which emphasized shorter range but larger air transports and a larger amount of mechanized infantry. Something that dovetailed nicely with their Janissaries.

Two Flights of Anupets escorted the Scarab down as it landed a respectable distance from the Umbra Flight that was already loitering on the grounds around the resort complex.

The remaining Luxon RP Flight kept their altitude and pointedly turned off their camouflage systems. A quartet of sleek black Ritual Plate with gold trim and purple engravings stopped to a hover and stared up at us.

Their helmets had upright vaguely canine "ears" that integrated with their horns forming their scrying systems. There were longer ones that could clip on that were their analog to Gorgon Rigs, but oddly enough none of this flight had any of those.

And instead of the matte death mask look preferred by BlackSkyvian faceplates their masks had an almost lupine cast to them especially with how the breathing systems were built into something rather snout-like.

More disquieting than revealing themselves, the four Luxon pilots had stopped to regard my Flight.

In Ritual Plate combat, in aerial mage combat, in air combat period, mobility was vital. When you stopped moving you made yourself that much more of a target.

I did not have the time to deal with whatever mind game this was. But it made them easier to keep track of and...

"Prefect." I said on the command channel. "Our Luxon guests are landing."

"Yes, Countess, I see them." Quirinus commented.

"I don't know what game they're playing but one of their Flights decided to get all showy and put all their attention on me."

"You don't say," my squadron commander drawled. She obviously was watching the tactical situation.

"With their attention on my Flight, I suspect another Flight, one further out, could get an excellent target lock on the Anupets, and the rest of their squadron. Provided our negotiation partners had less than pure interests."

Quirinus laughed. "See how far the jackals follow you."

"Understood," I stated and after relaying my orders started to leisurely corkscrew down in altitude.

This would just so happen to take us past LZ 1 near the resort, and the rest of the Luxon assets. And our descent was slow enough that it could not be provocative.

The bright and shiny Luxon Flight kept their hover but did start to slowly drop to keep their relative position

Which suited me just fine.

The Scarab's wings had folded back a bit as it settled down. Its hull was mostly a grey that shifted between glossy and matt with golden tracery and crimson trim.

The side doors and rear ramp had opened and...

Well...

"That is a lot of Janissaries," VioletBlood noted.

I had to agree it was maybe a good platoon worth of Luxon heavy infantry.

And they were in a neat line formation against the more distributed group of Imperial Legionaries.

They wore a grey-green armor of heavy torso sections and thigh armor over a semi-rigid bodysuit that nearly covered their entire bodies. Their helmets were full-visored and adorned with light enhancing and heat detecting systems.

Meanwhile Legion Lorica was a segmented composite that was very strong but was built for flexibility and to allow for wings. Weight was also an issue. As armor and kit that were too heavy to fly were useless for a BlackSkyvian Legionary.

On the other hand, the Janissary kit cared little for that requirement.

Their weapons were a bit bulkier, which was saying a lot as the Legionaries carried Mark 36 battle rifles. The Mark 36 was a solid piece of simplified engineering that had a collapsing wood and brass stock and was relatively compact, but it was still an infantry weapon designed to be carried by a demoness and fired a rather powerful cartridge.

Luxon Janissaries did not have to worry about flight. And thus they had thicker and heavier armor, and when compared to the generally slight and feminine forms of Legionaries were bulky and muscular.

And almost all male. And nearly to a man taller than our Legionaries and thickly muscled and maybe twice their mass. And unlike our troops they had not engaged their camouflage systems.

Unusually for a Great House, Luxon made use of humans as front line combatants.

"So, those are human soldiers," Octavia noted.

"The idea has merit," I said. From my past lives I knew humans were perfectly lethal and capable soldiers. And when armed with modern weapons they were just as lethal as a demon.

"Really?"

"Why not?" I asked. "Yes they're weaker than us, at least pound for pound. They can't heal as quick as us, and their senses aren't as good. But a lot of that can be mitigated by medics, and their helmet sensors. And besides you don't need demonic powers to run a set of anti-aircraft guns or drive a tank. And they can pull a rifle trigger just as well as we can."

"But they can't fly," Octavia countered.

"That is a mobility hit, especially in urban combat, and for air deployment," I allowed as I continued to keep an eye on the Luxon, both on the ground and in the air.

"But that frees them up," GreyDawn noted. "If they did not have to worry about their soldiers having gear light enough to fly with, then they can carry more weight. Have heavier armor, more kit, more weapons."

"Right. But even with strength enhancements Janissaries would be limited in how far they could march. And since humans can already drive vehicles... Hence mechanized infantry."

