MOVE 6: Passed Pawns

THE LITTLE BOY REACHED OUT above him, trying to get a hold of something to help him get up. Instead, he saw nothing but a blue sky, with the sun right above him, blinding him. Squinting, he turned on his side before pushing himself up. He looked around, trying to find out where he was.

At first, all he saw was a plain, stretching as far as the eye can see. Oddly enough, as soon as he turned to see the plains behind him, he found that it had turned into a small town. Looking closer, he found that it was his hometown. Instinctively he bolted for his home, only a few blocks from where he was standing.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw people outside their houses, looking west, frozen like statues, their expressions unreadable.

Curious, the boy glanced west as well.

Not a moment too soon as, to his horror, he saw seven pillars of light rise from the ground, their bright flash forcing him to put his hand in front of his eyes. Soon, everything around him was collapsing or burning away due to an unseen force. Yet he himself was unharmed as the chaos continued around him.

The boy was surprised when he saw the pillars of light seemingly coming closer to where he was. He wanted to run away, but his legs felt like they were glued to where he was standing. Soon it felt as if he was surrounded by the pillars.

He wanted to scream, but there was no voice to be heard. Desperately, he reached out above him, hoping for something or someone to drag him out of there. Suddenly, he felt the ground shake and seemingly open up from beneath him…


THUD.

 Aikawa rubbed his bruised forehead as he arose from the floor. Glancing about, he realized he just fell from the couch in his office; he did not remember lying down in it, however. The previous night had been hazy, and the admiral had trouble remembering anything that happened.

Dusting himself off and folding the blanket—blanket!—draped over him, the admiral tried to remember what had happened the night before. “Let’s see… I was reviewing Doctor Nanbara’s data, then Nozomi came in, then that call from the XO, and then… then…” Aikawa pinched the bridge of his nose, as if in deep thought, but he failed to remember what happened after the call from Tsukishiro.

Sighing, the admiral decided to fix himself up before coming up to the bridge for another day’s work. As he passed by his desk on his way to get his shaving cream and razor, however, he noticed a slip of paper on his clipboard. He gingerly pulled the slip before scanning what it contained. The note read:

ADMIRAL TO TAKE THREE DAYS’ LEAVE DUE TO WORK STRESS.
ADMIRAL IS BARRED FROM ENTERING BRIDGE OR HANGAR DURING SPECIFIED TIME.
DOCTOR’S ORDERS.
											       TSUKISHIRO

Aikawa smirked at that. Putting the note back on the clipboard, he muttered to himself, “As expected of Makoto.” The young commander had always been one to make a fuss about crew members overworking themselves, and would go so far as to put someone under armed guard to compel them to take a rest (fortunately she has not gone that far… yet).  Sighing, he decided to go back and sleep on the couch. Three days off work may help get his mind off things. Maybe.


“AND I GUESS THAT would be all for the systems’ features for now,” Nanbara exclaimed as he nodded to Seijin to turn the lights back on. The briefing room was immediately abuzz with excited chatter among the assembled pilots, witches, and technicians. Surveying the scene, the young doctor stated, “I guess some of you would like to ask some questions. Please raise your hand if you wish to clarify something.”

A middle-aged pilot at the back row raised her hand. “Doctor, is there any way for the EMP missiles to prematurely go active after launching? The fact that you decided to use a short-range missile platform makes the idea really risky. Also, will the effective pulse range remain as is, or will it be reduced?”

Nanbara cleared his throat before responding. “No, don’t worry about that. We’ve done extensive tests back in the labs to ensure that the trigger mechanism will not pre-fire right after launch. As for the effective pulse range, we’ll still have to see through your trials whether we should keep it or enlarge it, but not reduce it. The maximum effect of the Sea Salamander can only be achieved by having a wide radius.”

A young RIO came up next. “Doc, I’m getting kind of confused with this drone thing. Do we have to keep an eye out for it all the time or something?”

“For the time being, yes,” Nanbara replied. “As I said earlier, the Sea Raven, while designed from the ground up to be capable of autonomous combat and defense through data-linking with the Raiko system, is still untested in the most strenuous of combat situations. As such, I’ll have to rely on a select few of you to keep an eye on the Ravens while out in the field and make sure that the settings we’ve made are up to par. Also—”

“I have a question!” an enthusiastic Mitsuki exclaimed, cutting Nanbara off. “Will we also get to use those thunder guns, huh? Will we?”

Yuuya chuckled at the witch’s giddiness. “Oh, and what would your name be, young ensign?”

“Ichimonji! Mitsuki Ichimonji!”

“Well Ensign Ichimonji, I appreciate your interest in the weapons we are developing, but like I said earlier, any plans to develop the Raijin particle beam gun pod for witch use is still off the table. It would be highly impractical for a witch to use the weapon in its current form. You’ll just have to wait until we can find a way to simplify the system for witch use.”

Mitsuki pouted, annoyed at the doctor’s response. Meanwhile, Nanbara turned back to the other air and maintenance crews. “Alright, is there anyone else who wants to ask anything?” When no one replied, the young researcher stacked up the folders he had on the desk and said, “Well, I suppose that would be it for now. Commander?”

Tsukishiro cleared her throat as she stepped forward. “That concludes our initial briefing. You will be informed of your individual weapons test assignments in the coming days. For now, all except the wing leader and vice-leader are dismissed.” The assembled personnel saluted her before they all filed out of the room, chattering to each other about the new weapons and tech that they were going to field-test soon.

Kurumi yawned and stretched as if she was asleep the entire briefing, while Erika leaned back lazily on her chair, boredom evident in both their faces. “Well, what is it?” Kurumi inquired after what felt like minutes of silence in the room.

