A gentle breeze blew powdery snow across the deck of the Blade of Empire as the fleet approached the enemy compound. Neat rows of bunkers, hangars, factories, and roads had been arranged on a massive frozen lake at the base of the Queen's plateau. Enemy fighter jets flew in a cloud ahead, the orange light of the engines flickering like stars. The constellation-like beings, guardians of the Plane of Heaven, watched uneasily from a distance.
"Daughter of Heaven, why do the guardians not attack?" Ingrid asked.
They are afraid. There are many enemies, and when they are killed, they come back stronger and smarter. Several guardians have met their end.
"Even the guardians are afraid?" Ashe asked.
Heat rippled the air, warming the external lens of the high-magnification telescope and preventing ice buildup. Ingrid rotated the telescope toward a lone enemy fighter jet as it began to slow, deploying air brakes and flaps as it passed close to one of the factories. All weapons bays opened on the fighter, and instead of missiles, Imperial Marines were dumped out into the sky. Low-altitude parachutes deployed, and were discarded just moments later as the Marines landed on the roof of the factory. An explosion blew a hole in the roof, and the Marines vanished through it.
Vaska had created a replica of the enemy fighters using a mostly-intact airframe salvaged from a snowbank, then re-designed the weapons bays to carry Marines instead of missiles. Two more such fighters flew over other types of buildings, opening those bays and dropping even more Marines. That first fighter jet turned to flee, flying very low and fast along the icy ground as the false weapons bays closed.
Ingrid turned and slid down the ladder to the map room, with Ashe riding on her shoulder. Admiral Oleg stood at the table, peering down at paintings of the site. The man was tall, bald, and clean-shaven, with a square jaw and a perpetual scowl. Glenice stood opposite to the man, holding a magenta Colored Orb in a glass box. Vaska stood at the head of the table, sketching engineering diagrams with a pencil.
"The Marines are inside," Ingrid announced.
The Admiral sighed. "Your advice was correct."
"My men are the best in the business," Glenice said.
A few moments later, Glenice's communicator activated. "Glenice?"
"I can hear you Vladimir. Report."
"It's just like that workshop we raided. There is a Light Elemental here, and hundreds of tables, sedated soldiers. On the way inside we saw fighters parked out front with different types of camouflage. The other two squads are reporting a chamber for painting fighter jets, and prison cells."
"Have you found the Matron?" Glenice asked.
"Affirmative, our rocketeers are getting into position. The factory is spacious. We have good line-of-sight up here." The communicator deactivated, and they waited in silence for about thirty seconds. "Rocket away... confirmed kill. The Matron in this factory is dead. No alarms yet, but don't expect that to last long. Somebody must have noticed us by now."
"Bombers will arrive to destroy most of the base, be sure to be deep underground when they arrive. Wait for extraction." Glenice deactivated her communicator.
The Admiral activated his own magenta Orb. "Commander, begin the assault immediately."
"Affirmative," the voice on the other side replied.
"Ingrid, you may leave to join the fight," Admiral Oleg said. "Princess, the Emperor wants you out of the fight. Glenice, please take your two-seater and fly Princess Vaska to safety. She has done enough here already."
"As you command, Admiral," Glenice said. "Vaska, let's go."
Glenice's two seater was almost exactly like a Burning Leaf fighter jet, complete with thrust vectoring and kerosene turbines. It was slightly longer, however, and had room for two pilots. The three women waited at the edge of the taxiway for an airman to drive the craft out of its parking spot. Glenice held the magenta Colored Orb, listening for reports from Vladimir while they waited.
"It is getting hot near this factory," Vladimir finally said through the Orb. "The other two teams have made contact with one of the prisoners, they are panicked because they are being taken away to be killed. The Matrons here use their Light Elementals to keep bringing back the most skilled pilots in the Federation of Kanti. Almost a hundred pilots were selected for the program."
"The guardians are afraid," Ingrid said. "They say that the enemy keeps coming back when killed."
"One more thing," Vladimir said. "There are Rosalia soldiers here in addition to Demetra. If House Rosalia is involved with this compound, then there may be other Matrons nearby. We are attempting to access another factory."
The two-seat Burning Leaf fighter pulled up alongside them at the edge of the taxiway. Airmen were already approaching with a ladder. Vaska reached out and kissed Ingrid, pulling her close. "Be careful out there," she said. "The closest safe location to open a portal is back on the jungle planet three conduits away. We can only assume that the enemy controls the airspace on the other side if you open a portal here. If it starts to get bad, run away."
"I know," Ingrid said. Behind the two-seat fighter, Ingrid's own fighter jet was pulling to a stop.
