Nanoha and Vivio entered their Harbinger again, canopy sealing around them. The systems came online, illuminating the cockpit in its serene blue light and the magnets detached from the battlecruiser. The Harbinger shuddered as the poles were pulled back in and, with a gentle nudge from its thrusters, started to drift away from the ship.
[Welcome back, ladies,] Huginn said. [All systems optimal. I have also received new coordinates from the Commander.]
A 3D map appeared over Nanoha's visor, showing the two fleets on a grid. The hostiles were a bit above their allies and a red dot pointed out their next objective: The [Messiah]. It was time.
"Vivio, you seeing this?" Nanoha knew she did, but wanted to reassure herself. She didn't want a simple communications error to spell doom for them all.
"I am."
Their comms pinged. Hayate talked over the Global channel, set to transmit to everyone in the fleet: "To all TSAB forces: The Absolution support fleet is our primary objective. Keep them busy and support Harbinger One and Two. They need to complete their mission at all costs. Everything is lost if they can't. Reinforcements should arrive within the hour. If we can hold out until they arrive, we'll be able to push back and pursue. Godspeed, everyone."
The channel went quiet and Huginn's ambience settled in Nanoha's ears. Here and there a console would ping with information the AI would filter, check and reorganize, before sending the necessary information to whatever component needed it. She'd been annoyed at the ping at first, but the longer she stayed in the cockpit, the more it blended with the background.
"Let's move," Nanoha said and gripped the joysticks. Her own authorization overtook the AI's and she assumed control of the craft. The computer would correct her input to a certain extent, but she otherwise had full control over the Harbinger.
The battlecruiser obstructed her view of the battle for a start, though she wouldn't be able to see much from this distance if it hadn't been for the Harbinger's own sensors. They cruised along the battlecruiser's hull for about twenty seconds before the hull's horizon fell away below them and the rest of space revealed itself. Nanoha drew a quick breath. The sun had now settled behind the planet, covering their side in darkness, but the rays still reached the Absolution fleet. Their hulls glowed in the light, the Messiah turning into a blinding miniature sun since its gray hull reflected more light than the darker battlecruisers. The filters Harbinger's sensors dimmed so Nanoha could see without squinting. A beautiful lightshow about to turn its ugly head.
"Why are they so few?" Vivio said. "We outnumber them to start with. Do they think the dreadnought will be enough to support them?"
"This is the Absolution, after all," Nanoha said. "They've underestimated us from the beginning." Though sometimes justified, she added in her own head. As much as she hated to admit it, the TSAB had lost more than they'd gained. The Absolution were stronger, though maybe not as numerous; she didn't know the total number of their main fleet, and neither did the rest of the TSAB.
She hoped Hayate was right about things changing, because if she wasn't...
She pressed the joystick forward and the Harbinger accelerated, adjusting its speed based on her brainwaves and physical input. She was amazed at how well it responded to everything she did; every single detail and sensitive motion translated into a movement for the Harbinger down to the millimeter. Much like Raising Heart was an extension of herself, the Harbinger became an outer shell of her own body. A gentle touch on her part caused the small ship to move just the way she wanted it to. Huginn remained quiet during their flight, ambience keeping them company.
The Harbingers soared above the battlecruisers, who in turn ignored them and instead focused on the TSAB fleet once they had recharged their drives. Energy beams crossed paths with magical beams, criss-crossing across space and splattered over shimmering shields, throwing vast amounts of energy into the vacuum. Among those white beams, Fighters burned towards the Harbingers head-on. Since Fighters were smaller than the Harbingers, they made a better counter than a battlecrusier.
And there were far more to spare.
[Assault Mode Engaged.]
Huginn's speed increased further and the controls became more responsive. She rolled the vessel over, targeting reticles appearing over several Fighters on her HUD as Huginn locked onto them automatically. Vivio took over from there and fired the dual front beam lasers with pin-point accuracy. Before the Fighters reached their effective range, Vivio had shot down three of them after sustained beam fire.
The remaining Fighters closed the distance in a heartbeat and fired.
[Boosting defensive measures.]
The Fighters flew past them at high speed. Nanoha performed a barrel roll, dodging some of the shots, though a hint of nausea rose in her stomach from the sudden change. Thanks to Huginn, the Harbinger's shield absorbed the fire that managed to hit them, but there were no vibrations, no sound. All she experienced were the G-forces and ambience inside the cockpit.
She jolted the joystick backwards, tapped the front thrusters to reduce her speed a little, and flipped the Harbinger around. With a clear shot at the Fighters who started to turn back themselves, Vivio opened fire again. The Fighters were too slow to dodge, as the beam turrets cut them to shreds one by one. Nanoha continued drifting backwards, accelerating as she did, which meant the Fighters were forced to accelerate and try to get into range. The maneuver provided Vivio with ample time to destroy them all.
