The War Chronicles of a Little Demon
Set in the Diyu Demons verse
A Saga of Tanya the Evil fic.
By Sunshine Temple
Naturally, I do not own Youjo Senki. So here's the disclaimer:
Saga of Tanya the Evil its characters and settings belong Carlo Zen, Shinobu Shinotsuki, and NUT Co., Ltd.
Previous chapters and other works can be found at my fanfiction website.
Interim Fanfiction and Fanart
C&C as always is wanted.
Chapter 22: Simulations and Secondment
A ways south of the city of Victrix and the major base nearby, a vast plot of scrubland claimed by the Fleet and Legions spread out across the uneven hills and plains. The parcel was a long-standing training grounds where generations of personnel had practiced landing operations as well as the use of ordnance across its various ranges. Several mock settlements and facilities had been built over the years, mostly from cast-off shipping containers, but over time the crude structures had been expanded upon and made increasingly permanent with the efforts of each training cohort and their attached budget.
Compared to the Adria Testing Range near the capital back on Diyu, the Juno Training Facility was several times larger and even more impressively fitted out. It was handy that land out here in the boonies of Mursam was far cheaper than in Shoreline Province. Plus, the lower population density meant that there were fewer people around to object to the sounds of late-night artillery fire.
Today, however, my unit was not making use of any of those facilities. Instead, the pilots of Quirinus's Demi-Wing were plugged into nearly fifty simulators, all crammed into a broad, low building that had clearly been a disused hanger until recently. Still, impromptu surrounding or not, as a training tool, the RP simulators were absolutely invaluable. Short of actual wing-time, they were perhaps the best way to prepare fliers for their upcoming maneuvers.
And of course, plenty of scenarios were all but impossible to fully model out in the training grounds. In such cases, the simulators were really the only viable option for preparing Ritual Plate Pilots for the tasks to come.
The current scenario had our Demi-Wing supporting a full-blown Corpus Incursio-sized operation. Specifically, "we" had been tasked to provide support for a secondary landing zone. Admittedly, this was a scenario that could be molded here in Juno, especially if our suits were in training mode with illusionary data put into our scrying screens. In this case, the use of the simulators came down to expense rather than necessity.
An hour in a simulator was far cheaper than an hour in the air. Time on wing was, in my opinion, the best form of training available, but such training carried many, many costs. Fuel for one, munitions for another, if it the exercise involved live-fire. Maintenance pre- and post-flight required separate billing, as did field support for any emergency repairs necessary mid-exercise and of course, transportation had to be factored in as well. Most exercises didn't require a carrier, but some did, which required an additional budged outlay. For an eight-hour exercise consisting of nearly fifty suits, the savings afforded by simulator training were considerable. Savings that could be folded into still more training, or perhaps more equipment.
The simulators did have a downside. Taken together, the optical illusion spells, artificial scrying speed, and harness system combined into a reasonable simulacrum of motion, but even still, the gap between simulation and reality remained. Adding in the illusion of inclement weather highlighted that gap, as generating sufficiently convincing rain was enough to noticeably task the simulator's capacity for graphic generation. Admittedly, snow was easier to generate, and I could decrease the efficiency of the simulated wards to mimic the impact of precipitation on the shields, but.... It just wasn't the same.
Summed up, the only way simulators could remain an easy and cheap training option was by sacrificing a degree of verisimilitude, widening the gap in experience between the simulation and the real deal. Such tools could help us keep our skills sharp, but there truly was no substitute for reality.
The secondary landing zone in our scenario was supposed to be a lower-intensity front, though the weather had played havoc on both LZs. Thus, only three Cohorts, temporarily organized into a Vexillatio, were sent down to secure several bridges to cut off Luxon's northern line of communication and reinforcements. Our Demi-Wing was sent in to provide overall air-support at the standard ratio of a bit under one Flight of RP per Century of Legionaries. For the purposes of this exercise, we were serving as their organic RP components; normally a Cohort would have a dedicated RP detachment, and a Demi-Wing like ours would be a supplemental force.
In the scenario, Luxon had anticipated such a landing and had dug in. Driving off their own Ritual Plate assets, mostly Anupets, was our first complication. The enemy were fielding two Flights of Sekhmet air superiority suits over the secondary landing site, and taking down that protective umbrella was our first task. Fortunately, the enemy seemed to have neither Thoth sensor platforms nor Neith scrying RP units in our area of operations, giving us an edge in information.
A more pointed complication was the realization that our Legionaries were facing three Janissary Mechanized Infantry Battalions down on the dirt, half of a full-blown Mechanized Brigade. They were already bunkered down and were making use of the poor weather to further complicate the hoof-sloggers' approach. Intelligence had suggested that there would be only a single reserve battalion here giving our Legionaries a comfortable advantage. Instead they had rough numerical parity, against a foe on the defensive that had superiority in heavy equipment, and ours were landing in a storm.
Air assets were our only decisive advantage, especially in the opening phase of the exercise after First and Third Squadrons drove off enemy RP. Even then, the air assault phase of the operation almost became a debacle as Luxon strike aircraft counterattacked during a particularly bad part of the ice-storm, and almost took out a squadron of Umbra VTOLs.
Once the Cohort's Forward Scouts got on the ground, they were able to searching out the Janissary's concealed positions and stared calling in targets. Throughout the exercise, Second and Fourth Squadrons kept busy with near-constant air-to-surface fire missions. As the bulk of our Cohorts touched down with "acceptable" losses, the Legion hoof-sloggers slowly began to establish their own anti-air network around the secured beachhead, finally giving our own armored elements the opportunity to touch down. Protecting the heavy transport VTOLs kept our Harmonia First Squadron thoroughly occupied.
My Squadron was in the swing overwatch role, using our higher number of Gorgon Rigs to supplement the two Sarpedona Squadrons' Scrying systems and providing that extra fire support when required. Also, whenever the Janissaries concentrated into an armored column to try to dislodge our Legionaries, I had my Third Flight drop Lance Strikes on their heads on my own recognizance to show them who had the biggest stick.
Even with a judicious, and minimal, heavy fire support, hitting armored vehicles with the capital ship grade weapons left an immediate and highly-visible impact. Much of the small city that the Janissaries had lodged themselves in was already in ruins, and most of the buildings still standing were engulfed in rapidly spreading flames that the heavy snow was only minimally slowing. After the second major armored formation shattered under our onslaught with the survivors picked off by Pilum fire from Julia's Second Squadron, the Janissaries learned to disperse their forces and bide their time among the broken city's bones. By my estimate, Lady Julia JadeTalon was still the weakest Prefect in the unit, but she had the sense to listen to her wingwoman, possessed a creative mind, and by becoming more decisive was growing into her position.
"Third Squadron, Third Squadron, enemy air assets detected on the following vector. Estimated strength is two Squadrons, tentative identification is Marzanna air-superiority suits," Flight Ops chimed in my ear before giving the coordinates. "Are you available for intercept?"
"This is Diamond Actual," I responded, briefly checking over the update on my map display. The view outside my eye lenses had a low ceiling due to oppressive cloud cover and was further hampered by a mix of sleet and hail. Engrossed as I was, it almost felt like I was in the air, despite the petulance of my Zephyr. "Confirm. We can intercept. Note, my Third Flight is configured in Strike mode."
"Understood," the woman playing the role of Flight Ops said with textbook, if a bit forced, unflappability.
"Epsilon Actual, this is Diamond Actual," I said, switching over to the command channel.
"Go Diamond," Quirinus replied. "We have been informed. It sounds like Luxon got some Elenese assistance."
The scenario was that we were supporting a landing operation in the western part of House Luxon. Given where I had trained and that Quirinus had been one of my early instructors, I found the location of today's scenario unsurprising. Snow was infrequent in that part of the world, but on the rare occasions that the storms brought icy fury with the rain, the resulting storms of slushy sleet tended to be nasty.
"HarrowFang, are you okay without the extra air cover?" I asked the commander of Fourth Squadron, switching off the general command band to her channel.
Asking the question, even though I was all but certain of the answer, was part of the by-the-book procedures good training emphasized. In this scenario, where our role was to support the Legionaries on the ground, the textbook maneuver would be to intercept the incoming Squadrons of Elenese fighters before they could arrive to make things hard for our Sarpedona Squadrons.
Which wasn't to say that HarrowFang's answer bore no weight. If she asked for us to stay, I would trust her judgment and remain in place, even if I felt she was being overly cautious. Fabia had spent the last five weeks honing her rookies, taking every bit of extra training to give them that much more time to learn. I had volunteered my Squadron to act as the opposing force to help, which Fabia took with toothy relish.
To whit, this was a training scenario, not an active combat zone. My role here was not to advance the BlackSky banner, but to help others learn how to carry that banner forwards as well.
"I'd rather you fight them further out than over our heads," Fabia stated firmly. "These Janissaries are being mighty coy with their Hathors and Tefnuts."
The Hathor was Luxon's main dual-purpose armored vehicle. While superior in anti-ground roles, mostly infantry and light vehicles, they were capable enough as anti-air platforms, if a bit low-charged and somewhat slow in tracking. Integrated and well-positioned formations of Hathors were more than capable of taking out incautious enemy Ritual Plate, especially if they were given telemetry by Luxon RP. That said, part of the reason they were being cautious could be that tracked vehicles required extra care on iced-up streets, which would make it difficult to position said tracked vehicles to gain maximum utility.
The Tefnut was a fairly compact VTOL that carried some missiles for anti-air work and some evocation projectors for ground targets. It was not as robust in the latter role as a dedicated fire-support platform like the Sobek, but the Tefnut could do some of the forward targeting roles for a Hathor. It was inexpensive enough that they could be attached to Janissary formations at the Battalion level, much like the Anker ground combat golems with their cottiers of smaller Baset infantry-support golems. With limited magazine capacity and wards due to size and power restrictions, the Tefnut was a fair defensive platform, unless it was overwhelmed and outmaneuvered, as we had done here.
That the enemy had an integrated air defense system of multiple air and ground platforms that needed taking-out delayed the timetable for landing operations. Our losses were been... acceptable. Our Sarpedona Squadrons had taken the brunt of it.
Better them than us. Even if it was all just training, casualties were never welcome.
Overall, in my consideration, our four Squadrons were working together well enough. The stiffness that had marked our first couple weeks together had eased and our coordination was more fluid. It helped that Quirinus's stern but quite capable instruction worked well with her willingness to use First Squadron as a training rival. I returned the favor and volunteered my Polyxo suits, in, mostly, air-superiority mode to give the greenhorns some aggressor training as well.
"Confirm," I agreed.
"Diamond..." Quirinus caught herself. "Never-mind. See you after the exercise."
"Understood, Ma'am," I said and switched back to my Squadron's channel before the other Squadron Commanders could start wondering aloud what was going on. Sometimes the Tribune could be sentimental, but she realized I would not take things personally.
"Good news girls," I said with bright cheer to my entire Squadron just as their displays updated with the new targeting information.
"Is... that the good news, Ma'am?" Lucia inquired primly.
My newest Primus Centurion had done more than just keep pace. Indeed, her ability to parry LoveBlood's retorts and keep her own Flight admirably squared-away enough to give Second Flight a real challenge had rapidly become quite useful as a tool to keep my noble pilots' egos in check. Still, I was keeping a close eye on watching her Flight's performance; snow was, after all, none too common up on Lantia.
"Flight Ops has found some Elenese reinforcements that we'll need to clean up and your Flight is equipped with Lance Batteries." I smiled, knowing they could hear it in my voice as I spoke, "You're going to be our big guns."
There was a tiny pause. "Do you think we'll need them against enemy RP?"
"It wouldn't be the first time Countess has done it," VioletBlood replied, smug even now as was her wont.
"That is correct," Lucia admitted, "but I hardly think that Elena would enter this combat with such paltry numbers and, even if they did, two Squadrons can't turn the numbers. No, this is part of a larger attack. My guess is that their Marzanna are here to escort and clear the air."
"Escort. Like a bomber run?" Visha asked.
"Something like that." I took in the map display. The ground situation was... chaotic. In many ways, the imperfect resolution of the simulator was more accurate than if it had perfect fidelity. Static and snow were close enough analogs for visual impairments. "Our ground assets are spread out, but there's still a few nodes large enough worth risking a Kupala or two for. In part, there is a non-negligible chance that, they could be loaded with missiles as part of trying to clear-out our Ritual Plate assets. Overwhelming force is preferable to allowing the Elenese to freely conduct air-to-surface fire missions."
"Understood," Lucia soberly said. For a Legionary Flier, ceding air superiority back to the enemy when you still had Legionaries on the ground was anathema. "Priority target then?" she asked. A Lance Strike on a bomber formation was still overkill, but quite justified in this case.
"Correct," I confirmed. "We don't have many Lances, but those bombers could do a lot of damage if they get through. Take them down."
Lucia handled, I turned to directing my Flights into an overlapping formation, with First and Second on either side separated and at slightly different altitudes with Third hanging a bit behind. I let each Primus Centurion organize their pilots. To my gratification, my subordinates had all opted for similar of staggered diamond formations. For an intercept track, the textbook diamond provided a good compromise between mutual support and expansive coverage.
