"Wait did you- how did you manage to nab a large scale simulator room for just us? That's nuts, these are for whole squadrons or large elective classes!" splutters Setsuna as the Flight steps onto the escalator down to the large scale simulators.
"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little larger, Setsuna," Sandra replies demurely, hiding her mouth behind her hand, "As for how… well, a lady must keep some secrets."
Setsuna gapes like a fish for a moment, then reddens, "Y-y-you, you aristocrat! Size and height aren't everything you know! Shape is also important!"
Sandra raises a slender eyebrow calmly, then crosses her arms and bows her head in thought, "Have we changed the topic to our Valkyrie Frames? I suppose Albion's exclusively torso and arm mounted weaponry does create a top heavy frame, but it greatly simplifies impact dampening."
Setsuna walked face first into that one.
Also hmm, Sandra pulled some strings?
Setsuna looks ready to pop again, and pins him with a glare. You look on with concern, ready to intercept any attacks that Setsuna may launch.
"Koji, you better not be thinking perverted thoughts."
Koujirou manages to rein in his giggling long enough to waggle his eyebrows at Setsuna and riposte, "Whatever could you mean Setsu? You know, it really takes one to know one."
Setsuna probably lewdest of the group.
…[15-34 TFS dustoff TAB15] [m&DtChk`4sM@ugtBmaz-kkk2bf*&6T7CTFDUzF3hZ$2@h9HxvM@Kva&'sPWpxU~#] [AG BB 7-1 entering envelope, fire.] [No eyes on Saskatoon, anomalous readings continue.] [SRGMs on targets in KZ115] [Confirm final smoothing of the Breach tunnel. The Hive superstructure is exposed. No Higgs reactions detected. Fairbanks Hive is gone for good.] [New contacts, solid, 1-8-0 klicks.] [1-26-5-11 ARBAT, range good, firing at targets] [Seismic activity, centered on sector C13] [I want high eyes for Sekhmet, where is that fucker?] [Higgs Burst detected, matches no known release patterns, stand by.] [Good kill! Good kill! More bandits, dead ahead!] [PmpfrVMm\\qUEXVucx\\4L6Mpcyf\\aaVLtn3A\\aT4X8gik\\5oacbaoq] [Severe spatial shear detected, all units watch for exotic principle weaponry!] [First time in six years, what a turnaround.] [Missiles clear, good signal!] [1-26 WIG entering box C5-22. Going active!]
Noise.
It's everywhere.
High-level communications. Low-level data validation.
Strategic and tactical chatter. There is so much of it racing through the air.
[Calling UNNECOM Priority One! Saskatoon Breach is down! It's down, it's down! Repeat, Saskatoon Breach is has been destroyed!] [Say again?] [Armstrong Base confirms, gravetic surges match initial Breach collapse patterns. Other Major Arcologies still processing.] [We don't need confirmation, we can see the exposed Hive!] [Traces of Breach still present, but no Higgs Reaction, the Hive is down!] [High Recon can confirm, Breach tunnel has dissipated!] [Armstrong to Third Fleet, priority one. Fire mission immediate. Saskatoon Hive is exposed.]
>>UNNECOM to all: Saskatoon Breach has been destroyed. Antagonist forces pulling back from all northern sectors and shifting south. All reserves prepare for immediate advance on Los Angeles Breach.
The message felt… familiar.
This is a pretty powerful item on the meta side. We gave the audience a good hint of what Anna was up to if they paid attention to all the background radio chatter.
"Anna, you're on the wrong heading."
"Wrong heading?" you wonder out loud as you pull yourself to a stop.
A glance back shows the rest of the flight slowly starting to burn south east.
Strange. Why to the southeast?
… Wasn't there- Isn't there-? It should be northeast from here, right?
What?
It?
You- …When had you started to pull away? Why had you been flying northeast?
Anna living in a flashback. One she doesn't realize is there.
[Holy shit, we found Type Zero Sekhmet!]
"Anna-"
"Sandra wait. Stay away from her."
-No one was saved, and to their graves, perished and dead. All on my head.-
"Anna c'mon, we gotta hurry to make the nav marker times."
Hurry?
You were late.
-You're late-
Ah.
…
-Don't look back honey. I love you-
"Anna…-"
"In position. Proceed."
