"Ú-velon vegil faen an ristas dín,
law bilinn an lagoras dín,
law vaethor an aglar dín.
Melon na-erui di i hain veriar."

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness,
nor the arrow for its swiftness,
nor the warrior for his glory.
I love only that which they defend."
-- A traditional soldier's benediction in Alfheim

Thursday, June 27, 2374
Zeta Cygni II
Cygnus Sector

R-minus 08:02:29:15.33

In the dark of space, three fightercraft cut through the infinite blackness, their fusion thrusters glowing blue as they circled a small, blue-white world that was girded by a dull grey ring. The blues and whites from the planet below, and the glow of the planet's sun, caught the edges of the precision-engineered fighting machines and glinted off the pilots' visors.

In the lead was Komilia Sterling, piloting her scarlet and black VF-1J Valkyrie, the conformal fuel tanks and secondary boosters of its attached FASTpacks giving it extra power and endurance. To her right flew Maia and Miranda Sterling's VF-6S/VF-9S Shadow Legios, ever silent, ever ready. To her left was Therèse Sterling's two-seater VE-1 Seeker Valkyrie, its sensors at full power, watching anything and everything around them. The D-model training boosters that she normally used had been left behind on the Cianbro Corporation starship Frank Lloyd Wright. They had been replaced with the VE-1's full FASTpack modular sensor suite, complete with the rotating AWACS disc radome that was normally stored onboard the Flarefire. The three craft flew in precise formation, a testament to the pilots' skill even as they were focused on their mission.

Technically, Emilia Sterling didn't have to accompany her older sisters on this mission, or even use the Veritechs to accomplish it. In many ways, one of the survey ships from the Frank Lloyd Wright would have been a better choice. They were packed solid with sensors and analysis equipment, used to precisely evaluate the structural strengths and weaknesses of any constructions or building sites they came across. But here she was, riding in the back seat of Therèse's Seeker Valkyrie, serving as the secondary sensor operator, as they finished their second orbit around the planet.

It had been a sobering journey so far.

The Wedge Defense Force's Utopia Planitia Naval Shipyards, the birthplace of such starships as the Righteous Indignation and the mighty SDF-17 Wayward Son, had clearly seen better days. The worldwheel itself was in no danger of collapsing and plummeting towards the surface of Zeta Cygni II far below, a fact for which all five women were very thankful, but the structures attached to the primary latticework of the wheel were in serious need of repair.

Power sources were either providing a trickle of their former output or dead entirely. Compartments and hangar bays had succumbed to decompression, open to the unforgiving void of space. Maintenance drones and small mecha had broken free of their moorings and were now adrift in their own private orbits around the planet. And everywhere there were the clear signs of micrometeor and loose debris impacts, scarring and pebbling the once-pristine outer bulkheads of Utopia Planitia.

It wasn't irreparable damage, by far, but the siblings knew that it would take plenty of time and effort to restore the shipyards to their prime. For the moment, they pushed those thoughts out of their minds, trying not to dwell on the monumental scale of that task. They just recorded the sensor scans and forwarded the data to the Cianbro starship for later perusal, analysis, and comparison against the original construction specifications for the ring.

Now they were heading for the planet's surface. It was not a job any of them particularly relished. But it had to be done, both for practical and emotional reasons.

Komilia spoke into her helmet mic, her tone calm and level. "Utopia Planitia orbital survey complete. Set course 221 by 14 by 132. Prepare for atmospheric insertion." Therèse and Maia replied in the affirmative, trimming the wings and reinforcing the shields of their respective Veritechs.

Emilia retracted the VE-1's most delicate antenna arrays and watched with faint foreboding as the armored cockpit cover slid in place over the transparent canopy, blotting out the stars. On her central monitor, the surface of Zeta Cygni II slowly rose up to meet them...

... and then all three aerospace fighters contacted the upper atmosphere of the planet. Sound and wind resistance steadily increased as they cut through the lower edge of the Zetan thermosphere, air friction causing the outer edges of their shields to glow cherry red, shedding sparks as particles no greater than dust were instantaneously ionized by their passage.

The Sterlings were in no real danger. They were all experienced, competent pilots. But part of that competence was based on their knowledge that all manner of flight is dangerous to some degree, and that atmospheric entry was never quite routine. None of them breathed easier until they were well into the thick of the troposphere and the laws of aerodynamics took firm hold. Emilia knew it was her imagination, but she could have sworn she felt the air around her get cooler and fresher when Therèse retracted the canopy shield and the cockpit filled with blue sky and sunlight.

