70A Young Girl's War Between the Stars
01
Commissioned by Atin.
Skies over Berun, final day of the Great War.
I always knew I would die bloody, but this? This is just unfair!
Magic bullets pinged off of a single, tiny, angled hexagonal shield panel, not stopped cold but deflected just far enough from my body to miss before the panel flickered out. The sky was thick with enemy and allied troops alike, but the German forces were outnumbered three to one. American, Russy, and units from every other major faction in the war had come together to try an aerial siege of the capital.
The enemy had a numerical advantage and an advantage in arms an ammunition. Quantity was quite the quality of its own, today. Thankfully, things weren't entirely lopsided. We had the home field advantage. We knew the territory and we lived here, so we didn't have to waste mana getting here. Our equipment and supplies were here and we didn't have to ship them in, then waste men and mages to guard them. However, with this many enemies on the field, conserving mana and ammunition and staying in the fight as long as possible was the name of the game. Otherwise, whoever ran out of resources first would lose.
I returned fire with a short burst from my SMG with one hand as I split my focus, drew my knife in my off hand, and activated a mage blade spell. The enemy mage, American judging by the uniform, went wide eyed in surprise when I abruptly rushed in, closing the distance between us as I accelerated far faster than anything I had displayed so far—not my top speed, just the difference in our body mass and ability to accelerate with the same amount of force. Being a tiny, starved orphan still had its perks. He got his shield up just in time to catch the blade as my momentum carried us several yards through the sky—but not before the barrel of my SMG got under the shield.
A second burst to the gut and the shield flickered out as my weapon clicked dry, the last of my ammunition spent. He screamed and I closed in with my knife. I didn't kill him. No, instead, I severed his dominant arm at the elbow. He began to fall as I grabbed his rifle and pulled a pair of spare magazines off of his vest, letting my SMG dangle off of its strap as I took up a new weapon and kicked him away.
A dead soldier gives the enemy more fuel for his anger and redistributes the resources that would have gone to him to his friends. A wounded enemy, on the other hand, took up enemy resources. And as I watched two other enemy soldiers fly in to catch him as he sent out a call for help, I lined up my new rifle and popped off a few rounds into the back of one. The remaining soldier was forced to choose and picked the one I'd disarmed, even as his buddy hit a roof and went limp. He was still moving so if he didn't bleed out in the next three minutes, there was a chance his friends would send someone down to get him. Grinning, I decided to give them that chance and turned away, keeping in mind where he was as I took in the battle going on around us.
The magical radio waves were a cacophony of soldiers calling out orders, status updates, cries for help, demands for ammunition—and that was just on our side. The encrypted frequencies the enemies used were just as busy. So, ignoring the radio since there was no clear way of getting orders through one way or another over the din at the moment, I used a combat formula to alter my perception of time for a moment—the battle slowing around me and allowing me to finally find my men, for the first time in the last several minutes since we'd been separated.
I spotted Weiss first, just in time to see the big man speared through by bayonets in a pincer attack—one from the front, one from the rear—even as a third soldier raised a trench shotgun to his head and ended my subordinate's career. My heart clenched in my chest and my teeth ground in my head so loud I could hear them over the gunfire and explosions as I took off in that direction.
A flash of an explosion just off to the right of where Weiss had died and I spotted Granz—or what was left of him as an explosive formula had destroyed everything from the waist down. Beside his remains, Schwarzkopf had been blasted out of the explosion, a spherical barrier surrounding him momentarily, before multiple lines of rifle fire tore into it. The shield collapsed and another of my subordinates was riddled with bullets.
That scene repeated itself over and over as I saw more and more of my people fighting and dying. And for what? For a government that had been too foolish to listen to my warnings every step of the way? Who had mismanaged this entire war from start to finish? Who had expanded and rushed ahead, when they should have struck and withdrawn after that very first incursion—maybe committed a retaliatory decapitation strike, but not… not what had happened. Not steamrolling an enemy so quickly, so thoroughly, that it terrified the rest of our neighbors into jumping on us in a mad, suicidal frenzy that only grew the longer we lasted.
A bullet pinged off of my shield again and I returned fire reflexively, pulled from my thoughts and forced to focus on the present. Part of me wanted to call it. Break into the radio channels and order a complete surrender, if only to spare my men. I felt I owed them that much, to do whatever it took to see their lives spared. The other part, however, knew the bitter truth. That surrender would just be a prelude to a very short, very vicious series of show trials, where they would invent new crimes and retroactively find us guilty of them, then the loyal subordinates I cared for would be put to death by firing squad.