However, a few of them survived the volley, and smarted up. The three Fighters still alive split up on three different paths and came around from several sides: From underneath, above and the Harbinger's starboard side. Nanoha checked the grid laid out on her visor, but she couldn't call for help from Harbinger Two; they were having their own problems, fighting off a small horde of Fighters.
"Vivio, lock them up." She gripped the joystick hard and double-checked the Fighters' positions. She went through the maneuver in her head and nodded to herself. It could work if she timed it right. "You have to be quick."
She could sense the grin across Vivio's face behind her as she said, "I'm always quick."
She waited for two seconds more. The Fighters were getting closer, still holding their fire. Maybe they planned to fire at once, overwhelming her shields. That wouldn't happen as far as Nanoha was concerned, adrenaline flowing through her veins, every sense alert.
"Now!"
She twitched the joystick. The Harbinger spun to face the Fighter coming from above head-on. The four smaller beam weapons on the starboard side powered up and the missile launcher underneath turned to face backwards. All Fighters were confirmed locked. Vivio fired.
With six beam weapons and one missile launcher firing at once, vibrations shook the Harbinger. After a second's pause, four beams pierced the Fighter to starboard, cutting it in half along the hull, followed by the Fighter above exploding into scrap metal, debris bouncing off the Harbinger's shield. The missile from the launcher picked up speed, adjusted its flight path to coincide with the last Fighter, and hit it straight into the rear fuselage. Its hull ruptured from its aft towards the bow, splitting it apart.
Nanoha exhaled and relaxed. With debris lying as cloud around them, she checked the grid again and found Harbinger Two safe and sound, having destroyed their pursuers as well. She pinged them and opened a channel. "Harbinger Two, let's go for the Messiah before another squad of these arrive," she said. A resounding 'roger' met her.
Unwilling to lose their momentum, she turned the craft around and flared the engines. The Harbinger shot forward, heading straight for the dreadnought. Now when she had time to assess the battlefield again, hope filled her heart. The TSAB fleet were holding their ground. The Absolution battlecruisers had lost one so far, and another would soon follow. However, she worried about the dreadnought's delay in firing; they might still have time to stop it, but it could also fire at any moment. It would spell certain doom for one of the Warships and she wanted to do everything she could to prevent it.
They crossed the distance quickly, the ships growing in size on her visor. No new Fighters came to pursue them, though the battlecrusiers tried to shoot them from time to time. The Harbinger, however, was far too fast and small for their tracking to lock onto and Nanoha dodged the beams with ease, weaving side to side.
"How do you want to do this?" Vivio asked. "The Harbingers will be sitting ducks outside."
Huginn answered her. [Fear not, my Lady. Once you leave us, my brother and I become invisible on enemy sensors thanks to the interference from the battle. We will not be harmed as long as we stay immobile and inactive until your safe return.]
"I guess that clears that up," Nanoha said and chuckled.
Another battlecruiser disappeared from the grid, its remains joining the rest of the lifeless fragments floating around in space. The distance between the ships themselves in the fleet were now far enough to avoid any potential collision as they went down. There wouldn't be any lucky collateral damage for the TSAB this time around that they could use to their advantage. They had to rely on their remaining firepower.
[Energy output detected.]
Terror seized her as the Messiah's front-mounted weapons started to glow. She checked the distance they had left. Too far. No matter what it would fire. One of the Warships would die. She didn't bother to call it in. Hayate knew the situation better than she did. She prayed that the Vengala wasn't the target. Hayate and Fate. Yuuno. All of them would die. The selfish thoughts disgusted her, but she reminded herself it was a natural reaction. It didn't help much. Drenched in cold sweat, she listened to her pounding heart as the seconds ticked by.
The dreadnought fired. Miademes was the victim, much to Nanoha's relief and grief. The massive beam dissolved the warship's shield, melted the armor in an instant and roasted the inner structure. The beam lasted for less than five seconds, leaving the wreck of the warship floating away without tearing it apart further. Space swallowed the scorched hull of death, preserving it as a massive gravestone with its crew buried inside it.
Nanoha kept the rage within. She could unleash it soon. Right now she had to focus. It wasn't time for grieving, not yet.
They avoided the battlecruisers once they got closer and started searching for the entry points on the dreadnought's hull. TheRevolver was nothing compared to this. A horizon rose as they swooped past its edge, flying so close to its hull Nanoha feared they would crash into it.
