Allison was flanked by two bonified actual Navy SEALs as she swam in the crystal blue ocean waters beside the George Washington. Her armor was even more multipurpose than she expected, not only did it work in vacuum, but it worked under water, it even formed webbing and flippers for her. She’d never tried its wings for HALO jumping but she was pretty confident they would work. She watched her AR HUD feed which was showing up as the cyan colored HUD on her armor as the scanner in her wrist narrowed down the source of the energy readings. The probe had immediately detected four distinct tesseract readings, one from each group of ships. Narrowing down exactly where it was had been exhausting. So far, they’d checked the interior of the George Washington but found nothing. Hence why Allison found herself under the ocean searching the hull of the super-carrier.
She noticed the movement before the Navy SEALs did. The one on her right, a master chief was quite shocked to be violently shoved behind the teenager. She formed a punching dagger on her armor’s wrist just as the tentacled horror from the depths grabbed her. The two SEALs were powerless to help because Allison and the alien creature where a blur of tentacles and black armor, and purple colored blood in the water. She kicked it away after she struck the fatal blow and groaned.
“Ugg, let’s not tell anyone I was almost violated by a tentacle monster, please, guys. Uh, get back to the boat, it’s going to get dicey.”
Allison pulled out one of her Qual’sa pistols and started firing downwards. She moved to keep herself between the SEALs and whatever was swarming beneath. She looked back.
“What are you waiting for? Quick, to the boats! I’m in armor, you’re not and I can’t call down air support with you here!”
The SEALs seemed hesitant but made a break for the boat. Allison used her armor’s comms to boost her signal.
“Bit, I need you! I need danger close plasma strafe, don’t hit the ship.”
Allison hugged the carrier’s hull as the swarm of blue tentacles got closer. Suddenly pellets of plasma rained down from the surface of the water shredding the incoming hentai nightmare. She sighed with relief. Bit spoke.
“I will maintain close support until you are done, Allison.”
Allison smiled.
“Thanks, Bit. You’re the best.”
Confident that her friend had her back, she continued her search. She found it, a piece of metal had welded itself to the hull. It was the same material as the tesseract and had more Atlantean on it. She ripped it off.
“Bit, land on the surface, I’ll hop on for a ride onto the carrier.”
Allison saw Bit’s shadow over her and swam upwards and climbed onto one of the wings. The liquid metal formed handholds and lifted off then landed on the deck. Allison hopped off. She motioned to the water.
“Bit, could you please go do some overwatch for those SEALs until they get back on the ship, I think we shouldn’t be in small boats, or even swimming… those things could easily capsize that boat.”
“On my way, Allison. You might want to clean that blood off your armor.”
Allison looked down at the purple blood and guts all over her. She sighed then shook her head before looking at what appeared to be a quarter a sphere with channels in it. She frowned.
“Bit, when you finished escorting those SEALs back to the ship, I’ll need you to land, please.”
Allison looked for one of the deck crew members. The ship was in much better shape than it had been even twenty-four hours ago. The second shipment of nanite antivirals had arrived and a good portion of the crews were on their feet. She found one who she’d worked with several times, he was a Seaman named Terrance Adderly. He was Allison’s actual chronological age, nineteen and had been one of the few who hadn’t gotten sick at all. He reminded her of Tyler, because he was so soft spoken. She called out to him.
“Terrance, could you err, hose me down?”
He looked over at her and laughed.
“I thought you were looking for something, not dynamite fishing.”
Allison snickered.
“I was looking for something the tentacle beasties were human fishing.”
He pulled over one of the power washers used to clear the deck and hosed Allison down then turned up the pressure and sprayed off the remnants of her fighter. Allison motioned to the two SEALs who were making their way on deck.
“Better get them too, can never be sure with xenobiology if the blood is acid, or worse.”
He sprayed the SEALs down. After he got cleaned up the Master Chief who had accompanied her pulled off his mask and rebreather as he approached her. He was taller than Allison, which put him over the six foot mark.
“Never thought I would see a teenage girl fighting off a swarm of tentacle things. Thanks for getting us out of their ma’am.”
Allison smiled.
“Just part of the job. Pretty much a regular Tuesday for me.”
The Master Chief laughed.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a SEAL, ma’am.”