"Don't look down on them just because they're human," GreyDwan warned Octavia and VioletBlood. "They're some of the most motivated troops Luxon has. They have every reason to perform their best."

House Luxon was in many ways the most artistic, cultured, creative, and indulgent of the Great Houses. Even by Diyu standards, they were decadent and socially stratified. And while they were expansionist, they did value their oaths, especially to those who gave service to the House. For long and despite their population and size, they had been the "Sick Woman of Diyu" but after a series of reforms their star had risen, which was a contributing factor to their invasion of House Vualia.

Being a human in house Luxon was to functionally be a serf, under the... protection of one noble family or another. Unless... you joined the Janissaries, then you and your family would be under the authority, and aegis, of High Lady Luxon herself.

It was also a way for any Luxon, Lady, citizen, or serf to escape debt. And, technically, a cruel mistress. All they had to do was make it to a Janissary recruiting post and declare their intention to serve and their mistress had to let them and their immediate family go.

The cynic in me approved of how this was a way High Lady Luxon could ensure her subordinates were not too cruel with their serfs, and when they were she would be able to take them as her own personal force.

"I also heard they make good pilots," VioletBlood said.

"I didn't think Janissaries were turned?" Octavia asked.

"I mean driving things like their Scarabs and bombers."

"There are demonic Janissaries," GreyDawn stated.

"And not just their officers?"

"Yeah, some demons will enlist in; those with bad debts. Kinda beats the alternatives there," GreyDawn admitted.

In a significant way, the Janissaries were a relief valve for Luxon's lowest classes: both human and demon. No matter how bad things could get one always had that option. Which, given how I had ended up in the military in my second life was, a bit cynical even for me.

Yes, the greater your debt, the longer your term of service in the Janissaries would be, but the points off their debt would be adjusted for acts of valor and skill. One could even retire from the service with a nest egg, a pocket full of connections, and the permit to start a business.

And naturally the most physically and martially capable got the heavy infantry posts, which accrued the most "points" of Janissary service. But one did not need to be very large to be part of a vehicle crew, and that came with plenty of "glory". Not to mention the vast number of support posts.

Even if you died in the service, not at all unlikely, your family would be taken care of. It was not much, but a cleared debt, barracks housing and access to the mess, primary education, and opportunities for paid work on base was better than most Luxon serfs got. And they would be given first slots into joining the Janissaries on their own.

It was not much, but it was a way for social advancement and respectability. Which showed that Luxon might be ruthless, but even they understood that the lowest had to have some hope and some measure of recourse and self determination.

"Those Ritual Plate might be Janissaries?" Octavia asked.

"Sure, they might have even been born human. Maybe got wounded in battle. House Luxon isn't gonna waste talent by letting you die."

That was one thing, if you got mortally wounded as a Janissary, and an officer was around, and she wanted a new daughter... that was that. It was part of the deal when you signed up.

Things were more flexible if your wounds merely crippled you. And it gave the wounded Janissary more time to find a patron, if they so wished. Even being medically discharged was not the end of service, as there were plenty of rear echelon and depot positions that could be filled.

Still in a society as stratified as House Luxon, the Janissaries were an option, one of the few, of advancement for the lowest. It was also an exploit as the Janissaries were seen as High Lady Luxon's boys. And were among her more favored and loyal troops. I had to admire the patronage system she had set up and maintained by honoring her commitments to them. I could also take issue with how she exploited a system that enabled her to purchase loyalty on the cheap.

"Thing is we're in Ritual Plate, so odds are good you won't even know if the Luxon ground forces shooting up at you are human or not," I said.

In a way, it was fascinating to see the divergence in ways to do "shock infantry". House Luxon went with a heavy mechanized infantryman with weighty armor, kit, and direct support by armored personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles, or landers.

For the most part, Luxon Janissaries were a force that was deployed a somewhat short distance from a garrison, ship, or base and had heavy a logistical footprint. Luxon weapons were powerful but maintenance, and parts, heavy.

Meanwhile, House BlackSky went with a paratrooper doctrine of a very high mobility infantry unit with flight capability, air transport, and extensive air support.

There was some crossover. Janissaries were often deployed via Scarabs, such as this case but they would perform best with vehicular support. And House BlackSky had Storm Legions which consisted of eight Vestal Scout tanks, four Lavin battle tanks and forty-eight Triarii infantry fighting vehicles. That gave a full cohort of mechanized infantry, plus two Cohorts that could be moved on Umbra medium VTOLs.

A BlackSkyvian legion, a Storm Legion could be deployed entirely via air. Though that would require a fair number of Gladius and Pugio Heavy VTOLs.