“Well, Doctor Nanbara here has something… interesting to show you, or so he says,” Tsukishiro stated. “Kindly proceed, doctor.”

“A-ah, y-yes, of course. If you could, Ensign Kurenai,” Yuuya replied distractedly as he motioned to Seijin to dim the lights once more. As the projector lit up the board he handed the two witches a folder each, different from the ones used in the briefing earlier. “I’ll cut to the chase. By some sheer force of luck, we managed to discover a way to amplify the power of a witch without rapidly draining all her energy reserves. We believe that with this, we can increase the combat efficiency of all our witches on the front while keeping them from suffering from exhaustion due to the stress of extended operation times.”

Both witches were wide-eyed as they browsed through the contents of the first folder. What little they could understand from the complex design diagrams they saw sent their minds reeling. “Impossible,” Erika exclaimed. “Is it really possible to use just a small amount of magic to power up? That just sounds like pure fantasy at this point.”

Yuuya flashed a grin as he fixed his glasses so that the light reflected from the lenses, making them opaque. “With all due respect Lieutenant, I find your lack of imagination disturbing. Seriously, the Russians managed to develop high-performance drones that can keep up with the Butterfly. The Americans have a high-output rail gun strapped to a fighter plane. We are at the forefront of advancing technology like ever before! All we needed was to modify the focus design a bit, alter the design for the Raijin’s firing system, fit the two bits together and presto!” he finished his dramatics with a flurry, smacking the board where an illustration of the system he was trying to explain was projected.

“Good show, doc, good show,” Kurumi exclaimed snarkily. “However, I don’t like the premise of this little science project you have. It looks like it would be a high-maintenance setup, and I don’t think our strikers can keep up with the requirements that this system will have. Besides, there are safety issues to consider, as well.”

“No, no, my dear Commander! You must never lose faith in our glorious striker engineering,” Yuuya said, wagging his finger for emphasis. “That’s why we are here, yes? To see how far our finest witches can go with this system. Besides, if our current Tomcat and Shinden strikers can’t keep up with the Catalyst-Type Magic Amplification Focus—or what I personally like to call the Catalyst Core—we can always find out what is wrong and improve on it as we go along.”

“You make this sound so easy doc. No matter how I look at it I just see squiggly lines and some striker parts I recognize but that’s about it,” Erika exclaimed.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Lieutenant. After all, as a man of science—”

“As a man of science the doctor tends to get carried away a lot, especially when he’s discussing about projects he has taken a special interest in,” Seijin interjected, his delivery deadpan as usual.

Erika chuckled lightly, while Kurumi made no attempt to suppress her laughter. Tsukishiro tried to keep herself composed, although she chortled quietly in her corner of the room. Yuuya felt mortified. “Geez, Seijin! Way to steal my thunder there!”

“You’ve strayed away from the heart of the matter, sir. I suggest you get back to it,” the ensign replied.

Yuuya shrugged. “Fine, MOM.” Clearing his throat, he turned back to the seated witches. “All of that brings us to the real issue here. Testing the Catalyst Core’s abilities requires taking it to the extreme, and for that we’re going to need the right witches for the job.”

Kurumi perked up immediately. “If that’s the problem, then I can just check my roster and—”

“Actually,” the doctor interrupted. “We’ve already found suitable candidates.”

Both witches were quiet. They were waiting for Yuuya to continue.

“Thanks to the battery of tests my colleagues have done before we came here, we managed to narrow down which of your witches qualify to test the Catalyst Core for strenuous conditions. According to our final checks, those witches are…” Yuuya scanned his notes before continuing. “Ensigns Kaede and Ichimonji.”

“Woah, woah, woah, back up a little there, doc,” Erika interjected. “What do you mean our youngest witches are going to be strapping your science project to their strikers?”

Tsukishiro butted in as well. “Doctor, there must be some sort of mistake. Tests for these kinds of high-risk systems require veteran air crew. Those two are barely two months into their first-ever deployment. Surely you can reconsider.”

“Unfortunately Commander Tsukishiro, I can’t,” Yuuya replied somberly. “No other witch in your air wing has the right qualifications for this. Kaede and Ichimonji fit our needs perfectly.”

Kurumi was furious. “There is no way I will agree to this, doctor. This, ‘Catalyst Core’, as you call it, has far too many risks riding on it. I’m not even sure it won’t spontaneously blow up or something when used. So what makes you think I’d agree to that arrangement, doctor?”

Yuuya drew a long breath. “You would be surprised, ladies, but somehow, we managed to find something special in those two. I don’t know what, and I can’t really name it, but that ‘special kind of something’ is definitely there.” He paused when he saw the three women staring daggers at him. Surprisingly, he just showed them a warm smile. “I have confidence in our systems, and I have confidence in those two. I’m sure they will be alright. Maybe you should put a little more faith in them and in us for a change, eh?”

Somehow that managed to calm all three women, but just barely. “I suppose you do have a point,” Kurumi conceded. “You got off easy this time, doctor, but I’ll have you know I still don’t fully agree to this. However, I trust you will keep our girls safe for the duration of the trial runs.” She then grudgingly offered her hand. “I… I look forward to working with you.”

“The pleasure is mine, Commander. You can count on me to make this work,” Yuuya stated as he shook Kurumi’s hand, his smile warm and reassuring.

“Just remember this, doc,” Erika interjected. “Any harm comes to those two, any at all, ESPECIALLY TO KAEDE, I will skin you alive and turn you into a duffel bag, understood?”

“O-of c-course Lieutenant, y-you can c-count on me!” the young doctor replied nervously.

Only then did Yuuya realize what a mess he got himself into.