No. Better to fight here and now, down to the last man, than to see them dishonored and made monsters by kangaroo courts. If we were to die, we would do so as soldiers. As men, not monsters.
Checking the cursed computation orb's mana storage, I considered the trump card at my disposal. I hadn't wanted to use it for this. I had wanted to fight and win on my own terms. But with more of my people dying by the second, that was looking less and less likely.
If we could force them to withdraw, kill enough of them all at once, it could bring them to a standstill. Alternately… Decapitation strike. Take out their leadership and leave them confused. We know where they mustered from. The Russy have one camp, the Americans and literally everyone else are using another as their CP. It's just… getting through all of that is going to be hard. I could do it, but it'd be more likely to succeed with some troops.
Finally, I spotted who I had been looking for this entire time. Not my best soldier, but the most loyal. The one who had been with me the longest, and who would act without question or hesitation.
Visha was flying with the remnants of Weiss and Granz's squads, moving quickly through the streets below and drawing anyone stupid enough to chase them into an ambush. I shot off towards them, maneuvering down ahead of them, behind the ambushers, slipping down between the buildings. Soon enough, I heard the ambush kick off and moved to join them. By the time I made it, they were mopping up and I had nothing to do.
"Colonel, ma'am!" Visha snapped off a salute as she saw me, quickly mirrored by the others.
I returned it reflexively as I surveyed the men. All told, they numbered just over three squadrons—eighteen people total. "I'm glad I found you. We have a new mission. Everyone stay low and follow me. We're going to resupply, then move."
"Yes ma'am," Visha nodded, and a moment later, we were moving. The older woman moved up beside me and quietly asked, "Ma'am, have you seen anyone else?"
I nodded. "I can confirm Weiss, Granz, and Schwarzkopf are KIA. As far as I could tell, the rest of the unit is scattered and either being picked apart, or have joined up with other squads."
Visha paled, turning to look at me wide-eyed. "Weiss? Granz too? They're, they're both dead?"
"Yes," I confirmed, and she turned away, closing her eyes for a moment as she reached up and wiped at them. Taking a breath, a look of unnatural calm settled over her face. I had seen Viktoriya angry before. Angry, frightened, and a whole host of other things over the years. This was the first time I'd seen her like this.
"What's the plan?"
I smiled. This was why I liked her. Even when she was at her worst, Visha would focus on whatever was necessary to complete the mission and survive. Weiss was the most competent. A man I could trust to carry out any task I gave him. Granz was the most charismatic, with that boyish charm of his. He was what we in my former HR career called a retriever—someone who made friends and could see to the group's morale. Visha however knew that if she stuck to my side and did as I said, her odds of survival increased exponentially. It was why she had become my wingman in addition to my adjutant whenever the situation allowed for it.
"We're going to force the enemy to withdraw."
Visha thought for only a moment before smiling. It was a nasty smile, entirely full of teeth and beautiful. "Decapitation strike, then."
She really knew me too well. This was the value of a well-trained subordinate—the ability to anticipate my plans and needs and do what it took to see them taken care of. It was something the commies didn't understand, could never understand as they didn't place any value on the individual. The Americans understood, but they were killing my precious subordinates so they should also understand why I'd have to take measures to stop it.
We quickly landed outside one of the many hidden supply depots we had set up in the city, passing through the security checkpoint and into the building. The inside was even more hectic than the radio chatter had led me to believe as we quickly began rearming. I dropped off the stolen rifle along with my SMG and instead picked up a sniper rifle.
"Long range engagement?" Visha asked, and I nodded.
"That's the plan. It's going to be too thick to hit them from up close, so we're just not going to bother. Instead, we'll ascent to eight thousand, above their normal flight ceiling, then we'll bombard the enemy. Sniping formula with an explosive formula. Then we'll tie them together with a joint casting ritual and blast their CP off the map."
"Understood," Visha agreed and quickly had the men swapping out their weapons for longer range rifles.
"Lt. Col. von Degurechaff!" a runner called as he came rushing up to our group. "Urgent call for you, ma'am!"
Frowning, I cast a glance at Visha who sent her a smile in return. "We'll be ready by the time you're done, ma'am."
Sighing, I followed the runner over to the side, where one of a dozen communications officers handed me a phone—one of many hard lines that had been recently added to the building and connected directly to HQ. "Lt. Col von Degurechaff speaking. My unit is about to sortie, so we don't have much time."
There. That was about as respectfully as I could say 'who the hell are you and why are you wasting my time?!' when someone above me in the chain of command was doing something stupid.
