After a critical incident triggered a Faerie Winter Court invasion, the GOC's PHYSICS Division resorts to a tactic its enemies use.
Monster/Human
UNGOC PALISADE INFORMATION GATHERING SYSTEM
WARNING
SATELLITES DETECT POTENTIAL AIR INTERDICTION OPERATION FROM THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
ESTIMATED COUNT:
2 F-22 RAPTORS
ORBITING CURRENT FLIGHT PLAN TRAJECTORY FOR AN INTERCEPT COURSE TO ASSET PHOENIX
PHYSICS Assistant Director Bell Rose sighed. "Get PENTAGRAM1 on the line," he growled.
His F-22's RWR2 began to blare, and before he could as much as lift a thumb, a bright fireball blazed through his view from above his cockpit.
"Holy shit!" Bile yelped, his jet still shaking in the turbulent wakes. A deafening sonic boom pierces his cockpit as the sound catches up after the unidentified craft's trajectory. It felt as if he could physically feel the shockwaves left behind. He squinted into the horizon but didn't see a trace of what he saw. "What the fuck was that?!"
"No IFF3 tone, nothing. Not even a blip," Pony said shakily.
"Central, did you get our feed? Was that one of our own or—"
"Fucking hell," Pony's breath quivered. "That thing must've been going Mach 10."
"Central?" Bile repeated. He noticed his grip on his joystick began to tremble, his fingers feeling like they were hanging onto the edge of a cliff.
"What the hell is happening, man," Pony shuddered, his breathing progressively becoming more and more unstable.
"What did you see?" a different voice asked through the transceiver. It was lower and grittier, with a tinge of anonymity to it.
"The fuck? Who is this?" Bile commanded.
"General Gord Marshaw," the voice replied, returning a demeaning tone. "DOD Special Warfare, otherwise known as PENTAGRAM."
"PENTAGRAM?"
"I wouldn't be on this frequency if I was the enemy, son. What did you see?"
Bile opened his mouth, but his throat quickly dried. He felt his body betray him as it began to shut down. "Sir, I…"
"Speak up."
"It was going too fast. It was glowing, bright, as if it was on fire, but it left no trails behind, just—" Bile swallowed hard, his heart rising to his throat. "Just turbulence. Sir, I'm not feeling proper."
There was a pause, and each minute Bile waited felt like an agonizing hour as his senses decayed into vestiges he couldn't understand. His memories began to stray, picking apart moments long passed. Anxieties he swore he braved relapsed, and an urge burrowed into his head insisting he should put himself out of this misery. Ice prickled at his skin as his shiver transformed into violent shaking.
Finally, the voice returned. "Son, I need you and your wingman to get out of there; it's coming back around. You'll both need to recite a mantra."
Around? At that speed? Bile couldn't be bothered to question this "mantra." Whatever chance to get this feeling away, he'd take it, even if it was a pitiful prayer. "Pony," he shuddered, his voice undulating and lips falling asleep. "Did you hear that?"
Silence.
"Pony?" Bile glanced over to the jet on his right. "Jackson?" he repeated. Pony's head hung lazily in the cockpit, his chin resting on his chest. The F-22 Raptor pivoted into a downward spiral toward the Pacific Ocean.
Spotting an F-22 outside an airshow alone is a needle in a mountain of hay. Bearing witness to one plummeting to its death without even engaging—let alone, seeing the target was inextricably impossible.
Yet there it was as Bile witnessed one of America's greatest casualties and the death of his closest friend.
| T-Minus 359 Minutes |
Bell cleared his throat. "Are we all here?"
The roundtable of commanders and hardened veterans of PHYSICS NEXCOM4 looked at each other curiously, each dressed in their own unique color palette and choice of layering. A bowler from the U.K. Branch, a blazer and a lazy tie from the Chinese, and a nearly translucent silk scarf from the French. A buffet for one's eyes, a stomach twister for a PHYSICS Private (God forbid one stand before this sight). Although some were fed to their nation's stereotypes, most wore the influences of high fashion from Eurtec.
"I'll take that as a yes," Bell said brashly, wasting no time. "PTOLEMY inferred that this device can shield any propelled-based attack by intercepting it." He pointed at the far left end of the battle map.