Taking a moment to broaden the focus of my map display, I surveyed the progress of the greater operation. It was all too easy to grow overly focused and fall into tactical tunnel vision and target fixation, especially as miles of terrain raced below my wings on the way to seek out and destroy my enemy, whoever that may be. Even without the action-oriented influence of one's Zephyr, that hunter-killer urge was native to the aggressive pilot eager to prove her worth and her their wage; it was the job of officers and noncoms to direct those urges in a productive manner towards out objective.
The landing was a massive affair, even rendered on the tiny convines of my heads-up-display.
The operation plan had called for fifteen Ritual Plate Air Groups, a force totaling well over five thousand Fleet Pilots and Legion Fliers. There were also nearly four hundred Umbra Medium VTOLs, about fifty Pugio and Gladius Heavy VTOLs, a hundred Spatha Lights, fifty Hasta Torpedo bombers, and over three thousand Torpedoes joining us on the wing as we bit and held the burning coast. And that vast skyborne hammer was just the aerial component of our invasion force. Fully six legions with all their equipment were also being deployed, infiltrating the mud and ashes after we devastated the current tenants.
Unfortunately, little of that terrible strength could be spared for our secondary theatre.
Six Legions, a full Corpus Incursio, were landing on the headlands above a pointedly-fictitious Luxon base that, for the purposes of the exercise, represented a major linchpin defense of the whole Southern Front. The landing force was also experiencing nasty weather bad enough that landing operations were only barely feasible due to the intercession of the Fleet's Tempestarii.
Intercession aside, the landing was not going well. The first waves had battled their way down to the ground, but air control remained tenuous at best. Fleet support was disappointingly anemic; both the ground strikes from Torpedo Bombardment vessels and the number of Fleet Pilots deployed to supplement the two Legionary Air Groups already engaged didn't seem to be leading any great shifts in the battlefield's calculus. Admittedly, beyond contenting with high winds and poor weather, the Fleet Pilots had good reason to be distracted. The Landing Fleet was under attack.
Sipping some water, I resisted the temptation to study the far-off simulated battle in greater detail; doubtless the exercise proctors had added such a wealth of information specifically to act as an attention trap. Still, it seemed like a significant number of Elenese and Luxon Ritual Plate, fixed wing, and even airship assets had been committed to the struggle for the fortress. They had timed their arrival well, swooping in just after a probing attack along another vector and while the Landing Fleet was distracted with the launch of its second VTOL wave.
As mighty as the enemy Great Houses' air assets were, they faced a massive armada of carriers shepherded by dozens of escort craft, including a full cruiser squadron and multiple Torpedo bomber tenders. If they could batter their way past those defenses, then the enemy could land a crippling blow to the ability of the Fleet to support, supply, and expand the invasion beachhead. Such a crippling blow would also inflict strategic damage to House BlackSky's continued Legionary-lift capability.
The sterile weapons tracks, blinking icons, and cold notations told the story of a nigh-apocalyptic battle. One that my Squadron was just a sideshow to, or perhaps even a sideshow to a sideshow as the Legionaries fought their pitched battle below our hooves. However, my interest did not stem from some voyeuristic desire to witness destruction; rather, my inattention was to see if any enemy assets would be splitting from the main assault and winging their way across the storm-torn skies towards us.
"Flight Ops, Flight Ops. I'm seeing a breakaway," I said, rattling off the coordinates after switching to the proper channel. "Kupala squadron with supporting RP elements. Estimate on composition or numbers?"
There was a pause. "Diamond... we're not sure what their intent is."
I exhaled through my nose. "Flight Ops, I'm not asking for intent. Do we have any assets that can even give a tentative ID or numbers?" I asked, keeping most of the rebuke out of my voice. This was not just an exercise for Legionary Fliers; Flight Ops Dispatchers were also getting some simulation training. Given the attack on the Landing Fleets, it was entirely possible that the room the Flight Ops officers were in was full of klaxons and other distractions.
"Uh, yes Diamond," the dispatcher cleared her throat. "We are reading a heavy Kupala squadron with three to four squadrons of RP. A mix of Marzanna air-superiority and Perun strike models. If they change heading, their distance and speed does allow for them to enter your area of operations, possibly even support the Squadrons you're intercepting."
I resisted the impulse to snort with disdain, if Kupala unit changed their heading to the secondary landing zone, there was no "possibly" in their moving to support. Those first two Marzanna Squadrons would try to draw my own Squadron out of position, but there was a limit to how far we would chase and any sensible Elenese officer would know that. While leading us on a merry chase far from the operational area was out of the question, drawing us out and hitting us in a pincer was an entirely valid tactic for some enterprising dandy of a Squadron officer to try.
"Understood, Flight Ops. Pass this information to Epsilon Actual. Also, any support, such as a Torpedo strike would be appreciated." My tone was a bit brusque, as I stated my reply, old authority rising from instincts deeply ingrained as danger approached my command. Some Fleet heavy fire-support would be very handy, but the Fleet had their own problems right now, and that was likely both beyond the remit of this exercise and their currently limited capacity.
"That might be challenging. Good luck, Diamond," the dispatcher said; I could hear a squealing, tearing noise in the background. I wondered if they would have to do an evacuation drill, and who our fallback Flight Ops would be, or if this would be one of those exercises where we'd lose all dispatch support. Seeing how Legionaries and Fleet reacted to the loss of central command and control was an irritating but necessary part of these exercises.
I changed comms channels. "Tribune, did you get the new intercepts?"
"I did. They might be going after the northern flank of the primary LZ," Quirinus said, a contemplative note touching her voice for a moment before vanishing behind the bland tone of the detached commander.
"I agree," I replied, stating the obvious, "but we'll know in a minute based on which way they change heading. Will your forces be freed up if that does happen?"
"Not comfortable with five to one odds, Countess?" The slightest hint of gallows humor shone in Quirinus' question.
"We both know exactly what my odds are, Ma'am," I said, answering her query frankly without any attempt at false modesty. She had asked for my assistance in setting up the training scenarios. "but this is the exact type of relief force those Janissaries have been hoping for. Additional support will likely be necessary."
"I would think the Janissaries would be hoping for some air to ground missile and arcane fire from their RP and golems," she argued.
"I don't think the Janissaries are particularly picky about who kills us," I countered. "And even if my Squadron pushes them back, we will likely sustain sufficient losses to endanger our air superiority over the LZ."
An ideal option for the opposing force would be to have Sekhmet air-superiority suits direct missile fire from Tefnut drones to clear us out of the way so their Anupet ground-attack RP and Sobek VTOLs could engage the ground troops and clear the landing zones with their freshly purchased window of opportunity.
However, given Luxon's air power doctrine, the Sekhmet was a rarer model, unlikely to appear over a secondary front in significant numbers. The Sekhmets also relied on heavier protection to compensate for their somewhat lackluster maneuverability, lackluster at least compared to other air superiority Plates. More than the stronger wards, which required more power to operate, the Sekhmet made up for their clumsiness with good Scrying systems and some of the best in class combat directing and data sharing capability.
Though not quite on par with the Harmonia, the Sekhmet remained an adequate fighter. It was clearly superior to the Trosic Rochefort and unlike the Elenese Marzanna, there was no first generation failure to blemish its name. Luxon also had the manufacturing capacity to make enough Sekhmets to lower the per-suit cost, something Ziox was unable to do with their tricky-to-fly Tjardu.
In the hands of skilled pilots, especially ones who knew air combat was a team effort and not dueling, an experienced Sekhmet formation could challenge even a Harmonia Squadron. Indeed, the only casualties First Squadron's had taken during today's exercise so far had been inflicted by Sekhmets.
"Even without support," I sighed into the channel to my commander, "I'm sure our girls will be facing plenty of Marzanna and Sekhmet suits today."
Quirinus seemed to consider that for a moment.
"I'll be vectoring to provide support," Quirinus eventually said, her tone firm and committed as she sent the plan to my display. "We will approach along this vector, allowing us to support you while maintaining cover over the landing zones. I'll have Second and Fourth Squadrons pull back to help backfill."
"Understood, Ma'am. Thank you." I did not begrudge her for her choices today.
As the commanding officer, Quirinus was in a tough situation, contending against a rapidly increasing number of enemies with very finite resources; then again, all training exercises weren't necessarily supposed to be fair. I do not mean fair in the sense of fighting an equally skilled and equipped enemy. I mean fair in the sense that the situation presented is one that is winnable and the proctors will not artificially change the scenario and enemy capability to ensure an outcome should the trainee threaten to seize victory from the jaws of predestined defeat.
Still that sort of deliberately invincible scenario was rare, and it was possible for our Demi-Wing to win today's scenario. At the end of the day, the purpose of any training exercise was to simultaneously instruct the trainee while providing an accurate gauge of their skills and capacities; constantly moving the goalposts might teach a lesson but altering criteria on the fly only muddled test results.
Besides, enduring an unrelenting string of defeats in purposefully hopeless scenarios was corrosive to the morale of even the most elite units, nothing to say of a newly fledged formation that included green troops and units still getting used to working with one another. Simply brutalizing Quirinus's command would serve, as far as I could tell, little purpose.
At the end of the day, though, training was limited and approximate by nature. Our knowledge of the enemy's capabilities, doctrine, and decision-making would always be imperfect. Beyond that permanent flaw was the level of unpredictability in war, a factor notoriously hard to measure. As such, even the more creative scenarios could have value, if only to stave-off complacency.
Or to knock a sense of humility into pilots and officers whom Command had judged to be suffering from hubris. A duty that often fell upon me.
I switched back to my Squadron channel. "We have still more good news!" I said in the saccharine tone officers used only to indicate things were quite the opposite. "We are getting backup. The Tribune is coming to play support."
"Ah," GreyDawn said, her voice grim and toneless as she doubtlessly digested her freshly updated map of the local airspace. She knew exactly what the sudden arrival of reinforcements in the middle of a mess like this heralded.
"And we're ready to lend our fire!" Lucia said with the enthusiasm I expected from a Flight Leader. At least the news of our impending backup had lifted
someone's spirits.
"Excellent," I stated in my pleased commander voice. "The plan will require some slight adjustments, but if we play this right, we'll get the first Elenese relief force before the second can catch up to it, and then we can envelop that one between our two Squadrons."
The quick briefing was almost rote. Practice helped a lot with that; practice also helped make sure it was not actually rote. That was where mistakes would come in, with things missed and assumptions made.
We were outnumbered roughly two-to-one and we were getting closer.
"Charity, IronTalon, Lances now!" Lucia ordered.
A pair of highly-energetic beams shot out, their passing searing the impression of brilliant blue lines cutting through the air, not that the simulation could fully-realize the intensity of such a weapon's backscatter, and obliterating the Elenese suits. Third Flight had a limited number of shots with their powerful Lances, but they were worth breaking up the enemy formation. One suit was tagged and blew apart while two more were damaged, which was a nice bonus, but the real goal was shattering their unit cohesion at the critical moment of our assault.
The two enemy Squadrons fractured into half a dozen Flights and tried to reorient around us. I tightened in my own Pilots and moved to slice off the two northernmost enemy Flights.
Twelve to eight, we had local numerical superiority. While the second generation Marzanna was a capable platform, these simulated pilots were middling at best, and may have been calibrated to be weaker fliers, overly dependent on their instruments in the middle of the fight. Perhaps the simulation had decide that they would be spooked, their morale disrupted, or maybe their Flight Leaders were not aggressive enough; either way, we sliced through them almost effortlessly, taking minimal hits by using superior coordination and maneuvering.
As we raced past, we left only broken suits flaming out vanishing down into the embrace of the snowy squall.
"Redline acceleration!" I ordered over the Squadron channel, feeling my suit strain and stir as I poured on every scrap of thrust I could muster. The quicker we got to the others, the less time they had to reorganize. As any cavalryman could tell you, the rout was where the real business of killing was done. Soon we were at the apogee of our climb.
The four remaining Flights, still trying to huddle together for safety, turned and opened fire as we swept down upon them like Cuirassiers on a disintegrating square, like raiders from the steppe descending on a piddling line of village militia. For all of the ordered opposition and fighting spirit the Elenese could muster, they might as well have been peasants rousted from their huts.
Less, even; at least in that case, their shoddy response could be blamed on their lack of training. The simulated Elenese pilots had no such excuse for their tactical plodding. This was the type of "glorious" slaughter that my noble brats in the capital had fantasized about.
"Smoke. Smoke. Smoke!" I ordered as a dozen Verutum launchers each shot out a quartet of enchanted obsidian pebbles. Black Fog was a somewhat new and niche munition; like most such the ordnance, they were a short-ranged affair but within their envelope of effect each arcane munition would explode into an obscuring, hot cloud of magical distortions.
Chaff, smoke, and other countermeasures very much held a niche role in RP combat, given their relatively short range and the ability of Wards and intercept systems to give active protection against incoming fire. Launched counters aside, the sheer speed of Ritual Plate encounters led many pilots to put a low premium on such tools. After all, the clouds could only provide a moment's protection, and measures like using the Verutum to launch the baffling ordnance ahead of your flight only slightly increased that window of effect. I, however, held that the pilot who dismissed such measures did so very much at her peril.
Obscured behind a layered, burning cloud, my Squadron quickly shifted thrust, changing headings as we maneuvered to avoid the blind-fire from the Elenese suits. I had to give the Marzanna pilots credit, while their choice of action may not have been optimal, it was decisive.