He moved off leaving Allison to ponder the chunk of Atlantean steel in her hand. She saw Bit had landed, she rushed over to her starfighter and hopped up into the cockpit. She touched the tesseract gingerly, it didn’t seem to react, so she picked it up, not with her bare hand, she kept her armor’s gloves on. She placed the small sliver between the four pegs. It fit perfectly and the metal fused along the seams. She sighed.
“Damn her. She killed all those people just to bring me here.”
Bit’s tone of voice sounded like she was trying to comfort her friend.
“It is not your fault, Allison. You have no control over a being that powerful. You can only do what you can to reduce the harm she causes in her wake.”
Allison sighed and placed the tesseract back under the cockpit seat.
“We need to find the rest of the pieces.”
Bit brought up the planetary scans and indicated a spot in the equatorial storm.
“The probe was able to determine the storm’s strongest point was here, and it detected tesseract energy under the water.”
Allison sighed.
“So that’s why we all got dragged here.”
She swept her fingers over her holographic scan of the piece she’d just added.
“What does that translation matrix Aunt Maria sent tell us this says?”
Bit took a few moments to answer.
“Power amplifier quadrant three. You managed to place it in the right position. There are three more.”
Allison looked out at the strange flotilla.
“I bet they are with the other three carriers. Tell the tower we’re lifting off. Ask Hangzhou for permission to land.”
Allison lowered the canopy and lifted off and came into a soft antigrav landing on the Hangzhou’s deck. Captain Zhao was actually on the deck and waiting for her. He saluted her as she hopped down. She saluted him back.
“Sir, I’m looking for a dangerous device, I’d like permission to search your ship.”
He bowed his head slightly.
“You may do what you need. Is there anything we can do to assist your search?”
Allison shook her head.
“No sir, I have the general vicinity, I just hope its inside the ship. Ah, that reminds me, you should keep any small watercraft and men out of the water. There are some dangerous things in the water. When I was doing my search on the George Washington we were attacked.”
He nodded.
“Thank you for the warning, Battlelord, and I have not had a chance to officially thank you for saving my crew’s lives. The treatment is working, and most are on their feet.”
Allison smiled.
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“I’m glad, I’m sorry we were too late for some of them.”
“It could have been far worse, if we can be of any assistance, please let us know. Does your craft need any maintenance?”
Allison glanced back at Bit.
“No, but she might take off suddenly if I have an emergency, best to have your crew keep their distance.”
Allison saluted him and started following her AR HUD towards the source of the tesseract energy readings. The readings were obviously from inside the carrier, which made things much easier than the last one. She found it in the junk drawer of one of the turbine maintenance crew. She scanned it and Bit spoke.
“Power amplifier, core section one.”
Allison sighed and made her way to the bridge. She found Captain Zhao there issuing orders for sonar to keep an eye out for the creatures Allison had described. He acknowledged her presence.
“What can I do for you Battlelord?”
Allison held up the tesseract piece.
“This is what brought you here. I’m sorry it somehow ended up with you. Please have your turbine mechanics get checked. These pieces give off strange energy and it doesn’t seem to have any short term impact but who knows what extended exposure could do. I’ll get it out of here, so it is no longer causing you any risk.”
He looked like he might disagree but then glanced out at Bit and nodded to Allison.
“If you think that is best.”
Allison saluted him before heading out to Bit and hopping back into the cockpit. She slid the piece into its housing, and it merged with the core. The tesseract pulsed briefly but seemed to calm down. She sighed and pondered the intelligence of this action. Bit lifted off and Allison set her down on the Enterprise. The deck crew and pilots rushed out to get a better look at the sleek black starfighter. Allison didn’t get in the way and just went about her scans. They were much easier to read without the nuclear reactors of the twenty-first century carriers. She found it behind some diesel machinery in the bowels of engineering. Unfortunately, she also found a scorch mark and an empty US Navy uniform, circa nineteen-forty-two, along with a set of dog tags. Thomas McDonald. She picked up the dog tags and sighed. By the time she was leaving engineering the Enterprise’s captain had realized she was on board and had tracked her down.
“It is customary to ask for permission to board, Lieutenant.”
Allison blushed.
“Sorry, sir, I was tracking something, and it slipped my mind. Won’t happen again.”
He nodded.
“Did you find it?”
Allison nodded.