"And there go the Luxon diplomats," VioletBlood noted, watching the group of figures leave the resort complex and head to the line of Janissaries. They then talked with their officer. She wore the same style of heavy-armored uniform, save there were slots for her tail and wings, and her helmet had ports for her horns.

"Yeah, no one else wears that much gold," Octavia noted. "Huh, is it smart for the officers to look that way? Kinda make it obvious who the important targets are."

"They hide their wings, horns, and tail, in battle," GreyDawn stated. "In combat they look like just a big female Janissary, unless you get close enough to smell them, and even that's hard with those masks."

"Good sign for us then. Means they don't think this is a fight, at least with us," I stated.

"Could be why that flight sent a message," GreyDawn indicated the Anupet Ritual Plate who made their presence very well known and were standing guard over the Janissaries. "From their perspective it's got to feel like the sky is glaring at them and the spirits above are angry and not on their side."

"We are House BlackSky. That's how it's supposed to be," VioletBlood stated with the absolute confidence of a green troop.

I thought back to the demi-cohort sized formation we had shattered, well slaughtered. Anupet were good Ritual Plate, in many ways superior to the Elena models they were derived from. But still a squadron of them versus two Squadrons of Household Fleet and Imperial Legion? Not to mention three more squadrons from our Light Carrier.

"More reason for them to behave," I stated and sipped some water. I was perfectly happy to watch a rival House bundle up their diplomats.

"Everyone take a drink," I then ordered. Hydration was vital and easy to lose track of.

The Luxon delegation passed a few comments with the BlackSkyvian negotiators before they boarded onto the waiting Scarab.

The Janissaries then tromped aboard and under the watchful eyes of the Anupet squadron the transport's wings extended and the craft took off.

The Flight that had been eying us bowed their heads, engaged their camouflage and took the trailing position of their escort.

"The jackals seem to like you," VioletBlood noted.

"Lovely," I stated. "Let's get to a higher altitude. Don't think that with the Luxon delegation heading home that things are getting easier for us."

12345678987654321 12345678987654321

My frustration grew. More than enough time had passed for us to evacuate all our people. And indeed the bulk of our negotiation team, and even the Alecton delegation, had been pulled out.

But instead of withdrawing Legionaries, our Umbra Mediums were depositing heavy equipment. The Garuda's Nyx stealth scout, two Nymph utility transports, and our single Arachne artillery system had all had to be ferried to the ground.

The Arachne system consisted of one self propelled golem walker with a 4.9 in, 124 mm diameter, 44 caliber barrel. The golem had to ground itself before firing, but its multi-legged design gave it fair speed and good mobility over questionable terrain.

Each artillery piece was accompanied by a quartet of Marius Mules to carry shells, supplies for the six crew, and at least one was equipped with a Minerva rotary cannon or a Vel Missile launcher. There was a wheeled version of the Arachne that could be towed behind a Nymph which would also serve as an ammo transport.

Normally, the Arachne was deployed in a Tormenta of 4 guns which gave at least some salvo fire capability and allowed for the consolidation of Mules for defense and to get a resupply chain going. The Arachne were designed to fire a few rounds then get upright and scoot to a new location. An Arachne Battery consisted of three Tormenta and with the right arcane ammunition and artillery spotters could take out a good range of targets.

However...

"What good is just one Arachne?" VioletBlood asked. We were in a somewhat reserve position providing some air security over the Landing Zones.

I shrugged. "Well, it gave a bit of extra firepower. An more than that, they brought some more Mules."

"Yeah, that's more useful for moving stuff around," VioletBlood admitted.

"More than that. They're adding yet more anti-air platforms to the defenses the two Centuries were putting around the Resort," I countered.

VioletBlood made a noncommittal noise.

The nice thing about sticking an eight shot launcher on a Mule was the relatively small combat walker could be put in various positions separated from their scrying targeting systems, and if the Mule was killed by counter-fire then at least no lives would be lost.

"Look at it this way, between the Harmonia Squadrons the Fleet has put up, us, and the Vel missile umbrella there's three layers of anti air protection for our Legionaries." I explained. "Any assaulting squadron will have to burn through a lot of defenses."

"Don't discount the HFV Vajra," VioletBlood countered.

I had to agree. The Vajra only carried eighteen torpedoes, but a good fraction of them were interceptors and warding variants designed for fleet and ground defense both taking out large enemy air assaults and fast-mover munitions. "Good point. We've got four layers."