Firing their own chaff, the enemy dove through the resulting cloud, their lead elements pulsing their Scrying arrays and closely followed by the remaining Flights, who kept their sensors in a passive mode. It was an aggressive response straight out of the pages of their textbook counter-ambush doctrine.
The Elenese chaff system, codenamed Prompt Candle, worked by releasing spirals of metallic ribbons that were hypergolic with the atmosphere. When the small canisters burst, the tightly-wound strips would fly apart and ignite with a incandescent intensity. That heat was mostly released to distract targeting warheads, but secondarily was used in powering the enchantments inscribed upon the ribbons which generated localized and randomized Veils. Despite rather protected casings, the individual Prompt Candle munitions were... delicate to handle, but the result was a set of charges that made a thorough hash of our Scrying systems.
The problem for the enemy was that Third Squadron had been thoroughly trained to fight in as many operational envelopes as I could come up with, which meant they knew exactly how to handle this rarest of combat scenarios, close-range blind-fighting. A place where the margin of error was nonexistent and the sensor suite-was half trustworthy at best. It was one thing to fight ghosts when they were far off, it was another when they could practically grab you by the horns.
As a result both formations were fighting half-blind, but my side still had the edge. I did not order my girls to target the Elenese pathfinders lit up by their active systems. Oh no, here was where I wanted to show the advantage of a full squadron equipped with Gorgon Rigs. There was enough backscatter to target the two Flights right behind the leading one.
Yes, there were nearly thirty sets of Ritual Plate swirling around trying to kill each other in the middle of a burning, if rapidly dissipating, cloud in the heart of a raging blizzard. But if the conditions and chaff munitions had conspired to render my enemy blind, then my suits with their expensive sensor suits were only half-blind... And if those countermeasures would last for just another few short but crucial moments....
"Flight Three, get ready to clear the fog!" I ordered Lucia.
We split in a pincer, evading the lead Elenese elements to pinch down on the middle of their formation, dragging eight more Marzannas into the brawl. Neutralizing them was not entirely without cost; poor Pulivia became my Squadron's first and so far only casualty. Even as she "fell" through the generated sky, a cold part of me noted that the exchange was still magnificently unbalanced in our favor. Provided that the rest of us managed to survive this combat and full fill our objectives, of course. Leading in material counted little if the slaughter of the enemy distracted form the true goal..
The Marzanna Flight with active sensors detected what was going on behind them and flipped. And now, my Squadron had one Flight ahead of us and two mostly intact Flights to our rear.
There was no way they could all get away from us now.
"Clear!" I ordered.
Lucia obliged. She fired a single Lance directly at the leading Elenese Pathfinder. At that range, hitting an actively emitting target was a near certainty. And then
everybody had the opportunity to learn what happened when a massive evocation blast of Lance energy detonated within a clout of burning Prompt Candle ribbons and Black Fog pebbles.
The sky burned like an acetylene torch as over a dozen wards flared as one. While the three Ritual Plate caught directly in the Lance's blast were destroyed, without even shrapnel to mark their passing, the focused intensity did not diffuse enough to meaningfully damage the rest.
The Marzanna Pilots, or whatever simulacrum was making their decisions, hesitated. This was not something they had trained, or been programmed, for. It would only take them a moment to recover.
I smiled. My girls had trained for this. "Take them," I ordered over the Squadron channel.
It was a slaughter. The nine or so remaining pilots, already wrong-footed, were shattered and overwhelmed. Where the previous hits were using positioning and concealment to separate the enemy and defeat in detail, this was the full force of Legion Fliers running down the enemy. Though one understrength Flight, consisting of heavily damaged, suits did manage to successfully break off. As they fled for the nebulous cover of a low-hanging fog bank, I opted not to have us pursue them in their rout, instead surveying our newly conquered aerial battlefield.
I exhaled and took a moment of satisfaction on a job well done.
We took a bit of time to adjust, hydrate, and reassemble our formation. The next phase of the battle would soon be upon us.
The second formation had a larger group of Marzanna air-superiority suits at its core, supported by Perun strike models and a number of Kupala fixed-wing aircraft bristling with missiles. While the fixed-wings were primarily an air-to-ground model, such ordnance could be pressed into an anti-air role, albeit at a performance cost.
That inefficiency was what saved my Squadron. Acting as fire directors, the Elenese interceptor suits provided telemetry for both the missiles and the Perun's Lance strikes; unfortunately for those spotters and the formations coming up behind them, those weapons were designed to rain down on the heads of groundbound forces, not swat highly mobile airborne assets from the sky, especially not airborne units armed with countermeasures against those weapons. Still, the sheer accumulated mass of firepower resulted in a rather prickly target we could not simply charge headlong into, as we had the previous batch of Elenese suits.
We still retained the range advantage thanks to our air-superiority kit and while the enemy had greater numbers, they could easily be drawn into a Pyrrhic victory if they attempted to simply rush and overwhelm us. Defeating my Squadron was, after all, only the first probable objective of their mission; once we were gone, they would have had to take out Quirinus's as well, while retaining sufficient forces to combat our Sarpedona Squadrons before their survivors would likely press their advantage to attack our Cohorts left exposed in the landing zone.
"Flight Two, advance and feed data to Flight Three. Flight Three, take out their missile boats."
"Confirm," VioletBlood said with obvious relish.
Ahead, on the course I was directing my Squadron towards, the thick storm clouds loomed.. Visibility, even enhanced, would be cut down to almost nothing, leaving us all reliant on our scrying systems and other sensors. Despite this factor, I had faith in my pilots; they were fully capable of decisive action in spite of such a limitation.
"Flight Three, you can go for a full salvo. The enemy needs to keep this Kupala Squadron mostly intact if they want to relieve their allies. Flight One will take point and run interference," I ordered.
"Understood," Lucia acknowledged, her tone easy and professional.
The enemy had put a number of missiles in the air, but nothing like their full load-out, just barely enough to call it a volley. Obviously, they were holding back.
I eyed their positioning on my display; they had a tight and defensive formation that fit my expectations of an Elenese commander trying to conserve her forces; her goal was to get past my Squadron with her forces intact, after all, not to squander her people in a slugfest. That was fine with me. At this range, we still had the range advantage and could evade return fire with ease as well as deploy countermeasures practically unimpeded.
Then, the simulated Elenese surprised me.
Immediately after Flight Three destroyed a Kupala and crippled two more, the two Marzanna Squadrons shot forwards at max acceleration abandoning, their escorts. For a moment, I found myself shocked by the flagrant violation of Elenese doctrine. I half expected to hear some Pukovnik or Bojonik screaming a vendetta over the Open Channel because I just killed her little sister. But, aggressive though their charge was, their formation remained strong and cohesive.
I did not begrudge Quirinus's decision; she had her priorities for this exercise.
Her First Squadron went after the bombers and Strike RP. The Peruns and remaining Kupala missile bombers were the more dangerous target to the Cohorts we were assigned to protect. While their escorts were chasing after us, they were almost defenseless, especially in the face of a Harmonia Squadron.
As the Marzanna came in on their indulgent - and mission-destroying - attack, the doomed bombers released their entire payloads. My display was filled with the clutter of new missile tracks, practically whiting-out our sensors and dropping us into true near-zero visibility.
Third Fight opened up with their Lance Batteries. Their solid fire support winnowed down the enemy attack at range, the smoke clouds and chaff further confused the missile's attempts to achieve a target lock, just in time for our projectors to fire on the missiles. With all those factors combined, we somehow survived the desperate moment.
There was a place for the shock of blind aggression in combat: were I proctoring this exercise, I would not have chosen this moment as one of those places, but perhaps that why they had opted to throw that tactic against my unit. They knew I'd be surprised, and, to their presumed credit, they had been proven correct.
I suppose that was an upside to this training exercise I hadn't anticipated, along with the surprise opportunity to evaluate the simulated performance of the latest model of Black Fog countermeasures. First Squadron took a number of critical casualties in their strike, but they utterly destroyed the bombers and Peruns in exchange.
First Flight was in the lead, and I was front and center at the head of First Flight. Predictably, the enemy assault zeroed in on us, and I took advantage of their target fixation. Their supporting elements were using heavier Veils and relying on Scrying data forwarded by their lead Flights. Still, they were obvious enough and I gave targeting data to Lucia.
On my direction, Visha did not lead First Flight into an attack, declining to pit strength versus strength. While the Marzanna was very maneuverable, even their second generation suits had weaker protection relative to other Great House fighter-role Ritual Plate.
We had superior rate-of-climb and, as long as the missiles volume was thinned, our Ballista projectors had a slight advantage in offensive power. My wings ached as Visha sharply maneuvered her Flight as a dagger to split apart the enemy formation so that the rest of the Squadron could pick them apart.
"Smoke!" Visha ordered as First flight snap maneuvered and, perilously-close, hit the lead Marzanna. This time, we would deprive them of their targeting data. Two of their suits blew apart as they tried to recover and evade and another died as she flipped to retreat back, but managed to cover her wingwoman's escape in the process.
Despite their maddened aggression, the Elenese fought well. They had a choice; they could focus on First Flight and have their flanks picked apart by the rest of my pilots enfilading them, or they could fall back, regroup, and attempt another assault run.
This time, I expected them to make the irrational choice and to target me instead of my wingwoman. Aiming for leaders and officers, not to mention the leading unit in an attacking force, was rational, and to press the issue I accelerated to put myself between the enemy's strafing run close to literal knife-fighting range.
Well, that was a mild exaggeration. I had no sword this time. What I did have was the internal magazines of my Verutum Launcher. The small physical projectiles were notoriously short-ranged, a factor of little issue in this particular aerial brawl. Their arcane payloads, especially the ones that acted as conduits for my own magic, would drain me, but I would worry about that later.
I waited until I was extremely close to the tightly-packed formation of Elenese RP before I fired my Ballista and my Verutum, caring nothing for the ammunition drain as I rammed all my remaining power into my Wards. Beams of evocation energy and exploding arcane pebbles that would arc lighting, fire, and other elemental energies blasted though the enemy suits.
My Wards flashed as I rippled off the last of my Black Fog and obscured the Marzanna Squadron swarming me. The chaff would not last long, mere moments only, but that was all I needed, and all I had.
There was a frantic moment as the enemies flashed into brief visibility and were promptly hit, vanishing into the simulated sky as their suits tumbled down. These virtual pilots began to panic as I continued to evade, maneuvering at levels just outside what they must have been programmed to think a Polyxo could do. Warning tones chimed and lights flickered amber as power loads and suit stresses exceeded their limits.
My Wingwoman, the rest of the Flight, the rest of my Squadron, DarkStar's Blood, even Quirinus's Squadron took the opportunity and harrowed the distracted enemy. Numbers were starting to tell as the display started to clear of the enemy, but their myopic focus on me could not be dislodged.
There was a moment's indecision among the nearest Flight. The glossy Marzanna flickered as her Veils shorted before recovering. It was as if their imperative to attack, and attack me above all others, was conflicting with their tactical sense's yammering demand to pull out regroup.
But as long as they remained fixated on me, I knew where all their attack vectors would terminate. Wings burning silver, I shot forward into that momentary conflict and robbed the enemy of the decision.
I fired on the closest Marzanna, using a Verutum pebble to blast away her wingwoman. Designed to clear landing zones, the Blue Daisy was a balky yet small munition that was shorted-ranged even by Verutum standards, and thus extremely ill-suited to air-combat. Except in edge cases like this.
Fighting alone was about the worst thing one could do in combat. Fortunately, I was far from alone. The rest of my Squad was taking advantage of my reckless plunge forwards, and when a bomb capable of cutting through dozens of trees to make a hundred-foot clearing went off right in front of the second Marzanna, my girls pounced.
The luckless pilot nearest to the explosion was shredded. Her wingwoman staggered back, her wards down and along with much of her power systems, the rest of her Flight only slightly better off. Under most circumstances they would all have been fine. Normal doctrine was to keep formations spread out for reasons like this, and one did not close with the enemy beyond the required amount to get a hit via conventional weapons under a similar rationale.
But, I had forced their hand. By keeping the enemy single-mindedly focused on me, I had denied them the luxury of spreading out. Snapping into a dive, I clipped one of the surviving suits with a tackle.
It was then that I learned that some very bored, or perhaps very thorough, artificer had gone above and beyond the call when it came time to set the parameters for emulated melee combat. My claws flicked out as my tail sliced through the Pilot's tail and my hand went over the weaker neck armor.
As this was a simulation, I did not get any energy from the intimate kill. I suppose no one had added that to the program.
The enemy, however, was able to react to my attack. The last Pilot in the Flight was about to fire but a Ballista bolt blew her helmet, and head, off. Another formation of the Marzanna pilots managed to run that gauntlet of the rest of my Squadron and their diminished remainder opened fire upon me.
The dead pilot I clung to was a questionably effective shield, after her rendered corpse absorbed the first few shots I let her go, springing away and delighting at the sudden drop in drag as my aerial profile abruptly shrank. My Verutum launchers were soon empty and my Ballistas were flickering overheat warnings, though they would soon run dry along with the rest of my suit's systems.
And then a shot breached my wards.
Suit alarms went from insistent to frantic. As my wards rekindled, I got another kill, but at the cost of a second hit which dropped the protective bubble. Ward projectors burnt out, the system's indicator lights turned red.
I managed to damage another Marzanna, but now the exchange had become utterly unsustainable. The latest energy blast had disabled my propulsion and flight control systems, leaving me all but dead in the air.
