Vae
Victoria
11 July 22PI, 0900 Hours, CO Quarters, Perth Ark
General Alexander Rushfield was having a normal start to his day. He had woken up at 0600 drenched in sweat after the usual nightmares – the shrink wasn't able to help as much as he might have liked – and hadn't hesitated before walking into his shower. Five minutes of cold water preceded fifteen seconds of powerful blowdrying and then he was throwing on his uniform. By 0610 he was slamming his back into the chair behind his desk and hammering the power button of his computer. His routine, however, was cut off when the door slammed open and 1LT Sara Harkin dashed into the room, features wild. Rushfield leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk.
"General, Sir, there's been news…"
The Lieutenant was clearly out of breath, her posture slightly hunched, and he waited a few moments before gesturing for her to continue. Rushfield knew that there was only one kind of news that would warrant this sort of behavior, and that was news from the Space Fleet – even if the Ark was under serious threat, the notification would have been electronic, because that wasn't particularly abnormal.
On the other hand, the last time there had been news from the Fleet they had received the plans for the FTL. Any news from up above had to run the orbital blockade to get past all the jamming, and the casualty rate for that was too high for communications to be anything but the highest priority.
"It's – It's the fleet, Sir. They're…"
Pull it together, girl… "Speak up, soldier!"
She fell to her knees, disbelief and… was that hope written on her face? Tears… good lord, the general thought, what kind of news could possibly cause such a—
"They're saying Fairbanks minor is gone!"
Crash! In one motion Rushfield's torso was positioned over his desk, hands splayed on the surface, chair on the floor where it had slammed into the wall behind him.
"HOW?"
Back in 1-3PI, Humanity had tried everything, everything to destroy a breach. That had ended in despair, when two million soldiers had been sent against Uralsk minor and were slaughtered to a man. Ark construction had begun three months after that.
"I, I saw the sensor readings, Sir. There was just the usual jamming, and then everything was just… it was just… so white…"
11 July 22PI, 2300 Hours, The Ruin
She had been so stupid. In her desperation to stop the attacks, she had just… left them.
All that was left when she got back was a crater and a Big One. Pretty soon after that, it was just the crater.
She had searched, searched for hours, sobbing and choking and crying out for please, anyone, please be alive.
And in the end, in the deepest bunker at the center of town, she had found the remains of a fratricide – twenty corpses full of bullets and one dying man, just barely alive enough to spit at her and call her a demon before slumping over.
She had failed them, and all that remained was for her to die, too. But she would not go quietly. She would take her revenge. She had the wave, now, and she knew there were more of them out there and that she could hurt them hurt them bad and she would.
But first she had a job. She lowered the body into the grave and took up the shovel again.
17 July 22PI, 0100 Hours, Saskatoon Minor ("the bad evil place")
She needed something more. She wanted to kill them all, she was going to kill them all, but she knew she would need more power to do it, the Massive One had shown that to her and the leg that was still repairing rebuilding was proof of it too. The wave would help but it was cumbersome to use it. She thought she could use it better, felt like she would be using it better pretty soon, but she needed more if she was going to kill them all because what if there were two Massive Ones? And there would be eventually because that was what they did they got stronger and bigger and faster and there were more of them.
And that was why she had come back to the evil place where they had come from. Because the wave was from them, the lasers were from them, the particle projectors were from them, the batteries were from them, the power generators were from them. And so she went to the Massive One and the evil place, and she searched them, and she thought and learned and planned and asked and modeled and then she took and took and took. There was nobody left to provide for, no use for a generator but to power the weapons to kill the enemies. No reason to put anything aside. And as she thought those thoughts she cried because the enemies had killed her even if she was alive.
Time to integration: five weeks.
Kill. Them. All.
23 August 22PI, 0300 Hours, CO Quarters, Perth Ark
"…ir. Sir!"
General Alexander Rushfield snapped awake and grabbed underneath his pillow before he remembered that he no longer allowed himself to sleep with a gun because these days, nobody who wanted to kill him would ever wake him up. He flipped his vision to the form standing above his bed, and then he barked out "Status report, Name, Rank, SN!"
The reply was quick. "Sara Harkin," and that meant that they weren't under attack, because no soldier under his command would start with their name if the status was urgent, "1LT, 812402326, more news from the Fleet, Sir!"
The General rubbed his right eye as he processed the fact that the fleet had felt this important enough to run the blockade again for the second time in less than two months. That could mean… that could mean a lot of things. "Well?"
"It's incredible. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, Sir, but… the sensors have been picking up what looks like a war in British Columbia. Something's heading southeast from Alaska in the general direction of Saskatoon Minor, and the whole province is just filling up with explosions. It started a couple days ago, apparently, and the Fleet has decided to raid the orbitals over Northwestern BC, see if they can clear up some of the jamming and figure out what's going on down there."