One of our Nymphs had a Vel missile system, the other had a Minerva rotary cannon in the cramped one-person turret in front. Cramped described the Nymph rather well. In both tracked and wheeled variants, it was a light thin-skinned vehicle that could carry about three tons or cargo or twelve Legionaries. Its armor, such as it was, and warding were good against small arms, shell fragments, arcane splashover, and some heavier machine gun fire.

But the Nymph was not intended as a front line combatant, it was more of a utility vehicle that could move supplies and troops in rear to front roles. It was also light enough, and small enough that an Umbra could just barely fit two of them.

Which made it a go-to vehicle for formations that only had Medium and smaller VTOLs.

As a logistics utility vehicle, the little Nymph did that job well enough. Intentions were nice and all, but unless Legionaries landed with an Armor Cohort then their ground vehicular options would be limited to Nymphs and Mules. At least Nymphs were fast enough to not be complete death traps.

"What I don't get is why they brought down the Nymphs and that Nyx?" I asked.

VioletBlood made a thoughtful noise.

The Nyx was based on the Nymph but was a more expensive design. It had a far more advanced camouflage system that bordered on true Veiling and a suite of sensors and scrying systems. With a viewing cupola in the back, it made for a rather handy low-profile scouting vehicle.

It did not have quite the same storage capacity as the Nymph, but it could still work as a deployment of forward scouts or a stealthy resupply vehicle.

"Well," she said after a moment, "We've got spare drop capacity and time, and they're not doing anything positive up on the Garuda so why not bring them down?"

I sighed. Right, up on the airship they were just ballast, down here they were another tool for the Legionnaires to use. "I suppose, and worst case we can just scuttle them when we evacuate."

That our command had decided to bring an indirect fire platform, various supply vehicles, a scouting vehicle, and more supplies did give more options and support for the Legionaries who had landed.

But... it also implied an intention to stay and worse..

"Maybe Task Force 403 will be making a landing? They've got a whole Cohort of Legionaries," VioletBlood voiced the same worry I had.

"That would really expand things."

"Do you think there's enough enemies to justify that?" she asked.

I sighed at the eagerness in her voice. She had just helped me kill over a hundred irregulars and now she wanted more? I would have to make sure my Bloody Baroness of a wingwoman did not get out of control.

"While this area is a mess of factions and enemies, we don't even know why that group was marching up to attack us nor how many allies they have."

VioletBlood made a chagrined noise.

Fortunately, I was her superior both in military rank and social status now. Plus she somehow thought I was more bloodthirsty than she was.

I gave a noncommittal response then checked in with the rest of my Flight.

A couple minutes later my squadron commander's voice cut in. "Tauria, status?" Prefect Centurion Magnus Quirinus.

"LZ overwatch, and reserve. Systems green," I replied.

"Morale good?"

"Sure, our Baroness is ready to get a few more scalps, and Octavia is in awe of her noble comrade's blood lust."

"Do tell." From Quirinus' tone she was familiar with the challenges of having to hold back eager, war-crazy subordinates. She did have experience training Cadets: who even by Legionary Flier standards were motivated and eager to fight.

"Good," she stated. "Scouting Pilots have found something ominous to the north east. Sending you the coordinates now. Vajra has already got a firing solution, but we want some close-in recon. I trust you understand the risks and you won't do any showboating?" she rhetorically asked.

"Of course," I agreed. It was nice to have a superior who was sensible.

Switching channels, I ordered my flight to take off in the heading.

"It's that bad?" I asked my commander.

"Yeah, maybe that's why the brass horns have decided to keep us around playing diplomats," the irritation dripped off her words.

"Maybe this is us showing BlackSkyvian diplomacy?" I lightly offered. We did have a reputation for bellicosity and swift reprisals.

Quirinus gave a bitter laugh. "Well, I'll let you know when Task Force 403 starts bombarding the city."

"I appreciate that," I stated with a suppressed sigh. Even my sensible superiors were battle maniacs. I suppose this was what happened when members of an empathic species made war.

Still, compared to spotting for a Destroyer, a Medium Air Trinity was a whole other level of power.

The HFV Vajra was a Mace Class destroyer with eighteen Fujiwara Aerial torpedoes. The Fujiwara was the big gun of the Fleet and for a ground target to warrant such attention was not a good sign.

Ritual Plate in ground attack configuration could take out some rather impressive targets, especially if deployed in squadrons. And even harder targets could have a Telephe Strike thrown at them. Torpedoes tended to be reserved for the largest targets or the most well defended or both.

I looked over the preliminary intel. "Oh. I see. "

"The Luxon delegation assured us that neither that Horus artillery battery nor that mechanized infantry formation is theirs. I suppose it's good they're still talking to us," she added, darkly.