"Atmospheric insertion complete. Lower shields," Komilia ordered, her voice crisp. "Descend to 5,000 feet on bearing 31. Crusader Eight, status?"

"All sensors functioning at optimal strength and range. Scanning for ATC beacons." Therèse consulted a display, then continued more quietly, "No beacons active within range, Crusader One."

There was a moment's quiet over the flight's shared comm channel. Then Komilia spoke again, her voice still level and controlled.

"Roger. Check computers for flight waypoints. Maintain formation, descend to 1,000 feet, reduce airspeed to 500 mph. Commence flyover of WDF Matériel Command and WDF Academy."

The three fighters descended together, still in formation. They slid through the cloud layers without ill effect, and then broke through to the lowermost portion of the atmosphere.

This close to the ground, they could now see the wooded expanses and open grasslands that had surrounded the two significant settlements of Zeta Cygni II. The forests spread for acres, and looked undisturbed by the passage of time.

Because of this, the five almost missed the WDF's matériel command station until they were almost over it. The forest and fields had encroached on the sprawling complex, overgrowing the grounds, trees having sprouted in the most unlikely places. Duracrete landing fields, their surfaces scarred with three centuries' worth of landings and takeoffs, had become eroded and cracked after eight decades of exposure without maintenance. Warehouse complexes, once storing thousands of cargo containers ready to be shipped to the fleet, had begun rusting out, wide holes in their roofs letting rain and snow in to damage their remaining contents. Not much was left. Even from up here, they could all see that the complex had been looted.

The sisters followed their prearranged flightplan methodically, carefully, and quietly. The Seeker Valkyrie's powerful search radars and scanners scoured the depot for any sign of recent occupation or current use. They probed through the administrative and manufacturing buildings, then the town that had sprung up around the complex.

The results were not encouraging. Vehicles lay abandoned, partially destroyed by entropy and the growth of vines and bushes through their frames. Houses were open to the elements, roofs had collapsed, and columns and retaining walls had crumbled. Part of Planitia City appeared to have burned, though whether through arson or accident was impossible to tell. Emilia reported the results of each search grid scan as procedure required, but her voice was subdued.

No significant power signatures. No sapient life signs. Complete infrastructure collapse.

Her words became a soft litany, almost a monotone chant, as they finished their initial pass over the WDF depot. She drew silent as they flew away from the complex and over the forests and fields once more. The broad tracks of ancient roadwork could occasionally be seen through the foliage; but even now they could see that the highways connecting the two towns had become cracked and overgrown.

They flew over a rise in the terrain - Emilia remembered with a slightly surreal thrill that it had been called Sterling's Ridge after their father - and there was the Academy.

If the flyover of Matériel Command had been sobering, the one over the Wedge Defense Force Academy was outright depressing. All five of them had happy memories of the place. Four had degrees and officers' commissions from the Academy and the fifth had spent a year there in an enlisted personnel advanced training school. They had all become adults there, learned their trades, and honed their talents for the arts of technology and war. They had all walked those halls - the halls where their parents, too, had walked - and played on those fields and broken, as plebes always did, into the commandant's office on a dare to steal McKennsy's Hammer. To see the Academy brought so low...

The women were silent, each one lost in her own thoughts, as they began the scanner sweep of the academy. Every building, every location, had some sort of association for them, and inwardly they mourned for the place and the people they had known there.

The hangars and landing strips of the WDF flight school were overgrown and damaged. A lone VF-1D, its tires rotted out and wings warped from years of snow, ice, and rain, sat forlornly in front of one empty hangar. The Destroid/Battroid and Cyclone combat courses were almost unrecognizable. The forest had reclaimed them so completely that the only way they could be identified was by terrain matching between reality and the original maps, and the fact that a few lonely Warhammers and a Spartan sulked in the underbrush, their power cores dead, their armor pitted, their optics and viewports cracked.

They flew over the central administration and residence buildings, the heart of the campus, and Therèse almost cried. Komilia closed her eyes in silent prayer, flying on mental autopilot and trusting to instinct that she wouldn't crash into the ground while she couldn't see anything. Miranda murmured something under her breath, soft and lilting, and Maia replied with the refrain in the same tone of voice and language.

