- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hysterically laughing at how seriously we've taken their vague ETA?
Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest (No SV, you are the Waifu)
- Thread starter Avalanche
- Start date
- Original
Hysterically laughing at how seriously we've taken their vague ETA?
- Location
- Illinois
CUZ YOU CAN HYPE ALL DAY
AN YOU CAN HYPE ALL NIGHT
BUT YOU JUST
CANT
MAKE THE AVALANCHE
DO WHAT AIN'T RIGHT
Last edited:
- Location
- Illinois
21358 words at content complete.
Right now in the only time zone that matters;
Status of editing;
...
...
Senpai.
I am completely okay with this.
But some poor sod is going to wake up, see your reply wordcount, and just have a fucking heart attack.
-----
Edit: And for gods sake remember to take your time. The only thing that could possibly hurt the hype would be a poorly edited post made because of time issues.
If we must walk through the valley of death we shall do so. We can certainly wait a bit longer.
Last edited:
And we're very grateful for your writing them.
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
My body is ready.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
- Location
- UTC -6
That explains a lot about how long this update took, it's the size of four quest updates.
[Personal Preference]I think a word-count between 2k and 7k works best for quests. Longer reduces perception of player agency and drastically slows how fast the QM can update, shorter tends to make it feel like nothing interesting has time to happen. (Heavily game-based quests can have less words by substituting mechanics to argue about. Said mechanics need to be communicated though, which makes it more of an information range to aim for.) Or I could just be biased towards Panopticon Quest, which usually has three-to-five thousand words per update.
[Personal Preference]I think a word-count between 2k and 7k works best for quests. Longer reduces perception of player agency and drastically slows how fast the QM can update, shorter tends to make it feel like nothing interesting has time to happen. (Heavily game-based quests can have less words by substituting mechanics to argue about. Said mechanics need to be communicated though, which makes it more of an information range to aim for.) Or I could just be biased towards Panopticon Quest, which usually has three-to-five thousand words per update.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
I'm more of the fan of these kinds of massive updates. It allows for a more consistent narrative while making every choice an important one. Plus I don't get left with that still-empty feeling and hungering for more after omnomming through under a measly ten thousand words or so.
^
Of course, on the other hand Avalanche's update rate/speed is more in line with writing a book.
It's been about a year, and Avalanche (I think, rough eyeball guess) has written as much as the average adult novel's worth. (100k-110k words IIRC for Sci-Fi?)
And I recall reading some afterwords / letter stuff from sci-fi authors where most of them talk about writing way more and then cutting it down and trimming it to fit.
Anyway, Avalanche can write.
Avalanche, Perhaps an author!?
- Location
- Leeds
Well. Monday morning and theres no update to wake me up.
Anyway if the map is still going 7:56 Bedford, England
Anyway if the map is still going 7:56 Bedford, England
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
... that's a lot of words, I can see why this update took so long. Also, because
[Hype intensifies]
Post 18
Avalanche
Atypical Netizen
- Location
- Australia
A/N: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btPJPFnesV4
XxXxXxXxXx
Reactivate involuntary biological systems?
>[]No. No concessions to combat capabilities other than those absolutely necessary.
The timeskip will be for a duration of 3 weeks for a total of 23 days, ending at the start of week 5. The next section of decompressed story arc will be the Squadron Vanguard tournament arc. Each day in a timeskip has 1 training action. Divide by percentage how many actions you wish to spend on various actions.
>[]Write percentages and skills.
-[]Train Teleportation Speed 10 points to 200/200 (Mastered).
-[]Train Energy Equivalency Precision 10 points to 200/200 (Mastered).
-[]Train Interdiction Precision 10 points to 100.
-[]Remainder:
--[]75% Wave Force Manipulation, 25% Target Rich Environment
See below.
Select your music for your training montage: (No write ins accepted)
>[]Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Each time skip week allows for 1 visit to an elective class. Select three or continue down the list.
[]Continue down the list
You will have some free time of course, anything in particular you want to do?
[]A message from Sandra? A mission? No combat and on the backlines? Strange… but of course you'll participate.
XxXxXxXxXx
The Antagonists (Hostis humani generis) are a collection of biomechanical aliens that originate from the Breaches and are currently at war with humanity. The forms that the Antagonists take are wide and varied; some individual strains form kilometer-scale static installations, while others manifest as mobile units that serve broadly parallel roles to the units of the United Nations Armed Forces, with comparable sizes. Away from the front lines, there also exist non-combatant Antagonists, which appear to service the combat-form Antagonists and form the infrastructure of the Antagonists. Due to their large number of distinct forms and roles, the Antagonists have been classified by the UN Central Government as a hostile invasive ecosystem.
Since First Contact in 45 Post Impact, the Antagonists have shown no discrimination in their attacks, attacking both military and civilian targets with the apparent goal of totally annihilating any humans in the areas they attack. The United Nations, formerly an international forum and coordination platform, was transformed into the central global government through the need for a coordinated international response against the Antagonists.
Despite the united military front that was quickly assembled, large parts of the Earth soon fell under Antagonist control. At their peak, North America, Europe, most of Northern Africa, the Middle East as far west as Afghanistan, and all of Russia east to the Ural mountains, were under Antagonist control.
Table of Contents:
XxXxXxXxXx
Okay so a little background on how the weird internal hierarchies of the UN valks works.
So everyone knows the two main officially groupings; "The Three Hundred" meaning all the Ace rank Valks and at the very top of them; "The Twenty" Genius ranked Valks. Neat and cultured. Nah. It's a real madhouse on the inside. First at the bottom you have the Aces with ranks lower than 315. Basically, can't just ask for a Three Hundred Frame and get it. And well, you all should know what that means right? Blah blah you're not actually part of the 300, 'Ace in name only' and all that bullshit.
Next rung up, ranks 100 to 315. Yeah, there's another internal division around there. Somehow, some of the Valks got it into their heads that the 'triple digits' aren't as hot as the 'double digits'. Ranks 1-99 are now prestigious in a way that ranks 100-315 aren't. So yeah, keeping count? There's already two tiers of snobbery here, Aces ranked 315 and above look down on the ones ranked lower and Aces of rank 99 and above look down on the Aces with rankings in the hundreds. It's breathtaking honestly.
Next, the so called double digits, ranks 25 to 99. The snobbery mentioned towards Aces not in the double digits tends to only surface in the upper third. Time to be hypocritical. The reason for this is the upper third of the double digits is a lot more mobile and varied in terms of ranking. Valks move into, around and out of the upper third of the double digit ranks all the time. The lower ranks from about 70 down are fairly static and everyone knows each other and are well and sick of the honestly kinda pointless competitive environment that UN promotes. Like sure, a competitive or any form of high stress environment promotes Valk skill growth, but you're all Ace rank fliers now. The UN expects you to be able to hold back low rank Zeros solo and you're all busy hissing and spitting at each other like cats.
Okay, back on track. Next grouping up from the so called 'double digit ranks' are The Twenty. Ranks 4 to 24, well, now it's 5 to 25. Maybe they'll start calling it The Thirty now, since you know, rounding up and all. I could have an entire second rant about the UN's magical world of numbers where both ~640 and 315 = Three Hundred and 24 = Twenty, but I won't. The Twenty all know that their ranks are sorted by dice rolls and coin flips, so they don't make any fuss and they certainly don't talk down to the other Aces, no matter their rank since the lot of them are, I quote, 'way too old for this shit'.
Now at the summit of the UN Valkyries you have The Trinity and The Valkyrie above them. Like how the twenty are on a different level to the other aces, these four are undeniably just on a different level above even them. The 'Queens of Silver' and the 'Zero Breaker'.
Except.
They aren't.
Not anymore according to the new ranks.
Now there's this new Rank 1. Whoever they are. I don't know, even though I'm pretty high ranked, have fun guessing btw, I'm behind seven classifications of security :^)
Sure there's always been arguments about the positions of the top 4 but they all got shoved down by this new face. All of them. The Valkyrie and the Trinity are now ranks 2-5.
Bullshit. Until I see them in action, I think the UN combat ability tests fucked up.
-Comment by user "CatsAreBest" on news article "Mystery of Saskatoon Breach" hosted on the Wider Area Network website 'TheFive.news'
I can absolutely guarantee you that her ability deserves the rank. Also, need to talk to you, stop pretending to be offnet. I know you monitor these comment thread replies IRT.
-Comment by user "Jatayu Sen" (Verified WAN Account, United Nations Armed Forces, Air Force Air Marshal, Valkyrie Ace Rank 2), highest rated response to above comment
RIP comments section.
-Comment by anonymous user, highest rated response to above comment
XxXxXxXxXx
Shift.
The surf roars below you, waves pounding on the black sand choked with debris-
Shift.
Roaring winds drive foam up from the sea below-
Shift.
The air is thin, but fast. A few clouds remain above you, and thin strips of land stretch in the distance-
Shift.
Water surrounds you; slow but heavy currents push past your Impeller-
Shift.
Igneous rocks, cold and still. Little light reaches here-
Shift.
Rocks, molten and faintly glowing red, press down heavily on your Impeller. You concentrate for a moment and-
Shift.
You are once again surrounded by air. A thin film of magma that you carelessly teleported with you cakes your Impeller like a shell.
With a slight shake, you clear the quickly cooling lava off and hover, taking a moment to review.
With the spare time afforded to you by the lack of practical lessons, you wanted to push at the speed of your teleportation. A review of the data that the UN had on Type Zeros showed that in the majority of situations, reaction speed and mobility were the decisive factors in engagements against them.
After a short burst of improvement initially as you refined your teleportation technique, you've noted no significant changes to the average time it takes for you to initiate a teleport. A thorough browsing of the UN resources on teleporting did not help you cut down on your speeds. In fact, you are already the fastest Valkyrie in terms of time needed to enter a teleport, on average, with only a few Aces, who profess to specialise in teleportation, being able to enter a teleport in similar timeframes as you.
As unpleasant a thought as it is, with no changes after three weeks of practice, you may have reached a wall as far as your teleportation entry speed is concerned.
While brooding on the subject, you capture some of the spray from the ocean waves around you, measure their mass, and convert it into energy, then back into mass. Electromagnetic, the two nuclear forces, gravimetric and then more mundane expressions of energy, you work across the spectrum. After a few minutes of this, you convert all the energy back into matter and measure its mass once again.
As far as you can tell, the amount of matter is equal to what you collected for this experiment. You may have just managed a one hundred percent conversion efficiency. Well, subject to measurement error anyway. Seeing as your Impeller was your most precise instrument, even if you were able to improve your energy conversion ability, you wouldn't be able to notice. There was no meaningful way to further improve the efficiency of your Impeller's ability to change mass and energy from one form to another.
With that quick review of your Impeller exercises done, you turn your attention to Durga. A deep well of energy lurks at the edge of your awareness; your repaired Onium batteries idle, brimming with power. Compared to the dim but constant glow of your fusion reactor as it slowly sips hydrogen from your storage, your Onium batteries are flashbulbs, ready to output immense power. However, they can only do so for a short period of time before they need to recharge. Still, now that you have an energy generator integrated into Durga, you can afford to release that entire well in a single burst at a target that presents enough of a threat to warrant it, and still remain combat capable.
Your plates are no longer a pure, cold black, which is a side effect of your Solar Dynamos capturing all the electromagnetic light that landed on you. Now, there is a faint oily iridescence about the edges of the plates, light being distorted around your silhouette by your Energy Dynamos. With this, attacks of a low enough power density will be ignored by your Impeller and absorbed by your Dynamos instead, adding to your energy reserves. The component is not as important to you as it was previously, with how advanced your ability to convert energy and mass is, now, and your fusion reactor, but you will take every single shred of Impeller you can save.
A mental ping reminds you of the time and you finish your self review, satisfied that you are in mostly working order. Turning and climbing for altitude, you inscribe a gentle arc in the air as you fly towards a rendezvous point.
Interdiction is different from the other advanced Impeller techniques. While you can theorycraft Interdiction, its primary goal is the degradation of other Impeller techniques that manipulate space. It's possible to measure the effectiveness of the technique while working alone, but then there's the risk of unconscious bias, or so the articles on Interdiction say.
You didn't have to wait long, a few seconds after the clock strikes Midday, Perth time, the space a few hundred meters away from you bulges and Instructor Langston teleports in. Vibrant yellow and gleaming bronze draw intricately detailed crests over her otherwise plain, steel grey plates. Carried on the back of her frame, the stark white of a pair of Higgs tanks glimmers, highlighted by her exhaust trail.
She looks around for a moment, then flies down to you.
"Good afternoon," she calls out, "You asked for some help from the Instructors with practicing Interdiction? Well I'm here, uh, Anna. What did you have in mind for an exercise, today?"
"Hello. I planned on a game of tag," you reply, straight to the point.
The game of Tag, when used to practice Teleporting and Interdiction, is usually set up with rules to the effect that the chaser is allowed a higher airspeed and the use of Interdiction, but the players who are fleeing are allowed free use of teleport and other spatial impeller abilities. The dimensions of the airspace used as the playing field are also usually tailored for the relative abilities of the players and modified with restricted regions that often change to add complexity. The winner of the game is then be decided on points after a number of rounds. Chasers would gain more points the faster they caught the runner, and the runner would gain more points the longer they were free. A player would lose points if they intruded on a restricted area.
"Hn, glad I brought some Higgs, then," the Instructor sighs, clapping her hands together, "So uh, how does an airspeed ratio of one and a half to one, maybe six klicks a second IAS tops sound? Starting distance, um, ten klicks, and a fifteen klick radius, ten ceiling for the field? Sixty seconds per round with a terrain shift every ten?"
You hesitate at the suggestions, a little thrown off guard.
The game parameters that the Instructor suggested are unusual. With only a one and a half to one ratio in speed, a low top speed, and a relatively large and fluid 'playing field'... it certainly won't be very easy for you to catch her.
"Those conditions are outside the usual standards," you hedge, "but very well."
"Well, you are the number one," Instructor Langston replies, rubbing the back of her helmet, "I mean, I'm not really much at all compared to the Valks in The Twenty and I'm not even a double digit rank anymore. I've really got to push the envelope to even challenge you. Uh, if I want to help, that is."
Um, you weren't really looking for a challenge- but it would be helpful, since Valkyries showed the most marked improvement when challenged.
You ping an affirmative back to her.
"... Well uh, okay then! I'll deploy the center point marker," Instructor Langston calls, expressing and launching a drone that would hover and mark the center of the arena.
Instructor Langston is… a bit odd, you decide. The other Instructors have a certain… poise and confidence in their manner, an ease about them that suggests assurance. Instructor Langston, however, strikes you as a little wobbly in comparison. She seems nervous, almost skittish, in her bearing.
A brief look at her service history reveals that she'd only graduated two years ago, and her first year of deployment in the UN North West theatre was… eventful, including twenty-seven separate encounters with fifteen different Type Zeros. Results of the ensuing conflicts were mixed. Convalescence from injuries resulted in her missing the closing battles of the Great Battle, and she was transferred to UN Oceanic Area, Perth, specifically.
That's a much shorter career than the other Instructors. Was Langston assigned as an Instructor at Perth as a form of vacation? She does seem rather more at ease interacting with her Third Years classes than she was in the recordings you accessed.
[-00:00:10.00]
The drone starts the countdown, curbing your investigation.
You hover back and up to your starting point, indicated by the drone, as Instructor Langston does the same, leaving the two of you ten kilometers apart. The virtual barriers flicker into existence across your vision, a series of walls and nets that clutter the outer edges of the arena, but do not impede your path to the Instructor significantly.
[-00:00:05.00]
You direct more power towards your thrusters; while maximum airspeed was limited to just six kilometers per second, your acceleration is, as intended, unlimited.
You assess your own Impeller as the countdown continues. By default, your Impeller is organised into twenty primary layers. Ten layers are dedicated to protecting your expressed components and vital parts of your body, as few of the latter as there are, five dedicated to defensive and quick reactionary techniques, and five more general-purpose layers for discretionary use.
You'd typically only use those last five layers for the formation of offensive techniques, but ever since coming to Perth, aside from practicing Wave Force, you've never found cause to use more than those five layers.
[-00:00:03.00]
Hmm… maybe calling it a layer was somewhat inaccurate. The sections of your Impeller often intersected and rarely stacked on top of one another in the manner that layers implied.
Blob? Volume? Section? Weave? Perhaps Partition…
What did- hmm, the standard UN terminology was also layer… but then, the standard manner of maintaining multiple layers of Impeller Fields does not bear much resemblance to yours, being an onion like wrapping around the Valkyrie like actual, well, layers…
[-00:00:01.00]
Langston's Impeller warps and begins to twist the space around it, snapping you out of your contemplation. Was she planning to shift immediately as the countdown completed?
You push your own Impeller outwards and grab at the ether, preparing to intercept. Ten kilometers was within the interference range of your Interdiction.
[-00:00:00.000032]
A thirtieth of a millisecond before the countdown ends, Instructor Langston initiates a teleport.
Oi. That was cheating.
[-00:01:00.00]
You throw out your own Impeller, tugging at space to try and destabilise the spatial tunnel. It collapses- to no effect on Instructor Langston, who initiated the teleport but did not enter, and instead is now flying away at best speed.
A feint.
You burn after her.
Quickly gaining on the Instructor, you maintain a general Interdiction, throwing out your Impeller, grabbing at and twisting the space surrounding you, and complicating any teleport attempts. Instructor Langston makes for a wide orbit around the farthest perimeter of the arena. As the Instructor evades, she pulses her Impeller, tugging at the space around her, several times on the cusp of teleporting but not going through with it. She is probably trying to bait you into wasting your Impeller, but you hold back. With the disparity in the speed at which you can initiate an Interdiction and that of the Instructor's ability to start and enter a Teleport, you can halt a teleport even factoring in reaction delay.
With the speed restrictions, you quickly gain on her, as both of you are barely obstructed by the regions of restricted space. If she doesn't attempt a teleport soon, it's likely that she won't be able to as the local spatial geometry grows increasingly distorted the closer to you it is.
[-00:00:51.76]
The space ahead of the Instructor pulls and stretches as she tries to use a spatial compression technique, but the path twists and snaps out of existence as the Interdiction you are maintaining degrades it. Standard spatial compression was many times harder to disrupt with Interdiction than a complex technique such as teleportation, but with you so close, it was a matter of semantics.
Now, you were only a kilometer away from the Instructor. Sensor ghosts race off from her frame, complex Impeller decoys, but this close, you can easily discern them for what they are and ignore them.
[-00:50:00.00]
The virtual walls shift, and both of you swerve onto new headings to avoid the solid planes of restricted space.
You recover easily, and now, barely three hundred meters distant, you reverse thrust to prevent too powerful of a collision-
Cold and frigid blue light washes across your vision.
Higgs.
Instructor Langston disappears with a static filled implosion of space as the Higgs assisted teleport bypasses your Interdiction.
She appears with a matching flare of blue light on the opposite side of the arena.
[-00:00:48.12]
Damn.
You close in again, maintaining Interdiction.
The Instructor seems undecided for a moment, then veers away.
You set out on an intercept course and feel another standard teleport beginning. Being fairly close to the center of the playing field, you are content to let it through, choosing to maintain general rather than targeted Interdiction-
[-00:00:42.51]
- except the Instructor teleports on the spot, choosing to maintain her location but inverting her course, exiting the shift in the same location but racing in the exact opposite direction.
Throwing your Impeller out wide, you slam yourself to a stop and race back after her. You don't stop as fast as you wished, and the outmost layer of your Impeller starting to fray, strained from maintaining general Interdiction for so long.
[-00:00:40.00]
The regions of restricted space change again, forming a lattice around the perimeter with broader planes towards the center.
You attempt a feint and release your general Interdiction. As the disruptions from your generalised Interdiction fades, the Instructor begins another teleport, begins to enter- and you slam it closed.
This time, there is a very distinct white flash of an Impeller reaction as the teleport fails and her Impeller saves her from being crushed as the tunnel collapses.
Your own Impeller layer fares no better, the demand of the technique eroding it to the point where it buckles under the strain. Seamlessly compensating, you expand another layer outwards, partitioning it further so that you can utilise multiple techniques without interference. With a thunderclap of compressing air, you wrench yourself forwards, Impeller shaping the air around you for better control.
[-00:00:35.80]
You are again close enough to attempt an intercept, but yet again that damn blue light flares up again, allowing for a teleport despite your immediate usage of halting.
[-00:00:34.99]
You again set an intercept course and assess the situation. Time is running out.
Instructor Langston hovers at the opposite side of the Arena, with only a minor disruption in her Impeller Field. The Higgs containers are completely opaque, and your scans are dampened by Impeller, preventing you from knowing how much more there is in reserve. You are not able to estimate how many more teleports it might allow.
[-00:00:34.79]
Time is running out. This game was ridiculous; if you could use your full capabilities, this chase would be over in moments.
You again throw yourself forwards, straining against the speed limit set upon you. The enem- the Instructor continues to keep you at arm's length.
[-00:00:30.00]
The battlefield shifts again, and danger zones appear across your vision, impeding your path.
-You can't catch it in time! Time is running out!-
[-00:00:29.00]
-Time is running out!-
[-00:00:28.00]
-Time is running out!-
[-00:00:27.00]
Time is running out.
Your second discretionary layer of Impeller twitches in protest. Broadcasting the halting technique is putting too much strain on it.
Fine.
You can work with this crisis. So what if your speed is limited? You'd never be free to concentrate all of your Impeller on one task in any real battle, but this wasn't just any battle, was it?
Gathering and compressing your Impeller, you turn all of your nineteen remaining layers to one task.
To halt it.
Space ripples as you reach outwards and tug. The force of this technique is so much greater than normal that spatial gaps flicker around you, discrepancies ebbing and flowing away from you. This is past Interdiction; when so much force is exerted on the fabric of space time that it tears, this is spatial corrosion.
But… force isn't what you are looking for, is it? Wasn't it precision that you were looking to improve?
__!
[Ex_rcise paused \ User $&^uest halt \ Mec)~^ical ?rror]
Time is… running out?
You blink as the pressure of the countdown suddenly disappears.
To your side, the drone, trailing white celluloid smoke, slowly falls from the sky, bodywork twisted by the powerful spatial shears. A dozen kilometers away, Instructor Langston hovers.
"Jesus Anna," the Instructor's voice breaks through, flecked with static, "Was that Corrosion you were about to throw? That's-"
The Instructor was yelling, her voice raw with shock and… fear. She cuts herself off abruptly. Static still faintly buzzes across the open line, rising and fading with her uneven breathing. The strange slicks of colours smeared across the sky fade as the last of the perturbations in space and time even out.
"I am sorry. I-"
What can you say?
The Instructor using Higgs to teleport… had reminded you far too closely of that one enemy. Of Sekhmet. Combined with the time limit...
You weren't- you still aren't good with time limits. Ones that work against you, at least.
"The use of Higgs against me reminded me of that- that enemy, Sekhmet… and I'm bad with time limits. I stopped thinking."
You are aware of the… trance that sometimes comes over you during combat, or even combat-like situations, where you made automatic responses, almost like instinctive moves, against anything that seemed like a threat. This time, you snapped out of it, but-
Instructor Langston stays silent, her left hand clenching tightly into a fist and her right again rubbing at the back of her helmet. The silence stretches and you search for something else to say, only to come up blank.
"It's okay, kinda my fault for not asking. Right. So no Higgs. Time limits are off limits," Instructor Langston starts up again, abruptly, "Okay… so! Uh, restart, same rules but no time limits? End on catch and all that? Uh, also, no Corrosion, please. That's not something I can deal with. Maybe if you were practicing with someone else from The Twenty."
"You want to continue?" you ask, startled.
"Yeah. No need to pack it up with just that," sighs the Instructor with a loose shrug, "Sure, that was a tad more dangerous than most cadets having a 'Whoops' moment, but we'd never get anything done if we just stopped and set up a committee whenever something happens."
"But you're okay?" you press.
"A single Corrosion pulse wouldn't have gotten through when I still had Higgs, and you didn't even throw it. I'm okay, I was just really surprised," the Instructor replies with a flippant wave of her hand.
False. On both counts.
There is another pause, then the Instructor hastily adds on, "Unless you want to call it here of course."
You don't react for a moment in surprise. Is she going to brush off the accident just like that?
-We all make mistakes… but you can't afford to, sorry. There's too much here that depends on you-
"I… I can continue," you hesitantly say.
Just like that, the Instructor expresses another drone and lobs it upwards, where it begins to rise sedately with a quiet whir of its rotors, up to an appropriate altitude.
"Hey, Anna?" she calls, as the two of you watch the drone slowly climb higher in the sky.
"Yes?"
"You should join us Instructors for some group exercises on the weekends. Or watch us, at least. It's a good way to distinguish our Higgs use signature with that of the Types. I'd always thought- I mean, given what I've heard about your sensory skills, I… uh- anyway! It's probably more fun than just sitting around in your room."
"That sounds… interesting," you allow, "I'll see about that."
"Well okay. Then um, whenever you're ready Anna."
XxXxXxXxXx
Teleportation; Speed to 200/200 (Mastered).
Energy Equivalency; Precision to 200/200 (Mastered).
Interdiction; Precision to 100/200.
XxXxXxXxXx
"I think… I think that I will be bludging the afternoon lessons."
You glance at Instructor Langston, who is sprawled out on top of your Impeller, hitching a ride as you fly back to Perth. She is slumped down, an arm thrown over her visor, her breastplate rising and falling rapidly as she pants in exhaustion.
"Sorry for making you miss your lesson," you say sheepishly.
"Joking. Just joking, I'm still going," Instructor Langston laughs, a little hollowly, "I can't set an example like that for my Third Years so early in the year."
