A Young Girl's Outer Heaven

16

Commissioned by anonymous user.

Stepping out of the newly installed elevator, I looked over the new additions to our home and let out a quiet whistle. The engineering corps had done a fine job turning a big, unused section of the basement into a secure data center—with help from civilian contractors, of course.

The floor, walls, and ceiling had all been paneled over with warm wood waxed to a shine. Power, phone, and other cables had been run under the floor and in the ceiling, coming down routed through floor to ceiling columns and now came up at various work stations. Those work stations were all comprised of terminals nearly identical to the ones I had seen in Schugel's lab—looking like a combination of magic and 1930s era technology, with typewriter style keyboard buttons and displays created by magical holograms.

Off in the corner was something I had no trouble recognizing, given the sounds it made and the way it was spitting out sheet after sheet of paper. Someone had apparently used magic and a bit of engineering to create something very much like a color laser printer, which was currently spewing reports, maps, and graphs. Towards the front of the room was a large projector, currently showing the view from every satellite we had in orbit. Although, some of those had a timestamp showing the current image was what we had last gotten from them and a countdown to the next update. And in the back was a large, but not as large as I was expecting, device that I took to be the equivalent of a server—given that everything seemed to be routed into it in one way or another.

Looking around, the room had been visibly delineated into distinct sections, though I couldn't tell what each person's job was just by looking. I knew, however, that the analysis of everything gathered wasn't done in this room. What was done here would be an initial analysis—mostly documenting what the images showed, the date and time they were taken, where they were taken, and other things. It would then be sorted by region and handed off to our new departments for handling all of it.

"What do you think?"

I turned a grin up at Weiss. "I think it's wonderful. Now, we need someone to add one of those projectors to the briefing room so we can get a stream straight from the satellites if we want."

"I thought you might say that. The installation is scheduled for later in the week," Weiss assured me with a grin.

"Excellent. Good job, Weiss."

"Thank you, colonel," he nodded, before gesturing for me to follow as he made his way back into the elevator. We went up two levels and stepped out near the briefing room. Heading inside, he gave a nod to a private who was just leaving and made his way over to the table. Opening the folder that had been placed there, he began taking out printed pages and laying them out.

I frowned as I took in the images. They were of a section of the Atlantic and Pacific and appeared to have been taken over the course of the last several days, according to the time and date stamps. Weiss laid out a map with two printed paths in solid lines, which became several dashed lines pointing in our general direction. Or at least, the general direction of South America.

"Two fleets. These are Federation Navy vessels," I pointed out.

"They are," Weiss confirmed. "Troop transports, equipment transports, support and defense ships. They're even sending several of what the analysts have identified as fuel tankers. Neither of them is the largest Russy fleet we've ever seen, but it's still very large."

"So the projected paths here show the Atlantic fleet could go for anywhere between Cuba and Sao Paolo?"

My second in command nodded. "Yes. Unfortunately, they'll need a few more days to determine just where the fleet is going. As for the Pacific fleet… Either they're planning to take Hawaii, attack the west coast of the mainland United States, or plan to put in to our west somewhere. Best guess is Colombia, but again, we won't know more for several days."

That was worrying. There were several things I could think of that a commie fleet could get up to, none of them good. "Put together a group to get with the analysts and get a list of projected landing points, then workshop worst case scenarios and responses we could make. In the meantime, we should prepare as though at least one of them means to land here. Our little Russy rat told us the NKVD were coming, so we'll work off of that. For the Atlantic fleet, assume they're sending their shock troops to reinforce the group they left in Sao Paolo. The best they have."

"They're communists, so their best isn't much," Weiss chuckled and I sent him an amused smile.

"True, but it's better to overestimate the enemy than underestimate them. Expect the worst, plan for worse than that. So, we'll plan as though we would be facing the best our enemies had to throw at us during the war."

"Then we should—"

A knock at the door cut Weiss off as the same private from before rushed in. "Colonel, Lt. Colonel, sorry to interrupt! This just came in!"