The cadet dormitories slumped, their brickwork cracked and windows shattered. Part of Heaton Hall, where the twins had lived their sophomore year, had collapsed altogether. The review grounds and recreation fields were overgrown with weeds and wildflowers. By some measure of fortune, the triad of flagpoles in front of main administration still stood tall...

... but only tattered strips of cloth hung from them, all that remained of the WDF, Academy Command, Zetan, and Salusian flags that once proudly caught the wind.

Emilia just kept quiet and stoical through it all, still plying her controls to get the best data possible so they wouldn't have to experience this any longer than necessary.

Finally, they passed out beyond the grounds of the WDF Academy and surveyed Techtropolis, the college town that surrounded the school. Old haunts were now veritably haunted, the roads impassable, the buildings gutted by entropy. The thought independently occurred to the five sisters: that while GENOM had triggered the fall of the Wedge Defense Force, time, weather, and neglect had finished the job.

The small flight passed beyond the bounds of the city. They executed a long, circling pass, returning to where they had started the scan of WDF Matériel Command. Komilia's voice once more echoed in their headsets:

"Maintain formation, descend to minimum safe flight ceiling, slow to minimum safe speed. Commence full structural scan pass."

Flying as slow and as low as they dared, the three Veritechs made their way once more over the supply depot. Both the Seeker Valkyrie's and the Shadow Legios's powerful sensor arrays performed a thorough sweep of the grounds, collecting terabytes of data that were immediately uploaded to the Frank Lloyd Wright. Watching everything, missing nothing, the radars and sensors penetrated and probed, taking stock of every decrepit machine, every crumbled building, and every potholed road.

Eventually, the structural scan pass of Matériel Command was completed. Still following the fight plan, they once more approached the Academy. Miranda, quietly watching the landscape go by, then had a thought. She took hold of her idle flight controls and flicked a control on the throttle levers with her thumb.

In the Alpha's cockpit, Maia saw a warning light blink on. She raised an eyebrow, quietly deduced what her sister was intending to do, and then nodded in approval as she readied herself for what was coming next.

The Legios quivered ever so slightly. Then, with a kaCHUNK of retracting clamps and the spooling-up whine of turbines from standby, its two component aerospacecraft separated in midair. Miranda throttled back her Beta briefly and slid it to starboard, leaving Maia's Alpha where both had originally been in the formation. If Komilia, Therèse, or Emilia had any comment or opinion on what the two had done, they kept their thoughts private and didn't ask any questions.

Now in classic finger-four formation, the fighters flew for several more minutes on their originally planned final pass over the WDF Academy grounds. At the moment when they flew over the Academy's administration building and front review ground, Maia abruptly pulled back on the stick and punched her throttles to full thrust. Her Alpha leapt upward like a cannon shot, peeling smoothly away from the formation, cracking the sound barrier within moments, and vanishing into the scattered clouds above.

The other three fighters - the J-model Valkyrie in the lead, the Seeker Valkyrie to its left, and the Beta two spaces down to the right - flew onward, maintaining their broken formation until the grounds of the WDF Academy vanished below the horizon behind them.

"Nainië an formen alqua elen" (A Lament for Zeta Cygni) - A Reunion Mini-Serial Side-Story written by Philip Jeremy Moyer.
Reunion Mini-Serial plotted by Philip J. Moyer
Special to the Eyrie Productions Forum
(c) 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Wow. Reading this makes me feel....shoot, I can't imagine my alma mater looking like this. I'm trying to picture Spirit Hill, Mitch's and A-Hall jacked up. It's chilling.

>
>Now in classic finger-four formation, the fighters flew for several
>more minutes on their originally planned final pass over the WDF
>Academy grounds. At the moment when they flew over the Academy's
>administration building and front review ground, Maia abruptly pulled
>back on the stick and punched her throttles to full thrust. Her Alpha
>leapt upward like a cannon shot, peeling smoothly away from the
>formation, cracking the sound barrier within moments, and vanishing
>into the scattered clouds above.
>
>The other three fighters - the J-model Valkyrie in the lead, the
>Seeker Valkyrie to its left, and the Beta two spaces down to the right
>- flew onward, maintaining their broken formation until the grounds of
>the WDF Academy vanished below the horizon behind them.
>

A Missing Man Formation. Well done.

For solemn events, like memorials or some such, we'd quietly whisper the 3rd verse of the Air Force Song (the one that begins with "Here's a toast...") with bowed heads. You've captured that sense of solemnity.

Well done.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Ja, -n