Alexander Rushfield had had a great many surprises in his life, but this just about took the cake. If the fleet was actually mounting an attack, then at least a massive chunk of the Surface-To-Space Antagonist weapons in the area had been destroyed. The Admirals weren't stupid and they weren't suicidal.
And that – god almighty, that meant that somebody was fighting the AGs and winning.
"LT, if they drop a comms line through the BC orbital, are we gonna be able to hear it?"
"Probably, sir, and they dropped off the frequency with the news, but we'll only be able to hear faintly, and we might be the only ones. AGs don't have much jamming in the ocean, but the curvature issue this far apart…"
The chance to have sustained comms with space was, the General decided, too good to pass up. "Then send a wing or two out on relay missions. If they send one single bit of signal, I want to hear it."
23 August 22PI, 1500 Hours, CIC, Perth Ark
It was a lot more than a bit.
The chance for sustained communication between Space Fleet and the Perth Ark made everyone extremely happy for a great variety of reasons, not limited to but certainly including scientific data transfers, family reunions, and the various higher-ups actually getting to talk to one another. Besides that stuff, though, the Fleet had linked a real-time stream of the sensor feeds from BC, which was why the CIC, among other places that had screens to put the stream up on, was filled with cheers. As far anyone could tell, the population of BC consisted of something like a million AGs and a single dot that the analysts were saying appeared to be a cross between a Valkyrie and a Titan. Whatever that dot was, it was crushing everything that got in its way and sometimes detouring to crush stuff that was out of its way, too, all the while moving towards Saskatoon Minor. Every once in a while, every sensor output that was being shown would inflate wildly, the visuals would go white, and then when everything came back online a big AG signature or three would be gone. After the first couple times when nobody had had a clue what was happening, somebody from the Fleet had sent over a message detailing that the white screens were the result of high-energy events being generated by the dot, and the next time everyone had clapped and whooped and hollered – and the time after that, and so on.
So when the unmistakable signature of a Titan had emerged from the AG lines to engage the dot, everyone had leaned forward in their seats in quiet horror, hoping for another white flash, hoping that a white flash would be enough to destroy a Titan because while the flashes were clearly deadly to even the biggest AGs, a Titan was on a whole other level.
Then the screen went red.
There had been no warning, no inflation of sensor values. Just a satellite view of BC one moment and red all over the next.
And if people had been worried at first by this, then when the screen was starting to clear up and suddenly went completely red again, some of them despaired.
The screen pretty much stayed red for a whole minute, and then finally the gradual fade-in of the satellite image wasn't interrupted and everyone cheered, because the dot was there, and the Titan wasn't.
24 August 22PI, 1200 Hours, Hell, British Columbia
Man gives innumerable prayers to Heaven for salvation. Heaven replies with nothing but death to recompense Man. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
25 August 22PI, 0800 Hours, CIC, Perth Ark
"We're sure they're on course for Los Angeles Major?"
"Yessir, ETA four days and five hours, plus or minus three hours."
The General gave a grunt. The analysts had run the numbers; whoever it was down there was going to be in over their head attacking a Major, let alone one close enough to a separate minor to be reinforced. Rushfield didn't think he could let that happen, and so here he was, deciding to risk everything for this… this little dot, this little speck of firepower and hope.
No. He was deciding to risk everything for humanity's greatest hero and the good of all.
1LT Harkin came through the door with a tablet held under her arm, and he turned towards her, making eye contact and motioning her over. She spoke quietly, knowing that most of the Ark had not yet been notified of any of Rushfield's plans.
"Construction of engine number six will be finished in three hours and testing will be done in five more. Barring anything huge, we'll be ready in about ten hours."
He nodded, and then walked out of the CIC. As was his duty as quasi-dictator of Ark Ship Perth, he had a speech to write.
27 August 22PI, 1600 Hours, Perth Ark
"I am General Alexander Rushfield, Commander-In-Chief of this Ark. As you all know, there is a Hero in North America. They have already done the impossible – they have destroyed Fairbanks and Saskatoon breaches. And they have done it alone. But they are right now on course for Los Angeles Major Breach, and the math says that they won't be able to take it by themselves. I'm going to say that again, our hero will not be able to take Los Angeles Major Breach alone.
When the Ark program was established in 4 Post Impact, it was recognized that AG jamming would eventually cut all reliable communications between the separate Arks as well as with the Space Fleet. The need for a strong military government lead to the appointment of a single commanding officer with absolute authority over each Ark, with the provision that those officers are required to adhere to one single rule: that everything comes second to the survival of the human race.