"Besides, there's nothing for you to apologise for. That's the most practice with teleporting under Interdiction I've ever had," she continues, struggling to a sitting position, "I should be thanking you instead. Not many Aces can apply a targeted Interdiction as fast as you can or hold a general Interdiction as long as you can. Really gives me a sense of perspective."
The red dirt of Australia peeks over the edge of the horizon and Instructor Langston takes off, slightly wobbly at first, before steadying out next to you.
"Anyways, I hear there's been some breakthroughs with that project?" she probes unsubtly.
"I think that Instructors Vivas and Washington might be close to a breakthrough," you reply.
After some sessions studying the Wave Force together with whichever Instructor was available, it became clear that even with an established method of initiating the Zeroth stage, there are only a handful of Instructors who are capable of mustering the Impeller Field strength required for the use of Wave Force. In the end, many of the Instructors ended up simply spectating as you work with a small inner circle of the higher ranked Aces. There had been discussions about running another research group for the replacement of Impeller motions with Higgs particle expenditure, but as the Instructors who are skilled at Higgs usage are the same as those who have the Impeller strength to experiment with Wave Force directly, that project is on the backburner.
"Huh, figures that it would be those two," hums Instructor Langston thoughtfully, "Never thought I'd be even on the same battlefield as Vivas, let alone teach alongside her. Anyways, good luck with that, it was a great honour working with you, thank you. Talk to you later."
"Good bye," you reply.
With that, the Instructor peels away with a wave, heading north towards the flight of cadet Valkyries in her class.
XxXxXxXxXx
After Instructor Langston leaves, you continue east and again fly the familiar route over Perth towards Ordinance Testing Ground Five Zero Seven to meet with some of the Instructors who have either begged off their lessons or have the time to continue working with you on Wave Force Manipulation.
When you are halfway there, beginning your descent back into the lower atmosphere, something
!!!
something
something
happens
The sky drains of colour, shrinking towards a single point in the horizon.
A scream rips through space time, an undulation in the fabric of reality, twisted beyond reason.
Lines stretch to infinity, racing for the other side- but they aren't parallel, conflicting with each other, cancelling with interference-
Your Impeller reactively condenses to opacity, every layer turned to reject the change-
Space snaps back to normality- then it happens again, less intense, spasmodic aftershocks.
What. The fuck. Was that?
You disregard traffic regulations and accelerate at maximum speed towards the site of the… whatever it was- whatever it is, considering that the aftereffects of it are still tearing apart the land, a huge accretion disk of red dust sliding inwards towards the point of the disturbance as the ground collapses inwards to a point-
Wait.
Is this-
This has to be-
Wave Force Manipulation, a pulse of Static Wave. Shallow, noisy, not fully coherent, but it is undeniable that someone else managed to fire off the completed technique. Is… is that what it looks like from a distance? How scary.
Someone else managed-! Emotions surge inside you like a sudden fire igniting inside your body, so intense that you feel dizzy for a moment. Confusion, sharp shock, stunned elation, faint pride, and a fierce anticipation.
Then- apprehension.
The formation of Static Wave is extremely dangerous to the caster, why would someone try to launch it without you nearby to help? Are they okay? You increase your speed again as you find locations near the epicentre of the technique far too distorted to teleport into- but the distortions are fading fast. Far too fast. Whoever initiated the Static Wave must have barely cleared the minimum energy levels to sustain the Third Stage to prompt criticality. That could mean Impeller exhaustion, which could mean no remaining Impeller to target the Static Wave away from the self during the Final Stage. You increase your speed even further, soon, you'd be able to teleport closer, but that was still at least a dozen seconds away.
Radio traffic reaches you as you close in, barely decipherable.
"- blithering idiot. Cyka. Dumbass. Dipstick. Puta. Ben dan. I am going to learn Afrikaans, Korean and fucking Finnish just to let you know how much of an idiot you are."
"An inefficient use of your time. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to wait for Anna to arrive before putting our theory to the test."
"Gee. You don't say. Is eight your Rank or your IQ?"
"My rank. Also, thank you for saving my life, I would kiss you, but I think you are not very pretty."
"… do you want me to throw you back?"
"Please do not do that, I have yet to tell Valkyrie Sanchez the good news."
Instructor Washington erupts out of the disturbed space, her Impeller barely intact, carrying in her arms Instructor Vivas, who is-
You teleport down, cocoon the pair in your Impeller, then teleport both of them away from the remains of the Wave Force technique, ignoring the strain as multiple partitions of Impeller fail from forcing the teleport in such hostile conditions.
"Oh, hello Anna. I believe we have completed the working draft for your method of using the Wave Force," says Instructor Vivas matter-of-factly as you lay her down and express out your medical module.
"Oh, you need not worry about my missing parts," Instructor Vivas says distractedly, "I've got spares."
With that and a flash of white light, Instructor Vivas suddenly has arms again, the skin on the new limbs pale pink compared to her dusky complexion, the raw skin contrasting harshly against blackened and shredded plates of her Valkyrie frame. She tries to get up, but you firmly force her back down as you complete another complete scan.
Destroyed internal organs, regrown or replaced. Missing limbs, replaced. Various forms of surface trauma, closed. Fatally low blood volume, currently replenishing, likely already prioritised for repair. CNS… completely unharmed, almost certainly protected with the last of her Impeller. However, despite the replacement of the many destroyed or damaged systems, almost every single biological process in her body was malfunctioning. Instructor Washington paces behind you, swearing under her breath continuously.
"You are in severe shock," you inform the Instructor Vivas.
"I-" the Instructor chokes, her breath seizing, and resumes using radio instead of her voice, tone disconcertingly calm even as she suffers cardiac arrest amongst other issues, "I have noticed that and am working on it. I may have exacerbated the problem however, by choosing to substitute in grafts in such a manner."
With a silent snarl of frustration on your face, you retract your medical module, with so many biological abnormalities simultaneously occurring, the use of chemical remedies are out of the question and appropriate nanomachines would take too long to manufacture. Your Impeller suffuses the Instructor, easily pushing through her still weak field and you manually correct some of the major issues, manually resetting her heart activity, reinflating her lungs and reopening several major blood vessels that had collapsed and removing clots. If this was your own body, you could have resolved every issue with your Impeller, but lacked the complete awareness that you would have of your own body and you dared not use high band scans on an exposed human body, Valkyrie or not. Your Impeller is also obstructed from forming a higher fidelity picture of the Instructor's body by her Impeller as it constantly regenerates and the two fields clash.
"I might be a little strange for a few days as I get over this- anyway, to the topic at hand. To repeat, I do believe we have completed the working draft for your technique in the use of Wave Force," the Instructor continues babbling as you work, "I did not manage to complete the Wave Force attack like you did. I was hesitant in carrying through the process and therefore I lacked the Impeller strength to force the Wave into full coherence or aim it away like you do, but in every other respect, I think I have the technique correct."
With that, Instructor Vivas sends you a very, very large set of files. You don't pay them any immediate mind, withdrawing your Impeller and keeping a close eye on the Instructor's fluctuating body. Her Impeller is now beginning to work on continuing your emergency repairs as her blood volume rises into levels that are merely only dire rather than mortal.
There is a ripple of bulging space near you, announcing an imminent teleport. Warned in advance by Perth, you move your Impeller out of the way. Instructor Parks teleports in, tilts her head as she digests the scans you send her, then unceremoniously slaps one armoured palm against her fellow Instructors shredded breastplate, and the other over her visor in exasperation as she starts a Higgs assisted long range teleport.
"Excuse me, I am talking here," Instructor Vivas objects mildly.
"She'll be fine. Three days before full recovery," sighs Instructor Park with a roll of her eyes, before the two disappear with a blue flash of Higgs assisted teleport.
There is a moment of silence as you remain kneeling, the sharp panic you felt when you saw Vivas so injured was brief, the Instructor's lackadaisical behaviour deflating the tension before it could really build. Now there is just a nebulous sense of exhaustion seeming to hang over every cell in your body, weighing you down. What is that phrase that is quoted sardonically at every turn on the forums? 'Long periods of boredom followed by brief periods of utter terror' or something?
Still, there is the issue of what the two Instructors were thinking attempting to generate a Static Wave without you nearby to guard against exactly this issue from arising. You stand, then turn and pin Instructor Washington with your gaze.
"Why," you demand of Instructor Washington, before trailing off as words fail you and you settle for waving your arm over the wide dark bloodstain soaking into the red dust of the Australian soil.
"Dali, got inspired when we were reviewing the latest simulator results and sent you a message, but for some reason it failed to go through," the blonde Instructor explains distantly, shucking her helmet and continuing to stare into the distance, at the remains of the Static Wave, "We waited a little, but there was no response… Dali wanted to go through with it. Really should have stopped her… but honestly, if she hadn't gone through with it when she did, I probably would have."
… This sounds more like a disastrous sequence of events that either Koujirou or Setsuna would be involved in, not your Instructors.
The Instructor suddenly steps rapidly closer to you, swaying on her feet. Her arms rise in an aborted attempt to steady herself on you before she catches herself with Impeller.
"W-we did it, we actually did it. We managed to use your bullshit space hack attack. With just our Impeller. One Valk's Impeller, no need for some Arcology sized megastructure," Washington stutters with a voice thick with emotion, her eyes almost wild on her face, "With a little more work, us, the Three Hundred at least, can now create an effect like the God Gun- like your Wave Force attack. We finally have an answer for all the crap the Zeroes keep throwing our way…"
Washington then looks back at the ordnance testing ground in the distance, now dominated by a tall mushroom cloud as the anomaly finally unravels with a final violent release of energy.
"Well… at least once in our lives," she amends, equipping her helmet back on, her tone now controlled and subdued, "We can all take at least one Zero with us, if they stay in range long enough, if we live long enough to see the attack through…"
The shockwave from the closing of the anomaly reaches you as if to underscore the disclaimers.
"The Wave Force technique, as it is, is certainly limited," you confirm, "The toll of its use on the user is destructive and the minimum baseline requirements for Impeller power is prohibitive, but… I have not nearly reached the limits of the technique. I am sure there will be ways to improve it further."
As you say this, you review the files that Vivas sent you. Most of it is already familiar to you, the various proofs and equations that you and the Instructors worked together on describing the Zeroth, First and Second stages of accessing the Wave Force. theory work that you were collectively building for the Third stage had been patchwork and incomplete the last you reviewed, but now it is completed. It simply feels right.
You must test this. You have to know it works. All of a sudden, you understand the urge that Vivas and Washington must have felt upon completing the proofs behind the Third Stage.
"One moment," you excuse yourself from Instructor Washington and teleport towards the devastated ordinance testing ground.
It is easy to see where the Instructor activated the Static Wave, a depression a kilometer wide sits in the land. The sides are shallow, dipping down gradually towards the hypocentre, where a much more defined crater around seventy meters in radius is carved into the ground from the detonation of the bore. Within that crater, you catch the glitter of degrading exotic elements.
Clearing your mind, rather than the smooth and continuous remembered motions, you move your Impeller as dictated by theorems in the paper.
Zeroth, First and Second stages clear without issue. Third Stage… you note a sharp and alarming drain on your Impeller and expand your awareness back out. The Wave Force ripples in front of you.
A… success. It worked!
You continue, Fourth and then Final Stage-
The Wave Force twists and snarls outwards, consuming space, the stacked and synchronised undulations erupting into the base reality-
It is identical to your Static Wave attack.
You laugh as you ascend away from the Wave, your Impeller regenerating. Joy, exuberance, happiness, glee and every similar positive emotion runs wild through you, you feel giddy.
It worked…
As the space beneath you ripples in and out as each Wave crest exhausts itself, Durga's underlayers slide over your stump and the colouration and texture of the black material change to that of skin. You absently flex your temporary replacement arm as you think about the price for using the Wave Force. Only near your body could your Impeller reach the densities required for activating Wave Force, and the minimum radius of the Static Wave as it forms means that you will always sacrifice your body part that is closest to the activation point. For the Final Stage, remaining Impeller strength is irrelevant, either the Valkyrie has enough Impeller to shape a channel to give the Static Wave initial direction or they don't. The Static Wave instantly destroys any Impeller field partition in totality upon the slightest contact. The damage from using Wave Force is unavoidable so long as your body remained the most vital component of your frame… but maybe you could extend the range of Static Wave.
The Fourth Stage is largely a power gathering stage where the previous stages are repeated in an abbreviated manner to increase the coherence of the Wave, essentially setting the power of the subsequent attack. The Final Stage is a relatively simple spatial manipulation stage so that the Wave initially expands away from the caster. Compared to the previous stages for accessing the Wave Force, the last two should be the ones that decide the nature of the resultant attack. You modify the final two stages- then revert the change. That change feels wrong.
Coming down from your emotional high, you consider the matter in more depth, putting aside the problem of the attack cost. To expand Wave Force's range is inarguably more important than reducing the survivable damage taken for activating the attack.
Hmm…
"Anna? So your verdict, does it work?"
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"… don't tell me you got Inspired too."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"Dammit, don't hurt yourself- well, anymore than you have to."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"At least get some distance between… you know what, I'm just going to carry you for a bit."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
The Final Stage… is one that you never worked on particularly closely, after you managed to access the Wave Force, but that resulted in a trump card that is severely limited by its range. Factoring in every issue that you are now aware of through working on theory paper… to modify the Final Stage that the Static Wave can be fired further away… hmmm…
A faint ache builds in your head. You slow your thought streams to a sustainable level, to suffer a forced interruption would be way worse than a mildly delayed timeline for the resolution of this problem. A very rough timeline puts an estimate for a possible modification to arrive just before the Squadron Vanguard Tournament begins. That issue solved, you return to your deliberations.
…
"Anna, it's now dinner time. If-"
You split your thoughts, putting a part of you in charge of your body to return yourself to the Arcology, while the rest of you continues with the modifications to the Static Wave.
"… Christs sake."
XxXxXxXxXx
Static Wave: 130+150+60(Two special events)+10(Late update conpensation)=350/350
Static Wave Level 1 > Static Wave Level 2:
Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal enormous damage at short range.
Blue Wave: Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal very heavy damage in a line at any range.
0/1050 for Level 1.
Red Wave: Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal indiscriminate, enormous damage around you at short range.
0/1050 for Level 1.
Target Rich Environment: 40+50=90/350
XxXxXxXxXx
The Demolitions elective is one of the more formal elective classes that you've attended, in that it's hosted in a classroom and an actual Instructor arrives to teach the class. The class appears to consist exclusively of third year cadets, two dozen or so of the students clustered around the first few rows of desks. You recognise a few of the cadets, including Hiroto Asuna, whom you met in your initial tour of the simulators, and a few other faces you were familiar with from your online discussions regarding Impeller techniques. Instructor Jane Lee, whom you are vaguely familiar with from the Instructor's lounge, gives you a curious look, before she sends an electronic summary of the classes that you missed and then continues to teach, starting off with a quiz to the other class members.
You review the material you missed while the rest of the class talks quietly amongst themselves about the challenge presented in the quiz.
Demolitions was an extremely technical elective, geared towards Valkyries running sabotage deep strikes into Antagonist territory. It offered painstakingly detailed descriptions of Antagonist trends in construction of structures and the most efficient ways to disable them. You unconsciously nod in approval at a quote from a previous class lecture; "Operating deep, you have no resupply. Your ammunition is limited. Your energy is limited. Most of all, your time is limited. For these situations where normal flights of Valkyries would bug out, efficiency is king."
You then turn your attention to the quiz scenario.
>>[Your Flight of Elite First rank are taking part in disruption activities in Antagonist fabrication facilities ahead of an imminent large scale assault. Entering the area where the complexes are located, your sensor data returns give the following cartographic details of the surrounding structure. Detail a plan for the destruction of the fabrication facilities in your AO. Explain thoroughly the operational constraints that your Flight would be placed under following your plan of attack. Detail out the assumptions you are making and explain in detail the risks that would result should any of these prove false.]
Hmm.
The data from the quiz indicated that the structure you are attacking is an underground network of large scale aerospace fabrication facilities, generally used for the production of space ships components. You'd attacked such facilities before and think you have a fairly good idea of the general requirements.
Heavy Particle Projectors fire to destroy power links and destabilise energy generation, follow with-
No presence of Antagonist Interdiction? Another check of the sensor data provided confirms that there is no presence of Interdiction at all inside the complex. Bizarre.
With a quick check, you confirm the standard loadout of High Yield Weaponry Valkyrie Aces deploy with and change your plan of attack.
You will teleport High Yield Weaponry to certain structural hard points and collapse vital junctions in tunnel network, then destabilise the power links to force a further overload of the Antagonist generators with pinpoint injections of exotic particles courtesy of your Heavy Particle Projectors. That would turn the entire section of the hardened fortress network into a crematorium.
Having access to the standard loadout of either twenty eight, eighty kiloton Casaba fission HYWs or six, twenty megaton nuclear fusion HYWs that the UN offered for Aces in deep deployment missions would greatly simplify your methods. Previously, to generate explosions of that magnitude and power, you had to either consume multiple Types in a row for Higgs or bait Type Tens into activating their self destruct then teleport them to where you wanted the explosion. Neither method is very efficient at all, while the presence of Types guarding such fabrication facilities was almost guaranteed, the most common Type Sixteens held very little Higgs reserves and the most convenient of them, the Type Tens, were very rarely present in the labyrinthine tunnel networks that held the majority of the more important Antagonist structures.
You submit your answer to Instructor Lee and wait. She pauses and tilts her head for a moment, then returns a reply.
>["Exquisite detail on your plan of attack. The assumptions that you made however, all rest on the premise that you would be alone in your attack. Even you would likely operate in an Element. It's true that you would likely not be attacking any targets that Flights of Elite ranks would be targeting, just assume in that case that you are in an Element or a Flight with some of the top Twenty rankers. Submit another answer with that assumption in mind."]
Hm.
Another of the top Twenty?
Your mind immediately jumps to the only one of The Twenty who you've worked closely with, Instructor Dalisay Vivas, rank eight. Part of Type Zero suppression Squadron Last Word alongside with you. Call sign Blue March. As with most of The Twenty, she is a non specialist Valkyrie, or rather more accurately, along with The Twenty, she is a master of all roles. Armed with Exotic Principle Weaponry HongShao from Class C Type Zero Guan Yu, use by Vivas causes interruptions in Antagonist control protocols at long range, causing units to berserk. The Type Zero is suspected to hold a grudge against her for theft of its unique weapon and the two have met in five separate occasions after their initial encounter over Hawaii. She is also no longer in the infirmary and back to her rather stoic personality, and thoroughly embarrassed about her episode of rambling, which of course Instructors Washington and Park recorded in full.
Hmmm… with her Exotic Principle Weaponry, Instructor Vivas would probably attack the power generation Antagonists directly and the resultant meltdown would achieve essentially the same effect as what you were aiming for.
Now it was a question of efficiency. Would the massive Higgs cost of using an Exotic Principle Weaponry be more or less efficient than expending some High Yield ordinance and some time spent by you firing at the generators? Assuming that you weren't needed to attack subsequent targets, then the answer is clearly in favour of using the HongShao due to time cost.
You submit your new answer to Instructor Lee, who smiles wryly and faintly nods.
>["An appropriate answer. If I were to sortie with Dali for a deep strike, I'd play guard too. To be honest Anna, with your experience, exemplified by the speed and acuity of your answers, as well as the weapon components and skills you are have worked for, you are already quite far beyond the scope of this class. I can forward you the remaining material that we will be covering for the rest of this semester, but aside from some materials relating to Breach assaults, I think you will be already well familiar with the rest of this course and can count as already graduated."]
You ping an affirmative back and Instructor Lee forwards you a large volume of information, the rest of the course materials for this elective class. The material on Breach Assaults talks mostly about the peripheral defences in real space around the breach, rather than the spatial Breach and the Hive within it. The material on the perimeter defences is also disappointingly brief, mentioning only that Valkyrie Squadrons should not pay particular attention in attempting to destroy those defences as the Breach can regenerate them at an astonishing rate. It mentions that Hive assaults are restricted to Elite rank Valkyries with at least a year of combat experience or Ace level Valkyries, and that further training for such operations are held during active service.
Sending a thanks to Instructor Lee, you stand up and depart the class.
XxXxXxXxXx
There appears to be an ongoing raid or some event of that sort occurring as you visit the Electronics Elective Class.
At the far end of the dock area for the small scale fabrication room where the class is held, a line of Valkyries stand, all members of the Electronics elective class, arms linked and presenting a united front. Towards the entrance and closer to you, a gaggle of Valkyries mingle in a chaotic ball, arguing amongst themselves with an odd member occasionally stepping out to debate with the members of the Electronics class before being drawn back into the blob of arguing cadets.
It's the Crafting elective class.
…
What on Earth is going on?
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the new deity of the Crafting class. Miss Sanchez, can you please disperse your cultists?" shouts out a stressed looking member of the Electronics elective class.
"Just call me Anna," you reply instinctively.
At your name, the entire Crafting elective class, as one, pivot to look at you, like a swarm of hungry fish.
… Nope.
"… I'll visit later," you excuse yourself and step back out of the room, closing the door after yourself.
There is a thunderous crash of interacting Impeller as the door is all but flattened by the force of a dozen determined third year cadets. They nearly spill over you as someone in the front ranks trips from the crush and the human wave breaks upon the shore of the hallway. Not put out at all by their tangled state, the members of the crafting class immediately begin making entreaties at you.
"Waitwaitwait Anna!" "We need a computing matrix for your Relativistic Particle Projector!" "-course the Electronics class aren't donating their new state of the art exotic material seven state quantum computing matrix cause fuck progress-" "UNARD finally worked out how to construct that hypertorus you use to set the nature of your exotic radiation-" "UNARD? Nice try, she means Beijing beat us to the punch-" "Advanced Technologies Development and Prototyping Class? Fu- er, far out, what snobs." "Least we got the acceleration rail right first-" "Lol Santiago-" "ANYWAY, we need some serious computing power integrated for the Valk frame cause that hypertorus needs serious calcs on the fly and that shh- stuff is hard-" "Hard? That cr- calculation clock requirement kicked all our asses simultaneously!" "Yeah so we need real state of the art computing integrated onto the design-" "Cept the Electronics class are full of SELFISH WANKERS-" "-lacking any pride whatsoever in our status as cadets of Perth Academy-" "-unbearably smug Beijing will be if they get another-" "-while Santiago is still on a duck egg without any runs ahuehuehue-" "-summarise, we really need that computing matrix-" "- cause they're SELFISH WANKERS-" "-might be possible to use one of your weapons at the expense of basically any other weapon system-" "- not just other weapons, without processing support to offload some of the management reqs, you're basically immobilised." "Sure you can slap them on a defensive emplacement, but does the word maginot ring any bells?" "Seriously, I hear you used to have ten of these? Are you magic?"
"That's enough!" the PA systems in the hallway crackle and hiss with the volume of the shout.
Another third year cadet stomps into the hallway, her thick auburn hair dishevelled, face red with fury and shoulders shaking with the same. Her tag reads >[Lisa Hwang, Electronics EC; Senior Hardware Design Engineer]
"You damn jackals have been begging at the door for the last three nights straight!" Cadet Hwang snaps with her finger jabbing accusingly at the mess of entangled Crafting Class members on the floor, "I've told you once, twice and many other times besides! If you want some of the QS Seven computing matrix, you build it yourselves, aren't you all supposed to be part of the crafting class? I've already sent you the schematics! We haven't even finished constructing an environment for a seven state processing chipset."
"No fabricator on earth can maintain that level of granularity across the size of the quantum matrix we need!" snaps Cadet Sibel Neuer, who you remember is the president of the Crafting class, "You've got to send in a requisition order to Armstrong base, and Armstrong has its quantum scale fabricators firing all cylinders on something or another and will be busy for like the rest of this year. To make such a computing matrix, we'd need to either upgrade a five state matrix or fold out the quantum structure with Impeller alone and either might take years."
"Um-" you start, then pause in surprise when the arguing ball of crafting class cadets actually stop and pay attention to you. They didn't seem like the type of people who would stop their arguing for anything.
"I have accessed the designs for the quantum computing matrix, and it is something within my ability to build, though the Crafting class is right in that this would take up some time for me. Firstly, I have to clarify some problems."
The silence is near total now, the Crafting class paying almost rapt attention and Lisa has gone from frowning at you to an open mouthed expression of disbelief.
"Why is it that you are planning to integrate a computing processor into the Heavy Particle Projector?" you ask, then at the bemused looks, elaborate further, "You can integrate more processors, but that just takes up complexity and the processing power demand on your Valkyrie Core to act as an intermediary is higher than the processing power you receive from the processor."
"Well yes," Neuer and Hwang admit simultaneously, before shooting each other a dirty look. After a moment of staredown, Hwang turns back to you and continues the explanation.
"This is absolutely true for directly increasing the mental runtime capacity of the Valkyrie, but no one does that," she dismisses with a wave, "Valkyrie Frames can use the processors to automate the control of components as long as they've already been programmed correctly. Takes the strain of operating said component off the Valkyrie. Reduces mental load, less efficiently than a direct inject, but much easier to implement."
You consider the answer, considering the mental load reduction when automating the firing of your Heavy Particle Projectors and the offset of using integrated processors…
Impractical. Latency, complexity limits and accuracy.
"That's impractical," you say as much, "Including sufficient processing capability for near autonomous usage would max out complexity too fast, time to integrate would increase a lot. Also, the software corrected hypertorus would lead to significant delays when firing in combination modes as the complexity increases exponentially-"
"Wait what." "Combine?" "Exponential increasing in complexity?" "Uh oh."
You raise an eyebrow and express out your Heavy Particle Projectors, combining first into a two by two then a four by one configuration.