"I feel," Vaska said, "like my curse is going to get you killed. This feels wrong."
"The Queen of Dreams told us," Ingrid began, whispering very softly, too soft for Glenice to hear. "She told us that Titania and the Firstborn are called the Twin Fates. Maybe they are meant to be together?"
"I do not like what you are thinking," Ashe warned.
"What are you thinking?" Vaska asked.
"I could transfer Titania's bond to you maybe. That might help you somehow. She has been with me for so long, and I think that maybe she gives me the courage I need. Maybe that is her divine power. She allows us to face the unknown future."
Vaska stopped and appeared to consider this for a moment. Then she said: "Those pilots want to kill you, don't they? Ashe, do you think the pilots would start chasing me instead of Ingrid if we transferred the bond?"
"I have no idea how those zombies work," Ashe said.
"It's too much new risk," Vaska said, "without necessarily improving anything. You keep Titania. This fight, against these resurrected pilots, is something that you need to suffer through without me." She sighed.
They kissed once more, then split up to their respective fighter jets.
After taking off, Glenice turned away from the battlefield, toward the conduit to a nearby forest planet, escorted by a dozen more Burning Leaf fighters and an Eagle Eye. Ingrid watched them shrink into the distance as she pulled the nose around to line up for takeoff. Most of the friendly fighters and Eagle Eye aircraft were swarming ahead of the fleet, waiting to engage the enemy. Dozens of heavy bombers and dropships flew in a pattern behind the fleet, escorted by several Meg squadrons.
The enemy fighters were too far away to be seen with the naked eye. One of Ingrid's magenta Orbs began to blink. She activated it.
"This is Admiral Oleg. The enemy may have the capacity to immediately resurrect any pilots who are killed, and they have factories for producing new fighter jets. You will need to kill the enemy faster than they can replenish their soldiers. If the rate turns against us, we will need to retreat. All squadron commanders may begin the assault. In memory of Admiral Elizabeth, press the attack!"
The fighters began to surge forward in a massive wave. Ingrid's fighter was much faster than most of the others, so she could not burn kerosene and still remain within the formation.
"Enemy fighters are not advancing. Meg squadrons, fire missiles at enemy air defenses. Scout squadrons! Fly low and destroy any surviving air defenses."
The Fat Meg fighter jets in the front of the formation began lobbing hypersonic missiles at the enemy. They rocketed nearly vertically into the sky, on a ballistic path to fall straight down on the enemy's head. Burning Leaf fighter jets skimmed just over the snowfield below with full kerosene burn, pulling far ahead of the rest of the group. Trimmed out, Ingrid flew mostly straight ahead, glancing around at the indigo sky filled with dozens of colorful little planets.
"Daughter of Heaven, can we get help from the guardians now?"
They will attack the enemy now.
The Meg squadron began lobbing normal radar-guided missiles. Ingrid's own radar Colored Orb began to make noises, indicating possible targets to shoot. She only had four radar-guided missiles and two Ice-Two missiles and her gun, which needed to last the entire fight, including fighting the resurrected pilots. She slowed down slightly to fall back with the bombers and rear Meg squadrons.
"This is the forward scout squadron, most air defenses are suppressed and we are engaging with the enemy. They seem to be ignoring us, and advancing rapidly on your location."
"Follow them and kill them from behind. Enemy fighters are incoming. They seem to be concentrating their forces."
The fighter jets in the front of the wave began shooting missiles. Hundreds of missiles launched out into the sky, and those missiles began to funnel into a tube. "What are they thinking?" Ingrid muttered.
"Those missiles look like they are aimed directly away from you," Ashe said. Ingrid realized she was right. The entire enemy force must be aimed directly at her.
"Confirmed, the enemy is forming into a dense formation, aimed in a specific direction."
Ingrid activated her Colored Orb. "This is Ghost, they are aimed at me! They want to kill me specifically!"
"Ghost bug out! Bug out!"
Ingrid rolled inverted and performed a split-S maneuver, pulling hard on the stick to point the nose at the ground and rapidly gaining airspeed, leveling off just above the snowfield. She punched the kerosene throttle to full and ran away. The cabin was filled with the sharp beeping of the green Colored Orb, indicating incoming radar signatures, and therefore incoming missiles. In her mirrors she could see the slaughter begin. Hundreds of friendly fighters engaged with the long flaming tube of enemies, all of them too focused on Ingrid to respond to the incoming fire and save themselves. Several bright lights flew straight past the rest of the allied fighters, chasing Ingrid. Supersonic fighters burning kerosene, just like she was.