"Like the Iron Dome," Assistant Director Shyak muttered.
"A million steps ahead of it. Right now, they think the only possible mode of effective fire is launching a strike at incredulous speeds. They estimate at least Mach 40. Even then, a single missile going that fast won't guarantee a hit. We need a horde of them. We have the missiles that can handle that pressure, but we don't have a conventional method to get them to that speed within sufficient time; hence why Asset Phoenix will be deployed."
"I still think this is a stupid ass idea," Assistant Director Celesta scoffed.
"Do you have any other alternatives?" Bell challenged.
"Anything but civilian proxies."
"Air assets are already stretched thin as is," PSYCHE Ambassador Volsk chuckled. "Establishing a silent NFZ5 that wraps around the entire globe is not an easy feat. We're doing all of this for this Phoenix or whatever you brassheads call it. Yet, I have fifty delegates telling me to go fuck myself in fifty different languages with the Americans, French, and Russians posing the biggest thorns."
"It won't last any longer than it needs to. I assure you," Bell rebuked.
"And what of the air traffic?"
"CAULATICA'll forge it. It'll be like nothing happened."
"Bullshit," Volsk chortled. "Good luck flooding billions of radars with non-existent planes. ATCs, EAS', even your fucking iPhone. PTOLEMY logistics are going to have a field day with this one."
"PTOLEMY is not your realm. They've already assured me it'll work," Bell glared. Volsk grumbled something under his breath, shaking his head.
"Mach 40? That's impossible," Assistant Director Lyre said as she raised an eyebrow.
"It isn't with Phoenix," Bell spat, his patience running dry.
"I don't think anyone here fully knows what Phoenix is or isn't," Celesta shot back, looking to the PTOLEMY representative at the corner of the room. "You guys have quite an ample amount of secrets with it, don't you? Why not divulge them to us here and now? Bell," she urged, facing him, "we have conventional means to tackle this issue. We just need more time and strategy."
"If we continue with the conventional alternatives, we won't have any alternatives by dawn tomorrow. I mean—for fuck sake, there won't even be a tomorrow," Bell growled. "This is a Faerie Court we're talking about here, not some insurgent cell or paranormal terrorist group. We've been fighting this war for five months now, and I've grown tired of entertaining all of your ideas that involve throwing bodies into a pit to see if there's a bottom. I'm ending this here and now. Do any of you have a better idea that does not involve keeping operatives hunkered down with rats and mud? Huh? Anyone?"
"Enough," Assistant Director Oud commanded. "Is Asset Phoenix ready?" he asked, his voice low and determined.
"Airborne in around two hundred mikes," Bell replied swiftly, retracting back into his seat and calming his temper.
"Then this conversation is pointless. The greater apprehension we have, the lower the chances of success there will be. I do not want my men to hold out longer than they should."
"Tariq, if we need to deal with the weapons our enemies possess, then what good are we?" Celesta said, her eyes wide.
"What good are we if we cease to exist tomorrow? I do not care about your stubborn idealism. It has been decided," Oud pronounced, his gaze pushing Celesta back. "I'd trust a clueless civilian with an acceptable degree of digital coordination more than an outsourced force from behind the veil. We don't have a choice anyway. As long as the promised contingencies work, then I have no objections." He looked at Bell.
Bell nodded confidently.
Celesta sighed, taking her glasses off. "God forbid."
| T-Minus 311 Minutes |
Liam preferred the solitude of his room. It offered isolation—a predictable vacuum in which he controlled. How should his clothes be arranged? By color. Where should the desktop be placed? Over by that corner. When should the window be opened? Never.
He stepped into the atrium, the glossy glass floors reflecting the beaming light fixtures from above. It was cold. Unbearably cold. He regretted not bringing his jacket, but his mom insisted it'd be foolish to do so in the middle of Arizonian summer.
"Welcome," a man in a suit smiled, offering a small business card to him. "Please, take a seat anywhere you like. We'll begin the beta testing soon."
Liam returned a disarming smile, but his eyes lingered on the man's, fishing out uncertainty. Unease settled onto his chest as the man watched him longer than he'd like. He took a seat at a chair at the end of the table. Part of him didn't want to feel boxed in by random people, but now he regretted leaving his right side exposed.
He wanted to be home.