"The cannons are meant to combine and separate, the hyperloops entangling increases the power efficiency of the stream multiplicatively."
There is moment of dead silence as the crafting class members look hesitantly at each other.
Then, stampede.
"Remake! Remake! Remake-" "So ffffffforking done." "TFW you thought you were ahead only cause you were so far behind you couldn't see the others." "Bet Beijing doesn't know about that ahaha-" "-Remake! Remake! Remake-" "-if Santiago already knows about this and that's why they're taking so long?" "-away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling kid and her little cannon!" "Remake! Remake! Remake…"
The Crafting elective class disappears down the corridors.
You left standing awkwardly outside the Electronics elective classroom, feeling the weight of the stares as the entire class looks at you.
"Well… " says Cadet Hwang slowly, "At least you did get rid of them."
… Yay?
"Anyway," the Cadet continues with a long sigh, "So about us at the Electronics class. As you might have guessed from that nonsense just now, we are focused largely on computing, both on the hardware and software elements of it. I'm one of the ones who focus on the development of the hardware more. Gina over there leads most of the software work."
Cadet Hwang points at a shy looking Valkyrie cadet with red hair and freckles, who waves at you before ducking back down into her terminal.
"We're pretty research orientated really," continues Cadet Hwang, "So unless you're very interested in almost purely theory work, Crafting is probably the better class for you."
"Also, if you hung around our Class more, I think the Crafting class would lay permanent siege to us," deadpans Cadet Hwang, "Still come on in, have a look around."
XxXxXxXxXx
The Fishing elective class took place in the remains of Old Perth. The skeletal remains of the city is quiet and cold, the crash of the surf on the remnants of houses and apartments the only noise.
Newer construction grids through the remnants, metal walkways with solemn plaques detailing what the city had once been set above metal safety railings. Here and there, more advanced holographic displays could pop up to show the city as it would have appeared, before Impact, where the water level now would have been far up in the sky, showing any who looked into the lens a sprawling vista of the past. Occasionally, thick walls reached the seafloor, boxing in and allowing a few buildings to stand in dry air without the suffocating water crushing down upon them.
Kings Park. Saint George and Saint Mary's Cathedral. Parliament House. Perth Gaol. Many others.
The buildings appeared restored to their former glory, walls cleaned of the grime and growth of the seabed. Elevators lean against the surrounding sea walls, allowing a sightseer to descend to the ground from the walkways and enter the preserved buildings if they wished to.
There is no one in sight. The only movement you can see is the patient, methodical pathing of maintenance drones, labouring to keep the relics of the old city presentable for absent visitors.
… You fly on without lingering.
The class is held out to sea, about a kilometer or so past where the shore would have been for the old city. There, a small trawler bobs on the waves, and a class of Valkyries sit on its sides, rod and tackle arranged around them. Further out towards the open ocean, a few Valkyries bob on the sea with their Impellers, floating along with their lines trailing behind them.
A few look up and wave at you.
"G'day Anna," a Cadet Islan greets you.
"Hello," you reply.
"Finally made your way to our class, I see," she smiles cheerily up at you, "Anyways, quick intro; up here on the boat and on the surface we're practicing passive fishing. It's mostly selecting bait and locations, then reeling-n-relaxing. Down below, we're doing active fishing. As in, swim around and catch your own fish. Make sure you limit your noise levels with speed and actively prevent cavitation. Be careful entering the city, the buildings down there are protected and we're not allowed to catch in there."
"We don't really have any other rules," she continues casually as she hooks and baits another line, sending a map of the surrounding waters to you, "Just don't tangle lines with the others and if you aren't going to eat it, toss it."
You send an acknowledgement and descend down. The boat is crowded, so you hover over it with your Impeller, pick out some gear marked for newcomers, then set yourself down in the water a little distance away from the boat.
Retracting Durga, you spread your Impeller and sit down on the water, throwing your line out and waiting.
After a while, you decide that fishing with a line out on the open ocean is not nearly as engaging as fishing in a lake or river.
Then again, you aren't trying to catch food here, this is recreation, not survival. You reel in a fish, a Yellowfin Tuna, seamlessly free it by taking in the fishing line and hook into your storage and cast out the line again. The line flies out, three- four hundred meters then plops into the water. You tug the line in at a moderate speed, then rapidly reel in for a few seconds before resetting to a slower speed, cycling between the two motions. Another bite on the line, pink snapper you confirm after reeling it in, and set it free. One of the sharks that have been lurking around under you snaps up the disorientated fish, vanishing back into the depths.
…This is easy, you realise. Sport fishing is done with lines with a deliberate weight limit, so as to provide a challenge when reeling in a fish lest the fisherman exerts too much force and snaps the line. Speed and volume of catch isn't a concern here, this is all for fun.
And you are not having any fun.
You stand up and pack up your gear, neatly disassembling the rod and packing away the tackle. Returning the gear with a word of thanks, you instead decide to do some 'active fishing'.
Diving in, you look around.
The water of the oceans is very different from that of the pool that the swimming club set up. Without the Valkyries blasting through the water, leaving behind trails of bubbles and kicking up debris with their wakes, it is clear. The reddening sunlight of dusk doesn't penetrate far into the water, but even then, the remaining towers of Perth stand out starkly through the reddening waters.
…
Forgetting about fishing, you simply make your way slowly through the city, slowly drifting on the currents through the buildings. Save for the sections of the city preserved by the sea walls, the buildings are rotting, made anonymous by the damage of time. Paint, windows, insulation, all long gone, only the bare concrete and steel skeletons of the buildings stand silently in the water. Even as the facades built by humanity are stripped away, nature builds one of her own. Spindly coral grows thinly over the shells of buildings and shoals of tiny fish dart in and out of cover, highlighted by the specs of red light from above glimmering off their scales.
A huge, rotund grouper fish swims up to you, it's more than three meters long, covered with black scales occasionally specked with white spots. To your surprise, as it approaches, an IFF signal chirps, identifying the fish as 'George; protected fish'. It inquisitively bumps you with its snout and then, apparently baffled by your Impeller field, turns and slowly swims away.
…This vista is so strange. Near the surface, bathed in the light of the sun, new life grows, coral latches onto the ruins of apartments and provides cover for hatcheries of new born fish fry. Yet, below, on the dark murky sea floor, the twisted skeletons of cars and the shattered debris of human habitats lay jagged in the mud, panes of glass, street lamps, all reaching up to claw for the surface.
It feels…
… You don't know.
You're about to turn and make for the surface when a glimmer of light reflects from an unexpected angle. You pause your ascent and take a careful look for the source of the strange light. Again, your sensors catch it, glimmers off fish, reflections off the metal walkways above and other miscellaneous sources.
With a few quick calculations, you determine the most likely source is three hundred meters distant, inside the small restricted area of the old city. The light piqued your attention for its strange spectral emissions, after reconstructing the likely wavelengths of the light, you guess that the source of the light is most likely a fluorescent bulb.
A light bulb underwater?
You hesitate, then driven by curiosity, descend, making your way to an area where you can see where the light is coming from without trespassing into the restricted area.
Coming to a halt on the seafloor, kicking up gentle puffs of mud with your Impeller, you look at the source.
For a moment, you can't quite process what you are seeing.
On the third level of an ancient apartment, it's foyers buried under layers of dark sediment, warm yellow light shines out from a window. Unlike the barren and cold rooms neighbouring it, the windows are still perfectly intact, holding out the water. Floral patterned curtains, tied back by frilly red ribbons, frame the scene through the window. A dining room, a long table set for eight, only one seat occupied.
Instructor Leonhart sits alone and still at the table, slumped forwards on her elbows, looking down at her hands. Steam gently rises up from dishes set in the middle of the table. She glances at the door, then back down again at her clasped hands, otherwise, she is completely still.
…
You leave.
XxXxXxXxXx
Elective classes:
Demolitions: 200/100 (Class Limit Reached) (Mastered) (Innate Skill)
Innate to Target Rich Environment
Electronics: 100/100 (Class Limit Reached)
Innate to Warrior background.
Fishing: 50/50 (Class Limit Reached) (Mastered)
Innate to Warrior background.
XxXxXxXxXx
The initial recommendations for you regarding the Valkyrie Academy course appeared to be playing true. The First Year Academy course in the three weeks you've been in attendance have not taught you anything new for the operation of Durga. Neither did, upon you reading further, the rest of the year's material introduce any new concepts for Valkyrie operations. It was not until Second Year, coinciding with most Cadets settling down in one or two Valkyrie Frames, and the introduction of group tactics, that there are tactics you are unfamiliar with.
That is not to say you learnt nothing thus far.
You have learnt that you are terrible at teaching.
After much talking in disjointed and stumbling English, wild gesticulations and transmission of electronic data that made Koujirou cross-eyed and forced Setsuna to clear her datapad's memory, you decided to surrender and simply sit in on the lessons that Yukari held for the two first years instead.
Sitting in one of the smaller, tropical Academy Biomes for today, Yukari is teaching a refinement of the standard Impeller deflection techniques to Setsuna. Koujirou is absent, having begged off to talk to Shuri about "swording and stuff".
"-relating to the mathematics of the technique, it's actually quite fundamental for the various spatial manipulation techniques that you will learn later on-" Yukari lectures in the background over the calls of the various birds nesting in this biome.
Setsuna listens with a frown of concentration as she suspends a glob of water in the air with her Impeller. Next to her, the artificial creek burbles on cheerfully, a small electronic display floating above it informing Setsuna that the water from the creek is not fit for drinking.
"- false expansion of volume inside your Impeller. Well, as usual for relative beginners, a visualisation of the technique is likely easier. Imagine you're holding a large balloon and it's trying to expand-"
You're familiar with the technique Yukari is teaching, but you usually visualise it as a snowflake, every tine another snowflake, with the more tines that you can see corresponding with the power of the technique.
"- loss of pressure due to the minor expansion within your Impeller-"
The globule of water Setsuna is holding starts bubbling, steam rising away from the edges of the bubble.
"Excellent! You've got it! Now you've gotten it once, you should be able to reproduce it whenever you want. Now it's down to practice," Yukari claps once triumphantly.
Setsuna whoops and produces another of the Impeller bubbles, splitting the bubble of water she was suspending into two. Now both of the bubbles start steaming and Setsuna runs a lap around the biome, bouncing the two bubbles of water like basketballs.
Yukari laughs and continues, "Try pressing the volumes together, you should feel that they can both exert and absorb much more force than a standard volume of Impeller."
Setsuna sits back down and does just that, squashing the two volumes, the faintly white light of Impeller interactions sparking fitfully as the two sections interfere with each other.
"Nicely done Setsuna. You're now well ahead of the curve when it comes to first year cadets," Yukari congratulates.
Setsuna however, is now frowning at the two bubbles with dissatisfaction. She almost unconsciously presses the two volumes against her chest before shaking her head rapidly, pushing the technique away from her body and shooting a furtive look over at you and Yukari. The older girl sighs slightly, an amused smile playing around her lips despite the despondent sound.
"I've told you before Setsuna, you're perfectly fine, above average, even."
You agree, her Impeller control was around par with that of some early second year cadets, well above average for a first year.
"Maybe proportionally, but in absolute terms…" mutters Setsuna with a blush, looking down and away.
If in absolute terms referred to the entirety of the UN Valkyries, then yes, she was still lacking in her Impeller techniques.
Setsuna continues broodingly staring down at the ground, looking troubled. You're about to try to offer some advice on Impeller technique, as badly as that has gone in the past, when Setsuna abruptly shoots another furtive look over at you, then for some reason huffs out a self satisfied breath and a smug smile spreads over her face.
…The wide smug grin on the face of the other girl fills you with annoyance and you don't even know why.
"Though… you aren't the first one to make use of your Impeller in that manner, shall we say. If you decide to prank Koujirou, make sure to record his reaction." Yukari chuckles.
As the two girls snigger behind their hands, trading significant looks with each other, a ping from Durga attracts your attention. You just received a message from… Sandra? Strangely, it's not from her as a position of Flight Leader, or even as a Valkyrie cadet. Neither is it addressed personally to you, rather, this looked more like a general announcement. It was addressed from United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Undersecretary of Humanitarian Affairs, Aleksandra Marianne Cambridge.
Reading through it, it appeared to be a general appeal for volunteers from the combat eligible Valkyrie cadets of Perth, a voluntary humanitarian aid mission in east Asia for aid in the construction of general use shelters.
Mission. Finally.
A faint shiver runs up your spine as a wave of prickling heat washes over your skin. Anticipation, you realise in a distant corner of your mind.
You take slight breath to try and calm down, but the strange heat lingers like an itch behind your neck. Trying to ignore it, you reread the message for mission specifics but notice an incongruity in the message. The message is directed at combat eligible Valkyrie cadets only. You are aware the Third year cadets all qualify, but you are quite sure that you don't. Not yet at least. A dig through your service details reveals that you are apparently under a 'Section 55 exemption'. That exemption is applied where if the birthdate of a person could not be officially confirmed to 'legal satisfaction', protections usually afforded by their age may be waived.
That's interesting. So you can apply for frontline combat positions right as of right now?
A search reveals that Shuri is also under a Section 55 exemption, due to her circumstances of birth being unknown. As is Zoe Hermann, the other First Year Ace, the records of the hospital she was born at having been lost. In fact… every single Ace ranked cadet in the first and second years at Perth are under Section 55 exemptions, all their birth records apparently having been lost or not up to legal standard.
…
That's interesting.
You're… conflicted about this, a little at least. It's clear that some section of the UN Armed Forces are trying their best to circumvent the laws set in place by the UN Central Government, but is that necessarily a bad thing? You think about your fellow Aces in the First year, Shuri can easily handle herself against almost all Antagonist units and the two of you on a battlefield would undoubtedly reduce casualties suffered, but you're unsure about Zoe. The third first year Ace always performed modestly without too much flash in the records of her on the network. Would you allow them to fight? Was it fair that third year cadets could be called to the battlefield regardless of skill, yet just because you're a few years younger in age you could not be?
You glance at Yukari. She is already in the upper bracket of skill for Third Year cadets despite all but skipping a year, and yet if you are to compare her to a single Type Two… you're not sure if she would live through the battle. On the other hand, neither you nor Shuri would suffer any issue in destroying a few Type Twos.
What about the First Year cadets who've only discovered their Valkyrie compatibility later in life? A search finds seven cadets in the First Year already eighteen years of age or older. The UN nominally required both a minimum combat capacity and age to engage on the frontlines proper. So, once those older first year cadets reached the skill level of an Enlisted Valkyrie, would they be sent to the battlefield? All while you are left here?
… It didn't really matter.
You are just be glad to have the opportunity to do something. Aid in construction of refugee shelters, duration of mission is a maximum of two weeks. Specialised Builders are due to be shipped on site on final days of mission. Danger level; very low. A mission -any mission- you will gladly take. Departure in six hours via transport jet.
"Yukari, Setsuna. I'll be off for a mission. I will return before the Vanguard Tournament," you announce as you stand and make your way for the exit.
"Mission-? Wait!" Yukari lands in front of you, blocking the doorway, "What mission, Anna? Don't leave me behind, I'm going too."
"Mission?" asks Setsuna, jogging down the hill to catch up.
"A non-combat humanitarian aid mission," you answer, forwarding the message to the two, shooting a curious look Yukari's way. As a Third Year, she should have also received Sandra's message, right?
Yukari's face goes through a range of emotions as you watch on, features twisting into something dark before she seems to deflate, looking crestfallen.
"Combat eligible? So that's how it's going to be," Yukari says flatly.
"Helping build stuff for refugees? Yeah I'd be up for it… but doesn't seem like I'm invited," Setsuna murmurs contemplatively at her datapad.
"Anna," Yukari almost shouts, reaching up and grabbing you by the shoulders, her face unreadable, then she hugs you.
"Stay safe, please," she says into your chest.
Um.
Um…
Eeep…
"I-I will? Stay s-safe too?" you stutter.
"H-hey onee-sama," cuts in Setsuna, "It's just a construction mission. Besides it's Anna. She isn't going to slip with a hammer and hit her own thumb or anything."
Yukari pushes herself away and nods.
"Y-yeah. Sorry Anna, uh," she says wetly, "Good luck."
"S-sure, uh, you too" you mutter, averting your eyes and escape out the door.
"Wow Yukari. For such a poignant moment, you two sure can add on the unnecessary romantic undertones," Setsuna says frankly from behind you.
Yukari chokes out a startled laugh, "Setsuna, you watch too much anime."
XxXxXxXxXx
Considering the jet is scheduled to depart in more than six hours and you are far faster than a standard transport jet anyway, you depart Perth Arcology and prepare to make your own way north to the Korean peninsula. You're now cooling your heels outside the Arcology, waiting for a Flight plan.
You're still waiting for takeoff approval when a video call from Sandra comes in.
"Anna? How are you volunteering for the mission?" Sandra asks, sounding concerned.
"Should I not be?" you respond with a frown. Considering that the original message was from Sandra, you thought you had her agreement for you to leave.
"I…" Sandra hesitates, "You're supposed to be age restricted from receiving missions located in second or third line positions."
Considering that Sandra herself was to participate in this mission, you can't help but to jab at her lightly, "What about you then?"
"I am attending in an official capacity as per my position in the UNHCR, I am exempted from the age restrictions," Sandra answers promptly.
"I am also exempt," you promptly reply, "I am under a section 55 exemption."
Sandra tilts her head slightly, "A section… fifty five? Five five?"
"Yes. Armed Forces Special Considerations, Section fifty five exemption," you confirm.
"… The details of that particular section is beyond my security classification. When was… how- Tell me Anna, what is a section fifty five exemption?" Sandra asks intensely, leaning forwards towards the camera, her eyes sharp.
"A person is eligible for-"
"Stop," Sandra suddenly snaps, throwing herself back into her chair, a palm over her eyes.
"Sorry," she continues in a calmer tone, "My apologies, don't tell me, I could have landed you in serious trouble."
You wait as Sandra leans back into her chair and massages her temples.
"Regardless, this exemption is seriously- seriously strange if it allows first year cadets to partake in missions in a line two or line three region."
Line two and three? Classification of geographical area based on antagonist presence probability for next three months. Front line, one hundred percent. Line one, fifty percent. Line two, twenty five percent. Line three, twelve and half percent. So on and on until Line five classification.
This mission doesn't even involve combat though.
"… Can I go then?" you ask hopefully.
Sandra stares at you through the video link, expression briefly conflicted.
"You may, I'm signing your permissions off."
"Thank you," you respond gratefully as you finally receive a flight plan.
"I'll meet you onsite at twenty hundred Perth time then, until then, I need to find and break some skulls," Sandra smiles tightly, then leaves the call.
You teleport into the air, then burn north.
XxXxXxXxXx
As you fly over the Pacific, you review the missions requirements in more detail. With the flight plan speed limit of just under six kilometers per second, it would take you almost half an hour to fly the eight and a half thousand kilometer trip from Perth to Seosan.
Over the course of the Great Battle, the furious offensive by the Antagonists pushed back UN lines on almost every front except for UN South East, which was again curiously left alone, as it had been for all of the war. The loss of a large amount of territory throughout the west Pacific islands, Antagonists making landfall in Siberia over the North Pole and on East Asia across the Pacific led to the mass displacement of civilians. Not overwhelming in and of itself, but the assault also dealt significantly heavy damage to Tokyo, Seoul, Shenyang and Manila Arcologies, along with the evacuation of New Zealand along with the damage to the Australian East Coast Arcologies, resulted in a crisis of displacement throughout the Eastern territories of the UN. Thus, the UNHCR has been regularly calling for Valkyrie assistance for smaller scale reconstruction.
Camp Seosan was established following the attacks on Tokyo and Seoul Arcologies, population; 41,780. Civilians mostly originating from Japanese main islands and Seoul Arcology. Current habitations constructions sufficient, but temporary; moderate priority. On site infrastructure is deficient, highest priority. Surrounding defense infrastructure sufficient, Seohaean tertiary defense line providing overwatch, fast response of area assigned to Seoul's Valkyrie garrison. Materials for the construction are already on site. Dedicated construction builders will arrive within seven days, whereupon the Valkyrie volunteer forces will be relieved.
You access the construction schedule that the UN Builder drones would follow after your mission is completed and frown at the news. There would only be a single medium scale Builder drone on site, accompanied by twenty small scale Builder drones. To complete the upgrades that Seosan required on their own, factoring in drone downtime and replacement, the Builder force would need around eight thousand hours.
Nearly a year.
An unacceptably long time. Why did the UN plan to dedicate so few Builders to this town? You query around for builder drone deployments- and find that the all construction assets are completely occupied. You expand your range and try again- same result. You access the general construction projects queue- there are hundreds of such camps that required work on a similar scale across the world and hundreds more already undergoing such work. Even more Builders are busy with construction of defenses on the North American continent and replenishment of other infrastructure destroyed by the Antagonists during the Great Battle.
However… a quick review of previously done work demonstrates a huge discrepancy of currently committed construction forces with those the economic power the UN has historically demonstrated. Even accounting for losses, the UN is short of at least a quarter of its construction capacity. Despite careful scouring, you can't appear to find those missing assets. Also, in spite of materials production increasing steadily, the relative lack of active construction has not resulted in a corresponding surplus of materials. As far as you can tell, the materials are simply missing.
Strange.
Then instead of these disparate camps, shouldn't the UN be attempting to move the displaced people into Arcologies? Perth, even as it continues to take in population from the east coast of Australia, still has resources to accommodate a third again its current population. Concerns of population concentration did not take precedence over standards in habitation and the UN certainly should have enough transportation assets to shift the displaced people into Arcologies. A brief reading of history would make anyone well aware of the UN's transport capacity, which historically moved over fifty million people from the South East Asian islands to Australia over a period of just five years. The enormous migration was undertaken simply because it was more convenient in the long term to centralise populations than it was to create new Arcologies with the limited number of Valkyries back then.
Yet now, with a economic production capacity literally orders of magnitude greater than back then, transportation for the purpose of civilian relocation is already strained moving a large portion of the residents of Japan to the Asia mainland. Involving the scheduled transportation of twenty million people over the next two months, it is certainly no small feat, but one that should be comfortably within the UN's logistic capabilities.
… For someone who would know a lot about the world at large, likely able to postulate an answer from some context you are perhaps missing, you call Sandra.
"Sandra," you open up a channel, "I have a question."
There is a brief pause, then Sandra's voice comes in, sounding a little distracted, "Ask me anything, Anna."
"Where is the UN's missing construction and capacity? There is a very large shortfall of builder drones, supplies and transport. If we could use the missing builders with these projects, or centralise some of these displaced populations more, we could reduce the work we need to do."
"Ah, that is in fact a question I have been inquiring into myself, Anna," Sandra responds, now sounding much more alert, "Searches from my end into the resources which have began disappearing from the start of this year have turned up nothing. The volumes of resources being funneled away is truly massive however."
"Do you have any ideas, Anna?" after a moments pause, Sandra abruptly turns the question on you.
You take a moment to cycle through the missing Builders, the materials disappearing, the types of transport ships, but find no tells. There is no particular bias for Builder scale, with small, medium and large scale Builder drones all absent from construction projects in similar ratios. Neither is there a particular spike in the types of resources being consumed with whatever is being built, raw materials and processed materials, all that should have been stockpiling with the slowdown in construction work, remaining level in depots across the world. Lastly, the types of missing transportation planes are- wait. You recheck specifications of the transports. The missing transports are all aerospace specification, vacuum operable. Then, that means either orbit, or the moon-
Oh. Of course, the construction of the Ginnungagap cannon complex on Luna's surface.
"I've noticed a very significant uptick in the operation of Kuala Lumpur's orbital elevator, along with very heavy activity from Antananarivo orbital facilities, so I would hazard a guess that there is some large scale construction taking place in orbit," Sandra continues musing, oblivious to your realisation, "The resources being dedicated are sufficient even to construct major Arcology."
Uh… looks like the Ginnungagap project is beyond Sandra's classification level, you guess that the only member of your Flight to know about it would be Shuri. There is now a slightly awkward hang in the conversation as you furiously think of something to say.
Uh… so what now, you brought up the subject so…
Change of topic time.
"If you don't know, then it's fine. I've noticed a number of surrounding towns that also need work, after we complete the work on Seosan, should we then move on?"
"If we do complete the construction work, then of course. I can authorise another mission," Sandra hums thoughtfully, "However, the amount of construction work required in Seosan is quite substantial. In this mission, I will probably have the assistance of around twenty volunteers. For us to completely finish the construction work required before the Vanguard Tournament, we'd likely need to work continuously without rest."
"It'll be fine," you assure Sandra, "I alone can finish the work required in Seosan town in three days or less."
"Truly? That's astonishing," Sandra exclaims, "When we arrive on site I'll make another assessment of the progress we can make and revise my schedule."
"I am now arriving on the vicinity of the mission area. I will meet you here soon," you conclude to Sandra.
"Then we shall meet you on site. Until then Anna," Sandra signs off.
Now over the Shandong Sea off the coast of China, you turn east, heading for the Korean peninsula. To your north, you can see the massive Impeller shadow of Beijing Arcology.
After a another minute of flying, you enter Seoul's airspace and begin to slow and descend for Seosan town. As you approach within fifty kilometers, you are hailed. Unlike the brief security confirmations you that you previously mentioned, this is a voice comm request.
"Hey there," an accented voice comes in, originating from a patrolling flight of Valkyries another twenty kilometers above you, "You're part of the volunteer group we're expecting, right?"
Considering you are already registered with the local TACNET with your objective, they are probably just chatting.
"I am," you reply, "The rest of the group from Perth will likely arrive in eight or so hours."
"Glad to see you're eager to help. We'd be down there, but well, none of us are good with construction."