He handed off not a sheet of paper but a very small cube I recognized as one of Schugel's computation devices, before hurrying back out the door and closing it behind him. Touching the cube with my mana, I activated it and found it contained data—video, specifically. Spinning up a hologram formula, I let it play.

The video showed a view of the Federation fleet in the Atlantic in ludicrously high fidelity. As we watched, men and women in Federation uniforms moved out onto the deck—with enough fidelity, in fact, to tell that most of them looked young and fresh faced. None of them appeared to be over the age of twenty-five, and most were probably barely out of their teens. The satellite's mana sensors had gone off then, highlighting each of them as a mage, as they lifted off into the air began doing aerial maneuver drills and live fire exercises.

As we watched and the satellite's perspective changed as it flew overhead, more men and women poured out of the other ships. More and more of them flooded the skies as they began trading light spell fire—enough to practice with shields, but not enough to wound, cripple, or kill a competent mage; and while no one ever accused the commies of competence, just from the short video I was watching, they looked at least as skilled as the average American or Commonwealth unit. In fact, they all shared many similarities to the aerial mages of those countries, given that they were using the same maneuvers. And while some maneuvers were just plain universal, the Americans and Commonwealth had a certain style to their flying that was distinct, and these troops seemed to have incorporated both.

We knew they were sending 'volunteer forces' for the longest time and suspected they had begun training the enemy at some point. But these… they look like they've been doing nothing but training. Perhaps the Federation pulled a fast one after all? Communists don't value individuals, or people at all really, so I can't even say it's unrealistic that they would send some of their mages into the meat grinder to stall for time while a larger number of new recruits trained, then send them in all at once to try to finish the war quickly.

Before the satellite passed over the horizon and the video ended, I paused the video and used a formula to get a count on the number of signatures present. My mouth fell open as the final number was displayed as: 3600.

"Shit."

It took me a moment to realize the word had come from my own mouth and I quickly closed it with a click. Beside me, Weiss let out a quiet breath, before adding his own two cents.

"Shit."

There was a bit of a terminology confusion when it came to aerial mage units, at least among the civilians.

You see, when counting aerial mages, we were counted not as one would count regular troops, but as one would count aircraft. So a platoon of aerial mages was equivalent to the Commonwealth or American term flight, and contained four mages. A company was a squadron and contained twelve—or three platoons. And a battalion was a wing and had thirty-six mages—three companies made up of three platoons each.

This was because, put simply, each aerial mage was effectively worth an aircraft—be it a fighter, bomber, or some other role. We took up the space of a human but had firepower, versatility, and maneuverability that put us on par with some aircraft. We were more valuable than the common troops and everyone knew and acknowledged it as simple fact.

At least, that was the commonly shared view between the Empire, Commonwealth, United States, Republic, Alliance, and others. All but one nation involved in the war, in fact.

The Federation, being communists, didn't value the individual. They had no appreciation for their human resources and no compunctions against throwing them into the teeth of the meat grinder that the Empire became, in an effort to clog it. Human wave tactics were their go to, as opposed to the desperation move of literally everyone else. It was worse than playing against someone who thought the Zerg Rush was a great tactic, because at least those people could acknowledge the value of other tactics and adapt to a new meta!

That mentality applied not just to their average foot soldier on the ground, but even to their aerial mages. No, it especially applied to their aerial mages. This again came down to a matter of ideology. Mages were living proof that the communist ideal that everyone was equal, and thus equally interchangeable cogs in the machine that was the Communist State was dead wrong. That's why they frittered away their mage troops like I spent bullets.

The Empire, Americans, Commonwealth, Republic, and others all trained their aerial mages to fight in those low numbered units and, since that's mostly what we had been seeing from the Federation, that's what we had assumed they had trained in as well. Sure, they sent more people, but they were divided up into roughly similarly sized groups, if perhaps twenty-five percent larger on average—meaning they sent an extra man per platoon, scaling up to larger group sizes.

