(Entry angle looks good on all craft, emergency protocols and abort procedures are set and synced to all… I even have V190 and Directive 15 ready for emergency descent if anything goes extremely wrong. Everything looks good, so why am I nervous?)
Almost a week had passed since Mac had promised Anastasia he would meet them again, and now the time had come to appear in the capital again, only this time he was a wanted criminal.
After his little stunt in the colosseum, it appeared that Mac had thoroughly pissed off the uptight knight captain and her family, so they had used some of their connections to issue an arrest order.
[Hey Mac?]
While Mac was still deep in consideration, Tia suddenly contacted him, sounding very concerned.
"Yeah, what's up?"
[One of your mechanical bodyguards just informed me and Hanna that we're under a 'code 1 red caution', what's going on?]
Since Tia had started working under Mac she had learned a bit about the protocols he was using, and a red caution was a big deal so she wanted to make sure fire wasn't about to fall out of the sky.
"It's just a general caution because I'll be moving assets into low atmosphere."
[Which means?]
"Big spacecraft will be appearing in the sky above the capital."
Now that he was forced to dumb things down, Mac felt stupid for overcomplicating things as it was simply inconceivable that anything on this planet could get through the cruiser Just Call Home's shields and armour plating. Even the worst case scenario of losing a tender or two wasn't world ending (for him).
[Okay… What kind of big spacecraft? Anything that'll cause panic?]
"Oh yeah, I'm taking the cruiser Just Call Home and the tenders Big 2 and Wallflower for a little flyby since little miss Victoria thought she could call for my arrest after I've been nothing but kind and accommodating."
Mac's cruisers were of the 6 kilometre long variety, so just a single one appearing in the sky above the capital was bound to create mild to medium levels of pandemonium.
[How low of a flyby? And when?]
Tia hoped that when Mac said flyby he meant a high altitude pass, as widespread panic would create issues for her.
"Close enough that they can see the gun batteries pointed at them, and it'll appear around midday."
Not above barely veiled threats, Mac hoped that his appearance would set the attitude of his upcoming meeting.
Worst worst worst case scenario he could just glass the king's castle and try his luck with another country.
[I see, I'll adjust my work schedule then. Need to offload as much product as possible before panic shuts down trade here.]
Tia was currently an hour away from the capital by carriage, so the news of gigantic crafts appearing in the sky was bound to shut down trade sometime around the afternoon.
"Depending on how initial negotiations go your mechanical guards will no longer be incognito, but I'll contact you then."
Ending his communications with Tia, Mac made a few more considerations as the trio of crafts started hitting the upper atmosphere.
(Well, here goes nothing.)
As Just Call Home started hitting the lower and far denser part of the atmosphere belly first, a 'gentle' shockwave formed around the crafts and its two escorts docked to either side of the 6 kilometre long, 2 kilometers wide craft while its downwards facing reaction control thrusters switched into air breathing mode as they lit up to slow the rate of descent.
(Easy does it…)
[3 BULKHEADS ARE EXPERIENCING ABOVE NORMAL STRUCTURAL STRESS LEVELS, ADVISING REMEDIAL ACTION.]
"Yeah yeah, I'm still well within spec."
Piloting anything larger than a frigate was an exercise in precognition, trust and patience as inertia and the fact that thrusters took time to ramp up meant it could sometimes take half a minute from when the captain commanded a burn until it could be felt by them. Hence when the Just Call Home's reaction control thrusters first started spewing superheated plasma they barely did anything other than light up the underside of the cruiser, but as they started ramping up, Mac felt a gradual change in velocity.
"Ready for sep… Go separation."
[SEPARATION ORDER CONFIRMED; PURGING LINES AND HARDLINKS… GOOD PURGE, FLAC MESH MOVING TO SEMI AUTOMATIC; W-9X, B-02 HAVE THE BALL.]
Mac had brought the tenders Big 2 and Wallflower along with him for screening and a few contingency plans, so now that they were well and truly in atmosphere, the pair of 'small' 2 kilometre long craft separated from Just Call Home sides and pitched nose down to keep up with their much heavier cruiser as the decent continued.
(Rate of descent is good, go for deployment of wave one.)
Still about 40 kilometers up and about 190 out from the target, Just Call Home's port and starboard side hangar blast shields started opening, subjecting the thoroughly secured craft inside to hurricane force winds while a few AEW&C and LASCOM craft were launched from magnetic accelerators along with their escorts. These communication and surveillance aircraft rode their inertia to a much higher trajectory and by the time Just Call Home would be hovering about 2 kilometers above the capital they would be in a holding pattern high above to scan for threats and communicate with other assets further upstairs.
"Decent is good, alt is good, approach is good and speed is manageable. No need for speed breaks, it'll bleed off in time."
[APPROACHING MANOEUVRE NODE #219 MAIN GRAV ENGINE ONLINE; READY FOR TASKING.]