There is moment of almost embarrassed silence before the Flight leader continues.
"Thanks for doing this by the way."
"No problem," you reply, "Anything to help other people. Others would do the same if they had the chance."
"Ears of rice bow deeply as they ripen," the Flight Lieutenant quotes a little bitterly, "Not that many cadets care about these kinda camps once they leave for an Arcology and take their families with them. Good luck, if you need any help, call us over TACNET."
The Flight makes a gentle curve towards the north as they continue their patrol. You continue your descent, having a direct look at Seosan as you do so.
Seosan town is nestled in a shallow valley not too far from the sea, leaning against the side of a series of low hills. The layout of the town doesn't quite match the UN standard, with the town being built out of an older settlement, but the overall structure is the same. At the heart of the town, rings of low apartments sprawled outwards, their roofs connected, being used as recreational areas. Smaller spokes of housing, both temporary and permanent, radiated outwards from the main complex, largely reaching into the older settlement. You catch sight of a series of underground complexes, but according to schematics, they're identical to the standard UN emergency shelter so you don't inspect in detail yet. Below the town towards the sea a power station sits, and above the town on the peak of the low hills, a large passive scanning array perches, watching the east.
It's easy to see the areas that require work. There is only one properly constructed and set road, leading from a newly constructed port up to the town, the rest either being hastily laid down concrete, jutting out from the surrounding earth and inviting trips, or reuse of the old asphalt roads built before Impact. Both electrical and water supply lines simply run exposed on the ground, neatly bundled power lines coiling across the ground next to thick hoses. Neither utility was provided evenly across the entire town, with some of the housing having neither, their residents required to trek around for drinkable water and electricity, carrying cartons and battery packs. Sewage systems are still rudimentary, with only brief treatment before it is injected into the leftover piping from the old town where it is carried far out to sea, courtesy of the raised sea level. Two clusters of warehouses appeared to be the main food depots, one near the port and one near a train station terminal, but there is no independent food production capacity. The construction materials that are required for construction are already on the port, stacked up neatly in long rows.
… You don't make a move and simply watch for a minute, gauging the mood of the town. The inhabitants have not been simply cooling their heels while such problems dogged the camp. Signs of work are scattered around the town. Here and there, coils of pipes lead from junctions into houses, their contrary to plan deployment and masses of spare lengths indicating it is ad hoc work. Dirt berms have been dug up, forming small levees uphill of the town to divert heavy rainfall away from the town. Here and there, people have tried to bury exposed utility lines where they crossed busy paths, but the heavy cables resisted most efforts and instead mounds of dirt or other debris have been piled up to form bridges over them. It appears that sentiment remains fairly high for the moment.
Well then… priorities. Expansion of infrastructure, electricity and water lines, then expansion of sewage systems. Construction of additional permanent housing, reinforcement of shorter spam housing into longer term construction. Construction of food production facilities. Construction of additional roads. Lastly, tidying and aesthetics.
Your maximum Impeller range from expressed frame components is around one hundred meters, but your practical total reach with your Impeller is very easy to increase due to Durga's properties.
Durga's underlayers drip out, thin tendrils of material spreading outward. Using it only to expand your peripheral Impeller range like so, you keep the tendrils thin enough that they should be invisible from the ground. Your range expands until you are encompassing the entire town. You reach down towards the docks with one tendril and you take part of the construction materials into your storage.
Firstly, you work on constructing underground pipes for both the electric and water lines. Lifting dirt and crushing through rock, your Impeller clears voids underneath the ground in accordance to the town blueprints and you express out the piping into those voids. Next you need to shift the currently functional electricity and water supply lines into the new channels without disrupting supply. Electricity is easy, you simply channel the electricity through your Impeller. Water… isn't.
You first translate the electricity lines down into the ground, making sure to verify that you did not break any connections as you did so. You also check line integrity as you do so, replacing lines that have been damaged with new ones from the construction supplies.
As you do this, you consider how to deal with the water lines. With your Impeller spread so thin at the edges of your range, you can't control your storage sufficiently to guarantee that you won't introduce impurities if you try to channel the water through your storage. Right then, you will open up gaps into the underground piping and use your Impeller as a temporary plumbing system while you set the new pipes in place. Then when the new pipes are in place, you'll seal the new system as your Impeller carries the water parallel with it until the water is again at full pressure, when you'll seal the pipes after injecting the surplus water still carried by your Impeller back into the system.
You get to work, taking the piping closest to the desalination plant into your storage as you construct pipes with your Impeller to replace them. You quickly set into place the new piping, taking particular care on the construction of the piping for the new housing that you will be building to ensure there is enough capacity in the network for the expansion. The major arteries of plumbing complete, you start returning the water back into the proper plumbing system when you pause. There are people playing with your Impeller, children clamber over the invisible pipes, balancing on them and hanging off them like monkey bars, marvelling at the water apparently flowing through thin air then plunging back into the ground. Adults too are taken in by the sight, more than a few outside of their houses staring in bemusement as water seems to just floats through the air to directly enter their household plumbing, whereas the last time they looked a hose had been connected to the port.
You gently lift the little ones off your Impeller pipes as you dissolve them, making sure that none of them fall. Now you work on the connections between the main lines and that of the houses placing the more delicate pipes as well as pressure regulators into place. It's somewhat more finicky work and you make sure to check afterwards that all the seals are tight.
By now people have spotted you, there are are people pointing up at you and waving. A few jump up and down, cheering, mostly the children.
… You haven't really done anything yet. You hesitantly wave back in greeting. There is a fresh outburst of noise below as the children laugh and wave even harder. You again reply and for the next few minutes, you are stuck in a loop of waving back until the children tire of it and simply sit around, apparently waiting for you to do something else.
You're sorry to disappoint, but you doubt your work on the sewage system will be anywhere near as visually interesting. The UN had thankfully not left an open sewage system run through the town, having made use of the older stormwater channels already in place. However, the town's own stormwater system is insufficient and heavy rains would lead to minor flooding. While this is something you can mitigate with the construction of higher quality housing, it's far simpler to solve the issue directly. Further, there is problem of current capacity for the sewage system, in the event of a heavy storm, not only would there be flooding, the sewage system would also… um, 'fail to accept additional material' shall you say. You've had enough of backed up toilets and other such messes for a lifetime. You extend additional tendrils from Durga's underlayers, concentrating your Impeller with far more strength onto the surrounding hillside and reshape the hills. You deepen the creeks above the town until you lead them into tunnels, which you connect with the existing drains and then create a set of parallel drainage channels. For the moment, you compress and heat- then cool some of the displaced soil on the border of the tunnels until a border of glassy smooth igneous rock supports the roof. The support the rock provides is… sufficient, but a little thin, so you set your fabricator to work on creating a bonding agent to further reinforce the soil around the new tunnels.
Next you turn your attention to the original combined sewage passageway. You divert the storm water drains into your new tunnels and now focus on converting the original dual purpose channel into a dedicated waste processing system, working to connect the individual houses as well as set up new channels.
…
For all the praise that people give you about your sensory and data processing abilities, sometimes, it's rather unfortunate to intimately know basically every detail about what your Impeller is touching.
… Eww.
The task over with, and the foundations for the construction of further housing set, you begin the construction of additional housing. Of the forty two thousand or so population, around half that lived in the sprawls of housing outside of the central rings of apartments. In total, there are around three thousand standalone homes. Of those, around two thirds are in need of service, either lacking utilities or being temporary housing.
Firstly, you connect the houses lacking utilities into the expanded grid you constructed, checking loads to make sure there are no faults. The task goes by quickly, occasionally interspersed with the surprised reaction of people now finding they have electricity and water on demand whereas before they did not.
Next, the upgrading of the temporary shelters into permanent housing. While the tents provided by the UN aren't like a hiker's haphazard construction of canvas and aluminium, being quick self assembling structures with heating, plumbing, insulation and basic electrical services, they still fall short of the longevity of permanent housing. You assemble a few houses inside your storage, then pause for a moment to think.
A lot of the tents that you need to replace are occupied. You could wait for the occupants to leave, ask them to vacate their homes, or simply replace their houses around them. The last option will probably be the fastest… and people probably won't mind, or even notice. From the inside, the largest aesthetic difference between the houses and the tents is a higher ceiling and more solid flooring. The additions of foundations and changes from the self-setting resin used in the walls of tents to proper polyplaster would be only notable in a thickness of the walls. Similarly, the replacement of the plastic panel windows with polycarbonate would be impossible to notice unless the plastic film is very old, and the frames that allow the windows to open and close would probably just be welcomed.
With that in mind, you get to work. Careful to leave all personal effects behind when you absorb the tents into your storage, you are momentarily tied into knots as whether or not to absorb a wall with words scratched into its side. You decide to transcribe the scrawls into the replacement walls before absorbing the original. As you work, your pace rises, houses replacing tents in a gradually larger radius around you, the tents you take into your storage being repaired where necessary, then stocked back on the pier to pick up for use elsewhere.
Your work is not as subtle as you thought it would be, people now having gathered in great crowds as you work, marveling as houses appear in the place of tents. People lay their hands on tents you are currently renovating, seemingly fascinated as the building melts away, the interior contents floating in your Impeller, before solid materials against manifest into the form of a house.
… Oh, yeah. You suppose the white glow of Valkyrie storage manifesting or retracting components is hardly something subtle.
To your surprise, there are some people, mainly children, who begin playing around as you work, jumping from one piece of furniture to another, pretending there is no floor under their feet. Others again stand on your Impeller and flap their arms, pretending to fly.
You smile, the cheer is really infectious. For a moment, you consider slowing down, but then shunt the thought aside. You might have time for this after you complete the rest of the renovations.
After completing the renovations, you again check each and every house to ensure access to utilities and are otherwise functional.
As you go through this check, the signal of additional IFFs appear on TACNET. The rest of the volunteers have arrived. You recognise a few names, Cadet Deneuve of the cooking club, Cadets Castiglioni and Hasiholan of Crafting and Cadet Liu of Aerospace Modelling are amongst the group. Including you and Sandra, there are a total of twenty six volunteer Valkyries here to help.
Below you in the town, there is another flurry of activity. A small group of UNHCR workers and Public Order officers hurry out and form a slightly ragged line in across a small grassy park in the middle of the town.
The other Valkyries approach slowly, swooping down in extended wing formation, they must have disembarked from the transport jet further south and have flown here in their Valkyries. You reel in Durga's under layers so that you won't interfere with the approach and watch on.
Framed by the setting sun, the other cadets glide gracefully to a landing in the field. You notice that more than one cadet have increased the refractive index of their Impeller, throwing out glitters and glimmers of rainbow light as they fly over the town.
Sandra steps to the head of the small procession, retracing Albion, revealing that she is dressed in a plain but sharp ensemble of blouse and skirt. The other cadets also retract their Valkyries as they form a short double column behind Sandra, and the two groups meet and exchange pleasantries. You idly note that unlike Sandra, the other volunteer cadets are in dress uniforms. Towns people are now crowding around, looking on curiously. Sandra finishes talking with the workers and expresses Albion back out, but leaves the helmet off. She hovers up on her Impeller and makes another speech, this one broadcast through the town on its PA system.
"We are all Valkyrie cadets of Perth. We are here to help," Sandra's voice rings out firmly, delivering the short and to the point message.
A slightly ragged cheer rises from the people of the town.
With that little bit of ceremony completed, the other Valkyries disperse. A series of new tasks appear on TACNET, the Valkyries using the local network to coordinate tasks with each other. Sandra flies up to you.
"Anna," she beams at you, smile threatening to split her face, her cheeks slightly flushed, "Just amazing work- I could hardly believe- I mean, that is to say-"
Sandra pauses and take a slight breath, "Pardon me, I'm quite lost for words. You're quite simply the most capable Builder I've ever met in person."
"Ah- um, thanks," you mumble, taken aback. Sandra was usually upbeat, but right now she seems outright ecstatic.
Sandra raises a hand over her heart, closes her eyes and take a slight breath, when she reopens her eyes, she's still sunny in her expression, but no longer blindingly so.
"We were all watching your work here in Seosan as we transited here. Simply put, your speed is beyond incredible. Your suggestion to me- it may work. We can give aid to half of the important cases on the Korean peninsula over the mandated mission time alone. I've put forward the idea to the other volunteers and they have also given consent for the expansion in scope."
"That's good," you reply honestly.
You fish for more words, then wave vaguely around, "Should we continue then?"
"Yes of course Anna," Sandra nods, then descends down towards the town. You maintain your altitude, again spreading out Durga to extend your Impeller reach.
The next priority for your group is the construction of food production facilities. Right now Seosan depends entirely upon shipments of food either over the Yellow Sea or from the older towns north via rail. The construction of high density hydroponics farming as well as a large fish farm in the port serves to reduce dependence on shipments and provide a steady and mundane employment for people looking for something to do.
Working with the group, you quickly find your role as an assembler. None of the other cadets could assemble structures at anything near the speed you could within your storage, and you spend the majority of the time constructing buildings and components, then expressing them for the other cadets to install.
It's nice observing how others build and it gives you a little time to recover.
While the work you are doing here would not tax you at all usually, the refinements for Static Wave's last two stages that you've been ticking away at in the back of your mind is hugely decreasing the amount of other tasks you can do.
With the food production facilities built, the next is the construction of proper roads and footpaths. Seeing the other Valkyries actually asking people to move off the temporary concrete walkways before getting to work on them make you feel a little self aware, about your failed attempt to be low key earlier, but considering you absolutely have the Impeller power anyway… you again use your Impeller as a roadway while you work on the rough concrete walkways. This time however, you keep your Impeller opaque so that people can actually see that they are stepping on it. Refining the footpaths and roads itself is a simple matter of shaving off rough edges with your Impeller and then sinking the surface further down into the ground so that water drainage channels can be cut into the surface and connected to the stormdrain system. You bevel the surfaces to prevent people from slipping and then lower your Impeller down onto the surface, allowing the people walking on your Impeller to seamlessly transition when you withdraw it.
Around the town, road surfaces gleamed the faint off white of newly revealed concrete surfaces. As you watched, the other Valkyries are finishing up too. Behind almost every one of the other volunteers, a crowd followed, mostly young children, cheering whenever a new segment of road or sidewalk is completed, the little ones rushing forwards to be the first to step on the pristine ground. At a greater distance, parents and older teenaged boys, maybe older brothers, followed along.
"Anna," Sandra messages you, "You should come down too. The people here have all been asking to meet you. They want to thank you for doing so much for them."
You look down, at the cheering people, the smiling faces, the laughter. People here and there glance up at you, confirming you are still overhead, faces hopeful.
… A bout of dizziness hits you, memories, unwanted, rush to the fore of your mind-
"I'll continue working. We can complete work by midnight tonight."
"Anna…" Sandra trails off.
What do you need to do next? More light fixtures, planting some greenery, installation of recreational facilities, plant down baseball nets in field 1, soccer goals in field 2…
XxXxXxXxXx
Seosan. Sinchon. Kangso. Kaechon. Dalian. Tianci. Jixi.
Seven days and seven towns, some in a similar state to Seosan, some worse off. Every one of them now almost gleaming. Cheering crowds left behind at the departure of your team every time.
Seven towns. Combined population, a hair over two hundred thousand people.
In the rolling river plains below, the sounds of festivities ring out distantly from Jixi town.
Two hundred thousand people in seven days. You turn the number over in your head, recalling the faces of the town populations. Irrelevant information, you discard the memories and concentrate on facts instead.
The total population of the UN sat at around one billion, two hundred million, six hundred and ninety thousand people. Last year, there were thirty six million or so newborn babies. You turn the numbers over your head, trying to envisage the scale involved. Enough new life to form half the population of Perth was brought into this world.
If the Valkyries are thought of as the staunchest defenders of humanity, every single member of the United Nations Valkyries held sixty thousand lives in their hands.
…
So this is what you are now working to protect.
You look around you, the third year cadets slump on the grassy ground, uncaring of the chill in their frames. A few are sleeping, every one of them worn down from the seven days of consecutive work. Sandra leans against a stump, face pale and shadows under her eyes, but still typing rapidly into her datapad as she works on other official matters.
Unlike the Third Year cadets, she couldn't make it through the week without sleeping until the end and you saw her occasionally catching cat naps here and there. Even so, from the hours she worked, she likely got less than ten hours sleep total this week.
"Sandra," you call her over comms.
"Yes Anna," she looks up at you, summoning a weary shadow of her usual smile, "What is it?"
You pause, swallowing your words, why did you want to talk about this…? No. You push on.
"Why are you so concerned about my eligibility for this mission?" you ask.
Despite the address of the initial mission offer from the UNHCR under Sandra's name, it's clear whatever actual criteria it was sent under did not include Shuri or Zoe, despite both the other two eligible for the same section fifty five exception you have.
The discovery of this drove Sandra to distraction during this mission. Even as she juggled tasks for the UNHCR and taking part in the construction of amenities for the towns, she appeared determined to find out exactly why you had received a mission offer.
Sandra knits her brow for a brief moment, "There are an expanse of reasons, but most pertinently, after I found you also volunteered, I wasn't sure that the approval for this mission was not a pretext to call you closer to the front lines. Here, you may be then summoned for to combat as part of emergency exceptions."
"If those towns are to come under attack, my presence would help," you object.
"It's not so simple," Sandra shakes her head decisively, "The Armed Forces can call an attack and move up all strategic reserves, including forces in Line three and up areas. Then upon the Antagonist counter attack, the reserves can then be called to the front to 'repel' the attack. The Pakistani armed forces used-"
Sandra hesitates, then changes track with a slight grimace, "I have started a tangent, sorry. More than anything, it's a matter of precedence. If you, despite your circumstances, are constantly called to areas where you can be called into combat despite your age, that erodes the moral obligations we have to protect you and sets unfair expectations for you to always respond."
"My age should not have anything to do with whether I should be on a battlefield," you insist, "Yukari was called up to serve as reserve during Alaska and her Flight was- they died, Sandra."
You trail off for a moment, then sweep your arms around at your teammates, "Compared to the third years, I know I can do much more- a-and fight through harder battles."
A few look up at the gesture, clearly noticing you and Sandra are in a discussion over voice comms, but they stay silent and politely look away.
"It's not your skill that's the issue," Sandra sounds frustrated, "It's you, Anna. Your wellbeing."
"I am fine," you insist.
"You won't be. You'd never refuse a request to engage in battle and they- the other Valkyries might care about you, but that machine, STRATNET, it won't," Sandra leans forward, tone almost pleading, "You'll be deprived. Deprived of your humanity. Of your freedoms. Living a life set and regimented by others."
"I'm not here to-" your word stick in your throat, -run away, Anna. Do other, normal things. Live a childhood that I never could give you. Live on and be happy, please. You understand me right? You've always protected her. Will you remind her?-
"I- I would rather lose some freedoms than have other people dying on my watch," you say hesitantly. Where… where was that memory from, it's so vivid, but you don't… whispers from the grave.
"Anna, there are others. The Three Hundred, The Twenty. You don't have to carry so much alone."
"Not every Valk is that good," you shift your head for a small, meaningful look at the other cadets, who have walked some distance away and are talking quietly amongst themselves, "Would you say that some third year cadets should always be on the front, instead of me then?"
"That would depend on the circumstances," Sandra evades again.
"So, there would be times where I should be fighting at the front," you quietly continue.
Sandra shakes her head, but her voice is resigned, "... Yes, there are, but there are Third year Aces also, whom can be called as needed on the battlefront."
"Why is it always age?" you ask. It always comes back to this.
"To experience the full spectrum of life before being sent onto a battlefield and facing the spectre of your life cut short," Sandra declares, her tone resolute, "We owe everyone whom we send to the front this privilege."
"That's - that relies on the premise of vulnerability. If it is combat ability, then there is no way I am lacking. You know how much I can do. After that simulation in North America, you said," you hesitate for a moment, dredging up the unclear memories, "You said we influenced the Alaskan Offensive, greatly."
"How many people might be saved in the future?" you ask Sandra, waving your arms at the merrily blinking lights of Jixi in the distance.
Sandra looks out to the town and back to you several times, her mouth opening several times in false starts.
"Why- why do you want to- fight so much?" Sandra finally chokes out, her face scrunching in anguish, eyes glimmering in the moonlight, too upset to continue using comms, "I have always, always been trained to look at the greater picture, but- but I don't want my friends to die."
You rock back on your heels in shock as you watch Sandra's composure crumble.
"You- not just you. Why does the UN desire you on the front so? That machine, STRATNET, is always demanding you be placed right on the African front, at the Gates of Hell itself. The Type Zeroes there, they- they- You'll die. Or you'll be maimed until you can't even remember your past, your friends, who you were," you flinch, but Sandra continues, tear trails faintly shining down her face, "No Ace lasts longer than a quarter there without injury. That thing wants you there on permanent station."
Her shoulders shake and Sandra ducks her head, biting her lip.
"There is a reason, Sandra," you start slowly, "By the United Nations combat aptitude rankings, I am the first amongst all Valkyries."
Sandra blinks up at you, face slack with shock.
"It was you? You're the new Rank One? Then- Sekhmet?" Sandra whispers.
You nod.
Sandra stares, then, softly, hesitantly, hopefully, "Saskatoon?"
You nod again.
Sandra sits down.
"I… see."
There is a long and contemplative silence. The peaceful moment is eroded however as you hear the rising sounds of Castiglioni and Hasiholan in the distance arguing again. The crafting class members apparently simply unable to help themselves.
Annoyed at the intrusion, you thicken your Impeller and mute them.
"Anna, I see you hold a duty and responsibility far beyond my own," Sandra says, standing up and meeting your eyes, "However, can you promise me that you try to live your life out to the fullest, living as you wish, and not on the behest of others?"
"I can, so long as there are no concessions to my combat capabilities other than those absolutely necessary," you reply.
Sandra smiles sadly up at you, then steps forwards and hugs you.
…urk.
She isn't letting go.
You awkwardly pat her back in return.
At that, Sandra wordlessly steps back, for a moment she looks up into your face. Before she takes a larger step back and turns around.
"In time, what you find to be absolute necessities might change, Anna. For you, I hope they do."
…What did that mean?
XxXxXxXxXx
It's now the monday of the fifth week, and there is an excited buzz ringing through the cafeteria during breakfast.
Across from you Shuri eats her breakfast efficiently, working from one end of her plate to the other, showing neither like nor dislike of anything on her plate. The other members of the Flight are missing, probably up to last minute practice and tactics discussion.
The table in front of you is empty. You don't feel hungry, you have lots of leftovers in your storage, but most importantly, you've worked your way through every single menu option the cafeteria is providing.
…What was your favourite though… you'll have to think more on that.
"G'day Shuri, Anna, mind if I have a sit?" Syifa from your class saunters up to your table.
Shuri glances at you then shrugs, returning to eating.
"Sure, go ahead," you answer.
"Sooo… a few members of my Flight had an idea," Syifa says, hooking a chair with a leg and sweeping down to sprawl in it.
"But of course, they're too intimidated to talk to you two themselves so I got press ganged into this, cause 'I come up to your knees instead of only your toes' or something silly," Syifa suddenly announces loudly. Over near the cafeteria entrance, there is a squeak of alarm and you see Cadet Cato duck back around the corner.
"Since we in Squadron Four only have one Enlisted rank competing, with both our Aces sitting out," she continues in a normal voice, giving both of you a bemused smile, "Rachel back there thought that a good way to spice things up would be have you two commentate."
"How about it?" she smiles winningly at you and Shuri.
"I don't have any skill in commentating matches, I decline," Shuri instantly shoots her down.
"And you, Miss Sanchez?" Syifa doesn't miss a beat, turning to you.
You glance at your schedule. The various squadrons largely shared match schedule formatting, a simply tournament bracket style.
There are four matches between the eight entrants today on monday, a day's break, two matches between the winners on wednesday. Then thursday is again a break, before the finals are held on Friday.
It appears that elective classes are off this week.
XxXxXxXxXx
It is the Monday of the fifth week.
Decide on a favourite food or favourite food type! Doesn't matter if you classify them by region, type or anything;
>[]Write in?
Which matches of the Squadron Vanguard tournament will you be going to see?
Accept Commentary request?
-[]Yes. You will watch all the matches involving your squadron. As the matches take place simultaneously, you will only be watching the matches from your own squadron.
-[]No. Watch specific matches. You may choose multiple people. In case of clash, Anna will prioritise watching matches by number of votes received.
--[]Follow someone?
--[]Watch Koujirou and Setsuna. How have they improved?
--[]Watch Sandra.
--[]Go watch Zoe Hermann, Ace of Squadron Ten. How is she as a Valkyrie?
--[]Just look around for interesting matches.
-[]None of the matches. Do something else.
--[]Write in?
-[]Write in which matches to pay attention to.
XxXxXxXxXx
Status Report:
Onium Batteries Repaired: Allows for additional storing of energy. Can serve as projectiles when charged. Serving as projectiles results in destruction of component. Can serve as reactive armour. Serving as reactive armour results in destruction of component.
Energy Dynamos Repaired: Absorb kinetic energy for storage. Can be used to mitigate moderate amounts of damage from projectile weaponry.
You have sampled all food available in the cafeteria.
+Possible Avenue of Research; Group Skills;
XxXxXxXxXx
P.S: If you haven't already, have a look at these things;
Fanart - Renu - I dunno what to title this. Renu is based. BAHH QUEST; The Manga?
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https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/false-forum-formatting-author-resource.30604/
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Reactivate involuntary biological systems?
>[]No. No concessions to combat capabilities other than those absolutely necessary.
The timeskip will be for a duration of 3 weeks for a total of 23 days, ending at the start of week 5. The next section of decompressed story arc will be the Squadron Vanguard tournament arc. Each day in a timeskip has 1 training action. Divide by percentage how many actions you wish to spend on various actions.