But they didn't and found the entry point a few minutes later, this hatch having the same design as the previous one. Huginn repeated the procedure from earlier and latched onto the hull with its magnet-equipped poles. Acting in haste, the canopy opened and Nanoha pushed away from her seat before it had managed halfway. She looked to her right once she was outside and saw Harbinger Two attaching itself, opening its canopy. Like earlier, she flipped and her soles stuck to the hull with a clunk. The cable extended from her suit and she plugged it in, waiting for the codebreaker to finish. When she looked up she could still see beams cutting through space. The strange sensation of deafness filled her senses. Her brain told her, against all logic, that she should have been deafened by the sound of war. Massive explosions and the familiar noise of beams. She started inventing the sounds. When a beam appeared, she imagined its roaring noise. When it hit, the searing sound of flesh against a hot plate rung in her ears.
She shook her head and the noise went away. She calmed herself down and stared at her visor as the codebreaker counted down the seconds to completion. Vivio, Vita and Signum joined her on the hull, weary, but ready to go.
"We're in," Nanoha said and looked at them one by one. "Let's do this."
*
The layout sketching itself out on Nanoha's visor was a mix between facts and theory. It displayed the dreadnought as a multi-story building and a clear red line illustrated the route they needed to follow to reach the bridge. The layout's scale appeared small , but the reality was another; when they'd left the airlock, the sight of a giant, wide corridor greeted them. It stretched on forever as they followed the route. The walls and roof were bare, a sleek, gray metal stretching onwards. A dull repetition following them.
They'd removed their Pecs when they'd gotten inside and stuffed them in a hidden place. They did run the risk of losing them if the corridor itself became exposed to vacuum, but they didn't have a choice; the suits were not apt for close quarters combat and they were a hassle to carry around. They'd summoned their Purge Suits instead which would make life easier for the time being. Besides, they were much more comfortable than the Pec as it wasn't as tight. Nanoha rubbed her neck in an attempt to loosen it up. As comfortable as the seat in the Harbinger was, it didn't help against a stiff neck.
The entry point didn't lie far from the bridge, but there was a problem of a different nature: Droids. The route lead them through a gigantic area which led Nanoha to believe they were close to the center of the ship. They walked on a catwalk high up on the roof of what could only be described as a dome. Down below, droids marched in ordered lines back and forth, preparing, supplying and sorting through their gear. The Unforgiving were observing an army ready for battle and if they were detected they would have a hard time making progress.
"Isn't this a bit weird?" Vita said in a hushed voice as they walked. "Don'tcha think they'd have security systems in place for a potential boarding?"
"Now that you mention it, it is weird," Signum said and glanced around, suddenly suspicious.
Nanoha thought over their worries in her head. There was one possibility, but she didn't like it. The one outcome she really didn't need.
"Are they planning an ambush?" Vivio said. "They might have planned the same thing on the Revolver, but Subaru broke free before they could trigger it."
Nanoha nodded, more to herself than to anyone else, as if to confirm her suspicions. She tensed up, straining her senses. "Let's be very careful around here, then. I don't want any nasty surprises."
They passed over the army without incident, entering a new area drenched in darkness. It didn't make sense; the gate hadn't been shut off, so why were there no lights on in here? The layout of the ship indicated this was supposed to be a drydock for Fighters, but they didn't detect any energy signatures.
Nanoha tapped her one-eyed visor and the image for that eye changed into a greyscale filter, using the little light peeping through from the other room as a source to light up the room's contents. She froze, her feet rooting themselves to the floor.
"Nanoha?" Signum tapped her own visor and also stopped.
One light in the ceiling turned on, followed by another. Like a wave passing by, light after light illuminated the room, revealing its contents: a Zealot General standing in front of over two dozen droids. All of them wore heavier armor than usual, armed with heavy pulse rifles. The Zealot General wore the most self-satisfying grin Nanoha had ever seen. Of course there would be an ambush. They'd walked right into it.
"What do you think we are?" the man said, spreading his arms and cocking his head. "Stupid? That we wouldn't see you coming here? Others might have fallen by your hand, but I won't let you pass me, Zealot General Kaleen! If only you could realize the—"
Vivio flew forward before the man had finished talking, pulling back her arm as magic gathered around her fist and shouted, "Accel Smash!" Combined with the speed she had, the upper cut attack crushed his chin in one hit, pulverizing his teeth with a satisfying crunch in the process and snapped his head backward at an awkward angle. The man remained standing for about two seconds, eyes wide open and his throat emitting a gurgling sound, until he fell into a heap on the floor, dead.
The trio gaped at her.
"Weaker than the other guy," Vivio said. "Didn't even activate his shield. Has to be new."
Regaining their senses, they got rid of the droid squadron blocking their path. Graf Eisen crushed them under its iron body, Laevateinn cut them into tiny metal slices and Raising Heart blasted through the remaining droids. Their heavy armor, far bulkier and heavier than their standard one, couldn't withstand the power of four mages assaulting them at once. They were crushed without much resistance.