I don't know if everyone has heard of the concept of a blue zone, so I'm going to talk about it. When, eight years ago, we and the other Arks received the first message from Space Fleet since the loss of communications in 6 PI – and, may I add, the third to date – it had three primary topics. The first was the details for the FTL drive technology that will one day allow the Arks to escape the Solar System. The second was the news that Ark Ship Noah, widely regarded as humanity's greatest hope, had been destroyed in High Earth Orbit two months before it would have become functional. The third topic was the Fleet itself, and the need for a blue zone, an area where the fleet could enter atmospheric orbit for retrofitting without being annihilated by AG Surface-To-Space weapons. The communication stated that a blue zone, at the time of sending which was eight years ago, would allow the fleet to improve its capabilities by one thousand percent in two months, with an estimated extra three hundred percent gain for each year between the communication's sending and the hypothetical establishment of a blue zone.
Ark Ship Perth, if Los Angeles Major Breach could be destroyed without the loss of the hero, there is no doubt that a blue zone could be established in the area of Western British Columbia. An increase of even only one thousand percent in the fleet's capabilities would be a titanic boon to humanity, but the potential of a three thousand four hundred percent increase is something that absolutely must be sought by all possible means as pursuant to the primary directive of the Ark program. With the completion of number six engine, Ark Ship Perth is positioned to contribute to the establishment of a blue zone in British Columbia.
Thus, per my orders as Commander-In-Chief of Ark Ship Perth, at 0600 Hours on the twenty ninth this Ark Ship will commence on an atmospheric trajectory directly to Los Angeles Major Breach for a 100%-commitment fire support mission to assist the hero. The civilian section will be detached to land in British Columbia. God bless us all."
29 August 22PI, 1000 Hours, Los Angeles Approach, Hell
They had killed her and now she was killing them. But… it hadn't been quite right, recently. Something had felt wrong. And now she knew. Because this Evil Place was different from the last two, somehow, bigger, darker… more. And she knew that this was the place she would fall, and she did not care because she was killing them. She had taken and changed and now she used, their evil was also their downfall. And then the sea of them parted and there was not a Massive One but three Massive Ones and she knew that now was the time she would fall because the sea of them was too powerful for her to attack the Massive Ones with the Wave without being destroyed.
And it was at that time and in that place that there was an other. One that was not them and not her. It was powerful and weak and massive and so, so small all at once because its form was huge and its weapons innumerable but every single one was pathetic. It looked like a pyramid and flew like a rocket and she felt it and it sang to her. It sang and the words were plot firing vectors confirm y/n firing and it did her bidding and tried to kill them.
I… am not alone? They are dead, blood on my hands, I am… alone?
The other was weak and its senses were feeble and so she sang to it and taught it what to do and then it no longer tried to kill them but instead did the killing of them.
And she realized at that time in that place that she might not fall there because if she did not need to attack then she could survive until she was able to attack.
Then from the other came ones like her and she knew that they were humans and realized that they would die and in that moment where she knew she might prevail she despaired.
29 August 22PI, 1010 Hours, Los Angeles Approach, Hell
"That's no Valkyrie, that's a god."
The voice of Valkyrie Actual, CO of Perth Ark's squadrons, was unchallenged as for the first time humans gazed upon their hero and understood.
Where in another time and place the Valkyrie might have been the size of a small female, it was… different. To make room for the hero's vengeance it had been enlarged. It stood at ten feet and its limbs and torso were equally bigger and around it orbited twelve massive cannons and twenty… holes. The holes were huge, a foot in diameter each, and as Valkyrie Actual watched from each one of those holes came a roaring beam of death. But what was truly intimidating were the two gun-barrels on its shoulders, because they were only partially manifested and it was clear that they were on the scale of the armaments of the Titans.
"For the Hero!"
--Original 3k omake ends here--
29 August 22PI, 1120 Hours, CIC, Ark Ship Perth
The General stared at the panel and clenched his jaw. It was a miracle that primary reactor containment hadn't been breached in the battle – or, perhaps, it was entirely by the Hero's design. It wasn't like they'd been running the ship the whole time, and when they'd figured out that the hacking was benevolent they'd stopped their futile attempts to block it. There wasn't a point in interfering with an engagement time to kill ratio twenty times higher than the usual average. She – and they knew, now, that it was indeed a she, though the chances of the Hero being male were statistically miniscule from the beginning – had originally vectored the Ark straight towards the Titans, using it to force them to split apart. There had only been two Titans a minute and a half after that, and if Perth's Valkyries could not hope to fight those abominations then they could keep the endless storm of normal AGs off of the Hero. And indeed, when they saw and understood the Red Light for the first time, every single soul of Perth knew that that was all that had to be done.
There had been… casualties. The upper decks of the ship were completely gone. The Valkyrie squadrons had been under standing orders from the get-go to conserve munitions for the AGs that would inevitably ignore Perth's forces and target the Hero, and those who lived long enough to deplete their ranged firepower had often ended up throwing themselves on incoming fire in a desperate defense.