>[]Write percentages and skills.
-[]Train Teleportation Speed 10 points to 200/200 (Mastered).
-[]Train Energy Equivalency Precision 10 points to 200/200 (Mastered).
-[]Train Interdiction Precision 10 points to 100.
-[]Remainder:
--[]75% Wave Force Manipulation, 25% Target Rich Environment
See below.
Select your music for your training montage: (No write ins accepted)
>[]Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
Each time skip week allows for 1 visit to an elective class. Select three or continue down the list.
[]Continue down the list
You will have some free time of course, anything in particular you want to do?
[]A message from Sandra? A mission? No combat and on the backlines? Strange… but of course you'll participate.
XxXxXxXxXx
The Antagonists (Hostis humani generis) are a collection of biomechanical aliens that originate from the Breaches and are currently at war with humanity. The forms that the Antagonists take are wide and varied; some individual strains form kilometer-scale static installations, while others manifest as mobile units that serve broadly parallel roles to the units of the United Nations Armed Forces, with comparable sizes. Away from the front lines, there also exist non-combatant Antagonists, which appear to service the combat-form Antagonists and form the infrastructure of the Antagonists. Due to their large number of distinct forms and roles, the Antagonists have been classified by the UN Central Government as a hostile invasive ecosystem.
Since First Contact in 45 Post Impact, the Antagonists have shown no discrimination in their attacks, attacking both military and civilian targets with the apparent goal of totally annihilating any humans in the areas they attack. The United Nations, formerly an international forum and coordination platform, was transformed into the central global government through the need for a coordinated international response against the Antagonists.
Despite the united military front that was quickly assembled, large parts of the Earth soon fell under Antagonist control. At their peak, North America, Europe, most of Northern Africa, the Middle East as far west as Afghanistan, and all of Russia east to the Ural mountains, were under Antagonist control.
Table of Contents:
- History
- Impact
- Breaches
- Exotic Element Mining
- Communications Silence
- First Contact
- Investigations into the Breaches
- Contact Day
- The Sixty Minute Holocaust
- World War III
- The Fall of Europe
- The Fall of North America
- The Fall of North Africa
- Option Zero
- Formation of United Nations Central Government
- Declaration of World War III
- The Battle for Iran
- The First Battle of Uralsk Breach
- The Siege of Cuba
- The Second Battle of Britain
- The Three Hundred
- Operation V
- The Second Battle of Uralsk Breach
- Indra
- The Battle of Elazig Breach
- The Battle of Moscow Breach
- Abraxas
- The Battle of Guera Breach
- Aswang
- The Battle for Orbit
- Mass Type Zero Emergence
- The Battle for Luna
- The Great Battle
- Current State of the War
- Known Antagonist Strains
- Classifications
- Breaches
- Standard Combat Antagonists
- High Level Antagonists
- Types
- Type Zeroes
- Non combat strains
- Structural Strains
- Aberrant Strains
- Higgs Energy Generation
XxXxXxXxXx
Okay so a little background on how the weird internal hierarchies of the UN valks works.
So everyone knows the two main officially groupings; "The Three Hundred" meaning all the Ace rank Valks and at the very top of them; "The Twenty" Genius ranked Valks. Neat and cultured. Nah. It's a real madhouse on the inside. First at the bottom you have the Aces with ranks lower than 315. Basically, can't just ask for a Three Hundred Frame and get it. And well, you all should know what that means right? Blah blah you're not actually part of the 300, 'Ace in name only' and all that bullshit.
Next rung up, ranks 100 to 315. Yeah, there's another internal division around there. Somehow, some of the Valks got it into their heads that the 'triple digits' aren't as hot as the 'double digits'. Ranks 1-99 are now prestigious in a way that ranks 100-315 aren't. So yeah, keeping count? There's already two tiers of snobbery here, Aces ranked 315 and above look down on the ones ranked lower and Aces of rank 99 and above look down on the Aces with rankings in the hundreds. It's breathtaking honestly.
Next, the so called double digits, ranks 25 to 99. The snobbery mentioned towards Aces not in the double digits tends to only surface in the upper third. Time to be hypocritical. The reason for this is the upper third of the double digits is a lot more mobile and varied in terms of ranking. Valks move into, around and out of the upper third of the double digit ranks all the time. The lower ranks from about 70 down are fairly static and everyone knows each other and are well and sick of the honestly kinda pointless competitive environment that UN promotes. Like sure, a competitive or any form of high stress environment promotes Valk skill growth, but you're all Ace rank fliers now. The UN expects you to be able to hold back low rank Zeros solo and you're all busy hissing and spitting at each other like cats.
Okay, back on track. Next grouping up from the so called 'double digit ranks' are The Twenty. Ranks 4 to 24, well, now it's 5 to 25. Maybe they'll start calling it The Thirty now, since you know, rounding up and all. I could have an entire second rant about the UN's magical world of numbers where both ~640 and 315 = Three Hundred and 24 = Twenty, but I won't. The Twenty all know that their ranks are sorted by dice rolls and coin flips, so they don't make any fuss and they certainly don't talk down to the other Aces, no matter their rank since the lot of them are, I quote, 'way too old for this shit'.
Now at the summit of the UN Valkyries you have The Trinity and The Valkyrie above them. Like how the twenty are on a different level to the other aces, these four are undeniably just on a different level above even them. The 'Queens of Silver' and the 'Zero Breaker'.
Except.
They aren't.
Not anymore according to the new ranks.
Now there's this new Rank 1. Whoever they are. I don't know, even though I'm pretty high ranked, have fun guessing btw, I'm behind seven classifications of security :^)
Sure there's always been arguments about the positions of the top 4 but they all got shoved down by this new face. All of them. The Valkyrie and the Trinity are now ranks 2-5.
Bullshit. Until I see them in action, I think the UN combat ability tests fucked up.
-Comment by user "CatsAreBest" on news article "Mystery of Saskatoon Breach" hosted on the Wider Area Network website 'TheFive.news'
I can absolutely guarantee you that her ability deserves the rank. Also, need to talk to you, stop pretending to be offnet. I know you monitor these comment thread replies IRT.
-Comment by user "Jatayu Sen" (Verified WAN Account, United Nations Armed Forces, Air Force Air Marshal, Valkyrie Ace Rank 2), highest rated response to above comment
RIP comments section.
-Comment by anonymous user, highest rated response to above comment
XxXxXxXxXx
Shift.
The surf roars below you, waves pounding on the black sand choked with debris-
Shift.
Roaring winds drive foam up from the sea below-
Shift.
The air is thin, but fast. A few clouds remain above you, and thin strips of land stretch in the distance-
Shift.
Water surrounds you; slow but heavy currents push past your Impeller-
Shift.
Igneous rocks, cold and still. Little light reaches here-
Shift.
Rocks, molten and faintly glowing red, press down heavily on your Impeller. You concentrate for a moment and-
Shift.
You are once again surrounded by air. A thin film of magma that you carelessly teleported with you cakes your Impeller like a shell.
With a slight shake, you clear the quickly cooling lava off and hover, taking a moment to review.
With the spare time afforded to you by the lack of practical lessons, you wanted to push at the speed of your teleportation. A review of the data that the UN had on Type Zeros showed that in the majority of situations, reaction speed and mobility were the decisive factors in engagements against them.
After a short burst of improvement initially as you refined your teleportation technique, you've noted no significant changes to the average time it takes for you to initiate a teleport. A thorough browsing of the UN resources on teleporting did not help you cut down on your speeds. In fact, you are already the fastest Valkyrie in terms of time needed to enter a teleport, on average, with only a few Aces, who profess to specialise in teleportation, being able to enter a teleport in similar timeframes as you.
As unpleasant a thought as it is, with no changes after three weeks of practice, you may have reached a wall as far as your teleportation entry speed is concerned.
While brooding on the subject, you capture some of the spray from the ocean waves around you, measure their mass, and convert it into energy, then back into mass. Electromagnetic, the two nuclear forces, gravimetric and then more mundane expressions of energy, you work across the spectrum. After a few minutes of this, you convert all the energy back into matter and measure its mass once again.
As far as you can tell, the amount of matter is equal to what you collected for this experiment. You may have just managed a one hundred percent conversion efficiency. Well, subject to measurement error anyway. Seeing as your Impeller was your most precise instrument, even if you were able to improve your energy conversion ability, you wouldn't be able to notice. There was no meaningful way to further improve the efficiency of your Impeller's ability to change mass and energy from one form to another.
With that quick review of your Impeller exercises done, you turn your attention to Durga. A deep well of energy lurks at the edge of your awareness; your repaired Onium batteries idle, brimming with power. Compared to the dim but constant glow of your fusion reactor as it slowly sips hydrogen from your storage, your Onium batteries are flashbulbs, ready to output immense power. However, they can only do so for a short period of time before they need to recharge. Still, now that you have an energy generator integrated into Durga, you can afford to release that entire well in a single burst at a target that presents enough of a threat to warrant it, and still remain combat capable.
Your plates are no longer a pure, cold black, which is a side effect of your Solar Dynamos capturing all the electromagnetic light that landed on you. Now, there is a faint oily iridescence about the edges of the plates, light being distorted around your silhouette by your Energy Dynamos. With this, attacks of a low enough power density will be ignored by your Impeller and absorbed by your Dynamos instead, adding to your energy reserves. The component is not as important to you as it was previously, with how advanced your ability to convert energy and mass is, now, and your fusion reactor, but you will take every single shred of Impeller you can save.
A mental ping reminds you of the time and you finish your self review, satisfied that you are in mostly working order. Turning and climbing for altitude, you inscribe a gentle arc in the air as you fly towards a rendezvous point.
Interdiction is different from the other advanced Impeller techniques. While you can theorycraft Interdiction, its primary goal is the degradation of other Impeller techniques that manipulate space. It's possible to measure the effectiveness of the technique while working alone, but then there's the risk of unconscious bias, or so the articles on Interdiction say.
You didn't have to wait long, a few seconds after the clock strikes Midday, Perth time, the space a few hundred meters away from you bulges and Instructor Langston teleports in. Vibrant yellow and gleaming bronze draw intricately detailed crests over her otherwise plain, steel grey plates. Carried on the back of her frame, the stark white of a pair of Higgs tanks glimmers, highlighted by her exhaust trail.
She looks around for a moment, then flies down to you.
"Good afternoon," she calls out, "You asked for some help from the Instructors with practicing Interdiction? Well I'm here, uh, Anna. What did you have in mind for an exercise, today?"
"Hello. I planned on a game of tag," you reply, straight to the point.
The game of Tag, when used to practice Teleporting and Interdiction, is usually set up with rules to the effect that the chaser is allowed a higher airspeed and the use of Interdiction, but the players who are fleeing are allowed free use of teleport and other spatial impeller abilities. The dimensions of the airspace used as the playing field are also usually tailored for the relative abilities of the players and modified with restricted regions that often change to add complexity. The winner of the game is then be decided on points after a number of rounds. Chasers would gain more points the faster they caught the runner, and the runner would gain more points the longer they were free. A player would lose points if they intruded on a restricted area.
"Hn, glad I brought some Higgs, then," the Instructor sighs, clapping her hands together, "So uh, how does an airspeed ratio of one and a half to one, maybe six klicks a second IAS tops sound? Starting distance, um, ten klicks, and a fifteen klick radius, ten ceiling for the field? Sixty seconds per round with a terrain shift every ten?"
You hesitate at the suggestions, a little thrown off guard.
The game parameters that the Instructor suggested are unusual. With only a one and a half to one ratio in speed, a low top speed, and a relatively large and fluid 'playing field'... it certainly won't be very easy for you to catch her.
"Those conditions are outside the usual standards," you hedge, "but very well."
"Well, you are the number one," Instructor Langston replies, rubbing the back of her helmet, "I mean, I'm not really much at all compared to the Valks in The Twenty and I'm not even a double digit rank anymore. I've really got to push the envelope to even challenge you. Uh, if I want to help, that is."
Um, you weren't really looking for a challenge- but it would be helpful, since Valkyries showed the most marked improvement when challenged.
You ping an affirmative back to her.
"... Well uh, okay then! I'll deploy the center point marker," Instructor Langston calls, expressing and launching a drone that would hover and mark the center of the arena.
Instructor Langston is… a bit odd, you decide. The other Instructors have a certain… poise and confidence in their manner, an ease about them that suggests assurance. Instructor Langston, however, strikes you as a little wobbly in comparison. She seems nervous, almost skittish, in her bearing.
A brief look at her service history reveals that she'd only graduated two years ago, and her first year of deployment in the UN North West theatre was… eventful, including twenty-seven separate encounters with fifteen different Type Zeros. Results of the ensuing conflicts were mixed. Convalescence from injuries resulted in her missing the closing battles of the Great Battle, and she was transferred to UN Oceanic Area, Perth, specifically.
That's a much shorter career than the other Instructors. Was Langston assigned as an Instructor at Perth as a form of vacation? She does seem rather more at ease interacting with her Third Years classes than she was in the recordings you accessed.
[-00:00:10.00]
The drone starts the countdown, curbing your investigation.
You hover back and up to your starting point, indicated by the drone, as Instructor Langston does the same, leaving the two of you ten kilometers apart. The virtual barriers flicker into existence across your vision, a series of walls and nets that clutter the outer edges of the arena, but do not impede your path to the Instructor significantly.
[-00:00:05.00]
You direct more power towards your thrusters; while maximum airspeed was limited to just six kilometers per second, your acceleration is, as intended, unlimited.
You assess your own Impeller as the countdown continues. By default, your Impeller is organised into twenty primary layers. Ten layers are dedicated to protecting your expressed components and vital parts of your body, as few of the latter as there are, five dedicated to defensive and quick reactionary techniques, and five more general-purpose layers for discretionary use.
You'd typically only use those last five layers for the formation of offensive techniques, but ever since coming to Perth, aside from practicing Wave Force, you've never found cause to use more than those five layers.
[-00:00:03.00]
Hmm… maybe calling it a layer was somewhat inaccurate. The sections of your Impeller often intersected and rarely stacked on top of one another in the manner that layers implied.
Blob? Volume? Section? Weave? Perhaps Partition…
What did- hmm, the standard UN terminology was also layer… but then, the standard manner of maintaining multiple layers of Impeller Fields does not bear much resemblance to yours, being an onion like wrapping around the Valkyrie like actual, well, layers…
[-00:00:01.00]
Langston's Impeller warps and begins to twist the space around it, snapping you out of your contemplation. Was she planning to shift immediately as the countdown completed?
You push your own Impeller outwards and grab at the ether, preparing to intercept. Ten kilometers was within the interference range of your Interdiction.
[-00:00:00.000032]
A thirtieth of a millisecond before the countdown ends, Instructor Langston initiates a teleport.
Oi. That was cheating.
[-00:01:00.00]
You throw out your own Impeller, tugging at space to try and destabilise the spatial tunnel. It collapses- to no effect on Instructor Langston, who initiated the teleport but did not enter, and instead is now flying away at best speed.
A feint.
You burn after her.
Quickly gaining on the Instructor, you maintain a general Interdiction, throwing out your Impeller, grabbing at and twisting the space surrounding you, and complicating any teleport attempts. Instructor Langston makes for a wide orbit around the farthest perimeter of the arena. As the Instructor evades, she pulses her Impeller, tugging at the space around her, several times on the cusp of teleporting but not going through with it. She is probably trying to bait you into wasting your Impeller, but you hold back. With the disparity in the speed at which you can initiate an Interdiction and that of the Instructor's ability to start and enter a Teleport, you can halt a teleport even factoring in reaction delay.
With the speed restrictions, you quickly gain on her, as both of you are barely obstructed by the regions of restricted space. If she doesn't attempt a teleport soon, it's likely that she won't be able to as the local spatial geometry grows increasingly distorted the closer to you it is.
[-00:00:51.76]
The space ahead of the Instructor pulls and stretches as she tries to use a spatial compression technique, but the path twists and snaps out of existence as the Interdiction you are maintaining degrades it. Standard spatial compression was many times harder to disrupt with Interdiction than a complex technique such as teleportation, but with you so close, it was a matter of semantics.
Now, you were only a kilometer away from the Instructor. Sensor ghosts race off from her frame, complex Impeller decoys, but this close, you can easily discern them for what they are and ignore them.
[-00:50:00.00]
The virtual walls shift, and both of you swerve onto new headings to avoid the solid planes of restricted space.
You recover easily, and now, barely three hundred meters distant, you reverse thrust to prevent too powerful of a collision-
Cold and frigid blue light washes across your vision.
Higgs.
Instructor Langston disappears with a static filled implosion of space as the Higgs assisted teleport bypasses your Interdiction.
She appears with a matching flare of blue light on the opposite side of the arena.
[-00:00:48.12]
Damn.
You close in again, maintaining Interdiction.
The Instructor seems undecided for a moment, then veers away.
You set out on an intercept course and feel another standard teleport beginning. Being fairly close to the center of the playing field, you are content to let it through, choosing to maintain general rather than targeted Interdiction-
[-00:00:42.51]
- except the Instructor teleports on the spot, choosing to maintain her location but inverting her course, exiting the shift in the same location but racing in the exact opposite direction.
Throwing your Impeller out wide, you slam yourself to a stop and race back after her. You don't stop as fast as you wished, and the outmost layer of your Impeller starting to fray, strained from maintaining general Interdiction for so long.
[-00:00:40.00]
The regions of restricted space change again, forming a lattice around the perimeter with broader planes towards the center.
You attempt a feint and release your general Interdiction. As the disruptions from your generalised Interdiction fades, the Instructor begins another teleport, begins to enter- and you slam it closed.
This time, there is a very distinct white flash of an Impeller reaction as the teleport fails and her Impeller saves her from being crushed as the tunnel collapses.
Your own Impeller layer fares no better, the demand of the technique eroding it to the point where it buckles under the strain. Seamlessly compensating, you expand another layer outwards, partitioning it further so that you can utilise multiple techniques without interference. With a thunderclap of compressing air, you wrench yourself forwards, Impeller shaping the air around you for better control.
[-00:00:35.80]
You are again close enough to attempt an intercept, but yet again that damn blue light flares up again, allowing for a teleport despite your immediate usage of halting.
[-00:00:34.99]
You again set an intercept course and assess the situation. Time is running out.
Instructor Langston hovers at the opposite side of the Arena, with only a minor disruption in her Impeller Field. The Higgs containers are completely opaque, and your scans are dampened by Impeller, preventing you from knowing how much more there is in reserve. You are not able to estimate how many more teleports it might allow.
[-00:00:34.79]
Time is running out. This game was ridiculous; if you could use your full capabilities, this chase would be over in moments.
You again throw yourself forwards, straining against the speed limit set upon you. The enem- the Instructor continues to keep you at arm's length.
[-00:00:30.00]
The battlefield shifts again, and danger zones appear across your vision, impeding your path.
-You can't catch it in time! Time is running out!-
[-00:00:29.00]
-Time is running out!-
[-00:00:28.00]
-Time is running out!-
[-00:00:27.00]
Time is running out.
Your second discretionary layer of Impeller twitches in protest. Broadcasting the halting technique is putting too much strain on it.
Fine.
You can work with this crisis. So what if your speed is limited? You'd never be free to concentrate all of your Impeller on one task in any real battle, but this wasn't just any battle, was it?
Gathering and compressing your Impeller, you turn all of your nineteen remaining layers to one task.
To halt it.
Space ripples as you reach outwards and tug. The force of this technique is so much greater than normal that spatial gaps flicker around you, discrepancies ebbing and flowing away from you. This is past Interdiction; when so much force is exerted on the fabric of space time that it tears, this is spatial corrosion.
But… force isn't what you are looking for, is it? Wasn't it precision that you were looking to improve?
__!
[Ex_rcise paused \ User $&^uest halt \ Mec)~^ical ?rror]
Time is… running out?
You blink as the pressure of the countdown suddenly disappears.
To your side, the drone, trailing white celluloid smoke, slowly falls from the sky, bodywork twisted by the powerful spatial shears. A dozen kilometers away, Instructor Langston hovers.
"Jesus Anna," the Instructor's voice breaks through, flecked with static, "Was that Corrosion you were about to throw? That's-"
The Instructor was yelling, her voice raw with shock and… fear. She cuts herself off abruptly. Static still faintly buzzes across the open line, rising and fading with her uneven breathing. The strange slicks of colours smeared across the sky fade as the last of the perturbations in space and time even out.
"I am sorry. I-"
What can you say?
The Instructor using Higgs to teleport… had reminded you far too closely of that one enemy. Of Sekhmet. Combined with the time limit...
You weren't- you still aren't good with time limits. Ones that work against you, at least.
"The use of Higgs against me reminded me of that- that enemy, Sekhmet… and I'm bad with time limits. I stopped thinking."
You are aware of the… trance that sometimes comes over you during combat, or even combat-like situations, where you made automatic responses, almost like instinctive moves, against anything that seemed like a threat. This time, you snapped out of it, but-
Instructor Langston stays silent, her left hand clenching tightly into a fist and her right again rubbing at the back of her helmet. The silence stretches and you search for something else to say, only to come up blank.
"It's okay, kinda my fault for not asking. Right. So no Higgs. Time limits are off limits," Instructor Langston starts up again, abruptly, "Okay… so! Uh, restart, same rules but no time limits? End on catch and all that? Uh, also, no Corrosion, please. That's not something I can deal with. Maybe if you were practicing with someone else from The Twenty."
"You want to continue?" you ask, startled.
"Yeah. No need to pack it up with just that," sighs the Instructor with a loose shrug, "Sure, that was a tad more dangerous than most cadets having a 'Whoops' moment, but we'd never get anything done if we just stopped and set up a committee whenever something happens."
"But you're okay?" you press.
"A single Corrosion pulse wouldn't have gotten through when I still had Higgs, and you didn't even throw it. I'm okay, I was just really surprised," the Instructor replies with a flippant wave of her hand.
False. On both counts.
There is another pause, then the Instructor hastily adds on, "Unless you want to call it here of course."
You don't react for a moment in surprise. Is she going to brush off the accident just like that?
-We all make mistakes… but you can't afford to, sorry. There's too much here that depends on you-
"I… I can continue," you hesitantly say.
Just like that, the Instructor expresses another drone and lobs it upwards, where it begins to rise sedately with a quiet whir of its rotors, up to an appropriate altitude.
"Hey, Anna?" she calls, as the two of you watch the drone slowly climb higher in the sky.
"Yes?"
"You should join us Instructors for some group exercises on the weekends. Or watch us, at least. It's a good way to distinguish our Higgs use signature with that of the Types. I'd always thought- I mean, given what I've heard about your sensory skills, I… uh- anyway! It's probably more fun than just sitting around in your room."
"That sounds… interesting," you allow, "I'll see about that."
"Well okay. Then um, whenever you're ready Anna."
XxXxXxXxXx
Teleportation; Speed to 200/200 (Mastered).
Energy Equivalency; Precision to 200/200 (Mastered).
Interdiction; Precision to 100/200.
XxXxXxXxXx
"I think… I think that I will be bludging the afternoon lessons."
You glance at Instructor Langston, who is sprawled out on top of your Impeller, hitching a ride as you fly back to Perth. She is slumped down, an arm thrown over her visor, her breastplate rising and falling rapidly as she pants in exhaustion.
"Sorry for making you miss your lesson," you say sheepishly.
"Joking. Just joking, I'm still going," Instructor Langston laughs, a little hollowly, "I can't set an example like that for my Third Years so early in the year."
"Besides, there's nothing for you to apologise for. That's the most practice with teleporting under Interdiction I've ever had," she continues, struggling to a sitting position, "I should be thanking you instead. Not many Aces can apply a targeted Interdiction as fast as you can or hold a general Interdiction as long as you can. Really gives me a sense of perspective."
The red dirt of Australia peeks over the edge of the horizon and Instructor Langston takes off, slightly wobbly at first, before steadying out next to you.
"Anyways, I hear there's been some breakthroughs with that project?" she probes unsubtly.
"I think that Instructors Vivas and Washington might be close to a breakthrough," you reply.
After some sessions studying the Wave Force together with whichever Instructor was available, it became clear that even with an established method of initiating the Zeroth stage, there are only a handful of Instructors who are capable of mustering the Impeller Field strength required for the use of Wave Force. In the end, many of the Instructors ended up simply spectating as you work with a small inner circle of the higher ranked Aces. There had been discussions about running another research group for the replacement of Impeller motions with Higgs particle expenditure, but as the Instructors who are skilled at Higgs usage are the same as those who have the Impeller strength to experiment with Wave Force directly, that project is on the backburner.
"Huh, figures that it would be those two," hums Instructor Langston thoughtfully, "Never thought I'd be even on the same battlefield as Vivas, let alone teach alongside her. Anyways, good luck with that, it was a great honour working with you, thank you. Talk to you later."
"Good bye," you reply.
With that, the Instructor peels away with a wave, heading north towards the flight of cadet Valkyries in her class.
XxXxXxXxXx
After Instructor Langston leaves, you continue east and again fly the familiar route over Perth towards Ordinance Testing Ground Five Zero Seven to meet with some of the Instructors who have either begged off their lessons or have the time to continue working with you on Wave Force Manipulation.
When you are halfway there, beginning your descent back into the lower atmosphere, something
!!!
something
something
happens
The sky drains of colour, shrinking towards a single point in the horizon.
A scream rips through space time, an undulation in the fabric of reality, twisted beyond reason.
Lines stretch to infinity, racing for the other side- but they aren't parallel, conflicting with each other, cancelling with interference-
Your Impeller reactively condenses to opacity, every layer turned to reject the change-
Space snaps back to normality- then it happens again, less intense, spasmodic aftershocks.