Sure, this was once in a lifetime, but that shouldn't have been the selling point to walk into a room full of strangers he'd never meet again. This video game was the only string that tied him with everybody else here. But part of him felt like that string would always stay anchored to him.
He felt the staff's eyes build upon that weight in his chest. He looked around next to him as other players settled in. They conversed with one another, oblivious to everything around them, leaving Liam to fend off a horde of eyes alone.
"Alright!" a buoyant voice that belonged to a salesman boomed over the speakers. "I'd like to welcome players from Team Razor, the University of Arizona, the Counter Logic Gaming team, and other aspiring ESports athletes to the official testing stage of Myriad 3!"
Liam sighed. "Aspiring athletes" felt like a label that oozed phoniness. He prayed that the only thing being recorded would be the gameplay.
"We'll have three stages: first, the infantry section; second, the naval section; and finally, a sneak peek into an aerial combat mission from the campaign. And whoever wins the third stage will be offered a special prize!"
| T-Minus 256 Minutes |
"Myriad is the best chance nonetheless," Bell said. "It's garnered popularity across several media platforms and has attracted a diverse group of gamers. They're the closest approximation to weapons operators."
"Right, but we're walking on a thin line here. There are too many coincidences to go around. Not to mention the length and risky prerequisites we need to fulfill." Assistant Director Nina rubbed her temples and then counted off with her fingers. "Orbit around the Earth at least 50 times, have the weapons be operated by people in front of the veil, 99% of the Coalition being unable to even look at the damned thing; in all honesty, this Phoenix asset is more of a detriment than an asset."
"It's not meant to be used all the time. There's a reason why it's in Special Assets."
"I suppose," Nina mused. "There really is no other way?"
Bell shook his head. "Paratechnology is like sticks and stones to the Fae."
| T-Minus 221 Minutes |
Liam looked at the leaderboard, his username snuggled in the middle. He figured the exuberant staff wouldn't give him much notice if he performed this way.
Not good enough to be praised, not bad enough to be shunned.
But despite that, the man in the suit that greeted him seemed hellbent on watching Liam specifically.
He did his best to push aside his anxiety.
| T-Minus 197 Minutes |
"Celesta," Bell greeted, offering her a chair. "I understand you still have personal qualms about this operation?"
She did not sit. "I can't with my right mind allow paratech to fall into civilian hands. It goes against every principle I stand for."
"Again, they're the only possible cohort that wouldn't be affected by the asset's cognitohazards. If any of them has any funny ideas, I assure you, no one will—"
"It's not just that, Rose," she sighed. "We're supposed to protect people from these things, not hand it out like candy."
Bell stood from his desk to meet Celesta face-to-face. "Do you know what Phoenix is?"
"I understand it's a close approximation to the literal name."
"Publicly, it's said that it's the carcass of one. They were no myth, but for some reason, we suspected this one died when it was supposed to be reborn. We theorized that that was why it made one go mad. It must've been the byproduct of a paradox—a phoenix doesn't die, yet here lies one.
"Curiously enough, people with little knowledge of this bird can perceive it without issue, yet those who understood its capabilities to a certain extent suffered. And that's the truth: it isn't dead; it's dying. It isn't some paradox—it's a self-defense mechanism to prevent its body from being used as a weapon. A bird grounded for the rest of her life is as defenseless as a lost ant.
"The only people who can operate her are the ones with genuine disinterest in using her for some selfish material gain. Only three people from this entire Coalition can do that.
"But herein lies the newfound benefits: it's capable of unattainable speeds, it has a natural mechanism to deter foreign interests, and it's large enough to hold a vast arsenal without limitation to airframe fragility. It can orbit the Earth in twenty minutes, and that's not even its top speed. You might as well be walking in an F-35. If this surpasses Fae technology, we hold the most powerful bomber for the next century."
"Like you said," Celesta said, "only three of us can use it. And I mean really use it. Power corrupts the whole, especially when the few withhold it. Don't you agree?"
"Not if that power naturally discourages corruption."
"None of us really knows that." She sighed. "If we know so little about this thing, then compound that with civilians handling TanGenT-level missiles in the most decisive battle against a race eons ahead of us. If I can't trust our own, how can I trust them?"