"That's practically a full on Mechanized Infantry Battalion. A small one yes, but if we kill that and a heavy artillery battery someone is going to be upset," I pointed out.

"You are probably right, Tauria." My commander sighed.

"No complaints on my end, just pointing it out," I assured.

"I'm vectoring Mercy's Flight to provide backup for you and to help cover some scouting nonsense the Legionnaires have been ordered to do. RavenSnow's lot are doing some other busy work with a recovery op."

"Appreciate it," I stated. "Whose are they then? That's a lot of kit for irregulars, unless they just raided a depot. I don't think Luxon would let us bombard their forces as part of some plot, too wasteful. And they don't seem to be Alecton equipment. And Vualia wouldn't let us bombard their own troops on their territory."

"Assuming that those are still House Vualia forces," Quirinus stated. "Good luck. Get there within thirty. Out,"

Lovely. Maybe this was some sort of civil war in House Vualia and we had been drafted to clean up. I switched to my Flight channel. "Okay girls, we've got another job, this time Fleet's going to do all the heavy lifting."

I sent them the intel package.

"That's a lot of guns," Octavia noted.

"Luxon doctrine is fifteen guns to the battery. The imagery is fragmentary but I would not be surprised if they have plenty of support vehicles. The Horus is a big self-propelled gun and those Crocodile IFVs are thirsty beasts," I agreed.

"We can expect Hathor anti-air guns and defending Ritual Plate, then?" GreyDawn asked.

"Scouting Pilots did not get close enough to confirm," I said.

"That many asses in the field..." GreyDawn countered. She did not need to continue. Concentrating your forces, invited well... the exact kind of attack we were conducting.

"If these were Luxon regulars, sure," I merrily agreed. "But I have been assured that the Luxon delegation, our dear partners in peace, have disavowed this formation. Which could explain a lack of air support."

"There has been relatively few enemy Ritual Plate," VioletBlood noted.

That was true, there had been some fights against a few pilots in second-hand Alecto models that still bore defaced Vualia livery. Prefect RavenSnow's squadron took them out, giving them heavy casualties; their survivors fleeting back to Ortov.

I was suspicious that someone might be holding back their Ritual Plate forces. That little city was going to be a mess. Ritual Plate's small footprint made it trivial to hide them in urban environments and ambushes were common.

Thankfully our target was many miles to the east of Ortov.

"Ma'am, is command's theory that irregulars managed to get a battery of Luxon self propelled artillery and a mechanized battalion of IFVs?" GreyDawn asked.

I double-checked the intelligence. "It's entirely possible these are last generation Horus artillery pieces and the Crocodile has been in service for a long time. These might even date to before the invasion, back when Vualia bought military hardware from Luxon and Alecto."

GreyDawn made a noncommittal noise.

I had to admit it was a weak argument. My guess was that someone had been getting support from both Luxon and Vualia. And then when their perfidy was exposed both sides hung them out to dry. Course, this then left a rather heavily armed war lady with nothing to lose. And if she, her equipment, and a lot of people had to be taken care of? Well.. that was how it went.

War was such a waste.

My flight flew past Ortov, fortunately at a wide enough berth to avoid any enemy fire. Though the city's airspace seemed reasonably peaceful. Aside from some minor VTOL activity.

"We're approaching the area, I want you to stay out of range of any air defenses and keep on the lookout for enemy Ritual Plate," I ordered. "We're just here to confirm the target composition and location."

I got pings of affirmation.

"VioletBlood and I will use our Gorgon rigs to get targeting info. GreyDawn you and Octavia will be further back and higher; your job is to watch out for enemy air assets."

I updated our vector to an oblique to the target to maintain range.

And there they were.

The enemy formation was on the far side of a hill and had spread out in some farmland adjacent to a roadway and were just at the edge of some woods

It was not a great place to be but it put them within range of shelling Ortov.

We were many miles away and without my gorgon rig the vehicles would just be specks, but with the enhanced scrying capability it was just possible to make out their formation.

That was a battery of Mark 3 Horus artillery pieces. In Luxon doctrine, the self-propelled guns were heavily armored and used metal-sheathed crystalline barrels as energy projectors. One spare was clipped to each side of their hulls and even at this distance the heat vents on their back decks shimmered.

They were powerful rather long ranged beasts, but were resource intensive to keep fielded. I wondered who they had been firing at.

Corralled in with them were boxy supply vehicles and fuel browsers. While House BlackSky used compact, if energetic fuel cells, house Luxon preferred to use an alchemical slurry that was more efficient for the greater power requirements of arcane energy based weapon platforms.