That wasn't what we were seeing here. No, what I was looking at were three full regular troop sized battalions of aerial mages.

There might have been that many in the entire duration of the war, from the time the Federation joined until the time of the Empire's surrender. It was hard to tell, because we shot down a lot of them but getting one back up into the air to keep fighting took between days to months, and it's not like we kept seeing the same Russy troops over and over.

"Where did they all come from?"

I shook my head at the question. "I think we both know."

Weiss made a quiet sound of grim agreement. In all likelihood, these were men and women who were tracked down using low level mage detection equipment meant to pick up passive mana signatures within a small area and then pressed into service. People who didn't even know they were mages, until a squad of infantry showed up at their door and dragged them off. Knowing what I knew of how communists had historically operated in my old world, that equipment had likely been waiting until the war ended and would have then been used to scan the population for mages, before arresting them and either executing them outright or, more likely, sending them to a mine or some other sort of labor camp.

The problem was, they didn't have that fresh from the labor camp look that I recalled all of the older aerial mages having. No, if anything, these were mages who had never seen the horror of the gulag and only knew that service had been demanded of them—likely wrapped in commie propaganda of some sort, possibly with the lie that they were needed to defend their home. They looked fit and healthy—much better fed than their counterparts, the ones who we had been fighting on the front lines.

The huge numbers. That squeaky clean, new look to the people and third hand look to their uniforms. The American 'precision pocket watch' computation orbs and weapons. The foreign tactics and flying style. Their general health and fitness level. It all added up to a conclusion I didn't like, but was forced to come to regardless.

"The Americans left us an unwelcome surprise, with some help from the Commonwealth."

"Ma'am?" Weiss asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We saw it during the war, with the so-called 'volunteer forces.' Partisans of other factions, ostensibly flying under the flag of other countries. This proves they did more than provide a few men. They sent people to train the Russy forces, along with food, weapons, ammo, even operation orbs. This group probably had trainers from every nation with aerial mages. A large force of mages meant to sweep in from the Russy front for a crushing blow, likely while we were distracted elsewhere. Except they never got a chance to fight, because we surrendered before they could be deployed. So, what's a nation to do with a large, highly trained force of aerial mages?"

Weiss thought about it for a moment before offering, "Start a war. Expand their territory a bit."

"Normally, I'd agree with you," I nodded. "But these are commies. They're a death cult."

"Mm. They'd have them executed, then. Or find another way to use them up and not replace them."

"Agreed. Except perhaps in this case, it's a bit of Column A and a bit of Column B. Send their unwanted troops in to fight and die to pave the way for a communist takeover of South America. And if they don't die, then at least here they're out of sight, out of mind for the proletariat back home, to prevent them from getting any silly ideas about rebellion."

I shut off the hologram and dropped the cube onto the table. Pulling out my chair, I sat down with a heavy sigh. Weiss sent me a concerned look before taking his own usual seat. He sat there silently, waiting patiently as I thought.

Assume the worst. They're coming here to back up the commies in Sao Paolo and start taking over, doing what we've been blaming them for but in earnest. Complete government takeover. Violent regime change. They likely know we're here and are getting ready for a fight.

Based on the reports we've been getting out of Sao Paolo, the local commie infiltrators just aren't ready for that. They don't have the infrastructure and supply lines established. They don't have housing set up and ready. They might not even know these people are coming. Meaning…

I pulled over the printed photo with the ships and eyeballed it again, at the same time I spun up another hologram and paused the video to focus on the ships they brought with them. Slowly, a smile spread across my face as an idea began to form.

They're vulnerable to strikes on critical infrastructure and resources. That is, the infrastructure and resources they brought with them. An army marches on its belly.

"Why don't we give them a warm welcome with a taste of home?"

Weiss sat up a bit straighter. "Colonel?"