“Yes sir, unfortunately so did one of your sailors.”
She offered up the dog tags. The captain took them and read the name.
“We thought he went overboard. Where are his remains.”
Allison motioned back to engineering.
“Sir, there are no remains, just… a scorch mark. This device I’m tracking down, it is what brought you here and it is very dangerous. I’ve got the piece that was here and I’m removing it that should end its risk to you and your crew.”
The captain frowned.
“And what about you, Lieutenant? Should you really be handling it?”
Allison shrugged.
“I have no idea, but it hasn’t done anything to me through my armor yet. Sorry for not asking to land, sir, I need to get to the Akagi. Now that I know how dangerous these pieces are, I want to make sure no one finds the last one and picks it up.”
The captain nodded.
“Good luck, Lieutenant. Carry on.”
Allison saluted him then climbed into her fighter. Bit had already communicated with the Akagi and they were cleared to land. She was surrounded by Japanese sailors and pilots, the ones who were near death when she’d first arrived. Each and everyone bowed low to her. She returned the bow. She glanced at her AR HUD to get the direction she had to head for the last part of the tesseract on the ships. Then she’d have to contend with the superstorm at the equator. Captain Kimura greeted her as she emerged from the gathering of sailors. He bowed to her.
“Battlelord, it is my honor to host you and your aircraft on my ship. How may we serve you?”
Allison bowed and glanced at her AR HUD.
“Sir, there is a piece of a dangerous artifact on your ship. It is what brought you here, I need to retrieve it. It is… if your people touch it, it will kill them. My armor protects me. May I search for it?”
“Of course, Battlelord. Before you leave the Admiral would like to speak to you, please commence your search, I will assign my entire crew to assist.”
Allison shook her head violently and waved her arms.
“No, please, it is too dangerous. I found someone who’d touched the one on the Enterprise, there was nothing but a scorch mark left. I can track it and find it. I won’t get lost. My… uh, I have…”
Allison tapped her wrist and swept her hand up projecting her AR HUD.
“I see this in my eyes, without having it projected. It can track the artifact, and it maps where I am so I can follow it back out.”
His eyes went wide as he looked at the layout of his ship in holographic format with a flashing red circle thirty feet across near midships. Allison pulled the hologram back into her AR HUD.
“I’ll be quick, sir, and I will happily speak to the Admiral.”
Allison followed her AR HUD through the Akagi. It was cramped in the lower decks. Thankfully, this one was also inside the ship, she had no wish for another encounter with the native fauna of this quadrant of the ocean world. This piece had lodged above a couple of fuel pipes. She pulled it down. Bit confirmed it was the last missing piece of the sphere. She made her way up to the bridge all the while planning how she was going to pierce the violent storm at the equator for the last piece.
Admiral Yamamoto bowed low when he saw Allison appear on the bridge. All of the bridge crew followed his example. He spoke.
“Greetings Battlelord. Thank you for taking time to speak with me.”
Allison returned the bows and responded.
“Thank you, sir.”
He motioned to the papers covered in kanji her translator was already translating each line for her into Alliance standard.
“Our projections on ration requirements were incorrect. I apologize for our error. We are going to require more food.”
Allison nodded.
“I understand, I will request more supplies when I speak to my government.”
He bowed low once again.
“You are most gracious.”
Allison smiled.
“Sir, you did not realize how effective our medicine was going to be, it is completely understandable. I and my government both understand. We have no shortage of food, just space.”
She bowed again.
“I need to continue what I was doing, sir. It is important.”
He nodded. Allison wandered back to Bit and slotted the last piece of the spherical core. It fused and the tesseract pulsed once more. She sighed and held the fist-sized cube core in her hand. She looked out over the ocean. Bit spoke.
“Allison, I am detecting… a ship in orbit. It is launching smaller craft.”
Allison took a few moments to react.
“What? Is it one of ours?”
“No, unknown configuration.”
Allison took a running jump and grabbed the edge of her cockpit and crawled in.
“Warn everyone to prepare for a possible attack. Have the modern ships prepare cruise missiles to intercept them. And if they have any anti-satellite missiles to load them on planes. If the aliens take any aggressive action, they should defend themselves.”
She lifted off immediately. Bit sounded skeptical.
“We don’t even know if they’re going to attack Allison.”