"Celesta," Bell stepped forward. "Oud is right. The longer we wait, the higher the attrition for those boots on the ground. I do not want to wait any longer. We've tried other alternatives, and you were there for every single one of them. We've already lost a dozen Strike Teams, two air groups, and three U-HECs. Do you really want to keep going down this road?" He felt his anger rise, but he was able to soothe the rising wave as he lowered his voice. "Because by the time we've thrown everything, this place will turn into a graveyard."
Celesta sat on an office chair, reclining it as she lazied her body. She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes creased as she realized her train of thought was fruitless. But a certain conviction still held in that resigned gaze. "What does it look like?" she asked.
"From what I know, it's encased in a frame of NyeSteel with a bird-shaped facade made of H10-grade metal plating. It'd be far too noticeable if it were left unclothed. It retains its fiery glow, but not so much that it'd turn night into day."
Celesta waited for Bell to finish. She turned her head to him. "That's it?" she asked sarcastically.
"OPSEC.6 I don't need to know everything. The only guarantee I need is its efficacy," he replied, sitting down. "Who knows? Maybe everything I said was another person's lie, and I was fed a kid-friendly version of the real truth. That's probably why we haven't seized up yet upon talking about it."
"And that doesn't scare you?" Celesta asked, her eyes tense.
"What PTOLEMY and PANGAEA have on it is their business."
She scoffed. "Yeah, for now."
Bell stepped forward to her and sat on the arm of her chair, facing away. "I know your agitation is why the French aren't so compliant with our No Fly Zone. I intended to leave it to you as it's your jurisdiction, but for the sake of logistics, I need your help. Maybe I didn't shift an inch of your anxiety from your mind, but at least I hope you understand now that this is something bigger than us. And to deny it from saving society is equivalent to suicide." He shifted and turned to her. "We've already lost so many. That number won't stop rising by itself. Please, talk with the President and ask him to comply."
Celesta's jaws grinded. Then, she said, "If you redirect me to the person responsible for Asset Phoenix, I'll oblige you."
"Senior Artificer from PTOLEMY called Bjuer. Ring him up, and he'll fill you in."
"But he won't tell me everything. Just like with you."
"We're the finger that pulls the trigger, not the trigger itself. I can't change that."
Celesta nodded, her eyes wandering to her boots. "You owe me one for this."
| T-Minus 174 Minutes |
"Liam Vance?" a voice asked behind.
He nearly jumped as he spun around. It was the man who had been watching him. "Yes?" he stuttered.
"You're doing this intentionally, aren't you?" the man said, amused.
"I—I don't know—"
The man leaned over and reached for the keyboard, holding down the tab key to bring the leaderboard up. "Consistent," he commented. "That takes some finesse, huh?"
Shit, Liam thought.
"Let's make a deal." The man pulled the chair next to Liam and sat on it. "If you perform at your best for the third stage of this beta testing, I won't keep you here any longer. How's that?"
Liam's eyes lit up.
"There's a few more surprises after the third stage, like developer panels and whatnot. But I figured you wouldn't be interested in that. Am I correct?"
"But my mom—"
"Don't worry," the man waved off. "We'll contact her."
Liam felt himself heat up in embarrassment.
"Liam, this is important," a peculiar grim attitude overtook the man's voice. "Do your best."
| T-Minus 165 Minutes |
"Captain Mesa, how are you feeling?" Bell asked.
On the widescreen, a man in an all-black flight suit saluted, his visor like a globular mirror reflecting the crowd of technicians and thaumaturges working behind the camera.
"I would like to, once again, thank you for everything you're doing here. When you're done with the Phoenix, I expect to see you back in one piece, yeah?"
The man simply nodded, holding his stance.
"Remember, the Winter Court has a gnarly shield up. Any conventional missiles you throw at it will be intercepted. Leave it to us to deploy the necessary armaments; stay your course and keep it steady."
Again, he nodded.
| T-Minus 29 Minutes |
Mesa watched as the Earth below turned into an oil painting. He had passed by Europe eleven times now, and it would soon be time to lower himself to a more noticeable altitude.
The Phoenix groaned, tired.
He gently placed his palm on the cabin walls, caressing it awkwardly.
He wasn't sure if this was what people did to calm one another down, but he figured it was close enough.
