The Practice War [Complete]

You considered your options as the detached Heartcircles slid across the yawning void of empty space towards the rest of the Two Twenty Three, the light of burning starships painting space behind them in short lived blossoms of colour. Beautiful, in its own way, if you could ignore the cost in lives. You knew that feeling was a bad thing for any soldier, but it was hard to ignore. Despite everything, you were still a Mender. More than anything, you wanted a way to fix this, without anymore bloodshed. Such a silly thought to have, in the middle of battle. But was it really such a surprise for doubts to come at the crux of things?

Not in your experience.

You could run, return to First Fleet before going looking, but that would leave the carriers time to regenerate. Given time and access to the logistics ships, they'd be able to rebuild that enormous drone layer. No small amount of First Fleet's successes had come from the ability of Fighter Command to operate freely. Take that away? Or you could-

:Amanda!: Vega's cry of your name cut through the tactical planning, and something pulled your head around to check on your friend. The circlet the Harmonial had crafted in preparation for this fight burned upon her brow like a crown of white flame, and you realised a moment later that you could feel that light in the Web. It burned away darkness, fatigue, and any hint of panic or despair, no matter how well hidden by training it might be. :Lina's squadron.:

Your gaze snapped around, awareness leaping out through perceptions as perfect as the finest sensors. A curse bubbled around your lips as your found the leading column of First Fleet, exacerbated by the curse of an unknown threat still marshalling to strike. But far more of your own feelings were focused on the core of that column, Lina's command ship, and the vessel upon which your daughter's physical body currently stood. They'd been fine less than a minute ago, you were sure of it!

First Fleet: 40 + 30 (Martial) + 20 (Web of Unity) + 20 (Void Mistress) + 40 (Harmonics) + 10 Electronic Superiority + 10 Fighter Supremacy vs 87 + 45 (Martial) + 20 (Synchronisation) + 20 (First Traditions) = 170 vs 172. Bare Failure

Now more than half of them were leaking atmosphere. Not Lina's flagship, you realised a moment later, subduing the suddenly rising panic and desire to just be there, right now. There was wreckage strewn all around the dreadnought squadron, remains of their attackers no doubt. But what had they been? A moment later, you realised, your perceptions catching the shattered remains of several Shiplord cruiser squadrons retreating behind the advancing mass of their own dreadnoughts.

The Shiplord cruiser force which had entered the field when you'd hit the carriers had made it through the withering fire of First Fleet's heavier assets. They'd found their range, and though they'd died, they'd savaged the core of Lina's capital force. Even as you watched, massed grav disruptor fire lanced out towards the most heavily damage human dreadnought. It was already launching escape pods. Damnit, damnit! First Fleet's formation was tightening, and you could see Lina's intent as orders continued to flow from her flagship with metronomic steadiness.

You wanted to contact your daughter, to make sure she was alright, but there was no time. The decision you had to make. :If we go back, they'll bring in whatever they have right on top of First Fleet. They're not as badly hurt as they look, but if they're put up against fresh forces, along with what the Shiplords are aiming at us?: The perception of a sick headshake pulsed out from you to your Heartcircle. :I won't sacrifice them for us. Not if we can help it. They need time to recover. We can give them that.:

Even as those words left your mind, your extended perceptions registered the FSN carriers launching again, an anti-shipping strike that had suddenly become vastly more important. They'd be aiming for drive nodes this time, not kills. If they were going to succeed, they'd have to be able to engage freely. Which meant keeping you here, preventing the carriers from recovering. Even leaving one or two alive could mean failure for Fighter Command's strike.

:So we go looking, then.: Kalilah's voice was rich with anger and the tightly controlled desire that had made her a Potential of Destruction. You felt the Heartcircle shift closer as you formed your reply, preparing to support you.

:Together.: Lea's hand found your shoulder, her mental voice firm, backed by the will of the rest of your Heartcircle. :Like we should be.:

:Of course,: you sent back, the words thick with emotion. It wasn't that you knew better than to argue, though you did. But they were there beside you in this, no matter the danger. That meant more than words, or even thoughts, could properly express. :Thank you.: And before they could reply, you reached within, grasped the far smaller web of your Heartcircle, and cast yourself from it out towards the danger lurking beneath the surface of your present.