"Track them. Eventually, they're going to enter the range of the satellite we're keeping overhead. When they do, we'll send them a welcoming gift. A little meal we'll prepare ourselves. Tell Herr Doktor Schugel and Edwina to prepare the bomber and an appropriate payload of his smart bombs." Grabbing a pen, I circled several ships—specifically, their tankers and a pair of large, civilian cargo vessels sitting near the tankers in the center of their formation. "I want these ships destroyed."

"Going after their fuel."

I grinned. "And possibly their food! After all, the best meal we can prepare for them to remind them of home is a big, steaming plate of nothing. Of course, the more ships we can damage the better. Even better if we can sink a few. But I want the majority of our focus on these. They're the prize."

Weiss hummed, considering it. "No food. No fuel. Coming in those numbers…"

"And don't think for a minute that the other ships aren't crammed to the gills with their regulars, tanks, artillery, and other toys," I reminded.

"They'll descend on wherever they land like a swarm of locusts," Weiss murmured. "We saw what happened when the communists got hungry in the Federation. They sacked their own villages and left their own people to starve. There will be nothing stopping them from doing the same here."

"Exactly," I leered. "We warned them, didn't we? That the commies were bad news and they needed to prepare. We just couldn't predict that they would send this many, this quickly. Now, instead of preparing over the course of years and excising the small cancer they've begun to spread from the south over the next year, we're going to be going into an active war against a much larger force of aerial mages and their backup in the form of regular troops. This? This is going to give us exactly what we need to keep Pedro firmly in the presidency for the next ten years. Plenty of time and all the public sentiment behind us to build up everything we need. We'll have people lining up to volunteer."

"I'll accelerate our housecleaning and have that finished by the end of the week," Weiss assured me, taking out a notepad and starting to make notes. "The president has already gotten us approval to build the first academy. We can shortcut things a bit by building it here and scanning their regular troops for any mages they already have enlisted. As soon as we have a class of thirty or so, we can begin training while we continue recruiting for more classes and the doctor works on building the equipment to start testing on a larger scale. At the same time, we'll start taking volunteers for a new unit of regular troops with magical equipment and start training them as well."

I nodded along before adding, "That's good. But Weiss, I'm looking ten, twenty years into the future, to the soldiers of tomorrow."

"What do you mean, colonel?"

I sent him a smile before gesturing to myself and he frowned in response. "I'm living proof that starting training from the earliest age possible is the best method for producing outstanding aerial mages."

"You want to use child soldiers, ma'am?" he asked as his frown grew.

"Well, I wouldn't call them that," I shook my head. "They'll be adults by the time we employ them. I want to float the idea of mandatory service for all, but especially for potential mages. Schools for children that teach all the things a normal school teaches, but instead of things like physical education, we have things more akin what we had in boot. A rigid rank structure that they can work their way up through. Training in handling firearms and crew served weapons. When they graduate, they are free to choose to enlist or to go on to a normal, civilian job. For the mage children however, I want to begin training them as mages early on. As early as possible. If we start training them as early as, say, ten years of age, then by the time they graduate at eighteen, they've had eight years of training—which is far more than I ever received before I was put out onto the front line."

Weiss winced. "Colonel, permission to speak freely?"

"Of course, Weiss," I nodded. "I value your opinion as a trusted subordinate and friend."

"Then colonel—no, Tanya," he used my name for what was probably the first time in my presence. "I mean no disrespect, but— how should I put this?" Weiss murmured, thinking about it for a moment before he found the words. "You are not normal."

I chuckled. "I would think not."

He continued, "I have rarely met grown men and women with the sort of drive and determination you have. Most of those are either here with us today, buried back in the Empire, or were on the business end of my rifle before I shot them down. You're not just exceptional, you are the exception. I don't believe other children will put up with a tenth of the things you went through voluntarily when you enlisted, just for basic training. I think you're wasting your time on this and if you manage any measure of success, what you're going to get won't be recognizably human. Not the way we understand it."

Raising an eyebrow, I asked, "Are you saying I'm inhuman?" Weiss's silent pause was telling as he considered me. "Go ahead, I won't be angry."