I tried to get a handle on the situation beyond my suit. This particular Marzanna strike was blunted, shattered and being enfiladed by my Squadron with an assist from First Squadron. Concern and cheering came over my Squadron channel, which gave me an instant of regret. I had done another thing that would lamentably give a bunch of impressionable young pilots the utterly wrong idea.
Despite it all being an exercise, my wings strained with pain and felt aflame as I went into a flat spin, my suit's systems failing. All my indicator lights were flashing, most of them turning red. My altimeter spiraled down as I felt, my gimbals spun, my stomach tried to exit via my mouth, and my Zephyr treated this all as though things were finally getting interesting.
The vision outside my eye-lenses was a blur of grey sky and white ground that altered and gyrated until all the indicator lights blinked out, and my suit went dead. I still felt the spinning motion, but I saw that the purely mechanical altimeter and other backup instruments were not moving.
My heart pounded. I took a sip of water. It was dark and there was a moment of calm.
I blinked as the illusions faded and the lights came on, revealing I was suspended on an articulated arm within a white cylindrical chamber. The arm mounted to my back, just between my wings, pulled me up into a vertical position before locking into place. A rounded door opened and two of my Ritualista came in and started disconnecting cables that ran from the arm to the back of my suit.
When they were clear, I put my hands to my helmet and lifted my faceplate up.
Laurentia undid the catches on the articulated arm and the taller blue-skinned woman helped me down to my feet. I took a step, feeling the weight of the suit again. My Zephyr were giddy as if they found this to be an amusing overture but wanted to go into the air for the first act.
The grey-winged and horned and white-haired IvoryTail used a smoking censer to calm down the spirits and handed me a cup of coffee. I pointedly did not think about any parallels between the two actions. After I took a sip, my two Ritualista then assisted me out of the simulator chamber. I was still just a bit disoriented, and I was wearing an RP suit, something heavy and expensive.
Outside of the simulator, I took a few steps. With the incense making my Zephyr lethargic, much of the weight of the suit rested unsupported on my shoulders. At least my Polyxo was devoid of mission modules such as weapons or ward projectors, making the gear somewhat lighter.
That was an unfortunate end for the exercise. It could have been worse: most times when you get shot down you're not immediately given some coffee to enjoy. At least there was no evading enemy capture module to today's training. I rolled my shoulders and motioned to IvoryTail and she closed some of the censer's slots. Taking in the liquid stimulant, I nudged my air spirits out of their torpor, just enough to help make my RP easier to walk around in. We stood in a long hallway that had five rows of about a dozen simulators.
I could hear other Ritualista helping pilots out of their pods. That was expected. Fortunately, it did sound like our losses were less than I feared. Pulivia had exited hers and was talking with a pilot from Fourth Squadron. Glancing over, she gave me a nervous and apologetic look.
She needn't have worried. Some casualties were only to be expected, after all, although I suppose being the only casualty had to be somewhat embarrassing. Though now she was no longer the only casualty in Third Squadron.
Drinking out of a water-flask, Quirinus strode over to me. Her Harmonia was similarly stripped of armaments and other components that were best left off for simulation work. It all made her suit look even sleeker than mine. There were some similarities of course; both our suits were designed and manufactured by MuArc Amalgamated.
"Tribune," I said before bracing and giving a salute. Our respective entourages of Ritualista had dispersed and went to help the other technicians overseeing the simulators.
"Prefect." Her crimson features were stern as she returned the salute and motioned for me to follow. "That was an
interesting bit of air combat at the end there," she said with mild disapproval.
"Ma'am, the scenario was that I was to be shot down during this phase of the exercise." I shrugged my shoulders in a motion of articulated, enchanted plates. "I decided to do it in a way that minimized suspicions and limited how incredulous the proctors would be in having the opposition target me over all mission-oriented priorities," I said with an absent tone as we walked towards the double doors that lead out of the simulator hall.
"Where I was taken out by a Lance attack from a Perun," Quirinus admitted as she undid her helmet, pulled it open and then slung it on her suit's waist.
"Unfortunately, my Squadron did not get close enough for that to be a reasonable option." I held up a placating hand. "That's not my choice. The proctors could have had some Perun Strike units in that attack on my Squadron, or have a max range Lance reach out and hit me. Those fluke one-in-a-million shots do happen in battle."
"I suppose that was the proctors' choice to go after you like that." Quirinus sighed as we crossed a hallway and knocked on a plain, grey-painted door.
An artificer opened the door for us and ushered us into the larger room on the other side. At first glance, it looked like we had stepped into Flight Operations. There were over a dozen Legionaries at various control stations, each sat in front of their own displays with a giant map projection dominating one whole wall. Many of the Legionary technicians were wearing headsets and were having quiet, deliberate conversations with unseen partners.
However, the simulated Flight Ops was headquartered in a different room, further down the hall. These technicians were the proctors running the exercise. Quite a few of whom paused in their work to look at up wide-eyed at us. I don't know why they looked that shocked to see me. One hastily clambered up from her seat, hustled over, saluted us, and handed Quirinus a clipboard. While she read that, I studied the wall map removing my helmet as I took in the details of the unfolding scenario.
"Are they holding together?" Quirinus asked me as she passed the clipboard and handheld display over.
"Primus Centurion Shadow has rallied Third Squadron with minimal losses."
"Yourself excluded," Quirinus's tone was light and her orange eyes twinkled the way they did when I tried to be respectfully formal on the topic of Visha.
"Myself excluded." I gestured to the main map. "Prefect Caenis used her Squadron and Third to take out the Elenese assault before pulling back to cover the landing zone. A bit cautious but understandable; it looks like the Janissaries had been pressuring the Legionaries quite severely."
As I spoke, I checked the Demi-Flight's current status. A significant aspect of this of this training scenario was seeing how our pilots responded to the loss of their leaders. It was not a full wipe, there were still three Prefect Centurions left, but the loss of a Tribune and a Prefect Centurion would still alter the Wing's dynamic considerably.
"They seem to be doing well enough in our absence," Quirinus nodded. "Could have a bit more coordination with Second and Fourth Squadrons; this is a good opportunity to push those Janissaries out of that bridge."
"Maybe they're waiting for another escort run," I glanced back up to see how the main landing operations were going. The combined Luxon and Elenese counter-attack on the BlackSkyvian Landing Fleet had been driven off, thought not without casualties.
"It's possible." Quirinus conceded as she stepped further into the room and examined one of the observer seats. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of this room, the chair was rated for Ritual Plate. Sitting down next to her, I passed over the clipboard.
"At least this gives us a head start on the exercise debrief," I offered as I put my mug down and took up one of the spare notepads and slipped a headset over my ears. Examining the blocky little brass and glass contraption it was plugged into, I moved the selector over to the command channel and started listening in on the Demi-Wing's transmissions.
"Always the optimist," Quirinus said with a slight smile.
++++++++++
Diffusion of responsibility is a curse that becomes increasingly insidious as an organization grows larger. While it is one that plagues military organizations on the broad scale, small groups down to the squad level can fall afoul of its siren call just as easily.
In this case, there was more than enough blame to spread it equally over all of my subordinates. It was GreyDawn's suggestion to have a celebration and morale building exercise. Reinhild contracted the caterers. It was Visha who pointed out that the event could be expanded to include our Ritualista. VioletBlood picked the venue.
And it was my newest Flight Leader, Lucia who, taking in all of the above, came to the natural conclusion and informed others of the sartorial themes for today's event. Standing on the boardwalk, I crossed my arms and gazed down at my subordinates. My wings twitched. It was no one's fault. It was everyone's fault.
I looked over the crowd below me, standing in the sand with the water at their backs. Ritualista and pilots gazed back up as a warm breeze came over the ocean. Full of ships, the water was a deep blue, with a lovely view of the city to our north, complete with hulking masses of the base's cyclopean hangars looming like artificial peaks in the distance. Behind us stretched the Nolas Hills, the few points of any real elevation in this portion of Mursam.
Ice chests, grills, and tables of food were laid out across the sand, the scents of cooking meats adding pleasantly to the bouquet. Reinhild's always capable efforts provided the atmosphere. An almost leafy scent lingered on the wind, mostly wafting from the torches and braziers she had placed around our reserved portion of the beach.
I could ignore how I was dressed. Really, if one looked past the frills, the swimsuit was not that bad. It was shockingly demure and sensible, considering it was one of VioletBlood's suggestions.
"Third Squadron, Epsilon Demi-Wing, 78th Infantry Legion!" I cried as I spread my wings. Over a hundred eyes were upon me as I dipped into the rhetoric training of several lifetimes. "In the months, I have become proud to see you've grown as a team and have earned the confidence our Imperatrix has given you. You have done well."
I gave a sharp smile. "Most of you are familiar with my teaching methods and know the precious coin such praise means. Lucia, your Flight in particular has caught up impressively. Well done."
I met the purple eyes of my newest Primus Centurion. Her black and gold bikini complimented her svelte form and made her legs appear even longer. Thankfully, seeing Visha and VioletBlood's outfits kept me from getting too jealous. Lucia's broad-rimmed and pillowy hat was a bit... indulgent, though I supposed it did an adequate job of keeping the sun out of her eyes. And it was no more absurd than the floppy sun-hats Tribune Quirinus enjoyed. Maybe there was something about horns that gave in some of us a taste for bizarre haberdashery....
I pushed the nonsense thought from my head and gave Lucia a tiny acknowledging nod.
"I'm happy that my Flight managed to catch up to the one full of cadets!" She shouted back, a smile on her sharply-regal face.
"Cadets trained by the countess herself!" VioletBlood shot back to the laughter of the assembled Legionaries.
I let them have their moment of levity before motioning for silence. "We are not the only Squadron being melded together. Our entire unit is training hard, and I would like to thank our Ritualista for keeping us operational; without them, we would not be here," I gave an expansive wave as I bowed to Centurion Suzette Gibbs. "You know what our Tribune expects from us. What you do not know is the mission."
Now, the silence was total; I had the full attention of dozens of demonic soldiers. I glanced at my kitsune who was standing by the food-prep station by the grills. Reinhild also had a cousin and a niece with her. Willing to moonlight for some extra pay, they were also Auxilia Scouts but on active status. I was loath to trust nepotism but as they both were Legion, and Quirinus had recommended them, my disquiet was minimized.
Bringing multiple foxes to a social event might get tongues wagging, though. In keeping with this event's theme, my maid had also dressed for swimming, but in contrast to her role she was wearing an apron, at least while she was working. Meeting my gaze, the fox nodded.
Good, we had privacy, not that I would be revealing anything particularly ground-breaking. I pulled my wings in and looked over my Legionaries. "To be clear, I cannot tell you quite what our mission will be. But, I can tell you that we have been assigned to a ship of the Household fleet, who in their role as Diyu's premier taxi service will graciously transport us on the
HFV Tarantula Hawk, one of their
Mellona Medium Carriers"
That triggered a bit of murmuring. The
Mellona was a workhorse carrier that was a good compromise of capacity and expense. It would comfortably fit our Demi-Wing's four Squadrons with space for two more, likely a pair of Fleet Squadrons to protect the carrier, run escort, and handle similar tasks.
"We don't know what Legionary formation we will be supporting or what ship they'll be transported on. Once that is known we will focus on their capabilities and joint training missions." My tail flicked as I took a pondering pose, finger to my chin. "We won't be supporting a formation larger than a Vexillatio, but if I had to guess, I would say we'll likely be attached to a Cohort."
If my last comment had gotten their interest, this morsel of information had grabbed their attention. A Demi-Wing for a Cohort of troops was a fairly standard role for a heavy strike. That was roughly the mix the
Hadian class Long Range Insertion airship was fitted out to transport and deploy. That we were not being assigned to one of that class could be due to several reasons. The most innocuous explanation was simply that ships of the larger class were simply not available for our mission. There were, after all, four times as many
Mellonas in the Fleet's grand inventory as
Hadians. Thus, the operational planners could just be making due with whatever Fourth or Fifth Fleet had available. That was certainly
an explanation.
I smiled disarmingly at my assembled personnel. "We will cross that bridge. We are Legion. And we are the Tribune's force-multiplier. While the rest of her Fliers are skilled specialists, we are expected to excel in every role. And," I stated emphatically, "we will not disappoint."
The skilled part was not entirely out of politeness' sake. Fabia's greenhorns in Fourth Squadron weren't rookies fresh out of Flight School and they had grown impressively over these months.
"But, you're not here to get a lecture from me. Not today, at least. Please, enjoy yourselves." With that, I waved to the kitsune
At my signal, the trio opened the ice chests with a flourish, as if they were priestesses offering libations. The grills were also lit and crates heaped with cheese, bread, fruits were proffered, and there were still yet more boxes of provisions to be opened. I had even ordered a few exotic items including some gelatos and other cold sweets to supplement the beachside feast. However, the meat and fish seemed to send the greatest thrill among the crowd as my subordinates went about their refreshments and, using their towels, started staking claims on the beach.
Fluffing my wings, I jumped off the boardwalk and onto the sand, relishing the soft warmth between my toes as I padded my way down the beach. I would have scheduled this later in our training, but GreyDawn had pointed out that we were in the midst of fall and soon the water would become too cool for swimming, even at this latitude.
The fine, pale orange sand was hot below my feet. It felt hotter than the air around, which was entirely possible as it was a clear cloudless day and the sun had been beating down on the beach all morning.