"Bombers! Destroy as much infrastructure as you can! Focus on the factories and the parked fighter jets!"
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Ingrid passed directly under the airships, and then flew up into their shadow until the beeping died out. The armor on the front of the airships would be able to take a few hits from the missiles, and Metal Elementals could rapidly repair the damage. She stayed flying in the cone behind the first airship, sliding along past other airships in the line. Flashes of light erupted from the far side of the first airship. She pulled up slightly to see what was chasing her in her mirrors. The lead airship began shooting flak into the air, and more explosions followed over the deck.
Eight orange dots remained, eight enemy fighters in rapid pursuit. Ingrid cut the kerosene throttle and then made a hard turn to pull around into the shadow of the final airship. She deployed the air brakes and flaps to slow down, skimming alongside the line traveling in the opposite direction. Two of the enemy fighter jets predicted her movement and appeared over the second fighter in the line, pointed straight at her. Her Colored Orb beeped rapidly.
"Dark-Three! Dark-Three!" She rolled over and dipped down under the airships, out of line of sight. More flak cannons ripped into the air, and the smoking remains of a fighter jet fell into view ahead. The propellers and pipes of the undersides of the airships rushed past just overhead. Two more fighters came into view, relatively close. "Ice-Two! Ice-Two!" The missiles left the rails and immediately jerked away to chase the fighters. Just a few seconds later they both exploded, ripping both wings off of both airplanes, causing the remaining tubes to wobble about in the sky. Flak lanced out just behind her, barely missing her own jet.
She glanced around frantically. The two enemies she had shot earlier had both been transformed into long trails of black smoke. One enemy had been shot down by flak, and two by Ice-Two missiles. That left three enemies, and only two missiles and the cannon. She finally caught sight of the final three orange lights as they arced through the sky near the end of the airship formation. She cut the throttle and pulled up hard to bring them into view, mostly relying on thrust vectoring to complete the turn.
"Dark-Three! Dark-Three!" Two more missiles rocketed off toward those orange lights. With flaps and air brakes retracted, Ingrid dumped the nose and punched the throttle to full to recover airspeed. She chased the three fighters, barely above the decks of the airship fleet as they attempted to loop around. They also had thrust vectoring, but they needed to slow down in order to complete their turns, giving Ingrid ample time to recover her own airspeed. Two explosions destroyed two of the fighters, leaving only one remaining. It pointed its nose directly at her just as she rushed past it into a merge.
It veered to Ingrid's left, and Ingrid veered to her own left as well, initiating a one-circle fight. She craned her neck around to watch his motion. He was mostly staying level, so Ingrid pulled up into the vertical, staying out of his nose cone as he pointed toward her. This caused the enemy fighter to be below her own nose cone as they crossed into the next one-circle pass. Ingrid rolled over, replacing the indigo planet-filled sky with a solid white snowfield. The other fighter pulled hard on his stick, dumping airspeed to attempt to get shots off on her. She simply rolled out of his nose cone, retaining her own airspeed. When their noses crossed again she went into the vertical, knowing he lacked the airspeed to follow her.
The other pilot lost so much airspeed that he needed to point the nose toward the ground for a few seconds. This gave the perfect window to complete a full vertical loop and drop the nose directly on top of him. Ingrid pulled the gunsight slightly ahead of the other craft and pulled the trigger. A stream of white-hot bullets ripped through the cabin of the other aircraft as Ingrid rushed past.
She glanced up. It was still flying, but the engines had dimmed.
"Oh! There are still missiles on the wings," Ashe said. "Can you steal those missiles?"
The derelict airplane continued flying almost perfectly straight, and indeed there were still missiles on the wings, at least one Dark-Three missile and two Ice-Two missiles. Ashe's idea, while crazy, was actually a very good one.
With full air flaps and air brakes, Ingrid dropped down below the craft as it continued its quest to ram into the ground. She inverted and flew belly-to-belly with the other craft, like an airshow act. "High Daughter of Metal! Would it be possible to summon a Metal Elemental into those missiles and steal them?"
If you remain close yes, the harsh drone of the Elemental replied. I have commanded it, do not drift too far.
Ingrid flew straight, inverted, nose pointed slightly toward the ground, glancing up in the absolute sense toward the derelict fighter just beyond the hull. The weight and momentum of the aircraft changed slightly, and there was a metallic clicking sound under the hull, out of sight.
It is done, you have your missiles.
"A murderer and a thief!" Ashe said.
"They are the murderers," Ingrid said as she pulled the nose away from the other craft toward the ground. "They murder their own soldiers to make copies of their best pilots. The monster I killed wasn't alive."