What. The fuck. Was that?
You disregard traffic regulations and accelerate at maximum speed towards the site of the… whatever it was- whatever it is, considering that the aftereffects of it are still tearing apart the land, a huge accretion disk of red dust sliding inwards towards the point of the disturbance as the ground collapses inwards to a point-
Wait.
Is this-
This has to be-
Wave Force Manipulation, a pulse of Static Wave. Shallow, noisy, not fully coherent, but it is undeniable that someone else managed to fire off the completed technique. Is… is that what it looks like from a distance? How scary.
Someone else managed-! Emotions surge inside you like a sudden fire igniting inside your body, so intense that you feel dizzy for a moment. Confusion, sharp shock, stunned elation, faint pride, and a fierce anticipation.
Then- apprehension.
The formation of Static Wave is extremely dangerous to the caster, why would someone try to launch it without you nearby to help? Are they okay? You increase your speed again as you find locations near the epicentre of the technique far too distorted to teleport into- but the distortions are fading fast. Far too fast. Whoever initiated the Static Wave must have barely cleared the minimum energy levels to sustain the Third Stage to prompt criticality. That could mean Impeller exhaustion, which could mean no remaining Impeller to target the Static Wave away from the self during the Final Stage. You increase your speed even further, soon, you'd be able to teleport closer, but that was still at least a dozen seconds away.
Radio traffic reaches you as you close in, barely decipherable.
"- blithering idiot. Cyka. Dumbass. Dipstick. Puta. Ben dan. I am going to learn Afrikaans, Korean and fucking Finnish just to let you know how much of an idiot you are."
"An inefficient use of your time. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to wait for Anna to arrive before putting our theory to the test."
"Gee. You don't say. Is eight your Rank or your IQ?"
"My rank. Also, thank you for saving my life, I would kiss you, but I think you are not very pretty."
"… do you want me to throw you back?"
"Please do not do that, I have yet to tell Valkyrie Sanchez the good news."
Instructor Washington erupts out of the disturbed space, her Impeller barely intact, carrying in her arms Instructor Vivas, who is-
You teleport down, cocoon the pair in your Impeller, then teleport both of them away from the remains of the Wave Force technique, ignoring the strain as multiple partitions of Impeller fail from forcing the teleport in such hostile conditions.
"Oh, hello Anna. I believe we have completed the working draft for your method of using the Wave Force," says Instructor Vivas matter-of-factly as you lay her down and express out your medical module.
"Oh, you need not worry about my missing parts," Instructor Vivas says distractedly, "I've got spares."
With that and a flash of white light, Instructor Vivas suddenly has arms again, the skin on the new limbs pale pink compared to her dusky complexion, the raw skin contrasting harshly against blackened and shredded plates of her Valkyrie frame. She tries to get up, but you firmly force her back down as you complete another complete scan.
Destroyed internal organs, regrown or replaced. Missing limbs, replaced. Various forms of surface trauma, closed. Fatally low blood volume, currently replenishing, likely already prioritised for repair. CNS… completely unharmed, almost certainly protected with the last of her Impeller. However, despite the replacement of the many destroyed or damaged systems, almost every single biological process in her body was malfunctioning. Instructor Washington paces behind you, swearing under her breath continuously.
"You are in severe shock," you inform the Instructor Vivas.
"I-" the Instructor chokes, her breath seizing, and resumes using radio instead of her voice, tone disconcertingly calm even as she suffers cardiac arrest amongst other issues, "I have noticed that and am working on it. I may have exacerbated the problem however, by choosing to substitute in grafts in such a manner."
With a silent snarl of frustration on your face, you retract your medical module, with so many biological abnormalities simultaneously occurring, the use of chemical remedies are out of the question and appropriate nanomachines would take too long to manufacture. Your Impeller suffuses the Instructor, easily pushing through her still weak field and you manually correct some of the major issues, manually resetting her heart activity, reinflating her lungs and reopening several major blood vessels that had collapsed and removing clots. If this was your own body, you could have resolved every issue with your Impeller, but lacked the complete awareness that you would have of your own body and you dared not use high band scans on an exposed human body, Valkyrie or not. Your Impeller is also obstructed from forming a higher fidelity picture of the Instructor's body by her Impeller as it constantly regenerates and the two fields clash.
"I might be a little strange for a few days as I get over this- anyway, to the topic at hand. To repeat, I do believe we have completed the working draft for your technique in the use of Wave Force," the Instructor continues babbling as you work, "I did not manage to complete the Wave Force attack like you did. I was hesitant in carrying through the process and therefore I lacked the Impeller strength to force the Wave into full coherence or aim it away like you do, but in every other respect, I think I have the technique correct."
With that, Instructor Vivas sends you a very, very large set of files. You don't pay them any immediate mind, withdrawing your Impeller and keeping a close eye on the Instructor's fluctuating body. Her Impeller is now beginning to work on continuing your emergency repairs as her blood volume rises into levels that are merely only dire rather than mortal.
There is a ripple of bulging space near you, announcing an imminent teleport. Warned in advance by Perth, you move your Impeller out of the way. Instructor Parks teleports in, tilts her head as she digests the scans you send her, then unceremoniously slaps one armoured palm against her fellow Instructors shredded breastplate, and the other over her visor in exasperation as she starts a Higgs assisted long range teleport.
"Excuse me, I am talking here," Instructor Vivas objects mildly.
"She'll be fine. Three days before full recovery," sighs Instructor Park with a roll of her eyes, before the two disappear with a blue flash of Higgs assisted teleport.
There is a moment of silence as you remain kneeling, the sharp panic you felt when you saw Vivas so injured was brief, the Instructor's lackadaisical behaviour deflating the tension before it could really build. Now there is just a nebulous sense of exhaustion seeming to hang over every cell in your body, weighing you down. What is that phrase that is quoted sardonically at every turn on the forums? 'Long periods of boredom followed by brief periods of utter terror' or something?
Still, there is the issue of what the two Instructors were thinking attempting to generate a Static Wave without you nearby to guard against exactly this issue from arising. You stand, then turn and pin Instructor Washington with your gaze.
"Why," you demand of Instructor Washington, before trailing off as words fail you and you settle for waving your arm over the wide dark bloodstain soaking into the red dust of the Australian soil.
"Dali, got inspired when we were reviewing the latest simulator results and sent you a message, but for some reason it failed to go through," the blonde Instructor explains distantly, shucking her helmet and continuing to stare into the distance, at the remains of the Static Wave, "We waited a little, but there was no response… Dali wanted to go through with it. Really should have stopped her… but honestly, if she hadn't gone through with it when she did, I probably would have."
… This sounds more like a disastrous sequence of events that either Koujirou or Setsuna would be involved in, not your Instructors.
The Instructor suddenly steps rapidly closer to you, swaying on her feet. Her arms rise in an aborted attempt to steady herself on you before she catches herself with Impeller.
"W-we did it, we actually did it. We managed to use your bullshit space hack attack. With just our Impeller. One Valk's Impeller, no need for some Arcology sized megastructure," Washington stutters with a voice thick with emotion, her eyes almost wild on her face, "With a little more work, us, the Three Hundred at least, can now create an effect like the God Gun- like your Wave Force attack. We finally have an answer for all the crap the Zeroes keep throwing our way…"
Washington then looks back at the ordnance testing ground in the distance, now dominated by a tall mushroom cloud as the anomaly finally unravels with a final violent release of energy.
"Well… at least once in our lives," she amends, equipping her helmet back on, her tone now controlled and subdued, "We can all take at least one Zero with us, if they stay in range long enough, if we live long enough to see the attack through…"
The shockwave from the closing of the anomaly reaches you as if to underscore the disclaimers.
"The Wave Force technique, as it is, is certainly limited," you confirm, "The toll of its use on the user is destructive and the minimum baseline requirements for Impeller power is prohibitive, but… I have not nearly reached the limits of the technique. I am sure there will be ways to improve it further."
As you say this, you review the files that Vivas sent you. Most of it is already familiar to you, the various proofs and equations that you and the Instructors worked together on describing the Zeroth, First and Second stages of accessing the Wave Force. theory work that you were collectively building for the Third stage had been patchwork and incomplete the last you reviewed, but now it is completed. It simply feels right.
You must test this. You have to know it works. All of a sudden, you understand the urge that Vivas and Washington must have felt upon completing the proofs behind the Third Stage.
"One moment," you excuse yourself from Instructor Washington and teleport towards the devastated ordinance testing ground.
It is easy to see where the Instructor activated the Static Wave, a depression a kilometer wide sits in the land. The sides are shallow, dipping down gradually towards the hypocentre, where a much more defined crater around seventy meters in radius is carved into the ground from the detonation of the bore. Within that crater, you catch the glitter of degrading exotic elements.
Clearing your mind, rather than the smooth and continuous remembered motions, you move your Impeller as dictated by theorems in the paper.
Zeroth, First and Second stages clear without issue. Third Stage… you note a sharp and alarming drain on your Impeller and expand your awareness back out. The Wave Force ripples in front of you.
A… success. It worked!
You continue, Fourth and then Final Stage-
The Wave Force twists and snarls outwards, consuming space, the stacked and synchronised undulations erupting into the base reality-
It is identical to your Static Wave attack.
You laugh as you ascend away from the Wave, your Impeller regenerating. Joy, exuberance, happiness, glee and every similar positive emotion runs wild through you, you feel giddy.
It worked…
As the space beneath you ripples in and out as each Wave crest exhausts itself, Durga's underlayers slide over your stump and the colouration and texture of the black material change to that of skin. You absently flex your temporary replacement arm as you think about the price for using the Wave Force. Only near your body could your Impeller reach the densities required for activating Wave Force, and the minimum radius of the Static Wave as it forms means that you will always sacrifice your body part that is closest to the activation point. For the Final Stage, remaining Impeller strength is irrelevant, either the Valkyrie has enough Impeller to shape a channel to give the Static Wave initial direction or they don't. The Static Wave instantly destroys any Impeller field partition in totality upon the slightest contact. The damage from using Wave Force is unavoidable so long as your body remained the most vital component of your frame… but maybe you could extend the range of Static Wave.
The Fourth Stage is largely a power gathering stage where the previous stages are repeated in an abbreviated manner to increase the coherence of the Wave, essentially setting the power of the subsequent attack. The Final Stage is a relatively simple spatial manipulation stage so that the Wave initially expands away from the caster. Compared to the previous stages for accessing the Wave Force, the last two should be the ones that decide the nature of the resultant attack. You modify the final two stages- then revert the change. That change feels wrong.
Coming down from your emotional high, you consider the matter in more depth, putting aside the problem of the attack cost. To expand Wave Force's range is inarguably more important than reducing the survivable damage taken for activating the attack.
Hmm…
"Anna? So your verdict, does it work?"
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"… don't tell me you got Inspired too."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"Dammit, don't hurt yourself- well, anymore than you have to."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
"At least get some distance between… you know what, I'm just going to carry you for a bit."
You send back an affirmative ping and return to your deliberations.
The Final Stage… is one that you never worked on particularly closely, after you managed to access the Wave Force, but that resulted in a trump card that is severely limited by its range. Factoring in every issue that you are now aware of through working on theory paper… to modify the Final Stage that the Static Wave can be fired further away… hmmm…
A faint ache builds in your head. You slow your thought streams to a sustainable level, to suffer a forced interruption would be way worse than a mildly delayed timeline for the resolution of this problem. A very rough timeline puts an estimate for a possible modification to arrive just before the Squadron Vanguard Tournament begins. That issue solved, you return to your deliberations.
…
"Anna, it's now dinner time. If-"
You split your thoughts, putting a part of you in charge of your body to return yourself to the Arcology, while the rest of you continues with the modifications to the Static Wave.
"… Christs sake."
XxXxXxXxXx
Static Wave: 130+150+60(Two special events)+10(Late update conpensation)=350/350
Static Wave Level 1 > Static Wave Level 2:
Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal enormous damage at short range.
Blue Wave: Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal very heavy damage in a line at any range.
0/1050 for Level 1.
Red Wave: Expend all available Impeller and take minimal frame damage to deal indiscriminate, enormous damage around you at short range.
0/1050 for Level 1.
Target Rich Environment: 40+50=90/350
XxXxXxXxXx
The Demolitions elective is one of the more formal elective classes that you've attended, in that it's hosted in a classroom and an actual Instructor arrives to teach the class. The class appears to consist exclusively of third year cadets, two dozen or so of the students clustered around the first few rows of desks. You recognise a few of the cadets, including Hiroto Asuna, whom you met in your initial tour of the simulators, and a few other faces you were familiar with from your online discussions regarding Impeller techniques. Instructor Jane Lee, whom you are vaguely familiar with from the Instructor's lounge, gives you a curious look, before she sends an electronic summary of the classes that you missed and then continues to teach, starting off with a quiz to the other class members.
You review the material you missed while the rest of the class talks quietly amongst themselves about the challenge presented in the quiz.
Demolitions was an extremely technical elective, geared towards Valkyries running sabotage deep strikes into Antagonist territory. It offered painstakingly detailed descriptions of Antagonist trends in construction of structures and the most efficient ways to disable them. You unconsciously nod in approval at a quote from a previous class lecture; "Operating deep, you have no resupply. Your ammunition is limited. Your energy is limited. Most of all, your time is limited. For these situations where normal flights of Valkyries would bug out, efficiency is king."
You then turn your attention to the quiz scenario.
>>[Your Flight of Elite First rank are taking part in disruption activities in Antagonist fabrication facilities ahead of an imminent large scale assault. Entering the area where the complexes are located, your sensor data returns give the following cartographic details of the surrounding structure. Detail a plan for the destruction of the fabrication facilities in your AO. Explain thoroughly the operational constraints that your Flight would be placed under following your plan of attack. Detail out the assumptions you are making and explain in detail the risks that would result should any of these prove false.]
Hmm.
The data from the quiz indicated that the structure you are attacking is an underground network of large scale aerospace fabrication facilities, generally used for the production of space ships components. You'd attacked such facilities before and think you have a fairly good idea of the general requirements.
Heavy Particle Projectors fire to destroy power links and destabilise energy generation, follow with-
No presence of Antagonist Interdiction? Another check of the sensor data provided confirms that there is no presence of Interdiction at all inside the complex. Bizarre.
With a quick check, you confirm the standard loadout of High Yield Weaponry Valkyrie Aces deploy with and change your plan of attack.
You will teleport High Yield Weaponry to certain structural hard points and collapse vital junctions in tunnel network, then destabilise the power links to force a further overload of the Antagonist generators with pinpoint injections of exotic particles courtesy of your Heavy Particle Projectors. That would turn the entire section of the hardened fortress network into a crematorium.
Having access to the standard loadout of either twenty eight, eighty kiloton Casaba fission HYWs or six, twenty megaton nuclear fusion HYWs that the UN offered for Aces in deep deployment missions would greatly simplify your methods. Previously, to generate explosions of that magnitude and power, you had to either consume multiple Types in a row for Higgs or bait Type Tens into activating their self destruct then teleport them to where you wanted the explosion. Neither method is very efficient at all, while the presence of Types guarding such fabrication facilities was almost guaranteed, the most common Type Sixteens held very little Higgs reserves and the most convenient of them, the Type Tens, were very rarely present in the labyrinthine tunnel networks that held the majority of the more important Antagonist structures.
You submit your answer to Instructor Lee and wait. She pauses and tilts her head for a moment, then returns a reply.
>["Exquisite detail on your plan of attack. The assumptions that you made however, all rest on the premise that you would be alone in your attack. Even you would likely operate in an Element. It's true that you would likely not be attacking any targets that Flights of Elite ranks would be targeting, just assume in that case that you are in an Element or a Flight with some of the top Twenty rankers. Submit another answer with that assumption in mind."]
Hm.
Another of the top Twenty?
Your mind immediately jumps to the only one of The Twenty who you've worked closely with, Instructor Dalisay Vivas, rank eight. Part of Type Zero suppression Squadron Last Word alongside with you. Call sign Blue March. As with most of The Twenty, she is a non specialist Valkyrie, or rather more accurately, along with The Twenty, she is a master of all roles. Armed with Exotic Principle Weaponry HongShao from Class C Type Zero Guan Yu, use by Vivas causes interruptions in Antagonist control protocols at long range, causing units to berserk. The Type Zero is suspected to hold a grudge against her for theft of its unique weapon and the two have met in five separate occasions after their initial encounter over Hawaii. She is also no longer in the infirmary and back to her rather stoic personality, and thoroughly embarrassed about her episode of rambling, which of course Instructors Washington and Park recorded in full.
Hmmm… with her Exotic Principle Weaponry, Instructor Vivas would probably attack the power generation Antagonists directly and the resultant meltdown would achieve essentially the same effect as what you were aiming for.
Now it was a question of efficiency. Would the massive Higgs cost of using an Exotic Principle Weaponry be more or less efficient than expending some High Yield ordinance and some time spent by you firing at the generators? Assuming that you weren't needed to attack subsequent targets, then the answer is clearly in favour of using the HongShao due to time cost.
You submit your new answer to Instructor Lee, who smiles wryly and faintly nods.
>["An appropriate answer. If I were to sortie with Dali for a deep strike, I'd play guard too. To be honest Anna, with your experience, exemplified by the speed and acuity of your answers, as well as the weapon components and skills you are have worked for, you are already quite far beyond the scope of this class. I can forward you the remaining material that we will be covering for the rest of this semester, but aside from some materials relating to Breach assaults, I think you will be already well familiar with the rest of this course and can count as already graduated."]
You ping an affirmative back and Instructor Lee forwards you a large volume of information, the rest of the course materials for this elective class. The material on Breach Assaults talks mostly about the peripheral defences in real space around the breach, rather than the spatial Breach and the Hive within it. The material on the perimeter defences is also disappointingly brief, mentioning only that Valkyrie Squadrons should not pay particular attention in attempting to destroy those defences as the Breach can regenerate them at an astonishing rate. It mentions that Hive assaults are restricted to Elite rank Valkyries with at least a year of combat experience or Ace level Valkyries, and that further training for such operations are held during active service.
Sending a thanks to Instructor Lee, you stand up and depart the class.
XxXxXxXxXx
There appears to be an ongoing raid or some event of that sort occurring as you visit the Electronics Elective Class.
At the far end of the dock area for the small scale fabrication room where the class is held, a line of Valkyries stand, all members of the Electronics elective class, arms linked and presenting a united front. Towards the entrance and closer to you, a gaggle of Valkyries mingle in a chaotic ball, arguing amongst themselves with an odd member occasionally stepping out to debate with the members of the Electronics class before being drawn back into the blob of arguing cadets.
It's the Crafting elective class.
…
What on Earth is going on?
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the new deity of the Crafting class. Miss Sanchez, can you please disperse your cultists?" shouts out a stressed looking member of the Electronics elective class.
"Just call me Anna," you reply instinctively.
At your name, the entire Crafting elective class, as one, pivot to look at you, like a swarm of hungry fish.
… Nope.
"… I'll visit later," you excuse yourself and step back out of the room, closing the door after yourself.
There is a thunderous crash of interacting Impeller as the door is all but flattened by the force of a dozen determined third year cadets. They nearly spill over you as someone in the front ranks trips from the crush and the human wave breaks upon the shore of the hallway. Not put out at all by their tangled state, the members of the crafting class immediately begin making entreaties at you.
"Waitwaitwait Anna!" "We need a computing matrix for your Relativistic Particle Projector!" "-course the Electronics class aren't donating their new state of the art exotic material seven state quantum computing matrix cause fuck progress-" "UNARD finally worked out how to construct that hypertorus you use to set the nature of your exotic radiation-" "UNARD? Nice try, she means Beijing beat us to the punch-" "Advanced Technologies Development and Prototyping Class? Fu- er, far out, what snobs." "Least we got the acceleration rail right first-" "Lol Santiago-" "ANYWAY, we need some serious computing power integrated for the Valk frame cause that hypertorus needs serious calcs on the fly and that shh- stuff is hard-" "Hard? That cr- calculation clock requirement kicked all our asses simultaneously!" "Yeah so we need real state of the art computing integrated onto the design-" "Cept the Electronics class are full of SELFISH WANKERS-" "-lacking any pride whatsoever in our status as cadets of Perth Academy-" "-unbearably smug Beijing will be if they get another-" "-while Santiago is still on a duck egg without any runs ahuehuehue-" "-summarise, we really need that computing matrix-" "- cause they're SELFISH WANKERS-" "-might be possible to use one of your weapons at the expense of basically any other weapon system-" "- not just other weapons, without processing support to offload some of the management reqs, you're basically immobilised." "Sure you can slap them on a defensive emplacement, but does the word maginot ring any bells?" "Seriously, I hear you used to have ten of these? Are you magic?"
"That's enough!" the PA systems in the hallway crackle and hiss with the volume of the shout.
Another third year cadet stomps into the hallway, her thick auburn hair dishevelled, face red with fury and shoulders shaking with the same. Her tag reads >[Lisa Hwang, Electronics EC; Senior Hardware Design Engineer]
"You damn jackals have been begging at the door for the last three nights straight!" Cadet Hwang snaps with her finger jabbing accusingly at the mess of entangled Crafting Class members on the floor, "I've told you once, twice and many other times besides! If you want some of the QS Seven computing matrix, you build it yourselves, aren't you all supposed to be part of the crafting class? I've already sent you the schematics! We haven't even finished constructing an environment for a seven state processing chipset."
"No fabricator on earth can maintain that level of granularity across the size of the quantum matrix we need!" snaps Cadet Sibel Neuer, who you remember is the president of the Crafting class, "You've got to send in a requisition order to Armstrong base, and Armstrong has its quantum scale fabricators firing all cylinders on something or another and will be busy for like the rest of this year. To make such a computing matrix, we'd need to either upgrade a five state matrix or fold out the quantum structure with Impeller alone and either might take years."
"Um-" you start, then pause in surprise when the arguing ball of crafting class cadets actually stop and pay attention to you. They didn't seem like the type of people who would stop their arguing for anything.
"I have accessed the designs for the quantum computing matrix, and it is something within my ability to build, though the Crafting class is right in that this would take up some time for me. Firstly, I have to clarify some problems."
The silence is near total now, the Crafting class paying almost rapt attention and Lisa has gone from frowning at you to an open mouthed expression of disbelief.
"Why is it that you are planning to integrate a computing processor into the Heavy Particle Projector?" you ask, then at the bemused looks, elaborate further, "You can integrate more processors, but that just takes up complexity and the processing power demand on your Valkyrie Core to act as an intermediary is higher than the processing power you receive from the processor."
"Well yes," Neuer and Hwang admit simultaneously, before shooting each other a dirty look. After a moment of staredown, Hwang turns back to you and continues the explanation.
"This is absolutely true for directly increasing the mental runtime capacity of the Valkyrie, but no one does that," she dismisses with a wave, "Valkyrie Frames can use the processors to automate the control of components as long as they've already been programmed correctly. Takes the strain of operating said component off the Valkyrie. Reduces mental load, less efficiently than a direct inject, but much easier to implement."
You consider the answer, considering the mental load reduction when automating the firing of your Heavy Particle Projectors and the offset of using integrated processors…
Impractical. Latency, complexity limits and accuracy.
"That's impractical," you say as much, "Including sufficient processing capability for near autonomous usage would max out complexity too fast, time to integrate would increase a lot. Also, the software corrected hypertorus would lead to significant delays when firing in combination modes as the complexity increases exponentially-"
"Wait what." "Combine?" "Exponential increasing in complexity?" "Uh oh."
You raise an eyebrow and express out your Heavy Particle Projectors, combining first into a two by two then a four by one configuration.
"The cannons are meant to combine and separate, the hyperloops entangling increases the power efficiency of the stream multiplicatively."
There is moment of dead silence as the crafting class members look hesitantly at each other.
Then, stampede.
"Remake! Remake! Remake-" "So ffffffforking done." "TFW you thought you were ahead only cause you were so far behind you couldn't see the others." "Bet Beijing doesn't know about that ahaha-" "-Remake! Remake! Remake-" "-if Santiago already knows about this and that's why they're taking so long?" "-away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling kid and her little cannon!" "Remake! Remake! Remake…"
The Crafting elective class disappears down the corridors.
You left standing awkwardly outside the Electronics elective classroom, feeling the weight of the stares as the entire class looks at you.
"Well… " says Cadet Hwang slowly, "At least you did get rid of them."
… Yay?
"Anyway," the Cadet continues with a long sigh, "So about us at the Electronics class. As you might have guessed from that nonsense just now, we are focused largely on computing, both on the hardware and software elements of it. I'm one of the ones who focus on the development of the hardware more. Gina over there leads most of the software work."
Cadet Hwang points at a shy looking Valkyrie cadet with red hair and freckles, who waves at you before ducking back down into her terminal.
"We're pretty research orientated really," continues Cadet Hwang, "So unless you're very interested in almost purely theory work, Crafting is probably the better class for you."
"Also, if you hung around our Class more, I think the Crafting class would lay permanent siege to us," deadpans Cadet Hwang, "Still come on in, have a look around."
XxXxXxXxXx
The Fishing elective class took place in the remains of Old Perth. The skeletal remains of the city is quiet and cold, the crash of the surf on the remnants of houses and apartments the only noise.
Newer construction grids through the remnants, metal walkways with solemn plaques detailing what the city had once been set above metal safety railings. Here and there, more advanced holographic displays could pop up to show the city as it would have appeared, before Impact, where the water level now would have been far up in the sky, showing any who looked into the lens a sprawling vista of the past. Occasionally, thick walls reached the seafloor, boxing in and allowing a few buildings to stand in dry air without the suffocating water crushing down upon them.