You pull in with the rest of the flight, mute your comm channels, and you scream and scream and scream and scream and scream and scream and scream.
D:
Also I noticed that they realized Anna's not safe at all in this state.
Anna usually veered between two extremes, either displaying her emotions very openly with the occasional comical exaggeration, or a blank intensity that was nearly inhuman. Sandra wasn't sure how to read the other girl, but Anna had seemed completely unruffled at scenarios listed through the simulator. Sandra had already been wary of entering the scenario based on Yukari's reaction, but the older girl had seemed to relax once they entered the scenario, seeming more comfortable in the drilled routine of flight.
That was in complete contrast to Anna.
Anna's eyes, just visible through the small eyeholes of her polarised visor, appeared impassive, but her frame writhed. Its malleable surface almost seemed to vibrate and shudder, and her weapons, all of them expressed to their full autonomous states, shifted forms and bearing erratically.
Pointing northeast, then back forwards, then northeast again.
Hmm, interesting outside view on Anna. The child and the killing machine.
Also she can control her face but her weapons tell the full story...must be kind of scary to have all the dakka in remote forms and sweeping for targets.
Very fascinating for the audience(who based on her past sensor exploits, would be watching that side for an ambush), very scary for her flightmates.
"Shuri, Ride of the Valkyries."
Shuri sighed softly, her exasperation clear, "You want to inspire her by showing off? Sandra, I doubt-"
"No Shuri, we demonstrate to Anna how much of a difference we can make, that she can make, with this scenario."
"You think she can ignore what happened and see what is happening here and now instead?"
"I believe so. This was what we planned anyway, so we just need to, um, need to… pound it in?"
Hmm Sandra got access to the sealed records? And Shuri NOW knows, when she didn't before.
Was she linked to the UN probe we said hi to?
Or did they pull some strings to research the strange teammate.
Up ahead, the Golden Ace weathered the forces without the slightest hint of trouble, shunting aside most of the water and smashing apart a path through which the rest of the Flight followed. Shuri's Impeller was spread out deliberately wide, pushing ahead of it a plasma bow that probably would have broken Setsuna's own frame and field both in half if she tried to do the same. All this force didn't even strain Shuri in the slightest, and from the documentaries that Setsuna had watched before joining the Valkyries, Shuri could cruise way faster than this, even when acting as the icebreaker for an entire squadron.
Speaking of strong and steady… behind the main group, Anna was… being Anna. She flew above Shuri's wake, somehow keeping up with the speed of the flight despite hardly leaving a visible trail. Anna also seemed completely oblivious to the unnecessary strain she was placing on her Impeller Field that she could have avoided by dipping a hundred or so meters lower.
Setsuna felt a slight sense of longing mixed with jealousy as she looked on at the two Aces. The sheer power that they displayed by so casually cutting through the wind and water. Different from the chaotic display of aerial prowess shown by Anna yesterday night, where chance and luck could be blamed for at least some of what happened; this was a silent affirmation of skill and strength by both Aces.
Classic V formation, good for flying in general by reducing air resistance on the rear. Normally you're supposed to cycle through the group, but only Anna and Shuri count here.
Meanwhile Anna still cannot into teamwork, though she's using what she has VERY efficiently if she's not leaving a trail.
Koujirou flew just under Shuri, completely within the envelope formed by her Impeller, so he looked fine. Sandra cruised behind and slightly above Shuri, pretty much at the center of Shuri's wake, so she was peachy. Yukari flew steadily on the edges, like Setsuna, but had probably done something with her Impeller to lessen the strain on it. Setsuna herself was honestly struggling somewhat to keep up.
Setsuna didn't really think she'd get along with Sandra at all if the foppish flight leader kept the cushy positions for herself. Really, what was Koji thinking just merging the Flights like that?
It was the boobs wasn't it? Boobs and hair probably. Overdeveloped girls, the true enemy of all other girls.
Glaring darkly sideways at the unsuspecting Sandra, Setsuna looked Albion over. Top heavy? Top heavy? Dammit, Setsuna swore that sometimes Sandra was pressing her buttons on purpose.
Eyes on the mission, Setsuna.
Before the silent stare-off could get awkward, Sandra frowned and turned her head back forward as her Impeller flickered slightly and her flight path shook. Ahead, Shuri's thrusters glowed even brighter as she led the Flight into an accelerating descent, keeping with the suggested flight ceiling.