What you did wasn't a Thoughtcast, or at least not in the way Insight did them. It was closer to what a Thoughtcast might be if Harmonials attempted it, using the connections between things to seek an answer instead of diving into the space between reality. Your soul burned against your breast as you slipped from the web of humanity into that of the Shiplords, the closest thing to pain of the soul you'd felt since Purify. It pushed at you, like an itch you couldn't scratch, reminding you of everything that had led to that Word, and why you'd used it.

For a moment, it was almost too much, the feeling and memory together stronger than your will alone. But it wasn't just your will. Your Heartcircle's presence was a ring of adamant around your soul's outrage. They didn't try to neutralise or hide it; it was yours, after all. They just held it steady, until you could focus on it fully. Something you certainly couldn't do now, as your focused awareness flashed across the web of the Regular Fleet, searching for the weapon being aimed at you and the rest of Two Twenty Three.

Unveiling the Unknown: 87 + 18 (Martial) + 66 (Practice) vs 18 + 40 + 30 (Essence Disruption) = 171 vs 88. Greater Success.

It was almost too easy. The feeling of threat resonated out from a single point of the web, and the bare veil that wrapped the construct was no barrier against you. Again, this wasn't a Thoughtcast; you couldn't access data in the same way Insight could – and that was good. But you were working to learn something, nonetheless. Reaching out across space and more to find the truth. And find it you did.

Six ships hovered in the faint light of a thousand distant suns, and their profiles easily identifiable as Shiplord dreadnoughts. Yet they weren't entirely like those already on the field, something told you, and as you closed in on their presence within the Regular Fleets connections, the why of that started to filter through. Something about those ships, deep within them, screamed of danger in a way nothing you'd ever encountered could. It wasn't Practice; you knew what that felt like. It wasn't even truly similar, not in its form. But as a function…yes, it bore some likeness.

It was a blade, poised to cut. The knife, raised in preparation to drive home. Deadly power, focused behind inhuman intent, but without the Focus you knew. And built, you felt sure somehow, so very long ago. Weapons. Not built to fight you, you thought, but it was close enough.

:Never built for us,: Elil said, his words faintly distorted by the web around you. :Those are older than humanity, Amanda. And,: his voice grew more distant as he concentrated on his own Focus. :They're something that they learned to build. You don't learn to do something like that unless you have a reason.:

:How?: Mir demanded. :How could they build something like that, something so close, and not know Practice?: He wasn't expecting an answer, but even if had been, none of you had one to give.

:But they do,: Lea corrected, the memory of words exchanged as the Second Battle of Sol had still raged rising to the top of your mind. :We've known that since before the Second Battle of Sol. Even if the Shiplords can't use Practice, they know what it is. We know they understand the power of the soul.:

Kalilah spoke over your fellow mender, the words crawling with disgust. :Of course they'd build a weapon from it. If something could be used against them, they build ways to fight back.: Maybe there was another, deeper reason. Maybe not. In that moment, the truth mattered not at all when placed against the reality of what you were facing.

:Pattern shift!: Vega snapped, her own senses keener than your own in affairs of her Focus. You felt the ships begin to move, vanishing out of one perception to appear in another, much closer, and Vega spoke again. :Major shift. They're not coming for just us.:

The Shiplord web shifted in your vision, granting you a flicker of the soon-to-be. There, a fleet sent to hold Second Fleet in place. By the Third and Fourth Fleets more reinforcements, to continue the slowly turning engagement firmly to their favour. And the rest…all of it into the space around you, a space that you realised to your mounting horror must have been deliberately cleared. But not to encompass First Fleet, and that meant-

:Get us out of here, Vega.: Your voice was entirely too calm for the situation. You reached out with Sidra, and cut through the whirlwind of commands pouring from Lina like an awl, your shared presence descending upon her like an axe of silent purpose. You didn't let her speak, there wasn't time. :They're moving. A screen aimed for the second, rest to us and the Third/Fourth. Targeting the 223. Will be effective. You have less than a second.:

The orders stopped, and for a single, terrible moment you thought that you might have come too quickly, dragging Lina's beyond the capabilities of her implants. One microsecond, then another. You gathered your thoughts again, she had to act! And then a raft of new commands poured from the mind of the most talented human tactician since the Sorrows, reshaping the battle in an instant.

Second Fleet darted out of the Stellar Exclusion Zone as Shiplord craft burst into existence around them like a bloom of lethal algae, and their drives swept them away before the Regular Fleet force could fire a shot. They appeared behind First Fleet within long-range weapons range of the Shiplords and a flurry of grav disruptor fire erupted from the fresh FSN battlegroups, to cover their comrades' retreat. System defence forces were already moving to stop the Regulars force short of Earth and Mars, racing towards the Shiplord fleet that now had nothing in its path.