"Armature act?" VioletBlood asked as she added to our composite data feed. "Fuel tankers too close in, Crocodiles too far out, Hathors clustered together. And way to many dismounted troops. Are they going to occupy this area or take a lunch break?"

I swept my attention over the block and wedge-style troop carriers with their slaby turrets with stubby guns. It was hard to make out details but... "Those... they're not Janissaries."

That was... reassuring. I had no objection to killing the enemy, but if given a choice between irregulars or maybe traitors, and some serf-soldiers working to get some scrap of status and security for their families...

I knew which one I would prefer.

"Yeah, all have wings and tails, no one's big enough." VioletBlood confirmed. "Luxon regular army?"

"Wrong uniforms, and those vehicles are old." I exhaled. Maybe this were just some very well-supplied irregulars. "And I'm only seeing a few Hathor anti air guns and..."

I stared.

VioletBlood's disbelief joined mine.

"That's two flights of Alecton Archer Ritual Plate, waiting on the ground."

"Maybe they're waiting for maintenance?"

"Maybe," I allowed. The Archer was Alecto's budget export model. Ostensibly, a Multi-role, it was really just an armed trainer. That said, it was inexpensive, by Ritual Plate standards, and capable enough, as long as your enemies did not have Ritual Plate of their own, or not very many.

"GreyDawn?" I asked.

"Confirm. We're detecting about a squadron of Archers. They're rather close in at a low altitude. I'd say they're worried about Luxon RP sneaking in via the tree-line. Most of their attention is to the north.

"Shame," I noted. "You alert me the second their attention comes our way."

At our distance, with our tiny size and low visibility we would be hard to detect, especially if the enemy was not even looking in our direction.

I switched to a command channel and dialed into Fleet Ops. "Diamond Flight Actual with targeting information for HFV Vajra." As much as I was irked by my last name being shortened that way.. still... as callsigns went Diamond was far better than Pixie.

"We got you, Diamond," the cool voice I had thought of as Flight Ops said as she switched channels.

"This is Vajra," a clipped woman's voice stated. "Go ahead, Diamond."

"Relaying package." As the targeting location went over the thaumaturgical link I then verbally confirmed the coordinates. I did not want to have the bombardment fail because someone transposed a few numbers.

There was a low whistle. "Really? Clumped up like that."

"Yes, I can see why you were skeptical of the scouting report, but I've got eyes on them right now." I kept my voice calm.

"Hold your hat, Diamond; we're updating the targeting package now. You're gonna get a great view."

I kept in a shiver. Missileers and artillerists could get a detached view about the nature of their jobs and the carnage they released. This Telum Centurion sounded much the same, relishing the chance to erase a significant enemy force. Better that than directing her fire on civilian infrastructure.

For my part, I had to agree with her. But that was out of self interest, I would much rather have a large munition dropped on my enemies from miles away than have to fight them myself.

However the crew on the Vajra were over three hundred miles away. Which was close in terms of airship combat, intermediate in terms of Ritual Plate combat, but far in terms of ground combat.

"Wait, updating?"

The Telum Centurion gave a chuckling purr. "We launched three torpedoes twenty minutes ago."

That was why my squadron commander had given me a time limit. These madwomen had already launched a bombardment. Granted, they had preliminary intel and approval from Luxon.

"When are they going to impact?"

"Five minutes. In two hundred, eighty-five seconds at... mark. Requesting live access to your Gorgon rig."

"Setting uplink now." Ah, of course, these maniacs wanted a front row seat. They even had a tactical excuse as the feed from our Gorgon rigs would give them moment to moment targeting information.

To be fair, sending a live link back to Flight Ops, or an airship vectoring in Torpedoes or other assets was the designed role of the Gorgon Rig. And why it was made as a supplement to the normal scrying systems.

Keeping abreast on the live feed did involve more work as a Pilot had to keep their Gorgon rig focused on the targets.

I then switched to the Flight channel. "VioletBlood, arrange to have your scrying data routed to the Vajra, they want a live feed for their targeting. Everyone else look alive, we've got a bombardment incoming.

"I'm putting up a clock. this will knock off a hornet's nest and we may have to fight some enemy RP or pick off survivors."

I then reactivated the Vajra channel. I sipped some water and watched the timer went down. Given the distance and the flight time that meant these were subsonic Torpedoes.

"What's the load-out? A Gae Bulg and a Lorg Mor? What else?" I asked the Destroyer officer. Those models of Fujiwara were ground attack variants that exchanged a decrease in range for an increase in payload. The Gae Bulg was an anti-personnel model while the Lorg Mor was anti-armor.

"And a Surtalogi," she added.