"Lieutenant Colonel," General Zettour greeted, and Tanya felt herself coming to attention at the voice of her immediate superior. "I'm glad I managed to get ahold of you. This won't take long, I promise. I would like your opinion on something."
"Very well, sir," she agreed. Absently, I watched as Visha moved over to the coffee pot in front of the north window, fixing two cups of coffee while I spoke on the phone. Real coffee since they were in the capital, not the ersatz crap we had to make do with in the field.
"In the past, you have shown a remarkable foresight that only later, with the benefit of hindsight, did certain elements grasp. As you are no doubt aware, things are not going well for us today. The Emperor is considering a full surrender. What are your thoughts on that?"
"Don't," I hissed. "Unless you want to be painted as the villain, put through a show trial, found guilty of made up crimes, and then summarily executed and your name and those of everyone who served under you forever tarnished. History is written by the victor and revised by the self-proclaimed victims, or anyone with an axe to grind really. I could live with being known as the Devil of the Rhine for the rest of time, but what they'll do to our country, and our people, if we surrender? Those are crimes that will never see the light of day, or will be excused as justice in the face of the so-called crimes we committed. Surrender is a one way rail that ends in the rape of our people and the financial crippling of our nation for the next fifty years."
The man was silent, contemplative for a moment, before asking, "Then what would you suggest?"
"Let me do my job. I have a unit preparing to lead a decapitation strike against the enemy command post as we speak. I—"
A flash of light through one of the north facing windows interrupted my. Light so bright it left me blind for just a moment, before magic compensated. Following behind it was a sound above din of all the people talking around her. An explosion loud enough to rupture my eardrums. Then, I watched as the world slowed down. The walls on the north side of the building, the side I was facing, exploded inwards. Fire and debris flowed inwards, like watching the tide come in. Visha's uniform, hair, and skin caught fire and I could do nothing but watch in slow motion as my closest friend died.
Until it all stopped.
"That's enough, heathen," Zettour's voice spoke into my ear, but I knew it wasn't my superior and friend speaking.
"Let me guess, you set my death in motion thirty minutes ago," I growled, and the devil on the other end of the phone chuckled.
"That I did."
Forcing myself to breathe and not scream and rage at the devil for what I could even now still see happening, I asked, "You had the Americans drop a nuke just to take me out? I'm flattered. But you should really know when to just take no for an answer! It gets a bit creepy after the first few times."
"For you? No. It's just a happy coincidence that you're here, now, and can do nothing about it. This war and its end will inspire a new generation of faithful. A resurgence in faith that this world desperately needs. Your image recorded in combat praising me, will elevate you to sainthood. And while you may not be burned at the stake, being eliminated by the world's first nuclear weapon is close enough. You will be this world's Joan of Arc."
"No thanks."
"It's too late. It has already been set in motion. Faith has been restored, and for that I have you to thank."
Rolling my eyes, I clapped twice. "Good for you. Though I suppose I have you to thank for something as well. Before you sent me to this world, I had no one I truly cared for. And you've just killed everyone I've ever cared about to achieve your goal."
"Everyone dies." The words were callous and I heard the phone creak in my hand. I wasn't afraid anymore. Not of the slowly moving wave of nuclear fire heading my way and bringing to mind memories from my first life, of videos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the almost universal fear every Japanese person had of dying in such a blast. I wasn't even afraid of what would happen after, of the promised permanent death Being X had warned me of when we first met. I was too angry to care. "Unlike you, most of them are already on their way to a better place. Even little Viktoriya."
"What next for me, then? Another world? Another failed attempt on your part to make me pray to you in earnest? You can make me vomit words from my mouth, but I'll never mean it. And after this? Knowing what you're really after now? I'll be doing everything I can to subvert you and lead whatever place you send me to a future without the need for a self-proclaimed god. You won't win this."
The devil on the other end of the line hummed. "Still you have learned nothing. Very well. You will die and be cast out. Out of this world and outside of the protection of Heaven, outside of the cycle of reincarnation."
Taking a breath, I let it all out in a sigh. I couldn't kill this bastard. Couldn't even see or touch him, unless he willed it so. Maybe he wasn't Big 'G' God, but he was as far beyond me as I was beyond a normal soldier—no, not even that. A soldier stood an actual chance of killing me if I wasn't prepared. As I was beyond me as I was beyond an infant. And all of this? It was just him getting the last word in. Taunting me, in his victory.
I was angry. I hated him for what he had done. But anger without direction was useless. A distraction. In the end, if I couldn't kill him the only revenge I could have would be petty. At best, I could ruin his little moment. He wanted to gloat. So all I had to do was stop playing his game.