Still, the Phoenix protested, but Mesa nudged it forward.
At that moment, he felt an odd connection. Although it was a vessel and nothing less of one, he resonated with it. He wondered why that was.
Two birds in one cage, huh? he thought.
And then guilt nearly convinced his hand to pull back on the joystick.
He caressed the bird for as long as he could before they both had to get to work.
| T-Minus 2 Minutes |
"Repeat after me, Bile."
"He—" Bile stuttered. "Pony is in G-LOC7. He's—" But that wasn't right. Pony didn't pull any Gs. What's happening?
"Bile," the voice said. It demanded, "Repeat. After. Me."
"Yes—yes, sir."
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden Phoenix,
Her ashes new create another heir
As great in admiration as herself;
So shall she leave her blessedness to one,
When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,
Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
Shall star-like rise as great in fame as she was
| T-Minus 1 Minute |
The seas swept over faster than an anchor dropping onto the ocean floors, and he felt the hull of the Phoenix burn as its glow emanated stronger and stronger.
Mesa felt the temperature rise, and sooner rather than later, it wasn't hours or minutes separating distance but seconds.
And with the Phoenix's eerie screech, he pivoted its nose down toward the Earth as every fiber of his body was set alight into an electric fervor, the rush of uncontrolled kinetic energy pulling his boots into the ground.
He gritted his teeth as the world below transformed from the size of a planet to a baseball.
And finally, within the right time and place, he felt the armaments attached to the underside of the Phoenix's perpetually outstretched wings fall and scream toward the target ahead.
| T-Minus 39 Seconds |
Andrew watched the stars swirl. He checked his watch anxiously, and as he looked up, he was greeted by what he'd been waiting for for so long.
"Good God," he muttered as he gaped.
"Was it what you imagined?" Freya asked, joining next to him as they watched.
A sheet of light blurred into existence as the Minnesotan night's luminescence glowed only a little brighter but enough to see the lake's water below the mountain creek glisten again.
"No," was all Andrew could utter.
Streaks of light soared across the sky as if a painter abruptly slid his brush across the canvas in rapid succession. At the center of each meteor, they had a gentle blue hue, followed by a warm, orange glow. They appeared as great, brave lines before shrinking toward a smaller, shier dot off onto the side. And within milliseconds, they disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.
"So many Leonids. It was like the—" he trailed off, lost in a daze, his eyes desperately trying to replay the fantastical show he had just witnessed.
"The November Meteors?"
"Yes," Andrew nodded, awestruck.
He felt a warm peck on his right cheek. Thrown back into reality, he recoiled and his cheeks flushed. Freya laughed. "Thank you for this, Andrew. Really."
"What's with the sudden—"
"With the world being a mess now, I needed this. You're a reminder that not everybody wants to go after another person's throat. Sometimes, some people want to touch the sky." She smiled softly.
The shower lasted only seconds. You'd miss it within the blink of an eye. Despite that, he realized that while the spectacle above him dumbfounded him, Freya chose to watch him instead.
| T-Minus 19 Seconds |
The third stage felt unrealistically difficult. Liam tapped aggressively on his keyboard, swinging his mouse around as he commanded the small plane on the screen to dodge obstacle after obstacle. The setting was a moon falling onto Earth, and his task was to chase down a corporate antagonist attempting to flee into space, using the debris to his advantage.
Liam pondered if this was hardcore difficulty. No sane person would think this would be suitable for the story-telling section of the game.
One by one, as each player on the table leans back from their chairs, cursing out loud, their eyes begin to fixate on him.
Just get this done and get out, Liam thought to himself. He was starting to regret this.
He was nearing the objective and just barely grazed an incoming boulder, and before he knew it, it wasn't only the game's intense soundtrack playing but collective cheering all around him as if there was a concert.
And he realized he was the artist performing for a crowd.
Somewhere in that fever, his regrets burned away.
| T-Minus 12 Seconds |
"WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT AIR SUPPORT?! I NEED A MEDEVAC AT OSCAR 5 GRID POINT—" Jester screamed into his radio. A wave of a thousand different faeries hurtled toward the GOC's entrenchments, crashing into a torrent of yellow tracers as the warm glow of distant fires plagued the horizon.