"Yeah yeah, no need for that just yet."
Still going belly up into the wind, Just Call Home reported that its gravity drive was ready to use, but at this speed the cooling needed wasn't feasible so Mac put that off for the moment.
[B-02, W-9X OUTSIDE PATTERN, STANDBY. NAV ADVISING AHEAD FULL; B-02, W-9X CONFIRMS, ALL ENGINES AHEAD FULL, REESTABLISHING DEFENSIVE ENVALOPE.]
Falling slightly behind in the formation, Wallflower and Big 2 lit their main engine clusters to get back into formation as blast shielding on their sides retracted to reveal the 565mm main gun turrets underneath.
[B-02, W-9X IN DEFENCE POSTURE; READY FOR TASKING.]
"Arobreak complete, pitch down."
Having mostly slowed from orbital velocity, Just Call Home started pitching down from its belly first approach as it also unshielded its gun turrets, VLS missile cells and radiator ports.
"Light the reactor and prepare to bring the primary cooling loop to standby."
[PRIMARY REACTOR MOVING TO OUTPUT LEVEL #5, CURIE POINT RADIATOR STANDBY. LOOP #1 TO #4 READY: COOLANT AT 2900 DEGREES.]
Fully pitched down into the wind, Just Call Home also lit its main engines with a roar as the craft's main fusion reactor stepped up a few magnitudes, dumping some of its output into a massive array of magnetic field generators spanning the entire length of the 6 kilometer craft.
[RADIATOR STANDBY, GRAV ENGINE READY; READY TO SWITCH PROPULSION MODE.]
While the idea of setting the entirety of the capital on fire with just the ambient radiation of Just Call Home's main thrusters was quite a funny idea to Mac, it was far from practical so he left that as a contingency plan. This was also why he had chosen to make atmospheric entry over a vast ocean and switch away from them before he hit land, instead of setting half of a continent on fire.
"Confirm field integrity… Go for propulsion switch."
Shutting down Just Call Home's main engine clusters, Mac brought the main propulsion drive of the cruiser online as a quiet humm spread all over the bridge before all sound seemed to seize in place. Literally, all the air molecules inside the bridge were now pinned in place.
[GRAVITY ENGINE ONLINE, FIELD STABILIZED; ALL MASS PINNED IN FIELD.]
"Ease into it. Start primary, open loop cooling cycle."
As the Cruiser started heating up rapidly, Mac decided to sacrifice a bit of coolant and started dumping it to lose temperature. Needless to say by a 'little' coolant amounted to a few tones of liquid metal, so Just Call Home quickly switched to closed loop cooling and started recovering the liquid metal spewing out of cooling vents on both sides of the cruiser. As liquid metal left the ports on either side of Just Call Home it cooled to a point where it became magnetic again before getting caught in the massive electromagnetic field surrounding the cruiser, creating a 'halo' of glowing half-liquid metal on either side of the massive craft.
[FIELD STABILIZED; OUTER CORDON EXPANDED AND STABILIZED. B-02, W-9X STABLE.]
As Wallflower and Big 2 came into range of Just Call Home's generator they also cut thrust as they were stabilized within the field, creating an eerie silence compared to before as the crafts started their final approach, land in sight.
"Time for a parade…"
[JUST CALL HOME, B-02, W-9X REPORT: FLAC, FCS MESHED AND SLAVED. CAUTION, ARMED.]
Doing a final check, a smug smile started creeping onto Mac's face as the hard part was now done.
"Warm up and check all the external beam forming speakers. While it isn't quite the time for some Wagner, I can at least blare my horn a bit to scare the shit out of them."
-
"So, how is your fruitless little investigation going, Anastasia? We here at the crown budget committee would very much like to know why so much coin and overtime has gone into finding a person who quote: 'disappeared in a mat black flying machine which spewed strange fire?'."
While she had been awaiting this question all week, Anastasia was still annoyed at the finance minister's tone. The second she had made her statement available for the bureaucracy to read, such criticisms were bound to appear, as most nobles didn't like the idea of their yearly taxes being wasted on wild goose chases.
"I see you're still as happy as ever to waste our treasury."
Anastasia was currently at an official hearing in the royal capital as a result of the report she had submitted on the strange traveler who ruined the yearly swordsmanship tournament. Around and across her sat other nobles who were mostly on the finance minister's side and saw her investigation as unnecessary spending.
"It isn't a waste if I'm investigating a legitimate threat to our nation, that man used a strange-"
"A strange kind of magic that didn't expand any kind of mana, wasn't detected by the colosseum's anti tamper runes or following any kind of known structure of magic. That's what I call a hoax."
The minister of finance had clearly read Anastasia's report already, and he wasn't believing a word of it. Which was fair, given how preposterous it all seemed.