… Actually, thinking about that, if Shuri was pushing that much air, wouldn't Sandra be flying inside Shuri's thruster wash? Setsuna takes a brief look with her IR scopes. Shuri's exhaust cone was huge and Sandra flew pretty much at the center of it. In fact, despite condensing her Impeller to reduce cross-sectional area, Sandra was collecting a plasma sheath of her own from following behind Shuri.
…So Sandra actually had the hardest position in the formation.
Is the thruster exhaust plume that large or is Sandra flying just REALLY close? That doesn't sound efficient unless she's trying to screen someone who doesn't know from the jet.
Yukari looked solemnly over the landscape.
Black oceans. Burning clouds. The red glow of the false dawn on the horizon.
Exactly as she remembered.
All but real.
"Everyone, I'm finally here…"
Yukari got some closure at least. That's good
[Incoming Missiles. ~10,000 active engines. ~40,000+ warheads total.]
Bars of incandescent white light and dim blue flares raced up from the dark smudge of land in the distance to answer them. Antagonist laser and particle anti-air.
Flashes of lights appeared all over as missiles and missile defences struggled against each other.
One cluster of lights broke off from the main wave falling from orbit, accelerating ahead. A strange translucent ripple in the air appeared, visible even from hundreds of kilometers distant, as something happened and the anti-air fire abruptly slackened.
Just as quickly, the double A picked up again, this time much more intensely, directed at the Valkyries, because that's what they had to be, who wove through the air like quicksilver.
And there's Anna all the way in the distance.
There were only eighteen Valkyries in Pinnacle, not really enough to be called a squadron, but then again, they were part of the Three Hundred. Rules didn't really apply the same way for them.
[Higgs Particle Reaction detected!]
Type Twos. Dozens of them lifted off from the shore and converged.
Koujirou's breath hitched. This was what he had feared, that there would be Types hiding along the shore. Pinnacle was nearly one hundred and fifty kilometers distant, flying high with no regard to the anti-air fire, and he had nothing that could reach nearly that far.
The two forces smashed into each other-
-and Pinnacle ripped apart two dozen Type Twos in a tenth as many seconds and continued on without a pause.
Power level differences are pretty dramatic.
[Incoming Missiles. Two waves. 35,236 active engines. 99,141 warheads total.]
[Additional Incoming Missiles. Ten waves. 390,601 active engines. ~1,019,500 warheads total.]
That, is a lot of dakka, I notice about a third of the missiles have active engines. Staggered thrust cycles to fool AA?
Sandra delicately adjusted the target allotment for the flight data streaming in over local TACNET.
Target information for Antagonist unit formations streamed in, markers for whom in the flight -or even nearby friendly forces- would be most appropriate and able to strike. Despite the thick dust, jamming, and radiation from the missiles and other previous passes of the forward Valkyrie Squadrons, there was still an overwhelming number of solid contacts on scope. Anna truly excelled in sensory capability.
TACNET rapidly passed a list of targeting priorities to Sandra for review. She looked it over for just a brief moment before dismissing it and formatting another target list on the fly. While it was somewhat tempting for her to simply allow TACNET to mark all of the Antagonists for Anna to eliminate, it would not be beneficial for the Flight as whole, or even Anna herself, to do so.
Anna can do that any time on her own in the simulator anyway
Anna would be well aware of how trivially she could destroy the nearby Antagonist forces defending the coast. The knowledge had never appeared to help her in the past.
Yukari would not benefit from such a course of action either. Sandra had only skimmed her file in the time that she had after dinner, but cutting Yukari out from participating significantly in this scenario would be detrimental to the extreme.
Sandra at least knew well of Shuri's story.
Sandra felt her mouth turn downwards slightly in distress at the state of her fellow cadets before stiffening her lips. Helping others was what she did. It was something that anyone who could, should.
And we get a look at Sandra's own issues. She needs to Help.
And it looks like her approach is staggered, positive interaction with the source of trauma to reduce the intensity. That she made a difference.
But she's missing the Too Late aspect of things. Anna was too slow once, and for this mission, even though it was counted as a success
it was still too slow. She can't make progress on this without knowing what Anna thinks is her failure.