Kings Park. Saint George and Saint Mary's Cathedral. Parliament House. Perth Gaol. Many others.
The buildings appeared restored to their former glory, walls cleaned of the grime and growth of the seabed. Elevators lean against the surrounding sea walls, allowing a sightseer to descend to the ground from the walkways and enter the preserved buildings if they wished to.
There is no one in sight. The only movement you can see is the patient, methodical pathing of maintenance drones, labouring to keep the relics of the old city presentable for absent visitors.
… You fly on without lingering.
The class is held out to sea, about a kilometer or so past where the shore would have been for the old city. There, a small trawler bobs on the waves, and a class of Valkyries sit on its sides, rod and tackle arranged around them. Further out towards the open ocean, a few Valkyries bob on the sea with their Impellers, floating along with their lines trailing behind them.
A few look up and wave at you.
"G'day Anna," a Cadet Islan greets you.
"Hello," you reply.
"Finally made your way to our class, I see," she smiles cheerily up at you, "Anyways, quick intro; up here on the boat and on the surface we're practicing passive fishing. It's mostly selecting bait and locations, then reeling-n-relaxing. Down below, we're doing active fishing. As in, swim around and catch your own fish. Make sure you limit your noise levels with speed and actively prevent cavitation. Be careful entering the city, the buildings down there are protected and we're not allowed to catch in there."
"We don't really have any other rules," she continues casually as she hooks and baits another line, sending a map of the surrounding waters to you, "Just don't tangle lines with the others and if you aren't going to eat it, toss it."
You send an acknowledgement and descend down. The boat is crowded, so you hover over it with your Impeller, pick out some gear marked for newcomers, then set yourself down in the water a little distance away from the boat.
Retracting Durga, you spread your Impeller and sit down on the water, throwing your line out and waiting.
After a while, you decide that fishing with a line out on the open ocean is not nearly as engaging as fishing in a lake or river.
Then again, you aren't trying to catch food here, this is recreation, not survival. You reel in a fish, a Yellowfin Tuna, seamlessly free it by taking in the fishing line and hook into your storage and cast out the line again. The line flies out, three- four hundred meters then plops into the water. You tug the line in at a moderate speed, then rapidly reel in for a few seconds before resetting to a slower speed, cycling between the two motions. Another bite on the line, pink snapper you confirm after reeling it in, and set it free. One of the sharks that have been lurking around under you snaps up the disorientated fish, vanishing back into the depths.
…This is easy, you realise. Sport fishing is done with lines with a deliberate weight limit, so as to provide a challenge when reeling in a fish lest the fisherman exerts too much force and snaps the line. Speed and volume of catch isn't a concern here, this is all for fun.
And you are not having any fun.
You stand up and pack up your gear, neatly disassembling the rod and packing away the tackle. Returning the gear with a word of thanks, you instead decide to do some 'active fishing'.
Diving in, you look around.
The water of the oceans is very different from that of the pool that the swimming club set up. Without the Valkyries blasting through the water, leaving behind trails of bubbles and kicking up debris with their wakes, it is clear. The reddening sunlight of dusk doesn't penetrate far into the water, but even then, the remaining towers of Perth stand out starkly through the reddening waters.
…
Forgetting about fishing, you simply make your way slowly through the city, slowly drifting on the currents through the buildings. Save for the sections of the city preserved by the sea walls, the buildings are rotting, made anonymous by the damage of time. Paint, windows, insulation, all long gone, only the bare concrete and steel skeletons of the buildings stand silently in the water. Even as the facades built by humanity are stripped away, nature builds one of her own. Spindly coral grows thinly over the shells of buildings and shoals of tiny fish dart in and out of cover, highlighted by the specs of red light from above glimmering off their scales.
A huge, rotund grouper fish swims up to you, it's more than three meters long, covered with black scales occasionally specked with white spots. To your surprise, as it approaches, an IFF signal chirps, identifying the fish as 'George; protected fish'. It inquisitively bumps you with its snout and then, apparently baffled by your Impeller field, turns and slowly swims away.
…This vista is so strange. Near the surface, bathed in the light of the sun, new life grows, coral latches onto the ruins of apartments and provides cover for hatcheries of new born fish fry. Yet, below, on the dark murky sea floor, the twisted skeletons of cars and the shattered debris of human habitats lay jagged in the mud, panes of glass, street lamps, all reaching up to claw for the surface.
It feels…
… You don't know.
You're about to turn and make for the surface when a glimmer of light reflects from an unexpected angle. You pause your ascent and take a careful look for the source of the strange light. Again, your sensors catch it, glimmers off fish, reflections off the metal walkways above and other miscellaneous sources.
With a few quick calculations, you determine the most likely source is three hundred meters distant, inside the small restricted area of the old city. The light piqued your attention for its strange spectral emissions, after reconstructing the likely wavelengths of the light, you guess that the source of the light is most likely a fluorescent bulb.
A light bulb underwater?
You hesitate, then driven by curiosity, descend, making your way to an area where you can see where the light is coming from without trespassing into the restricted area.
Coming to a halt on the seafloor, kicking up gentle puffs of mud with your Impeller, you look at the source.
For a moment, you can't quite process what you are seeing.
On the third level of an ancient apartment, it's foyers buried under layers of dark sediment, warm yellow light shines out from a window. Unlike the barren and cold rooms neighbouring it, the windows are still perfectly intact, holding out the water. Floral patterned curtains, tied back by frilly red ribbons, frame the scene through the window. A dining room, a long table set for eight, only one seat occupied.
Instructor Leonhart sits alone and still at the table, slumped forwards on her elbows, looking down at her hands. Steam gently rises up from dishes set in the middle of the table. She glances at the door, then back down again at her clasped hands, otherwise, she is completely still.
…
You leave.
XxXxXxXxXx
Elective classes:
Demolitions: 200/100 (Class Limit Reached) (Mastered) (Innate Skill)
Innate to Target Rich Environment
Electronics: 100/100 (Class Limit Reached)
Innate to Warrior background.
Fishing: 50/50 (Class Limit Reached) (Mastered)
Innate to Warrior background.
XxXxXxXxXx
The initial recommendations for you regarding the Valkyrie Academy course appeared to be playing true. The First Year Academy course in the three weeks you've been in attendance have not taught you anything new for the operation of Durga. Neither did, upon you reading further, the rest of the year's material introduce any new concepts for Valkyrie operations. It was not until Second Year, coinciding with most Cadets settling down in one or two Valkyrie Frames, and the introduction of group tactics, that there are tactics you are unfamiliar with.
That is not to say you learnt nothing thus far.
You have learnt that you are terrible at teaching.
After much talking in disjointed and stumbling English, wild gesticulations and transmission of electronic data that made Koujirou cross-eyed and forced Setsuna to clear her datapad's memory, you decided to surrender and simply sit in on the lessons that Yukari held for the two first years instead.
Sitting in one of the smaller, tropical Academy Biomes for today, Yukari is teaching a refinement of the standard Impeller deflection techniques to Setsuna. Koujirou is absent, having begged off to talk to Shuri about "swording and stuff".
"-relating to the mathematics of the technique, it's actually quite fundamental for the various spatial manipulation techniques that you will learn later on-" Yukari lectures in the background over the calls of the various birds nesting in this biome.
Setsuna listens with a frown of concentration as she suspends a glob of water in the air with her Impeller. Next to her, the artificial creek burbles on cheerfully, a small electronic display floating above it informing Setsuna that the water from the creek is not fit for drinking.
"- false expansion of volume inside your Impeller. Well, as usual for relative beginners, a visualisation of the technique is likely easier. Imagine you're holding a large balloon and it's trying to expand-"
You're familiar with the technique Yukari is teaching, but you usually visualise it as a snowflake, every tine another snowflake, with the more tines that you can see corresponding with the power of the technique.
"- loss of pressure due to the minor expansion within your Impeller-"
The globule of water Setsuna is holding starts bubbling, steam rising away from the edges of the bubble.
"Excellent! You've got it! Now you've gotten it once, you should be able to reproduce it whenever you want. Now it's down to practice," Yukari claps once triumphantly.
Setsuna whoops and produces another of the Impeller bubbles, splitting the bubble of water she was suspending into two. Now both of the bubbles start steaming and Setsuna runs a lap around the biome, bouncing the two bubbles of water like basketballs.
Yukari laughs and continues, "Try pressing the volumes together, you should feel that they can both exert and absorb much more force than a standard volume of Impeller."
Setsuna sits back down and does just that, squashing the two volumes, the faintly white light of Impeller interactions sparking fitfully as the two sections interfere with each other.
"Nicely done Setsuna. You're now well ahead of the curve when it comes to first year cadets," Yukari congratulates.
Setsuna however, is now frowning at the two bubbles with dissatisfaction. She almost unconsciously presses the two volumes against her chest before shaking her head rapidly, pushing the technique away from her body and shooting a furtive look over at you and Yukari. The older girl sighs slightly, an amused smile playing around her lips despite the despondent sound.
"I've told you before Setsuna, you're perfectly fine, above average, even."
You agree, her Impeller control was around par with that of some early second year cadets, well above average for a first year.
"Maybe proportionally, but in absolute terms…" mutters Setsuna with a blush, looking down and away.
If in absolute terms referred to the entirety of the UN Valkyries, then yes, she was still lacking in her Impeller techniques.
Setsuna continues broodingly staring down at the ground, looking troubled. You're about to try to offer some advice on Impeller technique, as badly as that has gone in the past, when Setsuna abruptly shoots another furtive look over at you, then for some reason huffs out a self satisfied breath and a smug smile spreads over her face.
…The wide smug grin on the face of the other girl fills you with annoyance and you don't even know why.
"Though… you aren't the first one to make use of your Impeller in that manner, shall we say. If you decide to prank Koujirou, make sure to record his reaction." Yukari chuckles.
As the two girls snigger behind their hands, trading significant looks with each other, a ping from Durga attracts your attention. You just received a message from… Sandra? Strangely, it's not from her as a position of Flight Leader, or even as a Valkyrie cadet. Neither is it addressed personally to you, rather, this looked more like a general announcement. It was addressed from United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Undersecretary of Humanitarian Affairs, Aleksandra Marianne Cambridge.
Reading through it, it appeared to be a general appeal for volunteers from the combat eligible Valkyrie cadets of Perth, a voluntary humanitarian aid mission in east Asia for aid in the construction of general use shelters.
Mission. Finally.
A faint shiver runs up your spine as a wave of prickling heat washes over your skin. Anticipation, you realise in a distant corner of your mind.
You take slight breath to try and calm down, but the strange heat lingers like an itch behind your neck. Trying to ignore it, you reread the message for mission specifics but notice an incongruity in the message. The message is directed at combat eligible Valkyrie cadets only. You are aware the Third year cadets all qualify, but you are quite sure that you don't. Not yet at least. A dig through your service details reveals that you are apparently under a 'Section 55 exemption'. That exemption is applied where if the birthdate of a person could not be officially confirmed to 'legal satisfaction', protections usually afforded by their age may be waived.
That's interesting. So you can apply for frontline combat positions right as of right now?
A search reveals that Shuri is also under a Section 55 exemption, due to her circumstances of birth being unknown. As is Zoe Hermann, the other First Year Ace, the records of the hospital she was born at having been lost. In fact… every single Ace ranked cadet in the first and second years at Perth are under Section 55 exemptions, all their birth records apparently having been lost or not up to legal standard.
…
That's interesting.
You're… conflicted about this, a little at least. It's clear that some section of the UN Armed Forces are trying their best to circumvent the laws set in place by the UN Central Government, but is that necessarily a bad thing? You think about your fellow Aces in the First year, Shuri can easily handle herself against almost all Antagonist units and the two of you on a battlefield would undoubtedly reduce casualties suffered, but you're unsure about Zoe. The third first year Ace always performed modestly without too much flash in the records of her on the network. Would you allow them to fight? Was it fair that third year cadets could be called to the battlefield regardless of skill, yet just because you're a few years younger in age you could not be?
You glance at Yukari. She is already in the upper bracket of skill for Third Year cadets despite all but skipping a year, and yet if you are to compare her to a single Type Two… you're not sure if she would live through the battle. On the other hand, neither you nor Shuri would suffer any issue in destroying a few Type Twos.
What about the First Year cadets who've only discovered their Valkyrie compatibility later in life? A search finds seven cadets in the First Year already eighteen years of age or older. The UN nominally required both a minimum combat capacity and age to engage on the frontlines proper. So, once those older first year cadets reached the skill level of an Enlisted Valkyrie, would they be sent to the battlefield? All while you are left here?
… It didn't really matter.
You are just be glad to have the opportunity to do something. Aid in construction of refugee shelters, duration of mission is a maximum of two weeks. Specialised Builders are due to be shipped on site on final days of mission. Danger level; very low. A mission -any mission- you will gladly take. Departure in six hours via transport jet.
"Yukari, Setsuna. I'll be off for a mission. I will return before the Vanguard Tournament," you announce as you stand and make your way for the exit.
"Mission-? Wait!" Yukari lands in front of you, blocking the doorway, "What mission, Anna? Don't leave me behind, I'm going too."
"Mission?" asks Setsuna, jogging down the hill to catch up.
"A non-combat humanitarian aid mission," you answer, forwarding the message to the two, shooting a curious look Yukari's way. As a Third Year, she should have also received Sandra's message, right?
Yukari's face goes through a range of emotions as you watch on, features twisting into something dark before she seems to deflate, looking crestfallen.
"Combat eligible? So that's how it's going to be," Yukari says flatly.
"Helping build stuff for refugees? Yeah I'd be up for it… but doesn't seem like I'm invited," Setsuna murmurs contemplatively at her datapad.
"Anna," Yukari almost shouts, reaching up and grabbing you by the shoulders, her face unreadable, then she hugs you.
"Stay safe, please," she says into your chest.
Um.
Um…
Eeep…
"I-I will? Stay s-safe too?" you stutter.
"H-hey onee-sama," cuts in Setsuna, "It's just a construction mission. Besides it's Anna. She isn't going to slip with a hammer and hit her own thumb or anything."
Yukari pushes herself away and nods.
"Y-yeah. Sorry Anna, uh," she says wetly, "Good luck."
"S-sure, uh, you too" you mutter, averting your eyes and escape out the door.
"Wow Yukari. For such a poignant moment, you two sure can add on the unnecessary romantic undertones," Setsuna says frankly from behind you.
Yukari chokes out a startled laugh, "Setsuna, you watch too much anime."
XxXxXxXxXx
Considering the jet is scheduled to depart in more than six hours and you are far faster than a standard transport jet anyway, you depart Perth Arcology and prepare to make your own way north to the Korean peninsula. You're now cooling your heels outside the Arcology, waiting for a Flight plan.
You're still waiting for takeoff approval when a video call from Sandra comes in.
"Anna? How are you volunteering for the mission?" Sandra asks, sounding concerned.
"Should I not be?" you respond with a frown. Considering that the original message was from Sandra, you thought you had her agreement for you to leave.
"I…" Sandra hesitates, "You're supposed to be age restricted from receiving missions located in second or third line positions."
Considering that Sandra herself was to participate in this mission, you can't help but to jab at her lightly, "What about you then?"
"I am attending in an official capacity as per my position in the UNHCR, I am exempted from the age restrictions," Sandra answers promptly.
"I am also exempt," you promptly reply, "I am under a section 55 exemption."
Sandra tilts her head slightly, "A section… fifty five? Five five?"
"Yes. Armed Forces Special Considerations, Section fifty five exemption," you confirm.
"… The details of that particular section is beyond my security classification. When was… how- Tell me Anna, what is a section fifty five exemption?" Sandra asks intensely, leaning forwards towards the camera, her eyes sharp.
"A person is eligible for-"
"Stop," Sandra suddenly snaps, throwing herself back into her chair, a palm over her eyes.
"Sorry," she continues in a calmer tone, "My apologies, don't tell me, I could have landed you in serious trouble."
You wait as Sandra leans back into her chair and massages her temples.
"Regardless, this exemption is seriously- seriously strange if it allows first year cadets to partake in missions in a line two or line three region."
Line two and three? Classification of geographical area based on antagonist presence probability for next three months. Front line, one hundred percent. Line one, fifty percent. Line two, twenty five percent. Line three, twelve and half percent. So on and on until Line five classification.
This mission doesn't even involve combat though.
"… Can I go then?" you ask hopefully.
Sandra stares at you through the video link, expression briefly conflicted.
"You may, I'm signing your permissions off."
"Thank you," you respond gratefully as you finally receive a flight plan.
"I'll meet you onsite at twenty hundred Perth time then, until then, I need to find and break some skulls," Sandra smiles tightly, then leaves the call.
You teleport into the air, then burn north.
XxXxXxXxXx
As you fly over the Pacific, you review the missions requirements in more detail. With the flight plan speed limit of just under six kilometers per second, it would take you almost half an hour to fly the eight and a half thousand kilometer trip from Perth to Seosan.
Over the course of the Great Battle, the furious offensive by the Antagonists pushed back UN lines on almost every front except for UN South East, which was again curiously left alone, as it had been for all of the war. The loss of a large amount of territory throughout the west Pacific islands, Antagonists making landfall in Siberia over the North Pole and on East Asia across the Pacific led to the mass displacement of civilians. Not overwhelming in and of itself, but the assault also dealt significantly heavy damage to Tokyo, Seoul, Shenyang and Manila Arcologies, along with the evacuation of New Zealand along with the damage to the Australian East Coast Arcologies, resulted in a crisis of displacement throughout the Eastern territories of the UN. Thus, the UNHCR has been regularly calling for Valkyrie assistance for smaller scale reconstruction.
Camp Seosan was established following the attacks on Tokyo and Seoul Arcologies, population; 41,780. Civilians mostly originating from Japanese main islands and Seoul Arcology. Current habitations constructions sufficient, but temporary; moderate priority. On site infrastructure is deficient, highest priority. Surrounding defense infrastructure sufficient, Seohaean tertiary defense line providing overwatch, fast response of area assigned to Seoul's Valkyrie garrison. Materials for the construction are already on site. Dedicated construction builders will arrive within seven days, whereupon the Valkyrie volunteer forces will be relieved.
You access the construction schedule that the UN Builder drones would follow after your mission is completed and frown at the news. There would only be a single medium scale Builder drone on site, accompanied by twenty small scale Builder drones. To complete the upgrades that Seosan required on their own, factoring in drone downtime and replacement, the Builder force would need around eight thousand hours.
Nearly a year.
An unacceptably long time. Why did the UN plan to dedicate so few Builders to this town? You query around for builder drone deployments- and find that the all construction assets are completely occupied. You expand your range and try again- same result. You access the general construction projects queue- there are hundreds of such camps that required work on a similar scale across the world and hundreds more already undergoing such work. Even more Builders are busy with construction of defenses on the North American continent and replenishment of other infrastructure destroyed by the Antagonists during the Great Battle.
However… a quick review of previously done work demonstrates a huge discrepancy of currently committed construction forces with those the economic power the UN has historically demonstrated. Even accounting for losses, the UN is short of at least a quarter of its construction capacity. Despite careful scouring, you can't appear to find those missing assets. Also, in spite of materials production increasing steadily, the relative lack of active construction has not resulted in a corresponding surplus of materials. As far as you can tell, the materials are simply missing.
Strange.
Then instead of these disparate camps, shouldn't the UN be attempting to move the displaced people into Arcologies? Perth, even as it continues to take in population from the east coast of Australia, still has resources to accommodate a third again its current population. Concerns of population concentration did not take precedence over standards in habitation and the UN certainly should have enough transportation assets to shift the displaced people into Arcologies. A brief reading of history would make anyone well aware of the UN's transport capacity, which historically moved over fifty million people from the South East Asian islands to Australia over a period of just five years. The enormous migration was undertaken simply because it was more convenient in the long term to centralise populations than it was to create new Arcologies with the limited number of Valkyries back then.
Yet now, with a economic production capacity literally orders of magnitude greater than back then, transportation for the purpose of civilian relocation is already strained moving a large portion of the residents of Japan to the Asia mainland. Involving the scheduled transportation of twenty million people over the next two months, it is certainly no small feat, but one that should be comfortably within the UN's logistic capabilities.
… For someone who would know a lot about the world at large, likely able to postulate an answer from some context you are perhaps missing, you call Sandra.
"Sandra," you open up a channel, "I have a question."
There is a brief pause, then Sandra's voice comes in, sounding a little distracted, "Ask me anything, Anna."
"Where is the UN's missing construction and capacity? There is a very large shortfall of builder drones, supplies and transport. If we could use the missing builders with these projects, or centralise some of these displaced populations more, we could reduce the work we need to do."
"Ah, that is in fact a question I have been inquiring into myself, Anna," Sandra responds, now sounding much more alert, "Searches from my end into the resources which have began disappearing from the start of this year have turned up nothing. The volumes of resources being funneled away is truly massive however."
"Do you have any ideas, Anna?" after a moments pause, Sandra abruptly turns the question on you.
You take a moment to cycle through the missing Builders, the materials disappearing, the types of transport ships, but find no tells. There is no particular bias for Builder scale, with small, medium and large scale Builder drones all absent from construction projects in similar ratios. Neither is there a particular spike in the types of resources being consumed with whatever is being built, raw materials and processed materials, all that should have been stockpiling with the slowdown in construction work, remaining level in depots across the world. Lastly, the types of missing transportation planes are- wait. You recheck specifications of the transports. The missing transports are all aerospace specification, vacuum operable. Then, that means either orbit, or the moon-
Oh. Of course, the construction of the Ginnungagap cannon complex on Luna's surface.
"I've noticed a very significant uptick in the operation of Kuala Lumpur's orbital elevator, along with very heavy activity from Antananarivo orbital facilities, so I would hazard a guess that there is some large scale construction taking place in orbit," Sandra continues musing, oblivious to your realisation, "The resources being dedicated are sufficient even to construct major Arcology."
Uh… looks like the Ginnungagap project is beyond Sandra's classification level, you guess that the only member of your Flight to know about it would be Shuri. There is now a slightly awkward hang in the conversation as you furiously think of something to say.
Uh… so what now, you brought up the subject so…
Change of topic time.
"If you don't know, then it's fine. I've noticed a number of surrounding towns that also need work, after we complete the work on Seosan, should we then move on?"
"If we do complete the construction work, then of course. I can authorise another mission," Sandra hums thoughtfully, "However, the amount of construction work required in Seosan is quite substantial. In this mission, I will probably have the assistance of around twenty volunteers. For us to completely finish the construction work required before the Vanguard Tournament, we'd likely need to work continuously without rest."
"It'll be fine," you assure Sandra, "I alone can finish the work required in Seosan town in three days or less."
"Truly? That's astonishing," Sandra exclaims, "When we arrive on site I'll make another assessment of the progress we can make and revise my schedule."
"I am now arriving on the vicinity of the mission area. I will meet you here soon," you conclude to Sandra.
"Then we shall meet you on site. Until then Anna," Sandra signs off.
Now over the Shandong Sea off the coast of China, you turn east, heading for the Korean peninsula. To your north, you can see the massive Impeller shadow of Beijing Arcology.
After a another minute of flying, you enter Seoul's airspace and begin to slow and descend for Seosan town. As you approach within fifty kilometers, you are hailed. Unlike the brief security confirmations you that you previously mentioned, this is a voice comm request.
"Hey there," an accented voice comes in, originating from a patrolling flight of Valkyries another twenty kilometers above you, "You're part of the volunteer group we're expecting, right?"
Considering you are already registered with the local TACNET with your objective, they are probably just chatting.
"I am," you reply, "The rest of the group from Perth will likely arrive in eight or so hours."
"Glad to see you're eager to help. We'd be down there, but well, none of us are good with construction."
There is moment of almost embarrassed silence before the Flight leader continues.
"Thanks for doing this by the way."
"No problem," you reply, "Anything to help other people. Others would do the same if they had the chance."
"Ears of rice bow deeply as they ripen," the Flight Lieutenant quotes a little bitterly, "Not that many cadets care about these kinda camps once they leave for an Arcology and take their families with them. Good luck, if you need any help, call us over TACNET."
The Flight makes a gentle curve towards the north as they continue their patrol. You continue your descent, having a direct look at Seosan as you do so.
Seosan town is nestled in a shallow valley not too far from the sea, leaning against the side of a series of low hills. The layout of the town doesn't quite match the UN standard, with the town being built out of an older settlement, but the overall structure is the same. At the heart of the town, rings of low apartments sprawled outwards, their roofs connected, being used as recreational areas. Smaller spokes of housing, both temporary and permanent, radiated outwards from the main complex, largely reaching into the older settlement. You catch sight of a series of underground complexes, but according to schematics, they're identical to the standard UN emergency shelter so you don't inspect in detail yet. Below the town towards the sea a power station sits, and above the town on the peak of the low hills, a large passive scanning array perches, watching the east.
It's easy to see the areas that require work. There is only one properly constructed and set road, leading from a newly constructed port up to the town, the rest either being hastily laid down concrete, jutting out from the surrounding earth and inviting trips, or reuse of the old asphalt roads built before Impact. Both electrical and water supply lines simply run exposed on the ground, neatly bundled power lines coiling across the ground next to thick hoses. Neither utility was provided evenly across the entire town, with some of the housing having neither, their residents required to trek around for drinkable water and electricity, carrying cartons and battery packs. Sewage systems are still rudimentary, with only brief treatment before it is injected into the leftover piping from the old town where it is carried far out to sea, courtesy of the raised sea level. Two clusters of warehouses appeared to be the main food depots, one near the port and one near a train station terminal, but there is no independent food production capacity. The construction materials that are required for construction are already on the port, stacked up neatly in long rows.