Part of your mind idly noted it bypassing your fortifications, ignoring the fleet bases but for a single firing pass. Those stations would need repairs, and you didn't want to think about how many people had just died aboard them, but they were still there. The Regular group dived into the deeper system of Sol, the massed stations of the Beltway leaving them little choice, and you found the time somehow to spare a heartfelt thought for the system defence forces.

Another part saw the Third and Fourth fleets suddenly race together, their combined fighter strength catching the Shiplord drone mass short in a corona of brilliant detonations. Half again the current Shiplord strength arrayed against them flickered into being around them, but their motion arrested the attempt by the source of the drone wave to drive between them. With the two FSN fleets coming together, that would have been suicide.

Third and Fourth Fleet: 97 + 24 (Martial) + 20 (Web of Unity) + 40 (Harmonics) + 10 Electronic Superiority vs 100 + 32 (Nat 100 rollover) + 45 (Martial) + 20 (Synchronisation) + 20 (First Traditions) = 191 vs 217. Failure.

Third and Fourth paid for that manoeuvre, and your heart clenched tight as hundreds of fighter craft burned away, sacrificing their lives to buy the rest of the fleet time. How many families had just lost loved ones there? Not now, you told yourself. There wasn't time. Long-range fire spat from the three Shiplord forces that now surrounded the joined human fleets, and with them still reorganising, their cruiser squadrons took the brunt of it. The heavier human craft moved back out as fast as they could, fast enough to stop the losses being anything more than painful, but any loss in that new situation was a bad one.

Not that you could afford to linger on it. The craft carrying those ancient weapons flickered into being around the Two Twenty Three, attended by shoals of support craft. And you spared a very brief moment to thank Lina for the single order she'd given you. Templefall. One of the execution codes for Case Samson's second stage, and the one which released the Two Twenty Three of all restrictions. That order rippled out across your own small web in the same instant as the shape of the weapons about to be fired against you. If the Shiplords had thought your display against their drones had been something, they were about to learn otherwise.

There was no dancing to your formation this time; these weapons wouldn't care for evasive patterns. Vega had brought you all together, close enough for you to become a single entity, bound together by the most tangible expression of human unity: held hands. Power rolled off of your souls like a rising wind, swirling in through the Web to the focus that was you. And you felt the immaterial aspect you'd crafted of your self and soul stir as that energy raced across it. The web of the Two Twenty Three expanded, reaching inwards to the two worlds your species had made their own and the billions of lives that inhabited them.

You'd never been religious; no one really had been after the Sorrows. But you thanked whatever god or gods might be in that moment that you'd had so much in reserve when those terrible weapons fired. There was no burst of light or fury, simply a rush of overpowering energy, and then pain. Something in the way that energy struck you wasn't quite right, as if tuned to a subtly different wavelength. But it was close enough.

Strike the Void: 25 + 48 (Martial) + 45 (Unison Wings) + 40 (Harmonics) + 66 (Power of Practice) – 50 (Soultear) vs 76 + 45 (Martial) + 20 (Synchronisation) + 20 (First Traditions) + 50 (Void Weaponry) = 174 vs 211. Solid Failure.

The web Vega was crafting sheared away short of Earth and Mars, torn apart by the emotionless edge of Shiplord weapons, and your friend screamed in sudden agony as pain lashed at the very foundations of her soul. She was the first to do so. She was not the last. Scores of Aegis' flickered at the touch of that power as it reached into the link between Potential and Unison Platform and drove knives of merciless force down upon them.

None of them broke, somehow, but the pain was unlike anything you'd ever felt, and your formation staggered in place, trying to rise away from the Shiplord forces bracketing you at the very limits of your speed. But those weapons, whilst they couldn't cut through the links that made you Unisonbound, had disrupted them, and you found yourself slowing. The Shiplord craft weren't nearly so vulnerable, and with every shred of your power dedicated to defence, there was very little you could do against them anyway.

You cast your staff away, focusing purely on the feeling of energy surging wildly inside of you, your Focus screaming even as picks of ice drove into your mind and heart. You were screaming too, you realised later, but even that was a distant thing in that moment. You focused on those things around you, your friends, screaming in pain.

"You're humanity's daughter too, but you're ours."

Your family, just Mary and Iris this time, and how much faith they'd put in you. What it would mean if you fell here. What humanity, and so much more than humanity, would lose.