"Calling it a hoax is discounting 400 plus civilian eye witnesses that all have consistent statements, as well as sworn statements of multiple members of the blue, red and black knight core. Are you Frank Willow and by extension the Willow family accusing such a large contingent of the nation's knights of contempt? If so I would like to log that and present it to her majesty and the court immediately."
Luckily there were some people present who saw the seriousness in the report. Not that it helped Anastasia's case that the one person in the room most willing to come to her defence was her elder brother, Will Victoria VI.
"... Sworn statements aside, I still find this costly manhunt questionable. Have you even made any progress in locating your suspect?"
Neatly sidestepping the statements, finance minister Frank called the use of resources itself into question and were met by many an approving grunt from some of the other nobles present. Even if he could fly, had a flying carriage or shot rainbows out of his ass, the amount of resources Anastasia had committed as the captain of the blue knight corp was questionable for a single suspect.
"Besides, Will Victoria, I don't find your blatant bias for your younger sister all that tasteful. Shouldn't the head of the Victoria family be present in your place?"
Seeing he couldn't really dig into Will's defence, the finance minister nevertheless levied doubt against it as he started undermining Will's seat at the current table.
"My father would be present if he could, but as you have personally done many times Frank, he sent me in his stead as our youngest sister is still quite sick and bedridden."
Staring silently at her older brother flawlessly deflecting and covering for her while the finance minister continued to try and get around Will's phalanx formation Anastasia breathed a silent sigh as she realised that this could go on for hours. That's when something interesting happened, a lone city guard drenched in sweat with a face white as a sheet burst into the meeting room.
"Knight Captain! T-the sky has caught fire!"
"What!?"
"I was sent by my Sergeant, you need to come outside immediately!
While Anastasia had enough experience commanding troops to see the genuine fear in the guard's eyes and realise he was telling the truth, others parts of the hearing didn't have such fortitudes and therefore questioned the guard's sanity and or motives.
"Is this some sort of sick attempt to dodge your responsibilities to this hearing, Miss Anastasia? Because if so I will have words-"
"Yeah, sure. But unlike you Frank I have a duty to defend this nation, excuse me."
Bluntly shutting down the finance minister with cold words, Anastasia quickly rose from her seat and started making her way out of the castle with her brother following closely behind. As the pair left the inner part of the castle they passed an increasing amount of panicked bureaucrats, guards and maids, all of them saying that the sky was on fire.
"Will, where are your gauntlets?"
Seeing the severity of the situation, Anastasia cursed her fate as she had left her sword and shield at home in the family mansion and asked her brother if he had brought his weapons.
"At home… Why?"
"Because I figure we will need weapons, and I left my sword, shield and armour at home."
"Shit, we'll have to manage."
As she finally saw the sky Anastasia understood why her subordinate had been so incoherent… Turns out, the sky really was on fire and in the middle of that blaze sat a castle a magnitude more massive than anything she had ever heard of before.
At this point it didn't even matter that there were two 'smaller' castles the size of the royal castle also floating in the sky, for a slow dread was slowly setting in for Anastasia as she remembered what he had said last they met. Anastasia didn't have time to stand in dread for long as a black mass flew over her too fast to track, sounding like a thunderstorm. In a few seconds, the single black mass in the sky became countless as Anastasia finally recognised what they were.
"What the hell is that!?"
With Will finally joining his little sister, Anastasia suddenly became the subject matter expert.
"That's the thing I saw at the arena, only I didn't know there were multiple of them flying around."
Watching the sky knowing she didn't have a single thing capable of reaching it effectively, even provided that castles in the sky would allow that, Anastasia figured this was some kind of message.
(Is this a power play, or just some kind of sick joke?)
"So you're saying all those things could be carrying soldiers?"
Out of breath, the finance minister and some of his minions had managed to arrive just a bit after the two Victoria siblings, and when he heard Will mention soldiers his face paled.
"There's no way, this has to be an illusion. That suspect of yours has to be a mage that can-"
"Nope, I felt the wind move when one of those things flew overhead, so they're real… I don't know about those things though."
Gesturing to the trio of castles in the sky spreading fire, Will's face hardened as he thought about his beloved who was back at home.
"Then if they're real we should attack! It is clearly some kind of invading force."
Panicking at the thought of the capital getting invaded from the sky, the finance minister suggested an immediate preemptive strike, but as Anastasia, Will and most of the other nobles with tactical experience realised striking now would be as impossible as it was inadvisable, given that most of the soldiers, guards and knights were in a panic. Looking silently to the sky, not bothering to grace the finance minister's idiodic response with an answer, Anastasia watched as the black flying machines multiplied until they were an entire swarm, and instead of buzzing around they started strafing around the castle like they were watching her specifically.
[OUTER CORDON ESTABLISHED; SPECIFY LZ.]