"All three?" I inquired. I could understand the AP and the AT weapons but the Surtalogi, or Surtr's fire, was basically a 1,400 lb fuel-air warhead. It was really good at creating a firestorm and longer-duration pressure waves. Fuel-air bombs were good at taking out soft targets and tunnel systems. For a destroyer with a fairly small Torpedo magazine it was a bit to have one in the magazine, unless the Vajra was carrying a sampler just in case.

"Correct Diamond. That's why we wanted you up there giving us telemetry. We have to make the most of this. Thanks for having your wingwoman add hers. Not many Flights go with two Gorgon Rigs."

"Glad to be a help," I demurred. Personally, I wanted more Flights to have at least two. I knew the counter arguments: the normal scrying system was good for combat use and even long range spotting; the Gorgon Rig was an expensive custom-fitted bit of kit; the Gorgon Rig was intended to be a broader reconnaissance platform with the intention of feeding live intel back to Flight Ops; the Gorgon Rig requires a lot of pilot skill in multi tasking to use to its fullest.

To all of those, I would say that the Ritual Plate was already very expensive and had a lot of custom-fit components. And it did not matter what the intention of the design, or how hard it was to use to its fullest. It was a scrying suite improvement that would give us an edge in battle.

Though I could understand the cost aspect. In my second life most of the Empire's aerial mages used the Type 13 Standard Computation Orb, which was a single core model that was functional enough. I was cursed with that one-off quad-core Type 95. Meanwhile my 203rd aerial mages used the production dual core Type 97.

Thus I could understand limiting the more expensive kit to a given unit. But that was the point, the whole of the 203rd had Type 97s.

And yes a supplementary sensor system was not the same as a computation orb in scope, but I thought this was a foolish attempt at cost savings.

Tension rose as the timer clicked down.

I managed to keep it under control. These were ground vehicles; even if they started running right now, they could not get far. And as long as my Flight survived, we could simply update the target point.

The smart thing would be to disperse themselves. Split up and go in many directions. But that was a survival tactic against a Torpedo bombardment. Against Ritual Plate, splitting up your defenses might be counter productive.

There was also a chance that the Gae Bulg, Lorg Mor, or Surtalogi might be intercepted. They were only traveling at three-quarters the speed of sound and were going a fair distance.

The Fujiwara Torpedo used air spirits as well. However instead of using Zephyr spirits for propulsion they used Notus spirits for guidance. In reality, the Notus stayed back on the launching airship and guided the massive missile in via thaumaturgical links between the spirits' sanctum and the control and scrying systems in the nosecone.

After the Torpedo was expended Telum Ritualista could then bond the Notus with a fresh Torpedo. That procedure took a bit of time, but was more on the scale of minutes than hours.

If the link was jammed, a very difficult proposal but possible, there was a more primitive analog guidance system but accuracy and control markedly decreased.

Key to this was that a Notus spirit was not expended with every Torpedo launch. On the contrary, like a Zephyr, a Notus could gain power and experience with each use. From a human resources, well spiritual resources standpoint, I appreciated giving air spirits fulfilling work and allowing them to grow in skill.

Though that did mean that the Telum Centurions and their supporting Ritualista gunners, bonded with spirits who liked lobbing high speed explosives at people.

"Sky is still clear, no one seems to be aware about our little launch," the Telum Centurion tried to sound reassuring.

We had faster Torpedoes, ones that traveled well above supersonic, but they had a much shorter range. Which was part of why the Hasta Torpedo bomber was so useful.

The two-tone chime of a Torpedo bombardment went off in my ears.

And then the entire enemy artillery and troop position was consumed in fire and overlapping explosions. The Gae Bulg and Lorg Mor were devastating weapons that both used sub-munitions. Meanwhile the Surtalogi had a big tank of a flammable alchemical medium with a charge that would spread the fuel out to a stoichiometric mix with the surrounding air before igniting it.

An ugly column of grey smoke came up from the conflagrations which itself lit up the night. Secondary explosions were massive as munitions, arcane storage, and fuels cooked off. Technically some of those would be tertiary explosions as the fuel browsers had blown a fraction of a second after the strike.

House BlackSky's reputation for bellicosity was not unwarranted.

The Gae Bulg carried over a hundred and fifty Sentis sub-munitions. Each of which had about five pounds of explosives per barbed sub-munition. Particularly experienced Notus spirits could conduct the terminal guidance of the various sub-munitions as they launched.

By contrast, the Lorg Mor only had thirty-six hardened Plumbata penetrators. These sub-munitions had explosive backs that helped them pierce through warding and armor.