"How can you give us hope?"

Your vision blurred, aqua and emerald sparks trailing your fingers as they fought for purchase. The beat of your heart, in time with two hundred twenty-two others, all fighting to find a way through the inhuman energy choking you. The light of your souls, over four hundred all told, guttering like a fire suddenly robbed of air. The weight of an empire that had chained the galaxy in darkness for millions of years.

"It's easy to forget the sun when darkness reigns."

You fought for the words, the moment, the feeling. More light pooled around your hands, spreading up along the elbow-length gloves of your Aegis, wrapping you in colour that fought to be real against the new weapons of the Shiplord fleet. Intent flooded through you, fighting to be made real. Words give actions purpose, you knew this. Purpose is power. But forming even the first syllable seemed so very hard. Maybe-

Harmonics: 100 + 96 (Nat 100 rollover) + 45 = 241 vs DC 40. Absolute Success.

Vega sang. There were no words, no meaning, not even a melody. Just a single, perfect tone that cut through the veil of choking shadows around you like a new dawn, and the circlet of silver metal she bore kindled to life once more, its fires those of a newborn star. For a few short instants, the dark-haired Harmonial stood alone against weapons beating down upon the Two Twenty Three. She bought time to recover, breathe.

That Brilliant Symphony: 47 + 45 + 10 (Unity Circle) = 102. Success.

And for the Web she anchored, that you'd all been torn from, to race out from her again. And this time, it held a fragment of her soul's light. The Shiplords' weapons would tear and twist at that, but they would not break it as easily as they'd done before. Not without time to focus on it. Time you would not give them.

You drew in power along the links to the Circles and more, reaching out to thirteen billion souls, united in a harmony of many parts. That you would not die, that you would find victory, that their children would live, or their parents would survive. The world stilled as you drew all that in, a breath of all the things that had been found to make life worth living after the Sorrows. A deep, deep breath, from something far vaster than you.

And then the Artefact built upon Sidra, the Artefact linked so intimately to your soul that it had changed the way its power could touch the world. The Artefact forged of pure concepts, and an echo of humanity's brilliant power. That Artefact…

…woke.

The patterns of energy around you tilted suddenly, forming a funnel that a touch of riotous life spun into a whirlpool. Those currents, now suddenly static, stabbed up through the Web that had created them, puncturing it in a score of places, but only those upon which power flowed. And all the strength contained in those channels poured suddenly, endlessly, into your soul.

Catching Shadow: 88 + 106 (Practice) + 80 (Unisonbound Ace) + 50 (Mender's Soul) - 86 (Soultear) vs 82 + 45 (Martial) + 30 (Essence Disruption) + 50 (Void Weaponry) = 238 vs 207. Success.

Light of your own shattered the world, just as Vega's started to falter, and a shroud of aquamarine light tore its way into being around the Two Twenty Three, anchored by a tiny star of blue-green and silver at your breast. It didn't burn; that would have implied consumption of something to maintain it. It simply was, and the Shiplord assault withered at the touch of its light. You felt hatred then, beyond the impersonal edge that had cut into your souls, and paid it no mind.

The Shiplords had wielded their hate against the will of humanity once before. They had lost then; they would lose again now. You did not think that; you simply believed it to be true. That was enough.

The cloak of radiant light around you and your fellows flowed and twisted like liquid, catching the power set against it with absent perfection. The flagging, choked Aegises of a dozen of the unit's least skilled Potentials solidified again as the link behind them stabilised. You still couldn't move as quickly as you needed to to escape, but you had survival now. And yes, what the Shiplords had done couldn't be easily escaped. They'd be able to stay with you now, wear you down, and for all your power the Two Twenty Three were skirmish forces. Capable of entering the crucible of battle and emerging whole, yes. But not for long, and against weapons like these, not long at all. Which meant another choice in the offing.

At the centre of a maelstrom of power, just barely holding back the attack of your enemy you might be. But you always had options. The perks of not fighting alone. The ideas came in concept form only, no words, but they came. Four, above all, the rest derivatives, and the words pulsed in your mind. You could seek to overwhelm the assault against you, or simply overcome it. You could try to escape, too, thought that would take you through the lion's share of the Shiplord Fleet to reach safe harbour. And of course, there was another choice. To forge a path of Words from the strength of your soul, and set it against power of Shiplord science.

There wasn't a single one of those options you liked, but there was a time and a place for such luxuries. Now wasn't one of them.