I was tempted to use my Zephyr to try and hover over the beach, but my eager wind spirits would likely kick up a lot of sand. Additionally, I was unacceptably out of practice which such precise maneuvers; it had been years since my time in the ballet troupe, every move held up to professional rigor by the hard-eyed coaches. I made a mental note to try to add that to my ground-side training regimen. Besides, the biggest reason to hold off on prospective experiments was striding my way.
Centurion Suzette Gibbs was a dark-haired, straight-horned, cynical woman whose face seemed locked in a perpetual scowling. The chief Ritualista of my Squadron had years of experience and a deep skepticism of the wisdom and judgment of Ritual Plate Pilots and the damage they caused to
her suits. Repairing said damage had presumably engraved the scowl into her face over the years, like the slow action of wind and rain upon some pale and particularly standoffish stone.
"Prefect," she said, her tone casual but her salute textbook.
I returned the salute. We were both out of uniform and the situation did not call for such a gesture; that she had led with such formality indicated, some mild displeasure on her part. "Anything awry, Gibbs?" I asked, glancing up at the taller woman. I noticed most of my personal Ritualista were nearby, having spread out a large beach blanket.
"Nothing much. The new Ritualista are meshing well."
"Really, only Flight Three is new," I observed.
Gibbs smiled thinly. "And Primus Hood runs a tight Flight."
The pale and vivacious IvoryTail looked up from the beach blanket she was straightening; her tail curled questioningly.
"Do we have an issue, Centurion?" I quietly asked. "We will be deploying offworld soon enough, and I would like to know if there are personality clashes before everyone is crammed onto an airship."
"Perhaps a word where we can speak freely?" Gibbs asked.
"By all means." I nodded to her and we started to walk. Instead of heading to a more secluded part of the beach, as I expected, she led me over to where Lucia and her pilots were lounging on their blankets.
Looking up, Lucia hopped up to her hooves as we approached. I waved her and the others off before they could salute. The gold and black bikini Lucia wore emphasized just how long-legged she was and I felt the prickly-old jealousy of my own diminutive height.
"Countess! This is quite the event you've set up." The head of Flight Three's smooth tones faltered when she saw Gibbs at my side.
"I heard we might have a problem?" I asked, pitching my voice so it didn't carry.
Lucia looked to Gibbs who gave a small nod.
"Yes, Ma'am. I mean that there's not a problem with my Ritualista. It's more..." Lucia's sharp aristocratic features stilled as she groped for a diplomatic wrapper for her complaint.
"Poaching," Charity BreezeFlower murmured.
"That's putting it kindly," Gibbs commented with all the blunt delicacy of a Torpedo volley.
I rubbed my forehead. Like many specializations, Ritualista were always in high demand. The magical aptitude and rigors required were not as rare as necessary for a Ritual Plate Pilot, but there were, altogether, over six times as many Ritualista in the Fleet and Legions as there were RP Pilots. And that count only included the Ritualista required to maintain Ritual Plate. Vehicles, VTOLs, airships, and other systems needed their own Ritualista.
"Are we at least dealing with Legion officers trying to tempt them?" I asked, my tail flicking irritably. I had heard that getting qualified maintainers was a bit harder on the offworld colonies than on Diyu, but surely Mursam wouldn't have that issue.
"A Tribune OpalWing from the 43rd Legion, one of the training legions, was struck with a brilliant idea and has been making the rounds to various maintainers with the pitch of no offworld deployments," Gibbs said.
Anger struck me, a deep rage roiling off of me in waves as all the thorny implications twisted trough my mind. "Without informing me?"
"I just found out about it; she went over my head too," Lucia snarled.
My tail went still, and it as all I could do to keep it from writhing in indignant fury. That was very poor form, to say the least. I had questions about this Tribune's sense of decorum. "Right. Are any of your girls tempted? Anyone who has the leverage to finagle a transfer?"
Officially, the Legions were meritocratic. By and large, they were, but they also bowed to the reality of existing in a monarchical and aristocratic environment. As an imperial heroine, a countess, and the daughter of a duchess, I was well aware of that, given both my own fast promotion track. On the other wing, I had earned all of those honors and titles via my own skill, even if my connections had smoothed any complications out of my path.
"So far, no," Lucia shook her head, "but some of the younger Ritualista are having a bit of a culture shock having gone from the Anchorage to the colonies."
"Right..." I frowned as the pieces began to come together.
In many ways, the Lantia Anchorage existed as a sort of fleet-in-being. Especially the Legionary aspects. that lead to some non-standard situations, this latest irritation very much included I turned my thoughts back to them, orders already on my lips as the semblance of a plan formed. "Gibbs, you put out feelers. See if we actually have anyone setting up the necessary deals to get a formal transfer. Anyone who's stopped thinking and started acting. Lucia, I'll have a word with Quirinus, both to see if any of the other Squadrons are being poached and to see if anyone can assign this logistics Tribune some nice and helpfully informal coaching."
Lucia nodded, her full lips pursed in a severe line.
Gibbs bowed her horns and instead of going back to her part of the beach went into one of the lines for cold drinks. The pilots of Flight Three watched her go.
"You don't need to stay on my account," I assured them.
Rising up, Charity bowed to me. While not as tall as Lucia, the woman was broader of shoulder, hip, and had a more statuesque form. Her long gold-blond hair was tied back in a tight ponytail.
The Flight's other blonde, Centurion Lady Adriana Melisande also stood. Her shoulder-length ash-blonde tresses were styled with a lot of body and showed almost as much care as VioletBlood put into her hair. Her horns were a sky-blue, like her tail, and curled back from her brow. Like her superior, she had a noble cast to her appearance, though not quite as sharp. Her periwinkle eyes glittered.
"Will you duel this Tribune, Countess?" she asked with affected idleness, adjusting her rather daring swimwear with a casualness so natural it had to be deliberate.
I was used to nudity. It was a part of life in the military. Diyu also had different cultural norms than my previous lives, and this was a beach. There were plenty of my subordinates who did not bother with swimsuits, including half of my personal Ritualista team.
Lady Adriana Melisande was not one of them; more's the pity, she was technically dressed. But the gossamer strips and chains adorning her admittedly lush curves were so scandalous that it would have been less blatant had she simply had forgone any suggestion of clothing. Especially with how she drew attention to her state of dress with sinuous movements more shamelessly licentious than I had seen in quite some time. Not since a particularly
avant garde Luxon ballet that VioletBlood had dragged me off too shortly before we left the capital.
Blinking, I drew my attention towards Lucia. Which was a different kind of issue, but one I could manage better. "Pardon?" I asked.
Her wingwoman and mate, IronTalon Cardino was the last to stand. The shortest in the Flight, she still had a bit of the more lanky morphology of someone born on Lantia. Her steel-blue hair contrasted nicely with her cerulean skin and grey eyes. Her jade one-piece swimsuit was enviably less frilly than my own confection. I noted the fine silver thread of an old scar shimmering across her right cheek, either a deliberate keepsake from some tiresome duel or a sign that she'd had to make some past Apology and the offended party had been remarkably merciful in the punishment doled out upon her.
"Adriana, you don't say things like that to our Squadron commander!" Centurion Cardino stamped her foot and tried to force her guileless, open face tried into a mein of stern disapproval. While the expression did bring attention to her scar, which shone silver on her sea-blue cheek, I couldn't help but notice the expression of amused delight that darted across Centurion Melisande's face before she shuffled an unconvincing mask of remorseful regret into place.
"I am sorry, Countess," Centurion Melisande said, lowering her head in what I could only presume was an attempt to conceal the smile dancing in her eyes, reinforcing her gambit with a pointedly lavish presentation of her horns in a gesture of submission.
"I'm surprised you didn't ask her to be light with your punishment," Charity noted full of a maternal sternness that tole me not only that she hadn't noticed the other blonde's cheeky shamlessness but also she hadn't even a hint of private amusement. Adrianna, it seemed, was a good bit more subtle than her swimsuit might lead an observer to beleive.
"We have learnend that the Countess is not one to spare the rod when it comes to discipline," Adriana agreed with an unseemly eagerness that didn't so much as hint but scream its undertone for all but Charity to hear.
I rolled my shoulders and then
smiled at the blonde temptress. "Lady Adriana, we are relaxing and while I appreciate your... " I looked to Lucia for help.
She shrugged, seemingly defeated but with a private smirk of her own. "Candor?" she offered.
"Yes," I conceded, "let us go with that. While I appreciate such frankness, I will note that we are both in committed relationships."
"Oh, that's not a problem for us? Right, Honey?" Melisande said as she pulled her wingwoman into an embrace.
"You did chip in to help pay to have my motorcycle shipped out here," IronTalon admitted before nuzzling the blonde.
Admittedly, the shipping to move a vehicle, even a small one, from Lantia to Mursam would have been quite a burden on the typical pilot's wallet. "Ah, well...." My horns tingled a warning and I smartly stepped to one side.
A shadow fell over us as VioletBlood leapt into the conversation with a wing-and Zephyr-assisted long-jump. Despite my attempt to strategically sidle aside, no sooner had her feet hit the sand then she wrapped her wings over me in an embrace so ostentatious that it put Adriana and Melisande to shame.
A carnally-addled and traitorous corner of my mind was disappointed that I had been successful in my earlier attempt to convince VioletBlood to show a modicum of modesty by wearing a suit for our beach excursion. I shook off those thoughts, but not the surprisingly warm membranous wings that nearly cocooned me.
"How... affectionate," Lucia noted, a strangely cautious look in her eyes as she glanced form her paired pilots to me and back.
Entirely unmoved, VioletBlood gently but firmly perched her head on my shoulder, rubbing her horns against mine as she made pointed eye-contact with first Adriana and then Lucia. My tail straightened in shock as my head began to swim with a strangely pleasant tingling fuzziness.
"They are engaged," Charity said, perhaps to herself, as if she were trying to mollify herself at such a instead of scandalous public display, at least for an event such as this.
"Well, who needs some mere fashion statement? Wearing your partner as a wing-wrap is plenty daring already" Adriana said, her tone complimentary yet waspish as she pulled her own mate closer. I could almost
hear VioletBlood preening.
"Something like a Paymonish yuka?" IronTalon noted, boldly striking out toward congeniality.
"Oh, I was thinking more of formal Elenese high fashion." Adriana's smile grew, needle-teeth as sharp as her tounge on full dipslay between plush lips.
The less formal and rigid House Paymon often made me nostalgic for my first life, especially on the many times I'd enjoyed its food. And while some House Elena's courtly dress was kimono-inspired, the garments, accessories and requisite tresses were exceptionally ornate and tedious to don correctly. Unsurprisingly, I had little desire to dress in such a manner.
At least musing over Elena's impractical garb offered some distraction from the way the way LoveBlood's attention was making me feel.
"I do not see how a wing-like dress would be anything like an Elenese Furisode," I replied, trying to ignore my betrothed's long-suffering pout in favor of the desultory conversation about.... fashion, I supposed.
I'd never realized LoveBlood's head was quite this heavy before… Or is she pushing herself down into my shoulder?
"I suppose you are correct, Countess," Adriana said in an exaggeratedly-magnanimous tone. "After all, you are missing the mask."
The other pilots nodded, Lucia still looking decidedly squirrelly, wings twitching, as if she were seconds away from propelling herself up and away from the conversation. I wondered if her discomfort was a result of the mention of Elena. They were notorious for their cultural fixation on masks, and many demons found the Elenese disquieting for this reason. Besides, we had just gone up against a simulated Elenese force; perhaps the newly transfer Flight Leader was still flinching with leftover stress..
"You know, that's a funny thing," Lucia said, her voice calm and thoughtful, as her body language wasn't, as if she were some academic expert on masks holding forth in her lecture hall while preparing to escape from a pack of undergrads pesting her about overdue grading. "Elenese Ritual Plate has blank-faced helms, where our House is the one that uses sculpted death-masks."
"That is indeed a fascinating cultural quirk," I dryly noted, trying to deal with the amorous VioletBlood. Most pilots, myself included, used a faceplate cast in her own likeness. There were a few who used masks of noteworthy ancestors, and among the more religiously-minded various saints were popular. It took a very pious, or presumptive, pilot to wear the likeness of DarkStar herself, however. Nobody but me, it seemed, and perhaps Lucia were focusing much on the conversation.
Handling VioletBlood was easier said than done. An invasive but not unpleasant intimacy flowed between us. The anxieties and angers of a lifetime nearly bereft of family, a lifetime isolated, a lifetime of working to prove herself, a lifetime of burbling, haughty bloodlust swept over me. VioletBlood's life may have been short, only a year and a half longer than my life as Tauria, but it was focused and glistened with a cold intensity like a precisely-cut diamond.
VioletBlood's embrace became less desperately limpet-like as... as if she was reading my innermost emotions. My tail went limp as the horrified realization sunk in. For all the talk about masks, VioletBlood was seeing me without mine.
"You worry too much," she whispered in my ear.
"I was thinking of getting some refreshments." Lucia dimpled a diplomatic, albeit strained, smile towards her pair of amorous Pilots... and towards VoiletBlood and I... "Does anyone require anything in particular?"
Summoning all the dignity my years as an officer could muster, doing my best to disregard both my perpetual lack of stature and the noblewoman draping herself over me, I nodded gravely. "That would be good, Primus."