Allison shook her head.
“No, they’re going to attack. You don’t drop out of FTL and launch fighters immediately unless you’re trying to surprise attack someone. Cloak. Overload both antimatter torpedoes. These ships are defenseless against our kind of tech.”
Bit didn’t respond, but she did overload both antimatter torpedoes leaving enough antimatter for a wormhole comm to command and not much more. Allison burst out of the atmosphere.
What she was confronted by was a ship that she could only describe as spiky. It wasn’t like any ship she’d ever seen before. It was made of a black metal, and the front had all manner of metallic spike coming from the front of it. It was box-like. Whoever these aliens were their aesthetic was dramatically different from most other sentients, or they valued form over function. Their fighters were also spiked vicious looking boxy things. No aerodynamics they could obviously navigate the atmosphere fine, but she assumed they just overpowered gravity and air resistance with pure thrust and antigravity.
She sighed when she heard that their fighters had opened fire on the carriers and battleships. She addressed Bit.
“Looks like they have ECM, use your targeting computer to help guide the missiles to targets. I’ll take out the carrier.”
Allison didn’t wait for Bit’s acknowledgement or give any warning to her target. She was giving them the same consideration they had given the vastly inferior carriers below. She locked her torpedoes on the alien carrier’s antimatter reserve and launched. Whoever they were would have had no warning before the mutual annihilation of matter and antimatter disintegrated them and their ship. With a flash of blue light that would have been easily visible on the surface, even in daylight, the once massive intimidating ship was a floating debris field in orbit. With no shields they had been doomed.
Allison flipped from cloak to shields and dove into the atmosphere after the fighters. She was rather shocked when her plasma gatlings and particle beams shredded their armor with ease. None of the ships had energy shields. Only two squadrons had managed to launch, and they were no match for Allison and Bit. Their ECM was completely ineffective against Bits sensors, their plasma weapons damaged the shields, but none managed to penetrate them. Once Bit gave her the all clear, Allison swept low checking for damage on the carriers and battleships. Some small fires but they had been put out. None of the damage seemed to have impacted their ability to stay afloat.
She came in for a soft landing on the George Washington. Rebecca met her as she climbed off of the liquid metal ladder.
“The admiral would like to see you.”
Allison nodded and followed Rebecca, the Admiral was in command and control working with the other ships to see if anyone needed repair help or medical assistance. He finished his latest batch of orders and turned to the teenager.
“Can you explain to me what just happened?”
Allison nodded.
“Yes, sir, apparently some aliens detected us and decided to attack. Their tech is inferior to mine, I destroyed their carrier and cleaned up the fighters that remained. Didn’t take any actual damage, Bit’s recharging my shields. Though if more come by it will be a bit dicey, I have no torpedoes left. Bit is letting Command know. Hopefully this will get them to send a fleet.”
The admiral nodded.
“How many fighters?”
Allison did some quick math.
“Fifteen, they weren’t really a threat to me, their weapons were too weak to get through my shields.”
He nodded once again.
“Is it typical for you to fire on enemies without giving warnings first?”
Allison sighed.
“No, but they didn’t give us any warning, I couldn’t risk them getting shields up, I only had one shot. After their starfighters I guess they didn’t have any, but I couldn’t know that beforehand. My primary duty is the protection of the System’s Alliance, Earth and her inhabitants, you’re all human, I am well within my general orders, sir.”
He frowned and crossed his arms.
“How many people do you think were on that ship?”
Allison bit her lower lip.
“A thousand, possibly more, it was a large ship.”
He motioned to her.
“Does it bother you at all you just ended a thousand lives?”
Allison frowned.
“It will later, right now I don’t have time to figure out if what I did was right or wrong. By destroying them so quickly I have to hope I have made them realize they are facing a real threat if they show up here, and they will hesitate to respond, or at least take time to gather forces. It is not enough to win a battle; you have to win by such a margin that you win all future battles.”
He nodded and leaned on his touch screen battle map.
“Good answer soldier. Is there anything we can do to prepare for any more attacks?”
Allison looked around.
“I am sorry sir, with tech like that, even as primitive as it is compared to mine, all you can do is shelter from the storm and hope my command sends a support fleet. You have enough people here you could populate an entire colony; They’d send a fleet for a colony.”