"Any last words, before—"
I fired up a flight spell and a barrier, opening the Type 95 and its stored mana wide. Dropping the phone, I accelerated—not away from the blast, but into it. What was left of Visha folded over double as I tackled her around the waist and the shield snapped up. Reversing course was out, I'd just be trapped in the building, and I could already feel things speeding up again.
Instead, I adjusted the shape of the shield around us, tapering it and diving into the blast wave. Out the front of the building as my clothes began to smolder in the heat, and then up and over, just high enough to clear the building. I whipped around and poured on the speed even as I smelled burning hair and felt my skin starting to blister.
We shot out of the leading edge of the blast and I had just a moment to adjust the shield again, pulling it back into a sphere, and dumping the last of the mana into it. The blast wave caught up and the world became a jumbled, tumbling mess of pain as my clothes and hair caught fire.
The last thing I remembered was slamming in the ground as the shield finally failed.
Somehow, waking up after dying the second time was even more of a surprise than it had been the first time it happened—but I was thankful for it. Even if it meant that once again, I was stuck in the body of an infant.
It beats the alternative, anyway, I mused, staring up at the bland ceiling above me for just a moment before all the frustration, anger, pain, and loss hit all at once. I wailed my lungs out as I thrashed.
The reaction was instant as I felt feelings wash over me. Calm, love, warmth. They weren't my own feelings. I knew my own mind, my own mental state, and I wasn't feeling any of that at the moment. So while I was surprised, I was more annoyed at whatever was happening. I pushed back and the feelings stopped, jerked away like someone touching a hot stove.
I heard footsteps from nearby, retreating as someone left the room. Good. I wanted to be left alone for a while. At least until I could get a handle on what I was feeling. Grief wasn't something that would go away instantly, I knew, but I'd at least like some privacy until I regained my composure. It was… embarrassing to be seen like this. Bawling my eyes out like, well, like a child.
Eventually, I stopped crying and screaming. What was left was a hollow, empty feeling. I could feel everything else faintly, but at the moment all I felt was tired. That is, until I felt something else. Another foreign sensation.
Tentatively at first, I felt cautious curiosity, then more feelings of warmth and concern. Footsteps approached and I heard a door open nearby. I turned my head and looked as someone entered the room. More emotions that weren't my own pushed into my mind—all positive, but I didn't like the idea of someone tampering with my mind or emotions.
What is this? Some kind of telepathy? Empathy? This must be a different world then, because even in a world with magic, we didn't have those sorts of spells. The human mind was too complex to even achieve basic telepathic communication.
My suspicion was confirmed a moment later as a woman leaned over the crib I was laying in. I stared in shock. She recoiled as she felt my shock, radiating confusion and hurt. She opened her mouth and began to speak, but not in any language I understood. Confused, I just stared at her as she stared back.
The woman was quite obviously not human. Oh, sure, she looked human. Human form. Two arms, two legs, torso, head, face, hair. Except humans aren't red. Well, I take that back. Humans can be pink or red, but not that shade of red. Bright, fresh blood red, from head to foot. And unless we dye it, we don't generally have pink hair. And yet, there it was. Distinctly alien.
A horrible thought occurred as I recalled that there was something else I knew of that had red skin… Did that asshole Being X actually send me to hell?!
I laughed. It came out as more of a cherubic giggle, but still. Apparently, that didn't agree with the empathic woman, who apparently didn't like my dark humor. She turned and ran from the room, feelings of terror rolling off of her until she was far enough away that I couldn't sense it.
What did I do? I just laughed. Strange. But interesting!
Interesting because apparently I could sense emotions too, and project them given her reactions. And every time I had, there was a faint tickle of something that came along with it. Not magic, but definitely something foreign to me—or at least foreign to my mind.
My mind's awareness of my body and power had been sharpened by years in the military training to be an aerial mage in my last life, then even more years honing that skill in combat so that I could be aware of every minute change within myself. Every dram of mana mattered when I wasn't using the Type 95, so learning to feel the power within oneself was a necessity. So looking within and feeling a foreign power there, feeling it in use when the woman projected her emotions at me, or when I did the same back at her reflexively when I was upset, all came naturally. The only difference was in just what I was feeling—the mental skill to examine it worked, regardless.
Some would say that I was distracting myself from my feelings, but they would be wrong. It was perfectly rational to be curious about one's environment and circumstances when they had just been reincarnated. Again. And into strange circumstances, no less. I was not 'repressing' and anyone who thought otherwise could take their psychobabble and shove it.