She reached forward and reactivated her magenta Colored Orbs.
"A second wave is incoming!"
"I'm out of missiles!"
"Use your guns!"
"Clear channels! Clear channels! Lady Ghost, you have another contact incoming!"
"Affirmative," Ingrid said. "I was able to get close enough to steal missiles from a fighter I shot down."
"Unit commanders! When you run out of missiles, dismiss your radar Elementals and summon a Metal Elemental to steal missiles from the enemy."
Ingrid deactivated the Orb and peered around through the sky, leveling off some distance away from the airship fleet, over some snow-capped peaks. There was nothing in the sky above, in front, behind or on the sides. She rolled over and looked around at the ground. For orange lights rushed just over the snow, traveling toward her. The radar Colored Orb began to beep violently.
"Dark-Three!" her only radar-guided missile left the rail, and she began to defend, pointing her nose directly at the nearest peak. Just before impact, she pulled the nose up very slightly and flew down the slope on the far side of the peak. As she entered into the twisting glacial valley in the center of the mountain range, the radar went quiet. "I think the missiles must have hit the mountains," Ingrid said. "However, they will know exactly where I am."
Ingrid dodged through the twisting snowclad valley until it opened up into another snowfield. Two of the four fighter jets came into view above the peaks overhead. "Only two?" Ingrid asked. "Did I get two kills with one missile?" One of the two fighter jets exploded suddenly, followed by the second shortly after. The missiles had hit the craft from the side, originating from the direction of the airships. She pulled the nose up and burned kerosene to climb, bringing the fleet into view. Another fighter jet rushed past her, a white and red Burning Leaf fighter jet with an elongated cabin. Nearby, a large escort of Burning Leaf Fighters formed up around Ingrid's airplane. The magenta Orb began to blink.
"Glenice!? Is that you!?"
"That's right, I just saved your butt."
"Ingrid!" Vaska said. "When I heard they were all focusing on you, I had to come back and save you!"
Glenice's airplane pulled up alongside Ingrid as she returned to the fleet. Ingrid glanced over at the two women in the cabin. Vaska was seated in the back, still wearing her golden mesh of contracts.
"Those are not Imperial missiles!" Glenice said.
"I got close and snatched them!" Ingrid replied. "Metal Elementals can transfer missiles between craft, as long as you are close enough."
"That's nice, but we need to run!" Vaska said. "The forward fighters are having a bad time, we need to retreat!"
"We can't just let all these soldiers die!"
"That's their job!"
"Maybe we should run away," Ashe said.
"I won't!" Ingrid snapped. "We must fight! They will just keep chasing me with supersonic planes and hypersonic missiles. I will not be able to make it all the way to the safe portal zone. You were supposed to escape Vaska!"
"They are making new fighters faster than we can kill them!" Vaska said.
"We need to try, we don't have a choice! As soon as you turned around to join the fight Vaska, you eliminated any chance of escape!"
More missiles lanced off the wings of Glenice's fighter jet and the escort jets, rushing out toward targets on the horizon. Meg squadrons were approaching from one side, lobbing more missiles to clear the way for Ingrid and Glenice.
"Eventually we will run out of guns and missiles," Glenice said. "Do you seriously expect us to be able to reliably replicate what you did? Do you think we will be able to get what we need from the enemy?"
"Glenice! You are a genius!" Vaska suddenly said.
"Well yes, I know that."
Ingrid rolled over on top of the other fighter, almost tail-to-tail, like Solo and Opposing Solo of the White Ravens. She looked down in the absolute sense, up relative to her cabin, and watched Vaska. She was frantically writing something on a piece of paper.
"Are you making engineering diagrams in the middle of a battle?" Ingrid asked.
"I am! We have everything we need Ingrid. I can summon lots of Metal and Lightning Elementals, and you can summon lots of Fire Elementals. That's really all we need. We can win this fight right now! We just need to get closer. Much closer."
Ingrid activated her blinking fleet-wide communicator.
"This is Princess Vaska Maryy. I am taking control of this battle. Rear units form up in a defensive formation around the Ghost and myself."
The channels started to fill with a flurry of orders. Friendly fighters arrived on all sides, still shooting missiles out at the enemy. One formation of enemy fighters ahead broke apart as its members took hits. One of them was still flying in a long arc, attempting to point its nose at Ingrid. Another fighter jet pulled up behind it and ripped the canopy open with its cannons.
"There!" Vaska shouted. "Pull up alongside that fighter, like you are going to try and steal the missiles."