Dugouts and pillboxes were scattered about. The weapons in them had abnormally large barrels, firing rounds that seemed to border an artillery shell at a rate comparable to an M4 carbine. The last two colossal U-HEC units finally pulled out completely, limping with missing limbs and smoke shooting out from haphazard areas. One turned briefly to launch a final missile, only for it to be in vain as it detonated prematurely from being struck down by a glowing greatsword. An ALF-5 Mad Dog, the PHYSICS Division's finest Tangential-grade strike fighter, banked its belly against its direction of flight as it unloaded a stream of cluster munitions at a 45° angle. Its afterburners gently blanketed Jester's face as the smell of hot smoke permeated the air.
All of them were promptly taken out by streams of starlight launched from behind the valley, splitting apart to also meet with the submunitions. A few stragglers viciously followed the Mad Dog as it weaved through the air, deploying flares and defending.
This was the final bastion separating Earth and the Land of the Fae.
He stopped in the middle of his outburst to realize some invisible force had already fried his radio. He was yelling at himself.
He collapsed to his knees as another burst of bright white incandescent trails whizzed overhead from the Fae toward an indiscriminate location.
It's been five long but short months. Time felt like it stretched itself, as if a strip of film somehow inserted frames between its body, yet it cut itself short at the ends, from the ceaseless roars from above as jets painted the burning sky with white contrails to the continual barrage of steel meeting flesh. There was only so much one can hold back.
He collected his belongings and prepared to—
There was a blur that whizzed through the air, leaving a deafening whistle and an afterimage emblazoned onto his eyes.
Before he could even look up, the ground split into a thousand pieces as a thunderclap rammed into the planet, sending soil flying upward as Jester's heart floated before slamming back down.
He stumbled up, looking over to see a gargantuan geyser of terra firma fly into the air like a volcanic eruption, with the Fae forces completely eviscerated by a tsunami of rocks and boulders and everything behind their charge following suit.
The broken radio crackled back to life, a voice saying, "New ROE: assault and wipe the plate clean of anything not human. Extreme prejudice."
| T-Plus 53 Seconds |
UNGOC PALISADE INFORMATION GATHERING SYSTEM
PHYSICS GROUND ASSETS REPORT FAERIE WINTER COURT INVASION FORCE CRIPPLED UPON PRECISION ATTACK ON OBJECTIVE NEWT
COUNTERATTACK SIERRA NOW IN PLAY
ASSET PHOENIX SLOWING FOR RTB, CURRENTLY AT MACH 42
| T-Plus 1 Minute |
"That's the kid?" Special Observer Yam asked, watching the ESport athletes cheer on in a huddled crowd.
"Yeah. Amazing coordination," June replied, chewing on a piece of gum.
"Want to mark him down for recruitment?"
"You already know."
| T-Plus 39 Minutes |
Mesa stepped down from the Phoenix's cockpit and onto a world a few nanoseconds older than what his watch suggested. His legs were trembling. Two medics held him up, but before they could take him away, he stopped them.
He turned around, leaning on a railing as he limped back toward the Phoenix.
He placed his hands on its hull, warm to the touch, and did his best to soothe its burning skin.
"You did well."
| T-Plus 67 Minutes |
"A resounding success, huh?" D.C. al Fine beckoned. Assistant Director Bell Rose nodded.
"The conflict with the Winter Court was successfully resolved upon terminating the bulk majority of their military. They thought we were done for, but they didn't expect this ace and were punished for their overconfidence."
"Right," she droned. "But now I have to explain why the ISS saw an unidentified craft to have orbited the Earth more than a hundred times, why our people enforced a massive NFZ, why someone photographed the shape of a titanic bird in the middle of a massive meteor shower, assure the Kingdom of Faeries that this was an isolated incident aimed toward only one of their courts, explain to the Americans what the fuck it was they just witnessed, and a hundred other ethicists demanding answers to Special Asset Phoenix's welfare."
"Desperate measures had to be taken. I'm sure PANGAEA can understand."
"Well, you certainly painted an image I'm not sure we can keep up. It's not every day humanity triumphs over a Faerie court, no?"
"I intend to make that the new norm."
Al Fine smiled. "I trust you'll handle these backlashes?"
"Already talking with PSYCHE."
"Carry on."
PRODROME