On the subject of self-examination, that did raise a rather pertinent question. If the woman who had been with me was red, what did that make me? Was red the standard, or was she the exception? I had to know.
Working my arm out from under the blanket, I quickly had an answer to at least half of that question. I was a pinkish red. A little lighter than the other woman, but clearly not a human skin tone. Now, I just needed to know if that was normal or not. Being red in a world of blue people might be a bad thing, for all I knew. I didn't have enough information to judge at the moment. All I knew for certain was that: I was a child, I was red, and I had been born female again.
So I've found myself as an infant again. Somehow, despite being 'cast out' by that devil Being X. And I haven't heard him gloat even once since I woke up. Is he gone for good, or just biding his time? Somehow, I doubt he's entirely done with me. But until he reveals himself again, all I can do is wait and prepare. Prepare under the assumption that he plans to set me up to destroy my life again.
Luckily, I already had experience with starting over. I had done it once before, I could do it again. This time, at least, I'd have the experiences from the last time to go on.
First things first. I need to speak and read the language. Gathering accurate, detailed information is locked behind that barrier until I surmount it. From prior experience, it's going to take months before I'm fluent enough with the spoken word to really start digging in, and a year or two before I'll be able to reliably speak.
Learning the language would take time, but thankfully there were other things I could be doing at the same time. I needed to get myself mobile and walking again, soonest. That would also take time to develop the muscles, coordination, and balance necessary. The sooner I could do that, the sooner I could rid myself of the indignities of being a child and having to rely on others for basic things. Once I got old enough, I would need to get myself into top physical form again, to be ready for whatever Being X planned to throw at me.
There was something else I could do, however. Something I could start right this moment, in fact. The power inside me needed to be examined, studied, and experimented with until I knew it inside and out, the same way I knew my magic. That I could at least do on my own. No need for other people to teach me until I understood the language. By the time I got to where I could be taught, I wanted to have the same sort of fine control over it that I'd had over my magic.
With that decided, I settled in and began experimenting with the power inside me. The very first thing I did was try a basic formula. The power wasn't magic, but maybe it would work similarly. So, I began the simplest formula I knew—the one they taught every mage recruit first thing. It was a simple spell to create a light near the body. Most people chose to attach it to their hand, or the end of a rifle, but I preferred the free floating light as it was far more versatile. It was so simple that there was no way to mess it up. Even a recruit fresh on their first day should be able to do it.
Pulling on the power, I spun up the formula and fed it in, observing the way the power worked with the formula. I felt the draw of energy and, a moment later, a single point of light formed above the bed and began to emit a soft white glow. I grinned, marking that as a success.
That is, until I felt woozy and, shifting my focus back inside, saw that my reserve of energy was falling precipitously. I quickly cut the light out as I felt exhaustion was over me. So detecting and projecting emotions uses way less power than making a light, and my reserves are tiny. Of course they are. I'm at best a few days old. I'll work on them. But first… a nap.
I fell asleep quickly and deeply. In my dreams, I watched Visha burn to death before I made it to her. We both burned up in the blast. We survived, but the allied forces captured us and put us on trial. I woke to the image of standing before a field firing squad, lined up beside the rest of my men as Russy troops gunned us down one by one and kicked us into a trench.
I winced as I woke up, my mind bombarded on all sides by feelings that weren't my own. Focusing, I pulled on the power within me and envisioned a shield around my mind. The world went quiet and I looked around. My surroundings had changed drastically. Gone was the nice house I'd woken up in and the young woman looking at me with concern. In their place were a shabby looking room, a bed with scratchy sheets, and an older woman—also a shade of red—who looked like she spent most of her days frowning.
The old woman studied me in confusion, before I felt her reach out with her own power. I brushed it away and she chuckled, saying something and shaking her head, before lifting me up and bringing up a bottle.
For some reason, I had been relocated. The surroundings had a cheap, well-used and abused quality I was all too uncomfortably familiar with. Even the woman was familiar in that way. Someone well meaning but exhausted and overworked.
Did… did they dump me into an orphanage? …Who am I kidding? Of course they did. Being X wouldn't have it any other way. Bastard!
This was only a minor setback. I'd dealt with it inn my second life just fine, after all. I already knew how things worked. I just needed to prepare myself and then… assert dominance.
It's funny just how similar an orphanage is to a prison. Find the biggest, meanest, nastiest son of a bitch on the yard and beat him bloody, and no one will mess with you after. That's still some time off though, so I have time to prepare. Lots of time and many things I need to do.