It was falling a bit faster than the other one, but it was still manageable. Ingrid followed Glenice as she pulled up alongside the falling fighter jet in a long arc toward the ground. It was trailing smoke from behind the cabin.
"Daughter of Metal!" Vaska cried. "Take this design, and transform all the metal in this craft into copies of this shape! Daughter of Lightning! I need cyan Colored Orbs to fly the craft, and green ones for radar! Ingrid, when the drones are shaped, immediately summon Fire Elementals into the engines!"
The metal in the craft began to split apart and suck inward, reforming into dozens of tiny copies of the larger fighter jet, but without cabins. Cyan and green lightning began to erupt from the craft, and then they began to fly, as if piloted, responding to tiny gusts with deflections of the tiny control surfaces.
"Daughter of Fire! Summon Fire Elementals into all those tiny fighter jets!"
The engines on the tiny airplanes began to glow, and then they broke formation, rushing off like a swarm of bees to attack the enemy.
"Go forth my drones!" Vaska said. "Ram into the cabins of the other aircraft and give me control!"
"That's insane!" Ingrid said.
"Vaska is doing a better job at being evil than you are," Ashe said. "You stole some missiles, but she is going to steal all the enemy fighter jets!"
The first wave of drones struck the incoming tube-like wave of enemy fighter jets, ripping them free from the control of their pilots. The fighter jets broke apart, forming even more drones as Glenice and Ingrid flew past. Some of the drones collided head-on with missiles, protecting the two fighters as Ingrid summoned more Fire Elementals. The swarm grew.
Time became meaningless. Ingrid flew in a tight formation with Glenice, who proved again to be an extremely skilled pilot. Like following Lead in the White Ravens, Ingrid took the position of Left Wing once again, giving the life of Fire Elementals to Vaska's drones as they shaped all around them. The drones were a plague in the sky, spreading out and capturing enemy fighters, bringing them close enough to be transformed into new drones. They rammed into missiles, rammed into the ground, ripped through factory buildings and air defenses, and sliced into enemy soldiers on the ground, leaving long red streaks through the snow.
The other pilots were speechless. The channels were clear. Friendly forces completed bombing runs and occasionally killed enemy fighters with their cannons, and the massive constellation-like guardians stabbed their spears down into individual buildings, but it was Vaska's drone swarm that turned the tide. Glenice began to deploy the flaps, and Ingrid broke away as her landing gear dropped. Glenice lined up for the largest runway in the compound, and Ingrid sat back with air brakes to follow her into the landing. Dropships rushed by, dumping their payload of paratroopers over the compound.
Enemy fighters were still taking off in waves after they landed, and were quickly consumed by the plague of locusts in the sky. Ingrid was beginning to feel the effects of so many Elementals being summoned. "Thank you," she whispered as she dropped over the edge of her fighter without a ladder, falling into the powdery snow. "Thank you, High Daughter of Spirit, for granting me so much power."
At this moment it is necessary. However, do not forget that your own spirit has grown much stronger with practice.
When she approached Vaska and Glenice, she halted. They were glowing, as if reflecting a powerful light, and Vaska herself was nearly consumed by shadows.
"Ingrid!" Glenice said. "You are shining like the sun!"
She glanced down at her hands, and saw what Glenice was seeing. She was shining with a brilliant golden light, similar to the light of a purified Light Elemental.
"Don't tell her that!" Ashe said. "It will just go to her head!"
"Why Ashe?" Ingrid asked. "Why am I glowing?"
"My lips are sealed," the tiny woman replied. "All I am willing to say right now, is that the two of you mortals worked well together today. What you have accomplished was your own doing. Titania and the Firstborn had nothing to do with it."
A pack of Marines arrived, led by Vladimir and carrying three corpses between them. All of the corpses had been blown apart, and all of them wore golden clothes. One of them even had an in-tact golden mask. They set them down in the snow in front of Ingrid. "We found three Matrons in the compounds," Vladimir said. "The light crystals have not been removed."
"What about House Demetra?" Vaska asked as she began to rifle through one of the Matron's robes.
"Exterminated. Just like you ordered, Princess."
Ingrid shivered at the thought.
"But there is more. House Rosalia was also here. They have been taken care of likewise. When we go inside the compound you will be able to identify the bodies. We found a treasure trove of books and personal belongings."
Vaska snatched the last of the three light crystals. Three Light Elementals appeared, wearing heavy plate armor and shining with an oily light.
"They must have been very desperate to form an alliance like this," Vaska said. "This effectively means the war is over. The last of our enemies will not be able to repeat what was done here. Ingrid, purify these three."
"Fire of my Spirit," Ingrid said. "Water of my Spirit. I need you once again."