"It looks like Primus Shadow is bringing refreshments to us already," Adriana observed as she shifted her balance to better cuddle.
My tail straightened as my interest rose. It was a bit surprisng that I hadn't noticed Visha's aproach, but I excused my oversight by dint of how...
distracting LoveBlood was being.
IronTalon blinked, frowning. "Is that a male kitsune with her?"
All but pinned by VioletBlood, I could not see them approach, but by way of deduction I knew which fox they were talking about. "Yes, that is Reinhild's cousin, Uwe."
The blue-haired pilot blinked with mild surprise. "Huh."
"There's not many forests up on Lantia," Adriana said by way of apology.
Purple eyes calculating and glittering with a suddenly renewed certainty, Lucia's smile broadened and she bowed her head to VioletBlood in respect, like a duelist acknowledging a touch.
"What?" I tried to turn but the baroness' hold grew a ever so slightly tighter. Being wrapped in LoveBlood's arms and wings was not entirely unpleasant, but this was perhaps not quite the right time.
Though, that silky little voice in me countered,
if beachside R&R on wasn't the right time, when was?
When it's just the three of us! Another fragment of my mind rejoined. The traitorous thoughts added fuel to both my mental turmoil and the infernal furnaces steadily heating my cheeks.
"Just a moment- do you really want to ruin the surprise?" VioletBlood whispered with a gentle, reassuring caress.
There was no pouting on my part, but I did stop squirming and let myself relax in her arms and wings.
"You trained us to work as a team," VioletBlood whispered, her tone teasing. With the benefit of experience, the noble was becoming quite the skilled temptress.
That was not entirely reassuring. Glancing about, I could see the rest of VioletBlood's Flight approaching. GreyDawn had crossed her arms and wore a small smirk while Octavia was watching with undisguised amusement. Even Gibbs and the rest of my crew had also drawn near while all of the other Ritualistas' attention was focused on us.
I could feel VioletBlood's ill-contained mirth as her tail swished to and fro; before I could brace myself she snapped into action, releasing me from her wings and spinning me around in a single leaping burst, leaving me facing back the way we had come. Only feet away stood, Visha who along with and the male fox was carrying a large multi-tiered cake. Even across the salt-sea smell of the beach, I could pick up the first hints of chocolate on the breeze. Behind them, SunShower and her niece approached, laden with plates, cups, and an ice chest of drinks.
"My birthday isn't for two weeks," I petulantly said, for lack of any other immediate reaction.
"Shall I call off the cake then?" VioletBlood murmured in my ear, before raising her voice to ask her question a second time to all in attendance. "Everyone, do you want to wait a fortnight for cake?"
There was a chorus of light-hearted protests.
Visha helped Uwe, a rather literal silver-fox, set up a table to present the cake. Then my wingwoman held up a knife and gave me an eager and expectant smile. Stepping over to me, she gave VioletBlood a warm smile. While not making quite as blatantly overt of a display as LoveBlood, Visha still pointedly took my arm in front of the assembled Squadron, her wings brushing against mine. Somehow, her feelings sounded... quieter, less "shouted" and more murmured. Despite the lower mental volume, they were if anything equally emphatic. The blade flashed in Visha's free hand, before the hilt was pressed firmly into my hand.
I tried to clear my mind and focus on something safe, on something simple: the cake-knife was well-balanced. It was good Voduri steel; I'd recognize that distinct patterning anywhere. I wondered where Visha purchased it...
Yet the pressure from my two Vs was overwhelming, like a warmly weighted cashmere blanket on a cold winter's night. I somehow managed to remain stoically dignified, taking it all with good grace expected of someone of my position. My right and left hand subordinates were very capable pilots and pleasing to be around and it was... gratifying that they valued me as well. It was all perfectly sensible, even the feelings in my chest that made it a bit hard to concentrate.
But I had fought on with far greater distractions, and I could not disappoint the rest of my people. "I suppose no one minds if we have dessert before the meat's grilled?"
All in all, it was not an unpleasant fifteenth birthday.
++++++++++
As an immense Legion and Fleet base, Colonia Mursam Castramagnus was a city unto itself, a complex of barracks, warehouses, training facilities, offices, dockyards and hangars of all sizes, strewn across acres of land. Getting around the base required lots of walking, even after using the base's somewhat sparse tram system to cute the travel time down considerably. There were other transit systems available, of course, but they were less frequent and mostly focused around the main airfields and administrative structures. Amusingly, for the stronghold of a winged race, flight was not really an option on-base, as the airspace had to be controlled for obvious reasons.
There were nine of us: Quirinus and her four Squadron Commanders and each of our seconds. Our subordinates were still digesting last week's simulator exercise. The beach interlude had helped with morale. Not that they needed much of a morale boost; combat losses aside, Epsilon Wing had won the exercise handily; By the end of the scenario, they were left with sufficient combat effectiveness to hold the landing zone until reinforcements could arrive.
All things considered, Hangar 143-A was not too far from the tramway stop. The walk was unfortunately short enough that I knew there was no hope of convincing Quirinus to sign out a couple carts from a motor pool. At least, not yet, the distance from our barracks and from the hangar our Ritual Plate was currently stored in to Hangar was a potential issue in the future.
Despite its cavernous volume, Hanger 143-A was barely more than a shack, lurking in the literal the shadow of the massive Class C Hangar next door.
The better part of a mile in length and over fifteen hundred feet wide, with an interior height of about fifty-five stories Hangar 4-C was a titanic structure of support towers and cable-stays that could fit a single
Celestial class, the largest vessel in BlackSkyvian service. It was an enclosed and controlled environment complete with overhead cranes and other mechanisms to provide the servicing and refit for any airship in the Household Fleet. Not only was the interior protected from the elements, it was temperature controlled to boot, with each Hangar regularly visited by Tempestarii who used their weather magic to control the humidity and chase away the cloud formations from the upper gantries. The
Empyrean Zenith was assigned to Colonial Domitianus Fourth Fleet and Hanger 2-C in specific, but the base had a number of Class C Hangers.
Giant doors more akin to hollowed-out track-mobile buildings than simple doors were partially open to allow for the slow, careful egress of a fleet carrier. Even the most jaded among us paused to watch the group of Ritual Plate on observation and wind-duty swooping about the airship like pilot fish around a vast whale, while a group of ground vehicles with guidelines helped nudge the airship free of its birth like tugs around one of the leviathan cargo vessels back in the City of Trees. Most of those vehicles, dwarfed into comparative insignificance, were heavy-duty train engines that ran along the dedicated surface rail-lines servicing the hangar. It was hard to keep a good grasp of scale when looking upon such a structure, , so utterly did it dominate the surrounding area and the pygmy side-buildings and structures bowing before its titanic presence.
A Class C could easily swallow up a pair of
Avalon Heavy Carries and a pair of
Nova Fleet Carriers or equivalently-sized airships like two
Tonbokiri class battleships and two
Kanabo class battlecruisers. Troopships like the massive
Typhoon class and other heavy Legionary Lift assets could easily vanish inside. An entire Legion Landing Flotilla, including escorts, could be maintained within a handful of Class C Hangars all with a good amount of space to maintain and work on said airships. The entryway to the Hangar and much of the interior had several long trenches of various depths and widths that allowed for installation and maintenance of an airship's various ventral structures.
"They look so much more... delicate, when they're stuck down on the ground," Julia noted as we waited to go down a set of steps that would have us walk under the large taxiway avenue.
Beside us, another railway line ran under the taxiway. Each hangar was served by two sets of rail lines. The ones cut in trenches just below the surface avoided at-grade crossings and allowed for cargo and personnel transport, though less frequently than the trams. The surface rail lines allowed for the transportation of oversized components but those trains had to stop to avoid getting in the way of the taxiways that connected the hangars with the aprons and runways.
"More like a wallowing hog," Fabia countered.
Julia gave a slight smile to the more senior Sarpedona Squadron Commander.
"Careful, you don't want the Fleet girls to hear you badmouthing their precious hulls," Quirinus lightly said.
"Given the size of the vessel, that's actually a lot of control and precision," I noted as we went down the steps and into the echoing subterranean corridor.
"It wouldn't be a practical weapon if a slight breeze could prevent their deployment, or if a bit of rain could ground them at the slightest notice," Fabia shrugged.
I chuckled, a bit hollowly. Airships had tended to be highly niche transportation platforms in both of my previous lives, albeit for different reasons. My previous empire had tried deploying aerial mages from Zeppelins with some good results. However, Germania's limited colonial holdings had left the Empire with only little need for such of extreme-endurance aircraft, especially considering the infrastructure and maintenance costs they required.
In my first life, well… a botched landing in New Jersey, a windblown crash in France, and a crash off the coast of California had doomed the dirigible to the pages of history books, outside of limited novelty commercial engagements.
Visha clearly shared my amusement, judging by the way her tail swished as she walked ahead of me.
We climbed up to another part of the complex. There was one giant hangar, albeit still smaller than the colossal that was Hangar 4-C and clustering around it were a bunch of even smaller hangars. All were in the shadow of that massive Class C, which in addition to blocking out the daylight also provided a rather effective wind screen. The base layout tried to minimize wind-funnels and other such areas that would make the maneuvering of giant, rigid lighter-than-air ships even harder.
The big hanger on this side of the taxiway was
merely a Class B. It still used buttresses and cable stays. At under two thousand feet in length, seven hundred in width, and with an interior height of a mere forty stories, it was still the size of several blocks of office buildings.
It was sized to fit a single
Avalon Heavy Carrier or equivalently-sized hull such as a
Bacchus class heavy cargo ship. For major bases, the Class B was a useful size for working many of the mid-range vessels in the Fleet. Four
Maul class cruisers could comfortably fit inside with ample overhead space for refitting, removing, or installing major ship components. This made them a common workhorse hangar for the bulk of the Household Fleet. The standardization gave some efficiencies that offset the large investment in such structures.
Our journey took us briskly past the open doors of this Hangar and we had plenty of time to confirm that Hangar 43-B held a trio of
Mellona Medium Carriers. The quarter of the hangar that was empty of airships was still crowded with structural frames, giant cabling spools, racks of equipment modules, and a few sealed up out-buildings secured with privacy screens.
None of those ships were our destination: our orders were to report to Hangar 143-A. Freestanding arched structures, Class A hangars could be taken down, transported, built in the field, and were a key infrastructural component of minor bases. Just over a thousand feet long, five hundred feet wide, and twenty stories tall, they were still large structures. It was only proximity to their larger cousins that rendered them... small.
Well, relatively small. The vast base was an exercise in extravagance, given the endless fields of buildings and industrial equipment and personnel required to keep Fourth and Fifth Fleets operational. It was a world of concrete, cables, rail-lines, tank-farms, warehouses, and hangars.
And that was just the heart of the base; the considerable civilian infrastructure required to support, supply, feed, water, and train everyone who worked here sprawled out around the base itself in a web of logistical veins supplying the garrison's every need. A large part of the populations of Mursa Victrix the city and Mursam the entire colony worked for this base, directly or indirectly. Entire family lines had dwelt in the outbuildings of the larger hangars for generations, their society a guild and apprentice system of skilled tradeswomen of crane operators, artificers, welders, seamstresses, machinists, enchanters and all the various tasks required to maintain and refit the Household Fleet.
Still, a single
Mellona class could fit inside a Class A Hanger or a pair of
Damocles Light Carriers,
Mace class Destroyers, or other similarly-sized ships. Though the Class A was more commonly used for the
Kolibri Patrol class or the
Venture scout, of which it could fit four or seven within its walls respectively. Our assigned vessel being kept in a relatively small Hangar by itself was not unheard of, but it was a bit unusual.
"I wonder how cramped it'll be to work in there," Julia noted as we walked up to the main gate for Hanger 143-A.
"For us? Not cramped at all," Fabia shrugged. "We'd be nothing more than gnats inside even one of these. Now, the Ventus pilots and their VTOLs may find it a bit cramped, but they'll just wheel those in." She trailed off when we got a better eye at the gate guards.
All military bases had gate guards, but I'd seldom worked out of a hangar with its own guard post at the entrance, complete with a pair of sentries clearly checking names against a list. No wonder Quirinus had reminded us to keep our military identification handy, and a second, civilian form of identification, to boot. In the case of most of our pilots, that second ID was our library cards, but clearly Quirinus hadn't been joking in the slightest. Security was, to say the least, tight. People couldn't just walk into a hangar even if they had already been gladly waved onto base.
Honestly, the level of verification and security warmed my heart, even though my peers grumbled. This more than the mere assignment of a dedicated hangar, was the best way to emphasize to the Wing the importance of our maiden operation as a unit.
The guard shack and gatehouse were the tip of the complex of support buildings that encrusted both sides of the hangar like fungal colonies. The front and back had been kept clear, allowing the massive doors to petal open. Once we had satisfied the stonefaced guards that we were authorized personnel, out little party descended down a corridor lined with offices, lockers, and workshops for the various yard workers and maintenance crews. Many of these subsidiary rooms were secured areas, complete with a variety of ocular and occult scanners and combination pads. I was used to airship hangars having sensitive areas such as those for the Teleport Rune inscribers, the communications specialists, the power-drive gang, or locked-down rooms where dismounted scrying arrays were refurbished, but Hangar 134-A seemed endowed with an overabundance of windowless rooms, restricted corridors, and places that were locked-off to even senior Legionary Fliers.