And with the feed from two Gorgon Rigs, those happy, eager to please, air spirits would be delighted to show off and aim those Plumbata penetrators to individual vehicles and those Sentis sub-munitions to the largest concentrations of people.

And immediately after those two, the Surtalogi detonated about nearly three-quarters of a ton of alchemically-treated explosive fuel that had been dispersed, too fast to see, into a cloud over the target area. The ignition of that much explosives spread out into that much area created a massive conflagrating wump.

It was a comprehensive and multi-layered attack. Part of me wanted to ask why they didn't just lob a few Galatine high explosive Torpedoes. Though, it probably would have taken six of those to do the job. And the Vajra did not have that big of a magazine.

"Battle damage assessment?" Telum Centurion asked.

"You can see my damn feed!" I shouted back, my self control momentarily slipping That was the point of this link. I winced; I knew I had to be as enthusiastic as they were. "You better reward those spirits for some great shooting! That's a clean sweep on Horus and Hathor artillery pieces."

"I'm reading at least three-quarters of Crocodiles here destroyed, the rest seem to be mission kills." VioletBlood paused. "Infantry casualties are... high. We may have to wait for the fires to die down to see who survived. At least some were in the outer perimeter."

"Ritual Plate status?" I asked the other two in my Flight.

"Archer suits on the ground are gone," GreyDawn flatly said. "Half of those on overwatch are buzzing about in a panic looking for where this came from. The other half went to the ground to try to find... survivors."

A noble effort, but a waste of air power resources. Unless someone of real high value was commanding that formation "I think we've worn out our welcome," I stated.

"Good shooting Vajra," I transmitted as I shut down my Gorgon link with the Destroyer.

"Good scouting, Diamond Flight," she replied as I adjusted our vector.

I upped our speed as we dashed back. Even with some support from Mercy Flight we were far out to the North east from the rest of our forces.

"Good work everyone," I said over the Flight channel. "I know it's not as glamorous as getting our own claws wet but we helped take out an artillery battery and a mechanized infantry battalion with no losses to our side. I call that a win."

I was not actually sure about that. Yes, we took no losses, but was that a wise use of resources? The massive cost of three Fujiwara torpedoes aside, the Vjra only had eighteen total. Fifteen now. And only a fraction of those would be ground support variants.

I had us adjust our vector as we started to go around Ortov.

There was then a harsh chime over the command channel, that was the tone used for Search and Rescue. "All Flights. All Flights, we have a Spatha down. I repeat we have a Spatha down. Coordinates are as follows."

Updating my map display I swore. That was right in the south side of Ortov in a pretty populated area of the city.

"Why in DarkStar's name is a lone light VTOL in a hostile urban area?" I murmured under my breath. I swallowed my worry.

There was a covenant between VTOL Pilots and Ritual Plate Pilots. We escorted them on combat drops whenever possible. And if we were downed, they would come to try to rescue us. Pilot recovery was a key duty of the Spatha Light VTOLs every Ritual Plate carrier had.

"This is Diamond Actual, my fight is Passing by Ortov," I transmitted. "What happened?"

"A Spatha was doing a recovery operation; their escorting Fleet RP got jumped by enemy Ritual Plate," Flight Ops said. I could hear a tiny bit of strain in her normally cool voice. "They saw them off but took losses and then ground fire tagged the VTOL. We have footage of survivors on the ground."

I swore. Doing air support and survivor recovery in a hostile urban area was a nightmare. But there was no way I could avoid this. "Confirm. We're going in."

"Understood, Diamond. We're trying to get a VTOL vectored in but understand that enemy Ritual Plate has increased activity over the city."

This time my swear was silent. "Prefect Quirinus."

"Yes," My squadron leader replied.

"I'm calling in that offer with Mercy's Flight."

"Whatever you need."

I thought. With only four people securing the crash site would be the critical duty. "If you can have her and even your own Flight run interference on enemy Ritual Plate that would be appreciated."

"I'll see what I can do. You won't be alone out there, but you may have to get creative," Quirinus stated.

I felt a pain behind my forehead. Creative, in urban combat. Lovely.

"Unfortunately, it looks like you were right, blowing up that artillery position set off everything and we've got our hands full."

I swore for a third time.

"Quite right Countess," came my commander's wry reply.

I took a second to compose myself then switched to my Flight channel. At least now my trio of warmongers would get to sate their bloodlust up close and personal.

End Chapter 7

Well I had some plans for what to do after this battle that would be at the end of ch7.

But as you can guess the fighting ended up running a bit longer.

Though I'm not sure there is too much objection to having more combat.

I have been doing revision work, starting with the prologue and first chapter, and have plans for the glossary and character list.