Satisfied that everything was locked down, Mac tasked two gunships to 'clear' a landing zone, and while he might have been more understanding and accommodating under other circumstances, that arrest order was still in the back of his mind.
"That's a lovely spot right there… Oh, and who is this?"
Focusing his surveillance assets on a plaza in front of the castle in the centre of town, Mac found a familiar face and decided on his approach.
"Vengeance 2-2 and 2-1 follow me in real close, weapons tight on ROE #1"
Getting a pair of gunships to follow him down real close, Mac finally left the bridge of the Just Call Home and boarded his preferred dropship in the bridge hangar as it was launched by an electromagnetic rail system. The launch was almost instant, as his enhanced body needed no accommodation for G limits unlike when Tia had been abroad, and as the dropship folded out its wings it was already over the landing zone, so it simply nosed in and lit the afterburners.
Deciding not to be polite about it, Mac went for a suicide burn and at the last posible second his drop ship turned its wing mounted thrusters to break as it initiated landing under maximum chemical power instead of last time he set foot in the kingdom. On the ground Mac's protective human type drones detail immediately created a cordon around the dropship, and as Mac strolled out of the lander with both hands in his pockets they moved in close to him as at least two of them kept their rifles on little miss arrest order at all times. With a roar the dropship that had transported him to the ground left for the sky again, but Mac wasn't really all that worried as he still had Vengeance 2-2 and 2-1 over each of his shoulders.
"I would say it is nice to see you again, miss Anastasia, but you have really succeeded in pissing me off."
Flashing a smile that didn't reach all the way up to his eyes, Mac didn't react when one of the people with Anastasia stepped in front of her, but as he took a step forward he also got a few rifles pointed his way.
"I don't care who or what you are, but if you think you can threaten my little sister in my presence you're dead wrong."
Will didn't care about the stuff going on in the sky, for all he knew it could be an illusion. He did however care about someone threatening his baby sister.
"I tried being polite and proper, even after your lass tried to kill me and went back on her word. But all that got me was an arrest order."
At Mac's word, the gunships and dropships orbiting the capital switched from standard propulsion to pulsejet, and at once the entire capital was drowned out by an insistent buzzing as the engines of all the crafts harmonized like an entire nest of hornets coming alive.
"My old boss always told me to remind people when they're trying to piss into the wind. So that's what I'm doing now."
Making it absolutely clear what he was doing with his barely veiled threat, Mac started testing his new acquaintances to see if they would act the same as the last time he had talked with Anastasia.
"Loads of fancy words for someone who just wants to appear almighty, do you want us to worship you just because you can make illusions appear in the sky?"
Thoroughly annoyed at the guy in front of him for threatening his sister and acting like an overall douche, Will wished he would have brought his gauntlets as he unknowingly stepped on a figurative landmine.
"Worship? You think I want worship?"
All at once Mac's contingencies and operating procedures went out of the window, right now he wanted nothing more than nuking the entire planet.
"Now that's funny."
All at once Mac's eyes lost all their light as his tone turned cold.
"If I wanted worship I would've rained blood down on the kingdom for a month straight, or perhaps levelled every single church or religious centre on this continent overnight while stringing up all the nuns and priests with their exsanguated blood floating in the air above them."
If there was one thing Mac genuinely hated it was religion, and the mere notion that he was seeking worship was enough for him to start to consider more 'radical' options. In response to the deranged man's violent ramblings, Will decided he would have to fight without his gauntlets for once and glanced back at his sister to figure out what their plan of action was.
Only Anastasia wasn't really paying attention to her brother, instead she was struck by something strange she had noticed in Mac's eyes.
While he was clearly pissed beyond reason, there was something else inside, an intense detachment shielding hurt he was trying very well to hide.
(I recognize that look, it's the look that's constantly on his face… In that case we can still keep this from getting violent.)
Stepping out past her chronically overprotective brother, Anastasia brought attention to herself as she cleared her throat.
"I now understand I was wrong to ignore your earlier words and sincere attempts at peacefully establishing contact with us. As the blue knight captain and personally as a member of the Victoria family I sincerely apologize for my actions both personally and professionally."
Finishing the best apology she could muster with a deep bow, Anastasia hoped for the best but kept her head down.
After what felt like an eternity, Anastasia saw Mac's legs walk up to him in her lowered line of sight and finally raised her head to see him with a thin smile on his face. Only this time Mac's smile actually managed to reach all of his face.
"That's all I ever wanted to hear. But I'm also sorry, I'll try to keep my inside thoughts about you inside in the future."
Extending a hand for a peace offer, Tom realised he had almost thrown everything he ever wanted over a series of silly insults. Grasping Mac's hand in a firm handshake, Anastasia didn't really know what he was talking about but as the meaning dawned on her mid sentence she lit up like a stoplight.
"Inside thoughts?... Ah, yes please. Do that."
Only this time Anastasia didn't draw her sword.