My tail flicked a bit in nervousness.
We were being assigned to a
Mellona class which was a good mix of small enough to be common with over a hundred in the Household Fleet, yet large enough to have good all-around capability with six RP Squadrons, half a dozen Torpedoes, and a small, but varied, compliment of VTOLs for cargo delivery, search and rescue, and other utility roles. While six Fujiwara Aerial Torpedoes was not very many, it did give the carrier some organic fleet-defense or fire-support capability, depending on load-out. The smaller RP carriers did not have that flexibility in VTOL complement and did not carry any Torpedoes. The larger ones were more capable, but were slower, more expensive and fewer in number.
My worry grew as we trotted past still more Fleet personnel and clannish dock technicians hard at work on unknowable tasks, until finally we passed through a set of double doors and entered the hangar proper. It was always an awe-inspiring sight to see such a vast cavity, even if, or perhaps especially if, it was filled by the resting form of a
Mellona class.
From an almost directly bow-on angle, the vessel's class was obvious: the airship used the side-by-side lifting hulls of the
Virtus modular design, a single forward Torpedo launcher was visible, and there were the four starboard Ritual Plate catapults near the bow as well as the matching landing ramps with presumably the same number on the port side, VR62 was painted on one of the aft vertical tail fins as a finishing touch, the pennant number prefix code for a
Mellona medium carrier, V for Virtus and R for Ritual Plate.
There was every visual indicator that this was a standard backbone-of-the-Fleet carrier. One ideally sized to carry a Demi-Wing for legionary support with room for two Squadrons to protect the carrier and other Fleet tasks. Yes, the
Nova Fleet Carrier held two Fleet-sided RP Wings for a total of nearly two-hundred Ritual Plate, plus about two dozen Torpedoes and a couple VTOL squadrons. Relative to the rather rare
Avalon Heavy Carrier, the Household Fleet had nearly four dozen Fleet carriers, but that was still well under half of the total number of medium carriers.
Many in the Household Fleet had a joke: "Pray for a
Nova, expect a
Mellona." Which amusingly enough indicated that the culture of the senior BlackSkyvian military branch was not quite as cynical as the Imperial Legions. Our version of that joke would be "Pray for a
Mellona and expect nothing."
Visha sensed my unease. "I think the
Tarantula Hawk looks pretty."
Many of the
Mellona class were named after eusocial stinging insects or similar creatures. Last year, my cadets had completed live-fire training while deploying from the
HFV Hornet, which had infamously gone so badly awry that I had been left facing down an entire Elenese Vanguard Strike unit with just three other pilots.
Decidedly not an outcome envisioned by whoever had designed that particular training scenario's parameters.
The hull was the standard semi-matte Fleet-grey when the camouflage system wasn't powered. Many of the airship's propulsion modules were missing and based on the double row of replacement pods to one side, that whole system was being replaced. Like most of our hardware, upon activation, the hull would change to a pattern that matched the surrounding environment, which along with a few other tricks, made it so a giant airship was not blatantly obvious in the empty sky. However, truly Veiling over eight hundred feet of airship would be very costly. Such high stealth applications were limited to platforms like Ritual Plate, VTOLs, and for smaller, highly specialized airships.
The tiny
Venture Scout and the various
Kolibri Patrol craft were often modified into examples of the latter. The former was the smallest airship in the Fleet and little more than a platform for Scrying systems and a Mothership for six Ritual Plate. The latter being just large enough to be configured into the various troopship, reconnaissance, VTOL Mothership, cargo, Torpedo corvette, and Patrol Carrier roles the Fleet uses, albeit all on a small scale. However, if one wanted a very quiet, but very small, troop insertion, bombardment, or carrier strike, then a high-Veiled
Venture and
Kolibri or two would get the job done.
"I suppose," I admitted as the nine of us walked up towards the ship. Closer, I could see that parts of the envelope were being worked on; presumably elements were being replaced while the gasbags were being inspected and refurbished. Strangely, the areas where the envelope peeled back had all been tented up and covered in tarps over frameworks that prevented any sight of the airship's structural interior. One would think that being in a restricted hangar would be privacy enough, but there seemed to be an abundance of caution around the
Tarantula Hawk.
What I could make out was that the team of artificers moving in to work on a particularly heavily draped section looked rather large in number, and, based on the equipment they were bringing, up doing some serious work. Indeed, so serious that a crane's assistance in hauling them a spool of very thick high-arcane energy cabling up to the work site. That was a bit odd; the Tarantula Hawk should be new enough that the teleport system's distribution network shouldn't need replacing. The thought of what other power-intensive systems might be up in an airship's envelope and greater structural frames left me full of disquiet.
Crossing the hangar's interior was a simple evolution only because there was a marked and railed path to the airship. Without the markings, the journey would have been considerably more difficult, as the pathway meandered parallel to the airship before joining a veritable temporary roadway, crossing over one of the service trenches on a modular bridge.
Right after the bridge squatted a portable gangway to a somewhat large entryway in the starboard amidships hull. To our right was one of the
Tarantula Hawk's two VTOL launch ramps.
Yet more security waited for us at the top of the gangway. Interestingly, these seemed to be part of the ship's shipboard Legionary complement. The detachment were all Evocatus veterans on at least their second term with a rather high ratio of grenadiers represented. There was no tail-measuring, as even the most hard-bitten Hoof-Slogger appreciated Legionary Fliers. That is, unless after a mission they found their air-support to be too timid or too uncaring about friendly-fire, then the claws would come out.
After making it through the checkpoint, we were directed towards the left, into a corridor heading towards the ship's bow. "Wow, quite the refit! She even has that new-blimp smell," Julia remarked as we walked down the decking. She wasn't wrong. Everything was freshly painted and the hatches we passed did seem newly refurbished.
Fabia, however, gave her a dark expression as we walked. Her wingwoman was even more blatant as her tail started to turn limp.
Something was wrong.
"We didn't get turned around?" Visha asked.
"No," Fabia stated.
My wingwoman gave me a questioning look.
"Just a moment," I said, holding out some hope as we went forward by another frame. As expected the corridor opened up. However, where on any other
Mellona Medium Carrier the aft starboard RP maintenance bay would be, instead this ship had a stripped-down compartment.
Like most compartments, there were plenty of tie down points in the decking and many of the storage options were left in place. But all of the Ritual Plate specific items, the arming-chairs, the spirit sanctums, the engraving and enchanting rigs, the other maintenance and machining equipment, the power cell vaults, and even the bins for parts and spares had been pulled out. The only trappings of the Ritual Plate bay left behind were some of the munitions lockers and a handful of benches and auxiliary seating.
We were not Fleet Pilots, but still being onboard an RP Carrier that had stripped out a major portion of its Ritual Plate compliment felt wrong.
"Maybe they've just pulled everything old out and they'll replace it with new stuff?" Visha's tone put on a hopeful front.
Fabia shook her head. "They
might replace the vaults, if their material was found to be flawed or cracked. But they'd leave the floor open to slot the new ones in." The Sarpedona Squadron commander gestured to the entirely new, and contiguous decking in the room.
"They also wouldn't downgrade the sprinkler heads and other fire suppression systems," I said with resignation as I slowly ambled forward, studying the ceiling. Like most compartments it was a mass of pipes, conduits, and tubes all color-coded. Every compartment had some damage control capability, but RP maintenance bays, given the energy densities of our equipment, had some of the higher levels, second only to places like Torpedo magazines, the main power plant, and the Teleportation controllers.
"And no Fleet officer or crew would ever reduce that, unless the compartment was fully de-rated," Julia's grizzled wingwoman stated.
"Carol, do you think they did this to the port-side aft bay?" Julia asked her second.
The shaved-headed older Legionary Flier gave a slow nod. "That's my fear, Ma'am."
And there it was. Removing one maintenance bay, that is one Squadron's worth of Ritual Plate was bad enough, but two... A
Mellona only carried six squadrons. Why would one remove a third of an RP Carrier's capability?
It
would free up a fair bit of capacity. Not just the Ritual Plate and their pilots, but the maintenance and parts and that every single Ritual Plate suit required four to five Ritualista. VTOLs and armored vehicles also required Ritualista. The average Legion required over a thousand of the arcane maintenance staff.
Which was why people like Tribune OpalWing might be desperate enough to use... other means to fill the empty slots in her organization. Fortunately, Tribune Quirinus had managed to get ahold of the 43rd Legion's Legate's ear and had explained a few things. I might have played some small part in the explanation. Normally, I was loath to lean on my mother's reputation, but when Quirinus had put forth the argument that Legates were political creatures and that few would want to cross a Duchess, I had conceded. While the Duchy of Argenia was a provincial Duchy, it was a rather important border holding, one held by a reserve officer who had some influence over the training of Legionary Fliers and thus not a personage that a Legate, especially a Colonial Legate, would want to offend.
Counting Ritualista, for two squadrons that came to over a hundred people, over a sixth of the complement of a
Mellona. All Household Fleet airships had some number of Ritual Plate, but the entire purpose of an RP Carrier was to launch, transport, support, rearm, and recover Ritual Plate Squadrons.
Visha slipped up to me. My examination of the fire suppression system had taken me towards the far end of the compartment. Her tail brushed past my leg as she turned around to face me. I looked up at her questioning face.
"I'm fine... just thinking."
"About the mission," Visha surmised. She had lost that puppyish worship from when we first met, but somehow she could still go through two worlds' worth of wars with a smile.
"Harp's World is a pit of factions," I lowered my voice. "And if we're being sent there on a ship like this..." I had no idea the capabilities of the
Tarantula Hawk, but the space freed up by removing two Squadrons would be put to some use.
"Enough to send a message? A small strike on one of our rival's interests?" Visha whispered back. At least four Great Houses had enclaves on Harp's World: Alecto, Elena, Trosier and Ziox.
"Maybe, maybe as a catspaw for an ally..." My tail curled in thought.
Alecto wouldn't shed any tears if something happened to Trosic assets and if we could do something against them. Memory tickling, I recalled that there were some recent Elenese actions that Alecto could have chosen to take exception with.
There was a tug as Visha put her hand on my shoulder. For a moment I thought to resist, we were in a professional setting but she wasn't pulling me into a hug, just getting my attention, though her hand did linger.
"I'm okay. Just thinking."
Visha nodded and led us back towards the others.
"Yes, ladies, I am sure you can all count," Quirinus stated as she rejoined the group as well, "Don't worry, there's enough space for Epsilon Wing. We won't be cramped or split up. Come on."
At her urging, we continued forward. True to her word, the starboard side still possessed its two remaining maintenance bays. Interestingly, as could be seen from the outside, the
Tarantula Hawk still had the normal count of Ritual Plate Catapults and landing ramps. Removing a proportional third of those would have been a potential weight savings, but someone had chosen to leave them in place. I suppose with a reduced RP count this decreased the deployment time, but my disquiet grew nonetheless.
Quirinus brought us into the main briefing room at last. At first glance, it looked identical to similar rooms in other carriers of its class. Then I noticed that only two-thirds of the chairs in the room were rated for Ritual Plate. The rest were the far lighter shipboard models that only had to worry about supporting a Diyu Demoness. Even here, things were pared down to match the reduced capacity. Except... the room could still seat over seventy people.
Our commander motioned for us to take seats in the front row. That we were not kept waiting long immediately raised my suspicions.
Someone had put a good deal of thought into the stage management of this little tour.
As if on cue in strode a tall, demoness, the contrast ivory skin and long black hair made all the more striking by the drab matte grey of the room. Her black feathered wings pulled in as she entered, jet-black hooves ringing on the deck. She wore a legionary uniform with a Centurion's rank badge and recon unit's badge, along with a handful of service ribbons. Notably, her uniform lacked a name badge or any specialization insignia.
My tail curled in recognition.
Quirinus stood. Her crimson skin and glossy emerald hair were a bright contrast with the other woman's more corpselike appearance. "Ladies, this is Centurion Invidia Nihilus. Myself and others who are familiar with Invidia can vouch for her, and for her associates in the Office of Cultural and Strategic Reconnaissance."
"Thank you, Artemis. Wing Command suits you. Congratulations." Invidia's grey eyes sparked s they swept over the room. "Ah, and Prefect Countess DiamondDust and Prefect HarrowFang, lovely to see you as well." As if to punctuate her greeting, she placed a small valise on the lectern at the front of the room, smiling pointedly as she awaited her reply like a teacher coaching a pair of particularly slow pupils.
For politeness' sake, Fabia and I bowed our heads to her, and if my nod came a bit more grudgingly than Fabia's, nobody remarked on it.. Unease rippled through the other centurions. CSR had a reputation and being assigned to a carrier that was... not normal, failed to improve the collective mood.
Invidia smiled at that before she addressed all nine of us. "I'm sure you all have noted that the
Tarantula Hawk is quite the... special ship. You do not know just how special she is. Indeed, you will not fully know that. However, as I am the operational liaison to the ship's RP complement it is my job to get you up to speed on your role here and what the
HFV Tarantula Hawk can do."
Quirinus gave her a slight nod then turned to us and leveled a stern, but reassuring, look at us. For my part.... I wondered. The Legions used a larger Ritual Plate wing than the Fleet, which meant that many new Volantes Tribunes would take an executive officer position in an established Wing under an established Tribune. Despite her qualifications and record, Quirinus was still a new junior Tribune and had gotten her own command and a relative pick of Legionary Fliers; had she made a deal to get those things? Was this the price for it?