Weiss leaned forward in his seat, a serious look on his face as he quietly spoke. "Humans don't just walk off the sort of blast you lived through. They don't usually blow themselves up willingly and when they do, they definitely don't put themselves back together again. But even before that… Tanya, we've all seen your service record. Most humans don't enlist into military service at single digits of age. Most don't set their computation orb to go critical and blow themselves up to win a firefight with enemy troops, then get back up a few months later and go right back to the front lines. No one has done the things you've done before, and at your age."

"I'm sure someone would eventually—"

"No, they wouldn't," he interrupted. "Of all the things you are—the best aerial mage the world has ever seen, our leader, and I'd like to think my friend… human isn't one of them. I think you stopped being human a long time ago, if you ever were to begin with. It's not a bad thing. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that I think you should lower your expectations a bit."

I considered his words before slowly nodding. "Alright. How about this? We'll ask for volunteers. Frame it as a chance to get normal schooling while learning magic at the same time. Make it fun for them. Slowly offer more advanced, more difficult courses as they get older, that they'll be able to opt into of course. They'll still have those years of basic training as a mage at minimum and that much more of an advantage over the enemy."

"That sounds much more reasonable," Weiss nodded, leaning back with a quiet sigh. "I'll start putting something together and ask for volunteers to teach the mage classes."

"Good. In the meantime, I need to go speak with Pedro and inform him of this shit show waiting to happen," I grumbled, beginning to collect the documents.

Weiss pushed the cube over to me and stood, taking that as a sign that this impromptu meeting was coming to an end. "At least he took our advice seriously and is working out of his home here in Bellum. It would be a security nightmare if we had to split our forces between here and Brasilia. The rest of the government doesn't like it, but…"

"But they can get over it. The former president was killed in his own home because of a commie infestation and a lack of properly trained and equipped troops. Considering we've got enough security on him to protect him against our own forces, I don't think the Russy are going to be able to get to him, short of doing a flyover and either dropping a bomb or hitting the place with a joint-cast explosive formula."

"He told me he's planning to move the capital here and rebuild everything, to make it official and to make them shut up," he chuckled.

"Yes, that sounds about right," I rolled my eyes before sending him a lazy salute, which he returned. "Dismissed."

Collecting the folder and cube, I took off for the governor's mansion. As I flew, my mind wandered back to that conversation.

So, they don't see me as human anymore. Understandable. He may be right about that. Well, as long as they're willing to work for me and follow my orders, it isn't a problem.

Fuck it's hot.

Stepping off the boat and onto the dock in San Juan, Agent Samuel Singer pulled his hat down a bit to shade his eyes. The aviator sunglasses helped a bit, but it was still bright as hell. Too bright, too hot, too humid. The air felt like trying to breathe underwater compared to what he was used to back home in Langley, in the northeast United States. But when the Company sends you somewhere, you go. And this, as his superiors put it, was a matter of national security.

Reaching into his pants pocket as he shrugged his backpack into a more comfortable position, he checked his notepad and again verified the location for his meeting with their local contact. Tucking it away, he made his way down the wharf and into the city proper—if it could even be called a city.

After a bit of walking and stopping to ask for directions three times, he eventually found the hole in the wall bar he was looking for. Miguel's had only the name for signage out front and a tin, painted sign advertising the local beer beside the door. Making his way inside, he sidled up to the bar and dropped his bag on the ground as he climbed onto a stool.

A moment later, a young woman came out of the back and looked him over briefly before asking, in Spanish, "What'll it be?"

"Whatever's on tap," he answered in the same language. "I'm looking for Miguel. Is he in?"

"I'm Miguel," she sent him an amused look as she took out a mug and drew a pint. "He died last year and left the bar to me. I'm his daughter, Sofia. What do you need?"

Frowning as she passed him the glass, he made a face as he realized it was warm. The girl laughed, then opened a refrigerator and pulled out a bottled beer, before popping the top on it. Taking back the pint, she handed him the cold bottle and sipped at the pint herself. After a sip to wash the taste out, he offered a hand, "I'm Sam. I'm looking for a guy named Emilio Gaviria. I was told he could get me work."