… You don't make a move and simply watch for a minute, gauging the mood of the town. The inhabitants have not been simply cooling their heels while such problems dogged the camp. Signs of work are scattered around the town. Here and there, coils of pipes lead from junctions into houses, their contrary to plan deployment and masses of spare lengths indicating it is ad hoc work. Dirt berms have been dug up, forming small levees uphill of the town to divert heavy rainfall away from the town. Here and there, people have tried to bury exposed utility lines where they crossed busy paths, but the heavy cables resisted most efforts and instead mounds of dirt or other debris have been piled up to form bridges over them. It appears that sentiment remains fairly high for the moment.
Well then… priorities. Expansion of infrastructure, electricity and water lines, then expansion of sewage systems. Construction of additional permanent housing, reinforcement of shorter spam housing into longer term construction. Construction of food production facilities. Construction of additional roads. Lastly, tidying and aesthetics.
Your maximum Impeller range from expressed frame components is around one hundred meters, but your practical total reach with your Impeller is very easy to increase due to Durga's properties.
Durga's underlayers drip out, thin tendrils of material spreading outward. Using it only to expand your peripheral Impeller range like so, you keep the tendrils thin enough that they should be invisible from the ground. Your range expands until you are encompassing the entire town. You reach down towards the docks with one tendril and you take part of the construction materials into your storage.
Firstly, you work on constructing underground pipes for both the electric and water lines. Lifting dirt and crushing through rock, your Impeller clears voids underneath the ground in accordance to the town blueprints and you express out the piping into those voids. Next you need to shift the currently functional electricity and water supply lines into the new channels without disrupting supply. Electricity is easy, you simply channel the electricity through your Impeller. Water… isn't.
You first translate the electricity lines down into the ground, making sure to verify that you did not break any connections as you did so. You also check line integrity as you do so, replacing lines that have been damaged with new ones from the construction supplies.
As you do this, you consider how to deal with the water lines. With your Impeller spread so thin at the edges of your range, you can't control your storage sufficiently to guarantee that you won't introduce impurities if you try to channel the water through your storage. Right then, you will open up gaps into the underground piping and use your Impeller as a temporary plumbing system while you set the new pipes in place. Then when the new pipes are in place, you'll seal the new system as your Impeller carries the water parallel with it until the water is again at full pressure, when you'll seal the pipes after injecting the surplus water still carried by your Impeller back into the system.
You get to work, taking the piping closest to the desalination plant into your storage as you construct pipes with your Impeller to replace them. You quickly set into place the new piping, taking particular care on the construction of the piping for the new housing that you will be building to ensure there is enough capacity in the network for the expansion. The major arteries of plumbing complete, you start returning the water back into the proper plumbing system when you pause. There are people playing with your Impeller, children clamber over the invisible pipes, balancing on them and hanging off them like monkey bars, marvelling at the water apparently flowing through thin air then plunging back into the ground. Adults too are taken in by the sight, more than a few outside of their houses staring in bemusement as water seems to just floats through the air to directly enter their household plumbing, whereas the last time they looked a hose had been connected to the port.
You gently lift the little ones off your Impeller pipes as you dissolve them, making sure that none of them fall. Now you work on the connections between the main lines and that of the houses placing the more delicate pipes as well as pressure regulators into place. It's somewhat more finicky work and you make sure to check afterwards that all the seals are tight.
By now people have spotted you, there are are people pointing up at you and waving. A few jump up and down, cheering, mostly the children.
… You haven't really done anything yet. You hesitantly wave back in greeting. There is a fresh outburst of noise below as the children laugh and wave even harder. You again reply and for the next few minutes, you are stuck in a loop of waving back until the children tire of it and simply sit around, apparently waiting for you to do something else.
You're sorry to disappoint, but you doubt your work on the sewage system will be anywhere near as visually interesting. The UN had thankfully not left an open sewage system run through the town, having made use of the older stormwater channels already in place. However, the town's own stormwater system is insufficient and heavy rains would lead to minor flooding. While this is something you can mitigate with the construction of higher quality housing, it's far simpler to solve the issue directly. Further, there is problem of current capacity for the sewage system, in the event of a heavy storm, not only would there be flooding, the sewage system would also… um, 'fail to accept additional material' shall you say. You've had enough of backed up toilets and other such messes for a lifetime. You extend additional tendrils from Durga's underlayers, concentrating your Impeller with far more strength onto the surrounding hillside and reshape the hills. You deepen the creeks above the town until you lead them into tunnels, which you connect with the existing drains and then create a set of parallel drainage channels. For the moment, you compress and heat- then cool some of the displaced soil on the border of the tunnels until a border of glassy smooth igneous rock supports the roof. The support the rock provides is… sufficient, but a little thin, so you set your fabricator to work on creating a bonding agent to further reinforce the soil around the new tunnels.
Next you turn your attention to the original combined sewage passageway. You divert the storm water drains into your new tunnels and now focus on converting the original dual purpose channel into a dedicated waste processing system, working to connect the individual houses as well as set up new channels.
…
For all the praise that people give you about your sensory and data processing abilities, sometimes, it's rather unfortunate to intimately know basically every detail about what your Impeller is touching.
… Eww.
The task over with, and the foundations for the construction of further housing set, you begin the construction of additional housing. Of the forty two thousand or so population, around half that lived in the sprawls of housing outside of the central rings of apartments. In total, there are around three thousand standalone homes. Of those, around two thirds are in need of service, either lacking utilities or being temporary housing.
Firstly, you connect the houses lacking utilities into the expanded grid you constructed, checking loads to make sure there are no faults. The task goes by quickly, occasionally interspersed with the surprised reaction of people now finding they have electricity and water on demand whereas before they did not.
Next, the upgrading of the temporary shelters into permanent housing. While the tents provided by the UN aren't like a hiker's haphazard construction of canvas and aluminium, being quick self assembling structures with heating, plumbing, insulation and basic electrical services, they still fall short of the longevity of permanent housing. You assemble a few houses inside your storage, then pause for a moment to think.
A lot of the tents that you need to replace are occupied. You could wait for the occupants to leave, ask them to vacate their homes, or simply replace their houses around them. The last option will probably be the fastest… and people probably won't mind, or even notice. From the inside, the largest aesthetic difference between the houses and the tents is a higher ceiling and more solid flooring. The additions of foundations and changes from the self-setting resin used in the walls of tents to proper polyplaster would be only notable in a thickness of the walls. Similarly, the replacement of the plastic panel windows with polycarbonate would be impossible to notice unless the plastic film is very old, and the frames that allow the windows to open and close would probably just be welcomed.
With that in mind, you get to work. Careful to leave all personal effects behind when you absorb the tents into your storage, you are momentarily tied into knots as whether or not to absorb a wall with words scratched into its side. You decide to transcribe the scrawls into the replacement walls before absorbing the original. As you work, your pace rises, houses replacing tents in a gradually larger radius around you, the tents you take into your storage being repaired where necessary, then stocked back on the pier to pick up for use elsewhere.
Your work is not as subtle as you thought it would be, people now having gathered in great crowds as you work, marveling as houses appear in the place of tents. People lay their hands on tents you are currently renovating, seemingly fascinated as the building melts away, the interior contents floating in your Impeller, before solid materials against manifest into the form of a house.
… Oh, yeah. You suppose the white glow of Valkyrie storage manifesting or retracting components is hardly something subtle.
To your surprise, there are some people, mainly children, who begin playing around as you work, jumping from one piece of furniture to another, pretending there is no floor under their feet. Others again stand on your Impeller and flap their arms, pretending to fly.
You smile, the cheer is really infectious. For a moment, you consider slowing down, but then shunt the thought aside. You might have time for this after you complete the rest of the renovations.
After completing the renovations, you again check each and every house to ensure access to utilities and are otherwise functional.
As you go through this check, the signal of additional IFFs appear on TACNET. The rest of the volunteers have arrived. You recognise a few names, Cadet Deneuve of the cooking club, Cadets Castiglioni and Hasiholan of Crafting and Cadet Liu of Aerospace Modelling are amongst the group. Including you and Sandra, there are a total of twenty six volunteer Valkyries here to help.
Below you in the town, there is another flurry of activity. A small group of UNHCR workers and Public Order officers hurry out and form a slightly ragged line in across a small grassy park in the middle of the town.
The other Valkyries approach slowly, swooping down in extended wing formation, they must have disembarked from the transport jet further south and have flown here in their Valkyries. You reel in Durga's under layers so that you won't interfere with the approach and watch on.
Framed by the setting sun, the other cadets glide gracefully to a landing in the field. You notice that more than one cadet have increased the refractive index of their Impeller, throwing out glitters and glimmers of rainbow light as they fly over the town.
Sandra steps to the head of the small procession, retracing Albion, revealing that she is dressed in a plain but sharp ensemble of blouse and skirt. The other cadets also retract their Valkyries as they form a short double column behind Sandra, and the two groups meet and exchange pleasantries. You idly note that unlike Sandra, the other volunteer cadets are in dress uniforms. Towns people are now crowding around, looking on curiously. Sandra finishes talking with the workers and expresses Albion back out, but leaves the helmet off. She hovers up on her Impeller and makes another speech, this one broadcast through the town on its PA system.
"We are all Valkyrie cadets of Perth. We are here to help," Sandra's voice rings out firmly, delivering the short and to the point message.
A slightly ragged cheer rises from the people of the town.
With that little bit of ceremony completed, the other Valkyries disperse. A series of new tasks appear on TACNET, the Valkyries using the local network to coordinate tasks with each other. Sandra flies up to you.
"Anna," she beams at you, smile threatening to split her face, her cheeks slightly flushed, "Just amazing work- I could hardly believe- I mean, that is to say-"
Sandra pauses and take a slight breath, "Pardon me, I'm quite lost for words. You're quite simply the most capable Builder I've ever met in person."
"Ah- um, thanks," you mumble, taken aback. Sandra was usually upbeat, but right now she seems outright ecstatic.
Sandra raises a hand over her heart, closes her eyes and take a slight breath, when she reopens her eyes, she's still sunny in her expression, but no longer blindingly so.
"We were all watching your work here in Seosan as we transited here. Simply put, your speed is beyond incredible. Your suggestion to me- it may work. We can give aid to half of the important cases on the Korean peninsula over the mandated mission time alone. I've put forward the idea to the other volunteers and they have also given consent for the expansion in scope."
"That's good," you reply honestly.
You fish for more words, then wave vaguely around, "Should we continue then?"
"Yes of course Anna," Sandra nods, then descends down towards the town. You maintain your altitude, again spreading out Durga to extend your Impeller reach.
The next priority for your group is the construction of food production facilities. Right now Seosan depends entirely upon shipments of food either over the Yellow Sea or from the older towns north via rail. The construction of high density hydroponics farming as well as a large fish farm in the port serves to reduce dependence on shipments and provide a steady and mundane employment for people looking for something to do.
Working with the group, you quickly find your role as an assembler. None of the other cadets could assemble structures at anything near the speed you could within your storage, and you spend the majority of the time constructing buildings and components, then expressing them for the other cadets to install.
It's nice observing how others build and it gives you a little time to recover.
While the work you are doing here would not tax you at all usually, the refinements for Static Wave's last two stages that you've been ticking away at in the back of your mind is hugely decreasing the amount of other tasks you can do.
With the food production facilities built, the next is the construction of proper roads and footpaths. Seeing the other Valkyries actually asking people to move off the temporary concrete walkways before getting to work on them make you feel a little self aware, about your failed attempt to be low key earlier, but considering you absolutely have the Impeller power anyway… you again use your Impeller as a roadway while you work on the rough concrete walkways. This time however, you keep your Impeller opaque so that people can actually see that they are stepping on it. Refining the footpaths and roads itself is a simple matter of shaving off rough edges with your Impeller and then sinking the surface further down into the ground so that water drainage channels can be cut into the surface and connected to the stormdrain system. You bevel the surfaces to prevent people from slipping and then lower your Impeller down onto the surface, allowing the people walking on your Impeller to seamlessly transition when you withdraw it.
Around the town, road surfaces gleamed the faint off white of newly revealed concrete surfaces. As you watched, the other Valkyries are finishing up too. Behind almost every one of the other volunteers, a crowd followed, mostly young children, cheering whenever a new segment of road or sidewalk is completed, the little ones rushing forwards to be the first to step on the pristine ground. At a greater distance, parents and older teenaged boys, maybe older brothers, followed along.
"Anna," Sandra messages you, "You should come down too. The people here have all been asking to meet you. They want to thank you for doing so much for them."
You look down, at the cheering people, the smiling faces, the laughter. People here and there glance up at you, confirming you are still overhead, faces hopeful.
… A bout of dizziness hits you, memories, unwanted, rush to the fore of your mind-
"I'll continue working. We can complete work by midnight tonight."
"Anna…" Sandra trails off.
What do you need to do next? More light fixtures, planting some greenery, installation of recreational facilities, plant down baseball nets in field 1, soccer goals in field 2…
XxXxXxXxXx
Seosan. Sinchon. Kangso. Kaechon. Dalian. Tianci. Jixi.
Seven days and seven towns, some in a similar state to Seosan, some worse off. Every one of them now almost gleaming. Cheering crowds left behind at the departure of your team every time.
Seven towns. Combined population, a hair over two hundred thousand people.
In the rolling river plains below, the sounds of festivities ring out distantly from Jixi town.
Two hundred thousand people in seven days. You turn the number over in your head, recalling the faces of the town populations. Irrelevant information, you discard the memories and concentrate on facts instead.
The total population of the UN sat at around one billion, two hundred million, six hundred and ninety thousand people. Last year, there were thirty six million or so newborn babies. You turn the numbers over your head, trying to envisage the scale involved. Enough new life to form half the population of Perth was brought into this world.
If the Valkyries are thought of as the staunchest defenders of humanity, every single member of the United Nations Valkyries held sixty thousand lives in their hands.
…
So this is what you are now working to protect.
You look around you, the third year cadets slump on the grassy ground, uncaring of the chill in their frames. A few are sleeping, every one of them worn down from the seven days of consecutive work. Sandra leans against a stump, face pale and shadows under her eyes, but still typing rapidly into her datapad as she works on other official matters.
Unlike the Third Year cadets, she couldn't make it through the week without sleeping until the end and you saw her occasionally catching cat naps here and there. Even so, from the hours she worked, she likely got less than ten hours sleep total this week.
"Sandra," you call her over comms.
"Yes Anna," she looks up at you, summoning a weary shadow of her usual smile, "What is it?"
You pause, swallowing your words, why did you want to talk about this…? No. You push on.
"Why are you so concerned about my eligibility for this mission?" you ask.
Despite the address of the initial mission offer from the UNHCR under Sandra's name, it's clear whatever actual criteria it was sent under did not include Shuri or Zoe, despite both the other two eligible for the same section fifty five exception you have.
The discovery of this drove Sandra to distraction during this mission. Even as she juggled tasks for the UNHCR and taking part in the construction of amenities for the towns, she appeared determined to find out exactly why you had received a mission offer.
Sandra knits her brow for a brief moment, "There are an expanse of reasons, but most pertinently, after I found you also volunteered, I wasn't sure that the approval for this mission was not a pretext to call you closer to the front lines. Here, you may be then summoned for to combat as part of emergency exceptions."
"If those towns are to come under attack, my presence would help," you object.
"It's not so simple," Sandra shakes her head decisively, "The Armed Forces can call an attack and move up all strategic reserves, including forces in Line three and up areas. Then upon the Antagonist counter attack, the reserves can then be called to the front to 'repel' the attack. The Pakistani armed forces used-"
Sandra hesitates, then changes track with a slight grimace, "I have started a tangent, sorry. More than anything, it's a matter of precedence. If you, despite your circumstances, are constantly called to areas where you can be called into combat despite your age, that erodes the moral obligations we have to protect you and sets unfair expectations for you to always respond."
"My age should not have anything to do with whether I should be on a battlefield," you insist, "Yukari was called up to serve as reserve during Alaska and her Flight was- they died, Sandra."
You trail off for a moment, then sweep your arms around at your teammates, "Compared to the third years, I know I can do much more- a-and fight through harder battles."
A few look up at the gesture, clearly noticing you and Sandra are in a discussion over voice comms, but they stay silent and politely look away.
"It's not your skill that's the issue," Sandra sounds frustrated, "It's you, Anna. Your wellbeing."
"I am fine," you insist.
"You won't be. You'd never refuse a request to engage in battle and they- the other Valkyries might care about you, but that machine, STRATNET, it won't," Sandra leans forward, tone almost pleading, "You'll be deprived. Deprived of your humanity. Of your freedoms. Living a life set and regimented by others."
"I'm not here to-" your word stick in your throat, -run away, Anna. Do other, normal things. Live a childhood that I never could give you. Live on and be happy, please. You understand me right? You've always protected her. Will you remind her?-
"I- I would rather lose some freedoms than have other people dying on my watch," you say hesitantly. Where… where was that memory from, it's so vivid, but you don't… whispers from the grave.
"Anna, there are others. The Three Hundred, The Twenty. You don't have to carry so much alone."
"Not every Valk is that good," you shift your head for a small, meaningful look at the other cadets, who have walked some distance away and are talking quietly amongst themselves, "Would you say that some third year cadets should always be on the front, instead of me then?"
"That would depend on the circumstances," Sandra evades again.
"So, there would be times where I should be fighting at the front," you quietly continue.
Sandra shakes her head, but her voice is resigned, "... Yes, there are, but there are Third year Aces also, whom can be called as needed on the battlefront."
"Why is it always age?" you ask. It always comes back to this.
"To experience the full spectrum of life before being sent onto a battlefield and facing the spectre of your life cut short," Sandra declares, her tone resolute, "We owe everyone whom we send to the front this privilege."
"That's - that relies on the premise of vulnerability. If it is combat ability, then there is no way I am lacking. You know how much I can do. After that simulation in North America, you said," you hesitate for a moment, dredging up the unclear memories, "You said we influenced the Alaskan Offensive, greatly."
"How many people might be saved in the future?" you ask Sandra, waving your arms at the merrily blinking lights of Jixi in the distance.
Sandra looks out to the town and back to you several times, her mouth opening several times in false starts.
"Why- why do you want to- fight so much?" Sandra finally chokes out, her face scrunching in anguish, eyes glimmering in the moonlight, too upset to continue using comms, "I have always, always been trained to look at the greater picture, but- but I don't want my friends to die."
You rock back on your heels in shock as you watch Sandra's composure crumble.
"You- not just you. Why does the UN desire you on the front so? That machine, STRATNET, is always demanding you be placed right on the African front, at the Gates of Hell itself. The Type Zeroes there, they- they- You'll die. Or you'll be maimed until you can't even remember your past, your friends, who you were," you flinch, but Sandra continues, tear trails faintly shining down her face, "No Ace lasts longer than a quarter there without injury. That thing wants you there on permanent station."
Her shoulders shake and Sandra ducks her head, biting her lip.
"There is a reason, Sandra," you start slowly, "By the United Nations combat aptitude rankings, I am the first amongst all Valkyries."
Sandra blinks up at you, face slack with shock.
"It was you? You're the new Rank One? Then- Sekhmet?" Sandra whispers.
You nod.
Sandra stares, then, softly, hesitantly, hopefully, "Saskatoon?"
You nod again.
Sandra sits down.
"I… see."
There is a long and contemplative silence. The peaceful moment is eroded however as you hear the rising sounds of Castiglioni and Hasiholan in the distance arguing again. The crafting class members apparently simply unable to help themselves.
Annoyed at the intrusion, you thicken your Impeller and mute them.
"Anna, I see you hold a duty and responsibility far beyond my own," Sandra says, standing up and meeting your eyes, "However, can you promise me that you try to live your life out to the fullest, living as you wish, and not on the behest of others?"
"I can, so long as there are no concessions to my combat capabilities other than those absolutely necessary," you reply.
Sandra smiles sadly up at you, then steps forwards and hugs you.
…urk.
She isn't letting go.
You awkwardly pat her back in return.
At that, Sandra wordlessly steps back, for a moment she looks up into your face. Before she takes a larger step back and turns around.
"In time, what you find to be absolute necessities might change, Anna. For you, I hope they do."
…What did that mean?
XxXxXxXxXx
It's now the monday of the fifth week, and there is an excited buzz ringing through the cafeteria during breakfast.
Across from you Shuri eats her breakfast efficiently, working from one end of her plate to the other, showing neither like nor dislike of anything on her plate. The other members of the Flight are missing, probably up to last minute practice and tactics discussion.
The table in front of you is empty. You don't feel hungry, you have lots of leftovers in your storage, but most importantly, you've worked your way through every single menu option the cafeteria is providing.
…What was your favourite though… you'll have to think more on that.
"G'day Shuri, Anna, mind if I have a sit?" Syifa from your class saunters up to your table.
Shuri glances at you then shrugs, returning to eating.
"Sure, go ahead," you answer.
"Sooo… a few members of my Flight had an idea," Syifa says, hooking a chair with a leg and sweeping down to sprawl in it.
"But of course, they're too intimidated to talk to you two themselves so I got press ganged into this, cause 'I come up to your knees instead of only your toes' or something silly," Syifa suddenly announces loudly. Over near the cafeteria entrance, there is a squeak of alarm and you see Cadet Cato duck back around the corner.
"Since we in Squadron Four only have one Enlisted rank competing, with both our Aces sitting out," she continues in a normal voice, giving both of you a bemused smile, "Rachel back there thought that a good way to spice things up would be have you two commentate."
"How about it?" she smiles winningly at you and Shuri.
"I don't have any skill in commentating matches, I decline," Shuri instantly shoots her down.
"And you, Miss Sanchez?" Syifa doesn't miss a beat, turning to you.
You glance at your schedule. The various squadrons largely shared match schedule formatting, a simply tournament bracket style.
There are four matches between the eight entrants today on monday, a day's break, two matches between the winners on wednesday. Then thursday is again a break, before the finals are held on Friday.
It appears that elective classes are off this week.
XxXxXxXxXx
It is the Monday of the fifth week.
Decide on a favourite food or favourite food type! Doesn't matter if you classify them by region, type or anything;
>[]Write in?
Which matches of the Squadron Vanguard tournament will you be going to see?
Accept Commentary request?
-[]Yes. You will watch all the matches involving your squadron. As the matches take place simultaneously, you will only be watching the matches from your own squadron.
-[]No. Watch specific matches. You may choose multiple people. In case of clash, Anna will prioritise watching matches by number of votes received.
--[]Follow someone?
--[]Watch Koujirou and Setsuna. How have they improved?
--[]Watch Sandra.
--[]Go watch Zoe Hermann, Ace of Squadron Ten. How is she as a Valkyrie?
--[]Just look around for interesting matches.
-[]None of the matches. Do something else.
--[]Write in?
-[]Write in which matches to pay attention to.
XxXxXxXxXx
Status Report:
Onium Batteries Repaired: Allows for additional storing of energy. Can serve as projectiles when charged. Serving as projectiles results in destruction of component. Can serve as reactive armour. Serving as reactive armour results in destruction of component.
- Alpha Strike: Allows for an incredibly powerful attack from an energy weapon at the start of a battle against an appropriate target. Currently, only your Heavy Particle Projectors can channel an Alpha Strike without taking component damage.
Energy Dynamos Repaired: Absorb kinetic energy for storage. Can be used to mitigate moderate amounts of damage from projectile weaponry.
You have sampled all food available in the cafeteria.
+Possible Avenue of Research; Group Skills;
#Group skills are restricted to the average between the highest and lowest skilled of the Synchronised Impeller Field:
Group Teleport:
Group Gate:
Group Interdiction:
Group Waveforce Manipulation:
Group Teleport:
Group Gate:
Group Interdiction:
Group Waveforce Manipulation:
XxXxXxXxXx
P.S: If you haven't already, have a look at these things;
Fanart - Renu - I dunno what to title this. Renu is based. BAHH QUEST; The Manga?
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LegacySC
[Editor]
- Location
- ?
>editing 22k words
It's finally here. You readers have been waiting for this for quite a few months, and here it is. We've been editing for several hours straight to get this to you, and we hope it's paid off. I'm sorry to say that we couldn't finish editing every word in the whole thing, but I'll be poking away at it in my spare time over the next few days. Or weeks.
For now, though, @Avalanche and I are going to go collapse now, so enjoy the post.
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- Location
- Leeds
Curse you for releasing this moments before I have to leave.
LostDeviljho
Flame Dragon Princess
- Location
- The glorious Pacific Northwest
- Pronouns
- Any
It's 2:42 AM I am not at all awake enough to read and comprehend.
I am awake and I can comprehend and I rejoice. Rejoice because the update was large and it was good.
A few bits I probably need to reread though.
A few bits I probably need to reread though.
EmpirePlayer
Anyone need some chaos?
- Location
- Penang
The update was everything I thought it would be. Even if I had to wait so long, Worth It. Vote coming later. After a few more rereads of everything.
EDIT: I think you forgot to threadmark it, but that can wait.
EDIT: I think you forgot to threadmark it, but that can wait.
- Location
- ⇙
It was great. And now at least Sandra knows more about Anna's backstory.
dontpressenter
Irrational Philosopher
- Location
- An alternate universe not unlike our own...
Anna commentating?
My first reaction was YES, but then I was immediately struck by the concern of what reaction Anna would have with Valk on Valk combat.
Egh...I'll have to reread. Can't remember all the votes, but yay! An update!
My first reaction was YES, but then I was immediately struck by the concern of what reaction Anna would have with Valk on Valk combat.
Egh...I'll have to reread. Can't remember all the votes, but yay! An update!
When I was reading through that part something that came constantly to mind is if parts of this conversation would be in the anime. Either a disjointed voice over or one of the main characters eavesdropping the tail end of it. Or if the anime would show the hug without any context.