"Yes, this ship is part of a new subclass to the
Mellona. However, take heart, it is an expansion of an existing concept and built on a solid foundation!" Invidia's bright smile was as artificial as the one chiseled on a saint's statue, with eyes just as cold as sculpted marble. "In terms of Assault Carriers this is more like the
Fortuna subclass than the
Arcadia refit."
There was some amused and confused murmuring, but Fabia and Quirinus nodded. I had not heard of the
Fortuna but the
HFV Arcadia was an
Avalon class Heavy Carrier. An experiment with the Assault Carrier concept, the standard complement of four Fleet Ritual Plate Wings, had been reduced to three, and the freed up space and tonnage was used to increase the Legionary complement to a full Cohort, heavy equipment included.
The
Arcadia concept had failed because it was a waste of limited hulls. The Fleet only had six active
Avalons and having one put into a niche role was a major burden. An
Avalon could put an entire Ritual Plate Air Group anywhere the House wanted and it was a waste to spend one to give air-support, even overwhelming, to just a Cohort. The
Hadian class, which was half the size and numbered into the dozens, could do that. Toss in a fleet carrier for backup and the lucky unit got extra air-support to boot.
Invidia took in our emotions. "We all can agree that the
Arcadia's refit was an oddity, a curiosity, perhaps even a failure. Even the brass-horns agreed as she was converted back to a conventional
Avalon after, what, ten years?"
"Eight." Quirinus mildly corrected.
"Eight," Invidia nodded. "And that stained the whole Assault Carrier concept." She raised a forestalling hand. "Yes, I know you'd point to the various sizes and types of Long Range Insertion craft, all a key part of Fleet and Legion doctrine. All well and good, if the goal is to have a major set-piece air-assault as part of taking and building up a beachhead," Invidia gave us her cold smileagain . "And I suppose for smaller more... intimate, operations a
Rhodian or a
Phoenician can put down a century or two."
My tail stilled. I did not like where this one-sided discussion was going. A
Phoenician class was the same size as the airship we were on, but it only had two RP Squadrons. The rest of the space was dedicated to two centuries of Legionaries, their equipment, and four Umbra medium VTOLs to transport them to the ground. It was a good platform for a small-scale, but not tiny, air-assault. The airship we were on would have twice the Ritual Plate.
"And now we go from the second largest to the second smallest." Invidia spread her hands. She looked back as if the massive screen at the front of the room was projecting some schematic. "The not-so-humble
Kolibri. Just imagine what one could do with a highly-Veiled platform carrying say... twenty crack legionaries, a pair of Spatha dropships, also variants with extra Veiling, all supported by an RP Squadron."
I kept in a small sigh. That was the exact variety of mission profile I had most wanted to avoid. A very small, very important mission where individual capability would be of maximal importance. In my past life, I had experience forming and leading such a unit, and I had long known my own skills in the Legions could easily send down much the same path. I had hoped being part of a Demi-Wing would produce a unit too large for such skullduggery, but it looked like Invidia and her associates had other ideas.
Fabia had an appreciably cynical look, which was reassuring. Even Julia, green as she was, seemed perturbed by Invidia's sales pitch. Quirinus gave her a very patient look while the rest of us digested it. All twelve of those in Ritual Plate would not be available to support the Legionaries; some would have to stay to watch their Mothership and escort the Spatha VTOLs. That still gave a Flight or two of air-support for a mere twenty Legionaries or whatever specialist infantry conducting that operation.
"The
Fortuna subclass was an idea built on those very special
Kolibri LRI craft." Invidia's smile seemed to turn genuine for a moment real amusement brushed that empty expression. "Same concept, but on a hull twice as large and based around a Light Carrier."
Invidia looked right at Fabia. The large room fell quiet for a moment.
"Where this ship is based around a Medium Carrier," Fabia stated. "You wanted more infantry, more air-power."
"Can you blame us?" Invidia shrugged. "I know you Fliers don't like to brag, but in terms of combat power you are a very useful platform. You just happen to be very expensive and in very high demand. Fortunately, my associates conduct relatively small operations. We're not talking about Cohorts, let alone Legions."
"And the expense?" Quirinus asked, her tone dry. I suspected she already knew Invidia's answer, and the question was purely
pro forma.
"We all know that a Veiled airship, that is a truly Veiled airship, is far more expensive than a regular version. Compared to that, what is the cost of a Demi-Wing or two?" Invidia gave us all an appraising and hungry smile. "You would be amazed what forty 'Legionaries' and nearly thirty Ritual Plate can accomplish. Well, you won't be amazed for long. Regardless, the
Fortuna has been quite the little success, unlike the poor
Arcadia."
"It helps that there's over a hundred
Damocles carriers; pulling a handful off to the side to refit into your little raiding platforms is a comparatively small ask," Quirinus pointed out not bothering to mention that an
Avalon would be quite impossible to turn into a hole in the sky.
"Certainly," Invidia agreed, "and that's the rub. My associates have found that sometimes, it would have been... less troublesome to have a larger platform to work with. Scalability is also a wonderful thing."
I must have made a small noise as it fell into place. This project was more than having something that a group of smaller Assault Carriers could accomplish; the idea was to get a ship that had more all-around capability.
"Yes, Countess?" Invidia practically purred.
"The
Mellona isn't any longer than the
Damocles; it's basically two
Damocles carriers side by side. Helpful in Veiling to the level you want. And it helps in other ways; both require only one RP squadron to defend the carrier. You also get a Ventral well deck for all sorts of oversize cargo, transport, and docking purposes. Finally, the
Mellona has enough extra space to carry some Aerial Torpedoes."
"Which the
Wasp Assault Carrier subclass still retains. I told you: we're not the trailblazers here. The
Wasp herself showed this could be done." For just a bare instant Invidia's mask of aloof disdain and false gregariousness cracked and a genuine passion leaked out. This was a project she cared about, maybe for what the
Wasp represented for her associates, maybe for what she could do with it. Perhaps in the shadowy intraoffice games of prestige and power that Cultural and Strategic Reconnaissance played, this whole scheme represented and investment of her personal capital and she stood to personally gain from its success.
"What's the infantry contingent?" Fabia asked. "Omitting Two RP Squadrons frees up a lot of berths."
"Not entirely removed. You will be joined by a Flight of Fleet Harmonia Pilots. They'll supplement in for CAP and escort roles. That should make Prefect Caenis's job a bit easier. The refit also omits a couple Fujiwara Aerial Torpedoes from the reload magazine."
I raised an eyebrow. Four total Torpedoes was not much. A
Kolibri corvette had twice as many. I suppose that did give this ship some long range fleet defense or heavy ground support capability.
Invidia gave me a simulacrum of a "don't worry about it" smile. "We have about the same overall complement as a normal
Mellona so most of those freed-up berths are put to use. Specialists to control the enhanced Veiling systems make up a small part. Systems neither you nor I nor our Legionary ground team will be read-in on."
"How many Legionaries?" Julia asked. "Or equivalent. This thing could carry a Broadcast Recon Century for all I know."
"If only we were getting that many," Invidia sighed.
They were one of the few specializations in the Imperial Legions rarer and more demanding than Ritual Plate Pilots or Combat Evocation specialists. Broadcast Recon were tactical teleportation infantry, which made them extremely useful for covert insertions, raids, and other commando operations. While Imperial Legions had about fourteen thousand RP Pilots, we only had about three Cohorts, a tenth as many, Broadcast Recon.
"But yes, total ground troops amount to a bit over a hundred. Call it a Heavy Century's worth. We'll have a VTOL squadron of three Spatha Lights and two Umbra Mediums. That's a bit generous in terms of air mobility, but our infantry won't be bringing down much in the way of heavy equipment." Invidia's winning smile returned. "But with your help, the
Tarantula Hawk will be most capable."
Nodding, I focused on the platform's capabilities, it helped push aside my personal concerns. It was all trade-offs and something had to go to make the
Wasp subclass function. There was space for a Heavy Century of troops, but they would have no artillery, no Nymph light vehicles, and not very many Mule cargo striders. On the other wing... they would have two Sarpedona Squadrons, the better part of a Harmonia Squadron, and my Polyxo Squadron. That explained why this briefing room was still kept so large; it was intended to seat about half of the total Legionary and Ritual Plate complement.
Fabia was more succinct in her evaluation. "It's a fancy Cloak and Dagger toy for your
associates?"
Invidia gave a thin smile. "Now, now Prefect, your reputation and those of your fellow Squadron commanders precedes you. For this mission, I would say less 'cloak' and far more 'dagger'."
Fabia crossed her arms.
I could not blame her or her skepticism. In theory, a
Wasp could be used as a Mothership for a long duration intelligence-gathering mission. Two Recon Squadrons using their Occultia for signals intelligence, ground-mapping, and other forms of airborne spying could be carried leaving enough space for ground support and air defense. The ground team could even be pared back to make room for linguists, cartographers, tactical anthropologists, and other analysts. And instead of combat specialists, those going to the surface could be CSR assets capable of going undercover.
On the other hand, we would clearing not be supporting that kind of mission. Thank DarkStar for small favors. I shivered at the idea of having to support some long-duration covert observation and strike mission.
No, if I had my suspicions, we would be delivering a message to prevent a shifting of alliances among the Great Houses, or at least to send a message to a mutual rival. After all, war was politics by other means. That said I felt my fear of the consequences of such correspondence were entirely reasonable; such missives and their replies had a way of getting rapidly out of hand.
"Epsilon Wing is ready for this role," Quirinus stated in a clear voice, every inch the decorated, experienced, Volantes Tribune.
I kept my private reservations to myself. I would not undermine my superior, especially not one I respected and who I saw as a mentor figure. We hardly had three months to gel as a multi-Squadron formation. Fourth Squadron was still generously semi-green, as was the Second Flight of my Squadron. And now CSR wanted us to be the air component to one of their shiny new spook ships? Couldn't Invidia's associates find a more experienced RP unit for this assignment?
The longer I thought about it, the more my apprehension about being pulled into the world of shadows, spies, and lies grew. This whole setup felt wrong. Maybe this was some esoteric variety of shakedown cruise. If so, our Demi-Wing would not be the only new element present. It sounded like there were not many
Fortunas out there let alone
Wasps. There could not possibly be many Fleet personnel familiar with operating raiding Assault Carriers; they'd need time to familiarize, surely. Every part of the
Tarantula Hawk's complement would have to train together to perform at a high performance for a high value mission; otherwise why bother with the massive expense?
Visha took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I returned the gesture. It was not that I thought we could not do this, but we both knew where this could lead. That was why I had made sure my pilots had the best equipment and training I could get them.
"What can you tell us about our mission? How long will we have to train?" Fabia asked.
"Alas, not as long as you would like; my associates have already found opportunity too perfect to pass up." Invidia tapped her valise. "Allow me to stress that the mission profile is nothing new, and that your part in this will be standard doctrine. Albeit, you will be providing air-support at far greater level."
"You could just about give every single eight-person Contubernium their own Flight of RP," Julia said.
"We considered that," Invidia admitted with every sign of seriousness. "It lacks efficiency. Instead, you will be slightly more concentrated: allowing Flights rotation to give persistent fire-support, layered air cover, escort, CAP and account for combat losses. It's still a massive investment."
"Does the mission need this much air-support?" Julia asked. As a Sarpedona Pilot, she thought in terms of neutralizing ground-based threats. Under normal circumstances, her Squadron would be pretty heavy support for a Cohort of six Centuries. Here, her Squadron was being asked to protect fifty Legionaries.
Invidia put on a sympathetic face that was slightly more realistic than the ones painted on theatrical masks. "While intelligence has indicated we have time to train up the
Tarantula Hawk and her complement, I must confess that, we are very much a Plan B option. Higher profile, higher risk, but with greater potential rewards, if enough goes to plan. Hopefully, when we get to a certain world we will not be required. And we can be given more time to train and ready for a later mission."
"If we're the fallback... what's the primary plan?" Fabia asked, a nervous chord thrumming under her admittedly steely professionalism. I leaned forward slightly in my seat, curious despite myself how Invidia would answer.
"Oh, it's far more destructive, but if Plan A goes off, no one will have to set hooves on this contested colony world. I'll confess, I'm earnestly hoping we won't have to go through with Plan B, but we still must train for it, just in case my wish doesn't come true." Invidia's sincerity rang out so clear, so honest, and so truthful that, for a moment, I felt myself being taken in. Then I remembered all of my previous encounters with her, and felt an iron weight plunge in my stomach.
Invidia and her "associates" were not the type to merely hope for some development. Indeed, the fact that she had vocalized how sincere that hope was only told me that Plan A, whatever it was, was already dead in the water. One way or another, I was gloomily certain that the
Tarantula Hawk would be winging its way towards Harp's World, and I and my two Vs would be aboard.
End Chapter 22
This chapter took a bit longer than expected; basically, I added a whole new scene to it.
Thanks to DCG , ellfangor8 , Green Sea, ScarletFox , afforess, WrandmWaffles, metaldragon868,Wyrme and Preier for checking and reading over this chapter.
And special thanks and to Readhead for the extra editing and polish, especially in getting Tauria's voice at just the right level. And metaldragon868 for helping with the combat and technical descriptions.