"Not many Americans coming here for work," she murmured, eyeing him critically. "Usually, it's the other way around."

"Not that kind of work," he shook his head. "I work for an investment firm. We're in the mining business. Scouting out mines for precious metals, jewels, that sort of thing. Gold, silver, diamond, elinium. We invest in the locals, have the local people mine it, buy it up, then resell it back in the states."

It even had the benefit of being true. The Company was very interested in at least one thing on that list. If they could buy the rights to any elinium being mined in an area, they would absolutely jump all over that. America needed all that they could get, and if they could get it cheaper outside of America and have it shipped in, that was even better. Mages were the future. There were even some rumors about scientists back home trying to develop magic based technology. Elinium, already more valuable than gold, was set to soar to ever greater heights.

A modern computer, with the best, most advanced technology money could buy took up the space of a large room. A very large room, at that. By comparison, an America mage's computation orb was a physical device no larger than a pocket watch that, with the right formulas, would run circles around that room-sized computer. So of course the government was looking to find a way to bridge the gap between one and the other, and part of that meant securing as much elinium as possible as cheaply as possible. That's why all of the business forms Sam had to make such deals were real and he had complete discretion to make offers in the field.

It wasn't why he was really here, but a real, legitimate business back in the States that anyone could verify existed and that he worked there made for a hell of a cover. That is, if anyone bothered to go digging. He doubted they would, unless he got into business negotiations.

Sighing, she nodded. "Stay here. I'll go wake him. Uncle is still sleeping it off upstairs."

Sam watched as she disappeared upstairs. For a moment, his eyes lingered on her ass in that tight pair of ragged, cut off denim shorts. Reaching down, he twisted the ring on his finger, reminding himself of his cover story. After a few moments of thought, he pulled the band off and pocketed it. It might come in handy later, or he might be able to sell it if he needed some extra funds. Either way, it would make speaking with and endearing himself to the local girls easier if they didn't think he was married.

Whoever thought up that angle obviously didn't consider the realities of life down here.

Eventually, an older man stumbled in and collapsed onto a bar stool next to Sam. Fishing a silver tin out of his pocket, the man exposed a fine white powder. Sam frowned as the newcomer tapped out a line right on the bar and snorted it.

"Better than coffee!" Offering his tin, the man asked, "Want some?"

"No, thank you. You're Mr. Gaviria?"

"I am. Please, call me Emilio," he nodded, tucking away his tin. "And you're with that American company? Looking into things in Brasa?"

"Yes, sir," Sam confirmed.

Emilio accepted a bottle from Sofia. "Niece, what day is it?"

"Wednesday, Uncle," Sofia sighed.

Emilio grinned and climbed down off his stool. "Come with me, then. You're in luck."

Sam gathered his bag and followed Emilio back out into the city, then to a hill overlooking a dock—not the one his ship had put in at. "Where are we going?"

"Have a look for yourself," Emilio pointed out towards the water.

Looking down at the docks, it took Sam only a moment to spot what Emilio meant. There, docked at the far end, beside a group of ships flying the Brasa flag, was a submarine. Not just any submarine, however. A German submarine. Sure, it was flying the flag of Brasa, but according to the information the Company had, the Empire hadn't begun selling off their war assets yet to pay off the debt they were going to be stuck with. There was no legitimate reason for that boat to be here.

"Good eye."

"Come," Emilio gestured and started down a path towards the dock. "We'll talk to one of the ship captains and see if they'll let you book passage with them."

Sam grinned. It would look very good if he didn't just turn up out of nowhere. Even better if the suspected enemy brought him in themselves.

From there, we sail down to Brasa and set up shop. Check out this new president. Try to make a few deals with the local mining companies. All while investigating that newspaper. If it really is her… Well, those trials aren't finished and Miss Most Wanted War Criminal is the guest of honor. It'd be a shame if she missed it.