When the smoke cleared, small fires burning everywhere in the large room, they moved on towards the bridge and found no further resistance. Nanoha was amazed. A whole army on the ship and no one came looking for them after that fight. They must have made enough noise to rouse the entire ship. What the hell was going on? They were waltzing around in an enemy flagship as if they owned it. As if someone had given them permission.
She put the thought away. She'd had enough of lowering her guard because of unsupported theories. She wouldn't do that again.
The bridge itself was large, but only featured one console with a seat. The whole vessel had to be designed to work with just one pilot, the rest taken care of by droids. Nanoha approached the console and plugged in the cable. The codebreaker barely had to work for a minute before cracking the system. Inside the database, she found the sector for turning off the droids and did so.
"Army is deactivated," she murmured, thinking.
"Is this a joke?" Vita said, Graf Esien on her shoulder, eyebrow raised. "Did we just take over a dreadnought without breaking a sweat?"
"It would seem so," Signum said.
Nanoha shook her head at the code. "Can't be."
"A trap?" Vita brought Graf Eisen to a battle stance, tensing up. It rippled through all of them as they became alert.
"Maybe," Nanoha said. "But if that ambush was intended to be an ambush, it was a terrible one. There has to be something we're missing... Ah."
Information streamed across the console as the codebreaker exported it into a format she understood, eyes darting across it. "All of its weapons are offline. I guess that beam was all it had left. All of its defenses are weakened. Warp drive is busted. Sabotaged. This ship... it's a wreck."
"So they abandoned it?" Vivio chuckled. "One hell of a present for us. Don't they know we can reverse-engineer?"
"Can't be," Nanoha repeated, an itch in the back of her mind worsening.
"A diversion," Signum said, tensing up. Nanoha's eyes widened as the realization set in. "They wanted us to split up. They are more desperate than I thought."
The console pinged. A holographic grid appeared over it, revealing multiple dots. The TSAB ships were far off, firing at the Absolution. Only a few battlecruisers remained now when they had lost their flagship, the dreadnought. None of them tried to fire at it, though. They probably knew about its uselessness from the start and didn't care about it anymore.
However, behind and a little above them, new dots started to appear. Dozens upon dozens of dots filled the grid and ice crawled up Nanoha's spine. Absolution reinforcements had arrived on the field. Dreadnoughts, battlecruisers and Fighters emerged like a swarm of angry hornets from their warp, joining their brethren who fought for survival.
"How many ships are there?" Signum asked once the warp-ins decreased in frequency.
"Seventy-three Fighters, forty-two battlecruisers and four dreadnaughts," Nanoha said. Numbness washed over her, head spinning. They couldn't take those ships on. Hope ran away from her. "They've come to finish the job," she whispered. She clenched the console, frustration and anger boiling within her. "Why? Why now? Aren't they busy in other sectors?"
"We still have a shot at this," Vivio said, ever the optimist. "If our reinforcements can get here before the main fleet is destroyed, the Absolution will lose anyway! If we can hold until then, we stand a chance of defeating them!"
Nanoha doubted it. It required perfect circumstances. And nothing was ever perfect.
Vita grunted something and Nanoha turned to face her. Signum and Vita, expressions taut, were staring at a screen beside the console, showing enhanced visuals of the ships in space. Her heart missed a beat. The chill worsened. Silence reigned on the bridge as they observed a new ship arriving on the battlefield.
It arrived above the Absolution fleet. However, it didn't arrive through a warp. Instead, space bent, turning a portion of space pitch black — Nanoha could tell due to the glinting stars disappearing in the background —and vast arms of energy connected with the battlecruisers closest to it. Energy danced like lightning along their hulls, bouncing between them, causing no damage. Then the blackness above the ships exploded with a light radiating outwards in a bright shockwave. Instead of the void that had been there a second ago, a ship the size of Nanoha had never seen before had materialized.
If it could be called a ship. Dreadnoughts were huge in themselves, dwarfing a battlecruiser twice over. Being thrice the size of a single dreadnaught, it stretched on for miles, consisting of several modules. Each one was a different size and shape, creating one single, horizontal construct, its bow and stern wide and short, but its middle thin and long, with various spikes or left-over metal stuck onto it, as if they'd been put on in a haste without the proper resources. Compared to the other sleek ships of the Absolution, it was a horrifying sight; a vessel of war from hell itself. A Titan amongst giants.
The screen pinged again and a notification appeared, large red letters spelling out a word. Nanoha stared at the letters. A message from the Absolution fleet. The single word gazed back at them from the console, antagonizing them.
"Lucifer..."
Before the TSAB fleet managed to get out of range, the Absolution fleet lay down judgment.