But they had won. They had won, and as the last AG elements were being crushed General Alexander Rushfield could not have been more proud – nor more despondent. He was not one who got along well with the idea of sending his soldiers off to die, and the reported seventy-five percent casualty rate among the Valkyries did not sit well with him. That had, to his abhorrence, been expected during mission planning, and he had consoled himself with the knowledge that his orders had been carried out for the good of all – and that they had won, that those orders had succeeded – right up until they had hit the Shield.
Rushfield smashed his fist against the panel, wanting to break something but knowing that he could not allow himself to do so. All that stood between humanity and the blue zone that so many dreamed of at night was a giant dome of pure, shining, beautiful, evil golden light.
And nothing was working on it.
The moment that the Hero had established visual contact with the barrier they had fired off a Red Flash, and when the light cleared and the dome was unmarred they had done it again, and again, and again.
For all that that Red had felled Titans, the Shield simply stood and ignored it.
Five minutes ago the Space Fleet had saturated the damned thing with high-yield weapons, the latest in a fifty-minute series of attempts on what seemed to be the AG's last line of defense. People were starting to give up ho—
General Alexander Rushfield, Commander In Chief of Ark Ship Perth, Gold Cross, Medal of Britain, Father of Three watched as the Hero took up the corpse of the largest of the three Titans and threw it at the Shield, and when he saw the golden light flicker in and out of existence as it devoured the carcass of its formerly mighty defender, he knew what had to be done.
29 August 22PI, 1125 Hours, The Shield, Los Angeles Major Breach ("the More Evil Place")
She knew that this would happen when the others joined the killing. That it would end in death because she could not protect them and there would be no reward the Heavens would laugh as they all died and their prayers were snuffed out because she could kill kill kill kill and never protect never always incapable.
And as she was knowing she did not hear the song as the other whispered out takeoff initiated vector accepted vector is collision confirm y/n warning ark on collision vector all personnel to escape pods delay delay delay delay launching
She did not hear as the other arose from where she had placed it on the ground and aimed itself at the place of the Evil.
She had known despair at the death of all who came near her and more of it would not stop her vengeance. But when the other started launching vessels at the ground and she heard and understood and watched as it launched towards the light it was at that time that she knew her true mistake. The other was not like her and not like them because it was of human hands. It did not think because others thought for it and the others were humans humans she had used it she had they were dead dying gone blood her hands her hands not anyone else hersel
Kill
The other crashed into the shield, and as the shield destroyed the other, so too did the other bring down the shield.
29 August 22PI, 1125 Hours, CIC, Ark Ship Perth
Warning systems compromised vector alteration in progre
Message. Unsafe. Stop.
"Well. That's why I'm still here, isn't it?"
Authority code T&*7ii2#22098kd3 accepted. Manual override initiated. Welcome, General Rushfield.
"Message to all units. Soldiers. I never memorized Churchill. But may God in Heaven bless all of us that this might be our Finest Hour. I'll see you all in Hell at the waterhole. Rushfield out."
29 August 22PI, 1130 Hours, Los Angeles Major Breach ("the More Evil Place")
They attacked it and it did not care. Its purpose was fixed. It existed for its purpose. It killed them. It did not kill the others. It gave no heed to the internal conditions.
The others screamed, sometimes. Cried. Wept. It did not care but to ensure their safety where it could.
Its projectors created death. Its holes breathed killing. Its cannons summoned annihilation.
Man gives innumerable prayers to Heaven for salvation. Heaven replies with nothing but death to recompense Man. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill.
29 August 22PI, 1500 Hours, Ruins of Los Angeles Major Breach
The world had ended in Blue and now they sought their Angel, their Angel of Death.
What they found was a tiny girl.
Blood from her mouth. Blood from her nose. Blood from her ears. Blood from her eyes. Dead, dead all over.
But they did not despair at the sight, for they had had enough of despair, and the Angel of Death had never, never failed them. And who else could this be, for who else could have come here?
"Medic! She's got a pulse!"
I had plans for a couple more scenes… I might still do them? There was one where Valkyrie Actual told her off, politely, and one where… well, basically the scene before the end mission of Star Fox: Assault (i did it!). I had thought to do a different thing for the "blue zone" stuff and I think that would have run better – no, I know it would have because instead of that long-ass exposition speech it would have been a conversation with emotions and feelings, which is the RIGHT way to do exposition, but this just sorta happened. There's more of the battle at the end in my head – a lot more, really (I did most of this too!). Also more of… stuff. A proper "epilogue," but not really because it would just be more or less "woo the blue zone" "T_T so many are dead." I altered the location of the town and the magnitude of some breaches. It worked better. The "Type" designations aren't used because humanity was too disorganized to standardize them.
Vae Victoria – Woe be the Conquerors
